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German-born entrepreneur and inventor Pascal Kriesche intends to build the Keurig of smoothie makers – a vending-machine-sized device that will serve up the healthy, blended drink of your choice at the push of a button.
Kriesche, 29, named his company smoodi after he realized his first name choice — “pineapple” — was already taken. But he does have a clever pineapple-shaped thumbprint as his logo. He is working on an MBA from Harvard Business School at the same time he navigates the early stages of developing his company.
Entrepreneur Pascal Kriesche wants to get America drinking more smoothies smoodi
Trained as a mechanical engineer, Kriesche nevertheless decided to forego building a prototype smoothie maker until he had collected market research, testing his idea in about 10 offices in the Boston area. Employers paid him to come in and serve smoothies to their employees.
“We were able to validate that they are interested,” Kriesche says.
Karen Hood, a senior manager at Boston Consulting Group, was an enthusiastic test pilot for the smoodi concept. She had Kriesche come in for a week.
“I have a bit of a reputation for jumping on opportunities to work with entrepreneurs starting new businesses,” Hood said. “My dad was a bit of an entrepreneur. I always keep my eye out for the newest thing. I’m someone who rarely turns down a cold call.”
Earlier, Hood brought a Bevi into her office, billed as the next generation of office water coolers, offering fizzy, flavored water.
“They also approached us. They’re a little farther along than Pascal,” Hood said of Bevi. “I jumped on that because I like to provide the most interesting options for the folks in my office. I try to be ahead of the trend.”
Exactly what Kriesche needed. Hood said Kriesche, and smoodi, exceeded her expectations.“I thought they’d come in with a few trays of smoodis,” she said.
Instead, Kriesche showed up with a blender and two assistants and offered a menu of smoothie options with various ingredients and add-ins to choose from. Kriesche offers strawberry, banana, mango, pineapple and blueberry smoothies, as well as vegetable-based smoothies such as spinach and kale, and six “boosters,” including chia seed, peanut butter and coconut flakes.
Hood said Kriesche had an add-in of the day with explanations of what the ingredients were. He had order forms and surveys to rate the smoothies. He also asked what a person’s mood was before and after the smoothie, and a key question, “Did you talk to someone you don’t normally talk to?”
“That’s a terrific question, in line with our values,” Hood said.
The idea is that not only will the smoodi machine offer healthful drinks, it will also encourage social interaction among the staff.
“At the end of the week people were so excited, engaging with Pascal, asking questions,” Hood said. “It was a fun week for us.”
Kriesche charged Hood $550 for the week. She’s open to bringing a smoodi machine into the office once it’s available.
“The feedback was amazing,” Hood said. “People loved them. It was a nice break from the desk. It was healthy and tasty and it was fun to engage in that way. Really a win-win all around.”
Another of Kriesche’s test pilots was Seth Hauben, head of the Boston office of GSVlabs, a Silicon Valley-based incubator.
“I found him to be tremendously engaging,” Hauben said of Kriesche. “He’s got the right mindset. He’s going about it the right way, continuing to push down the path. Hopefully we’ll have a smoodi machine in our space in the near future.”
Kriesche and his team of interns have validated that businesses are interested in offering smoothies… [+] smoodi
Hauben did offer a couple of caveats. He wondered about how much the machine will cost to make. Will the quality of the smoothies it makes always be the same? Will there be any maintenance on the machine, or will it be hands-off for the customer?
“If he could deliver that quality of smoothie with a machine at a reasonable price point it would be a homerun,” Hauben said.
The idea to test the market before building a smoodi machine came from Mark Roberge, one of Kriesche’s professors at Harvard Business School.
“People who get the inventive, entrepreneurial spirit over-obsess with the product development piece first,” Roberge said. “That’s not the biggest risk. The biggest risk is whether it resonates with the customer.”
Roberge, 42, was part of the founding team at HubSpot, Inc., the Cambridge-based inbound marketing and sales software company that raised $125 million when it went public in 2014, and currently has a market cap of $5.445 billion.
Even though he’s not a traditional academic, Roberge is a full-time faculty member at Harvard Business School, and is currently focused on developing a sales curriculum.
“It’s exciting because so many schools look to Harvard for their curriculum,” Roberge said.
Roberge likes Kriesche’s idea and believes it’s “very well aligned” with trends he’s seeing in the business world.
“It’s a war for talent out there,” Roberge said. “Companies are becoming more aggressive around unique values to bring to employees, something more than better pay.”
Of course Kriesche will have to build a smoodi machine, and it won’t be easy, he said. He’s looking to raise about $100,000 this fall for the prototype. Among the challenges are preventing cross contamination of ingredients inside the machine and making it self-cleaning.
The third challenge, says Kriesche, is the refrigeration part, which he says will be very costly and complex to provide the right ingredients at the right temperatures.
“But none of these challenges are impossible to overcome,” Kriesche said. “I’m happy it’s complex. If it was super easy the product would already be out there.”
