Session Details Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2025 Time: 12:00 PM Eastern Time Duration: 90 minutes Format: Zoom Session Type: Expert-Led Workshop + Applied Learning
Finding the right customers and validating your solution are essential steps in building traction and scaling a foodtech venture. This session will equip participants with practical strategies for identifying early customers, testing assumptions, and adapting solutions to meet real-world needs.
Matt Tom, Founder & President, MTCC LLC, will bring expertise from scaling plant-based, cell-based, and fermentation-based ventures such as Impossible Burger, Kite Hill, and Ripple Foods. He will provide a framework for moving from customer exploration to product design and manufacturing scale-up, while highlighting emerging trends like functional foods, GLP-1 drugs, and shifting consumer behaviors that impact validation strategies.
Kevork Sevadjian, Co-Founder & CEO, Gastronomous Technologies, will share founder lessons from building automation solutions for quick-service restaurants, including how to tailor innovations to customer needs, validate products through pilots, and build trust with foodservice operators.
A peer discussion and Q&A, facilitated by Cohort Mentor Dr. Jody Dexter (Bioenterprise), will allow participants to share their own validation efforts, test assumptions, and gain feedback from both speakers and peers. Jody will ensure the session remains interactive, with practical connections to each cohort company’s context.
This workshop will help founders understand how to bridge the gap between what they think customers want and what the market actually demands—an essential milestone before scaling and investment readiness.
