Beverage Startups
Hello Hungry – essential liquid meal for office people
It is only 9 days until DrinkPreneur Live 2015 which will be held in London on September 23. Today I’m speaking with Chief Marketing Officer of Hello Hungry Lukas Borisovas about their beverage project.
Can you tell us more how did you come up with an idea to start beverage business? Did you have any experience about beverage industry before this project? Can you share this story with us?
First of all, on behalf of the whole team, I want to thank you for this opportunity to participate in such event as Drinkpreneur Live 2015. We are really excited about this and looking forward to it.
Now let’s get back to your question. The story behind Hello Hungry is quite different if compared to other startups, where one person has some crazy idea and puts it to life. Here with Hello Hungry, different groups of professionals worked together to come up with the idea. And as the process went on, more people with various backgrounds joined the team. Some of them have worked at the world known beverage companies in the past. So to answer your question: yes, we do have experience and knowledge about FMCG sector and beverages in particular. We added some experience from other fields, and now we’re a small team, but I think a strong one. We’re constantly working with our partners and advisers outside the company, to get the best result we can. Worth of mentioning Startup.lt accelerator, which brings a great value to the whole process.
So basically this is the ground, where Hello Hungry started.
Why liquid meal? What is special about Hello Hungry?
The main reason behind it is the problem itself: current lifestyle, pace causes many bad habits and poor nutrition is one of them. We all faced times when we were in a hurry or pressed by deadlines, we skipped meals or grabbed something that would fill our stomachs but it wasn’t healthy or good for us. The whole fast food, snack market didn’t appear by itself, people are looking for convenience, time efficiency everywhere they go. I can even say that time is the only real luxury we have. With all that in mind, we wanted to create an alternative to all those unhealthy snacks and fast foods. A product that you could always have at your hand to fight that unpleasant feeling in your stomach, when you’re hungry.
Skipping meals or having something that is not good for you, is damaging you and your health more that you can imagine. Stomach diseases, low productivity, stress, mood swings just a few things to mention that can be caused by bad nutrition.
And if at home you can take care of your nutrition, by making proper meals, workplace is where it hurts you the most. And we spent majority of the day at work. You can go at any office right now and what foods will you find there? Coffee, water and probably drawers full of chocolates and other snacks. You cannot live on that.
Hello Hungry offers you an alternative to all of that. It is a ready-to-drink product, so it is still convenient, but is made with ingredients that are good for you. We combined buckwheat, one of the world known super grains with delicious fruits and vegetables blends and added additional supplements like Omega 3, which is good for your eyes, brain and heart work – the most common problems that office workers face today.
The liquid form is the first step, the goal is to help people to take care of themselves better and to make it easier. We cannot give you time, but we can save you some in a healthy way.
What kind of difficulties have you had since the very beginning of Hello Hungry project?
Actually we do not use the word ‘difficulty’, instead we use ‘challenges’. When you face some kind of a challenge, the goal is to overcome it and come on top of it or learn from the mistakes, and fix them in the future.
To be honest with you, when you are a so called start up, every step is challenging. R&D, marketing, finance, HR – everywhere you can find some walls to climb. But if we look a bit deeper, I would say that as a start up, we are looking for new, better ways of doing things to bring the best value we can, but the whole FMCG market is a bit ‘old school’. And it is easy to explain, because the consumer is not that ready with innovations. It would be probably a bit easier with IT product, where consumers are constantly looking for new things, are used to it.
But on the higher note, the innovations are making through the walls in FMCG as well, it already started and the future will be very exciting. Stay tuned.
This year DrinkPreneur Live attracted such retailers like Tesco, Waitrose, Petty Wood and Selfridges & In your opinion, what are the most important benefits ,,Hello Hungry“ team will gain during the event?
If you are thinking about scaling up, you must think about retail. And these are the best in the market, so to receive a feedback from experienced professionals is priceless. They are the link between the consumer and the product. They can tell what kind of the product has to be, what it is missing, packaging, marketing etc. Although we are doing everything step by step, we want to make sure that Hello Hungry is proper ready for the retail and consumers.
We are wishing you luck during competition and success for Hello Hungry. Do you have some advice for other startups?
Thank you for having us. I think the biggest mistake we make is that we don‘t ask enough questions. And I‘m speaking not only about startups. We all should ask more questions in life. The more answers we have the better result we can get. Do not assume, but find out first. I think with such mindset, there are more chances for startups to succeed.
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Cheers
For more information about Hello Hungry visit their website.
