Barbecue tech startup fires up sales in Kansas City
April 19, 2016 | Kat Hungerford
Kansas City is firing up the grills for its favorite season.
And no, it isn’t springtime or summertime. It’s barbecue time.
This barbecue season, Kansas City food tech startup Tappecue has cooked up a new online platform to complement its existing meat thermometer. The platform — launched last week — is called SessionBook, which allows grill- and smoke-masters to digitally perfect their barbecue recipes.
With the platform, users can review their cook session data to test and fine-tune recipes to create award-winning foods, said Jacob Bourret, marketing vice president of Innovating Solutions, owner of the Tappecue brand.
The Tappecue thermometer sends real-time temperature data to its phone app, enabling cooks to keep an eye on dinner while away from their grill, smoker or slow-cooker. With the addition of SessionBook, users can upload play-by-play Tappecue thermometer data, along with images, notes, recipes and more to track and perfect their barbecue processes.
Bourret sees Kansas City, with its barbecue-centric culture, as the optimal place to test and launch Tappecue products.
“We couldn’t ask for a better city to launch Tappecue,” said Bourret. “When we first launched, we were bootstrapping so we didn’t have an excess of cash flowing in to market and advertise (the product) — which means we had to get creative. Fortunately, KC has many barbecue competitions yearly.”
The company gained permission from the Kansas City Barbecue Society to hand out flyers and talk to competition participants at the society’s events. Grassroots marketing efforts like these were, and continue to be, the root of the company’s success, according to Bourret.
“People (at the competitions) got to meet the inventors and see our passion and enthusiasm for the product,” he said. “Now, our customers share that same enthusiasm and spread the word for us – from the heart of KC to the rest of the world.”
Since its July 2013 launch, Tappecue has doubled in revenue every year, with a total of 2,000 units sold to 1,700 customers. The company expects to again double those numbers by the end of 2016, according to Bourret.
2016 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
DivvyHQ founders named finalists for prestigious EY Award
The two men leading the fast-growing tech startup DivvyHQ have been named finalists for the Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 Award in the Central Midwest. DivvyHQ co-founders Brody Dorland and Brock Stechman both were named finalists for the award on Thursday, lending credence to the duo’s tech. DivvyHQ created a planning and collaboration platform…
Effort hopes to rebuild eastern KC neighborhood by reviving jazz roots
Since the 1920s, jazz has built a reputation for Kansas City. About 90 years later, a local organization is hoping the power of jazz can rebuild Kansas City. Led by co-founders and spouses Daniel and Ebony Edwards, KC Jazz LP is working to establish Kansas City as the jazz recording capital of the world while…
After St. Joseph tech firm acquisition, Online Tech expands to KC
Ann Arbor-based Online Tech has acquired a St. Joseph, Mo. cloud firm, paving the way for its expansion into Kansas City. The cloud security company announced Thursday that it purchased St. Joseph-based Echo Cloud, which provides colocation and cloud hosting services. Echo Cloud CEO Bill Severn said he’s pleased to be joining the Online Tech…
Before and after: Tour progress at KC’s massive coworking campus, Westport Commons
Launched in 2015, Plexpod Westport Commons recently opened its doors after completing phase one of the project to revamp a middle school to become a coworking campus. Opened in April, the 160,000 square-foot, formerly vacant Westport Middle School has new life as a huge coworking space that will house more than 500 people and dozens…