The Problem & The Mission of Hotplate

Running a food business is hard, too hard. About 2/3 of brick and mortar restaurants and bakeries fail within their first year, putting these types of businesses in the same risk category as startups. It is insane that that is the case.

However, during COVID, as people were stuck at home, a new model for selling food emerged: people making and selling food in their home through social media via pre-order pickup. These new businesses opened pre-orders for a brief period at the beginning of the week and had their customers come to pickup their food at the end of the week. This seemingly small change has massive implications. By running on a pre-order pickup model, these chefs and bakers solved many of the problems traditional brick and mortars faced:

1. No ingredient waste or need to forecast demand.

2. Significantly less labor needed, a single creator can take the orders, make them, and hand them off to the customer over the course of the week.

3. No need for an expensive lease: customers can pickup from the creator's house or a local business they partner with.

4. Zero startup cost, anyone can start small and organically grow without needing to invest over $100,000 to start a traditional brick and mortar.

As we saw this trend develop, we spoke to the people behind these businesses and found out that many of them were making upwards of 50% margins on their food sales, 10x the average of 5% for a standard brick and mortar.

However, there was one big problem: no product existed to sell food this way. These businesses were taking orders via DMs, Google Sheets, or hacking the functionality of a Square or Ecommerce website to post their sales. They were spending most of their time trying to organize orders, remind customers about pickups, chasing down venmo payments, and tabulating spreadsheets. They were hitting a glass ceiling.

By building the foundational tool for this new model, we have the opportunity to fundamentally change the food industry for the better: increasing the diversity and accessibility of food by making it possible for anyone to start a food business.

If you want to know more about Hotplate to know if its the right place for you, I encourage you to read our philosophy on hiring, fundraising, and our values

The opportunity

Hotplate is building the future of food: one that’s chef-first, pop-up fueled, and culture-obsessed. We're looking for a freelance Social Media Brand Manager who’s ready to plug in fast, own their lane, and help us bring our brand to life on socials.

In this role, you’ll help shape what Hotplate looks and feels like on IG and TikTok. You are the right person if you're excited to take ownership of content planning and production, building on what’s already performing while testing new formats to help us grow our presence (2-4 pieces of weekly content).

This is a 4-6 week freelance position and is best for someone who wants to showcase project-based impact at an early stage startup. But if this becomes a great partnership, there is opportunity to explore longer-term roles.

What you will need to be successful

• Love for Chefs and food — ideally you’ve worked in a kitchen or for a pop up, love to cook/bake, or post frequently about the food world. We care deeply about the businesses we serve, and we expect you will too.

• Can turn raw footage or a loose idea into a polished, platform-native post.

• Can understand and strategize how content and brand will contribute to Hotplate's growth.

• You enjoy the freedom and experience of ideating at the big-picture brand level and at the one-off, fun post level.

• Excitement to be on-camera and bring your personality to the brand.

• Have a filming and editing style that showcases our chefs and their success above all.

• Tracks trends, sounds, and cultural moments before they peak.

• Ready to grow with a startup (read: comfortable with building a plane while flying it 🙂)

Hotplate is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.