This Week in Startups

E1006: Farmer’s Fridge CEO & Founder Luke Saunders is creating a connected network of vending machines offering fresh & healthy meals, shares insights on creating a restaurant-like experience, solving food-supply chain issues, capitalizing on grassroots marketing & real-world virality & using sales

Dec 3, 2019

01:07:47

0:44 Jason intros Luke and describes how he found out about Farmer's Fridge
5:01 How did Luke overcome barriers of making a vending machine feel like a restaurant
9:18 Luke's life before Farmer's Fridge
11:52 How Luke discovered the issues of distribution that led to Farmer's Fridge
16:18 Building the first Farmer's Fridge vending machine
23:48 Ideal locations for Farmer's Fridge machines & where the first machine was placed
29:35 How did Farmer's Fridge begin to expand and hit critical mass
34:22 Using sales data to craft the most appealing menu
37:00 Getting VCs interested
41:57 Who was the first bold VC to put $ in? How did they prove themselves to institutional firms?
46:27 Machine cost over time & maximizing inventory
49:56 How hardships made Luke fearless
51:30 "Startup cannibalism"??? & low-burn culture
54:27 Farmer's Fridge NYC expansion
58:27 How does Farmer's Fridge compare to fast-casual salad restaurants