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Validating B-to-C Business Ideas and Building to $40M Run Rate: Shaunak Amin, CEO of SnackMagic (Part 1)

Posted on Tuesday, Nov 9th 2021
Shaunak Amin, CEO of SnackMagic

Shaunak does a wonderful job of explaining how he validated various B-to-C business ideas and built successful businesses.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Shaunak Amin: I was born and raised in Baroda, India. I did my high school in India. That’s when I started my first business. Then I came to the US for my undergrad. 

Sramana Mitra: Where did you come for undergrad?

Shaunak Amin: I went to the University of Pennsylvania.

Sramana Mitra: What timeframe are we talking?

Shaunak Amin: I came to the US in 2000. I graduated in 2005. 

Sramana Mitra: What did you study?

Shaunak Amin: I studied Systems Engineering and Finance.

Sramana Mitra: What happens after this?

Shaunak Amin: I started my first business at Penn. After graduating, I had to decide whether I would do my business full-time, which I could not because I was on a visa back then.

Sramana Mitra: What was the business that you had?

Shaunak Amin: Before coming to Penn, there was a lot about getting into the best universities and an Ivy League. When I got into Penn, I was very excited and happy. Once I came to Penn, I said, “Now what?” I wanted to do something different and interesting. I had to come up with a business idea that would help me learn business.

On Philadelphia’s campus, there are food carts. You’ll see lines of people waiting to get their food. It’s food which I love. It seemed like less investment. I started a food cart. The concept was convenient, ready-to-eat Indian food, which was hard to get at that time. We started a food cart outside Wharton. We ran that food cart for a year. We expanded to three or four food carts. Then we started distributing our pre-packaged Indian food to stores in the Philly area.

Sramana Mitra: As you were finishing up school, what did you do with that business?

Shaunak Amin: When I was running the business, I actually stopped going to school. I was giving the business 100% of my time. I had invested all my money into the business. The business was growing quite rapidly. I was scaling it and giving it everything I had. Then when I was graduating, I had to decide if there was a way to do it full-time after I graduated or took on a job. Because I was on a visa back then, it wasn’t possible for me to run my business full-time. I didn’t make that much money but got back most of the money I had invested. I graduated and took a job in finance.

Sramana Mitra: Does that mean you moved to New York?

Shaunak Amin: Not quite. I had to transition the business over. I had to take a job in Philly. My first finance job was in Philadelphia. I was there for a year and a half at a company called SCI Investment. Then I moved to New York for my next job.

Sramana Mitra: What was that?

Shaunak Amin: It was also in finance. I spent a good 10 years in finance. Within finance, I was on the alternative investment side, investing in hedge funds and private equity funds. My second job was, at that time, with ING Investment Management. We used to manage a portfolio of close to a billion dollars investing in all kinds of hedge funds. 

Sramana Mitra: What year does that bring us up to now?

Shaunak Amin: That brings us to 2007.

Sramana Mitra: How long did that last? 

Shaunak Amin: That was two years or so.

This segment is part 1 in the series : Validating B-to-C Business Ideas and Building to $40M Run Rate: Shaunak Amin, CEO of SnackMagic
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