Want to Get Swoll? Princeton Seniors on Building a Cricket-Infused Energy Bar Startup
Greetings beloved readers,
Welcome to another edition of PIE, where we interview the brightest entrepreneurs and VCs from Princeton and beyond. This issue’s featured startup founders are Grace Cordsen and Madelynn Prendergast, who along with Jordi Cabanas founded Ketnu. All of them are Princeton Class of 2019. Ketnu aims to provide the highest quality nutritional energy bars that actually taste good. They believe in recharging the body and nourishing the brain with their product, because after all, we are what we eat! Let’s hear it from the founders on what they have to say about their entrepreneurial journey with Ketnu.
- Where did the idea for Ketnu originate from?
Ketnu is the product of about half a year of brainstorming on how we thought cricket could best be marketed as the next big superfood. We found out about cricket flour through our own research on natural ways to fuel ourselves. We were curious as to how we could incorporate it into our everyday lives.
2. What unforeseen challenges did you encounter in this whole process?
We could go on for awhile on all of the small things we could have never anticipated. One unforeseen challenge was developing an efficient process for production. It is easy to make things on the small scale or even to imagine how things would work on a larger scale, but it is much harder to actually make that happen. We are still tweaking our process so that it is as productive as possible, but we certainly have grown a lot since we first met that challenge.
3. What was the moment or series of events that made you realize that Ketnu was worth sacrificing your time?
After spending a summer building the company, we were able to realize how much we enjoyed the entrepreneurial mindset and we could see how this was something we wanted to do together after graduation.
4. What experiences at Princeton inspired you to go into your field and contributed the most with developing your entrepreneurial skills?
As athletes, we have eaten a lot of energy bars. We came to the conclusion that finding an energy bar that both sustained us and tasted good was near impossible, so we decided to take a swing at it ourselves and that is what we have been doing ever since. The mentorship we have through the Keller Center has helped us develop the skills that will allow us to take this to the next level.
5. Most valuable piece of advice you’d give to aspiring entrepreneurs?
At Princeton it can be really easy to think of everything as a “project.” What we mean is that when you are stuck in the student mentality, you can get wrapped up in the idea that everything has a fairly short start and finish date — just like any assignment for school. When it comes to entrepreneurial endeavors as a student, it is important to take a step back and think of the thing you are doing as a viable option for the future, not just a short term project. That can allow you to think bigger and be bolder with your ideas and creative process.
And that’s it for this issue! Feel free to reach out to me for any questions or comments.
Check out Ketnu’s products here.
For more interviews of leading VCs/founders go here!
