Airbnb got us to share our apartments, Uber – to share our cars. Why shouldn’t we share the food, too? Quertes is a Polish platform for food sharing that is already conquering London and New York. With just a few clicks, you can share your delicious homemade meal, or get yourself a unique lunch instead of that pasta you eat every day.
The users of Quertes are divided into two groups. The Chefs are the ones passionate about cooking, ready to share their meals with others. Foodies, on the other hand, are in search for unique tastes. While browsing through the Chefs’ profiles, they can either browse through the Menu to choose meals that are ready to pick up at any minute or select special meals from the Offer section. Meals from the Offer are, in a way, the Chef’s portfolio; they are prepared only on demand after both sides agree on the delivery date and place via an in-app QMessage communicator. This way, Foodies can not only use Quertes to order their lunches but also plan a sophisticated party menu in advance.
Unlike other food sharing apps, Quertes doesn’t require the users to invite each other to their houses. “Before creating our food sharing model, we ran a comprehensive research on our competition. We decided that we want to empower our users to monetize their passion – in this case, cooking – without forcing them to go out or to invite people over,” said Adam Domański, the CEO of Quertes. Still, the app has a strong socializing aspect: it creates an amazing community of foodies in their immediate neighborhood, encouraging them to share their love for tasty, homemade food.
Adam Domański and Joanna Gawęda, the two co-founders, share that passion, too. “While we were working in corporations, we noticed that our meals started to look really mundane – we either bought identical sandwiches from the catering company, ate in the canteen, or visited two local restaurants we knew inside out. What we were missing was the taste of homemade food. This is how Quertes was born,” explains Domański. His extensive experience helped him make that dream come true: not only is he a co-founder and COO of a second startup, 2take.it, but he has also spent 19 years working in the financial sector and has obtained an MBA degree. Joanna Gawęda brought the know-how of food businesses – she is the owner of a successful catering company.
Since the launch of the platform in June 2016, the app has gathered over 6000 active users; this number is growing at a steady rate of 20-30% per month. For the time being, Quertes is bootstrapping. Their current goal is to find an investor and financial support for their growth in strategic locations – Poland, United Kingdom, and the US.
