Tech In Chicago Episode: David Rabie / Founder of Tovala

by Colin Keeley
June 24, 2016

This post originally appeared on Tech In Chicago. Visit Tech In Chicago to listen to more interviews with Chicago’s top startup founders and venture capitalists. 

David Rabie is the Founder and CEO of Tovala, the creator of a smart oven that cooks perfectly made meals by baking, boiling and steaming them in under 30 minutes. The meals can either be delivered prepackaged from Tovala or be made using a crowdsourced recipe. Last winter, Tovala graduated from Y-Combinator and a few months ago Tovala launched a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised $255,603 with over 1,000 backers. Before starting Tovala, David was an MBA at Chicago Booth, and he worked for the co-founder and CEO of Veggie Grill and ran Groovy Spoon – a bi-coastal chain of frozen yogurt stores. He also spent time working at Google and Foundation Capital. 

In This Episode You Will Learn:

  • Why he decided to pair food delivery with a smart oven
  • How they came up with the name Tovala
  • How David found his first engineer
  • How they decided on the price of the oven and the food
  • How they prepared for their successful Kickstarter campaign
  • What they got out of Y-Combinator? 
  • Why they decided to come back to Chicago after Y-Combinator?
  • Why he wishes he had found a co-founder earlier
  • How to test for cultural fit and avoid mishires
  • The importance of establishing connections with VCs before you need money

Selected Links From The Episode:

Favorite Books: 

About Tech In Chicago

Tech In Chicago takes you inside the Chicago tech world. Each week Colin Keeley is joined by Chicago’s top founders and investors to talk about the amazing companies being built right here. If you want to learn more about Tech In Chicago, head to TechInChicago.co

I would love to hear your thoughts on the show and any guests I should have on. Please reach out @TechInChicago. You can also find me @ColinKeeley.

 

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