12/01/2021
Okel's Story:
Hello everyone!
This is Farah, founder of Okel and a resilient refugee turned anthropreneur on a mission of making meals more meaningful.
In 2013, I moved from Syria for asylum to a small town in Texas, where I met my first best friend in high school, who happens to be Jewish. In Syria, I grew up reading textbooks that referred to Israel as the imperialist enemy, and so I unconsciously became afraid of anyone who is Jewish because my then 15-year-old brain couldnât separate the association I had between Judaism and that idea of the imperialist enemy.
My friend and I both loved baking, and our shared love for sharing meals brought us together that our families became friends and would have dinners together. So I went to college and studied the history, psychology, and anthropology of sharing meals, oh, and I started to learn Hebrewââbut itâs gotten rusty, donât test me on it!
In the last 8 years, Iâve lived in 5 different countries and visited many many more, always finding home at the dinner table. But, once I came back from my graduate studies abroad and started to settle with my job, reality hit me.
I was lonelier than ever.
So I put on my anthropologist hat and went into the field. And it turns out, I wasnât lonely alone. More than HALF the population is suffering, yet weâre left to numb our loneliness with distractions.
But I wasnât willing to settle for this reality. So I quit my first job post grad after only 8 months to start Okel: a social platform that connects users over sharing meals at local restaurants. And I moved to NYC 3 months ago and launched a very successful pilot with now 154 users and ~600 on a waitlist!
Fun fact: Okel means âto eatâ in both Hebrew and Arabic. I want Okel to spark the most unexpected friendships for people, just as moving to America has done for me.
My vision is for Okel to become the ultimate meal-sharing platform that makes sharing meals accessible to anyone anywhere, whether with people you know or donât know, so when youâre traveling somewhere alone for a weekend and are longing for some sweet company over dinner, or when you live alone and would like to make some new friends on a Thursday night, you can get on Okel and find a friend or two to share a meaningful meal with.
If you have meal-sharing stories that have changed your outlook on life, please share! If youâre interested in working with Okel, please reach out, and if youâre interested in USING the platform, join the waitlist at joinokel.com and/or share with your network for those of us who can use a warm meal and meaningful conversation to sign up (as that would be the MOST helpful contribution right now to support my conversations with investors!) â¨
Enjoy photos below of only FEW of the wonderful friends Iâve made over sharing meals in the past years!
