Zesty: DoorDash's AI restaurant discovery app
Funded by DoorDash co-founder Andy Fang. I helped build Zesty from concept to launch, working across brand, product, UI systems, and 100+ production PRs alongside engineers. Special thanks to Elisha Ong, who kept raising the bar and made it easy to care about the craft.
Scope
2025 to 2026. Built an AI-native restaurant discovery app from scratch with a small team.
My role
- Defined the core AI discovery UX
- Shipped production code with engineers
- Led brand and App Store launch
Impact
- Shifted DoorDash design culture
- Integrated semantic search into DoorDash core app
Early on I kept prototyping by hand until the flows felt right.
Later on, I started shipping code for Zesty.
From one-line styling fixes to key screens, flows, and features.
Behind the scenes and learnings
December 2025: Zesty 1.0 shipped on the App Store. Press, social, and store placement landed the same week, and we watched early searches and signups roll in next to DoorDash.
Zesty 1.0 Launch
For 2.0 I refreshed the app look in about a week: type, spacing, and motion so the product felt more intentional.
Zesty 2.0 Launch
Zesty now sits inside the DoorDash app next to ordering and reservations.
When we turned off the standalone app, early users could export their data if they wanted it.
All of us have transformed into the builder archetype.
We came from different backgrounds but shipped the same way: try fast, show the work, own what we shipped.
More work
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