from the crossroads of America in the hooer state of Indiana this is get in the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovations happening in the Heartland today I'm Nate spangle head of community at patri EG and I will be your host for today's conversation today we have a live recording from rally the largest global cross sector Innovation conference that was held right here in Indianapolis on the show today is Masa bazin founder and CEO of Paco [Music] Foods my asazin is the founder and CEO of pacco foods a company that makes fresh pet food made from plants and delivers it directly to your
door Paco was selected as the winner of the in prise Pitch competition for agan food this interview was recorded before Masa knew she had won and she had some amazing insights on the hooer state please enjoy this live episode of get in from rally my name is m vazin I'm the founder and CEO of PCO foods and they're very first and only fresh plant-based meat so we optimize basically this plant-based meat which is something similar to Impossible food impossible meat but specifically for dogs amazing I love that and where are you guys based out of we are based in San Francisco hopefully soon we can
actually expand to Midwest and very excited because this was an like an eye eye opening opportunity for us to come here and see like how much opportunity actually exists here in Midwest specifically in Indiana being located in the center of us we have 75% of the population of us actually in a 24 hours drive from Indiana that will help us to get our product like much easier sooner cheaper shipping cost to our customer yeah the crossroads of America some like to uh refer to it as so tell me is it like impossible but pet food yeah basically if I tell tell you my story it's
a very interesting story you won't believe it but I came from like a stage of being scared of dogs and adopting my first dog his name is actually Paco but it's p a o the name of the company came from Paco and as a scientist actually I've searched for Hy and eco-friendly produ um now that he's actually more than a dog to me everything has change and he's he's more like a my little boy my beloved like son I would say and I care about his health he's like basically like he's care a lot and as a scientist I searched for a very healthy nutritious
tasty food and there's like a this Gap in the pet food even though there's a huge Market in pet industry but I don't know maybe there's like huge opportunity for us to explore more and as a scientist this the search and there are no healthy options out there so it's either key ball that are made with a very low quality ingredient it's very surprising to know that like the KE balls are made with the the lowest Quality Meat like dead animal bodies like something that as a pet owner like these days lots of pet owners like they they do their research and they are aware
of that oh yeah pet pet owners have definitely stepped up their game of quality of life different things food to the whole n yards how long have you guys been working on solving this problem I came from a a strong background I I was one of the early scientists at impossible food and I actually help them to also make the first generation of impossible burer so I came from that strong background and that actually helped me to like basically build this product we are working with a team of animal nutritionists to make sure that we are actually not just considering them the uh then the
taste and like the appearance of the product but also all the nutrition in our product but we did launch our first product last year after one year that we founded the company and uh now after two years we are about we just passed 500k in ARR we have our first 300 subscribers our product is actually subscription subscription based direct to Consumer yes nice okay that's super fun so this isn't a product that people go out and buy at XYZ whatever the dog or Pet Supplies Plus or whatever it's a direct consumer shipped to your door amazing makes sense why the Midwest could be a good
Hub how did you find out about rally so rally was a great thing that happened for us and we were actually introduced to Rally from like an connection that they were connected to elev ADV Venture that are I think they are the one of the sponsors of this event but I'm so glad that we found them actually it was like a great opportunity not to present PCO but also connected to uh all the these amazing people in like Midwest in in Indiana one of our main ingredient is actually soy and Indiana it's the second exporter of soy in us so that's amazing for us something
I didn't know I love that okay so outside of the pitch competition tell me how the conference has been going for you what have been some of the highlights outside of pitching I think it's amazing to get connected to all these people coming from different backgrounds like both the investors and like those people who are connected to amazing universities that we have in Midwest Perdue is one of those that they have an amazing agriculture program and other like startups it's it's also great as a Founder to get connected to those and also share your experiences we all have a different stories we all started from
somewhere and went through different stage different stages like we have like different challenges so I think it would be great to also share those uh with each other and I felt like I was very lucky I was in a great sector like the food and egg and I I met amazing people that also went through this steps and I'm very happy to be here I love that okay was this your first time in Indiana it is it is and I'm fascinated with like how friendly social people are we we are in San Francisco Bay area and like when you are like walking you're working everything
is just at the fastest Pace like you don't like really say hi to people here I was like okay I can actually communicate with you with with people talk with people and I was like so fascinated with like how friendly and social people here are and thank you Indiana thank you rally for for having us I'm so happy to be here there's a name for that they call that who's your hospital ality oh I'm meing so so this is your first time in Indiana it is we do got a rapid fire for the podcast what was first impression of Indiana your your plain lands what
do you think I think it's a land of opportunity it's like I could see at least for us for for PCO Foods we are somewhere that we have a great opportunity to get connected to more people and also use all of this amazing land to get all their soy all their plants for to and everything and and take it for our company and also getting connected to amazing uh research program at amazing universities that are here so I think this is a great uh connection between California to here for us that's how I say it for pacco Foods amazing and so for listeners out there
that want to get connected learn more potentially be customers of yours where can they find you at and what type of individuals should come and check you guys out everybody who has a dog everybody who has actually maybe I can say maybe they don't have a dog but they know a friend or somebody that could benefit from our product so our product it's basically it has everything in one package we we offer an eco-friendly sustainable product and packaging and we are very like our product are very nutritious very tasty we have a very high liking score so I don't see anything to be missed in
this product a high likeness score of T how are you how does that get measured I'd love to know about that okay so I I impossible for like we you are like actually contacting people and like working with people to know like how do you like this product and like how do you describe this product but not now we are dealing with dogs and we do have different strategy to evaluate and asset our product s our product and kind of say okay you like this product and so we are doing like different test and and and like basically the Discrimination test which of our flavor
or which of our product like more and uh or like how much of our food they eat and that does not just say about the liking score but also the health of our product dogs are actually smarter than human if they if something happened to their stomach or their heal next day they won't eat that food so we are like basically evaluating our product in couple of days not just in one meal and uh just like test how many times dog like dogs eat our product and how much of the food they will eat it the good thing was that we tested our product with
a panel of huge panel of dogs and multiple days and all of them they finish all their food all days and like every single day that we actually provided the food to them H so the result came back as like uh they have we have a very like liking score in our product but also the diges that proves that the digestability of our our food is also so very high I love that I just imagine a likeness score of like tail wags per minute or whatever that's amazing thank you so much for coming one on get in two thank you for coming to Indiana and
rally best of luck to you in the pitch competition have you pitched already I did I did how do we feel like that went uh I think I heard from uh everybody that it did go very well and I'm super excited I I'm like I have this habit of watching that my videos multiple times I already watched it 100 times and I'm like okay I'm so proud got to watch the film I love it well best of luck enjoy your time in Indianapolis um before you leave final thing we have it what has been the coolest part like that you visited coolest part of the
city that you've gone to thus far I I I I think everything has been amazing I can't just speak one that's a that's a very hard question but I I I'll say I I'm already in love with Indiana and I can't uh actually uh wait for my second visit I already actually checked different uh like sites production site for us to get it started and actually move to Indiana as our second production site I love it amazing well thank you so much and uh good luck on the pitch competi thank you so much thank you for having us are you ready to transform your brand
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take care of all your video needs this has been get in a powder kick production in partnership with Elevate Ventures and we want to hear from you if you have suggestions for our guest guest or segment reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana check out our newsletter at powder.com newsletter and to apply for membership to the powdercake executive Community Check out powder cake.com premium we'll catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world get in since you just listen to this podcast C
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