From a broken business model to 20,000 subscribers; 8-figure founder Nicole Centeno tells her Splendid Spoon journey (part 1)

Jul 9, 2022

42:32

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Today on the show we’re learning from Nicole Centeno, the founder of Splendid Spoon.

The spark for Splendid Spoon came to Nicole in 2012. Working at Condé Nast and pregnant with her first son Grover, she came to realize how unattainable it was to achieve a healthy lifestyle alongside a demanding career and the day-to-day realities of being a working parent. What she wanted was to find a way to make nutritious, and, importantly, delicious plant-based food accessible to everyday Americans.

While working full time, Nicole began attending culinary school, dabbling in catering (by delivering soups on her lunch break that she’d cooked earlier that morning!), hosting pop-ups, and teaching cooking/nutrition courses at Columbia University. These experiences — coupled with her studies in diet therapies, a penchant for entrepreneurship, and a conviction that there must be a better way to eat well — convinced Nicole to take the leap and leave her corporate career to pursue food full-time.

What I love about this story, is that Nicole talks about having none of the business language, but all of the instincts when she was first starting out. She knew how to ask for things, she knew where she needed to get to but just didn’t have the language or the model to explain these things. This is so often the case for first-time founders. We know where we're going, and we have a plan, but we don’t speak the business jargon. In the end, the magic lay in being very passionate about what she believed in. That was the most powerful part of it. People had the conviction that she would keep trying. Had that tenacity, She had a story. With the key pieces to convince someone that she could make this bigger, she could get stuck in.

We’re covering her journey of side-hustle to 8-figure biz, the challenges that the food industry faces, and how to do a friends and family round. So much good stuff in here I know you’re going to love it!

And remember that if you want a signed copy of my book, this week and next I’m sending them out to anyone who creates a TikTok video about Female Startup Club. All you need to do is post the video and slide into my inbox at hello@femalestartupclub.com.

Have the best day and enjoy the episode, this is Nicole for Female Startup Club

LINKS WE MENTION:

Splendid's Website

Book: The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Book: The Artist's Way

Book; Soup Cleanse Cookbook

Blog: First Round Capital

Female Startup Club's Instagram

Doone's Instagram

Doone's TikTok

To redeem 1 month free of Norby's Basic Plan use code "FSC" here: https://join.nor.by/

Learn more about Athletic Greens and get your FREE gift at Athleticgreens.com/STARTUP