Zynga’s Jon Tien Takes The Helm At Kitchensurfing

Fresh on the heels of a $15 million Series B round in March, Kitchensurfing is shaking things up at the leadership level, bringing on Jon Tien from Zynga as new CEO.

Tien will be replacing co-founder Chris Muscarella in the CEO role, while Muscarella takes over as Executive Chairman on the board. Co-founder and CXO Bohram Cho will step into a product advisory role as he transitions away from day-to-day operations.

Kitchensurfing is not an easy company to run.

The service offers users an on-demand chef that will come into their kitchen, already armed with groceries, and cook a meal. The options are pretty flexible, allowing for a catered dinner party or a romantic evening for two. Pricing ranges between $25/per person and $100/per person depending on the type of meal.

Operationally speaking, the company has to manage a community of chefs sourcing their own ingredients, while facing similar issues to Uber and other logistically difficult services. And like any other startup, Kitchensurfing has to find the right pricing, supply and demand and marketing on the consumer side. To handle all of these moving parts, Tien is taking the helm as this is a challenge he’s relatively comfortable with.

Tien was SVP of Product at Zynga before this, where he oversaw product management organization, analytics, user acquisition, and product strategy. And if that weren’t enough, Tien also happens to be an experimental home cook, with a passion for food.

“We’ve been trying a couple of big changes recently,” said Tien. “We’re standardizing some of the menus to make it easier for customers to navigate choices, and we’ve also been beta testing a few different supply and demand models for the product in New York. We’ve been getting positive signals on both.”

Muscarella added that Tien has been an advisor to the company for a while now, and the board is confident his operational prowess will be helpful as the company continues to grow.