You share many examples of foods becoming popular in a relatively short time. But for every case where this happened, I assume there are many, many cases where it didn’t. How many people tried to create a market for a new food (as did happen for bacon or Grape Nuts) but failed?
I suspect that the most common reason entrepreneurial projects fail isn’t any of the things you mentioned — but is instead “this just never caught on/went viral/found a big audience”. (Though “weak execution” could also be the reason, as you mentioned.) This doesn’t help you plan your strategy, but I think it should factor into your cost-effectiveness calculations (adding a constant for “chance this simply doesn’t take off” or something).
I also wonder about the assumption that growing the tofu market in other states will look much like growing it in California. Have you checked whether the consumption of other “trendy” foods (quinoa? Kale?) grew at similar rates in California and elsewhere?
*****
On a separate note, it seems like you’re really well-positioned to try this project and quite invested in it already, given your past businesses and upcoming book. It’s great that you’re considering work in other areas, too, but I think there’s also real value in people trying projects in areas where they are specialists/experts, even if those projects don’t have the best cost-effectiveness numbers in the abstract — there’s something about “doing a thing at a high level” that seems to generate useful lessons, experience, and connections, almost regardless of what the thing is.
Trying to grow the tofu market will teach you a lot about food marketing, social media, and many other things, while helping you build connections you might not build if you end up working on something outside your realm of expertise/something many other people could do just as well. Be sure to consider the value of those benefits as you think about your options!
As an example from my own life, I spent a lot of time trying to become a middling programmer because that seemed much more generically useful than being even a good writer — which distracted me from realizing how specifically useful I could be as a writer focused on growing the EA community, and how unusual my combination of writing and other skills was. The raw value I generate is probably lower than that of, say, a top biosecurity researcher, but it’s almost certainly more than I could have generated as a programmer.
(Maybe the brief version of this is “don’t just compare tofu marketing to longtermist community building — compare “the work/career capital of George the tofu marketer” to “the work/career capital of George the community builder”.)
I have nothing of substance to add, but I’m excited for people to attack the problem of replacing meat from a bunch of angles. I also very much agree with Aaron: if you are excited to work on meat-replacements, even if this exact idea doesn’t hit, the skills/connections/experience that you’ll acquire will be extremely valuable.
You share many examples of foods becoming popular in a relatively short time. But for every case where this happened, I assume there are many, many cases where it didn’t. How many people tried to create a market for a new food (as did happen for bacon or Grape Nuts) but failed?
I suspect that the most common reason entrepreneurial projects fail isn’t any of the things you mentioned — but is instead “this just never caught on/went viral/found a big audience”. (Though “weak execution” could also be the reason, as you mentioned.) This doesn’t help you plan your strategy, but I think it should factor into your cost-effectiveness calculations (adding a constant for “chance this simply doesn’t take off” or something).
I also wonder about the assumption that growing the tofu market in other states will look much like growing it in California. Have you checked whether the consumption of other “trendy” foods (quinoa? Kale?) grew at similar rates in California and elsewhere?
*****
On a separate note, it seems like you’re really well-positioned to try this project and quite invested in it already, given your past businesses and upcoming book. It’s great that you’re considering work in other areas, too, but I think there’s also real value in people trying projects in areas where they are specialists/experts, even if those projects don’t have the best cost-effectiveness numbers in the abstract — there’s something about “doing a thing at a high level” that seems to generate useful lessons, experience, and connections, almost regardless of what the thing is.
Trying to grow the tofu market will teach you a lot about food marketing, social media, and many other things, while helping you build connections you might not build if you end up working on something outside your realm of expertise/something many other people could do just as well. Be sure to consider the value of those benefits as you think about your options!
As an example from my own life, I spent a lot of time trying to become a middling programmer because that seemed much more generically useful than being even a good writer — which distracted me from realizing how specifically useful I could be as a writer focused on growing the EA community, and how unusual my combination of writing and other skills was. The raw value I generate is probably lower than that of, say, a top biosecurity researcher, but it’s almost certainly more than I could have generated as a programmer.
(Maybe the brief version of this is “don’t just compare tofu marketing to longtermist community building — compare “the work/career capital of George the tofu marketer” to “the work/career capital of George the community builder”.)
I have nothing of substance to add, but I’m excited for people to attack the problem of replacing meat from a bunch of angles. I also very much agree with Aaron: if you are excited to work on meat-replacements, even if this exact idea doesn’t hit, the skills/connections/experience that you’ll acquire will be extremely valuable.
These are both very good points!