Welcome to Startup Grind's Founder Series, where our VP of Sales + Startups Alex Gordon-Furse educates our global community on highly relevant early-stage topics through interviews with founders of top startups from our Startup Program.

In this episode, Alex interviews Carson Goodale, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of FanFood, which provides a commission-free mobile ordering for stadiums, entertainment venues, and restaurants. To date, they have raised $3.3M from investors like HYPE Capital, Phoenix Capital & UCLA Ventures.

The subject of this interview is 'The Art of the Pivot'. Expect to learn about how FanFood has navigated the past year as a startup depends on the existence of large in-person sporting events. Through this story, we aimed to educate other founders in the SG community about what a pivot looks like in practice, including how and when to consider a pivot and how to manage the process end-to-end, both internally and externally.

0:00 Start
0:10 Quick intro from Alex Gordon-Furse, VP of Sales & Startups at Startup Grind HQ
1:24 Meet Carson Goodale, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of FanFood
2:08 What Fanfood does and how Carson came up with the idea
5:31 How Fanfood has evolved
7:56 When Fanfood knew they had product-market fit
11:02 Fanfood team -- hiring and making the most of people's skills
14:26 The pivot: How Fanfood plans shifted due to COVID-19
15:55 How the management team communicated challenges
18:27 Decision-making process for choosing a new direction for product and service
23:40 Seeing things as an opportunity rather than a barrier
26:20 Product growth from mobile ordering at sporting venues to drive-thrus
29:33 The first few weeks of the pivot -- internal and external comms plan
31:51 Roles that needed to be repurposed
35:55 Shifting focus to content creation and customer engagement
37:45 Listening to customers and getting feedback
39:30 Dealing with the uncertainty of COVID on the platform
41:04 Making company cuts
44:10 The importance of constant communication
45:37 How Carson is focusing on new markets in the new year
49:03 Fanfood's plans for fundraising -- conversation shift with investors
50:40 Fanfood's approach to work -- remote, in-office, hybrid plans
52:15 Plans to expand outside of the US
53:10 Where you can find Fanfood! Go to the app store or order.fanfood.com

Watch more of the Founder Series:    • Founder Series  

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Follow FanFood on Twitter -   / fanfoodondemand  

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