Building Zap Cooking in the Attention Economy

Building a business is hard. Changing habits is hard. We all know this, but knowing it does very little to make either one easier.

Most of us understand the basics of taking care of ourselves. Eat decent food. Move our bodies. Get some sleep. So why can’t we just eat our broccoli and steak, do our pushups, and get on with it?

Because the instructions are the easy part. Following through on a tired Tuesday is where things get interesting. We have routines, responsibilities, and familiar choices that require very little thought. Doing something differently takes effort before it becomes normal.

I think building a business runs into much of the same resistance. You can create something useful, explain why it matters, and still struggle to get someone to try it. You’re asking for a place in a life that is already full.

That has been one of the challenges of building Zap Cooking. I believe in what we’re creating. But believing in it doesn’t entitle me to anyone’s attention. I have to earn that, then deliver something useful enough for them to come back.

And there is a lot competing for that attention.

Open your phone and you’re immediately presented with things to watch, buy, worry about, or argue over. Somewhere in there are the people you actually wanted to hear from. Choosing what deserves your time requires mental effort, and the stream keeps moving whether you’ve sorted it out or not.

For a one-man marketing team, finding a way to be heard in all of that is a challenge. Fortunately, I have tools that help.

I use my words. AI is my editor. And no, I’m not going to apologize for that. I bring the ideas, the rough thoughts, and what I’m trying to say. AI helps me organize them, challenge them, and package them into something another person can follow. I still have to decide whether the result says what I mean. I’m responsible for what goes out under my name.

We already accept editing as part of communication. We crop photos, clean up audio, adjust lighting, and use software to assemble the things we share. AI gives me another way to work on the message. Using it well still requires judgment, including knowing when to reject what it gives me.

I care whether the words are honest and whether I can stand behind them. Polished writing can still be empty. A rough draft can still be wrong.

The more complicated question is what we’re using these tools to persuade people to do.

Edward Bernays is a useful person to look at here. He helped shape modern public relations, and his 1928 book, Propaganda, openly discussed organizing public opinion and influencing people’s habits. He argued that propaganda could be used well or badly, depending on the cause and the truthfulness of the information. His work tied persuasion to the emotions, social influences, and desires behind people’s decisions.

Public relations sounds more respectable than propaganda. But calling something persuasion for good still leaves a fairly important question: who gets to decide what good means?

I see that question in political campaigns, pharmaceutical advertising, and ordinary consumer marketing. A message can offer information while also appealing to fear, hope, status, or the desire to belong. Understanding that appeal is part of understanding what we’re being sold.

Now add the ability to collect detailed information about the people receiving the message. In a 2024 report, FTC staff found that major social media and streaming services collected extensive personal data, and that many of their business models encouraged that collection to support targeted advertising.

To me, that is what makes today’s competition for attention so difficult. We are trying to be intentional inside environments with strong financial reasons to keep learning how to influence us.

I think we underestimate how much repeated exposure shapes what feels normal. That doesn’t remove our responsibility for our choices. It does make me question the idea that we can solve everything with more willpower. Discipline matters. So does the environment in which we’re trying to practice it.

And yes, I recognize that I’m writing a post intended to influence you. I want you to consider what I’m building. I want Zap Cooking to grow. I have to be honest about my place in this.

The standard I want to hold myself to is straightforward: explain the value clearly, make claims I can support, and respect your ability to decide. Then make the experience worth your time. Good intentions don’t excuse a confusing product or a promise it can’t deliver.

For me, that brings the whole thing back to food.

Food is one of the few things we all share. Everyone has to eat. Many of us have a meal that reminds us of someone, a recipe we wish we had written down, or a table where a conversation lasted longer than we expected.

There is something worth protecting in that. Preparing food is a useful act. Sharing it is a way of caring for people. Sitting down long enough to appreciate it creates a little room for gratitude.

Those are the foundations I want Zap Cooking to build on.

We layer technology onto that experience because it can help. A meal planner can make the week easier. A useful AI assistant can help you figure out what to cook with what you already have. Sharing a recipe can give someone else the confidence to try it.

Those are practical reasons to open an app. If it helps you make dinner and then put the phone down, I consider that a good outcome.

I want to build a business people support because it is useful to them. Their personal information should not become inventory for advertisers and data brokers. Their recipes and relationships should remain theirs to carry with them. That belief is a large part of why openness and ownership matter to me.

The same principle applies to AI. I want it to help me think and create, and I want our tools to give other people that ability too. We should be able to use technology while keeping a say in how it fits into our lives.

Some days, the scale of the challenge makes me think of the rebels and the Empire in Star Wars. The resources are uneven. The established systems are enormous. A small group trying something different can look a little unreasonable.

I’m comfortable with that. The rebels used technology too. They had ships, droids, and tools. What mattered was what they were fighting for.

My version of that is fairly ordinary. Make something useful. Listen when people tell me where it falls short. Keep improving it. Help people find it without forgetting why I wanted to build it in the first place.

I believe we need more businesses working toward that kind of future. Businesses that leave people with more control over their time, their work, and their relationships. There is room to make money while respecting the people who make the business possible.

That’s also why we recently started a podcast called Connection, with new episodes released every Saturday at 7 p.m. It’s a chance to have longer conversations about the world we want to build and how we get there. I want to give these ideas the time they deserve and hear how others are thinking about them.

Changing habits takes repetition. Building trust does too. We will have to keep choosing where our attention goes and giving each other worthwhile reasons to choose differently.

I want to help build a future with more room for a meal, a conversation, and a little gratitude for the people around the table. For me, protecting the human spirit starts with making room for those things in ordinary life.

That feels like something worth fighting for.