Why can being the last company to start in a given category pay off?

When Jordan Nathan launched his DTC non-toxic cookware company Caraway in 2019, he knew he wasn’t the only founder trying to sell a recent brand of pots and pans to millennials scrolling through Instagram. However, he found that running after his peers turned out to be a blessing in disguise in all but one area.

Once launched, Caraway joined firms like Our Place, Great Jones and Made In Cookware in an increasingly crowded category of online cookware startups. However, being barely late to the party allowed Caraway to see what other brands and goal audiences were like, Nathan said on a recent episode of TechCrunch’s Found podcast. This allowed Caraway to change its approach and check out to fill the gaps that these brands left open.

Nathan said Caraway initially planned to top off on factory-made pans and goal millennials who were searching for something nicer than what may very well be found at IKEA but weren’t yet at the wedding registry stage. Every other DTC cookware brand seemed to have the same idea, so Caraway switched gears and as an alternative focused on wedding registries and beyond, putting a little more effort and time into designing their products.

“It helped us change our color palette, it helped us change the price point and what items we put in the set,” Nathan said. “And while many other brands have done many things right, we have managed to carve out our space in the DTC kitchen world where others have not dabbled.”

Seeing other brand launches also modified the way the company sold its first set of products. Nathan said Caraway initially intended to sell its cookware in each sets and individual pieces, but when it realized that no competitors were selling sets, the company went all out and launched sets – without the option to purchase one piece at a time. the price of time.

Caraway’s competitors also helped Caraway resolve to start talking to retailers early in the process. Nathan said they at all times planned to bring the product to stores, but seeing that no other DTC brands wanted to enter the retail market, Caraway began talking to retailers before launching the product online. Caraway sets can now be found, amongst others: at Target and Costco.

Early entry into retail stores helped Caraway solidify its share of wedding registries as Caraway began operating at retailers that had existing registry businesses, equivalent to Target and Bed Bath & Beyond, before it went bankrupt. This made Caraway a more natural alternative for couples constructing their registry than competition from cookware startups.

While being a later participant helped Caraway in some ways, it actually hurt in one area, Nathan said. “We were actually both the last ones to come to market, but we were also the last ones to raise funds,” Nathan said. “So when we went to raise funds, every investor we talked to had already chosen a kitchen brand they wanted to take on and invest in.”

Because of this, the first round of fundraising was arduous, and Nathan said that after 10 months of talking to five to eight investors a day, they were able to close a seed round with over 100 investors and no big checks from VCs.

But now, five years later, plainly being late to the game can have paid off. The company has raised greater than $40 million in enterprise capital and has expanded its product lines to include baking and food storage tools, with more in the pipeline.