Episode 312: Ben McKean - Founder & CEO, Hungryroot

The VentureFizz Podcast

I don’t mind shopping for groceries but my problem is that I’m a creature of habit and I tend to purchase the same things over and over again. Plus, I am terrible about meal planning, so after doing a full shop there is still “nothing to eat.” I guess I’m not the only one. As Ben and I discuss, on average, consumers spend 2-3 hours a week grocery shopping. 75% of what we buy at the grocery store are the same items as the week before and 20-30% of what is purchased at the grocery store is thrown away and wasted. Terrible. So, what if you could have a service that cuts that shopping time down to 2-3 minutes a week, plans the meals for you, creates the list of ingredients that is only 10% of what you purchased the week before, and delivers it to your home! Sounds dreamy right… well, say hello to Hungryroot. Hungryroot is the only grocery and recipe delivery service designed to make healthy eating easy, personal, and sustainable. The company is profitable with revenues of $182M for the first six months of this year all while building a “relatively speaking” capital efficient business. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Ben’s background story and how entrepreneurship was part of his DNA from an early age including starting a company at 18 years old that was ultimately acquired. * The details about Savored which helped restaurants book empty tables using dynamic pricing which was acquired by Groupon. * The full story about Hungryroot which evolved from selling its own line of food products and how they pivoted to a grocery service and using AI at its core since 2019. * His lastest entrepreneurial side project called Every which is an app focused on enhancing human experiences and fostering deeper connections among individuals. * Advice on creating and scaling a consumer business. * And so much more. This week’s episode is sponsored by MarketMuse, a content intelligence platform that sets the standard for content quality. Their AI-powered software enables companies to create predictably better content at scale that increases traffic and engagement, improves productivity, and drives revenue. Get more out of your content with packages starting at $0/month, plus you can get 20% off the MarketMuse Standard plan by using our code "FIZZ20" at checkout. Go to marketmuse.com to get started!