Living The Red Life
Co-Founder of Blue Apron on Scaling Chaos, Rodent Nightmares, and Going Public
27 Feb 2025
SUMMARYMatthew Wadiak, co-founder of Blue Apron, joins the show to share his incredible journey of building one of the most well-known meal kit services in the world. He discusses the highs and lows of scaling a startup, including the challenges of logistics, fulfillment, and the process of taking a company public. From wild customer service nightmares to the pressure of keeping innovation alive while preparing for an exit, Matt provides an unfiltered look at the realities of running a high-growth business.Now, he’s onto his next big venture—Capsule, a new sustainable beverage company tackling the problem of plastic waste in packaging. With years of research and patented technology, Matt is revolutionizing how we consume drinks by replacing traditional plastic bottles with innovative, eco-friendly pod systems. He shares invaluable insights on entrepreneurship, leadership, and the importance of staying adaptable in an ever-changing business landscape.CHAPTERS02:35 - The Early Hustle: From Startup to Scale05:12 - The Two Worlds of a Growing Business07:43 - Logistics Nightmares: A Rodent Tale Gone Wrong10:26 - Surviving the Chaos of a Rapidly Scaling Business13:05 - Lessons from Taking a Company Public15:47 - The Biggest Pitfalls When Preparing for an Exit18:22 - From Blue Apron to Innovation: A New Sustainability Mission20:58 - Revolutionizing Beverage Packaging: The Birth of Capsule23:40 - The Hardest Lessons in Entrepreneurship26:19 - Final Advice for Entrepreneurs: What I’d Tell My Younger SelfConnect with Matthew Wadiak:Website: www.blueapron.comX: @MWadiakConnect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter
Full Episode
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. Today joining me is Matt and I'm sure you maybe used or at least know his company. So he founded Blue Apron, grew to 2 billion IPO, millions of customers using it weekly. I've been a fan and I'm so excited for this episode.
My name is Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life.
So obviously, most people know Blue Apron and, you know, became a very, I think, disruptive and fast growing brand, at least in my eyes. Do you mind just giving a couple of minutes overview for people that maybe know less about it?
Sure. Blue Apron was the first meal kit company in America providing all of the ingredients and a recipe card that allowed customers to cook step-by-step recipes at home. And we grew from a tiny fulfillment center originally in Queens doing about 20 meals or 20 customers per week to millions of meals per week in three major geographies and five distribution centers.
Yeah, it's crazy, right? Like I, you know, I've been a marketer for 12, 15 years and I started in the health space and I did some marketing for a friend that owned a meal prep company. And it's like running a business and marketing it's hard enough, but like just thinking about the fulfillment of going from 20...
meal for that it's like it's like a whole second business right the fulfillment of it so i would love to ask you some questions on that in a bit but let's talk about the the juicy growth side first which is what my audience love like what was some of the big breakthroughs or lessons growing it so big
We had a lot of cadence from day one because we, first of all, you have to understand the era. It was a time in which there was a massive underserved audience. And whenever you see pent up demand, it's about capitalizing on that demand from a marketing perspective to get share of market and capture as much total addressable market as possible, right? Yeah.
So we did something that was really unique on day one. And I entirely attribute this portion to my co-founder, Matt Salzberg, at the time. We had initially built a referral program into our initial web product that included rewards for customers. You know, as many companies have rewards for customers who are loyal to their brand. But what we did was a reverse referral program.
And back in those days, thinking back 15 years ago, we would, instead of giving the buyer a reward or a free box for loyalty, we would allow, after the second box ordered,
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