From a broken business model to 20,000 subscribers; 8-figure founder Nicole Centeno tells her Splendid Spoon journey (part 1)

Today on the show we’re learning from Nicole Centeno, the founder of Splendid Spoon.The spark for Splendid Spoon came to Nicole in 2012. Working at Condé Nast and pregnant with her first son Grover, she came to realize how unattainable it was to achieve a healthy lifestyle alongside a demanding career and the day-to-day realities of being a working parent. What she wanted was to find a way to make nutritious, and, importantly, delicious plant-based food accessible to everyday Americans.While working full time, Nicole began attending culinary school, dabbling in catering (by delivering soups on her lunch break that she’d cooked earlier that morning!), hosting pop-ups, and teaching cooking/nutrition courses at Columbia University. These experiences — coupled with her studies in diet therapies, a penchant for entrepreneurship, and a conviction that there must be a better way to eat well — convinced Nicole to take the leap and leave her corporate career to pursue food full-time.What I love about this story, is that Nicole talks about having none of the business language, but all of the instincts when she was first starting out. She knew how to ask for things, she knew where she needed to get to but just didn’t have the language or the model to explain these things. This is so often the case for first-time founders. We know where we're going, and we have a plan, but we don’t speak the business jargon. In the end, the magic lay in being very passionate about what she believed in. That was the most powerful part of it. People had the conviction that she would keep trying. Had that tenacity, She had a story. With the key pieces to convince someone that she could make this bigger, she could get stuck in.We’re covering her journey of side-hustle to 8-figure biz, the challenges that the food industry faces, and how to do a friends and family round. So much good stuff in here I know you’re going to love it!And remember that if you want a signed copy of my book, this week and next I’m sending them out to anyone who creates a TikTok video about Female Startup Club. All you need to do is post the video and slide into my inbox at [email protected] the best day and enjoy the episode, this is Nicole for Female Startup ClubLINKS WE MENTION:Splendid's WebsiteBook: The Hard Thing About Hard ThingsBook: The Artist's WayBook; Soup Cleanse Cookbook Blog: First Round CapitalFemale Startup Club's InstagramDoone's InstagramDoone's TikTokTo redeem 1 month free of Norby's Basic Plan use code "FSC" here: https://join.nor.by/Learn more about Athletic Greens and get your FREE gift at Athleticgreens.com/STARTUPTry Zapier for free today at zapier.com/STARTUPLearn more about Dymo at Dymo.comIn partnership with Klaviyo, the best email marketing tool for ecommerce businesses.Female Startup Club's YouTubeFemale Startup Club’s Private Facebook GroupSay hello to Doone: [email protected] Startup Club + Clearco: Clear.co/partner/female-star Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.