Potluck: A New Meal Swap App for Busy Families

If you’ve ever been asked, “What’s for dinner?” a new meal swap app called Potluck is soon coming to the rescue! Can I get an amen?

Shannon Amspacher, a marketing and operations consultant, caregiver advocate, and first-time mom to a 16-month-old boy, birthed the idea after experiencing firsthand how overwhelming it can be to juggle work, parenting, and the “simple” act of getting dinner on the table, even in a two-parent household.

Shannon created Potluck to help families share the effort of meal prep with trusted matches in their communities, saving time, money, and energy while rebuilding social bonds around food. We caught up with Shannon to ask her all about her new mealtime solution, Potluck!

Tell us about the potluck meal swap app! how will it work?

Potluck is a tech-enabled platform that helps working parents and caregivers swap home-cooked meals with others in their local community—cutting down on dinner prep, grocery costs, and mental load. Think of it like a modern-day meal train, but reciprocal and ongoing.

Users are matched based on food preferences, cooking styles, and logistics (like pickup location, household size or dietary restrictions), and can batch cook and swap meals weekly with a trusted match in your community.

It’s built for busy families who want to save time, reduce food waste, and feel more connected to their neighbors—all while still feeding their families well.

While the app is currently in development, we’ve successfully piloted the concept with families who reported saving time, spending less, and feeling more connected. You can sign up for early access at www.joinpotluck.app to be notified when we launch in your area (or to play a part in helping us shape the specific dinner pain points it could solve for you)!

what initiatives are you working on to bring this to market?

We’re currently conducting 1:1 user interviews with busy parents and caregivers to shape Potluck’s MVP features. If you’re interested in sharing your experience, sign up for our mailing list to learn how to get involved.

We’re also launching a research survey with gift card giveaways to thank participants. Our mailing list will be the first to know when it goes live.

Finally, we’re partnering with New America’s Better Life Lab Experiments on a Potluck-inspired Experiment to explore how peer-to-peer meal sharing can reduce the invisible load on families. You can learn more about that here: Experiment No 39: Shared Batch Cooking.

this is fantastic. When did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

I’ve always had an entrepreneurial streak—even as a kid, I wanted to open up a winery (that’s a story for another time). I studied entrepreneurship in college and have a long history of entering my wild ideas into pitch competitions, from internal company Shark Tanks to my alma mater’s Be Your Own Boss Bowl (BYOBB). But I didn’t fully take the leap until after becoming a mom.

The mental load of caregiving while trying to stay professionally engaged was overwhelming. I knew the systems meant to support working families were broken long before I became a parent, but motherhood steeled my resolve to finally do something about it. I decided to channel my energy into solving the challenge that was holding me back every single day: dinner.

what advice do you have for moms who want to start their own business?

Don’t wait for “the perfect time”—it doesn’t exist, especially in motherhood. Also, find your people. Entrepreneurship can be isolating, but it doesn’t have to be.

Surround yourself with other moms who get it, and don’t be afraid to ask for help, trade skills, or share your wins (and flops). You already know how to handle chaos, adapt fast, and keep going on little sleep…you were made for this.

for the moms reading who want to launch their own business, what tool have you found invaluable?

Notion is my brain outside my brain. As a solo founder managing product development, partnerships, marketing, and fundraising, I use it to keep everything organized—from our content calendar and user research to investor outreach and product planning.

It’s flexible enough to house our roadmap and structured enough to keep me focused, even on the most chaotic days.

What’s your personal take on work-life balance as a business owner? Is it attainable?

I don’t strive for work-life balance—I aim for equilibrium. Balance suggests everything should get equal weight at all times, but equilibrium allows for movement, flexibility, and adjusting in real time to what needs my energy most—whether that’s my business, my family, or myself.

What feels most attainable to me is building a life with more intention, more flexibility, and more support.

That’s actually why I started Potluck—to take one major stressor (dinner) off the plate, literally and figuratively. When we create systems and communities that share the load, it becomes easier to show up fully—at home and at work—without burning out.

If the Potluck mission resonates with you, Shannon would love to connect! Sign up for the waitlist, follow Potluck on all the socials, share your voice, or pass the idea along to a friend! The more folks that she can get onto the waitlist, the sooner she can bring it to market by showing investors the traction. Visit her website: www.joinpotluck.app for all the details!