Meet the co-founder of Rassa
Having spent the last 5 years in ops within start-ups, Olivia has learned how to design and scale consumer facing products that take advantage of network effects. The co-founder of Rassa, she also helped create NAVA, where she focused on operations, content, and partnerships with brands such as M&S and easyJet. Olivia’s keen interest in data and A.I. led her to give a TEDx talk on A.I. in the U.S. - focusing on its effects on society. Olivia’s go to dishes are a quality Tiramisu that’s travelled down the generations, or a Thai Laab with a Mango and chilli salad.
What is your day-to-day role with the company?
As a small team, each of us are having to wear multiple hats. My day-to-day is shaped by what is the highest priority task at that point in time but my areas of responsibility largely cover content and copywriting, sourcing ingredient suppliers, PR and marketing as well as managing the accounts.
What are your thoughts on failure?
It’s easy to be scared of failure but it’s an inevitable part of the startup process. My first company ended up failing during the height of the pandemic and it was one of the hardest things as a founder to go through, after making sure your team is okay and helping them land new jobs you then start to think about what you could have done differently. Some of my biggest learnings have been from my failures and I know there will be many more to come especially when trying to get a new idea and business off the ground.
What does your business offer its target audience?
We help homecooks go beyond following a recipe and start thinking like a chef. They learn how to develop their own recipes, understand the function of different ingredients and how to train their chef instincts. At the heart of the course is the cultural education behind the cuisine, gaining insider knowledge from local chefs, farmers, producers and experts in their craft so you have a deeper understanding of the context behind the culinary techniques for example, you’re guided around the wet markets of Manila learning about Filipino produce or taught by an Irish hunter about game meats as a sustainable alternative to industrial farming. The online courses are a mix of live workshops, on-demand videos which you can watch on your own schedule as well as a pantry box for each module filled with handpicked tools and ingredients to get you started learning a new cuisine. We’ve also structured the courses in a way to make them as hands on as possible, restricting class sizes so you learn in small groups and can get direct feedback from the team of chef instructors.
How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?
The online courses are a mix of live workshops, on-demand videos which you can watch on your own schedule as well as a pantry box for each module filled with handpicked tools and ingredients to get you started learning a new cuisine. We’ve also structured the courses in a way to make them as hands on as possible, restricting class sizes so you learn in small groups and can get direct feedback from the team of chef instructors. Also at the heart of each course is the cultural education behind the cuisine, gaining insider knowledge from local chefs, farmers, producers and experts in their craft so you have a deeper understanding of the context behind the culinary techniques for example, you’re guided around the wet markets of Manila learning about Filipino produce or taught by an Irish hunter about game meats as a sustainable alternative to industrial farming.
How important is company culture and what is your top tip to get it right?
Very important. It can be tempting to put off actively thinking about the company culture until you have bigger teams but often by that point a culture has naturally forged on its own. The best tip I can give is to lead by example and behave in a way that represents the culture you are trying to build within your business. Your values shouldn’t just be words on a poster but mean something and represent the living culture of the organisation.
Any new product launches we should know about?
In January we are launching our one month courses where over the course of one month you learn a bit about Filipino, Irish and Israeli cuisines. In February, we’ll have 3 month courses available where you can go deep into one of the three cuisines, mastering different techniques such as, spice making, Middle Eastern cheesemaking, butchering different meats or experimenting with different fuels to smoke salmon at home. Each course has a team of chefs behind them who will be on hand for giving feedback and answering questions and you are placed into small learning groups to help you progress throughout the course and each month you receive a box with the essential ingredients and tools.
How did you fund the launch of your business and what creative strategies did you use to execute a minimal cash flow?
We started off with building out a waiting list, which was the easiest way to gauge market interest before putting much in the way of cash and resources to the product. We kept engineering costs low by using low code tools to put together a basic version of the product to then launch to our waiting list. As a young company we have less data to go off of versus larger companies when making decisions, but getting in front of customers as much as possible has been helpful for the qualitative feedback which allows us to move quickly and cheaply with small iterative changes as opposed to taking months to build a new feature for it to not land well live in the market.
What would be your top marketing tip, to grow a business that is niche?
I’d focus on targeting those small communities wherever they are (either offline where they spend their time or online in forums, groups, social pages etc.) and then leverage network effects as much as possible, encouraging word of mouth through referral schemes, group pricing, making it as easy as possible to share your product.
What’s the most important question entrepreneurs should be asking themselves?
'Why are you building this?' It's a long and incredibly hard journey building your own business so knowing the 'why' behind what you're doing keeps you going on those tougher days.
What’s your best advice for early-stage tech founders getting ready to launch their MVP?
You often hear the phrase if you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product then you’ve launched too late. The best thing you can do is test your product live in the market as soon as possible, otherwise you could end up putting a lot of time and money to it only to find out it’s not something that people want. I’d also highly recommend creating a waiting list from the start, even before you’ve started building to gauge interest on the idea and it means you’ve got an initial pool of customers to launch to once you’re ready.
How have you seen the need for richer analytics and data evolve over the years?
With technology and new low/no-code tools it’s easier than ever to start a business and access customers all over the world however, that does mean competition is harsher than ever. Digital advertising is becoming more expensive as you have to compete against larger brands with bigger budgets and it’s harder than ever to stand out against the noise. There’s definitely been an increase in the need for richer analytics and data over the years as businesses look to really understand who their customers are, what they’re interested in and how they engage with your product as part of finding new and creative ways of attracting and retaining customers.
