Jordan Nathan: The Caraway Success Story

What this episode covers

Jordan Nathan is the CEO and Founder of Caraway, a non-toxic ceramic brand that makes thoughtfully designed cookware. Jordan decided to launch Caraway after he and his wife suffered Teflon poisoning from a pan Jordan had forgotten on the stove for 45 minutes. Despite working in cookware before, Jordan learned of the terrible health effects of PTFE-based non-stick coatings and the harmful output during production on the environment. After vetting for ethical manufacturing and quality and finding a factory that would meet all of his standards and fundraising, Jordan launched Caraway in November 2019. He was previously the CEO of Vremi, Founder & CEO of Wanu, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Colby College. This Episode’s Heavy-hitter’s: Jordan’s first company was called Wanu, which was a DTC marketplace for cool, emerging brands. Although it wasn’t ultimately successful, one regret Jordan has was not building out a real MVP to give the idea a better chance to be validated by the marketplace. After that, Jordan went to work for The Mohawk Group where he started his stretch of launching wildly successful brands under their brand, Vremi. Within a year, he was promoted to CEO of Vremi, which was at the time a kitchenware brand that’s since expanded into homeware products. One thing Jordan wishes he would’ve done differently at Vremi was to launch fewer products, as he launched over 200 within the first two years working there. Although the Caraway product is made of premium materials, ease of use was always a priority for Jordan in the design stages. Since he wasn’t really sophisticated in the kitchen himself, he wanted a solid, healthy non-stick option that was easier to use than cast iron pans, for example. Jordan’s first round of the fundraising process took about 10 months, taking 5-8 conversations a day. He ended up taking investments from over 100 investors by the second round. The network effect of having more investors that already have relationships in relevant fields has been huge for Jordan and Caraway. For more, please visit https://www.carawayhome.com/ If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review: https://ratethispodcast.com/thepozcast #thePOZcast is brought to you by our friends at Interseller – the prospecting + outreach platform of recruiters and sellers. Whether you’re doubling down on business development or recruiting talent, Interseller does all the heavy lifting of finding contact data, automating the email and follow-up process, and syncs all that rich data into 20+ CRMs and ATSs. Reach out and get going in a 2-week *free* trial today and let them know you heard about them from Adam on #thePOZcast. Check out a free demo today! https://bit.ly/2Fbm/BZ If you are curious about how Adam has created #thePOZcast and turned it into an ecosystem that builds real relationships, clients, thought leadership, and content, check out www.thePOZcourse.com. For more, please visit www.thePOZcast.com Thanks for listening!