Achieving Startup Success with a Hummus Delivery Service

Alex Pasternak and Aaron Shapiro are crazy about hummus. After the two roommates discovered that their hummus consumption was beginning to dent their wallets, the roommates decided they’d better learn how to make it themselves. The pair discovered that they had a knack for making their own hummus creations, and Two Brothers Hummus, LLC was born from there. The small business was formally established in August of 2014 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They do paperwork inside of their home office, but have a kitchen outside of their home where they prepare the food. Once their orders are prepared, they deliver them locally.

“When we started making our own hummus, our friends tried it and they loved it. So one day I sat down with Aaron and said, ‘We should sell this and deliver it.’ From there, we started from basic recipes and then we started to adapt those recipes. We’ve made loaded baked potato, buffalo chicken, and guacamole hummus. We also do seasonal flavors. Our main goal is to bring familiar flavors to healthy foods because humus is insanely good for you,” Pasternak explains of the objective of the small business. “Our aim is to give hummus a familiar flavor to those who have never tried it — and promote wellness.”

The ambitious duo is hoping to slowly replace “Super Bowl foods” like pizza and wings with healthier, fresher options. Although Pasternak and Shapiro’s small business has deviated from their majors in film at college, they’re using their film expertise to develop a social presence for themselves to sufficiently act as the faces of their company. Their small business has pages on Facebook and Twitter.

Pasternak offers the following advice for aspiring small business owners.

“As someone that has no entrepreneurial experience, if you have a good idea, just find someone or find the knowledge to do it and just go do it. The only way to do it is to do it,” he says.

Local Competition with Small Business Owners

“There are 2 other places that are very hummus-themed in the general area. We’ve done our research and these are the only places that would provide a threat — if any — only because they make hummus. I haven’t found anyone who has done anything remotely similar to what we’re doing. In terms of advertising, our edge is going to be that we are film majors and will present ourselves with an informal attitude,” Pasternak confides.

Challenges of Small Business Ownership

According to Pasternak, the challenges he and Shapiro face as small business owners are still the same set of problems they experienced in the very early stages of achieving startup success.

“We have a consistent client base and we’ve got some really great connections, but I still feel like the same challenges we face now are the same ones we faced awhile ago in terms of paperwork and just finding the time to get stuff done. We’ve given up every weekend we’ve had to cook and deliver,” Pasternak says. “No one cares about this company more than me and my partner. It’s thriving and it’s incredibly motivational, but at the same time, we can get caught up in school or working on film sets, so it can be very time-consuming.”

Experience as 1-800Accountant Clients

Alex Pasternak and Aaron Shapiro are satisfied clients of 1-800Accountant.

“1-800Accountant has been really great about reminding me when calls are. When we talk, we find out something new that we didn’t know before, and it’s always something helpful,” Pasternak says.

Image credit: Two Brothers Hummus Facebook page