Founders Everywhere: Diana Might
Diana Might is the co-founder and CEO of Mustard, a social and shoppable food app where you can discover and order food through videos of local foodies.
Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.
The way we discover food or get ideas on where to dine and what food to order changed entirely thanks to Instagram, TikTok, and the pandemic. Food videos became the most loved and viral content with over 300 billion views with #food on TikTok alone. The new social app Mustard is changing the way we discover and order food, converting viral videos of local food lovers into orders. They are the first and only platform that can automatically convert social media posts of food content creators into a ready-to-order menu. It’s also a way for content creators to directly monetize their food content by collecting a small commission from every order. Co-founder and CEO Diana Might, along with a co-founder and CPO David Currant, have created Mustard to bring value to customers, restaurants, and creators - making it easier to order food from content, while driving traffic to the restaurants and helping creators monetize their work.
Diana has extensive experience dealing with content, as she is an award-winning producer who worked for leading production companies in the industry for over a decade. She created films for the BBC, Discovery US, National Geographic, Netflix and branded content for PUMA, Hugo Boss, and Red Bull. She has traveled all over the world and speaks five languages. After moving to the US from London, she and her co-founder started working on Mustard. The name comes from the observation that many apps are either green or blue and they wanted something with a zesty color - Mustard, which is also a food. In addition, Mustard is slang for money, good, pleasure and excitement (as seen on Urban Dictionary), which started as a joke but seemed very fitting with the brand.
How did you come up with the idea for Mustard?
As a senior producer I was running multiple programs, heading many departments, and raising cash, which is a very similar process to founding a startup. It was a natural progression to become a CEO of a tech startup and what we do is very content-driven. I’ve had experience dealing with content for over 12 years, including with influencers. I'm also a low-key influencer myself. I have around 50k followers on Instagram and my whole influence comes around traveling, food, consuming stuff and having fun. Mustard merges it all together because it incorporates video content, incentivizing micro/nano influencers and empowering them to create, while at the same time developing a reciprocal beneficial exchange with restaurants. I would say we are part content company and part data company.
What’s Mustard’s “North Star”?
The end goal is to be able to build this greater economy that’s B2B and B2C. We are all about incentivizing content creators and about actually making smaller creators count. We want their engagement on the platform to provide enough value and rewards to keep them coming. At the same time we provide restaurants with a very easy stream of constant new creators that amplify their business through our social app.
Tell us about some recent milestones that Mustard crushed.
We raised an oversubscribed 2 million on our pre-seed and I'm really proud of the investors we have.
We are working with some of the most amazing food influencers in LA & OC, creating really strong partnerships.
We have a pretty large multinational team and a really strong ratio of men vs women, which is amazing.
Why is Mustard going to win?
Over 50% of Americans identify as foodies, which is pretty incredible. Mustard is the only space for content creators, specifically in the food business, to actually be seen and grow tremendously. We also care about our creators and they notice. Foodies spend so much cash and it takes so much effort to grow. Mustard is the platform to help them directly monetize their food content because they deserve it.
What were some of your greatest challenges founding Mustard?
It is very competitive and tough to find the right angle, business model, and product market fit in the food tech industry right now. We rode the wave of the whole pandemic and things kept changing and flipping the whole time. During the pandemic the food industry went through a big facelift with the way we ordered food and all the new delivery apps, not to mention the use of QR codes. At Mustard we're modernizing in a space that's highly evolving, highly competitive, and has crazy margins. It's a challenge, but at the same time probably the most exciting and thrilling place to be.
Do you have any advice for other founders?
Believe in yourself and invent your own rules! Hustle through! In many situations I’ve been the only woman, the only foreigner, and the youngest person in the room and it can feel like imposter syndrome. There’s a lot of insecurity and doubt that you have to overcome daily in order to be able to push forward as a leader, because essentially, everyone's looking at you and they're almost fitting of your energy, so keep your energy high and invest in your internal growth. I build my lifestyle around supporting my mental health and that’s so important to grow as an individual and leader.
Want to try Mustard? The app is live in the iOS app store. Go search for "Mustard - Experience Food" and join the food heaven!