When Taylor Davis was in business school in Ithaca, New York during the pandemic, she spent a chunk of her free time watching Food Network shows and scrolling through restaurants on TikTok.
Both gave her plenty of ideas for restaurants to try, but she wished she had a better way of logging those ideas.
Davis began to consider how that wish might spark a business, even though she had already accepted a job working as a healthcare investment banker in New York City. Once in the city, her living experience only fueled the sense that people needed a better way to keep track of dining ideas.
This ultimately led Taylor to found Troodie, which launched as a social platform enabling users to log restaurant interests and interact with friends.
The spark for Troodie
Of those early days in New York City, Davis recalled, “I would love when people would come to visit, but at the same time would constantly be getting asked, ‘Oh what restaurants do you recommend? What’s new? What’s going to be near me and my hotel? What’s near you?’”
“It was just doing a new download every time,” Davis said. “I felt like it would be easier if everyone had their own profile with their favorite restaurants or recommendations all in one place, with [a] map.”
These ideas led Davis to conduct the market research and customer discovery that led to the development of Troodie’s minimum viable product (MVP). This version consisted of a few screens: a map (where users can filter between their own saved restaurants and their friends’); a running log of friends’ restaurant visits and saves; and a profile space where users can scroll through friends’ recommendations and filter by city, or type of cuisine.
Expanding into social commerce
In the process of developing her MVP, Davis expanded her market research beyond diners to include food influencers and restaurant owners. This in turn led to Troodie’s evolution into a social commerce platform.
Through her research, Davis recognized that restaurant discovery is evolving. Search engine prompts for discovery are down; diners are not asking Google where they should eat so much as they’re turning to social media for inspiration. This leaves restaurants with less certainty as to where their traffic is coming from (or how to generate more). Relatedly, influencers are driving consumers to restaurants but aren’t always able to capitalize on their own impact.
“I wanted to create a platform that… solved that change in [diner behavior] and empowered restaurants a bit more to get some attribution and find out exactly where their diners are coming from—and to do that by incorporating influencers or content creators not just for campaigns but for longer-term contracts.”
Davis decided to build a creator marketplace into Troodie and did so in such a way as to benefit diners, influencers, and restaurants alike.
Diners participate on the social side of Troodie but, through the marketplace, are able to indicate who (if anyone) influenced them to visit a restaurant and how much they spent there. This provides restaurants with data they can use to drive social marketing efforts. Meanwhile, influencers earn commissions based on the business they drive to restaurants.
Davis noted that there is competition where specific aspects of the Troodie platform are concerned. She mentioned one app, for instance, that connects restaurant owners to influencers to track likes and impressions. She also acknowledged that large platforms such as Yelp are still go-to options for some diners.
Troodie differentiates itself, however, in two important ways. The first is that it provides restaurants with concrete data through attribution and sales (as opposed to suggestive data via likes or impressions). The second is that by providing users with their own social networks, Troodie makes recommendations more trustworthy for users and less problematic for restaurant owners.
“It takes 40 positive reviews to overcome one negative review,” Davis said of how restaurant owners view Yelp.
What’s next for Troodie
Troodie is pre-revenue as of this writing but has had diners, influencers, and restaurant owners all using a version of the MVP. The next version of the platform will launch this summer (via the app store and on the web) and will include a multi-pronged subscription option.
The subscription will follow a freemium model, in that certain features will be available for free but diners, influencers, and restaurant owners will all be able to pay for additional content.
By upgrading, diners will access features such as personalized, AI-driven recommendations; influencers will be able to apply for more opportunities from restaurants; and restaurants will be able to access deeper data and list more opportunities for influencers.
QUICK BITS
Startup: Troodie
Founder: Taylor A. Davis
Founded: 2023
Team size: 4
Location: Winston-Salem
Website: www.troodieapp.com
Funding: Bootstrapped + NC IDEA MICRO grant
Troodie was recently named a spring 2025 recipient of the NC IDEA MICRO grant. The startup will also be pitching to investor judges at Grep-a-Palooza this June, with a chance to win $5K. (GrepBeat has also written about other pitching startups including BuilderPad, Ver Coaching, Nearby Nearby, and Focus Cubes).
Troodie has pilot partnerships lined up for this coming August.
Davis asks that those who are interested sign up for the launch on the Troodie website and follow the startup on Instagram.
