Steve in his kitchen
Hi,
I'm Steve Murch, and I created
BigOven.com.
I love to cook. It's a fun, creative
activity that can be enjoyed every single day.
My occasional travels abroad convince me that
we Americans are missing out if we don't make at-home family meals a higher
priority.
Meals are about sharing. They should be savored. I
think we'd all benefit by slowing down a bit, and focusing more on the nightly family dinner.
Life is too short,
and the many lasting
benefits of regular
all-family meals are well-documented.
In addition to cooking, I also love technology and the Web. So, back in 2000,
I began to look closely at how the Web could help each of us solve the "what can I
make tonight?" problem that hits us every day. Most of the
recipe sites I tried at the time seemed, to me, overly cluttered with
ads, and not really targeted at the end-to-end problem we face in
putting together a meal, from recipe discovery through grocery shopping
and tip-sharing. BigOven is all
about solving this "what should we make tonight?" problem, in a
personalized way, for you. It's a place for you to go to get unstuck
for dinner.
As part of this, I thought there should be a place where people
could meet, swap their favorite recipes, and plan their meals more easily.
BigOven's grown dramatically since I launched it. As
just one measure, as of March 2009, BigOven had roughly 400,000 members and nearly 4 million
monthly unique users, up more than five-fold year over year.
BigOven has been featured in The New York Times Dining Section (Jan
2009) and the Saveur 100 in (Dec 2008), and was named one of Apple’s
100 Most Popular Apps for the iPhone for all of 2008.
But it's primarily still a labor of love.
I'm lucky enough
at this stage of my life where money isn't my top priority; this freedom allows
a great deal of flexibility. Thirty years ago, not yet in junior high school, I furiously
ripped open the box to a brand new Apple ][+ and wrote my first program. I
pretty quickly decided that's what I wanted to do with my life, and went to
Carnegie Mellon University for an Applied Math/Computer Science degree, then to
Stanford University in California for a Masters in Computer Science. I
worked at Bell Communications Research (Bellcore) for a couple years on
telecommunications research for the telephone companies, and then, wanting to build
a business in technology, I went to Harvard Business School for an MBA. I
worked for Microsoft for about 7 years, helping to launch Microsoft Access and then leading Microsoft's
Internet multiplayer gaming efforts, then left and started an online travel
company, VacationSpot.com, which grew pretty quickly before it was acquired by
Expedia Inc. in 2000. At Expedia, I led the vacation
packages team, before departing in early 2002. That's when work on BigOven really
started in earnest.
On BigOven.com, you get a lot of stuff for free.
You'll meet people from all around the world who are cooking meals at home.
I think the daily chore of deciding what to cook each night, getting the
household grocery list assembled, visiting the store, making it, plating
it, and sharing your successes and tips with others can be made easier, and more fun,
with great people and great software.
What are your dreams for the site? What would
help you answer the "what should I make tonight?" problem?
How can BigOven be a better solution for you? Drop by the Feature Requests section of the Message Board and send us your thoughts. We're listening!
PS: In addition to my work on BigOven, I'm chairman of
Seattle-based
Escapia, Inc.,
the leading web-based vacation rental management system. I also
blog every now and then
about technology. Here's my
BigOven.com chef page -- I
hope to meet you on the site!
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