An Interview with Jake Gutstein, co-founder of Zest.
Can you tell us about your journey to becoming an entrepreneur?
I’ve been building for as long as I can remember to solve inefficiencies that don’t make sense. My companies’ common throughline is that they are the least efficient way to solve problems plaguing me in my own life. For instance, eo, the first company that I sold, was a dockless bike share that gave college students a more efficient and affordable way to get around campus.
What inspired you to start your current company, and what problem does it solve?
Young people have an incredibly toxic relationship with food. Between food delivery and being reliant on a few staple meals, they are wasting money, feeling terrible, and have no agency in changing that. Zest provides an engaging way to form a constructive habit around food and find a way out of the rut.
I started the company to solve this problem for myself. When I had the fire department called on me for eviscerating a DiGiorno pizza in the oven, something had to change. I felt there was an opportunity for disruption as I worked the long hours that are characteristic of a first job out of college and lacked the ability to make an easy change. After talking to a variety of people to validate the problem I got started creating a solution.
How did you identify your target audience or customer base? What steps did you take to validate your product or service with them?
I am of the belief that successful products require their builders to have a system through which they can step away from their personal opinions and solutions. I subscribe to Jobs to Be Done as my system to better understand and synthesize a customer base.
After this, I go directly to the platforms where those individuals frequent and speak their language. With Zest, we use TikTok and Instagram to speak about the problems we uncovered.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in launching your company, and how did you overcome them?
Once we understood what the problem our core customer was facing, it became all about matching the solution to meet their needs. Resilience and iteration can’t be undersold. Aspects of product that you are sure will work don’t and people strongly resonate with quirks in the design. The key for Zest has always been staying lean in our designs, focusing on the core habit loop, and trying to leave ego at the door.
How does your company differentiate itself from others in the same industry?
The knowledge graph that underlies the app is allowing us to provide users with ways to engage with food that meet their mood, dietary preference and skill level. Through a strong brand and problem-solution fit, we have created the wedge needed to become the operating system people use to effectively manage food at home.
Can you walk us through your company’s growth trajectory, and how you have been able to scale the business?
Our company’s MRR has grown 10X to a bit over $7K MRR over the past 6 months with $0 spent on customer acquisition. We’ve done this by building a social community on TikTok and Instagram of over 180k people.
We post on our social pages speaking to the reasons that we know people need to learn how to cook. These videos have resonated with a large audience allowing for us to scale organically.
What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start their own company?
The difference between the founders of AirBnB and my uncle who had the same idea in 2003 is that the founders of AirBnB knew their customer and were operationally excellent. Focus on the first and then the second obsessively and you’ll build something amazing.
