1) What is Clove? Who is it for? What does it do for them?

Cooking is a universal need, but day-to-day, it often feels difficult and time consuming.

Clove is an AI recipe platform that helps busy home cooks streamline the process of discovering and cooking with recipes, and build the confidence and motivation to get into the kitchen.

It’s also a platform on a mission to disrupt publishing for recipe creators; empowering them to publish and monetise their recipes in new ways, with a focus on simplicity, flexibility and collaboration.

2) Of all the things you could have done professionally, why did you choose to start Clove?

I started Clove to solve a problem I’m deeply passionate about: cooking is something that we all need to do, but few people have the skills or time to do it well. Cutting through the noise of online recipes and making decisions about what to cook everyday is still way too hard – and it’s a problem that affects all of us.

We experience it as an unequal distribution of labor in our households. We experience it when someone we love falls ill because of a poor diet. We experience it when we see the impact that food waste and unsustainable food production has on our planet.

I developed a love of cooking growing up in a food loving migrant family, but started to feel this pain as my life became more demanding. I realized there was a growing gap between how I wanted to cook and eat, and what I was able to make time for. The more I spoke to people with even busier lives, I realized that everyone was in the same boat.

After spending almost a decade building Canva from the ground up, I learned so much about building a globally loved product and was inspired to apply these learnings to my vision for Clove.

3) What should we know about the state of recipes and how they are being reimagined?

Beyond cookbooks, the recipe industry hasn’t changed in a long time – since recipe blogs started appearing in the late 90s. In very recent years we’ve finally started to see a shift in how people like to consume recipes with an explosion of recipe creation on Instagram and TikTok.

The size of this audience is incredibly exciting and proves that people want simpler, more engaging ways to find recipes. But for consumers, there’s still a gap when it comes to actually cooking and organizing recipes – it’s the perfect time to leverage this renewed interest and create a platform that can both engage and be useful in the kitchen.

I believe that the recipe industry is ripe for the same technology that has transformed content industries like music and movies through Spotify and Netflix. For consumers, recipes should be simpler, smarter and more personalized, and for publishers, there should be smarter ways to distribute and license recipes that reflect the nature of our digital age.

4) You worked previously at Canva on product and content - how did those experiences influence what you are doing today?

I joined Canva in 2013 while it was still an early, seed-stage startup. This allowed me to work on almost every aspect of the product – across content, product, operations and growth – and learn from many incredible people, including the founders Melanie, Cliff and Cameron.

In particular, building and scaling Canva’s design marketplace program involved many pivotal learnings for Clove – including leveraging content as one of the company’s key acquisition drivers, building a new commercial model for licensing images and graphics from traditional stock houses, and scaling a creative community internationally.

Most importantly, it’s also where I met my co-founder and the CTO of Clove, Sam, who was the technical lead behind the marketplace program at Canva.

5) You are a first time founder - what are some of the ways you choose to learn/grow as a leader?

Fun fact: I originally studied journalism so I could make my curiosity and love of connecting with people a full time job. I only lasted a few years as a journalist, but I still use my curiosity everyday. I love seeking out smart people I can ask for help and learn from, and approach most situations with a beginner’s mindset.

6) How can the SHAKTI network help you?

One of the strategies we’re pursuing to seed our marketplace is a Publisher Pilot Program – we’d love introductions to forward thinking publishers who could be interested in partnering with us.

The opportunity in a nutshell; cookbooks are subject to print cycles, and when a print cycle ends, so does the commercial opportunity for everyone: the author and the publisher. Clove is creating a new digital license and offering to purchase licenses to out-of-print cookbooks, which will allow us to give select recipes new life throughout our platform.

Eventually, this license will extend to offering premium, in-print recipes as part of a royalty share program – so it’s also a chance for our first partners to act as advisors to us and have early access to this opportunity.

1) What is Clove? Who is it for? What does it do for them?

Cooking is a universal need, but day-to-day, it often feels difficult and time consuming.

Clove is an AI recipe platform that helps busy home cooks streamline the process of discovering and cooking with recipes, and build the confidence and motivation to get into the kitchen.

It’s also a platform on a mission to disrupt publishing for recipe creators; empowering them to publish and monetise their recipes in new ways, with a focus on simplicity, flexibility and collaboration.

2) Of all the things you could have done professionally, why did you choose to start Clove?

I started Clove to solve a problem I’m deeply passionate about: cooking is something that we all need to do, but few people have the skills or time to do it well. Cutting through the noise of online recipes and making decisions about what to cook everyday is still way too hard – and it’s a problem that affects all of us.

We experience it as an unequal distribution of labor in our households. We experience it when someone we love falls ill because of a poor diet. We experience it when we see the impact that food waste and unsustainable food production has on our planet.

I developed a love of cooking growing up in a food loving migrant family, but started to feel this pain as my life became more demanding. I realized there was a growing gap between how I wanted to cook and eat, and what I was able to make time for. The more I spoke to people with even busier lives, I realized that everyone was in the same boat.

After spending almost a decade building Canva from the ground up, I learned so much about building a globally loved product and was inspired to apply these learnings to my vision for Clove.

3) What should we know about the state of recipes and how they are being reimagined?

Beyond cookbooks, the recipe industry hasn’t changed in a long time – since recipe blogs started appearing in the late 90s. In very recent years we’ve finally started to see a shift in how people like to consume recipes with an explosion of recipe creation on Instagram and TikTok.

The size of this audience is incredibly exciting and proves that people want simpler, more engaging ways to find recipes. But for consumers, there’s still a gap when it comes to actually cooking and organizing recipes – it’s the perfect time to leverage this renewed interest and create a platform that can both engage and be useful in the kitchen.

I believe that the recipe industry is ripe for the same technology that has transformed content industries like music and movies through Spotify and Netflix. For consumers, recipes should be simpler, smarter and more personalized, and for publishers, there should be smarter ways to distribute and license recipes that reflect the nature of our digital age.

4) You worked previously at Canva on product and content - how did those experiences influence what you are doing today?

I joined Canva in 2013 while it was still an early, seed-stage startup. This allowed me to work on almost every aspect of the product – across content, product, operations and growth – and learn from many incredible people, including the founders Melanie, Cliff and Cameron.

In particular, building and scaling Canva’s design marketplace program involved many pivotal learnings for Clove – including leveraging content as one of the company’s key acquisition drivers, building a new commercial model for licensing images and graphics from traditional stock houses, and scaling a creative community internationally.

Most importantly, it’s also where I met my co-founder and the CTO of Clove, Sam, who was the technical lead behind the marketplace program at Canva.

5) You are a first time founder - what are some of the ways you choose to learn/grow as a leader?

Fun fact: I originally studied journalism so I could make my curiosity and love of connecting with people a full time job. I only lasted a few years as a journalist, but I still use my curiosity everyday. I love seeking out smart people I can ask for help and learn from, and approach most situations with a beginner’s mindset.

6) How can the SHAKTI network help you?

One of the strategies we’re pursuing to seed our marketplace is a Publisher Pilot Program – we’d love introductions to forward thinking publishers who could be interested in partnering with us.

The opportunity in a nutshell; cookbooks are subject to print cycles, and when a print cycle ends, so does the commercial opportunity for everyone: the author and the publisher. Clove is creating a new digital license and offering to purchase licenses to out-of-print cookbooks, which will allow us to give select recipes new life throughout our platform.

Eventually, this license will extend to offering premium, in-print recipes as part of a royalty share program – so it’s also a chance for our first partners to act as advisors to us and have early access to this opportunity.