Eat Offbeat delivers authentic and home-style ethnic meals that are conceived, prepared and delivered by refugees resettled in NYC. You may know Manal and her team not just for the great food, but from press and the WeWork Creator Awards, where WeWork founder Andrew Neumann placed an order for every Friday for a year!
Eat Offbeat’s next goal is to 1) triple sales from catering by diversifying its offering and taking on a more aggressive sales strategy, and 2) pilot 2 ways to expand its product offering beyond catering; all by 2021. This will require an injection of both capital and talent, so the Eat Offbeat team is looking at a period of intense fundraising and hiring ahead!
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How has the Columbia Startup Lab helped you on your journey?
As cliché as this may sound, a founder’s journey really is a lonely one. Having an office to go to and being surrounded by brilliant founders and advisors at the Columbia Startup Lab made all the difference for me: it made my journey less lonely, less stressful, and more fruitful.
What is your advice to future entrepreneurs?
Surround yourself with people who support you, and people who inspire you (or, if you’re lucky, people who support AND inspire you). It’s a real roller coaster out there and you want to make sure there’s someone to pick you up when you’re at the bottom and someone to push you even higher when you’re at the top.