There’s a lot of stories around how the pandemic has changed and shifted business, our guest today Shaunak Amin is one of the biggest success stories. His startup Stadium was able to quickly pivot and grow a new business SnackMagic entirely during the lockdown and now is at $20M ARR.

Shaunak’s Background: Shaunak Amin is co-founder and CEO of STADIUM and SnackMagic. He is an experienced entrepreneur and operator, and has helped launch and scale businesses in different industries.

In addition to the entrepreneurial ventures, his career spans financial technology and investment management with senior roles at Novus - a fintech firm based in NYC, SAIL Advisors- a multi-billion dollar family office based out of Hong Kong, ING Investment Management and SEI Investments

Shaunak also holds a BS from University of Pennsylvania. He started his first business, Tikka Foods, during his Sophomore year at PENN that initially started as a food truck and ultimately evolved into a wholesale delivery service of ready-to-eat, contemporary Indian food.

For more on this story, check out this playlist:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnuoDHNwT1mVI7wPP-kunbjLKgnSY5ZJP

In this episode we discuss:

01:31 Shaunak’s early entrepreneurial experiences

02:37 Lessons from those days that he’s applied to Stadium and SnackMagic

03:27 The business model of Stadium

05:23 How Covid pushed Stadium to pivot

07:32 Mindset of the company in the early days of the pandemic

10:04 The effect on the team size

11:05 The decision to fully launch SnackMagic

14:08 Research process to validate SnackMagic

15:41 Timeline of idea to first order

17:50 Why they didn;t choose to be subscription first

20:00 How SnackMagic manages SKUs and helps consumers discover new snacks

22:31 Getting access to brands

24:10 The data around the purchase decisions

25:00 How consumers use the platform to try and then buy in bulk

26:06 The best sales channel for SnackMagic

26:45 The biggest headache for scaling

27:26 Network effect of treating it forward

28:34 Customer experience tracking

29:20 How they weed out weak snacks

29:57 The hidden gem of data around what people want to eat

31:03 Why Shaunak decided to take a large Series A

32:17 The future of SnackMagic

33:30 Moving beyond snacks

Books Shaunak recommends:The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. GoldrattInfluence: The Psychology of Persuation by Robert B Cialdini PhDThe Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton M. ChristensenBlue Ocean Strategy, Expanded Edition: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim

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