23: Steve O'Dell (Tenzo)
Revenue: Real Startup Stories
English - March 17, 2021 12:00 - 49 minutes - 45.1 MB - ★★★★★ - 12 ratingsEntrepreneurship Business Technology revenue technology ecommerce dtc saas startups founders Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Previous Episode: 22: Marti Sanchez (Influence Podium)
Next Episode: 24: Amir Torabi (Sendlane)
Steve O'Dell is Co-Founder & CEO of Tenzo, a matcha tea company. In this episode, we talk about Steve's background, the benefits of matcha tea, starting Tenzo, building the right team, staying close to customers, the future of the food and beverage industry, angel investing, and more.
Tenzo was able to build a successful business by focusing on a niche – bringing ceremonial quality matcha from Japan to the United States. When thinking about your company, we recommend you go DTC and focus on creating a superior experience.
GUEST
Steve O'Dell LinkedIn
Tenzo LinkedIn
Tenzo Website
PODCAST
Safa Mahzari
Patreon
Alluxo Website
RESOURCES
"The Struggle" by Ben Horowitz
"The Lindy Effect" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
TERMS
Matcha = Finely ground powder of specially grown green tea leaves
Koicha = Japanese word for "thick tea"
DTC = direct to consumer
CPG = consumer packaged goods
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Episode intro
0:53 - Steve's background
4:40 - Lessons from early companies
19:30 - Matcha tea and the Tenzo brand
30:54 - Disrupting the established food and beverage players
41:30 - What is your day to day?
48:20 - Wrap up and final thoughts