The Ledger
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Design food products to fit existing co-manufacturer equipment, Smith advises
“How do you lean into what naturally contract manufacturers want to do? And so what products naturally come out of that? So you're not trying to get them to do something that's too weird or too hard for their model.”
Dry blending is easier to co-manufacture than alternative baking, says Smith
“Finding a manufacturer who's willing to blend together flowers is a lot easier than finding a manufacturer who's willing to make a cracker out of an alternative ingredient. And so it's kind of starting at a place that's a little bit easier and then moving to t…”
Smith: Health food must taste good unconditionally, not just 'good for gluten-free'
“So it couldn't just be this product that tasted good for fill-in-the-blank, good for paleo, good for gluten-free, and needed to be something that tasted good. Good. Full stop.”
Smith: Restrictive Diet Pitching Scares Consumers Away Over Taste Fears
“And when you talk about all those things, it scares people off. Like, people think it's not gonna taste good.”
Katlin Smith: Student founders fail by trying to do everything well
“I watch a lot of other students who try to start companies while they're in business school not succeed, and I think part of it is they try to do everything well, and you just kind of have to choose at some point and say, this is going to be my number one”
Smith: Sponsoring consulting externs gives startups affordable high-caliber talent
“It's someone who works for a consulting firm, but gets sponsored by the consulting firm to leave for six months. And so it's a really affordable way to get great talent.”
Smith: Big food brands avoid eliminating natural flavors due to margin impact
“We make a lot of decisions that large food companies wouldn't. Like you take, for example, Natural flavors. Like, we don't use natural flavors, and it kills our margins in places. That's a decision that it's hard to make for a large food company because they d…”
Smith: Inexperience in baking enabled unconventional grain-free product development
“Actually, it played to my advantage because I came in with just a complete naive view on how you bake something, and so I would just put these things together and see if they worked versus saying, you can't make a baked good out of almonds.”