Troy Bonde and Winston Alfieri, a Gen Z duo, started their successful pasta sauce brand by taking a bold leap of faith. The USC students, inspired by the COVID-19 lockdown, invested $9,000 into a Chinese manufacturer they had never met, relying solely on WhatsApp communication. Their unconventional approach led to the creation of a popular jarred pasta sauce brand now sold nationwide.
‘We were willing to risk everything': Gen-Z duo started a pasta sauce brand that brings in $1 million a month
They got a sample of the product and cold emailed a local California school district to pitch and demo it to them. Soon, Bonde and Alfieri had a purchase order for nearly $20,000 worth of devices. The college students borrowed $9,000 from their parents to send to their Chinese manufacturer.Bonde calls the decision"the beauty of being naïve as an early stage founder," while Alfieri describes it as"the scariest moment of our lives.
"We felt like pasta was the lowest hanging fruit with the largest addressable market and opportunity," Bonde says."And we enjoyed it. It was something that we knew was going to be a lot of fun to do." Even friends weren't supportive at the time, he says:"We knew people were laughing behind our backs."
"We wanted to trust our guts," Bonde says."If I went and surveyed 1,000 pasta sauce shoppers, I don't think any of them would have said hot honey marinara. They'd never seen it. I don't think a consumer knew they wanted it because they'd never had the opportunity to try it or buy it or think of it."
Gen Z Entrepreneurship Pasta Sauce Startup Risk Taking
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