Mark Semmelbeck Podcast Transcript
Mark Semmelbeck joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Mark Semmelbeck. Mark Semmelbeck is a versatile entrepreneur and philanthropist whose journey reflects resilience, vision, and a steadfast commitment to making a difference. His expertise in the energy sector spans nearly four decades, highlighted by the founding of five successful oil and gas companies in a pivotal role in the shale boom.
However, behind his professional accomplishments, Mark’s philanthropic efforts speaks volumes. From establishing orphanages in Southern Sudan to empowering communities in Africa through his voice global, his dedication to humanitarian causes is unwavering. As a founding member of the Good Works Collective, he channels his efforts into breaking the cycle of poverty in Houston and beyond.
Motivated by his family’s challenges during COVID 19, Mark shifted gears to create A Better Meal. This AI powered app simplifies weekly meal planning and promotes healthy eating, aiming to build confidence in the kitchen for busy families. Mark and A Better Meal have gained media attention with recent features in Voyage Houston, CEO Spotlight with David Johnson, Moon Tower Business Podcast, Authority Magazine, Houston Innovation Map, and the Maria Liberati Show.
Mark remains committed to driving positive change through his pursuits, leaving a legacy in business, philanthropy, health, and wellness.
Well, good afternoon, Mark. Welcome to the show!
Mark Semmelbeck: Brian. Thanks for having me today.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Love doing these things. And again, Mark, appreciate you making the time jump on to do a recording with me today. Let’s just jump right into your first question. Mark, after nearly four decades in the energy industry, what motivated you to venture into tech space with the creation of a better meal?
Mark Semmelbeck: Sure, Brian. So, in 2019, at the end of 2019, my partner in the oil business of 20 years and I decided that, uh, we were ready to, to do something different. He moved to a ranch in Central Texas, and I started taking some time off to decide what was next. And I had never done that before, and at the end of 2019, I, told my wife I was going to take three months off and not think about anything work related, which of course didn’t work.
But, uh, at the end of that three months, of course, COVID hit, so I had quite a bit of time to think. I wanted to get into something on the technology side, and at the same time, you know, my daughter had her first child, my second grandchild, and she has always been interested in, In eating healthy and meal planning, and I was studying about a I, which was blowing up at the time, and I saw on some days how she was usually pretty stressed about all the meal prep and planning for the week, making sure everyone was eating healthy.
And I thought that, you know, AI. People like Elon Musk are using A.I. to drive cars. And I thought, those are difficult problems, but I think meal planning should be an easy application of A.I. So, I started working on A.I. and really thought that there was an application for that in healthy eating.
And so, I jumped in it with both feet.
Brian Thomas: That’s amazing. I love that. And you know, some people sometimes do a complete 180 shift in their career, or in your case, you want to take some time away from the energy business and jump into something that’s probably more meaningful, maybe closer to home. And I know you’re inspired by your daughter and your grandchildren.
So I love the story, really do. And I like how you jumped into the AI, moving your focus, uh, and your experience into something new and exciting. So thank you. And Mark, what common challenges do families face with meal planning and how does a better meal aim to alleviate these issues?
Mark Semmelbeck: You know, Brian, the number one issue I think with meal planning and healthy eating is time.
And while time I don’t think is the real enemy. I think the enemy is actually not being confident in the kitchen, not being confident in picking what to eat. And because of that, meal planning, meal prepping, coming up with recipes ends up taking a backseat because there are so many things busy families have to deal with.
And so then it comes often comes to, you know, we’ve got soccer practice, we’ve got After school programs. We’ve got little kids. We’ve got to take care of and the whole meal planning thing slides and then you come to the end of the day and I don’t have anything prepared. Let’s order out. Let’s go out or Let’s eat what we can find.
And so, really, a Better Meals goal is to both help you prepare for what you’re going to eat during the week and provide education that makes going to the kitchen enjoyable, maybe even fun. So, we want to have better meals. Good recipes. We have the ability to import recipes that you might find on say Instagram or on the web and bring them in and save them and create a grocery list and provide educational videos within the app to make you comfortable both preparing what you’re going to eat and actually preparing the food itself.
Brian Thomas: Thank you, Mark. I appreciate that. And we’re all busy. You and I both busy executives. We get this sometimes food is an afterthought. And, uh, and then when we get hungry, we decided, well, let’s get the quick fix. I don’t have time to prep something. I think this is so important. And I do appreciate you sharing that and trying to make the world a better place, a more healthy place.
That’s just amazing. I really appreciate your investment in this app and how to, you know, Get people moving in that right direction and mark. How does a better meal utilize AI technology to provide personalized meal plans and recipes for its users?
Mark Semmelbeck: Yes, Brian, you know, it is amazing the applications for AI that we have discovered at a better meal.
One of the things may seem simple, but when you find a recipe Say in Pinterest or Instagram, a lot of times it’s a picture, right? And it may even be difficult to save that so that you can get back to it a week later or two weeks later. One of the things that we really wanted to do in A Better Meal Is to be able to capture those recipes and save them.
And create a grocery list to show the macros and the micronutrients that are in that meal. So that you can plan a balanced meal for your family. So one of the things that we use AI for is to capture the information in a Pinterest post or on Facebook. And turn that into data that you store in your database.
On the app within the app so that you have that information. You have the steps. You have the ingredients. You can create a grocery list. You can put it in your plan. We use it in one of the things we’re working on now is being able to. Have a clean eating scale, so that when you’re looking at recipes, we are going to provide a scale of, say, one to five stars of how it rates in clean eating.
We use it also in modifying recipes, so that the recipe would use more clean foods, more whole food eating. So, take good recipes, and, uh, Create recommendations for those recipes that also satisfy. Maybe I need a gluten free option, or I have a certain allergy, such as peanut allergies, and I need an alternative to a peanut sauce.
So we’re using AI in really Every step of bringing a recipe, creating a modified recipe that is more healthier, more clean eating, so use it in almost every step in the meal planning and recipe curation process.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. That’s awesome. And what’s cool is you can personalize it right for the person that’s using the app.
But I like the fact that you are utilizing AI machine learning to help craft and curate, as you mentioned, a personalized meal prep or, you know, set of meals for the week for that individual or family. So I appreciate that. I love the tech that is infused in this stuff, making things better for everybody.
And Mark, last question of the day, what new features or expansions can users anticipate from a better meal in the near future?
Mark Semmelbeck: Right, Brian. So we are in the middle of implementing a completely new interface. We have been working on the implementation of the AI and what I call the back end. We’ve been constantly improving the recipes that we provide in the app, providing this ability to customize, to curate meal plans for users, and now we are moving into a new design.
That will allow the implementation of a lot of these videos, anything from short 20 second videos on how to dice to how to do different cooking techniques. We are at this point, we’re in the middle of creating this new content constantly never ending job and the new interface will really allow users to.
Enjoy both creating the meal plans, searching for recipes, filtering for recipes, going online to search for recipes, and bringing that information into your own personal recipe box, you could say. So that will be coming out in the spring.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. I really appreciate that. Again, we talk about apps and different technologies on this podcast, but there’s always a little nugget or little gem that we extrapolate from the conversation, and this is certainly one of those, how we’re improving people’s lives through health, through some of the latest technology that’s being leveraged out there, and that is AI.
So, Mark, I appreciate that. Mark, it was certainly a pleasure having you on today, and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Mark Semmelbeck: Thanks for having me, Brian.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Mark Semmelbeck Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s Podcast Page.
