Eat Offbeat was founded by two siblings who immigrated to New York from Lebanon. They have been catering off-the-beaten-path global cuisines to New Yorkers for several years, hiring refugees as their chefs to cook food from their native cuisines. After the COVID-19 pandemic hit NYC, Eat Offbeat quickly pivoted to delivering meal boxes to individuals and families. This summer, I worked on Eat Offbeat’s strategy to improve and expand the meal box offering. My projects included conducting customer interviews and making subsequent changes to the product, analyzing and presenting the competitive positioning of the company, creating an adaptable pricing model, developing an internal financial projections model, and developing and launching a customer referral program. My work contributed to the continued expansion of Eat Offbeat’s meal boxes, allowing the company to continue to bring their chef’s global flavors to New Yorkers.

Throughout the summer, I relied on many skills and concepts I learned at Columbia Business School, including customer lifetime value from marketing class, pricing from economics, financial modeling from corporate finance, inventory management from operations, and process optimization from operations strategy. From all my courses in management, marketing, finance, and social enterprise, I developed a well-rounded knowledge base that helped me understand and contribute to the organization in settings such as evaluating the efficacy of social media ads or analyzing a product’s unit economics. Beyond academic knowledge, the experience I gained at CBS through managing club finances and serving on club leadership boards helped me understand and adapt to managing a small business.

Working remotely due to the ongoing pandemic posed some challenges with getting to know my co-workers and understanding how the kitchen operated. Luckily, I worked with a fantastic team that immediately involved me in our daily calls and took the time to answer my many questions. A few weeks in, I did have a chance to visit the kitchen (with appropriate precautions) where I met the chefs and saw how the chefs, delivery team, and kitchen manager worked together. Seeing the kitchen operations first-hand helped me better understand our product and allowed me to make feasible and valuable recommendations. Throughout the summer, whenever I encountered obstacles, such as technology limitations or gaps in my own knowledge of the organization’s capabilities and data, I was able to talk through the challenges with my manager and the rest of the team. I appreciated our many brainstorming sessions that led to a successful launch of the customer referral program and a more robust financial model.

At the beginning of the summer, I knew I wanted to work with a company that was making a difference for New Yorkers, particularly in the middle of a pandemic. Eat Offbeat was doing just that – continuing to employ its chefs, delighting customers with delicious, global cuisine, and even donating meals to frontline health care workers during the height of the pandemic in New York. I’m grateful to the Tamer Center and the Social Enterprise Summer Fellowship Program for facilitating and funding my internship with Eat Offbeat. I learned so much about the food industry, working at a startup, and how to make a product successful. I was able to work on a variety of projects that involved different aspects of the organization including marketing, finance, and operations. As I transition into the consulting industry, I know my experience at Eat Offbeat will help me succeed in future projects and ultimately help me build a career incorporating social impact.