When Jordan Nathan launched DTC non-toxic cookware company Caraway in 2019, he knew he wasn’t the only founder trying to sell a new brand of pots and pans to Instagram-scrolling millennials. But he found that jetting after his peers ended up being a disguise in all but one way.
When Caraway launched, it joined the likes of Our Place, Great Jones and Made In Cookware in an increasingly crowded category of online cookware startups. But being a little late to the party allowed Caraway to see what other brands’ products and target audiences were, Nathan said on a recent episode of TechCrunch’s Found podcast. This allowed Caraway to change its approach and try to fill the gaps left open by these brands.
Nathan said Caraway originally planned to source its pans off the factory shelf and target millennials who were looking for something better than what you’d find at IKEA, but not yet at the wedding registry stage. It seemed like every other DTC cookware brand had the same idea, so Caraway switched gears and instead focused on wedding registries and more, putting a little more time and effort into their product design.
“It helped us change our color palette, it helped us change our price point, the pieces we put in the set,” Nathan said. “And while a lot of these other brands were doing a lot of things right, we were able to carve out our space in the kitchen DTC world that no one else was playing in.”
Following other brands also changed the way the company sold its first set of products. Nathan said that Caraway was originally going to sell its cookware both in sets and as individual pieces, but when they realized none of the competition sold sets, the company entered the market and launched as a set – without the option to buy one piece at a time.
Caraway’s competitors also helped Caraway decide to start talking to retailers early in the process. Nathan said they always planned to launch in stores, but seeing as none of the other DTC brands wanted to enter retail, Caraway started talking to retailers even before it went online. You can now find Caraway sets at Target and Costco, among others.
Early entry into retailers helped boost Caraway’s share of wedding registries, as it launched in retailers that had existing registry businesses like Target and Bed Bath & Beyond before it went bankrupt. That made Caraway a more natural choice for couples building their registries than its starter cookware competitors.
While joining later helped Caraway in many ways, it hurt them in one area, Nathan said. “We were actually the last to market and the last to raise money,” Nathan said. “And so when we went to fundraise, every investor we talked to had already picked their kitchen brand to get involved and invest in.”
Because of this, the first round of funding was slow, and Nathan said that after a 10-month period of talking to five to eight investors a day, they were able to close a seed round that included more than 100 investors and without much scrutiny from VCs.
But now, five years later, it looks like the delay in the game may have paid off. The company has raised more than $40 million in venture capital and has expanded its product lines to include bakery items and food storage, among others, with more on the way.
