Andy Sartori is the founder of MealPro, a “food delivery startup that specializes in pre-cooked and pre-portioned meals.” The company delivers a diverse healthy eating options” to their customers across the United States.
At MealPro, Andy Sartori caters to their typical customer, which is a “busy health-conscious individual who has no time to shop, prep, portion and cook meals to support their nutrition objectives.” This mindset gives the company their motto and “call-out,” which is “Eat with Purpose.”
Andy Sartori and MealPro offer a variety of meal plans, which range from “high protein to low carb,” and which can also be customized “based on [your] activity and nutrition goals.” If you go to the company’s website, you will also see a “unique calorie calculator that customers use to help fine-tune their nutrition and design the meal plan they need.”
Aside from leading MealPro, Andy Sartori is also an “angel investor in early stage consumer startups.” He “invests in and provides deep operational support to early stage startups.” He also mentors and shares his considerable expertise to aspiring founders to “strengthen portfolio companies in key areas,” which are web development and dev ops; product fulfillment; and customer acquisition.
Today, thanks to Andy Sartori’s leadership, MealPro is “changing the future of food by customizing meal delivery in all 50 states.”
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We have many competitive differentiators. Andy Sartori, MealPro
Jerome Knyszewski: What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Andy Sartori: We have many competitive differentiators. We provide generous portions of natural tasting healthy meals, with a lot of protein and veggies to be customized for individual diet and fitness objectives. Our Customers include athletes, fitness-minded professionals, as well as seniors with medical conditions that require a very specific diet. We can serve them all and affordably provide them just what they need, because we have our own state-of-the-art facility that gives us control over each stage of production. Many of our competitors rely on third-party commissary kitchens to fulfill their orders, where they do not control ingredients nor quality standards. I sometimes answer Customer hotline calls myself, to get a first-hand feedback and to spot emerging trends. I actually enjoy getting to know them through a direct conversation, I feel it helps me doing a better job.
Jerome Knyszewski: Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
Andy Sartori: If you are an entrepreneur, or if you want to become one, you are probably overworked and stressed out like me. What will give you the grit to go forward is enjoying what you do. Make no compromise on that — if you cannot have fun in your daily job, it will be much more difficult to succeed.
Jerome Knyszewski: None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
Andy Sartori: I am in close contact with another prepared meal entrepreneur, who has been in business for many years. We are not necessarily competitors, because we address different demographics, and we have gotten to know each other pretty well over the last couple of years. For me it is very beneficial to compare notes with him, for example when I am looking for a new supplier or I feel a vendor is ripping me off. I feel this informal collaboration is a win-win, and is developing into a true friendship.
Jerome Knyszewski: Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. The Pandemic has changed many aspects of all of our lives. One of them is the fact that so many of us have gotten used to shopping almost exclusively online. Can you share a few examples of different ideas that eCommerce businesses are implementing to adapt to the new realities created by the Pandemic?
Andy Sartori: In my business, an emerging need brought forward by the pandemic is what I call “meals for mom”. Think of all those seniors, still active enough to live in their own residence, now rightly concerned about the risks of going shopping. They are a new demographic, they depend on our services, we all have a social responsibility to help them out.
An eCommerce business lends itself to data collection across its business model, often it is too much data. To be successful, you need to be able to make sense of all the data, and spot trends early on.
Jerome Knyszewski: What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start an eCommerce business? What can be done to avoid those errors?
Andy Sartori: Many founders and CEO’s have strong opinions and rely on what they have seen work in the past, understandably so. As a result, they tend to have pre-conceived ideas to guide their decision making process. In a new business, similar as it may be to their previous one, this can be a trap. Demographics may be marginally different, market response may be delayed, the supply chain may have an unexpected behavior, bottom line they may hit all sorts of unexpected issues. The overarching principle is to be always data driven in your decision making, not gut-driven. An eCommerce business lends itself to data collection across its business model, often it is too much data. To be successful, you need to be able to make sense of all the data, and spot trends early on.
Jerome Knyszewski: In your experience, which aspect of running an eCommerce brand tends to be most underestimated? Can you explain or give an example?
Andy Sartori: Customer Service. Regardless of how sophisticated your eCommerce platform is, a percentage of your Customers will want to talk to a real person when they have a problem or simply to get the comfort to make their buy decision. We consider our Customer Service department one of our competitive advantages, they make almost a hundred Customer calls per day.
Regardless of how sophisticated your eCommerce platform is, a percentage of your Customers will want to talk to a real person when they have a problem or simply to get the comfort to make their buy decision. Andy Sartori
Jerome Knyszewski: One of the main benefits of shopping online is the ability to read reviews. Consumers love it! While good reviews are of course positive for a brand, poor reviews can be very damaging. In your experience what are a few things a brand should do to properly and effectively respond to poor reviews? How about other unfair things said online about a brand?
Andy Sartori: This is a prevalent issue amongst brands and consumers are aware of this. A lot of ‘noise’ or ‘buzz’ can be generated online and if these unfair statements remain outliers we can consider them the cost of doing business and move forward with our roadmap of continuous product improvements and the continuous elevation of user experience.
Jerome Knyszewski: You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Andy Sartori: I think there is an opportunity to create a social media platform that reviews food delivery options and services. More and more professionals realize that their busy life is ill-suited for grocery shopping and for cooking your own meals, and I am sure that a forum where they can compare experiences and discuss their very own approach would quickly become popular.
Jerome Knyszewski: How can our readers further follow you online?
Andy Sartori: Follow me and MealPro on:
Personal website
Jerome Knyszewski: This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!
