The founders of Foodzie aren’t your garden-variety tech entrepreneurs.
Yes, the online specialty grocer has an office in San Francisco’s startup-laden South of Market district. Chief Executive Rob LaFave, Chief Marketing Officer Emily Olson, and Chief Technology Officer Nik Bauman are getting into the flow too, hanging out with locals like Digg founder Kevin Rose, who recently attended a tasting at Foodzie’s office.
But the founders of the fledgling site are hardly steeped in Silicon Valley culture. It wasn’t until January that Olson and LaFave moved from Boulder, Colo., to San Francisco, closer to the Bay Area food scene. What’s more, LaFave, Olson, and Bauman, chosen as three of the most promising young entrepreneurs in tech this year, are building a retail site as many startups eye sexier social media.
Making Users Hungry
The contrarian instincts could serve Foodzie well as it takes on big online specialty food stores like Amazon.com and iGourmet. Foodzie’s site, which sells products from small producers in 25 states, relies on attractive photos and an uncluttered design to appeal to customers’ palates. “What was lacking in online [food stores] was an experience that makes you hungry,” Bauman says.
Foodzie, backed by $1 million from First Round Capital, SoftTech VC, and TechStars, is jumping into the online food sales business at a time when consumers’ appetite for buying goods and researching recipes on the Web is growing. Online food and beverage sales in the U.S. were $4.8 billion in 2008, and grew 11 percent in the first quarter compared with roughly flat e-commerce sales overall, according to market researcher ComScore.
“It’s one of the biggest consumer categories now, and even a small sliver of that can be attractive,” says Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research. But online food sales can be challenging, as perishable goods and shipping costs erode profit margins,…