Make It Now – From Cooking Video to Kitchen Execution

People save recipes but rarely cook them. Make It Now converts any cooking content into an executable kitchen workflow — from video to shopping to cooking.

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Inspiration

People are inspired to cook all the time from social media, cookbooks, or TV but turning that inspiration into an actual meal is often hard. Grocery shopping, planning, and figuring out what’s in your kitchen create friction. We wanted to turn inspiration into action, making cooking effortless and fun. Inspired by Eitum Bernath’s challenge to help people move from cooking inspiration to real kitchen execution, we built Make It Now an AI-powered system that transforms any cooking idea into an executable kitchen workflow, complete with step-by-step instructions, smart grocery lists, and meal planning.

What it does

Make It Now lets users: 👉 Converts ANY cooking inspiration (videos, saved recipes, cookbooks) into an actionable cooking workflow — recipe steps, grocery list, and meal planning.

  • Turn any cooking video into a step-by-step recipe with calories per serving.
  • Generate a smart, combined grocery list ready for shopping.
  • Match recipes to what’s already in your fridge.
  • Plan meals with a meal calendar for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

How we built it

  • Frontend: React Native + Expo for fast cross-platform deployment.
  • Backend: Supabase for database, storage, and serverless functions. Clerk for authentication
  • AI: Multimodal video parsing to extract ingredients, quantities, and cooking steps.
  • Monetization: RevenueCat for subscription management and feature gating.
  • UX: Step-by-step cooking guides, combined grocery lists, and meal planning features for maximum usability.

Challenges we ran into

  • Parsing video content reliably for ingredients and steps while handling variations in speech and visuals.
  • Combining grocery items across multiple recipes with different units, synonyms, and plurals.
  • Balancing a fast MVP with a polished, production-ready experience in under 2 weeks.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Built a production-ready, crash-free app in less than 2 weeks.
  • Over 500 beta users signed up for testing.
  • Successfully implemented end-to-end video-to-recipe parsing with grocery list and meal planning.

What we learned

  • AI-powered workflows can drastically reduce the friction between inspiration and execution.
  • Users love personalized, actionable outputs — parsing is only part of the value; planning and grocery lists make it practical.
  • Rapid iteration under tight deadlines is possible without sacrificing stability.

What's next for Make It Now – Turn Video to Recipe & Grocery List

  • Expand AI parsing to multi-step video tutorials and complex recipes.
  • Add smarter fridge matching and cookbook ingestion.
  • Enhance the meal calendar with shopping integrations and recurring meal suggestions.
  • Continue growing the user base and exploring partnerships with recipe content creators.

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