Mission To Restaurants - Increase to-go and delivery order volume. To Customers - Provide the best user experience for online food ordering. Experience Our experience and skillset range from restaurant management to software engineering and interactive marketing, and combined, we offer you the best of each field. Moreover, our technology is proprietary and specific to your business goals; it has been developed in-house since 2009 and custom-tailored to restaurants. We understand the complex nature of restaurant management coupled with the need to not only be visible on the Internet, but to also serve an increasingly web-savvy customer base. The Core Team - Tony Chang has lifelong experience in a family restaurant business and is an experienced in-the-trenches digital marketer. Tony is natively fluent in Mandarin Chinese. - Ashishh Desai has over a decade of experience in restaurant operations and management. Currently is the head of sales operations and management at Menufy. - Sharmil Desai, BS, Computer Engineering, has developed software at Penton Media, Cerner Corporation, Control Systems International, and is currently employed at RSA as a Senior Software Engineer. - Aleksandr Elesev, MS, Computer Science, has developed software at Prognoz, Lois and Cerner Corporation. Aleksandr is a serial entrepreneur, bitcoin advocate and runs a youtube channel about voluntarism and free market. Aleksandr is natively fluent in Russian. - Meseret Gebre, MS, Computer Science, has developed software at Cerner Corporation and Perceptive Software, and currently leads JetCode as a Software Architect and Lean Startup Specialist. Meseret was on the winning team of the Kauffman Foundation's 2012 Columbus Startup Weekend Hackathon. Meseret speaks Tigrigna. - Jeremy Kuo, MBA, founded a search engine marketing department at Bigshot Interactive and has served as its director since 2007. Jeremy is fluent in French and speaks elementary German. - Shawn Lee, BA, Communication Studies, has over a decade experience in restaurant and retail operations. Shawn is natively fluent in Korean. - Dan Long specializes in application and game development for web, mobile, game console and desktop platforms. Building interactive tools using the latest technologies and programming languages. - Hoang Nguyen is the founder and owner of a fusion sandwich shop and café. Beforehand, he served as the General Manager of a Stix Sushi & Hibachi location and then as the Director of Operations. Hoang is proficient in Vietnamese.
- StatusNot Verified
- Form of BusinessCompany
- In Business Since2014
Business Description
We (Rickey and James) started Zest tea because we love quality tea, but we also love the energizing boost we get from a cup of joe. Yes, most teas have some caffeine, but sometimes some doesn't cut it. You know those mornings.
We were sick of trading in our delicious, healthy, tea, for that sludge they call coffee at the office, so we set out to find quality energizing tea. Unfortunately, they didn't exist. Instead of whimpering and moving on (well maybe a little whimpering) we started making our own blends of caffeine infused teas using our favorite high quality blends.
We've been tea-heads (sorta like deadheads but with different plants) long enough that we knew how to blend a great tea, but to start it was only for ourselves. Then our friends heard about what we were doing. They loved the idea and when they tasted the teas they had to have it for themselves. Eventually we succumbed to our friends pleas and decided to make our blends available to the masses. There was only one problem, we were broke.
We didn't know what to do, until Venture for America issued the program's fellows (us) a challenge to raise money for a company or cause via a crowdfunding platform called RocketHub. Two months later (and with a lot of help) we had raised over $9,955 from 87 different funders. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get the wheels rolling. In January 2014, we shipped our first product out to our funders and began selling Zest Tea to the public.
We're pretty laid back guys (but serious about our tea), so if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or just feel like talking tea, drop us a line on Facebook, Twitter, or here.
Favorite Accomplishment: In May 2015 we were named the Best New Product at the World Tea Expo!
