Gabi Lewis is the co-founder and co-CEO of Magic Spoon. He describes how the healthy cereal startup structured equity incentives for influencer and celebrity investors to drive frequent promotional coverage.
Opinion
Lewis: Legacy cereal brands are declining because they ignore modern consumer demands
“So the cereal category is, Is enormous, about eleven billion dollars, and it's been declining slightly, and people would actually say that to us as a reason for why we shouldn't go into that category, and we said to them, hey, why has nobody created a cereal, …”
Insight
Lewis: Novel foods mainstream when hidden in familiar formats like California rolls
“There's a long history of foods that at one point were viewed as bizarre in the U S you could look at sushi, for example, which 50 years ago, eating raw fish was a little bit strange to most Americans, and the way it became popularized was that a chef in LA cr…”
Insight
Lewis: Kickstarter excels at generating press and concept validation over capital
“Yeah, in hindsight, Kickstarter probably wasn't the easiest way to raise money, but it was an amazing way to get attention and get press and prove the concept.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lewis: Early investors told Magic Spoon founders to avoid the word 'cereal'
“You know, some investors we spoke to were so anti the idea. They actually said to us, okay, you can do this, but don't use the word cereal. That's a dirty word. You've got to call it clusters or rebrand cereal somehow.”
Insight
Lewis: Impractical cardboard cereal boxes beat resealable pouches by evoking childhood nostalgia
“When you think about it, a cardboard cereal box that doesn't reseal at the top is actually not the most practical packaging to use. A stand-up pouch that you can reseal from a purely practical perspective Perhaps makes more sense, but that doesn't create the s…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lewis: Half of Magic Spoon's 2022 funding provided liquidity for early investors
“It's also worth mentioning that we've raised a little over a hundred million, but the most recent round, which was about a year and a half ago, about half of that round went to some early investors to give them liquidity.”