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Assembling Blue Apron: Matthew Salzberg

Every day, people have to plan what to eat for the week. Some may enjoy meal planning, but most find it tedious. People must consider daily activities and food variety, and then shop for the ingredients. When Matthew Salzberg and his friends created Blue Apron, they provided an opportunity for people to skip the tedious task.

Matthew Salzberg and his friend Illia Papas knew they wanted to start their own business. In 2011, Salzberg quit his job at his investment firm associated with Silicon Valley while Papas quit his software engineering job. They raised seed money with the help of friends and family. After exploring a few ideas, Salzberg and his partner settled on the food industry.

The founders loved cooking but found it to be time-consuming to find reliable recipes and ingredients. They wanted to make cooking more accessible, but they lacked the connections in the food industry to realize their dreams. Matthew Wadiak, a family friend, soon remedied their problem.

The company shipped its first Blue Apron box in August 2012. The box contained exact measurements of farm-fresh ingredients and detailed recipe sheets. With word of mouth and social media marketing, Blue Apron quickly grew. By 2015 the company ships over 5 million boxes a month.

2015, however, also brought a wave of challenges. Bad publicity caused them to lose investors. Competitors like HelloFresh also began taking customers. Blue Apron experienced massive layoffs and closed a warehouse to battle the investment troubles. The 2020 pandemic saved the business by providing more customers. Blue Apron acknowledges the pandemic numbers were an anomaly. To retain customers the company focuses on innovative recipes and marketing.

Matthew Salzberg noticed the inaccessibility of cooking and wanted to fix the problem. Though the company has suffered since launching, Blue Apron retains customers because of its innovative recipes. Matthew Salzberg credits the company’s ability to launch to the multi-disciplined founding team.

“We were very deliberate in assembling a team that we thought was complementary and would work well together … It allowed us to divide and conquer a lot more easily in the early stages and have access to different networks and access to different information.”

Read more at Blue Apron Founder Story SAI 100 (businessinsider.com)

Or The History Of Blue Apron: How They Became One Of The Most Popular Meal Kits | Food Box HQ

Tilak Mehta’s Success Story

One day, Tilak Mehta accidentally left his school books at his uncle’s house and couldn’t get them back with same-day shipping. He had exams the next day and was frustrated with his predicament, but that sparked an idea. Introducing: Paper n’ parcels, a same-day book delivery service that operates within the city. With a little help from his father and collaboration with a local shipping provider, Tilak got his business up and running in 2018, and the profits starting rolling in! He continued to expand his business and by 2021, he transformed his business into a multimillion dollar success.

The resilience and creativity of a 13 year old boy from India shows that with a little effort and innovation, anyone can accomplish their entrepreneurial dreams. Tilak’s Story serves as an example and an inspiration to young entrepreneurs. He saw a need, and he found a new way to fill it. That is how to do good business.

The thing that makes me curious about this story is the business concept itself. Amazon had already reached India by the time of this business startup, so Tilak was facing a worthy competitor. I haven’t found much more information about this business either, which makes the whole thing much more interesting. I’m curios what you guys think though!

 

Sources:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/etimes/trending/meet-tilak-mehta-who-became-an-entrepreneur-at-13-and-now-owns-a-rs-100-crore-company/articleshow/102401504.cms?from=mdr

Gus Schoenbucher – Gus’s Eats & Treats

Gus Schoenbucher was 14 when his father gave him the idea to sell ice cream out of a boat. It was aluminum, and Gus’s father did the exact same thing 40 years prior. The reason Gus’s business took off but his father’s never did was because of a complaint about Gus not having a food service license. As Gus puts it:

” ‘You know what? I’ll go ahead and get a license,’ and now it’s an official business, and it’s all registered in my name.”

Since then, Gus expanded to selling hot dogs, red hot dogs (for visitors from Maine), chips, and soda. At some point, the manager of Krispy Kreme contacted Gus, so he sells donuts out of his boat too!

Considering that Gus’s business operates out of a single boat on Merrymeeting lake in New Durham, New Hampshire, business is pretty good. Gus drives the boat around the lake and delivers food to hungry customers, as well as transactions on the water. In no time, he upgraded from a dinghy boat to pontoon.

Gus operates his business on a seasonal basis because of school. Even though his business is a summer side hustle, it’s remarkable what cool things can be done with a good idea. Gus’s business is a fine example of kids rising to a challenge without being afraid of failure. Gus could have quit when someone complained about him not having a food service license. He could have chosen to be too lazy to go out and get a permit. He could have been afraid to get the license because he was just a kid and nobody was going to let a kid register a business. But Gus did not take no for an answer. He persevered when most kids his age would have given up, and how has a successful business. Making a successful business doesn’t drop into your lap; you can’t back down because of criticism or fear.

Zepto

Zepto is an Indian company founded by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra. Just like every student who graduated in 2020, they had looked forward to their graduation, but COVID-19 had other plans. Since Stanford had gone completely online, the two of them stayed in their respective homes in India and had a significant amount of time to just think. Grocery shopping, as I’m sure populations across the globe would agree, had become more difficult with the onset of rules that came with the pandemic. A lot of India’s grocery-store apps were lacking, providing neither speedy delivery or accurate deliveries, and the two realized that they could create something better. Zepto is an app that promises groceries that are delivered in 10 minutes or less. According to Forbes, “Today, their company, Zepto, which is just under two years old, delivers hundreds of thousands of orders per day; generates several hundred million dollars in annual revenue; and has raised over $360 million in funding from investors like YC Continuity, Contrary Capital, Glade Brook Capital Partners, and Lachy Groom, most recently a Series D that values the company at over $900 million.”

India is obviously a very dense and chaotic place which makes time extremely variable. The edge over other companies comes from the condensed time within the dark store, from packing to checkout. In the Forbes article they were able to interview Aadit who said, “On the software side, we built things like a navigation system for packers to find the most ideal path inside the dark store; a scanning system to give packers the ability to scan and automatically verify items; a color-coded system on riders’ devices so that they can match their orders faster during the handshake process between packer and rider instead of looking at an order ID.On the operational side, it comes down to the way we designed racks, chillers, freezers, and handover stations. Even the way we designed the SKU maps takes into account having the fastest-moving products near the exit. Everything is built for maximum speed efficiency.”

Similar to what we have discussed in class, the idea of a quick online grocery-shopping app already existed. The two simply took the structure that already existed and improved upon it. They took the time that many deemed unfortunate and transformed prior prototypes into something extremely profitable. Zepto will most likely be making billions of dollars in revenue within the next 1-5 years, according to Aadit. They started small, and now they are scaling their business 3-5x. It really makes one think and look around for the next thing that might need improved upon. This was something that was made necessary by the pandemic, and they filled that need. It’s as simple as that. 

 

Forbes article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenli1/2022/10/10/they-raised-360-million-after-dropping-out-of-stanford-and-built-a-grocery-delivery-app-now-worth-900-million/?sh=f7a4aae3e7d9

Zepto website: https://www.zeptonow.com/

 

Jacks Stands/ Hustl

Jack Bonneau was eight years old when his business began. Jack was a major fan of Legos and wanted to get a 400 dollar set. But, like most 8 year olds, he did not have the money to buy this. So his dad suggested that he should start a lemonade stand. Instead of a typical lemonade stand in front of his house, they decided to go to the local farmers market. This helped him to learn about working with the farmers market, insurance, building a lemonade stand, how much to charge, supplies, expenses and how to sell. He was very successful and after a few weeks he was able to buy his Lego set. Instead of being satisfied with his success, he wanted to show his business to his friends as well. They all had a good time and this lead to Jack seeing a real business opportunity. He wanted to help other kids who want to operate their own lemonade stand, but don’t have the time, commitment or money to operate one at a farmers market. To help the business grow, he decided to go on Shark Tank to pitch his idea. Jack appeared in Season 8, Episode 8 of Shark Tank, he struck a deal with billionaire investor Chris Sacca and became the youngest boy ever to pitch and make a deal on Shark Tank. After this, his business began to thrive, over 100 kids and their parents worked at Jack’s Stands (total of 4 stands) and they are adding two new stands at the Southwest Plaza Mall Holiday Marketplace for 7 weeks over the holidays. Jack continued to look for new ways to help his business expand, and the newest edition was a new startup company, Teen Hustl. This company would allow teenager’s to deliver meals on their bikes or skateboards. The main mission of this company was to give teenagers the same opportunity that he gave to younger kids.

Jack is inspirational because he always wanted to help others out. He found a way to make a profit for himself, and instead of just focusing on himself he wanted to first help out his friends then help out other children. He goes on to eventually want to help teenagers so that they have the same opportunity. Overall, Jack is a very caring and passionate entrepreneur.

Shark Tank Update: Jack's Stands & Marketplaces - Business 2 Community