The Ledger
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80% of first Kickstarter water pumps died within 30 days
“Our first pump was overheating in the unit because of the design constraints, and, you know, almost was like, 80% of the pumps, Alex, died within the first 30 days of the units going out on Kickstarter, and it was it literally put us out of business almost.”
Back to the Roots was first brand with ingredients on the front
“So on our cereal actually was the first identity preserve, like a hundred percent stone ground biodynamic cereal. I actually put the ingredients, first brand put the ingredients on the front of the box.”
Nikhil Arora: Immigrating is the ultimate form of entrepreneurship
“Even think about entrepreneurship, like, to me, immigrating is the ultimate form of that, of taking risk and sacrifice in search of something better”
Arora: Commercial Mushrooms Are Traditionally Cultivated on Cut Virgin Tree Logs
“Traditionally, mushrooms are grown on virgin trees being cut down for their logs, mainly overseas as a substrate to grow mushrooms.”
Alice Waters tasted and praised Back to the Roots' first mushroom batch
“He ends up plucking half, half of the mushrooms out of his bucket, And I remember he chops them up, sautes them up in the back of a restaurant, and she tries them, he tries them, we try them, and I remember Chef Alice Waters was like, man, these are delicious.”
Peet's Coffee paid Back to the Roots to collect their raw materials
“We ended up negotiating a rate that was a little bit cheaper than I think what they were paying waste management and so we really became valet waste collectors.”
Mushroom grow kits succeeded because of the experience, not the food
“The kits weren't about the mushrooms. They were about the experience of growing, and just seeing something grow, and growing something yourself.”
Jony Ive replied to founders' cold email and mentored them
“We actually, funny story guy, we ended up reading the Steve Jobs biography and were super inspired by their design principles and cold emailed Johnny Ive from Apple on a Sunday afternoon, and he actually got back to us in like five minutes. And We were able to…”
Arora: Back to the Roots generated $500k in aquaponics pre-orders
“We put a 100,000 dollar goal up for 30 days, and we ended up hitting 250,000 dollars of pre-orders on Kickstarter. And another two 50 can our website in the following 30 days after close. We had almost half a million dollars of pre-orders off of like a three m…”
Arora: Coffee Grounds Mimic Tree Cellulose for Growing Oyster Mushrooms
“The cellulose structure of coffee grounds mimics that of, you know a tree on which oyster mushrooms would traditionally grow.”
Back to the Roots raised over $100K in competitions and $25K Oakland grant
“We probably, what, got, Alex, a hundred-something thousand dollars from different winnings. The city of Oakland was incredible, and we ended, we moved from Emeryville to Oakland and got about a 25,000 dollar redevelopment grant from them to build out our, what…”
Back to the Roots outsourced mushroom kit manufacturing to Gourmet Mushrooms
“What we were doing in our warehouse in Oakland of collecting the substrate, the coffee grounds, mixing of the spawn, growing the kits, packaging them. We fast forward ended up now buy those from him as a supplier to us. So they're the ones incubating all of th…”