Food52: Amanda Hesser

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2021

⏱️ 91 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the early 1990s, as Amanda Hesser's college friends were interviewing for their first cubicle jobs, she chose a different path: one that led straight into the kitchens of Europe, where she cooked traditional recipes and learned the rhythm of the seasons from a crusty French gardener. By 24, she had landed a book deal and one of the most coveted jobs in journalism: writing about food for the New York Times. But over time she grew restless, and in 2008, gave up that dream job—and the stability that went with it—to become an entrepreneur. When her first business fizzled out, Amanda took a financial risk by pivoting again to launch a new company: Food52. Part food blog, part e-commerce site for all things kitchen and home, Food52 is now valued at roughly $100 million and achieved profitability for the first time in 2020—during the pandemic.

How I Built This Summit - information and tickets at:
http://summit.npr.org

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	New Year's is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.
0:13.0	As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.
0:17.0	So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.
0:24.0	Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.
0:31.0	Did you guys get to the point where you were almost at a cash?
0:34.0	Yeah, you know, that was tough.
0:37.0	We had a moment at Roberta's Pizzeria.
0:41.0	I love Roberta.
0:42.0	Yeah, we cried over Pizzeria, but really good Pizzeria.
0:45.0	And we needed to have a conversation of where is our breaking point, because it felt like we just...
0:52.0	It wasn't that we had no traction. We definitely had people interested, but we just couldn't get that lead.
0:57.0	And then I actually, like, often with things that are bad memories.
1:02.0	I sort of shoved them into a drawer somewhere in my brain.
1:06.0	And I don't know, maybe it was a good pizza that we were just like, yes, we were going to keep going.
1:11.0	From NPR is how I built this.
1:19.0	A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
1:26.0	I'm Guy Raazan on the show today, how Amanda Hester walked away from one of the most coveted jobs in journalism
1:35.0	to build a digital media company for recipes and kitchen gear called Food52.
1:46.0	Some of my favorite people to hang out with are reporters.
1:50.0	They generally tend to be fun and interesting and a little snarky, but usually with the best intentions.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Guy Raz | Wondery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Guy Raz | Wondery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.