The web development is straightforward: A good friend or member of the family appears into the digital camera and tells viewers, in a barely aggressive tone, that they’re about to witness a presentation and that they higher be good.
That’s what Kendall, the sister of Lucious McDaniel IV, did, and after she stepped apart, her brother pitched his firm, BiteSight, a food-delivery app that lets customers watch movies of meals earlier than ordering. It additionally lets clients see what their pals have ordered and bookmark locations to check out. The app performs on how younger individuals interact with content material — by short-form movies and proposals from pals.
McDaniel posted the video and went again to work. Fifteen minutes later, his sister texted him that their put up was going viral. “We had been at 20,000 views in quarter-hour,” McDaniel informed TechCrunch. Pleasure got here, however then chaos ensued as “components of our app began to interrupt as we acquired extra customers.”
The engineering staff labored across the clock to maintain BiteSight useful, whereas McDaniel took to creating TikToks in regards to the chaos, which ended up going viral, too. He stated individuals liked the “authenticity” behind seeing what occurs when “your app explodes in a single day.”
The video of McDaniel presenting this concept has since amassed almost 4 million likes on TikTok and a quarter of a million on Instagram, becoming a member of a development of young entrepreneurs using TikTok and Instagram Reels to gain traction and deal flow.
McDaniel informed TechCrunch that the concept to make this video got here after watching a good friend partake in the identical web development for his relationship app. “It acquired over 1,000,000 views, and he recommended I attempt it for BiteSight.”
Twenty-four-year-old McDaniel stated he, like many younger individuals, realized he was consuming an excessive amount of takeout, ordering from the identical three locations as a result of he couldn’t uncover new eating places on supply apps. “I’d hit this wall of identical-looking eating places with inventory photographs, and by some means each place had 4.6 stars.”
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He began protecting a spreadsheet of eating places he’d discovered on Instagram and TikTok, monitoring precise opinions, and seeing what his pals thought of stated locations. “After I realized different individuals had been doing the very same factor, my co-founder Zac and I made a decision to construct one thing higher: an app that truly displays how we uncover meals at the moment,” he stated, referring to Zac Schulwolf, the corporate’s CTO.
McDaniel isn’t any stranger to the tech trade. He beforehand labored at Normal Atlantic, the place one among his major focus areas was restaurant know-how. He beforehand based a funds firm known as Phly, led product for a recruitment software program, and has even angel invested in just a few corporations, together with the fintech Mercury.
He and Schulwolf, 25, spent over a 12 months constructing BiteSight, together with participation in Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 cohort. They then did a restricted beta round New York College in April. In mid-Could, the corporate launched an early model and did a little bit of social media advertising and marketing. In June, they made their viral video.
“What made our video stand out was that what we’re constructing resonates,” stated McDaniel, who’s BiteSight’s CEO (often known as chief consuming officer). He added that “it’s clear that buyers, and particularly Gen Z, are prepared for one thing that feels recent and constructed for the best way they interact.”
After the video, BiteSight briefly turned No. 2 within the App Retailer’s Meals and Beverage class, bypassing Uber Eats, Starbucks, and even McDonald’s.
McDaniel stated the app additionally gained greater than 100,000 new customers, and although it is just obtainable in New York in the mean time, individuals in different cities began messaging for a nationwide launch. On the restaurant aspect, McDaniel stated everybody from small family-owned spots to chain eating places has reached out to accomplice and, after all, “we’ve had a surge of investor curiosity from of us who see that that is the place meals supply goes.”
He declined to touch upon the dimensions of any upcoming funding offers, besides to say he expects to have information to share quickly.
After all, BiteSight has loads of huge, well-funded competitors like DoorDash and Uber Eats. McDaniel believes, nevertheless, that being a startup within the age of AI will likely be to his benefit. For instance, whereas most of its rivals wanted a whole bunch of engineers of their early days, BiteSight can work with AI instruments that carry out 10x the work of a human for a lot much less the associated fee.
“Through the use of AI to keep away from large overhead and infrastructure prices, we will do far more with a lot much less and cross on the financial savings to the small enterprise homeowners and clients who want it most whereas nonetheless sustaining wholesome margins,” he stated.
What additionally differentiates BiteSight is its give attention to meals and video, reasonably than different classes in the mean time.
“We’re making an attempt to be the go-to app for the technology that discovers every thing by social suggestions and short-form video.”
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