The pandemic forced restaurants to accelerate their digital adoption in order to be accessible to consumers during lockdowns. It was no longer enough to have a simple menu offering on a website along with a few photos; restaurants needed to develop e-commerce like options and quickly. As restaurants increased these platform-based capabilities, investment in the space flourished as did innovation for food discovery. Mustard, a new entrant, is a video-based food app that makes uploaded food videos instantly shoppable. With increasing attention paid to social when it comes to food, Mustard’s video network and social community of food enthusiasts has provided a much-needed platform that lets you visualize each individual dish to get a real sense of what you’ll be ordering. Integrations with the major food delivery services (Postmates, Uber Eats, Grubhub, et al) allow for seamless one-click ordering. The company partners with key food creators and allows them to syndicate their video content from TikTok and Instagram seamlessly to the Mustard app and collect affiliate fees.
LA TechWatch caught up with Mustard Cofounder and CEO Diana Might to learn more about the inspiration for the company, strategic plans, recent round of funding, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised $1M in pre-seed and we are backed by Operate Studio, Newfund, The Fund VC, and the Great North Ventures Capital.
Tell us about your product or service.
Mustard is a personalized food video app that brings restaurant menus to life. Part social media network and part ordering platform, it’s the first app of its kind to make its uploaded food videos shoppable, allowing users to click on dishes and order or book in the moment. Moreover, it aims to help users decide what to eat with confidence, providing a single source of truth about each restaurant and every dish on the menu – all the while creating a community where like-minded foodies can share their experiences.
What inspired the start of Mustard?
David Currant (cofounder) and I came up with the idea for Mustard from our common experience of ordering food online during the pandemic. We realized that even with so much video content of food created online daily, we still have to shop through outdated menus and a few lines of text, and you’re lucky if you get a decent picture – while Mustard is bringing authentic and deeply engaging videos made by local foodies to help you with food discovery.
How is it different?
Mustard is building the next-generation food discovery platform that is video-based, personalized, and trustworthy. When trying to find what and where to eat, consumers often face an overwhelming amount of options that only allude subtly to the food experiences they’re about to encounter. Even with real food pictures, users have to do a lot of guesswork around the authenticity and relevance of the photo reviews. Mustard’s video feed is location-based and highly personalized. It provides a simple source of truth for confident decisions on food and restaurants.
Moreover, it also helps creators repurpose and monetize existing content while extending each video’s lifespan. Creators can finally navigate followers through their food content with dish tags, restaurant information, and options to order directly within videos. In the future, food creators can also get exclusive deals, access to invite-only foodie events, free dining experiences, or brand deals through Mustard.
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
Mustard is positioning itself as a discovery and ordering platform for restaurants and ghost kitchens with digital ordering options, and is poised to take advantage of this fast-expanding market that is projected to grow to $1 trillion dollars globally by 2030.
What’s your business model?
We have signed more than a dozen affiliate agreements with third-party delivery providers including Caviar, DoorDash, GrabHub, Postmates, and others. Thanks to these agreements, we are able to monetize the orders initiated out of Mustard and delivered by a third party. Mustard automatically matches menu items on the video with available delivery providers and splits the revenue from these purchases with content creators.
What are your post-COVID office plans?
We are a remote-first culture with many of our employees are located in different parts of the world, while we maintain a small HQ office in Los Angeles.
What was the funding process like?
We got lucky with our fundraising, closing the $1M within three weeks of starting conversations. It was really important for us to get the right partners into the round; we wanted firms that both have experience and understand the consumer space. We are now funded by four amazing early-stage VC firms who have been very supportive of our journey.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check? Shopatainment: Video Shopping as Entertainment has been identified by A16Z as one of the biggest trends. Live shopping is already a $137 billion a year industry in China – truly, an industry. There are video shopping platforms in virtually every vertical, and Mustard taps into this trend by bringing food and video together. We are tapping into the biggest trends of our time, and we were able to put a stellar team behind to execute on this vision.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Our goal is to become the destination for people thinking about ordering food in a fun way. Our target geography for the next 6 months is Los Angeles and Southern California.
What advice can you offer companies in Los Angeles that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Keep on pushing! We didn’t have much cash just a few months ago – but there are amazing resources today that help early-stage entrepreneurs, like Lolita Taub’s Startup-Investor Matching Tool and platforms like Stonks.com that help you get in front of investors.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We want Mustard to dominate Los Angeles and the rest of Southern California and become the best app for discovering and ordering food around you.
What’s your favorite outdoor activity in LA?
Hiking and having a picnic with a view is one of my favorite things to do in LA. For me, exploring our beautiful city goes hand in hand with trying new and delicious restaurants and finding local gems.
