When was the last time you saw a recipe treated like a song – tracked, credited, and paid for every time it was saved or shared?

That’s the question driving Symone Opara, a former Microsoft executive turned food-tech founder, whose company LeCuckoo Inc. has just filed a patent for what could become the first royalty-based compensation model for recipe creators.

Symone’s idea didn’t begin in a lab or investor pitch room. It began at her kitchen table. As a mother of five managing a web of dietary restrictions and food preferences, she found herself scribbling notes in binders, jumping between tabs, and struggling to find a single digital tool that could organize it all.

“I was trying to have this extensive career and at the same time really manage the diets and interests of all my kids,” she says. “Some of them had health needs, others just preferences. I looked everywhere for a professional product that chefs might use, and couldn’t find one.”

That frustration marked the beginning of LeCuckoo Inc., which Symone founded in Dec 2021 after years of quiet experimentation. Drawing on two decades of corporate experience at Microsoft, American Express, Gap Inc., and KPMG, she began mapping what she calls the future of gastronomy: an ecosystem where people can personalize what they cook, connect across cultures, and ensure that creators are recognized and paid for their work.

In October 2025, LeCuckoo’s flagship platform, LUC.cooking, came out of stealth with the filing of a provisional patent for a royalty-based compensation model for recipe creators. The platform blends AI-driven personalization, traceable recipe attribution, and a community framework designed to protect culinary creativity, just as streaming platforms protect music.

“We really want to manage how food fully interacts with your life,” Symone says. “That’s why we call it a gastronomy platform, not just a recipe app.”

Recipes as Royalties

The spark for LUC’s creator-royalty model came from Symone’s own streaming habits. “I’m a huge fan of Apple Music,” she says. “Around 2020, I started thinking, ‘Why don’t we treat recipes as if they were music or art?’ Anywhere you need to protect ownership, you should compensate people for it.”

That analogy soon took form as a multi-modal royalty system, part of the patent filing, where creators earn from engagement, referrals, and direct sales. Symone describes it as “streaming meets the kitchen,” with mechanisms designed to trace each recipe’s lineage across versions and remixers.

The model isn’t limited to traditional payouts. LUC also introduces “LUC Units,” a kind of equity credit that allows creators to share in the company’s growth. “We wanted a material compensation program for material contributors,” Symone explains. “Every time a creator brings in a new subscriber, they earn LUC Units. As the company grows, the value of those units grows. We wanted contributors to feel like they’re part of the company.”

Symone chose to patent LUC’s structure before launching publicly, counter to most startup playbooks. “We were really operating in stealth mode,” she says. “Every time we had a conversation, we required NDAs [Non-Disclosure Agreements]. We wanted to design quietly, make it what we envisioned, and then announce when we could protect it.”

For Symone, the patent isn’t just about technology; it’s about philosophy. “We’re protecting all three: the tech, the compensation structure, and the idea itself,” she says. “We needed to secure our position before talking about it publicly.”

How It Works

At first glance, LUC.cooking looks like a recipe platform, but Symone insists on its more accurate description of “gastronomy platform.” The distinction lies in how users interact with content and how creators are credited.

A food creator can upload a recipe to LUC, then link it directly from their social media videos; no need for viewers to pause a TikTok and scribble down ingredients. Users visiting the creator’s LUC profile can view, save, and even “remix” the recipe. Adjust the salt, swap a protein, or double the serving size, and the system automatically generates a new recipe entry.

“The name of the recipe changes, but the path stays,” Symone explains. “If I get a recipe from person X and make it with six tomatoes instead of three, that new version is mine, but it still says ‘remixed from person X.’”

Both creators earn royalties: the original for attribution, the remixer for engagement. “If someone cooks it, rates it, or shares it, both get paid,” she says. “The goal is to make sure the right people are rewarded and acknowledged for their work, and to create a safe environment for creative engagement and latitude.”

Users can also import web recipes into their private collection. If the recipe is publicly available, it can later be remixed and monetized; if not, LUC stores it solely for personal use. Direct recipe sales (essentially buying a digital dish from a creator) add another revenue layer.

“For every cookbook I own, I only use maybe three recipes,” Symone laughs. “We thought, what if you could build your own custom book? Pick the recipes you want, pay the creators, and make it yours.”

The Creator’s Perspective

Symone’s vision resonated with Bo Corley, a chef, author, and TikTok creator who now serves as Chairman of the Chef Advisory Board and Head of Influencer Relations at LUC.

Bo, who built a following through cooking videos and duets, says Symone’s approach immediately stood out. “A lot of companies put out features they think creators want,” he says. “But their motivation is to make money. When I started talking to Symone, it was the first time someone from the corporate side truly understood the struggles of a creator.”

Bo’s own cookbook covers everything from budget meals to cocktail pairings, but he often hears from fans who only want certain sections. “People say, ‘I’d love to buy your book, but I don’t drink,’ or, ‘I just want the cocktail section,’” he says. “With LUC, I can post the healthy recipes separately and get paid per recipe.”

He also sees the platform as an overdue correction to how creator labor is valued. “Platforms keep rolling out new editing tools, new ratios, but they’re still not paying us,” Bo says. “It’s like having a sales team and not paying them for selling your product. We want to funnel more of those lost dollars back into the creator community.”

Building Community Through Food

For Symone, LUC’s mission extends beyond monetization. “LUC is short for ‘Le Unum Culinae,’ the unity of kitchens,” she explains. “Recipe cultivation is best when the energy of the community is behind it.”

As an African-American married to a Nigerian husband, Symone’s own multicultural household helped shape that outlook. “I always wished there was a platform where I could learn about another culture’s cooking, have conversations, and understand local nuances,” she says. “Our tagline, ‘cultivating community, health, and good food,’ comes from that idea.”

One of the startup’s guiding principles, “customers first, creators first,” addresses the delicate balance between user experience and creator revenue. Symone doesn’t see it as a trade-off. “There is no battle,” she stresses. “If you build a platform that truly meets the customer’s needs, you build trust. That trust drives engagement, which benefits creators.”

Data insights from user behavior, such as trending ingredients or preferred cuisines, will be shared with creators to inform their content strategies. “We’ll know what customers are searching for, what ingredients are popular, and pass that information to influencers,” Symone says. “It’s a virtuous cycle.”

Funding Food-Tech

LeCuckoo has mainly been bootstrapped so far, with a few angel investors supporting development. The company recently began fundraising through WeFunder, a regulated crowdfunding platform that allows non-accredited investors to participate. It was an intentional move, Symone says, to make ownership more inclusive.

“My older kids are doing really well in their first careers, but technically they’re not accredited investors,” she explains. “Historically underrepresented communities and early-career talent never had the opportunity to invest in a Google or a Facebook. I want them and anyone who believes in this idea to have that chance.”

The beta version of LUC.cooking is slated for early January 2026, opening to a select group of early subscribers for testing and feedback. A public release is planned for March. “We want people to play with it, tell us what they love, what they don’t, what we can improve,” Symone says.

A Long-Term Vision for Gastronomy

While LUC.cooking’s initial focus is on recipe creators and hobby chefs, Symone envisions a broader ecosystem encompassing professional chefs, culinary students, and even pet nutrition.

“My vision is that in three to five years, LUC is your go-to platform to understand any level of food,” she shares. “How to make it better for you, how to make it culturally significant, how to feed your dogs. Everything.”

She sees LUC as more than a startup; a step toward redefining how food knowledge circulates online. “For me, success is when people feel a sense of cultural connection and community within the app,” she emphasizes. “We want to build something that pays people fairly, educates them about food, and brings them together.”

For Bo, the broader industry impact is clear. “During the pandemic, everyone became a creator,” he says. “Now the industry’s restless. We love what we do, but we also need to make a living. LUC gives us a way to do both.”

As the company moves toward its first public release, Symone remains guided by the same principle that started it all: necessity meets opportunity. “LUC was born out of necessity – mine, my family’s, and what I saw creators struggling with,” she concludes. “If we can give people a platform that respects their creativity, pays them fairly, and helps them connect through food, then we’ve done something meaningful.”