The Challenge: Finding Digital Gold in Cooking Content

In 2017, I was selected to lead product experience within GEA’s innovation department. The senior executive was building a small, agile team to explore digital monetization, and I joined a team of six to develop 0-1 initiatives. We faced a familiar corporate dilemma: how do you create new revenue streams when your core business is selling physical products?

The CEO had given our team an ambitious but vague mandate: “explore the Peloton of cooking.” The stakes were clear—we had 18 months to prove digital monetization was viable, with quarterly reviews where we’d either secure continued investment or face budget cuts.

In this case study, I’ll explore my work on the Chibo project (pronounced chee-bo), a live streaming platform for content creators to lead instructional courses. Our business goal was to discover and realize new streams of revenue from completely digital experiences. We identified two primary user groups: content creators who wanted to monetize their content and connect with their audience, and consumers who wanted new ways of engaging with their favorite content creators and to learn new cooking techniques from people they followed and trusted.

Measuring for Success

Success was always measured in two key areas: revenue growth evaluated quarter over quarter, and engagement measured through NPS scores and repeated user participation rates. Each month I would prepare our metrics and work closely with Taylor to frame the discussion with our stakeholders. These sessions kept us focused and driven toward building and testing our assumptions fast and often.

The team and I were committed to validating our assumptions as quickly as possible. Cooking content as a category is full of influencers, new comers and we knew we had to find the unique path in the ocean of existing experiences. We working on one week sprints, with a live session every Thursday. Each week, I would work closely with product and engineering to set up features, production styles or format changes we would be testing. We agreed on success measures, and I would tailor the survey or participant questions. The process enabled us to move as quickly as possible, detecting early and often ideas that had merti and those that we could abandon.

Discovery: Why Live Streaming Made Sense

The chibo initiative was working within the space of digital cooking content, but the scope provided by stakeholders was deliberately ambiguous. Before building anything, I needed to understand the cooking content landscape. I researched digital cooking formats including online recipes, communities, mobile applications and video content, both edited and live streamed. I also researched and attended in-person cooking classes to understand existing mental models and preconceived notions around cooking content and experiences.

I also led team exploration sessions—two-hour workshops where we synthesized our individual research, articulated hypotheses and assumptions, and planned out sprints.

The breakthrough came during our team experiments using Google Meet to cook together. We discovered something unexpected: cooking simultaneously with others was genuinely fun, even through a screen. But existing cooking content had a fundamental flaw—it was one-directional. People constantly wanted to ask questions, slow down, or get clarification, but pre-recorded videos couldn’t respond.

This insight led me to become a strong advocate early on for live cooking as an experience. It drove immediacy, was monetizable, and I knew from live platforms like Twitch that people were drawn to real-time video. It also modeled an already established pattern of behavior through cooking classes.

Building the MVP: From Google Meet to Custom Platform

I began leading the team through experiments of cooking together using Google Meet. From these experiments, I developed a live cooking process that enabled real-time cooking. I established production standards for lighting, audio and video, created a content schedule with weekly sessions featuring trained local chefs, developed a live stream pacing guide for chefs to follow, and secured locations at a GEA venue.

I invited coworkers, relatives and GEA employees to fill classes, and we held weekly review sessions to capture learnings.

The early feedback was promising, but I observed a critical problem: chefs constantly asked for feedback but rarely got responses. When they did, multiple people talking simultaneously created chaos.

I led qualitative research with in-home observation and 15 minute interviews to discover highs and lows and overall impressions from the live experience. From this research, I developed a participant journey through the live session experience.

Working with our engineer, I designed a custom platform with two distinct interfaces. Within three sprints, we had developed a working prototype in Sketch and later in Figma. The prototype included a simple host view to show current stream and participant list, and a participant view interface with minimal UI that prioritized clear audio with high resolution video.

The Necessary Pivot

Three sprints in, our user research revealed a problem I hadn’t anticipated. Two-way video proved too big a hurdle to clear. It was costly to develop both in working cost and performance, would hinder scale since early testing showed massive network and quality issues at 15 participants, and people didn’t like it. Despite positive feedback about the content, people hated being on camera. User feedback consistently rated it negatively on our product experience NPS, with qualitative feedback describing it as “too invasive.” People didn’t want strangers seeing “their messy kitchen.”

I faced a difficult situation finding another way to maintain engagement between participant anad host. After some testing, I cut the participant video, but preserved interaction via real-time audio, introducing a queueing system to prevent chaos. Each participant was given 60 seconds to ask questions, or chime in and their mic would automatically activate and deactivate.

Scaling Through Content Creators

By late 2019, our two in-house chefs had proven the value of the experience, but at only one session a week, we wouldn’t generate the growth we needed. I developed a content creator strategy and worked with the growth leader to execute the plan. We established a follower threshold of 50k-80k followers, targeting creators with strong followings who weren’t realizing significant monetary value from content. We also set an engagement threshold of 4% average engagement across their posts—large enough for reach, small enough to need additional revenue.

We did minimal marketing from our side, relying mainly on email and Instagram promotions. The platform enabled direct monetization of content, with content creators setting their own prices. My initial plan was to fly creators to our studio and host them from our location, then I would help them setup and stream from their own locations. This would provide them the best possible situation for their first experience and then support them in their homes.

The COVID Acceleration: Crisis Becomes Opportunity

March 2020 could have ended Chibo. We had selected and started working with the first 10 creators when COVID hit. Instead, it became our breakout moment.

I quickly adapted our plans to work remotely with them through video conferencing and developed simple tech packages with two levels: mobile device plus laptop for basic setups, and cameras plus laptop for advanced users.

COVID also created a huge opportunity for growth. People were stuck inside looking for unique experiences, which meant we had to scale much more quickly from 10 content creators to 50 within four weeks. Our growth leader shifted focus to just attracting content creators, while I focused on working directly with the creators to ensure they had the best experience possible. I sent basic equipment, tested with them, and moderated streams, spending many long nights making sure their sessions were successful.

The timing was perfect—people stuck at home wanted unique experiences, and creators needed new revenue sources. During this period, I also opened up recordings for sale, which became hugely successful. This idea came from content creators’ comments on social media about wanting to revisit the sessions. Recordings became our unexpected revenue driver, generating 10 times more than live ticket sales.

The final platform could manage participants up to 200 people per session, with our most successful hosts earning $40-60k monthly from live classes and recorded sessions.

Results: From Experiment to Business Unit

Strategic Impact: We established a tentative partnership with Albertson’s, who was looking to build more digital engagment. The success led to scaling up to a full, on-campus live stream studio hosting GE Appliances’ branded content with much larger brand ambassadors and influencers. The initiative grew into its own division within GEA’s cooking organization.

What I Learned About Leading Innovation

Looking back, I would have brought our brand teams in earlier. We brought them in late, but could have realized more brand value and deeper integration with core teams. I did build partnerships between more successful content creators and brand teams, which proved valuable for both sides.

The biggest lesson was about stakeholder management and defending strategic pivots. When user research contradicted our original vision, I had to convince skeptical executives that changing direction showed strength, not weakness. The early investment in two-way video taught me to validate assumptions faster—the feature that seemed most innovative proved most problematic.

The project taught me the importance of rapid iteration and user feedback in shaping product direction. The biggest technical and user experience insights came from direct observation and testing, not from initial assumptions. The COVID pivot, while challenging, demonstrated how external constraints can accelerate innovation and reveal new opportunities.

The Chibo project proved that with the right combination of user insight, technical execution, and strategic pivoting, even traditional manufacturers can create successful digital experiences. More importantly, it demonstrated that the best innovations often emerge not from initial concepts, but from how you adapt when reality challenges your assumptions.