Ep156- Personal Strength, Community, and Homegrown Veggies - Sam of Vinder
Release Date: 08/10/2017
The Food Startups Podcast
A discussion on mental health with our guests:
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Tom Spier is the Founder and Managing Partner of Boulder Food Group(BFG), a venture capital firm that seeks partnerships with early stage food and beverage consumer product companies. Tom previously co-founded EVOL Foods and was the COO of Bear Naked Granola. Under Tom’s management, both businesses were successfully sold to public companies. In this episode Tom talks about what BFG values in emerging partners and some of the ins and outs of how they operate.
info_outlineThe Food Startups Podcast
Tom Spier is the Founder and Managing Partner of Boulder Food Group(BFG), a venture capital firm that seeks partnerships with early stage food and beverage consumer product companies. Tom previously co-founded EVOL Foods and was the COO of Bear Naked Granola. Under Tom’s management, both businesses were successfully sold to public companies. In this episode Tom talks about what BFG values in emerging partners and some of the ins and outs of how they operate.
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Jessica Levison is the Founder and CEO of Pekaboo Ice Cream. In her search to get veggies into her three toddlers, this lawyer turned Ice Cream Confectionist started infusing vegetables in ice cream and ended up starting a successful ice cream brand called Peekaboo Ice Cream. In this episode, Jessica talks about how she managed to get the funding and exposure that brought Peekaboo Ice Cream to 1300 stores in just 8 months.
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This episode brings a co-hosted interview by yours truly, Hema Reddy, and Jeremy Smith. Guests on the show are Francisco Pavan, the Co-Founder of Kumana, a company that makes Avocado Sauces inspired by Venezuelan cuisine, and Eric Reid, from Marketbrand, a strategic branding & design firm.
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Kenneth Park is the founder and CEO of Detoxwater, an Aloe Vera water brand that started as a home remedy that his mom used for digestive problems and other illnesses. Detoxwater is now famously known to be an aloe drink offering the best of both worlds: great taste with health benefits.
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Mark Cohen is the founder and CEO of Kidfresh, a food brand that provides a line of better-for-you kids meals made with the same quality ingredients enjoyed by parents but for children.
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Mark Cohen is the founder and CEO of Kidfresh, a food brand that provides a line of better-for-you kids meals made with the same quality ingredients enjoyed by parents but for children.
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Katie Katie Jesionowski is Co-Founder of MySuperFoods, a company that makes superfoods for kids. With three product lines distributed nationally via natural food channels, traditional grocery, food service, schools and export as well as online, they are a snack brand on the rise.
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Sadie Scheffer is the founder and CEO of Bread Srsly, a wholesale sourdough bread company that wants to reunite gluten-free eaters with their beloved sourdough bread.
info_outlineSam Lillie is the founder/CEO of Vinder, a peer-to-peer marketplace for homegrown produce that connects home gardeners who hate seeing their excess veggies go to waste, with fellow community members looking to buy local produce. Sam graduated from San Jose State in 2015 then solo-hiked from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail (2,658 miles) which took 5 months to complete. While hiking, Sam faced extreme weather conditions from 105+ degree heat in the desert with 20-30 miles distances between water sources to snow storms and lightening storms.
After 3 months he figured he'd put his degree to good use and applied to 106 jobs across 4 states but only received one offer. He turned it down, moved to the small town of Port Townsend, Washington and launched Vinder. I am so excited about this startup and cannot wait to follow this over the years.
This episode talks about how developing personal strength can assist in startup perseverance and much more:
- Sam's 5 month journey on the Pacific Crest Trail
- Adapting to "real life" post hike
- How to deal with challenges that come your way
- Conceiving the idea and starting Vinder
- Creating the AirBnB of homegrown produce
- Pivoting an idea and winning the Silicon Valley business plan competition
- The viral coefficient for your startup
- Community building via Vinder
- Plans for expansion across the United Statse
- The disaster relief program