LeapTakersPodcast_#23 - Arman Anatürk

Remo Kyburz: [00:00:00] Coming up on this episode of Leap Takers: 
Arman Anatürk: [00:00:02] In order to grow our network here very quickly, we wanted to do something that would make some noise about us and showcase our skill sets. And like you asked about how do you get clients?
Well, we thought, okay, great way to get clients would be to organize something which, you know, shows off all the different things we can do, the marketing, the community, building the stakeholder engagement. And so we organized the food hackathon. And that's where foodhack comes from.

Intro
Remo Kyburz: [00:00:38] Hello, everyone. I'm happy to bring you a new episode today of the Leap Takers podcast where I'm interviewing up-and-coming European entrepreneurs, investors, and shapers from various fields. To retrace the journey of how they started their own company, their side projects or whatever they're working on. And then to discover their insights, tips, tricks, and advice. They got it for you so that you too can take the leap. 
My guest today is Armand Anatürk. He is the founder and CEO of food hack. Food hack is a community driven platform that inspires highlights and connect food and entrepreneurs and innovators. So with food hack, Armand is building like a 21st century media and events company for the food tech industry. 
Their platform includes a weekly food and food tech newsletter. A food discovery board, think of something like the product hunt food, so where you can find innovative food tech, startups, and cool new products that were launched. And. Food hack also hosts ambassador on meetups in many cities around the world. 
And they also host an annual food hack summit. 
Armand also hosts the secret sauce podcast, where he provides insights through interviews with food industry leaders. So you can also check that out if you're interested after this episode. 
So in today's episode, we are many exciting topics , including how Arman founded and grew food hack. to become one of the leading food and technology media companies out there. We cover how to do cold outreach correctly. To impact the food. and how our perception is changing around that. The newest trends in the food tech space. Tools you can use to start and run your own small startup or website and much more. So without further ado, please enjoy this conversation with Arman Anatürk:

Start Interview

hey Arman. Welcome to the leap takers podcast. It's really great to have you on the show today. And I'm really curious to learn more in this episode about your journey and what you've been building.
So if you could get started just with you providing a quick intro about yourself and who you are, that will be great.

Arman Anatürk: [00:02:39] Absolutely happy to be here. Happy to talk about my journey and what I've been doing ,  Yeah, I'm the co-founder of this company called food hack.
We're a food tech media and events company. We make food tech easier to digest and make it more accessible to anyone around the world who wants to learn more about how to get into food tech, how to launch a business in food tech, or how to invest or find the white spaces and market opportunities in the food category.

Remo Kyburz: [00:03:07] Yeah, and just to give some background to the listeners as well, , I came across food hack as well because of your newsletter which is really cool. If you want to just learn a bit about what's happening in the food space, new, interesting products that are coming out.
So  that's also something I definitely want to learn more about today. Before we get there, I'm always curious to learn more from my guests, how you became interested in startups and also for you and how you became interested in the food tech space. Could you tell us a bit more about that?
How you got interested?

Arman Anatürk: [00:03:37] Definitely. So I take this in twofold. I mean, my introduction to startups was really by chance. I was studying architecture, so I had always had the dream , of flipping houses. I don't know if you don't do that in Switzerland much, but because of the way that the system is set up here, but essentially.
It's the idea of buying houses, renovating them and then selling them for, for, you know, for a higher price than what you bought it. And that, that was always my dream. As a kid, I grew up watching these housing renovation projects on TV, and that's what I wanted to pursue in life. I started architecture in the UK.
That's what I was studying. And I really thought that that's what I was going to do. But after a year of studying I realized that something then fit right. Something and feel rights. In the UK, I had to pay for university. Luckily the first year I had a scholarship. The second year going in I didn't have a full scholarship, so I had to start paying my fees.
And then, okay. Now I have to put on student loans. I have to ask this for my family. And I, if architecture, you have seven years. Okay. Studies. So that's seven years of student loans building up. During the summer break one of my high school friends. he offered me the opportunity to work with him in his startup.
It was a coding school. There's multiple things going on at the time, but I was just focused on one. It was a coding school. And so I joined him and we started teaching people how to program web in iOS development courses. This. Internship that was meant to last two months was my first introduction to the startup world.
I got to attend events in London, see pitching conferences you know, see really deep dive into the startup ecosystem of London in a very short timeframe from the perspective of an intern from the perspective of an event attendee. And I got hooked instantly. You know, I, this to me was far more exciting and interesting then what I'm always doing in my studies.
And I was also getting paid as an intern or, and, but not much, but I had the prospect of getting paid a little bit more and I could see my direct value. Equaling to revenue towards the company. And I think this instant gratification of putting in the work and making cash for the company would just, I got addicted to it.
And once that internship was, was over, I, was in my offer just to stay on and I essentially dropped out on university. Much to the dismay of my family who are very academic focused academia is what brought them out of their situation. They're both, you know, Turkish immigrants that works very hard to study very hard.
My dad was top of his school. That's how we, he made out of his position to be able to kind of provide for our family. So they, they weren't too happy about that, but I told them this is what I was going to do. It's going to save them money in the long run and I will pay back the favor in, and that, that was my real introduction to the startup world.
Back in back back, I think 2014 was when it, when it happened.

Remo Kyburz: [00:06:44] Well, very interesting story. And thanks for giving some glimpses how it was for you and also for your family. Which yeah, definitely. Sometimes it's not that easy to understand. And I think by now the mindset has also shifted a bit of becoming an entrepreneur especially in Europe, I think maybe 10 years ago or so it was not as common of a path as it's today.
But it's still not, you know, what maybe your parents want you to do? Yeah, but very interesting and. So  you just mentioned, this was like 2014, something like that. What was like the next steps after you, weren't doing this coding school for how long did you do that and where did your path lead next?

Arman Anatürk: [00:07:25] So this coding school they were my friend for about two years. Eventually it gave us. A great exposure to the London tech ecosystem. We grew our network very well in a short period of time. And I was focused on the marketing side. So I was really doing a lot of outreach. I learned a skill which was cold emails and cold outreach.
Every day I was sending about two, 300 messages. Two people asking, inviting them, you know to come through our courses. And I was really just building up my skill sets from marketing to sales, to branding, to communication, to pitching really just acquiring the bulk of my knowledge. That, that I, that I got to the, I think that the, the attitude as well you should see how many times I got rejected.
How many people. Said some, not so nice messages back. You know, of course I was, I was reaching out to them in a cold message.

Remo Kyburz: [00:08:16] If I may just interject quickly how, like that's a huge number of messages as well. Like kind of what tools do you use or where did you reach out to them on like on LinkedIn or how did you do that get this volume?

Arman Anatürk: [00:08:28] Yeah. So, so you can't do that these days. Why? Because there's a bit of a block on LinkedIn they've they fix their system, but back then, all you had to do in LinkedIn and Facebook, two routes. I used to do this and both have both of them have . Fix their way to between us, but I just had a message essentially.
Hey John,  I run a coding course on the weekends that teach people how to program in just two days. If you're interested, I'd be happy to share more information, best Arman, and then you take that message and you just find the Facebook group, London startups. And you essentially just messaged every single person there, just changing the first name and then a day, depending on how dedicated you are and how many hours you work, you can get through two to 300 people.
There were other people on our team. Maybe they didn't get as many. I think I was sending the record, but that's it today. You can't do that because it will be a block. But there are other work around tools that you can use to mass email people and mass approach people. I just find some of these tools sometimes have issues associated with them.
So I prefer to take the, manual route.

Remo Kyburz: [00:09:32] . Yeah.  It's kind of fascinating how to do the cold outreach as well, because it's definitely a skill you need to learn as well and how to get the best conversion and people responding. .

Arman Anatürk: [00:09:41] Absolutely building on that action. We get everyone on the team today to do a bit of cold outreach. It's especially important here in Switzerland. I think it's put us with hires because it's a skill that we realize isn't taught the, the outreach or just messaging someone out of the blue. And it's something that I think is really makes or breaks a, an entrepreneur in the early days.
You can reach anyone you want on pretty much anyone you want, if you just try hard enough there's their contact is online or the contact is reachable through someone in your network and your business can grow so quick. If you can just learn the skill of outreach. So we've, we put everyone through that, that task when they join our company,

Remo Kyburz: [00:10:24] I think it's a very good way to do. And Jase said it's not something you learn in school at all. It's yeah, something you need to learn yourself. Good. But you were saying, so you kind of did this cold outreach and so what, what happened next?

Arman Anatürk: [00:10:37] Yeah. So the company was growing and we're growing steadily. We're doing these weekend courses. We shifted also a bit to doing some, some corporate courses, which. Further grew our network, but there was a bit of an internal issue myself and my co-founder w e ren't  getting along too well. And,  eventually long story short, we just had different visions of where the company would go.
And  we went different ways. Luckily at this time that happens, right. One of the major reasons why, startups fail in the early days is because the team Doesn't agree with a team, you know, internal issues. So I think it was a great lesson to learn from early on that you have to pick your team.
Right? And luckily at this period of time, I met , my now co-founder Camille. Who's in Swiss, she's from a Lausanne, or just, just nearby and promotion and I met her. We started working on a, on a project together. She was, she has a background in design and, and branding and communication. And so I had landed a client in the FMCG sector.
 Who needed us to organize a hackathon. And so that was my first experience, really working on a client projects. I know how to organize that event where to set up a structure when ended up quickly launching  an agency, which we named one roof, one of agency. And under that we, ran the, organize a hackathon for them and.
Since that day, actually, even today, that agencies is actually my primary business that I do. I don't mention it to many people as it's more my, the background thing that, that, that really keeps the, you know, the lights on and keeps everything running. But right off the back of the.
The coding course company. We launched that agency. I, we landed that client. And since then we've been doing client projects in the FMCG sector for food science projects.

Remo Kyburz: [00:12:27] And was this like a. You know, kind of a random coincidence that you landed in this area, or were you consciously making this decision? I want to work in that field?

Arman Anatürk: [00:12:37] It was completely random. , I think almost everything I've done up to that point has been random. I met my co-founder in a very random way. I met her whilst traveling in Marrakesh and Christmas day. I invited her to work with me on a random projects. At that project fell through, landed this FMCG clients and, and everything just snowballed.
You know, I never knew what I wanted to do. It's I, this is something that's, I think a lot of entrepreneurs think you need to know that they feel they need to have a strong vision or idea of where they want to go. I've only until recently not known where I wanted to go. I've just been figuring out along the way. And yeah, so it's been a random

Remo Kyburz: [00:13:17] This might be a bit of a weird question and you don't need to answer, but I like, how did you land this first client? Like , how did it work? Because  when I had my business before  I really struggled to get my first client. And I think especially if you're younger, you don't have such a huge network yet. Like how did it happen for you that you got your first client?

Arman Anatürk: [00:13:35] Because of the line of work we were in the coding courses. We were, we were doing the coding courses when it was very trendy. Everyone wants to learn how to code. And that opened the door to the corporate sector. My co-founder at the time was actually an extremely good networker. And I learned a lot from him in terms of how to reach out to executives and he was doing exactly that.
So he actually was able to. Open the door to this corporate client and started the conversation. And essentially  one thing led to another. And that led to the, this hackathon. The reason why they were interested in us is because the two years that we were running these coding classes, we were also staying connected to the.
Tech ecosystem. We had built up actually a very good network of universities tech hubs across London and the UK of towns of people who they wanted the access. And we were the intermediary between the two there's corporate sector and a startup entrepreneurial world.

Remo Kyburz: [00:14:32] Great. I think, yeah, , it's always really cool to get, you know, the actual insights of how people get their first clients and,  to see how it really happens. So thanks for sharing that. Now, moving on a bit to the company has started and then also to food hack, which is, what you're probably known for most today.
Could you describe to the audience. Again, maybe a bit more in detail.  What is food hack? And then following on that, , how you moved them from organizing these hackathons , to starting food hack?

Arman Anatürk: [00:15:02] Absolutely. So food like today is, is a media and events company for the food and food tech industry. So what we're trying to do is make the industry more accessible to everyone as a whole. How I got into it is that as a result of the agency One, we ended up moving out of London shortly after the hackathon, just because we felt that the market was getting quite saturated and we had actually gotten quite tired of working there.
So myself and my co-founder who at this point is worth noting is also my wife. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:15:35] Congrats.

Arman Anatürk: [00:15:37] it's, so the two of us we decided. We weren't married at that point. We were just working together and moving around. We felt that we needed to move into different markets. None of them was getting a bit saturated.
There was maybe not enough opportunities for us which, which are all around. And then we eventually landed back , in Switzerland where Camille is from and. In order to grow our network here very quickly, we wanted to do something that would make some noise about us and showcase our skill sets. And like you asked about how do you get clients?
Well, we thought, okay, great way to get clients would be to organize something which, you know, shows off all the different things we can do, the marketing, the community, building the stakeholder engagement. And so we organized the food hackathon. And that's where foodhack comes from. So, you know, I think it was 2016.
We organized this food hack Geneva first food hackathon. We did bringing together 60 different people from across Switzerland. Specifically targeting food waste and food food emissions reductions, because that was the thematic that the Swiss government was pushing quite heavily that year. And it's something that we've always wanted to do.
We were already working with some food related clients in the agency, and we just wanted to build up that sector even more. So there's two ways that we validated whether we should focus on food. One: was that a personal interest? And two : did we see an opportunity in the sector? And , we actually just asked the Facebook group, there's a Facebook group called the Swiss startup scene.
And we said, which category should we do a hackathon? Food waste. I think it was something like AI, something, something else I can't remember. And then by far the most voted one was food waste reduction. And that was it. That was on market validation for do a food hackathon. That's the way I tend to do.
So all that to say hack started as a result , of one trying to grow our agency, but to personal interests because we saw an opportunity that the food and food tech community, especially in Switzerland, , we felt was lacking, sold efforts to bring entrepreneurs together.
And startups together and the whole ecosystem to really collaborate on innovative projects.

Remo Kyburz: [00:17:50] So would you say today that the agency and the work you do there for clients is still the major part of your business? Or do you think that all the other things you're doing , today's like the newsletter , and the whole website, the platform where you have like food startups like when that kind of product hunt for food startups, is that something you also use to generate revenue or that you see as really part of the business? Or is this more, you know, kind of a side product of what you do with, with the agency?

Arman Anatürk: [00:18:20] Yeah. So today the agency's definitely the bread and butter. I mean, it's, it's grown into something that, you know, we're able to hire a full team. We're able to work with amazing clients across the Swiss food industry and work on some pretty exciting projects. But. Food hack , is really , the fun, crazy startup that keeps that's also are we treat as a startup, so, you know, we're able to take high risk there.
Whereas the agencies is more of a safe business model. It does bring in revenue because we have the events. We have the memberships, we have advertising through the different channels, but what the agency allows us to do. When you're in the meeting and events industry, it's a difficult model to monetize from the get-go unless you put advertising or , something there, which we feel would jeopardize the quality  of what you're doing.
So what we've tried to do is balance it out by  you know, using the agents to revenue, to basically fund food hack without having to take out  outside funding. And that allows us to do pretty much whatever we want with food.
Heck we don't have anyone telling us how to run it. We're able to write our own narrative. You might, you see it on newsletters. We're very open and free in the way we write. And we don't want to be dictated by any players telling us how we should. And shouldn't. Speak on what we shouldn't shouldn't cover.
And I think that freedom of speech and that freedom of being able to, to launch and do things has attracted people toFoodhack and is one of the reasons behind, you know, our perceived, you know success of f dhack

Remo Kyburz: [00:19:56] yeah, like from, from what I can tell you, it's also that people really like to read it because it's yeah, you're independent and you have your own opinion on the things you write. And I think that's. Really something people appreciate. And also the style of like the whole look of the newsletter, et cetera, it's really well done.
So it's young and modern, I think the look, so I really liked that. And you alluded to before, already kind of what the newsletter does, but maybe you could elaborate a bit more on, , what you typically include in the newsletter. Who is your target audience and maybe also some stats, like kind of how many readers you have if you want to share?

Arman Anatürk: [00:20:34] Definitely. Maybe I should give some background on , the act model and how we set it up briefly. So. After this one hackathon we realized that there was an interest for these food tech related events from there. People started reaching out to us saying whether they could also organize food hack events, and this actually led on to our first licensee.
So someone said can I organize for deck events in Zurich? And that was Dario Reisch, who now has her own startup Agrinorm. And. From there, we just started licensing the food at brand so that ambassadors could start organizing their local events the field events in their cities. And today we're in 16 different cities everywhere from Zurich to Stockholm to Brussels.
And we just opened up in Vancouver and Delhi recently. This year, we really have a strategy to open up in the APAC region and in the U S and. This was a very organic way , to grow the food brand and community without the need to put in too much resources at the same time. And it really highlighted to us.
Okay. There's something deeper here. Food entrepreneurs clearly want to get together for lunch was clearly need a safe space. To get together to find partners, to find investors, to find co-packers, to find, you know, you were talking very briefly before this, where am I going to find my manufacturer? Where am I going to find my, co-founder. And I was exactly the point of what these first meetups were for. And we found such a high success at these, at these meetups and events. And that format has just taken off as a result of these meetups. We then launched the newsletter. The newsletter came after the meetups.
It was like, okay, well we have all these events going on. What's happening at them. And what are we seeing? Let's, let's dissect that a little bit. Here's the key trends that we're seeing. Here's the key news that's happening. And over time, that news that are just evolve to be more of here's the top, food and food tech news of the week, digested into an easy to read format.
So that anyone, whether they're an industry insider or not, can be able to understand what's happening in the sector in under five minutes. From there, we've launched a few other products. We launched the membership. That's more exclusive in science that we found where we think if you're going to launch a business investment in a business or looking for the next big thing in food, here's the specific insights that we found, you know meal kits, frozen food, the autonomous how robots inside of the kitchen, always different sectors. And then obviously as a startup, we'd like to throw in a bunch of other fun stuff throughout there. So during the pandemic, when, when our events from possible, we launched this thing called the discovery board because , we weren't able to highlight as many startups as possible.
We just wanted to find a way to do it online. And we launched just discovery, which is pretty much product counter food, and that's been working really well for us.

Remo Kyburz: [00:23:39] Awesome. I think it's so cool that you have this discovery for food startups cause  it hasn't been done before.   And I always really enjoy checking out in your newsletter  the new startups and seeing, what's happening in the space.

Arman Anatürk: [00:23:51] But maybe I should. I didn't answer your question about the stats . So today we're opening in 16 different chapters. Like I said across that we have about 40, 45 different ambassadors who have the license in terms of. Discovery board. So discovery board grew quite quickly. We launched that in July and we have just over 7,000 users on there with I think, 15,000 votes generated and something like I, if I'm not wrong to say somewhere between 150 to 200 products featured in terms of subscribers, We have 5,000 subscribers on our main mailing list.
I know that's why, because today we hit 5,000 and a, it's not a massive amounts, but the reason why I know this is because  I had a bit of a issue with our mailing service because it obviously went on for the next upgrade level I had to pay for, to upgrade my, my, my mailing provider.
And I paid for it. But unfortunately, the accountant activate and I had a newsletter to send in two hours time, our weekly newsletter. So I ended up. Cold outreaching to every single person at the company, all the executives, all the people across everywhere, because the customer service was down. And anyways, an hour before an hour before sending, I got to sort it out. So that's the story of hitting 5,000 users.

Remo Kyburz: [00:25:08] Yeah, well, congrats it a 5,000. I think that's a really good milestone to hit. And I saw your newsletter in my inbox today. I haven't read it yet, but it looks like it worked so all good. And since you talked about the service providers for newsletters as well, I was interested to learn a bit more about that because I think it's nowadays it's a viable business model, like as a solo entrepreneur to run a newsletter business and it becomes more and more popular.
 Maybe you have a favorite tool to use or any, you know tips from your experience for people that want to run their own newsletter?

Arman Anatürk: [00:25:41] So these are the business tools that we use today that, that power our business. Today I'd say Webflow, we use Webflow a lot. It's what powers our websites. It's pretty much coding made easy. You can build any websites on there. It's great, but it's also limited, but if anyone wants to build a web app, I'd highly recommend they check that out.
And in order to use Webflow, we also have Zapier. Zapieris basically, you know, makes things happen across different platforms. So in order to, for someone to vote on one of the products on our website, that's one service provider and you Xavier basically zaps that to the database in the back that makes the vote happen on the other side.
So. I don't know if that's a clear explanation, but check out Zapier. Eventbride we use that for our ticketing because the events still happen. You know, the, the, the meetups still happen. It's not my favorite tool. I don't recommend it. And I'm still looking for a another service provider. So if anyone has a recommendation, please email me or message me. Canva.
We use Canva to create designs. Zoom obviously is one active campaigns is what we used to send our emails. It's a good email service provider tool to handle high load of emails. Though there's others in the market. You can check out

Remo Kyburz: [00:27:01] , did you ever look at like sub stack or ghost or something for the newsletter?

Arman Anatürk: [00:27:06] those ones. I did look at, I think they, they're not made for media companies I'd say too much. Maybe they're more made for individuals, but I mean, I didn't give them too detailed of a book. So if you'd recommend them, I'll take,

Remo Kyburz: [00:27:19] Yeah, but you're right. I think they're more for people that have their own personal newsletter or want to monetize their own newsletter, I guess for companies. Yeah. It's maybe not the best choice. You're right.

Arman Anatürk: [00:27:30] Yeah. And then as for other stack, you know, we use Slack, Google docs Hunter that I, I owe to find emails. So if you want to find anyone's email, use Hunter, the IO,

Remo Kyburz: [00:27:39] Yeah. I used to tell myself as well. It's great.

Arman Anatürk: [00:27:42] and for any Swiss people out there XCO for accounting software, it makes your accounting pretty easy.

Remo Kyburz: [00:27:48] cool. Yeah, I really appreciate that. I think, you know, there's so many tools out there sometimes it's really hard to find the best ones for your own use case or what you need. So it was great to learn from others what they're using. And yeah, I would say you definitely mentioned some of my top tools as well that I would use.
So I was wondering, how did you grow your newsletter to you know the amount of subscribers you have with 5,000 now? Is this mainly coming from your meetups or did you follow any specific tactics or strategies how to grow your subscriber base?

Arman Anatürk: [00:28:22] The news that our subscription growth, we haven't been very strategic about us. It grew quite organically in the beginning. I mean, we don't even have a referral button. I only just added a view in line button. And so I think we did hinder its growth quite a bit in, in, in, in the beginning. I think it's just word of mouth.
We try to iterate it as much as possible based on people's feedback. And I think that's what people appreciate. So no specific strategy, here's the things that we do that work that other people can do. We every time I post a newsletter, I make a web copy of it on our website, a foodhack.global. And you'll find that this week in food and on the very top of there, you'll find the signup for the newsletter as well.
And then I share these via my personal LinkedIn and on the company LinkedIn as well. And I tag all the different companies that we feature because we're doing a recap of the news. We're curating news, and we're tagging, you know, this company raised this amount, this company did this, this company did this, and that makes it highly shareable and, and engaged.
Posts that people click on and people tend to like to share with others. And that leads to, I believe it's growth. Another tactic is. Well, not a tactic, but something that we've seen since we've launched the discovery board, our user growth for our newsletter has gone up significantly. And I think that's just attributes to the fact that we've had so many more website visitors coming to our doors.
Tough one final thing. Final, final little hack that I do every time I add someone A lot of people add people having me on LinkedIn. And instead of wasting the opportunity to just say, accept, I accept. And I say, "Hey, thanks for having me. Here's my newsletter. If you want to subscribe Friday food tech news of the week, summarized PS, what are you working on?"

Remo Kyburz: [00:30:18] , that's a nice one. I think that I've never seen someone doing that, so that's a really good tip, actually.
  Since we talked, talked a lot about food hack now and what you're doing with your business.
 One thing I was very interested to chat about with you as well as kind of your view on the whole foods tech space. And since you're pretty much every day , confronted with, with what's happening in the food tech space and food innovation So what do you think are currently  the most important trends happening right now in the food tech space that you are interested in?

Arman Anatürk: [00:30:52] I think maybe most generally is increased consumer awareness of the impacts of food. On the environment as a whole. So I think that's been the big thing that happened in 2019, 2020 is look, your food choices really matter  when it comes to the environment and you have the power to choose with, with you know, w with your wallets and, and the choices that you make, and also by supporting different causes , by voting both winter walls and  in the polls as well.
So I think this increased consumer awareness has also led to the trends that we're seeing now. You know, th the shift towards plant and cell-based well, plant-based meat is, is the overseeing has been coming up. The alternative space has, has grown massively you know, beyond meat success in 2020 their, their IPO speaks for itself.
Beyond the impossible lead in this space, but there's a lot of different, small players that are there making the way it's getting more and more crowded with alternatives that are working on everything from plant-based meats to dairy to eggs, you know, pork, everything you can think of the, you know, there's alternatives coming out there and there's new types of ingredients for, you know, even for. For milk. It's no longer just, soy. It's you know, oats, it's hemp it's  chickpeas. There's a whole range of. Different types of products for whatever people are looking for in whatever nutritional, you know, selection they want. So the plant-based sector is one to watch. There's more investors in there.
There's more funding into there. There's, there's more products and startups going into there. And More supports as well, accelerators everything in the space is growing and I think just the stats I'm the alternative meat market is meant to grow to 85 billion by 2030. So that's just an idea. Cell-based meat is something that's. I think this week is particularly important that we talk about because this week I don't know when you listen as well as, since this, but it's the week that eat just, just got approval  to sell their cell-based chicken in, in Singapore.
And this is a massive milestone for the Cultured meat industry as a whole. It doesn't mean that we'll be seeing cell-based meat on our plates in the next year. It's still going to take a long time to roll out. And Josh Tetrick the founder of, and CEO of Eat Just said, you know, it's probably gonna take 15 more years till it's something as I'm available.
It's, Coca-Cola on everyone's plates and as areas. So it's still a while, a while is a way out, but there's a lot of different players that are entering this, this space.

Remo Kyburz: [00:33:36] Hmm. And take the company. So it's called eat just, or what's the name of the company?

Arman Anatürk: [00:33:41] just, they do mostly plant-based eggs, but they're also working on, on a cell-based chicken under a different brand. I can't remember the name of the brand right now, but they'll be launching it in Singapore.

Remo Kyburz: [00:33:55] Since we talked about the trends and yeah, definitely the plant-based and meat alternatives are huge. Is there some other innovation you see happening that doesn't get that much press coverage and, but you still think is worth highlighting?
Especially maybe because it's a bit on the radar. Is there anything that comes to mind?

Arman Anatürk: [00:34:13] Well, I think some of the major trends that are happening is transparency and traceability. So three, one, two ones that I think I've grown as a result of coronavirus is the transparency and traceability as consumers want to know more where their food's coming from and that's resulting in solutions that.
Bring more lights to the supply chain of where people's parents are coming from or on a more simple level are just giving rise to more . Local grown produce. So solutions like farming solutions like Crispin in Netherlands, where consumers can order food from their local area, rather than having it imported from you know, who knows how far and, and untraceable sources, another one would be food as medicine or functional foods.
Now that people are answering the space where they want to take their health into their own hands and they want to boost their immune system. They're looking for foods that can help them with that. What's important to look for in the space, I think is foods that are clinically proven or foods that are  using greens that you know, are backed by evidence.
So there's a lot of claims out there and some point to, to cut through the noise and find the right ones. Another interesting space would be personalized supplements. There's companies like baze. Baze was a originally founded by a founder from Zurich, but they moved the company to the us. They are doing some interesting stuff in personalized nutrition, and they even are doing personalized meals soon.
So there are company to watch in this space. What we're going to be seeing more of is personalized meals based on your microbiome. So, you know, each one of us, did we all ate ideally , to our personal microbiome. We'd be eating something completely different. Depending on where we are in the world.
And what's what our surroundings are. Like, if we ate like this, we would be performing at our optimal, but in order to find solutions that would work like this in scale, it's been quite hard. There's personalized nutrition apps.  Another Swiss one to watch would be mixed, fits mixed with mixed beverages personalized nutrition beverages that had in which you can put in your desk.
But you know, getting it really into the, as a meal or getting it as a meal kits or, or getting it in your restaurant. That's something that I think people are trying to work on, but it's difficult to scale. And probably the last one I'd say is sustainable packaging, packaging, and plastic waste has been you've seen all those videos over LinkedIn. Facebook. Twitter is one that people care a lot about. And just this week, Diego announced that they want to become net zero carbon by 2030. And they want to change all their packaging to a hundred percent recyclable reusable, compostable. Nestle announced this week that they planned to  achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, and PepsiCo also have committed to using recyclable plastic by 2020, 22.

Remo Kyburz: [00:37:12] There's definitely so much happening in this space and it's a very exciting time if you, if you, I think are an entrepreneur in the space, or if you're interested in the space and want to try out new things, I believe every day there's like something almost. It feels like every day, something new Kind of being released. Yeah, so very exciting time. 
 So I will move to the rapid fire questions which I typically say for last just to get your, you know, quick thoughts on what you think So first question is like what will be a book that had a really big personal impact on you?
Or your thinking. Is there anything that you would recommend?
Arman Anatürk: [00:37:47] Shoe dog. Why? Just because of the grind and the hustle. I think it was summarized perfectly.

Remo Kyburz: [00:37:54] Yeah. That's Phil Knight, right? From, yeah. Okay. And since you're in the food tech space, is there any, you know, favorite product you have or like a startup, which product you tested lately that you are really, you know that you really like or obsessed with?

Arman Anatürk: [00:38:11] I don't like to pick out favorites from the ones that we see, but I can just say I'm really interested by the alternative protein space and the companies that are there. There's a lot to come. In shorts, I would say any product that we featured on discovery board is a product that I think is worth taking another look at.

Remo Kyburz: [00:38:27] So if you know, you could restart , your entrepreneurial journey. Are there any lessons or takeaways you would tell yourself you were younger or when you got started?

Arman Anatürk: [00:38:37] Yeah, well, I think one is you don't have need to have a clear vision from the beginning. Some people really knew some people, especially in the food tech industry have a very clear idea of where they want to go and what they're working on and what their mission is in life. Not everyone has that. Not everyone wakes up everyday knowing what they want to do and that's okay.
You can figure it out for the beginning and. As long as you're using this time, while you're figuring it out to gain your skillset or, or learn something don't just sit around, wasting it and , building upon that learning doesn't have to mean in the traditional sense courses or academia   you can also learn that through internships at the companies that you really believe in. Even if you're doing it for free or even if you're doing it for very cheap, not that I recommend that, you know, but it's a great way to get some experience into field that you want pursue or just interested in.
And, one thing for Swiss entrepreneurs would be. Be a bit more bold in communication. I think when I first came here, I was surprised by how it was a bit more reserved in London and the U S where I was from, where I lived in before. And it toned myself. I told myself down as well to, to fit in.
And only recently I've started, you know Really bringing it out and communicating the way I truly am. And people resonate. People want to hear from different personalities. You've seen the success of multiple different profiles. Greg Logan is a great example. Swiss guy who has an active LinkedIn profile.
Don't feel the need to, do what everyone else is doing, because that's the way you've been raised or that's the way the culture is, you know, open up a little bit in and share some stuff on LinkedIn, post some stuff here. And if no one resonates with it, who cares posted tomorrow, posted the day after posted the day after and eventually an audience.

Remo Kyburz: [00:40:27] Thanks for saying that.  I mean being Swiss myself, I know how the culture is here. So It's definitely more reserved. And I would also you know, encourage people to try out more things in the end. No one really cares. Most people  they care about themselves and they think about themselves most of the day, they don't really care what you're doing.
  . The last question as well is related to the name of the podcast. What does courage mean to you personally in the context of life or entrepreneurship?
Arman Anatürk: [00:40:54] Hmm, that's a good question.  There's a quote that I heard from a friend who said get to 51% on our decision. And stick to it. And I think that's what I try to live by. So when it comes to important decision, make it to 51% certainty and don't look back and that's what I've done up to now.
And it's got me this far and that's why I'm going to keep doing moving forward.

Remo Kyburz: [00:41:20] , that's some great closing words. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast. And before we close, are there any last words or things you wanted to say to the audience? You can also share of course where they can find you online. 

Arman Anatürk: [00:41:34] Yeah, definitely. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. You can connect with me on email, online at www.Foodhack.global. If you're working on food or food tech startup, you know, the best way that I can help is, is one you can try and joining a local meetup in your city. We do them all around. Too, you can put your product on a discovery board and then we'll , promote it everywhere that we can.
We'd love to push products in front of our audience. And if there's anything I can help with, let me know. Personally, nothing really I'll be hopefully just, , you know, working on some different stuff in the , coming weeks. And we'll have some exciting announcements coming up in the coming months. I keep it , , as secret tip. Is that

Remo Kyburz: [00:42:11] Okay, sounds exciting. I guess then stay tuned. And that will also make sure to link to everything in the show notes so people can check it out there as well and get directly to your website. Thank you so much again, Arman and wishing you continuing success and all the best.

Arman Anatürk: [00:42:28] Thanks for inviting me on. I enjoyed it.

Outro

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