Category Archives: food entrepreneurs

Apr 29 2013
Leave a comment
food entrepreneurs, food startups, growth, investment, venture capital

VCs Love Tech – And They’re Loving Food

Photo credit: Bryce Vickmark for The New York Times

Photo credit: Bryce Vickmark for The New York Times

Happy Tuesday! The New York Times published an article highlighting the growing trend of VC capital flowing into innovative food startups.

An excerpt from the article sums up the attraction VCs have for food:

“Part of the reason you’re seeing all these V.C.’s get interested in this is the food industry is not only is it massive, but like the energy industry, it is terribly broken in terms of its impact on the environment, health, animals,” said Josh Tetrick, founder and chief executive of Hampton Creek Foods, a start-up making egg alternatives.

And by the numbers: last year, VCs invested $350 million in food projects, which marked an 37% increase from the year before. Even though the $350 million is a small proportion of the total VCs invest, the growth rate is remarkable.

There are still a doubts VCs have about food startups, and it’s intriguing to see they are grappling with some of the same issues we are trying to explore in our meetup group!

Check out the full article here.

Advertisement
Apr 09 2013
Leave a comment
business models, food entrepreneurs, food startups, lean startup, meetup

Lean Food Startup NYC Meetup 1 Wrap

LFS NYC Meetup 1 (1)

Thanks to those of you who came for the first installment of Lean Food Startup NYC meetup!

Tonight, we covered the context of lean startup, basic underlying principles, explored the concept of startups as a series of untested hypotheses, and posed the question of whether or not lean startup practices can be applied to food.

We also took some time as a group to go over the Business Model Canvas, which is a variant of the Lean Canvas. You can view a quick video about it here.

We used Seamless.com as a case study, and the results are logged in the slides which you can download here: LFS NYC Meetup 1 Slides – PDF

Lastly, we wrapped up with some discussion about how we could best structure future meetups, and a call to action for people to read up about lean startup, and try to put some practices to use in their own food startups. Try to do a business model canvas on your own, and if you like, share your results. We also proposed different ways we could make use of the meetup discussion board as well as this blog. If you have ideas/content you’d like to discuss, or post, let us know.

Till next time!
Lean Food Startup Team