Ep. 088 – How to Crowdfund your Food Startup (from a Food Crowdfunding Startup) with Cheryl Clements, CEO and Founder of Pieshell

If you want to know ALL ABOUT CROWDFUNDING, you must listen to this episode.

Let me introduce you to Cheryl Clements, one of the most delightful people I’ve ever interviewed. She owns the startup, Pie Shell, which helps food startups raise capital using crowdfunding.

What makes Pieshell a unique crowdfunding platform is that it is super focused on food. All they fund is food companies but more importantly, they help food companies prepare to get ready for the crowdfunding journey.

So this episode is jam packed with so many tips on how to name a company, how to ask for help, and how to most importantly, raise money to achieve your dream.

Pieshell is currently in a crowdfunding stage itself and here’s how you can be part of the pie.

How to invest into the early stages of Pieshell. All you have to do is go to https://www.seedinvest.com/pieshell/seed and invest at minimum, $500 dollars. After I edited the interview, I hopped on and invested and this is not because they are my friends or anything, but it’s because I really believe in pieshell’s mission, and I hope after this episode, you do too.

Sponsor – FoodGrads

If you are even just a little bit interested in a career in food & beverage, you should join FoodGrads.  It’s an interactive platform where you can hear about different careers, hear from your peers, have a voice and share your story as well as ask specific questions and get feedback from industry experts across the sector.

You can create a profile, add your resume and search for co-op, internships and full time opportunities just for Food Grads. Employers can find you too, they can recruit you for jobs and projects they need help with to give you the relevant industry experience you need.

Join FoodGrads today! Just go to Foodgrads.com

Sponsor – ICON Foods

Big announcement from our friends at Stevivia. They now go by ICON Foods and you’re seeing a rebranding in action which I find really exciting. Their vision is brighter, their strategy is stronger and their all-natural, clean-label product portfolio is ever growing. So why are they doing this? Even though stevia is an amazing product, there are just so many sweeteners coming up and it’s becoming a bit overwhelming.

Monkfruit, Allulose, Agave, you name it. This is what ICON Foods is here for: to help you find sweetener solutions so you can focus on other challenges in the product development process.

For more information, visit ICON foods at ICONfoods.com

Housekeeping

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Crowd Funding Statistics

• Why 75% of food startups fail
• Why it takes 3-4 months to prepare for a crowdfunding campaign and how PieShell prepares for this and gives you tools for success
• 1 spelling mistake can reduce funding by 13%
• Venture Capitalist will only work with Food companies that make 1 million to 3 million
• 85% of people in Expo West will not be there next year

Question Summary

When someone asks what you do for a living, what do you tell them?: I help make people’s dream come true. We are building a community of food entrepreneurs and businessmen
How did PieShell get its name?: It was actually my mom’s company. People loved it.
What the best thing about your job?: Working with all of the projects
How PieShell gets founders: People find us all over the internet. We also have over 60 community partnerships who send us people.
How did you learn about crowdfunding?: I did a lot of homework. And then I crowdfunded to start pieshell. I made $13,000 dollars from that crowdfunding campaign
The steps to get to where you are today: I’ve been in a family who loves food. I spent a lot of time installing SAP to businesses, Cheryl understands process and can translate it to many fields.
How did you reach out to mentors?: You have to be brave. You have to be open to building relationships,
Charming robot web design – met through an internship
One tip on networking: Talk to everyone. Don’t be shy. You need to be talking about yourself all the time. You never know who will show up.
Why Does Your Food Job Rock?: I do what I love everyday. I love helping people.
Food Trends and Technology: People really want to know where things are coming from. Transparency in the market place.
What companies are being transparent?: A lot of smaller companies. However, the bigger companies are doing wonders like Unilever and Chobani
What’s one of the biggest challenge the food industry needs to face?: People don’t understand how much money and time goes into food. It takes 3 to 5 years for a food company to get established.

Other Links

Foodgrads
Barnraising
Kelp Jerky
Fund-a-feast
Ripe.io – Blockchain Technology
SAP
Adam Simon – Head of innovative brands in Clorox
Austin’s Underdogs  – Pieshell
New Equity Crowdfunding Law