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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Listen to the Intro
Cooking Up a Business summary
Rachel Hofstetter
Lessons from Food Lovers Who Turned Their Passion into a Career and How You Can, Too
14 mins
What is Cooking Up a Business about?
Cooking Up a Business (2013) is essential motivational reading for any foodie-turned-entrepreneur. Whether you’re testing the waters with a new product or looking to revitalize your company strategy, these blinks offer you guidance combined with real-life stories from leading entrepreneurs.
Table of Contents
Cooking Up a Business
summarized in 6 key ideas
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Key idea 1 of 6
Lack of funding isn’t a limitation but an opportunity; work hard and get resourceful!
You’re constantly told, whether by inspirational books or close friends, to chase your dreams no matter what. But what if you want to start a food business and you’re short on cash?
Lacking funding isn’t a dead end. Rather, it’s an opportunity to put your creativity and resourcefulness to the test.
Take Maddy D’Amato and Alex Hasulak, founders of Love Grown Foods. While still in college, they cooked up the idea of building a food business using Maddy’s family’s delicious family recipes for granola. Of course being students, they didn’t have much in the way of financing.
By day, the two young people lived at their parents’ homes and worked hard at their regular jobs. But by night, for hours they cooked and hand-packaged batches of granola in a catering kitchen, watching movies at the same time to keep them going.
This initial phase was tough, but fun! D’Amato and Hasulak proved that with hard work, they could start their business with very little start-up cash.
As well as working with limited resources, you should also feel comfortable with selling your product before you actually make it. This sounds risky, but will help you avoid unnecessary spending.
The first clients for Love Grown Foods were two neighborhood coffee shops. A great place to start, yet D’Amato and Hasulak had bigger dreams. Hasulak soon managed to close a huge deal with the Aspen City Market. They were worried as they had yet to produce such a large amount of granola – but with many long hours, they made their deadline.
Then D’Amato and Hasulak landed a deal with King Soopers, a supermarket in Denver that brought their product to 40 stores. Quickly the chain wanted to sell their product in 80 stores!
With this, D’Amato and Hasulak realized they could start working on Love Grown Foods full-time. In an impressive example of scaling, Love Grown Foods was stocked in 1,300 stores a mere 18 months after the duo’s first supermarket deal!
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Best quote from Cooking Up a Business
In short, I realized that selling fresh food wholesale is about the most difficult path you can take in the food world.
—Rachel Hofstetter
Who should read Cooking Up a Business?
- Aspiring food entrepreneurs
- Creatives seeking tips for scaling and marketing new products
- Anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes drama of food start-ups
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