YouSaid · the spoken record

Gabi Lewis

lines on the record: 58
first: 2024-02-12
most recent: 2024-02-12
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Gabby Lewis and Greg Sevitts, co founders of Magic Spoon. As for the exoprotein bars, as we mentioned earlier, they're still available on the company's website, along with Cricket, Flour, and Recipes for How to Use It. For example, you can make gingerbread cookies, which are pictured both in the shape of a gingerbread man and a gingerbread cricket, decorated with lacy white icing. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And as always, it's free. This episode was produced by JC Howard with music composed by Rumtin Era Bluey. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Malia Agadello. Our audio engineers were Robert Rodriguez and Maggie Luthar. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Casey Herman, Carla Estevez, Chris Massini, John Isabella, Catherine Ceypher, Carrie.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, when you guys sort of reflect on the journey you took to get here now, and obviously you're still growing, and you could potentially make a lot of money off this business. You probably have already made a little bit. You think about where you've come from, EXO, and all that happened, how much of where you are now do you attribute to how hard you worked and how much do you think has to do with just getting lucky and timing and circumstances?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I see. That's their position. Interesting. So in terms of what still a very new product, right, and it may be too early to answer this question, but is this a 10-year timeline? You raise money, it's 2019, by 2029, we're talking now six, seven years in the future. What does it look like? Do you sell it? Does it go public? What do you imagine?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so Obviously, you're now, I think you're sold at Target and you could buy it. Where else? Where else is a serial sold besides online?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And, I mean, that's like tech company financing, right? It's not common that a new food brand raises so much, but in your view, you've got to have all of that capital in order to create a brand that can't be toppled.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And let's talk about funding because the model is, again, unusual, but it is a different type of model. You've raised, I think, now almost $100 million in funding. I think your last big fundraise was in June of 2022. Is that right?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, so you launch it in 2019, and you're getting some good feedback. And was it a challenge to find a manufacturer? Because you're extruding a, it's not a grain-based product, so you can't, I'm assuming it has to be made in a grain-free production facility, or they have to scrub it down. Was it hard to find a manufacturing facility willing to make these”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, when you first kind of direct to consumer, right, just like Exo, and when you first kind of, I don't know, launch this product, did you go to Expo West with this product?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because customer acquisition is just much more expensive now than it was when you started Exo, for example. And so this is now a new strategy and I think an interesting one and a lot of times you see a celebrity talking about a product. What most people don't realize is they are investors in that product.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So this was going to be a different approach. And by the end of September, you raised another $5.5 million from some venture partners and some people, some individuals, investors who've been on this show who've started brands like Warby Parker and Harry's and others. And the idea was, again, direct to consumer that you would sell through the website, through a website.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And tell me about how you guys divide what you do. I mean, Gabby, do you mainly focus on operations and Greg, do you mainly focus on branding and product or is it just you'll both do everything?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, from the get-go, you had this box, and the box kind of has a little bit of a psychedelic look. I mean, it's called Magic Spoon, right? It almost looks like almost like a magic school bus kind of look.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, you had a playbook from Exo, which was you really leaned into developing relationships with and raised money from influencers, from paleo influencers, some celebrities, and they were able to get the word out. What was the playbook here? You were going to approach this somewhat differently, right? Because unlike Exo, from what I gather, you decided that you wanted to raise a lot of money as quickly as possible.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Clearly not you. You're unhappy. It's not going to make you unhappy. That's going to reduce inflammation. It's going to make you very happy.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there are a couple of connotations that So, alright, if your target audience was at least initially sort of people who are into high protein diets, low carb, high fiber, they're the kinds of people, generally, I think, who wouldn't go towards sugar and sweet, but who would eat like some coconut yogurt or maybe Greek yogurt? They're not going to pour anything into a bowl with milk and eat it in the morning and certainly not something sweet. But I don't know. Did anybody give you pushback on that and say, yeah, I don't know. The CrossFit crowd just is not going to, they're just not going to go for that.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Some people might be weirded out by allulose, right? Because they might think of it as like a Frankenstein ingredient. Is it derived from corn? How do they make it?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Monkfruit, right? And these are two sweeteners that have started to appear in recent years that were not really widely available five, ten years ago. And unlike those other sugars, allulose doesn't have a bitter. Monk fruit has a little bit of a bitter taste. Stevia has a little bit of a strange aftertaste. But allulose just doesn't seem to.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And no sugar because you use something called allulose, which is a, you can buy it in bags. It looks like granulated sugar, but it doesn't actually convert into energy in your body. So it doesn't spike your blood sugar. Basically, your body doesn't consider it to be sugar.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why don't we come back in just a moment? How Gabby and Greg come up with the exact ingredients to make good on that tagline. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this. Hey, welcome back to how I built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2019 and Gabby and Greg have raised $1 million for their new high-protein no-sugar cereal. And most of that million goes toward developing just the right flavors”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you raised money from the beginning. This was going to be a different approach. It wasn't going to be like Kickstarter.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which is paleo, right? In Keto and gluten free and all that. And then you add some chicory root, which has a lot of fiber. And those basic building blocks can create a crispy.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So basically, you take whey protein and you mix it with tapioca starch, which is from a, is it from the cassava plant, I think? I can't. Yeah, exactly”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But just to be clear, you couldn't literally make the cereal yourselves because it's complicated, or you couldn't make it at scale. So you had to find somebody to make it for you. And I guess you guys went to this big trade show in Las Vegas to find somebody who could sort of make this loop-shaped cereal for you. Is that what you were looking for?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No corn, no wheat, no rice. So, how did you find who did you find to help you kind of come up with what this could be? Because you're not using grains, you're not using nuts.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wonder how, but you said there was pent up. You felt like there was pent up demand. Did you feel it or were you able to actually, you know, do some research and confirm that to be a fact?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“P clearly is speaking to some consumers if it's $11 billion. I mean, not, I mean, I don't, I'm not eating Lucky Charms in the morning, but I did when I was a kid. I loved them, that clearly there are still people who do it. Like when I was a kid growing up, we had cheerios and honeynut cheerios and lucky charms and cocoa puss now. I just want to eat that stuff. But I would never buy that for my kids. Never.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In cereal is beloved by people. I mean, I think it is, but I'm just kind of surprised because I would think cereals like kind of a declining category.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You, the two of you knew that you still wanted to work together. You didn't hate each other at this point. You didn't say, all right, this was a disaster. Goodbye. We're going a separate ways.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, what was the thing that sort of prompted you to sell this business? Because you sold it to another company that... The brand is still out there. But basically, there are some people, and I should say more than some people, a lot of people are reluctant to become entrepreneurs because I think it's a natural human instinct to fear the possibility of failure. And any entrepreneur knows you've got to fail, right, in order to eventually succeed. And this show is often about failure because that is part of the journey, a massive part of the journey. But it's still painful.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it was a combination of not really being able to figure out how to create a more concentrated protein like powder from the crickets. And at the same time, I have to imagine there was still just that leap to make, psychological leap. I mean, human psychology, this is a problem, right? If you can't get people past that thing, this is not the sushi problem.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When did you start to, between the two of you, when did you start to kind of feel like you weren't breaking through, that it was maybe it might just be a niche product for a certain set of people, CrossFitters?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, just reading about this story is so fascinating to me because it's, you know, as I say, you've got a lot of attention. There's a lot of goodwill. You had at a certain point made the Forbes 30 under 30 list, which say what you will about it, but it is certainly something that people point to. And you're getting attention and you're getting people wanting to invest in the brand, I think at a certain point you guys raised. How much did you eventually raise for Exo total?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, when you launched in twenty fifteen, I mean, how were sales? What do you remember in terms of revenue? Were you doing like... $30,000 a month, fifty thousand dollars a month more?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you've got probably a lot of free coverage, right? Just because there was a lot of these influencers were writing about you.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It seems like everybody you talk to was excited about this. I mean, when you started to raise money, because I know you raised about a million dollars, a little over a million dollars from investors at the end of 2014. Did you run into people who were not interested in this, or did it feel like everybody that you talk to was just really interested and intrigued?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I should mention Kyle is a very close friend of mine, so I know him very well. He had run the R&D Kitchen at the Fat Duck Famous Restaurant in the UK. This is before he would go on to open up his restaurant single thread in Sonoma County, which is now Michelin three-star restaurant. But at the time, he was intrigued. And so he agreed to help you kind of formulate the recipes, that to make them into something that people would really want to eat.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You want to share your favorite episode of How I Built This record a short voice memo on your phone telling us your name, where you're from, what your favorite episode is, and why. A lot like the voice memo you just heard. And email it to us at h-bt at ID.wonderie.com. And we'll share your favorites right here in the ad breaks and future episodes. And thanks so much. We love you guys. You're the best. And now back to the show. Welcome back to How I Built This I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2014 and Gabby and Greg have raised almost $60,000 for the cricket protein bar on Kickstarter. And as they begin working on updating the formula, they decide to reach out for some help.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But he does. He will hear from them again. When we come back in just a moment, Gabby and Greg put their cricket bars out into the world until they realize the world is not ready for cricket bars. Stay with us, I'm Guy Ros, and you're listening to how I built this.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. Okay, so they agreed. They're like, fine, you send us a check. We'll give you as many crickets as you want. Did they think you guys are a little batty?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“60,000, yeah. I mean, you wanted to raise 20,000, you raised almost 60,000. And just tell me what you did. Did you make a video? I don't know how did you put it together? Was it like a really slick video or was it kind of...”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you're in New York and you decide to raise money on Kickstarter, which is smart because you can get attention, right? And it's a way to maybe even get some media coverage.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Good name. And also, probably you guys were excited about the prospect that because this was such an outlier, because it was so different, you could get attention for it. People would want to know more. You could not pass by somebody handing out cricket protein bars and not at least stop and look at it.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, the facts are fascinating, right? It's high protein content, really protein dense, good for the environment. It's a neutral flavor. But of course, it's still crickets.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this was, I mean, you guys started this your senior year of college, right? And so by the time you, I mean, I guess by the time you graduate, which is in May, had you decided that you were going to pursue this after college, that the two of you were going to see if you could create a product?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you would say to them, This has cricket powder, and probably some of your friends like, I don't know, but probably some of them were like, all right, let me try it.”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so with that powder, and by the way, you guys had no idea how this would affect the taste. Like if it would be rancid or funky, like you didn't know, right? I don't know, is cricket powder neutral flavored?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, you guys start to talk about this idea, but what's the next step? How do you actually test it out? You'd already been making protein bars with egg white powder and dates. So, I mean, could you just at that point, as 2013, could you just order cricket flour?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And cricket flower, I should mention it's got, I mean, it's like by volume, it's more than half of it is protein. So it's very protein dense. So when you, Gabby, when Greg went to you and said, hey, why don't we try and figure out how to use crickets, you were instantly intrigued”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let's kind of just digress for a moment, talk about crickets, because I remember going to farmers markets already 10 years ago and seeing people selling cricket flour, you know. All of a sudden, you start to hear people talk about crickets as a potentially great source and still do sometimes as a great source of protein and a sustainable one, right? Because livestock production accounts for like 10 or 12% of global carbon emissions, right? And was that what you were hearing at that conference?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is kind of known for. And I read that actually the first business that the two of you guys started together came out of one of those classes where you had to come up with a product and a business plan. And I guess the idea you had was to make a protein bar like a paleo protein bar, is that right?”
2024-02-12 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Magic Spoon & Exo: Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT