5 Food Startups We’re Psyched For (And Tips from Their CEOs)
The food world is experiencing an entrepreneurial turn — whether it’s in tech and social media apps (Tender, anyone?), delivery alternatives, or the next big line of cupcakes. And, like startup general culture, young people are at the helm.
Such a youthful, creative energy was evident at Spoon University’s Brainfood conference last weekend, which helped college students learn about and network within the food industry. (Spoon University — a network of college food websites — is another example of this trend — it was founded by two college students who saw an unmet need — quality food content for college kids.) In a panel called “Startup Nation,” the founders of five budding businesses shared their enterprising experiences.
All of these founders had some things in common. They didn’t all have MBAs or culinary degrees, but they persevered to make their food companies succeed. They all found creative solutions to problems like how to handle perishable, edible products, or how to make up big gaps in technology. The CEOs of an app called Push for Pizza, for example, cold-called about 400 local pizza shops to create partnerships and send most orders through (gasp!) fax machines.
Another thing they all shared: laser-sharp focus on social media. They suggested being dynamic, ballsy, and promoting as much as possible. “There’s a lot of competition in the market and you have to find a way to be different from what’s out there,” said Kristen Tomlan, founder of Dō.
The takeaway? Five new food startups to fall in love with and a cupboard’s worth of tips and inspiration for starting your own company.
Photo: Courtesy Pops by Haley
Pops by Haley. Founder: Haley Raphael
Imagine the ‘90s Flintstone ice cream push pops, but filled with cake. CEO Haley Raphael created this line of portable, mess-free sweets in November 2014, just a few months after she graduated Cum Laude from the University of Maryland in College Park. As a business major, she took a corporate job post-grad, but she soon left to run Pops full-time. The yummy flavors range from chocolate, vanilla, red velvet, s’mores, chocolate peanut butter, cookies and cream, and chocolate hazelnut. Pops by Haley often caters for corporate and charity events around Washington, D.C., where she’s based.
What she wishes she knew when she started:
“I wish I would have known how crucial it is to balance so many different responsibilities so quickly. From the start, I had to be the baker, the delivery girl, the website designer, the graphic designer, etc., before having the budget to be able to hire. Even with some help now, I still do most of these tasks myself. Essentially, building a business is the most time-consuming, challenging, stressful thing a person can do. It’s also the most rewarding.”
On not having a culinary background:
“At the end of the day, the culinary aspect is only one part of the business. Obviously having a tasty product is crucial, but it’s how you market and brand yourself to get your product to the people that keeps them coming back and wanting more.”
On taking risks in creating your own business:
“Why not try? What’s the fail in trying?”
Photo: Courtesy Dō.
Dō. Founder: Kristen Tomlan
The best part about making cookies is not baking them — it’s eating the raw cookie dough. St. Louis-native Kristen Tomlan is a true believer in that. So she created a confectionary that offers dough by the tub for you to eat as-is. It’s made with an egg substitute so don’t need to worry about salmonella poisoning. And that means it’s safe for pregnant women. But you don’t have to have it plain; you can bake it, add toppings like it’s a frozen yogurt, or use it as a topping for ice cream. The idea of eating a tub of dough sounds unhealthy, but Tomlan smartly created gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegan options — so there really is no good excuse to not try it. Dō offers free pickup from the Manhattan office. Otherwise it costs between $15 and $30 for overnight delivery.
What she wishes she knew when she started:
“To be honest, I feel like everything, even if it was a little bit of a setback, you learn so much from it. And if I had to tell myself anything, looking back I would probably say go with your gut and just trust your instincts.”
On not having a business or culinary background:
“So my degree technically is interior design but I grew up in the kitchen alongside my mom. So I’m not classically trained but that’s the nice thing about food, is that you have the ability to do something that even without being classically trained, it’s a skill that you can learn.”
On creating a brand:
“When you’re building a brand you have to think of things holistically. And imagine that the brand is a person.”
On creating a large-scale recipe:
“Baking as a hobby is very different than baking as a business you’re down to the tenth of a cent. You have to make sure that what you’re doing is actually working.”
Photo: Courtesy PareUp
PareUp. Founder: Margaret Tung
A Yale alum who studied history, Tung turned down a high-paying job to work in a chocolate business. She explored four different jobs within five years of graduating, but she finally started her own ethical food company with a friend after realizing how much food was being wasted in restaurants and groceries. Up to $40 billion worth of food that’s still non-expired and perfectly good to eat is thrown out every year. PareUp lets you buy those foods at a discounted price, which means cheaper groceries for customers and extra income for companies. For now, participating retailers are only in New York City, but Tung hopes to expand to dozens more in the next year.
What she wishes she knew when she started:
“I think the thing that would’ve actually really have helped me was to outline what our key objectives [were] every quarter or every month break it down by work-stream so that we could figure out how our actual responsibilities or actions could then ladder up to our goal.”
On not having a business or culinary background:
“The first job that I had, I picked it because I knew that even if I wasn’t getting paid very much, I would have a lot of responsibility, and I would learn everything about building a small food brand. I managed the supply chain, sourcing, sales, did in-store demos, and worked on packaging, among other things. I also ran our accounting so I knew what money was coming in, what was going out and how to run a food company.”
On proving yourself to investors:
“If they’re going to give you money they want to make sure that you’re going to make the most of it and if you show that you can do very much with very little, they can safely assume that pattern will continue.”
On food waste:
“$165 million worth of food is being thrown out from farm to fork — why isn’t anyone doing anything about it?”
Photo: Jean Schwarzwalder / FreshDirect.com
Wandering Bear Coffee Company. Founders: Matt Bachmann and Ben Gordon
What’s the difference between cold brew and iced coffee? Whereas most iced coffee is just regularly hot-brewed coffee submerged in ice, cold brew never touches heat, Matt Bachmann explained at Brainfood. Wandering Bear is made in the Queens borough of New York City by soaking roasted Arabica beans in filtered water for up to 18 hours. You can find it in stores, on FreshDirect.com, or have it delivered to your office in its box-and-tap packaging. (Think boxed wine, but with coffee.) One order can last you up to a month, but you’ll probably finish it before then because it’s just that good. Bachmann and Gordon started out as management consultants and started their company while they were in business school. The pair is so hands-on in their creative process that they even designed the machines they first used to make the coffee.
What they wish they knew when they started:
“Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do something. There’s so much to focus on when starting a business and I believe entrepreneurs have a dual tendency to want to know every part of their business (which is good) and overestimate their abilities (given a set amount of time). It’s important to focus on those activities that you, and only you, are capable of executing.”
On having a business background:
“Just being in school provided a great opportunity to already be out of the workforce and taking a break to really do something a little bit different. But the way that we think about our business, it’s impossible to say that it hasn’t been affected just by some of the structure.”
On creating the perfect coffee formula:
“There are recipe scientists and food scientists who will work with you.
Start making phone calls they and find someone to work with you to start making recipes.”
Photo: Courtesy of Push for Pizza
Push for Pizza. Founders: Cyrus Summerlin and Max Hellerstein
This app completely simplifies to the pizza-ordering process to the push of one button. Enter your payment and contact information the first time you order so you won’t have to waste time putting it in every time you’re hungry. Choose from five toppings from a participating local pizzeria, and then get it delivered. That’s it. If this sounds like the college kid’s dream come true, that’s probably because it is. Twenty-year-olds Max and Cyrus aren’t enrolled in college, but that doesn’t stop them from knowing their audience. Recently, they added the option of buying rolling papers with your orders, though what you roll with is up to you. Even at a young age, they’ve already had some startup experience — the duo, who have been friends since the sixth grade, created a fashion app together in high school, which they sold senior year for an undisclosed amount.
What they wish they knew when they started:
Cyrus: “I wish we knew how many people would use the app when we first launched. We kind of have a better project than when we first launched, it was kind of in a beta state, but then, you know, within a matter of two weeks, 40,000 people downloaded it and that solidified that people like Push for Pizza, but Push for Pizza was not as good as it could’ve been for that amount of people.”
On not having prior culinary skills:
Cyrus: “Well Max and I didn’t have any culinary business skills, but we did have branding skills, like with the clothing stuff. It really taught us how to kind of, not necessarily make stuff that we like, but we think other people would like.”
On not going to college:
Max: “College is one of those things where it’s like if you want to be a dentist, or a lawyer you’re going to have to go to college to learn something very technical like that. But if you want to be an entrepreneur and do your own thing, that’s real-world experience you can’t get that in a classroom.”
On selling rolling papers on the app:
Cyrus: “We’re not shying away from what kids our age like. That’s something Domino’s can’t do"
A non-cliché piece of advice:
Max: “Just f***ing do it.”
Get to know other foodie entrepreneurs:
Meet the Young Startup Founders Taking the Food Industry by Storm
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