As the temperatures cool and people head back from the beach, it’s time to think about your application for Food-X’s fifth cohort! We are jazzed to see so many awesome applications and continue to be excited by the new ones coming in. So far, we’ve received applications from 6 continents and 25 countries (we are still waiting for you, Antarctica!), as well as a ton of questions from startups wondering if they’d be a good fit for our program.
Here are some quick tips for applying for Food-X:
1. BIG Idea
The Food-X team is pretty agnostic about genre or category of food business. We don’t care whether you are selling a salad dressing or a mobile app, we just want to see your vision for disruption and world-conquering awesome food services and products. What’s the big idea? Scalability is key here. We need to believe that you’ve identified a real, verifiable (and ideally freakin’ enormous…) market that can make your company a success, along with a business model that has the growth capabilities to meet customer demand. It would be kinda nice if you’ve figured out some way to prove it too, initial customers are often good indicators.
2. Hustle
While we don’t set any predetermined benchmarks to identify traction, we need to see passion and dedication behind your business right off the bat. At this stage, most of what you have to show is your blood, sweat and tears, and you need to make us believe that you are focused on your business 110%. We want to see a working website and a social media presence. If you are pre-revenue, we want to see you actively surveying potential customers and collecting emails. If you are post-revenue, you should be gathering and incorporating feedback, frequently reiterating your product. We want to see you hustling, not waiting for excuses to follow your dreams and start your business. Don’t use getting into Food-X as the excuse to wait to start — start when you reach the bottom of this page…
3. Delicious Food (If you’re producing food)
This is often easier said than done. Food should be delicious. The Food-X team also believes food should have simple, transparent, and unique ingredients. Even if you are not a consumer brand company (and the majority of our portfolio is not!) you should believe in the power of food. Food brings us together — and you should be willing to share snacks, restaurant recommendations, or that killer Korean taco recipe (looking at you, Bite!).
4. Differentiation
We often ask our applicants, “who are your competitors?” If we get a response stating there are none, red flags are raised. Every product or service has competition, even if it’s an indirect substitute. As a founder, you should be hyper aware of the market you are entering — even if you are first to market in a specific subcategory. This helps build your differentiation as a brand and a business if you can find how you stack against the rest.
5. Great Team
We know SOSV is a bit of a broken record on this one — we like co-founding teams. We want to see teams of co-founders with varying but complementary skillsets. We understand many times one founder has the vision, but it is critical to offer equity to attract excellent co-founders and first hires. This being said, we have not completely shied away from investing in single founders. But these founders must be team players and willing to incorporate feedback. Also, for us, “great team” translates to “great people”. Since we will be working together side by side for 14 weeks, Food-X loves to work with teams that are not only hard-working, but have a good sense of humor and community presence. Egos need to be left at the door (us and you) — it’s not about being right, it’s about doing the right thing.
As you can see here, Food-X does not have too many hard and fast rules for our application process. It’s truly exciting to see your applications. If you still have lingering questions, apply! We respect the time and energy it takes to apply and look forward to working with you.
Cohort 5 Applications are open until November 30th, 2016 — apply your startup today!
Written by Allison Stewart, Nolan English & Andrew Ive.
Originally published at sosv.com on September 15, 2016.
