We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sabah Drabu. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sabah below.

Sabah , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

The Personal Chef industry is known for being an expensive luxury, that you have be in the know or know someone. CookinGenie, is trying to be the opposite of that.

Our platform aims to make it more accessible and cost effective for the everyday person to book a chef for a simple meal, celebration or meal prep. We pride ourselves in our chef onboarding process where we interview, background check and test every single local chef we put online.

With both the website and app (the only personal chef app of its kind), we strive for transparency in pricing, menus and immediate booking to take out the back and forth. With our platform also, you can chat directly with your booked chef to go over any logistics or changes.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I came to Kent State University to pursue my Masters Degree Computer Technology after receiving my undergrad in Engineering back in India. I have been in Northeast Ohio ever since.

I was always called the social butterfly or social ‘queen’. I started learning to cook from my friends and then ended up being the one who was cooking for them. That is really part of how CookinGenie came to be. The other part is noticing here in the US how uncommon a chef in the home is, whereas it was extremely commonplace in India.

We are on a mission to normalize this service in the States. This a marketplace where you can find local chefs, explore their menus, view availability, select dishes, and book instantly. The chef profiles are transparent with pricing and availability. So, a customer can book a chef for meal prep or birthday dinner or get together with friends in just a few clicks.

One of the proudest and most challenging parts about building this business was starting it right before the Covid pandemic and being able to keep going. When no one wanted strangers in their homes, it gave us the chance to work to on the technology and then build a base of chefs here in Ohio to start off.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Starting out we had to keep in mind we are are two-sided marketplace. Not only are we building a reputation with our customers and potential customers but we are here for the chefs as well. In the beginning we have had a reputation for going above and beyond what is expected in each category to win and foster new customers and chefs.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Early on, for all small businesses I’m sure this is true, there are those moments where your reality doesn’t meet up with your goals. Lots of sleepless nights early on in the process but my team and the others working with and around me consistently gave me the strength to keep going forward.

Contact Info:

• Website: cookingenie.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/cookin.genie
• Facebook: facebook.com/cookingenie
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/cookingenie