Mompreneurs — How Erica Tuggle Built The 'Uber For Chefs'

This week on the Mompreneurs podcast, Erica Tuggle shares how she left her successful career in corporate to pursue her passion: helping people access nutritious, home-cooked meals. The mother of two founded Livin—the “Uber for personal chefs”—to connect families with whole, nourishing food while creating a sustainable career pathway for professional chefs. In this episode of Mompreneurs, Tuggle joins host Nancy Redd to talk about building her company and how motherhood changed how she prioritizes her time between work and family.

“It was an incredible journey, but it wasn’t everything that I wanted and needed.”

Before Livin, Tuggle built an impressive resume, ascending the corporate ladder at American Express and General Mills before ultimately rising to Brand Director at Coca-Cola. Still, she had always felt the pull toward entrepreneurship. “I had this inkling, this thing inside of me that was like, one day I want to build something. But I didn’t know what it was or what it would be.”

Ultimately, the Harvard Business School alum made the leap from her 9 to 5 and decided it was time for her next chapter. “It was an incredible journey, but it wasn’t everything that I wanted and needed,” Tuggle said. “Some people run away from corporate, and I had my reasons for leaving, but it wasn’t because I wasn’t enjoying myself.”

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“You’re able to control what you’re putting in your body.”

Since 2021, the mom of two has been building her company full-time. Now operating in Atlanta and Los Angeles, Livin is a platform where anyone can book a personal chef to cook and serve a homemade meal right at home. It’s Tuggle’s way of disrupting the traditional private chef model while improving the lives of both busy families and professional chefs.

“You’re able to control what you’re putting in your body,” she said. “We hear over and over again from families who are trying to escape processed foods, and so we’re making that possible.”

Livin’s partnership with Airbnb is another area that’s gaining traction. Whether Livin’s chefs are feeding traveling families, bachelorettes, or serving a Mother’s Day brunch, so far customers have raved about being able to free up time to enjoy and relax, while the chefs handle planning, shopping, cooking, and cleaning up.

“I saw homemade food as how we nourished our bodies and came together as a family.”

It’s all part of a greater vision—to make home cooking available to as many people as possible. “That was always my driving force,” said Tuggle. “I grew up around homemade food. My mom was really diligent about that. I saw that as how we nourished our bodies and how we came together as a family.”

While navigating her busy schedule in corporate leadership, Tuggle recalled working overtime to cook for her family. “I found that it was just wearing me down, and it was still important to me. So I had to figure out, how do I solve this?”

She had the vision, but breaking into the private chef industry felt like starting from scratch. “I had a great business foundation, but this business in particular was completely new to me.”

Tuggle started small, doing the groundwork herself and spreading the word through friends, texts, and a Google Form. “I was the first chef. I put myself out there, and people booked me. That was the first way that I saw Livin coming to life,” Tuggle shared. “I was in homes, hearing what people liked, what they needed. I was experiencing the chef role, which is really important, being able to see the value you’re creating up close.”

That know-how shaped how Tuggle built Livin to serve both clients and chefs. “We’ve had to understand the personal chef industry and what that job is and what it can be. And then kind of get creative with it too, in terms of giving them the support that they need in order to be successful in this job,” she told Redd.

The founder and CEO is on a mission to transform how we think about personal chefs—not as a luxury exclusive to the wealthiest households, but as a reasonable alternative to ordering from popular food delivery apps for everyday families. “We’ve been able to get our business to a place where you’re spending about what you would spend on an Uber Eats or Door Dash order,” she said.

“You have to choose your hard.”

Tuggle reflected on how motherhood changed her definition of success: “I’ve had a higher bar for everything.”

“Building a business, or even working in corporate America, you’re going to have that tension between how much you’re giving to your job or your company, and how much you’re giving to your family … It has to be worth it,” she said. “I think that inspired me to dream big—if I’m going to do this, I’m going to go big.”

“It’s not for everyone, building a big business,” she said. “But like I said, you’re gonna put in the energy, you’re gonna put in the work; it’s going to be hard, so you might as well make a big impact and make some dollars along the way.”

Don’t miss out on the full conversation. Watch this episode of Mompreneurs above.

Catch New Episodes Of Mompreneurs Every Week

August is Black Business Month! To celebrate, Mompreneurs is back with brand-new episodes to spotlight the brilliant Black women who are building their businesses and raising their families with strength and style. Join host and New York Times bestselling author Nancy Redd as these inspiring mompreneurs share their stories and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. Catch new episodes of Mompreneurs every Thursday on MadameNoire’s YouTube channel or listen to the podcast online on the Urban One Podcast Network.

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