Ep. 212 – A Scrappy and Magical Direct-to-Consumer Spice Company with Ori Zohar, Co-Founder at Burlap and Barrel

I was first introduced to Burlap and Barrel when my friend Phil Saneski told me about them at MISTA. All the way in California. The next time I heard of them, I met Ori sitting down working at the WeWork Food Labs in New York, when I was doing my orientation. We chatted, knew a few common friends, and then he invited me to a Rabobank mixer.

So if you’ve noticed a pattern with our entrepreneurial guests, the best way to get on the show is to know someone I think is cool, meet me in person, and take me out to drinks.

Joking aside, Ori is a wealth of knowledge and I didn’t even know he built and sold a mortgage company! He used this experience to really shape Burlap and Barrel and with his cofounder Ethan, they make an unstoppable team with a variety of unique products.

If you go to Burlapandbarrel.com, you’ll see a variety of spices you’ve probably never heard like Urfa Chili or ground Black Lime. As you’ll see in the episode, Ori took a lot of care in crafting the site to be as user friendly as possible.

Plenty of tips and tricks in this one. Enjoy!

About Ori

Ori is a social entrepreneur and the co-founder of Burlap & Barrel, where he leads the company's US operations and finances, as well as eCommerce and retailer relationships.

Ori's family moved to Baltimore, Maryland from Israel when he was 5 years old. He developed a love of all things food as a kid, learning to cook Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dishes from his parents.

Ever enterprising, Ori's entrepreneurial journey started in his teens, when he started a business (poorly) DJ'ing parties. Ori first teamed up with Ethan to start Guerrilla Ice Cream, an activist ice cream cart that received a frenzy of media attention, in 2010.

A few years later, he launched Sindeo, a venture-backed mortgage company that provided home loans in an open and transparent way. Sindeo raised $32m, helped its customers secure more than $500m in home loans, and had record-breaking customer satisfaction scores. Ori took the startup from idea through acquisition.

Show Notes

MISTA WeWork Food Lab Burlap and Barrel – single origin spice company that helps farmers My cofounder, Ethan, was a chef in New York and worked as relief in Afghanistan. He found spices in Afghan and brought them back and people loved it Guerilla Ice Cream We bring our spices from farmers in 12 countries Ethan does operations and professional cooking, Ori is the operation and home cook How did you get to where you are today? I grew up in Maryland and went to the University of Maryland. I studied business. I started small and goofy entrepreneur projects I worked in the big ad agencies after that I learned how did people like Applebees and Six Flags marketed at scale Before Burlap and Barrel and after Guerilla Ice Cream, I had a mortgage company that raised over $30 million dollars. However, it was such a chaotic journey. Ethan approached me beforehand but I had to sell the mortgage company but he prepared for me What type of tweaks did you make?: A ton. Mainly optimizing Ecommerce Once we got press (that was basically this is Burlap and Barrel) our site exploded Once we asked our customers who they were, we found our demographic My Food Job Rocks: The more we do what we do, the more our spices go around the world Chef Ottolenghi is a gift: He wrote a ton of books and included our spices in our books How do you delight your customers?: We really care about our customers and are transparent when things are slow or if we have something special What do you want to learn about?: How do we hop on the trends that current buyers are forecasting? Do you read any business books that have helped you? The Hard Thing and Hard Things The Lean Startup Facebook group: #OMGCPG Surprisingly, there’s a whole community of food entrepreneurs who have their own problems More importantly, everyone is helpful in the industry For scrappy entrepreneurship, you have to cover your weak points. Doesn’t have to be experts, but friends and family

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