Investor Daniel Lubetzky
Twenty-two-year-old entrepreneurs Nick Hamburger and Zack Schreier started their first business in sixth grade, charging students at their Chicago-area school $3 for some cool Japanese soda pop that they bought for $1.25 — until the administration shut them down. Ten years later, their latest venture – a line of healthy, egg white-based chips called Quevos – just secured a roughly $400,000 investment on the ABC TV reality show “Shark Tank” from Daniel Lubetzky, who invented Kind Bars.
“I am excited to help Nick and Zack fulfill Quevos’ potential. They have created a very cool and differentiated product with huge mainstream appeal, and I love that they’ve been best friends and partner entrepreneurs since childhood,” Lubetzky said after announcing the investment on Friday (Jan. 22) on “Shark Tank.”
Hamburger told PYMNTS in an interview that Lubetzky agreed to buy 10 percent of the company for about $200,000 cash and a $200,000 credit line, and will also provide the 22-year-olds with guidance.
“We were hoping to make a deal with Daniel because he’s amazingly experienced and successful in [the] healthy-food space,” Hamburger said. “We’re going to be on recurring calls with him to check in and get his strategic advice, and he also has a whole team at his investment office that can help.”
An Idea Born From a Dirty Omelet Pan
It’s a big move for a company that all started when Schreier, a Type 1 diabetic, mentioned to Hamburger that he liked the crispy, chip-like leftovers that would remain in a pan after he made a healthy egg-white omelet.
“Zack came to me at the end of high school and said, ‘Hey I make these crispy egg pieces and I love them. They’re kind of like chips. What if we made a snack out of eggs?’” Hamburger recalled. “We both immediately saw the promise in that, because there really were no high-protein, low-carb chips [on the market].”
Hamburger said he and Schreier – who had been friends since grade school – always thought they might someday open a business, so they were always on the
lookout for good product ideas.
They picked the name “Quevos” as a combination of the word “quick” and “huevos,” Spanish for “eggs.” The pair then began working on a recipe, even as Hamburger went off to the University of Chicago to study philosophy and Schreier attended Williams College to major in economics and philosophy.
The idea kicked into high gear in 2018, when they attended a 10-week entrepreneurship course and won $15,000 in seed money through the University of Chicago’s College New Venture Challenge.
“At that point, we were hooked,” Hamburger said.
Two months later, the pair won a spot in the Kraft-Heinz Springboard Incubator Program for new consumer packaged goods, which Hamburger said “was crazy, because there were a couple of hundred applicants for five spots and we were the only pre-revenue company. We also had raised no money, and we had a team of all college kids who had no experience.”
Getting Going
By then, the idea had advanced far enough that Hamburger and Schreier decided to quit school to pursue Quevos full time.
They began selling chips in autumn of 2018. Some two years later, the snacks are available at Quevos.com, Amazon.com and at more than 1,000 Whole Foods Markets, Wegmans, Vitamin Shoppes and other retailers, available in four keto-friendly flavors and two “classic” ones.
The chips’ keto-friendly versions offer eight grams of protein and four grams of fiber per bag, with just four grams of net carbs. Quevos is currently offering a $14.99 five-package “Shark Tank Intro Pack,” while the chips retail in stores for about $2.49 a package.
Hamburger said the company, which has 15 production people and seven full-timers or consultants in operations, sells about 75,000 bags per month, but expects that to temporarily triple from the “Shark Tank” publicity. He forecasts sales to eventually stabilize at about 125,000 bags per month, allowing Quevos to break even by year’s end.
The entrepreneurs have raised some $2 million to date through developmental grants, angel investments and a $72,000 Kickstarter campaign (donors got free chips rather than equity).
Hamburger said Quevos plans to use Lubetsky’s roughly $400,000 investment to hire more staff, including someone to develop more retail distribution.
A Five-Year Plan
Hamburger and Schreier recently figured they’d sell the company after putting in about five more years. But Hamburger said Lubetsky has encouraged them to stay longer and develop the company further. He recently sold Kind Bars to candy giant Mars in a deal that reportedly valued the company at about $5 billion.
Schreier returned to college after Quevos got production off the ground, but remains on the company’s board. Hamburger serves as CEO and has yet to return to school, but expects to do so one day. He wants to get back to his original plan of studying for a career around meditation or mental health, vowing to eventually take a year off to live at a monastery and meditate. “That’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” Hamburger said. “But it’s obviously been pushed off now.”
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