Many pots and pans on the market are coated in teflon, a poisonous chemical that can be harmful when it gets too hot. Luckily, there is an answer on the market — Caraway, a home goods brand that touts itself as being non-toxic but still high quality. Jordan Nathan founded the company after his own experience with Teflon poisoning that left him searching for a better — and healthier option. On this week’s episode of Found, Dom and Becca are joined by Nathan to discuss how he built a brand around aesthetically pleasing non-toxic home goods as we continue to dive into DTC companies.
Many pots and pans on the market are coated in teflon, a poisonous chemical that can be harmful when it gets too hot. Luckily, there is an answer on the market — Caraway, a home goods brand that touts itself as being non-toxic but still high quality. Jordan Nathan founded the company after his own experience with Teflon poisoning that left him searching for a better — and healthier option. On this week’s episode of Found, Dom and Becca are joined by Nathan to discuss how he built a brand around aesthetically pleasing non-toxic home goods as we continue to dive into DTC companies.
In this conversation they discussed:
(0:00) Introduction
(3:36) Creating non-toxic cookware
(7:31) Launching the brand
(13:05) Caraway Brand Strategy
(16:44) Expanding to new categories
(20:49) Influencer marketing
(25:25) Product launch failures
(29:20) Host discussion
Dom Davis 0:03
Teflon is known as a forever chemical, one that releases toxic chemicals when broken down at high heat. This might seem like a wild choice to use for coating pots and pans. But in reality, most nonstick cookware in the US is coated in this harmful chemical. Luckily, a trend toward non toxic cookware is on the rise.
Becca Szkutak 0:20
You're listening to found TechCrunch his podcast that brings you the stories behind the startups. And today we're talking to Jordan Nathan, the founder and CEO of caraway, a non toxic home good brand you've probably seen someone rave about on Instagram. I'm Becca ScrewAttack. And here to learn all the ways our pans are currently killing us is my lovely co host,
Dom Davis 0:37
Dominic Midori Davis. And as usual, before we get into our conversation with Jordan, we have our two truths and a lie. So listen carefully to see which one of these statements just isn't true. Is it that Jordan started out as an aspiring cook that he's actually gotten Teflon poisoning before? Or that the company was almost dead upon arrival after a product mishap? Ooh,
Becca Szkutak 0:54
sounds like there's a good episode in store for you. But before you listen, or after, we would ask you if you wouldn't mind just rating and reviewing the show you can do so wherever you're already listening to this podcast. So it should be super quick and easy, and we would really appreciate it. But now here's a conversation with Jordan.
Hey, Jordan, how's it gone?
Speaker 1 1:18
doing great today. Thanks for having me on the podcast.
Becca Szkutak 1:21
Oh, thanks for coming on the podcast. Before we really dive in. Very important question to start with. What was the last thing you cooked?
Speaker 1 1:28
Oh, great question. I did make eggs last night. So nothing too complicated. Nice, healthy dinner.
Becca Szkutak 1:36
Love that. And listeners if you're unfamiliar, we're asking because we're chatting with the founder of caraway. So Jordan, why don't you start by telling us a little bit about the company? Yeah, so
Speaker 1 1:45
Caraway was founded in late 2019. We are a non toxic kitchenware brand that started off with cookware. Today, we've expanded across the kitchen, our whole mission is to bring non toxic goods to your home that are high design, easy to use, and help customers get rid of nasty chemicals like Teflon, micro plastics, and a lot of traditionally toxic materials that are found in your kitchen were
Becca Szkutak 2:11
very interesting. And I'm curious, because of course, I cook all the time. And a lot of people do cook and interact with these products. But like, it's never really occurred to me to think about what's in the pans or sort of like, pay that much attention to the brand or anything like that, like what got you interested in building in the space to begin with?
Speaker 1 2:28
Yeah, so a number of years ago, prior to caraway, I actually had a kind of scary product experience where I left a Teflon pan on my burner one night accidentally, for about 45 minutes, I turned on the flame. Like my dad had called me, I forgot I left the flame on the pan. And my apartment ended up filling of fumes. And I actually got Teflon poisoning from it and started doing more research called the poison control hotline, and really started to get really interested in the category and couldn't wrap my head around why something were cooking off of could be potentially so toxic, and, you know, felt inspired to bring an alternative to the market. Yeah, first
Dom Davis 3:09
of all, not surprising that anything in the US is poisonous. Big pan industry. But how many chemicals are in our pants? Because you brought up a good point. I mean, like what happens when you just leave a pan running as does any pan just put toxins in the air when you use it automatically? Or do you have to keep it running for a while? Yeah,
Speaker 1 3:30
it really depends on the material. So materials like cast iron, or stainless steel traditionally are safe to use. It's really your nonstick coatings that are made with Teflon that after only two and a half minutes on your burner start leaching into your food. And so it doesn't take very long to start leaching. There's over 10,000 types of PFA s which is the category that nonstick is made with and whether you scratch your pants or you overheat them, those chemicals are making their way into your food each time that you cook.
Dom Davis 4:01
Wait, that's really crazy. Why is that allowed to be sold? Like do a lot of people know about this?
Speaker 1 4:06
I think it's becoming more and more known. There's a lot of legislation today that's looking to ban pee fast. They're known also as forever chemicals. You may have seen that in the news headlines. And it's really an indestructible material that's in a ton of different products. It's known for its nonstick properties. And once it's made, it's really hard to break down. It's in a lot of our waterways and drinking water. And because it is such a durable material, it's been built into a lot of products over the last number of decades. And you know, I think nonstick cookware for many, many decades has leveraged this material for the nonstick properties. And you know, I think has has not seen an alternative come out until kind of recent years with ceramic, which is what Caraway sells.
Becca Szkutak 4:48
And so I'm curious with it being as you mentioned something that's becoming kind of more known and more common. What was it like actually building this company sort of taking that idea? Okay, I want to make these two had some cookware obviously, without this chemical involved? How did you go from the idea to actually building the product like this that it's difficult process? Did you find one of those like this was right here? Why were we not doing this before,
Speaker 1 5:10
really a mix of both. So ceramic, the material that we use has been around for almost a decade. And I think one of the things I had noticed when starting to build the company was first off which material makes sense to bring into the market, we did look at cast iron, we did look at stainless steel, they're great materials. But I think for an average consumer, they're a little bit more daunting to us and felt like, at least from my own personal experience, there was a need for products that were easy to use in the market. And when looking at ceramic it had existed in the market, mostly on retail shelves, the brands that talked about it and used it focused on the eco friendly properties and really saw this whitespace around how do we create a brand that can actually educate consumers on the non toxic properties of ceramic. And so it was really a repositioning of the material, making sure we have the right testing reports to back up the claims. And I think where product development got challenging was while yes, we are very focused on the materials, making sure we had the right form factors that were beautiful to display on your countertop thinking through storage and organization if you've seen our products before, all of our sets come with storage and organization pieces. And so we wanted to create a really holistic solution that was not just non toxic, but also something that was easy to use, great to look at easy to store and having four kind of major pillars of the product and brand and solving that in one solution, you know, was a challenging process to go through
Dom Davis 6:38
was it expensive to source and alternative wasn't
Speaker 1 6:42
necessarily expensive to source. But it took a lot of time. There's a number of coding partners out there that exists throughout the world. For us, we spent quite a bit of time on formulating our own coding that we felt like was the safest was the best out there. A lot of times nonstick will be really great out of the box. And then after a month or two, the nonstick no longer works. And so longevity was something we were really focused on with any ceramic or nonstick, they don't last forever, but in an effort to you know, create a sustainable business with a really high quality products but be products that can reduce waste, it took almost 18 months total to dial in our coating and make sure we had not just the safest coating on the market, but also one of the best from a nonstick perspective, but also durability. And
Becca Szkutak 7:31
I know that this isn't the first kitchenware company that you've worked on smooth if you want to talk about your background prior to launching Caraway. And I'm definitely curious why it made sense to launch Caraway as a separate company, I suppose to say maybe building out a line at the company you already asked.
Speaker 1 7:47
Yeah, that's right. So this wasn't my first start in the kitchen. Prior to Caraway. I worked at a company called Mohawk group, they owned about five Amazon brands. At the time, when I worked there, I ran their kitchen division, the brand was named for me VR, EMI, we sold a lot of kitchen products on Amazon a really low price point around 10 to $15. We sold everything from cookware knives and utensils, bakeware small appliances. And interestingly one of the thesis is of that brand that I had built was back in 2015. on Amazon, most of the products you had in the marketplace were black or stainless steel. And the one thing that we'd really do with that brand that was successful was bringing color into the category. And I think one of the learnings was color drives retention, and people want to match their whole kitchens. And so definitely a learning I took into Caraway but in my time that my prior business, spent a lot of time in factories, saw a lot of bad manufacturing processes got really familiar with these materials, and took a lot of those learnings, you know, around materials and safety and to carry the way that we felt today.
Becca Szkutak 8:55
And why wouldn't it have made sense to launch this within your existing brand prior?
Speaker 1 9:00
Yeah, so I worked for a different Corporation i I was an employee there and got to a point where I wanted to kind of give a shot at starting my own company and branching out. And you know, I think interestingly, that business I worked on was very Amazon focused and I think with that we were selling lower priced products. And you know, throughout my tenure there met a lot of great factories who were at the higher end and you know, the whole DTC boom was going on and I was kind of watching that and missing out and felt it'd be really interesting to launch a brand with higher quality products higher design, and start with a DTC focus because I already knew the Amazon side of the business.
Becca Szkutak 9:39
Yeah, and thinking about the DTC focus for a second, because I know obviously both consumer interest in the DC sector as well as investor interest in the DTC sector has kind of gone on a roller coaster over the last 1015 years it was really in and then it was really out and then it was kind of again, kind of back out. And so I'm definitely curious what it's been like for you launching And this through that system, how you've been able to kind of ride the different waves as far as you mentioned, you were missing out, you definitely started a little bit after the biggest wave of GDC with the Warby Parker's and the Dollar Shave Club, etc. Exactly.
Speaker 1 10:13
I mean, we were able to launch and fundraise, I'd say in a different market than what there is today for direct to consumer. But definitely in a, you know, second or third wave after a lot of the initial brands have launched. I think for us what was really challenging was at the time we launched, there were six or seven other kitchen brands that launched as well. And we were actually both last to market but also last to fundraise. And so when we went to go fundraise, every investor we spoke with had already picked their kitchen brand to tackle and invest in. And so yeah, I think on the flip side, the benefit was we got to watch a lot of other brands launch and really figure out our place within the market. And so, you know, I think we caught the tail end of major DTC investing and launching in November 2019. And holidays was great. That's when kitchenware, you know, has its highest peak of the season. But three months later, COVID happened. And as you know, most people were home, they were cooking, and we really had the benefit of really that change in lifestyle that gave such a big boost to the Home and Kitchen. Yeah, no,
Becca Szkutak 11:15
that's so interesting to hear you say that you think potentially launching towards the later end of not lost in the category was like a benefit for you guys. Definitely want to wouldn't mind if you talk more about why and sort of like, what little tweaks and changes did you make watching other brands go before you guys,
Speaker 1 11:32
I think initially, I even go back to my initial fundraising Deck, the goal initially was I was just going to source a product off the shelf from a factory. And if you actually look at the initial pricing of the product, I think it was around 285. For our cookware set, we were thinking of positioning the brand focused on kind of your post college millennial who might be buying from Ikea or something and didn't want to wait to the registry phase. And I think watching a lot of the other players come out a number of our focus on stainless steel, a handful on cast iron, and then a lot in the ceramic world are nonstick, we're kind of targeting that millennial post-college consumer and are doing a mix of materials. And so as we kind of saw the market change, we saw this really clear gap and learnings from talking with consumers around wanting to invest in kitchenware at the register stage and beyond. And so with that, I think it gave us confidence to put a little bit more time and effort into the product design, not just do it off the shelf. And seeing others who entered with more of a design perspective, it helped us change our color palette, it helped us change our price point, what pieces that we put in the set. And while a lot of those other brands did a lot of things right, we were able to craft our space within the kitchen DTC world that others weren't playing. And I think one thing that was consistent throughout was, we always wanted to be known for ease of use non toxic materials and design. And so as we approach the brand's development, you know, some of that shifted in terms of how we approached it. But we kept those principles really consistent throughout.
Becca Szkutak 13:05
I know some of the other brands in the category. And the fact that you guys found that avenue to focus on is so interesting, because I know of our place. And it's like everyone I know who owns that famous Instagram famous pan or whatever it's like none of them own anything else from the brand. All of them just products, they sound on Instagram, and they're all my age or younger. And so it's like finding that you guys found that gap in the market. I don't know, like you think of it as being like, oh, use the same pans your whole life. But now that I think about it, it's like you don't I still have a pen that my from my dad's original apartment, which I should probably get rid of now that we've had this conversation, I'm like, it's probably killing me. But like, I feel like every time I buy, I buy something like that next step up is a little bit nicer, it looks a little bit nicer, it costs a little bit more. So finding out that structure and sort of leaning into it is just a really interesting way to go about it. Definitely,
Speaker 1 13:54
I think, you know, one of the approaches that we formulated, which I don't think was necessarily defined at the beginning was a lot of our competitors naturally started selling with single cookware pieces, they definitely had sets as well. And I think one of the opportunities we saw in speaking with consumers and having that time to do the research was taking a sets first approach. So when we launched caraway, we actually only had the cookware set and five or six colors. And it put a big emphasis on these kind of a higher price point. But also, as a brand. You know, we're saying to the customer, we actually spent the time curating the exact set that you need, and nothing more versus coming to the site and not knowing if you should buy one pan or two or the set. And so that was a bit of a pivot in the r&d stage around the merchandising that we wanted to launch with.
Becca Szkutak 14:43
And I'm curious because you did mention you guys were in your words, the last two fundraise as well. And it sounds like fundraising was pretty tough. But how did you guys end up getting to the Yes. How did you guys figure out how to get investors to get on board with this?
Speaker 1 14:57
My first raise took about 10 In total, from start to close, I probably was doing anywhere from five to eight investor meetings every single day for almost that full 10 month period, we ended up having over 100 investors in our first round. So a lot of discussions, many more nose than yeses, but at the time, it was challenging because all these other brands had been invested in, I was a single founder i No hires, I had a deck with no product design, I pulled the image off of Google into the deck around like what it could roughly feel like and look like. And I think where I had really leaned in to the pitch was just having come from the kitchen category, and really understanding the dynamics of margins and financial discipline and, you know, understanding of an omni channel strategy. And you know, at the end of the day, there's an infinite amount of capital out there. And we just had to keep grinding until we got all the yeses. But it didn't all come at once. We didn't get some big VC check. And you know, call it a day, I think what was really helpful in the process was meeting a lot of folks building our network. And every month, I get a few yeses. And by the time we got to the end of the process, we put that capital to work that came in earlier from the earlier checks into the product development, the branding, and a lot of those early conversations led to some of the later checks that we got into the
Dom Davis 16:18
round. And are you you're not sold in any retailers, right? We are today.
Speaker 1 16:22
And so actually being omni channel was really built into the strategy from the start. And so we were talking with target who are in today that Bath and Beyond a lot of the major retailers before we even launched the brand.
Dom Davis 16:36
Oh, wow. So there was never the I guess idea or want to just strictly stay like online ecommerce.
Speaker 1 16:43
No, no speaking towards like watching others launch in the market. I think we saw a lot of competitors wanting to just focus on DTC and we saw an opportunity where if we could be first to retail, build a moat, you know, that's a differentiation versus competition and having the experience in the category, I'm sure you guys have lived through this as well, when you're buying a new home, registering for your your wedding, maybe a change in lifestyle to look to be more healthy or non toxic. And what you use, you traditionally are going to these major retailers because you're buying a big assortment of products at once. And so for us, it was important to leverage retailers to reach new customers in those life moments. Whereas our site would be kind of our you know, storefront and how we're acquiring customers on meta and look to get that distribution as early as we could.
Becca Szkutak 17:32
So both of you to assume dominant are married and or. But that does make a lot of sense. Because I was looking at was it before we hopped on in the registry piece of it definitely stood out to me because you're right. I mean, a lot of those smaller brands, even if they were to offer something, I thought it's like what would be the point because if you're building registry, you go and you're like, Okay, I can get one thing from this place, which like sounds very complicated, the whole grand scheme of things. More from this conversation right after a quick break. Caraway has expanded a lot in the five year history that you guys have been around into other everything in the kitchen, but lots of different categories. And I'm curious, of course, all of the expansions are in the same category. But adding new skews out of new products, of course, can both be a good thing, or they can be not adopted as much like, how did you guys decide? When was the right time to expand?
Speaker 1 18:25
Yeah, so today, we're in a number of categories bakeware, food storage, knives and utensils, gadgets, and part of what we're building today. And why the brands named Caraway home as we do have aspirations to really tackle the full Home and Kitchen. And, you know, I think one of the concerns from investors early on was like, alright, someone buys a cookware set, then what, you know, they don't come back they buy at once, maybe they need a new set in five years. But what are you doing in between to keep them engaged. And, as mentioned, one of my learnings from the prior business that I worked at was color drives repeat, and customers really want to have a cohesive kitchen. And as we look at the world of the kitchen, there's a lot of independently beautiful products that exist your KitchenAid stand mixer, your wolf stovetop, you know, your Bravo coffeemaker, and what ends up happening is you have this kitchen of items that don't really make sense together once you combine their aesthetics. And, you know, we feel like as a brand, it's really important to expand categories from a business perspective for retention. But also, you know, if our goal is to eliminate toxic materials from the market, we want to make sure customers have that opportunity to buy into a non toxic kitchen at home. And so as we've expanded, there's been product categories where ceramic has been the right material choice to help solve toxins, whereas we have some other ones that are tackling some new issues like microplastics getting in your food, more eco friendly measures as well. And so as we start building and growing even more product developments, a huge piece of our DNA and I think speaking towards earlier investors pitches, that was always part of the pitch was we're going to build this full big kitchen and some products will be successful, some might not. But it really diversifies the portfolio for the brand. And, you know, if someone doesn't want cookware, we've got something else for them. If they're waiting for the next cookware purchase they need to make in many years, we have other stuff for them to buy from us. And
Becca Szkutak 20:20
knowing that you guys did launch at a time where there were a lot of other companies in the category, and especially right before COVID. When we are then all at home, looking at Instagram and just doing scrolling on our phones. I know you guys have used influencer marketing as a big piece of how you've gotten the word out. And I definitely am curious if you want to talk about what that process was like, and how that has been effective in selling something in such a crowded market. Yeah,
Speaker 1 20:45
our influencer program is a huge piece of our business. And actually that it really started very early on. I think in our launch week, we had 100 or 200 ambassadors that we partnered with post about the brand. And we really got to see the power of working with incredible creators who love the product, they love the brand, and really represent the values. And since that point, we internally now have an ambassador program with around three or 4000 influencers that we work with across a variety of industries, interior design, a lot of parents lifestyle, etc. I think where we see the power of influencers is reached, but also third party validation on on the products, it's very different with caraway saying, you know, our products are the best to use, and they're super nonstick. And we've been fortunate to have great partnerships with incredible influencers over the years that love the products. And I think what's been really exciting as the brand has expanded is now that we have all these product categories, the influencers that were best performing for cookware don't necessarily mean they're the best performing for other categories. So with that, we've been able to expand the type of influencers that we work with the type of content that we're creating. And it's been an amazing growth mechanism for the business.
Dom Davis 21:59
And that's so funny, I was actually going to ask that in terms of which influencers so which product better like who buys the bakeware products? And from WHO?
Speaker 1 22:07
Yeah, I mean, we have big communities around different product lines and different kind of cohorts across each. And then you know, we have certain influencers that perform great across the full kitchen. And so it's really a test and learn approach. And we're also looking at site data in terms of where people are coming from, what's the best product to pair them with, etc.
Becca Szkutak 22:28
And before we sort of dive into building the actual company and some of that side of the business, I definitely wanted to ask you, what got you involved in the kitchen ware space to begin with? were you always interested in cooking or like always kind of paying attention to product? How did you get excited about this space, even before you started the company?
Speaker 1 22:46
Yeah, by sheer chance at my prior company, I was kind of thrown into the kitchen brand, I think at the time, they had a beauty brand. And when I joined the company, I thought I was gonna jump onto that and was excited to kind of explore that area, but was put into the kitchen. And I think the one thing I really fell in love with was just the really lack of design approach in the space. I'm someone who likes to curate everything that I buy, whether it's the clothing that I wear the pieces in my home. And, you know, I think the one thing that the kitchen category has been missing is design and colors that I think represent your personality and your design and Trez. And, you know, I think fell in love with the category. And I think the other piece too is, as a consumer, most brands out there just spoke towards bringing professional tools into the home, and I'm someone that I enjoy cooking, but I'm not going to spend five hours on a weekend cooking something crazy. And the cleanup to me is really important. I want it to be really easy. And I think just that the opportunity and synchronization of design with non toxic with ease of use are three principles I really love and the kitchen happens to be one that kind of lacked that. And so ended up here, but you know, love the space. And it's such a great category. I think the other piece I'll add is I love product development. It's my background, you see it come through and the brand with the breadth of what we're launching. And I think the great thing about just the home in general is there's effectively an infinite amount of products that you can launch. And you can't say that about every category. And to me that's just really exciting is really the breadth of what you can build within the category.
Becca Szkutak 24:24
And what does it been like for you personally, being a founder? So I know you've held higher up manager positions at the businesses you've worked out in the past, but being a founder is obviously a very different animal than that and what does it been like for you? Especially I know you mentioned being a solo founder. Was it been like building the business for you personally getting it off the ground?
Speaker 1 24:41
Yeah, it's a tough job. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. But it's really fun to build something from scratch saying customers love the products you create building an incredible team and seeing them grow. I think a single founder in many ways is more challenging, but also easier. I think just surrounding yourself with great people's tremendously important, and it's been a great experience so far, obviously have had a couple of near death experiences. But you know, I think what we're building is really important and impactful. And I think finding a mission that you're really passionate about is makes all the tough days worth it,
Becca Szkutak 25:19
we got to go back to that a couple of near death experiences, you only told us about one, one of the others.
Speaker 1 25:24
Oh, man, well, probably the biggest one that comes to mind is, so we launched on November 5 2019. And I think on November 1, we had, I think, like 30 to 50 cookware sets coming from our factory that were shipped through like FedEx to our office that we were going to give to press and the FedEx guy shows up, he brings all these huge boxes into the office, we start hearing like clanging and all this like metal hitting. And once he was done delivering, we opened up all the boxes, which was for our press launch. And the packaging that we created, the structural integrity collapsed on the inside. And so every box was just a rack, all the pans are hitting against each other the paint was checked, the handles were ruined. And our first order, which was probably 5000 units or so was on the container from Asia, we had products that we couldn't ship, the press, we had product coming on the water that we probably couldn't ship to consumers because it would come destroyed. And then on top of that on November 3, which was two days after that, we have this lid holder that comes in our set hanger lids on a wall, we had these really beautiful stainless steel hooks to be able to place them on your cabinet door. And we had those hooks hanging with a lid holder in our office for I think a month and on November 3, it came collapsing down in our office. And so we effectively add defective hooks in our box plus packaging, we had to get creative, we I think wrap the good units from the press samples and like brown boxes and ship them to all the big editors. And I think we were getting messages back from like Vogue and such being like, Oh, we think we got your return product, not the actual product. And then we had to go to the warehouse. Once the products arrived. We had to repack 5000 sets, we had a source new hooks to put in the boxes. And fortunately, I think shipped out our first units to consumers by November 29. But was high pressure. And the team did a great job kind of finding a solution. And yeah, had we not gotten through that I don't I don't know if we'd be around.
Becca Szkutak 27:25
That's crazy. That was just like, just showed up. And like everything fell apart. Like I know, it sounds like we were able to quickly get the first batch of orders out. But how did you guys like adjust from there and sort of like make those changes? Like was it easy to kind of fix those packaging things or not as much?
Speaker 1 27:39
It wasn't easy to fix the ones that were shipped, I think to start as the leader and founder, you know, I maintain just like Oh, it's fine. We'll get it fixed attitude. Meanwhile, I was you know, burning inside and right. Yeah, we redesigned the packaging, we ordered pieces here in the US and had to go repack, we sourced hooks really quickly. So we rolled those changes into future batches. And it wasn't very, very expensive. And we didn't have a lot of capital at the time to rework the boxes. But yeah, we were able to get it done and probably a good learning to make sure that you drop test your boxes before you ship them. And, you know, it's better to make sure the products great and not rush it, you know, and I think we we made that mistake. And
Dom Davis 28:23
perhaps before we wrap, I did want to go back and ask a little bit about you and building out the team. I guess the first question was really, who is your first hire?
Speaker 1 28:33
Yeah, so first hire Funny enough, brought on a friend from Mohawk group, which was the company that I worked at before to lead operations and customer service, which is not my area of expertise. And when we launched the business, we had four hires, including myself. So it was a kind of an individual to lead ops and customer service and individual to lead brand and creative and then an individual to lead growth. And two of those three are still here today leading both brand and ops at the company
Dom Davis 29:01
is like a scientist, something you would hire for in terms of like research for non toxic stuff, or is that still just a standard research and development thing?
Speaker 1 29:10
Yeah, so we don't have any scientists or material experts internally, but we do partner externally, with experts with manufacturers on a lot of these areas.
Becca Szkutak 29:20
What's in store in the future? Like where is Caraway headed in the next few years? Where are your aspirations? I know you talked about getting into the whole home at some point. But what's in the more immediate term? What are the next few years like
Speaker 1 29:32
there's so much still to do in the kitchen, we have a lot of product launches, coming up a lot of new distribution channels that we're opening up and focus on improving the customer experience. You know, I think we've seen great growth over the years. We know what works and as a business we're looking to add but also really hone in on what we do well and make sure we're continuing to do it. Well. Well, perfect.
Becca Szkutak 29:56
Well, that puts us right about at time so thank you so much Jordan for come Bring on the show, of course,
Unknown Speaker 30:00
thanks so much for having me.
Becca Szkutak 30:07
And that was our conversation with Jordan. Dom, what did you think? What was the lie?
Dom Davis 30:11
The lie was that he started out as an aspiring Cook, he's actually just a regular guy. He's just a normal at home cook.
Becca Szkutak 30:17
He's just one of us. He's
Dom Davis 30:18
one of us. I
Becca Szkutak 30:20
love that. It's fun to talk to a company like this, as he talked about, they came out at a time where there was like a ton of other companies being launched in the exact same category. And they're all being launched kind of the exact same way. And it's interesting to hear about how that impacted how they did make decisions and sort of how they went from that starting point. You know,
Dom Davis 30:39
I know I always love seeing who survived the DTC boom. Yeah. And I think they spoke about this in terms of which companies actually survived that time, and why they're still here today. This just makes sense. Like, yes. Non toxic cookware. Yes, that makes sense.
Becca Szkutak 30:58
Yeah. And I felt that people always talk about being first. And I know, like, if you look at like the AI market right now, like, clearly, so much of all of the fanfare and the excitement and the craziness is because people are trying to get to that first spot, or like, get that highest market share first and try to grab hold of it. Like there's such a battle to the top. So it's really interesting to hear him talk about how they were kind of last, and how being last actually worked for them, because they could kind of see the little changes they wanted to make before they launched. Sure. And, you know, he mentioned like, the little changes he wanted to make, and like his pitch to investors, which is something we don't talk about, often I know, reminds me of that Adam Grant book, originals, how non conformists move the world, because one of the big things they talked about in that book is that the people who are first are often not who wins, especially on the business side. And they're often not who is the company that lasts at the end of the day. And I mean, we can think about that a lot of like, the websites we use now and how like, we don't barely use anything from like, the.com, boom, the first wave of those websites, most of them didn't survive. And so him talking about the benefit of going last just like made me think about that, because it isn't always about going first.
Dom Davis 32:09
No, yeah, it's preparation meets opportunity, right? We always say about founders wanting to build really, really fast, but I kind of like hearing a founder that took more of their time, you know, studied what they were doing and tried to make it right, because there was no needs to be first, right? Like they did it on the timeline that worked for them. And in the end, yeah, they might have been last but I don't know they were right on time for what they needed to be at.
Becca Szkutak 32:31
And it's funny to think about too, because we just set all of that about not being first, but then they were the first retail, which definitely helped them. But I think that all ties into it. I think if they had gone first on DTC, they probably wouldn't have thought of moving into retail as fast, which ended up being really helpful for them to have done that earlier.
Dom Davis 32:49
Yeah, cuz he said it in the beginning, right, that it was always his plan to kind of move into brick and mortar stores.
Becca Szkutak 32:54
Yeah. Especially because he's, I mean, he's right. Every time I order a pan online, I feel crazy. Like, I want to go and look at it and touch it and buy it, and then buy it online.
Dom Davis 33:03
Am I crazy? Or maybe this was like, a few years ago, when I was at insider covering retail. I feel like there was a moment and maybe this wasn't everywhere, but at least maybe in fashion and beauty. There was a time when everyone was like ecommerce is going to be it and there's not going to be brick and mortar and brick and mortar is just gonna die. Am I crazy? Or that was like a thing? No,
Becca Szkutak 33:20
those definitely a thing. And it's like the Amazon ification of everything. Oh, like Everyone just assumes you want to buy everything online. And it's just like, I actually prefer to buy as little online as I can. And I mean, I definitely do buy stuff online. Like, do I need to go and pick up my dog's food from the auto ship once a month in person? Like no, I can order that online. She gets the same thing every month, but it's like buying stuff for myself like clothes and all that stuff. Like I really just do like buying it better in person. But I also like the convenience where it's like, if I buy from a shoe company, I know that shoe fits and I know my size. Then you can buy it online from there. So I feel like their model of like doing due to see but getting into retail really early. That makes a lot of sense. Because if like I own one of their pants, I gone and bought a Bed Bath and Beyond dressing piece. I love that store. I could just buy another one online. Yeah. And that's a great system. No, I
Dom Davis 34:08
know I'm getting older because when I was looking at their pots and pans, I was like that is a nice pot. I was like fantasizing in my head. I was like the things I would do with that pot and like kitchen that was like bakeware to oh my gosh, Top Chef I would be I would be doing that. No, I
Becca Szkutak 34:22
feel you because I was doing it and like even more of like a lamer way because I was like no storage containers. My leftovers would slay in the US. Like I need that.
Dom Davis 34:34
I was like storage containers. I know exactly what I'm doing with this.
Becca Szkutak 34:38
Exactly. I did also think it was super interesting. His story though about their first shipment. I feel like a lot more founders have stories like that than we get to hear about how it's like they just didn't realize the packaging they had picked just wasn't going to work. Like the products came and like their own strongly. Like I feel like based on how many things I've gotten in the mail from like very established retailers over destroyed. I hope no more companies have those like early worse stories than we often get to hear.
Dom Davis 35:05
I know I love hearing about the early logistics of it all and figuring out what ships and what doesn't ship.
Becca Szkutak 35:11
Yeah. Because I mean, it's hard to believe that people will just get that stuff right the first time. I always think it's interesting to look at, like how stuff is packaged, like how some stuff can just come in the box it's in and other stuff has to be in like box ception with 10 pounds of like packing material. Like, I bet a lot more brands have to deal with figuring out these logistics than I think we hear of.
Dom Davis 35:33
Yeah, I know, I would actually write a book about that of just packaging mishaps and everything that a brand has learned from it. Because yeah, it must be harder than we think. Especially shipping a bunch of pots. Well, obviously, it is harder than we say. Yeah,
Becca Szkutak 35:47
no, I'll never forget I once got a cast iron from Amazon. And I got the email that had been dropped off and I went down to get it and both the handle and the like the little other handle on the sides. Like both handles essentially, were sticking out of the box. And I was like, oh my like this one for a journey. Like half the pan was like out of the box because this guy started like it was fine because those things were like indestructible but I was just like, oh, this wasn't done right.
Dom Davis 36:14
Wait, that's kind of funny. Well, did you check all of your pots and pans after talking to him? Are they poisonous? I just
Becca Szkutak 36:21
swallowed about it and know that they definitely are. I mean, I literally have a pen from my dad's it's either my from my mom or my dad's like first apartment. So it's no offense to my parents, but it is it's old. It's real, real old. I
Dom Davis 36:36
asked my parents to and they were like all of our pots are fine except that one we cook eggs in and I'm like, well, except that one we cook what? Eggs
Becca Szkutak 36:47
maybe it's time this is definitely this was a good reminder though that I probably should replace my kitchen.
Dom Davis 36:52
So yeah, it's time. It's time and also to pay attention to where you get kitchen stuff from because of course big pan industry would be poisoning us in America as big pan would.
Becca Szkutak 37:06
Sound is hosted by myself. TechCrunch Senior Reporter Becca Skuta alongside Senior Reporter Dominic Midori Davis founders produced by Maggie Stamets with editing by Cal our Illustrator is Bryce Durbin phones audience development and social media is managed by Morgan Liddell Alyssa Stringer, and Natalie Kreisman TechCrunch is audio products are managed by Henry pick of it. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week.
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