Co-Founder of Blue Apron on Scaling Chaos, Rodent Nightmares, and Going Public
episodePreviously titled “How Matthew Wadiak Is Disrupting the Beverage Industry” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 2, 2026
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What was the early hustle like for Blue Apron?
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?
How did Blue Apron disrupt the meal kit industry?
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.
What were the biggest challenges in logistics for Blue Apron?
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, the the customer to gift three first boxes to their closest friends and on its head initially we had thought we don't really know how people are going to respond to this because it's not a selfish gift it's not something that people receive personally it's the gift of giving right yeah yeah It was fascinating because we were the first to do that, that I know. And that became a viral sensation.
So for the first few years of the company, 80% of our customer acquisition with double digit monthly growth, sometimes triple digit monthly growth, was attributed to our referral program, which was really novel for the time.
yeah it's it's fascinating i and i still i mean i know some companies do that i still don't see that many do it and i think it works so beautifully for like that sort of product because it's like you're given the gift of health in some ways right and like you know i guess 15 years ago you really hit that health trend right i started in health about 15 years ago i have a sports science background and you know obviously now there's meal prep and meal kits on every corner and
What lessons were learned from taking Blue Apron public?
But yeah, I guess, you know, do you feel you were like part of it? Obviously, there's a lot that went into the success. But, you know, was it like a right place, right time sort of blue ocean thing when you started?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What was the early hustle like for Blue Apron?
0:00–0:51
2
How did Blue Apron disrupt the meal kit industry?
0:51–2:22
3
What were the biggest challenges in logistics for Blue Apron?
2:22–4:25
4
What lessons were learned from taking Blue Apron public?
4:25–5:34
5
What are the key pitfalls when preparing for a business exit?
5:34–6:23
6
How is Capsule addressing sustainability in the beverage industry?
6:23–6:46
7
What innovative strategies are used in beverage packaging?
6:46–7:58
8
What final advice does Matthew Wadiak have for entrepreneurs?
7:58–30:05
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Living The Red Life
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