After seven years, I’ve decided to pursue my next chapter and will be moving on from Blue Apron this May. This has been the most profound experience of my career and this decision was not an easy one. There’s nothing I enjoy more than building teams and creating products that improve lives. It has been my honor to have worked with such an exceptional group of people over the years to build Blue Apron into the iconic consumer brand it has become.
It’s hard to believe this all started in a small commissary kitchen in Queens back in 2012. Since that time, we created a completely new category, grew to over 5,000 employees and $850m in annual net revenue, and became a household name (not to mention getting shoutouts on Saturday Night Live and Jeopardy!).
I’ll never forget our friends and family receiving their first deliveries and telling us we helped unlock “magic powers” inside them, relocating our HQ to my co-founder Matt Salzberg’s parents’ apartment during Hurricane Sandy, Matt Wadiak, my other co-founder, rolling cases of tomatoes back to the kitchen on his skateboard, Shaan Batra, our first engineer, and me staying up past midnight in my apartment to run a database migration without disrupting site traffic, late-night karaoke sessions at Baby Grand, delicious meals delivered to our home by the test kitchen team after our son was born, epic cookbook shoots where Matt Wadiak and I had a whole-onion vs. whole-lemon eating contest (spoiler: we both lost), and the overwhelming feeling of pride reflecting on how much our team had grown at each year’s holiday party.
Millions of people across the country have enjoyed the meals that our teams work so hard to design, source and produce every day. Some of the most moving experiences for me have come from our customers’ stories about how Blue Apron has changed their lives. Hearing from parents reconnecting with their children following a divorce or how we aided in someone’s recovery after a terrible illness is truly inspiring. I’m especially proud of the millions of pounds of food we’ve donated to those in need across the country.
Together, we built the most talented technology team I’ve had the pleasure of working with. We developed custom e-commerce, procurement, manufacturing and warehouse management platforms capable of orchestrating the production and delivery of millions of ingredients to customers nationwide every week. Our teams created sophisticated machine learning forecasting and personalization algorithms and even published a paper on the topic.
I cannot thank our investors and my co-founders enough for making this incredible journey possible. I’m thankful to Brad Dickerson for fostering a culture of agility and pushing to find new ways for customers to make Blue Apron a part of their lives. I’m thankful to my friends and family and my wife Caroline for all their support and advice throughout the years. She took a chance when we were just dating almost a decade ago, picking up her life and moving from Boston “just for a year or two to see if this startup thing works out.”
Most of all, I’m grateful for the privilege of working with the talented coworkers in our offices and fulfillment centers across the country. Many of the friendships formed here will last a lifetime. I had the opportunity to oversee and learn from multiple departments outside of technology during my tenure and am humbled by the dedication, skill, and passion of our employees. In my prior career, consulting with both large and small companies, I never encountered anything quite like the passionate culture we have here. You can feel the pride our team has in our products and the impact they’re making on the food system and our customers’ lives.
I’m excited about what lies ahead for Blue Apron. Over the past year, we’ve made significant cultural, platform, and efficiency advancements that allow for a new level of innovation and expansion. We’ve launched multiple retail products, on-demand capabilities, dinner party and grilling boxes, and exciting partnerships with great companies like Jet.com and WW. Our brand continues to grow stronger--85% of people now recognize the name Blue Apron!
Blue Apron has matured significantly over the past few years and I’ve been so impressed by the experience, skill, and energy our recent team members and leadership hires have brought to the company, along with a passion for our offering and brand.
I’m particularly excited about the addition of Linda Kozlowski as our new CEO--she is an inspiring leader, whose unique expertise will be invaluable to Blue Apron as the company embarks on its next chapter. And who better to help drive our “Best Customer” strategy than a best customer herself (Linda has cooked more than 300 of our recipes over the years!).
I’ve been very fortunate to be able to work on something I love that also helps our customers, employees, and suppliers alike. Now, I’m looking forward to taking some time to recharge with my family and prepare for what’s next. I know Blue Apron will continue to do amazing things and bring millions of people together around the dinner table for years to come, and my family and I will be cooking right along with you!