Thursday, April 26, 2018
Interview with Catherine McCord, One Potato
What do you do, if you grew up and became an adult, and now are starting a family—but you never learned to cook? If you're part of the generation that grew up always going out for food or buying pre-prepared food, you might feel a bit overwhelmed with the cooking that comes with becoming a parent and having a family. That's where Los Angeles-based One Potato (www.onepotato.com) comes in. The startup, led by founder Catherine McCord, provides pre-prepped “meal kits” which can easily turned into meals for families. We caught up with Catherine to learn more about the issue facing many families today, and how the company hopes to solve that issue for a generation that did not learn to cook.
What is One Potato?
Catherine McCord: One Potato is an organic, family-friendly, meal delivery company. We're currently out West, and have a massive waiting list on the East Coast, and are heading that direction. We offer different organic, family friends meals that change week to week. Some of those are seasonal, and other at One Potato family favorites, and they all take 15 to 30 minutes to prepare. The Family Favorites are meals for families that might have picker eaters. The meals that we offer are for kids and adults, but not too fancy for those kids, but not dumbed down for the adults, and all are really healthy. We are a family business, and we're really geared towards families with a busy lifestyle. I don't know anyone who has family who isn't crazy busy, because it's pretty crazy as a parent.
How did you get into this?
Catherine McCord: I actually founded the company Weelicious over ten years ago, which started out as a web site for family friendly recipes. From there, I wrote several cookbooks, and I am now working on a third. It started out as sort of a website and resource for parents that wanted to cook, and wanted to get their kids cooking, but just didn't have time. I'm part of this generation that just didn't know how to cook. There's now a generation of parents, especially with younger kids, who grew up just buying things at Whole Foods, at the drive through, and only buying prepared food. That all was fine when you were single, or maybe even as a young couple, but when you have kids, and you have this little being needing to be fed three times a day, it's an overwhelming experience.
So how long has One Potato been offering up its meals?
Catherine McCord: One Potato has been in an Alpha and Beta. When we first went live, we were in three states, and that's now grown to eight. We've been shipping live for a year and change, and it's been incredible growth, to say the least. We've had 100 percent, year-to-date growth in our shipments, and our active users grew by 225 percent in 2017. Our yearly average spend is almost three times that of our competitors.
Why is that spend so much more than your competitors?
,p> Catherine McCord: From day one, our focus has been family, family, family. Families have a predictable schedule, and they know what they like, and what their kids like. They know what their children want to try. Parents are very different from the typical couple or single using a meal service. When you're single or a couple, you might think it's fun to cook something, and it's a little more casual. Whereas, when you have a family, you have to feed that family, and you have to feed them seven days a week. They need resources, so they don't have to plan out a menu, and don't have to cook, and it takes less than 40 minutes.How the business funded?
Catherine McCord: We were able to fundraise with a round just a few weeks ago, and we're now working towards a Series A as we start moving to the East Coast.
Why not just cover the East Coast now – what's the strategy with the staged rollout?
Catherine McCord: A lot of the companies we've seen have been overfunded at the beginning, which I think can hinder you. That can either be an asset, or not. We made the decision to go slower, so we could have a much stronger proof-of-concept. From day one, that has been our strategy.
It seems like this business might require a lot of infrastructure, such as kitchens—how are you handling that aspect of the business?
Catherine McCord: We have a commissary now in Los Angeles. The thing with One Potato, is we're a semi-prepared food company. Where other companies are sending every single last ingredient, is we're sending semi-prepared dishes, like salad dressings and amazing sauces. Because of that, we're able to cut down on a lot of packaging. We build all this incredible flavor into all of our sauces, and you're still cooking a few things. For example, we send you raw chicken and you have to cook it. So, we'll be setting up a commissary on the East Coast, which will allow us to hit seventeen more stations. That's all just part of our strategy, so we can build up our audience, and make sure this is something that is really needed. We now have over 25,000 people on our waiting list, all these families just asking us when we're coming to places like Washington, DC, New York, and Boston.
What's the biggest lesson you've learned in starting up the company?
Catherine McCord: There are so many of them. I think the beauty of having been underfunded, is you learn the value of every invested dollar you have in the company, and really knowing the importance of that dollar. We've been very smart about our investments, and really looking closely at where we are placing bets with that money. That really goes to things like packaging and ensuring the quality of the ingredients we put in our recipes, to engaging with customers. We believe our customer satisfaction and customer service is incredibly strong, which is what our families deserve.
Finally, what's next?
Catherine McCord: Expansion. That's really our first goal, and our biggest excitement. We're tweaking things all the time, adding programs, and thenit falls back to retention and making sure families are really happy and excited.
Thanks!