Nadine Habayeb's guest appearances

Nadine Habayeb

Brand Builder

The Consumer VC: Venture Capital I B2C Startups I Commerce | Early-Stage Investing I Brands

Hugh Thomas

Alix Peabody

Jon Sebastiani

Jordan Gaspar

Dan Gluck

Rick Heitzmann

Paul Hsiao

Nicole Quinn

Michele Romanow

Andrew Dudum

Ryan Caldbeck

Eamonn Carey

Elizabeth Yin

Greg McKeown

Mike Ghaffary

OwlTail

Our guest today is Nadine Habayeb, CoFounder &amp; CEO Bohana. Bohana is a popped water lily seed snack brand that believes in a free-spirited snacking.Thank you Madeline Keulen for the introduction!You can follow Nadine on Twitter @Nadinodxb. You can also follow your host, Mike, on Twitter @mikegelb. You can also follow for episode announcements @consumervc. For all episodes, please visit www.theconsumervc.comOn book that inspired her personally is Sell Your Specialty Food: Market, Distribute, and Profit from Your Kitchen Creation by Stephen Hall. One book that inspired her professionally is Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil KnightIn this episode we discuss -What initially attracted Nadine to entrepreneurship and led her starting Bohana?The early days of Bohana. Did she do any market research to see if popped water lily seeds would be something that folks in the U.S. would want to buy? What was the insight? How did she approach the supply chain? Why did she choose to go direct to farmer? Why was investing in the brand so important from the very beginning? How did she think about distribution and price? When did she find product-market fit?Was there a moment when she had the assumption of thinking your target demographic was this specific type of person - interests/age, etc. where when you came to market, it turns out it was actually a different demographic or consumer profile that was loving the product? Once she was able to make a wedge in the market, how did she expand outward from her initial customer base? How did she approach fundraising? What made her consider fundraising?What made her apply to Shark Tank? How was that experience? How has COVID affected her strategy and company? What’s the future of superfood snack food in the United States?What is one piece of advice for early founders?

Our guest today is <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadinehabayeb/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Nadine Habayeb</a>, CoFounder &amp; CEO <a href="https://bohanalife.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bohana</a>. <a href="https://bohanalife.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bohana</a> is a popped water lily seed snack brand that believes in a free-spirited snacking. Thank you <a href="https://theconsumervc.com/2020/03/30/madeline-keulen/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Madeline Keulen</a> for the introduction! You can follow Nadine on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/Nadinodxb" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@Nadinodxb</a>. You can also follow your host, Mike, on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/MikeGelb" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@mikegelb</a>. You can also follow for episode announcements <a href="https://twitter.com/ConsumerVc" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@consumervc</a>. For all episodes, please visit <a href="http://www.theconsumervc.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.theconsumervc.com</a> On book that inspired her personally is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1427798265?camp=1789&amp;creativeASIN=1427798265&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;tag=theconsumervc-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sell Your Specialty Food: Market, Distribute, and Profit from Your Kitchen Creation</a> by Stephen Hall. One book that inspired her professionally is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CRJA470/ref=as_li_tl?camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B01CRJA470&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;linkId=5733ff50a6f9175797f13505986c1310&amp;tag=theconsumervc-20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike</a> by Phil Knight In this episode we discuss -<ol><li>What initially attracted Nadine to entrepreneurship and led her starting Bohana?</li><li>The early days of Bohana. Did she do any market research to see if popped water lily seeds would be something that folks in the U.S. would want to buy? What was the insight? How did she approach the supply chain? Why did she choose to go direct to farmer? Why was investing in the brand so important from the very beginning? How did she think about distribution and price? When did she find product-market fit?</li><li>Was there a moment when she had the assumption of thinking your target demographic was this specific type of person - interests/age, etc. where when you came to market, it turns out it was actually a different demographic or consumer profile that was loving the product? Once she was able to make a wedge in the market, how did she expand outward from her initial customer base? How did she approach fundraising? What made her consider fundraising?</li><li>What made her apply to Shark Tank? How was that experience? How has COVID affected her strategy and company? What’s the future of superfood snack food in the United States?What is one piece of advice for early founders?</li></ol>

Nadine Habayeb (Bohana) - The Future of Superfood Healthy Snacks, How Eastern Traditions Have Migrated West, and Finding Product-Market Fit

What does it take to bring a totally new product to the US market? How do you go about sourcing the highest quality option for a single-ingredient product? How do you bring an ancient Indian practice to the US CPG industry? Even after just a couple months to market, Priyal Bhartia and Nadine Habayeb of Bohana have answered these questions with their newly launched snack: popped water lily seeds. Yes, that’s a thing - and we’ll tell all about how this dynamic duo is bringing this functional and delicious Indian ingredient to The States. Bohana as a brand has a lot of depth to it… it’s built around Ayurvedic principles and their core value of “free spirit snacking.” Priyal and Nadine talk about all this and share some great lessons learned, including why they had to develop their own supply chain from scratch. Priyal fell in love with popped water lily seeds as a kid, recounting that she and her family used to eat them all the time as a staple in the Indian diet, and one of the only sanctioned foods that can be eaten during fasts.  Years later, she shared some with her friend Nadine and they both knew they were onto something. During Nadine’s last couple of months in graduate school, the two tested the market by sharing water lily seeds with friends and classmates. After 6 months of market validation, the two began the process of building their brand, starting with the sourcing of the seeds. After finding that the supply chain was hugely disorganized, they decided to cut out the middleman and go straight to the farmers, developing relationships that allowed them to source high-quality product, have confidence in their ability to scale and give more of the profits back to the farmers. After bringing the ingredient back to the US for production and perfecting the finished product, they worked to develop a brand that embodied their core value of “free spirit snacking.” Priyal and Nadine join us this week and take us along their journey to market through an 18 month R&amp;D phase. Links  Bohana @BohanaLife on Instagram Connect with Priyal and Nadine on LinkedIn 

What does it take to bring a totally new product to the US market? How do you go about sourcing the highest quality option for a single-ingredient product? How do you bring an ancient Indian practice to the US CPG industry? Even after just a couple months to market, Priyal Bhartia and Nadine Habayeb of Bohana have answered these questions with their newly launched snack: popped water lily seeds. Yes, that’s a thing - and we’ll tell all about how this dynamic duo is bringing this functional and delicious Indian ingredient to The States. Bohana as a brand has a lot of depth to it… it’s built around Ayurvedic principles and their core value of “free spirit snacking.” Priyal and Nadine talk about all this and share some great lessons learned, including why they had to develop their own supply chain from scratch. Priyal fell in love with popped water lily seeds as a kid, recounting that she and her family used to eat them all the time as a staple in the Indian diet, and one of the only sanctioned foods that can be eaten during fasts.  Years later, she shared some with her friend Nadine and they both knew they were onto something. During Nadine’s last couple of months in graduate school, the two tested the market by sharing water lily seeds with friends and classmates. After 6 months of market validation, the two began the process of building their brand, starting with the sourcing of the seeds. After finding that the supply chain was hugely disorganized, they decided to cut out the middleman and go straight to the farmers, developing relationships that allowed them to source high-quality product, have confidence in their ability to scale and give more of the profits back to the farmers. After bringing the ingredient back to the US for production and perfecting the finished product, they worked to develop a brand that embodied their core value of “free spirit snacking.” Priyal and Nadine join us this week and take us along their journey to market through an 18 month R&amp;D phase. Links <ul> <li><a href="https://bohanalife.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bohana</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/bohanalife/?hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@BohanaLife</a> on Instagram</li> <li>Connect with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/priyal-bhartia/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Priyal</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadinehabayeb/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Nadine</a> on LinkedIn</li> </ul>

How Bohana Brought a Brand New Single-Ingredient Product to the US Market, with Bohana Co-Founders Priyal Bhartia and Nadine Habayeb