Josh Hix, founder @ Plated

About this video

Nick Taranto, cofounder of Plated, recounts building a meal kit delivery business from a $250K debt-laden start in 2012 to a $300M acquisition by Albertsons in 2017. The episode covers early scrappy tactics (hand-fulfilling orders from an apartment, testing on a throwaway domain), the role of cheap Facebook ads and direct customer chat, navigating a Hurricane Sandy near-miss, raising $90M in venture capital, Shark Tank’s massive impact, and lessons on co-founder dynamics, competitive strategy, and the venture-backed business model.

Key takeaways

• Taranto and his cofounder spent six months vetting ideas before starting, prioritizing team fit and complementary skills over a predetermined idea—they eventually tested on a cheap domain (DiningFresh.com) before acquiring ‘Plated’ after securing seed funding.
• The earliest customer acquisition came through low-cost Facebook ads and on-site chat conversations where Taranto manually gathered user feedback and refined messaging in real time, achieving tens of customers per week before scaling.
• Taranto paid himself $20–30K in year one and $30–40K in year two, treating salary cuts as normal during cash-strapped phases; he argues that expecting market-rate pay early signals poor unit economics and is a red flag for investors.
• Despite wanting to run the business forever, venture funding created an obligation to return capital on investors’ timelines, ultimately leading to the Albertsons sale; he emphasizes that venture money is appropriate only for businesses requiring massive scale (like large-scale tech products) and not all companies.
• On competition: the six major meal kit players all launched within the first two years; Taranto advises focusing obsessively on serving your customer rather than watching competitors, citing Chipotle as an example of a massively successful business despite a crowded market.

Episode details: published December 29, 2018 · 675 views · 46:09 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The business ideas, figures and results discussed are the hosts’ and guests’ own claims, shared as brainstorming and entertainment — not verified facts and not investment advice.

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