Food Chained

KEY TAKEAWAYS

2:17 – Figure out your goals
Damien knew at an early age that he didn’t want a typical 9-to-5 job. He realized that because he was put into a situation where he had to think and decide things for himself.

“When I was 15 my parents sent me to Canada to live by myself. So the whole plan was for me to go to Canada, finish high school, go to college, and then get a job. So that was my parents’ plan for me. And that all got screwed up I think for them when they sent me here when I was 15, because when you send a 15 year old abroad, shit happens. You know what I mean? When you live by yourself, at such a young age, at least for me, you're more independent, and you can think for yourself more. And I think during the 15- and 18-years-old period for me is when I really decided what I wanted and what I didn't want. And I knew what I didn't want was to get a nine-to-five, get a job. And so it was really, figure some shit out for myself or nothing. So I guess putting myself in a situation where my back is against the wall, and I think when people do that, cool things can happen. And that certainly happened for me.”

3:53 – CPG is a tough business
With CPG, you have to think about repeat purchases, customer relations, and many other things. It isn’t an easy business.

“Food and beverage is tough. Margins are tough. Just the whole business model is tough, because for my first business, it was an Amazon business. So we just sold yoga products online, and that was a completely different mindset and model to how you actually approach CPG. CPG is all about repeat purchases, customer relations, all that. But you don't really worry about that. I mean, you do, but not to the extent of CPG for other categories, you know what I mean? So as a first time food founder, it's definitely taught me a lot in how to run a food company and all the different scrappy ways you have to do it, especially if you're a bootstrapped company as well.”

5:45 – Pick your ideas carefully
When Damien decided to start another company, he had three criteria: Will I be passionate about this long-term? Is it a problem I experience? Is it a problem other people experience?

“After a year of running my first company, I sat down and really thought to myself, ‘Hey, what do I really want to do for the next five years?’ So when I was brainstorming my next thing I really had three criterias that it really had to meet. So one was, is it something that I truly care about, passionate about, and can see myself doing it for the next five years? Is it a problem that I experience? Is it a problem that a lot of people experience? So for the next two months, I was just racking my brain thinking about what I wanted to do. Picking your ideas is a lot like dating, you can't really force it. It just has to come naturally, and those are the best interactions.”

6:32 – Solving late-night snacking
Many people crave unhealthy foods late at night, so Damien decided to start a company that offered healthy alternatives to people’s favorite snacks.

“If you're like me, late-night snacking is literally your worst enemy. No matter how healthy I eat throughout the day, I would always crave the most unhealthy foods at night. So my girlfriend has this huge sweet tooth at night. I have a huge sweet tooth at night. We like watching some Netflix when we chill out. So we love having cookies, but I would always feel bad about eating at night or worried it might ruin my sleep. So I tried a bunch of healthier alternative snacks. And what I mean is healthy snacks, like Greek yogurt or almonds or bananas, and those didn't scratch the itch at all. So that gave me the idea, why is no one talking about the importance about late-night snacking? Because I think it's one of the best meals a day. You get to unwind, chill out, have your favorite treat. Late-night snacking has a really bad rep, and I just got the idea to change it. Re-imagine the most popular late-night junk foods into better-for-you options with functional ingredients. Second, actually help you sleep better instead of ruin your sleep. And so cookies, my favorite treat, cookies are one of the biggest categories in grocery. So I really wanted to make a healthier cookie, soft baked, low sugar, low carb, and put in functional ingredients that could help you relax and sleep better.”

7:55 – The benefits of super foods
Eighty percent of Americans are magnesium deficient, so adding magnesium to a healthy late-night snack was a natural step.

“I actually take magnesium myself. Before I took it I wasn't sleeping too good. And so I noticed the effects of taking magnesium, how it actually benefits your sleep, and almonds—a lot of people don't know this, but almonds actually have one of the highest amounts of magnesium in food. That's actually the first ingredient in our recipe. And 80 percent of Americans are magnesium deficient, and magnesium is literally one of the most important minerals we can have, so we wanted to put in these super foods into our recipe.”

11:25 – Utilize organic marketing
TikTok is a great place to create organic content. If your video goes viral, you can reach a massive audience in a very short window.

“The first video I posted was a founder story. Why I dropped out of college to make cookies. And that video went viral, I think it has almost 900,000 views now. And that one single video helped us drive 6,000 waiting list subscribers, which is insane. In two and a half weeks we got 6,000 people. So yeah, that was about January-ish, January 7th or something. So we had 6,000 people, and I'm like, ‘Okay, this is awesome. We have 6,000 people. What do we do next?’ And I saw somewhere that the longer you keep someone on a waiting list, the more likely they are to churn. So I was like, ‘Okay, let's test this list out, see what we can do with it.’ So we launched pre-orders on January 27th. So far we've sold about 1400 units in pre-orders, which is pretty nice. So yeah, TikTok has been a big role, and what we're doing right now, we're basically putting all of our focus into TikTok. We run no paid ads. So everything we're doing right now is organic. And I just don't think people understand how powerful it is. This is like 2012 Instagram. The organic reach is insane. And so I think any small business listening or watching this should get on TikTok and share their story.”

13:57 – Use founder-led storytelling
Creator-led companies lead with value, which is why founder-led storytelling might just be the wave of the future.

“I'm really bullish on creator-led companies. And what I mean, is the reason why a lot of creator companies are doing so well is because first they lead with value. And in terms of that, you get trust from the audience. So imagine the MrBeast’s of the world, the Logan Paul's, the NALCS, they all have huge ass brands, but that all started with just creating content and building trust. And I think moving forward, especially with all the rising ad costs and all that, storytelling with founder-led storytelling is going to be the new wave of how brands are being built.”

19:24 – Filling the gap
Damien found that no other companies were really talking about late-night snacking, so he decided to fill the gap in the market.

“There's no company out there that's talking about late-night snacking, there's companies talking about midday snacking or breakfast or lunch, dinner, but no one's really focusing on nighttime snacking, which is where most people mess up. Willpower's low. We crave the most unhealthy things at night. And like I said, late-night snacking has a bad rep, and we just really want to change that. So if you look at the most popular late night junk foods in America, number one is cookies, ice cream, chips, and all these savory snacks. So what we really want to do is, we started off with cookies, but the bigger vision is to reimagine all the most popular late-night junk food, and just really change the way we think about eating at night. And I think you can just have your favorite treat without it messing up your sleep or feeling bad about yourself.”

25:17 – Stay hands-on
CEOs of small startups have to wear many hats. They need to be able to keep the big picture in mind while staying hands-on to keep the company moving forward one step at a time.

“I put my personal phone number on our website and our emails. So if anyone calls me, one funny story, I was actually on the toilet one time and a customer calls me like, ‘Where's my order?’ So I was like, ‘Can you give me five minutes, I’m on the toilet?’ And his name was Alex, actually the customer, and he was like, ‘Oh, my bad. I'm sorry.’ And then it was just a funny joke all along. So that built a good relationship with one of the customers. I think, especially as a startup, you can't really be thinking of how to go from 1 to 10. Obviously that's important, the bigger picture. But I think as a bootstrapped startup CEO founder who's wearing multiple hats, you have to focus on how to go from 1 to 2. And every customer counts, because that one customer can tell five of their friends, and that's when you get five customers. So just really going deep and doing things that don't really scale in the beginning is the mindset we’re approaching with how to build this company.”

28:12 – Create a great product
If your business is based on a truly great product, customer service, content, reviews, and ads will all be easier to create.

“There's actually one more thing I want to touch on. It's making just a good product. I think that's also something that's sometimes overlooked, especially in the world of paid ads and all that. Just create a great product, something that you really care about, something you personally use. And I think creating a great product just makes every single thing easier. Customer service, content, reviews, ads, whatever it is, just creating something awesome that makes a difference in your customer's lives. And I think for us, the way we're looking at future product developments, it's like, what can we take that people love, people are super familiar with, so is it Doritos? Is it Oreos? So looking at it from a big picture and can relate to something people can be familiar with, and so that makes our job a lot easier, because everyone knows what an Oreo tastes like. So if we tell them it's a healthy Oreo, then that's an easy sell, you know what I mean? So just looking at those factors as well when deciding what you want to do next.”