Nickhil Arora interview: How He Went From College Test to Conscious Food Business

 

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Nikhil and Alejandro were buddies in college when they heard from a professor that you can actually grow mushrooms from coffee grounds. That’s right, producing food from waste.

In a college class, co-founders Nikhil and Alejandro learned mushrooms could grow entirely on spent coffee grounds. After watching hours of how-to videos and turning their fraternity kitchen into a big science experiment, they eventually decided to give up their corporate job offers to instead become full-time mushroom farmers. What started as curiosity about urban farming has turned into a passion to Undo Food™ and reconnect families back to where it comes from through fun and delicious ready to grow and ready to eat products.

They believe the underlying trust, transparency, and consciousness shouldn’t change from the produce aisle to the grocery aisle, or form ready to grow to ready to eat. We believe in a future where all food comes from the kitchen, not a lab; and where R&D teams aren’t biochemists, but our grandparents.

We touch on topics like:

  • What led them to test this idea?
  • When did it become a serious business?
  • What initial steps were taken to get started?
  • How one partnership can change the game and why.
  • What did people care about most – the what or the how?
  • How they scaled their business.
  • What was required to create consumer packaged goods for expanding?
  • How they figured out their audience – where they started and where they ended up.
  • What 3 elements they focus on for success.
  • How they financed their inventory.
  • Nikhil’s thoughts on bootstrapping and the importance of your “why”

And of course tons more!

Resources:

http://www.bttrventures.com/

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