About a year ago, Austin entrepreneur Christa Freeland pitched the idea of an Austin packaged goods basket that could help turn newcomers to the city onto tasty local products.
She shared the idea with a few friends and bought a domain. But it wasn't until the COVID-19 pandemic struck a little over a month ago that she decided turn the idea into a business.
“It was like one of those goosebumps moments," she told Inno.
She and co-founder Julian Dussan, who is also co-founder of Snack Jack, launched ATX KIT last week. The concept is simple: Consumers can purchase a $49 or $99 kit that comes with a curated selection of foods from Austin companies. That helps local CPG companies that traditionally get significant sales at farmers markets, which are on pause, and in stores, where fewer people are browsing these days.
Meanwhile, ATX KIT takes 10% of each sale to make kits for local hospitals, which it will distribute through ATX Hospital Meals, a not-for-profit recently created to bring meals from local restaurants to health care workers.
The startup is currently working with about 15 CPG entrepreneurs, many of whom Freeland has gotten to know through visits to farmers markets, and its curation model is pretty straight forward.
"It has to be really yummy," she said. "It’s honestly food that I really like.”
Launching a startup during an economic upheaval like no other has come with challenges. Freeland said her bank had put a pause on opening new business accounts, meanwhile the co-founders are having to think through slowdowns in shipments and one of the food journalists they reached out to wasn't available to chat with because they're on furlough.
"We're running into a lot of issues like that," she said.
But jumping business hurdles is part of what Freeland does.
Prior to ATX KIT, she worked at Austin venture studio PowerShift Group. In 2016, she launched professional networking app Dime Club, and later launched Switch Cowork, a co-working startup that provided space at restaurants and bars during non-business hours. She is also an advisor at Southwest Angel Network in Austin and a venture fellow at Next Wave, an early-stage venture capital firm funding female impact founders.
“My world has always been online -- it’s digital, it’s software," she said. “Now it’s boxes, MSRP, wholesale and shipping logistics.”
Freeland said she's now working full-time on ATX KIT, and she's stoked to see so many Austin founders pivoting, gearing up new ideas and finding creative ways to deal with a terrible situation.
“Now more than ever I think Austin entrepreneurs need to think creatively and be bold," she said.
