Ep. 168 – Design Thinking and the Startup Life with Lauren Joyner, Founder of LOCA Foods

Lauren Joyner used to be a designer for many tech startups and a year ago, dropped all of that to pursue food and is now the founder of LOCA Foods, which is a plant-based cheese dip company.

I met Lauren at the Cultured Meat Symposium and our companies were boothed together at the Fancy Food Show and Alternative Protein show. So of course, we chatted and our discussions were so good, I wanted to capture it on a podcast.

A big portion of this interview is about year one of building a food company. Being in the thick of it, things can be difficult, but this is why I love talking about these stories not only does it helps Lauren and I to talk it out, but it gives a lens of the hard parts on creating a business from scratch

Another cool topic we go over is the concept of Design Thinking, in which Lauren did a presentation about it at the Alternative Protein Show. Lauren explains it in great detail and perhaps you can use these concepts in your next project.

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Show Notes

Kitchentown Clean Meat Symposium – Nov 2018 Good Food Institute Monthly Entrepreneur call Fancy Food Show Alternative Protein Show What do you tell people in a sentence or less?: Designer turned foodprenuer Print design UX-Design Loca Food – plant-based queso dip Memphis Meats JUST Food Startups Podcast Effective Altruism EA Global How long were you in the design industry?: 10 years When did you change to plant-based?: I ate meat all my life until I moved to New Orleans and became a pescatarian. 2 years ago, I decided to give up cheese and made my own cheese dip What has changed since less than a year ago? Since you started: Whatever seems like a giant mountain today, it’s going to be a small dot eventually. No business plan survives the first impact Design Thinking: Human Centered Design focused on three buckets 1st Bucket: Empathy - Give consumers what they want. Get to know your customer Forced Rank List – a Priority list 2nd Bucket: Ideation phase – let’s find a way to solve these problems Cyclic process: you need to reiterate again and again How are you using design thinking for Loca food?: Mainly the marketing side Vegan vs Plant-based Instagram Ads – for @eatlocafood, we test ads all the time Facebook also does a great job doing this because it targets really specific Instagram How do you make bright Instagram photo’s?: Buy photo papers Why does your food job rock?: Every little step gets you closer to a bigger step What type of food trends and technologies are exciting you right now?: Plant-based meat and cell-based meat What part of the food industry would you like to know more about?: Copacking and R+D Kitchentown Was there a specific person who got you into food?: The animals got me into the plant-based space Food Deserts Favorite Kitchen Item: Gus Modern Simple Fruit Tray Favorite Quote: In a short time, this moment will feel like a long time Any advice for people in the food industry: If you’re not scared of the worst situation, then you should do it Find us on: @eatlocafood or eatlocafood.com. You can go to lhcreativespace.com to see my creative work Send me a message on twitter or LinkedIn

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