Today we’d like to introduce you to Kenzie Juboori.
Hi Kenzie, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My father, Chris used to travel a fair amount both for work and pleasure. He’s always had an interest in regional food, so I would enjoy seeking out local cuisine whenever possible: gumbo in New Orleans, barbecue in Kansas City, Tex-Mex in Texas, lobster rolls in Maine, and seafood in Seattle. He used to use Yelp to help find different eateries, but he got tired of wading through scores of bad reviews before finding a place that sounded promising. He got to thinking there must be a better food recommendation site out there, but when he tried to find one, he found that it didn’t exist. So, this was the birth of Local Food Buzz. He and I began the process of forming our company, developing our software, and built out our website. He serves as the Founder/Manager, and I serve as the social media Director and everything else. We are rooted in the San Diego area by utilizing local companies for marketing and software maintenance tasks.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
This has not been a smooth ride by any means. Chris’s primary residence is in Incline Village, Nevada (North Lake Tahoe.), and him and my mom Carla spend their winters here in San Diego. Initially, he contracted with a Tahoe software developer to create our website. After two years, he said he didn’t have any more time to complete our project, He promised to help locate someone who could put us over the finish line, but he was unable to find anyone who was familiar with the code he was using. Long story short, we had to completely start from scratch. Chris then hired a San Diego company to develop our software. They promised to have it done within 16 weeks, but it took them three years, and they went way over their budget.
We’ve been impressed with LocalFoodBuzz.com, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
We like to brag that we are not a corporation. We are a father/daughter team who is committed to giving foodies a better way to exchange information with each other. We realize that we are big underdogs in this fight and like to think of ourselves as David up against not one, but two Goliaths (Yelp and TripAdvisor.) We think it’s important to stress that ‘Yelp is for the masses, LocalFoodBuzz is for serious foodies!’
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
When we got into this, we knew this was a crapshoot. We were competing against two corporate giants, Yelp and TripAdvisor. We are betting that regular people who like food are ready for something less corporate, more personal, and more positive. We don’t accept negative reviews because we don’t want to waste our user’s time. We like to think of ourselves as a free platform for foodies to communicate with each other and exchange information. (When I come to your town, you tell me about your favorite hidden gems, and when you come to my town, I’ll tell you about where I think you ought to go, places that you were unlikely to find on your own.) That’s the spirit of our website.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.localfoodbuzz.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/localfoodbuzz/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LocalFoodBuzz/
