Embracing the unknowns of entrepreneurship

Part of the journey we all face in life is the unknown.? There is no set guidebook that tells us where we will end up.? We all do our best with the tools at our disposal.? As we recently opened up our seed round for Yough!, although I couldn’t tell you who our investors will be yet, or how quickly we will raise the money, I haven’t felt this relaxed in as long as I can remember.? The inner peace comes from knowing why my team is embarking on this path.? My entire founding team has dealt with hardships in one way or another.? When my COO Jason E. Miller, CPA was only 24, he lost his father to a massive heart attack.? To say that Jason’s father was his idol would be the understatement of the century.? He brings him up from time to time and mentions fond memories of his infatuation for food, and his deep love for his family and friends.? Although I never was fortunate enough to meet his father, I have zero doubt that he would be so proud of what we are engulfed in right now.? Not to mention, he would be eating our product everyday like we all do!? Jason has had ulcerative colitis for the last few years and was told by his doctor that he had to axe pizza from his diet.? Being kids that grew up in New Jersey, let’s just say that telling guys like us that we can’t eat pizza is equivalent to telling somebody they don’t need water to quench their thirst and stay hydrated.??

One of my other co-founders and long term former employee Corey Arenson has had challenging health hurdles of his own to deal with.? A rare form of eye cancer made him unable to see in one eye, and led to countless doctors visits and many surgeries.? Luckily he is in full remission now, and has been a huge inspiration to many, including myself.? I had to take him off salary after over a decade of working together, because our food delivery business went from being the big man on campus, to the culmination of covid and competition leading us to have to shut the business down.? Within two weeks after I had to make that dreaded phone call to him, he reached back out to me.? He told me that Jason had put together a business plan revolving around the two ingredient dough trend that has been immensely popular online for years.? Corey mentioned that the name Yough! was something that really stuck, and he wanted me to meet him and Jason in New York City to discuss bringing this to life.

I was in a rut at the time to say the least.? There was a long stretch of time that I thought I would be selling my food delivery business, and when this didn’t come to fruition, we had to close the doors on what had been my livelihood since I was 18 years old.? My mind told me it was time for a year off to find myself.? However, my heart spoke otherwise.? I told Jason and Corey? that I would really have to be obsessed with the product to embark on this adventure with them.? Our head of product, Phil Kaiser was at the time helping master the stovetop version of the product.? This was back in the summer of 2021.? One day, we ventured out to his house in Cranford, New Jersey to try the pizza.? That tasting almost didn’t even happen.? The guys picked me up from right outside the Holland tunnel in Manhattan and it happened to be during the heart of rush hour.? I was still licking my wounds from realizing the food delivery business was going under, and let’s just say my patience was wearing thin that day.? After about twenty minutes of being in gridlocked bumper to bumper traffic, I was within a minute of just getting out of the car and telling my eventual business partners that they would have to attack this venture without me.? Something told me that I would regret getting out of that car, and had to just see it through. ? We got to Cranford a couple hours later, and after biting into Yough! I knew there was no turning back.??

Here we are now almost 2 and a half years later.? Our team has sacrificed a great deal.? None of us have paid ourselves a cent in salary yet.? This is why society rewards entrepreneurs handsomely when things pan out.? The odds are stacked against you and then some.? We closed our family and friends pre-seed round at the end of the summer in 2022.? After launching for direct to consumer nationwide on July 24, 2023, we are thrilled to have the opportunity to be part of the Gopuff ecosystem. We've been on their platform now throughout most of the fall. We are also very excited and honored to have just launched with our first retailer, Foxtrot ! ? As we gear up to expand our retail footprint, part of my responsibility is to fundraise, as well as recruit individuals to add to our team.? Going back to our why, we all eat what we preach.? When I tell you that our team is obsessed with our product, we eat it every single day.? Whether that is eating pizza or making something with our dough, we’ve never felt better being able to eat bread products everyday.? In a world where the better for you space isn’t always easy to avoid sacrificing flavor for health, we have kept the ingredients simple, and the taste top notch. ? 2024 is impossible to predict, but I’m grateful to have the opportunity to continue my entrepreneurial journey, and this wouldn’t be possible without my business partners and all of our early supporters.? From family, to close friends, and many strangers, I can't wait to hit the road and cross paths with familiar and new faces in the year ahead as we expand our retail footprint! Wishing you a happy and healthy year!? Who would have ever thought that a New Year's resolution could revolve around eating more frozen ??!