The FoodBytes! founder Manuel Gonzalez is an ex-entrepreneur turned corporate banker at Rabobank, the food and agriculture corporate bank based in the Netherlands. Gonzalez moved to San Francisco six years ago after working 16 years in Rabobank‘s Mexico City office, to head the bank’s West Coast division. As he acquainted himself with Silicon Valley and the Bay Area’s tech scene at large, Gonzalez saw there was a disconnect.
While he found a vibrant, innovative and creative world of social entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurs needed scale, guidance and funding. Drawing on his experience as a corporate banker in the food and agriculture industry, he knew many corporate food companies had scale and funding, but lacked innovation. Gonzalez felt he could bridge this gap with a platform like FoodBytes!
In 2015 Gonzalez launched the first FoodBytes! event, bringing early-stage startups and veteran industry insiders together. There have been ten FoodBytes! events since. Each two-day FoodBytes! event is filled with networking, coaching and nibbling food samples, culminating in three and half minute and 60 second pitch competitions.
Read the full FoodBytes! story here.
The next FoodBytes! event will take place in San Francisco on March 1, 2018; upcoming events in New York City and Montreal are now open for applications to pitch. Each event has 20 startup pitches, chosen from an average of 120 applicants.
As an ex-entrepreneur, corporate banker in the food and agricultural industry, immigrant and founder of FoodBytes!, Gonzalez offers advice for early-stage food and tech entrepreneurs with a social mission, immigrant-owned or otherwise.
ONE: Network, a lot. Don’t be afraid to go to anybody who wants to listen to you.
If your idea has social impact, there will eventually be somebody who is going to want to help you. In fact, I think you have a bigger chance of getting help having a startup with a social mission; getting into social impact entrepreneurship breaks barriers.
TWO: Ask yourself questions; ask many questions! Entrepreneurs need to ask themselves, “Why am I doing this?” “What problem am I solving?” Do we need another type of shoelace? Another kind of cookie dough? You see it a lot. No, we don’t. If you get the question right, then the solution will have impact.
THREE: Most likely, you are going to have to spend time in New York City or San Francisco if you are seeking VC funding. Maybe you won’t stay forever, just for a time. And remember, you might have to talk with 100 investors before you find yours.
FOUR: Work on your pitch. Be clear on the problem you are solving and why you are the right solution to that problem. You need to be able to say it in 60 seconds. When you sit down with an investor and they don’t get it immediately, they’ll check out. First tell them why they should invest in you and then follow with your whole pitch.
For those who are not native English speakers, work on your English, it makes a difference to pitch really well. You need to be understood. Sometimes the accent does get in the way, some accents are more challenging than others. Get it right in English.
FIVE: When writing for business, use clear language to make your point. Excessive, descriptive and flowery writing needs to be condensed into strong, to- the-point writing. I still write like a Mexican, it’s probably a Latin thing, we like to write with a lot of adjectives. It doesn’t work here! I write speeches and luckily people on my team destroy them.
SIX: Keep your team diverse. Often people with the same background think the same and have the same opinions; that should be avoided. Teams that are culturally and diverse have insight into different parts of the country or globe.
Immigrants are good for teams, they have a different cultural context and are already less fearful of people who are different. Many times I see diverse teams of immigrant entrepreneurs and I think it opens a lot of doors.
Have team members that you can disagree with and have good conversations why. “You don’t like my idea? Ok, tell me why.” It’s so important.
Everyone on my team except for me is a woman; some are immigrants. I like that everyone is different. I didn’t design it that way, it just happened.
Read the full story on FoodBytes! here.
