The founders of Chirps have a unique story that follows a common model for groups forming to innovate. The entrepreneurs of Chirps all have a shared experience. To understand this experience, you have to understand what Chirps are. Chirps were initially chips but have spread to cookies and protein powder. All of these are made with powdered crickets. These have three times more protein and 40% less fat than a tortilla chip.
Now when I say all of the entrepreneurs had a shared experience of eating a bug, it makes a lot more sense. Chirps describes their story as, “in 2013 three college friends ate bugs at the same time on opposite sides of the planet.” That is a great way to get people to say “what???” It is an interesting story—it includes the “weird factor” that makes people interested and a common value like friendship. How the story goes is that, while studying abroad, someone ate a caterpillar in Tanzania, another a scorpion in China, and the last had worms in New York. The students returned to their home together and shared their experiences and collaboratively created a hunch.
Their hunch took off and they made a deal with Mark Cuban on Shark Tank. The founders also made it into Forbes’ 2016 30 under 30.
Chirps Chips is interesting as the chip industry has recently become dormant with no good or new innovative flavors or ideas. But Chirps Chips has created a new market completely by being the first protein chip company that I know of. This potential to lead to enormous profits for the company.
I think this is a really cool example of how following your hunches leads you to innovation and success. The students from different locations shared their hunches with each other and collided them, which ideally created Chirps Chips. Also, it is pretty cool how they made it onto shark tank and struck up a deal with Mark Cuban.
This is such an interesting product concept! Although crazy snacks such as seasoned crickets and other “delectable” insects have surged in popularity in the recent years, Chirps takes things to another level! Given the nutritional information, these certainly sound like they’re worth trying!
I am a little curious about the how this project came about though. Perhaps it would have been beneficial to include a little more information about the startup? I definitely want to research and learn about this though!