Eat Senza builds its pasta brand one dollar at a time

The crowdfunding platform Kickstarter can help brands do more than raise money – it can connect them directly to consumers to gather essential feedback for “basic demand planning,” and to share updates with fans, according to the founders of gluten-free pasta newcomer Eat Senza.

Eat Senza’s first product, lil pastina, is a “reinvented” take on the classic Italian star-shaped pasta made without the top nine allergens and gluten-free, according to the brand’s co-founders Krista D’Archi and Jake Block.

D’Archi and Block created the pastina with “no compromises” in mind in terms of quality, Block said.

“We really focused on trying to make products that are accessible to everyone, no compromises in taste or texture” while delivering a nostalgic experience that many consumers are familiar with in the pasta category, D’Archi explained.

To maintain the brand’s gluten-free standards, the co-founders found that the size of the pastina worked to their advantage to create a bouncy and firm texture using pre-gel white rice flour, organic corn flour and potato starch.

“Our product has a benefit in terms of gluten-free pasta because pastina is so small that it does not really rely on much to exist. When you have a rigatoni for example, that tube has to stay strong and mighty, otherwise it will collapse in on itself. That is something you see with gluten-free pasta because they just fall apart so easily,” she said.

Leveraging Kickstart for ‘basic demand planning’

The brand made its debut to consumers on Kickstarter, which has helped the co-founders with “basic demand planning” so that each box of pasta produced is guaranteed a customer, Block explained.

“Our overall goal with Kickstarter is allowing us to raise funds for a lower margin product to expand our product line,” he added.

Consumers’ direct feedback from Kickstarter also will help the brand develop other products that align more closely with demand, Block said.

Data collected from Kickstarter also will be used to show prospective retailers as a “proof of concept” on how the brand has grown, D’Archi said.

“If we have X amount of backers, we raise X amount of money, we can use that in our pitch decks when we are reaching out to retailers,” she said.

By leveraging data and connecting with audiences through Kickstarter and Instagram, the brand’s funding has come from “organic traffic from our really small, contained, growing audience,” Block said.

He added, “That showcases that you do not need really need a massive marketing budget to raise money for your business or even to sell. I am from the camp that if you can build an audience that really like your product, you can build a business.”

‘We want to build in public’

The benefit of crowdfunding, Block explained, is flexibility for demand planning and offering new products like merchandise to bundle with its pasta. The higher margin merchandise supports the lower-margin pasta sales, according to the company.

“We are almost a merch company selling pasta because of the way that the margin of the business works. But fundamentally that allows us to build the next chapter of what we are trying to do. We want to build in public. We want to showcase our process,” by bringing consumers along on the journey of their growth, Block added.