Same Chef, New Kitchen.

A little update about Crouton

I’ll save the pleasantries for the end and cut right to it. I sold Crouton.

If you’re reading this you’re probably curious about why. Fair question, thanks for asking, stranger.

Last year was insane, I achieved and did things I never dreamed possible. I’d been working on Crouton for 5 years and finally hit the critical mass needed to quit my job and go full time. As soon as I did this though, I realised just how much I love working with other people and solving problems as a team. Working for myself with made up deadlines, pretty quickly killed my motivation.

One thing I’ve come to realise about myself over the last wee while, is that what I care about most is designing interfaces that make it as easy as possible to get things done. User experience and what not. I’m not an entrepreneur or keen business leader. Stepping into full time indie and really trying to steer the ship highlighted to me just how much that jazz isn’t me. I actually really enjoy being just a part of the puzzle, not the whole puzzle.

Lucky for me, coincidentally about that time, Chris Young from Combustion Inc reached out to see if I’d be interested in helping with some design/development on their app. If you aren’t familiar with Combustion, they make a rad predictive thermometer that helps you track your food while it cooks, meaning you can get perfect doneness (I like how we pretend that’s a real word) every time. A year or so earlier I had added support to Crouton to quickly set up the thermometer and also display its information as a Live Activity alongside your recipe. I jumped at the opportunity to collaborate and spent a few weeks working with Combustion to bring Live Activity support to their app like I had with Crouton.

Chris and I got to talking about how we could continue to work together, and that’s when the opportunity came up for Combustion to acquire Crouton, where I could then continue to work on the Combustion app alongside Crouton. Sometimes the bread cube hands you opportunities that are just too good to pass up.

So what is changing? Well, kind of nothing. I’m still very dedicated to Crouton and its future just got a lot brighter! I’ll still be the lead developer but now Crouton is backed by a whole team. A team with a deep knowledge of cooking and technology, that will help Crouton do even more! Chris has a long history with connected cooking from Combustion and his previous company Chefsteps. I hope you already know about Chefsteps but if you don’t, they created the prettiest sous vide tool ever, Joule.

Check out Combustion’s predictive thermometer here. Also launching quite soon is the Giant Grill Gauge, which replaces the basic analogue gauge on your grill, for a giant connected one to give you even more insights into your cook. If you sign up for our email list, then you can receive 10% off your first order!

Honestly I’ve never been more excited, not just in my own job satisfaction but also in Crouton’s trajectory. This is a very good thing.

Anyway, back to the pleasantries, how am I? I’m very well, thanks for asking.