When two strangers sit down at the same table, finding common ground can begin with the very first bite. In many ways, it has always been like this: people have often connected not through ideas, but through tastes. From early human societies to the chaos of modern city life, finding, discovering and sharing food has remained one of our quietest yet most powerful “social networks.”
Where should we eat? Who should we have dinner with? How do you find another sushi lover when nobody in your family wants to join you at an Asian restaurant? These are ordinary questions in everyday life. After all, eating is not merely a biological necessity. It is a culture of choosing, tasting and sharing.
That timeless yet distinctly modern form of connection is at the heart of TasteIt, a Georgian social network that, around three years after its launch, has brought together nearly 60,000 people from different countries around one shared passion: good food.
If you love khachapuri, for example, you can use the app to find people with similar tastes, message them and even arrange dinner together at one of TasteIt’s partner restaurants. This is not a conventional dating app. It is neither Tinder nor an imitation of any other platform. Here, you become Foodmates. Put simply, you find friends who share your culinary tastes.
The story behind TasteIt is interesting in its own right. Founder Giorgi Urushadze came up with the idea quickly, in about 15 minutes, and filled out an application for Shark Tank Georgia. At the time, the art director was living in Germany and had to fly back to Georgia to pitch the idea to potential investors.
That marked the beginning of TasteIt’s first run of successes. By the end of a presentation only nine pages long, the startup had secured GEL 100,000 in funding. As seed capital in Georgia, it was a strong start, and Giorgi began building the team. Anano Aspanidze, Pavle Tabatadze and Teona Gongladze were among the first people to help lay the foundation for the startup’s future.
Giorgi spoke to Marketer about what came next and where TasteIt is heading now:
The idea was to create a platform that would connect people without any romantic undertones or dramatic expectations. In other words, it would not be a dating app.
We didn’t need to think for very long, because food has always brought people together. If Spotify can exist as a social ecosystem around music, why shouldn’t there be a food social network that connects people with similar culinary tastes? A place where they can discover new flavors, new venues and new dishes, and share those discoveries with one another.
Giorgi, how does the TasteIt app work? What does the user journey look like?
Registration is quite simple. Once inside, users are presented with two modes: Food Mode, where you can discover new dishes and like-minded people, and Dine Mode, which allows users to create what we call “dining events.” You can choose what you want to eat, who you want to eat with, who will pay the bill, and send an invitation to the person you want to meet.
The key idea is that, in this app, the influencer is the food itself. You find like-minded people based on who has liked the same dish as you. You can look through their profile and, if you are interested, tap the “Meet” button.
You can also find offers from TasteIt’s partner restaurants, whether that is a discount or a promotion such as “get a free coffee.” It is a single space for people who love food, where you can have fun while also planning your next culinary adventure.
What kind of feedback are you receiving from users today, and how does it influence the product?
Today, our 60,000 active users are spread across Georgia, Berlin, New York and even South Korea, where we have never advertised the product at all. People there discovered it themselves, downloaded the paid version and joined. Naturally, their feedback is extremely important, because TasteIt is updated quite frequently, and many of those updates are shaped directly by what users tell us. Things that we once approached in a more complicated or indirect way have been simplified after receiving their feedback.
When we look at conversations taking place inside TasteIt, we can also see the clearest proof that users are happy and feel they have genuinely found the “right place.” Almost every conversation begins in the same way: with food. That tells us the core idea of the app is working exactly as intended.
A 25-year-old can easily meet, say, a 60-year-old person who happens to love the same flavors and shares the same culinary interests. That kind of connection is possible because the relationship begins with taste rather than age or another conventional social filter.
You recently became one of the winners of the TBC Business Awards. Tell us a little about that.
When you are new to business, you always want everything to happen quickly. One of the things TasteIt has taught me is that everything has to happen at the right time. We have already won global competitions, including some that are described as the Oscars of the startup world. But TasteIt positions itself as a Georgian startup, and our long-term ambition is to become a Georgian social network with global recognition. That is why participating in the TBC Business Awards was particularly meaningful to us.
I submitted a fairly ambitious application because I genuinely believe in what we are building. Of course, we were very happy to win, because it gave us another form of validation in our home market. No matter how much I talk about winning international startup competitions and funds, success in the Georgian market still comes first for me.
Giorgi, what are TasteIt’s plans for the future?
First of all, we are going to spend a lot of time building TasteIt as a brand. Today there are so many startups and companies, and social media is so saturated with content, that standing out has become extremely difficult. For me, both as the founder and as a creative director by profession, the main challenge is to turn TasteIt into a brand with a clear personality and a consistent character.
As I mentioned, functional updates already happen regularly. In the near future, we will also introduce a Feed feature, where users will be able to upload their own content.
We are also expanding the restaurant platform. Each venue will have its own page, where it can upload photos and videos and build a following. Restaurants, in turn, will have access to user analytics, enabling them to build more personalized relationships with customers, whether that means sending someone a birthday gift, offering a discount or creating other tailored experiences.
Our goal is also to reach one million users within a year and establish TasteIt as a global food social network. It is not a dating app. Its purpose is to connect people who share similar culinary tastes and interests.
If you want to download the app and find your own “Foodmate,” whether you use iOS or Android, join TasteIt here.
