Hi, I’m Mitchell. I built an app to help plan my supper clubs.

I lead data science and loss forecasting at my company, but my big passion outside work is cooking. I’ve been at it for about 20 years and host supper clubs with 6–10-course tasting menus.

I used ChatGPT to help plan them, and there were little things that kept frustrating me. Every time I asked a question about a recipe, I’d end up scrolling back through the conversation to find the recipe again. Once you’re juggling several courses, that gets old pretty quickly.

So I started building something for myself. That became Compagnon, an AI recipe and menu-planning app for iPhone. One of the things I wanted most was being able to ask questions right inside a saved recipe.

I’m not an entrepreneur or an app developer by background. I thought this would just be a tool I’d use in my own kitchen, but it’s grown into something I’m really proud of, and I’m figuring out where to take it from here.

I’d love to meet other people who’ve ended up building something out of a hobby or a problem they had themselves. If that’s you, how did you find your first users outside your own circle? That’s the part I’m trying to learn now.

Also, this is Sora, my Rottweiler and the love of my life. My wife is also the love of my life. Just getting that on the record