Vanessa Torrivilla Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe magazine.
Today's guest is Vanessa Torrivilla, co-founder, chief product and creative officer of Goldbelly. Goldbelly is the fascinating food e-commerce platform that lets you order food from your favorite restaurants and culinary personalities across the country, from Mashama Bailey's The Grey and Savannah to Ina Garten. Goldbelly started as a simple idea over 10 years ago. Then the pandemic hit and it became a lifeline for many food businesses. Vanessa has been part of this incredible startup story from the beginning, and I'm thrilled to welcome her to Radio Cherry Bombe for the very first time. We had a great chat, so stay tuned.
This episode of Radio Cherry Bombe is supported by OpenTable. We are excited to announce that OpenTable is once again partnering with Cherry Bombe on Sit With Us, our community dinner series highlighting amazing female chefs and restaurateurs in the Cherry Bombe Network. How does it work? You can come solo and sit at a Cherry Bombe community table or bring a friend or two and we will seat you together. I hope you all have your OpenTable app on your phones. A portion of the proceeds from each dinner will benefit a local charity chosen by the chef. Learn more about the OpenTable and Cherry Bombe Sit With Us series at cherrybombe.com.
What else is going on? The cutoff to subscribe to our print magazine and receive all four 2024 issues is Friday, March 1st. That deadline is coming soon. All subscribers get free shipping, so don't delay. Our spring issue is all about icons and our summer issue is all about Paris. Go to cherrybombe.com to subscribe. Now let's check in with today's guest.
Vanessa Torrivilla, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm so excited because I had actually been looking for you during the pandemic because I knew how important Goldbelly was to the industry and continues to be, and I was like, "I know there's a really smart woman behind this. Somewhere in this company."
Vanessa Torrivilla:
There had to be, right?
Kerry Diamond:
And I don't know why. I guess I didn't look hard enough, but then I was seated next to you at that dinner and I was like, "I have found you. Please come on Radio Cherry Bombe."
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yes. Yes. We were instant friends too. We had so much to talk about.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm happy we could make this happen because we have a lot to talk about. You are just coming off. You and the whole Goldbelly team are just coming off this sort of insane collision of events. You just had Lunar New Year, Valentine's Day, the Super Bowl, Galentine's Day, our favorite, Mardi Gras. All of the above. All of the above.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah. It's really cool to be able to participate in all of these moments and occasions that really mean so much to people, and food is just at the epicenter of every single one of them. So it's perfect for us and it's perfect for these occasions for everybody to connect.
Kerry Diamond:
Your brand really is joy.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I'm so happy you say that. Yes, I would say that that is very me too. I only do things that bring me joy. And when we chose the name, it was because we wanted to choose a name that made people smile. We're 10 years into building the company. And something that makes me want to cry is when I meet someone and they find out that I am a co-founder of Goldbelly, and the response is like, "Oh, I love Goldbelly," and the smile. That's something that we set out to do and it's really cool that that's what's happened.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm assuming that 99% of you listeners out there know what Goldbelly is, but for the 1% who don't, Vanessa, tell us what Goldbelly is all about.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah, we're a marketplace where you can order from the top restaurants all across the country. The best foods shipped to you anywhere you are. So you can order foods from LA, New York, Chicago, from anywhere. And it could be high-end food or it could be just comfort food.
Kerry Diamond:
What is your role there?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Well, I have a big role because I am responsible for the way that people interact with the brand from a lot of different perspectives. From a technical perspective, I lead the product and engineering teams in building the platform in which people order and discover products. I lead the creative team, which is the marketing team that they're the ones that tell the stories, that merchandise products that are relevant for specific occasions, and they're the ones that draw people in and inspire them to order. And I also work with the customer experience team, which helps customers solve their problems.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us how Goldbelly came to be.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I started dating this guy who really loved food and lived in New York. I came to New York. And our first date, he took me to three places back to back. He's like, "You're coming to New York. I need to show you three iconic places." We went to Mamoun's, we went to Joe's Pizza. And at the time, do you remember Peanut Butter & Co. and they used to have an Elvis sandwich, which was peanut butter and banana and something else? I was like, "Whoa, this guy. Like, what..." And he just wanted to share with me food that he felt represented him and his city in just one afternoon.
Kerry Diamond:
You said you came to New York. Where did you come from?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I was in Florida at the time. He took me on the state. And obviously from the minute that we started dating, everything with him has been around food and food experiences and traveling. So when he had the idea, "What do you think, if there was a marketplace where you could order barbecue from Texas shipped to you, do you think people would order from there?" And my first impression was like, "I think you would order from there." But then when I was thinking about it a little bit more, I felt like, "No, I actually think this is a good idea" and it felt like it would be something that would eventually exist anyway. So I felt like, okay, my background is in design. I was a product designer. I was designing apps. I was working in e-commerce at the time. And I really understood that what he was trying to do was to sell food as an experience for people.
Now, I didn't understand the concept in the beginning as I did later on. In the beginning I thought it was about the food, just selling the food, like that's what he was excited about. But then he ordered a box of barbecue from Memphis. I had never been to Memphis. I grew up in Venezuela. I went to college here, but I had never had the opportunity to go to Memphis. We get this box from Memphis. And it's branded, it's very Tennessee. The fonts we're like southern. We open the box and it smells like barbecue. There was popcorn, there were napkins, there were bibs. I just got excited because I was instantly transported to Memphis even though I had never been there. And that's when it really clicked for me that what he was trying to do was sell an experience. It wasn't just about eating something. It was about reliving a memory or visiting a place that you've never been to through the food.
Kerry Diamond:
I was going to say memories, because my family orders from Goldbelly from The Clam Shack in Kennebunk.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Oh, so good.
Kerry Diamond:
It's the one time every year my whole family gets together and first thing we do is go stand online at The Clam Shack. So I was like, it's not even about the food, it's about the memory and just you got that box and you can't help but smile.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah. And there's something beautiful about reliving a tradition that you have with your family, but there's also something really beautiful about introducing someone to a food that really means something to you that you just want to share with someone else. I think that that's the moment that I really fell in love with the concept. So I went from wanting to help my boyfriend with doing some free design to really caring about this from a very deep place. To me it's always been all about the emotion, the story, what this place means because I saw how much it meant to my significant other at the time.
Kerry Diamond:
So we're going to jump ahead a little bit. So Joe has the idea for Goldbelly, you apply for Y Combinator eventually. Can you tell us the condensed version? Like, after the idea, what happened? How did you wind up applying for Y Combinator and what happened once you got accepted?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah. So we start the idea, Joe is working full-time on the idea and I am working part-time because I had to have a job living in New York City. So I would work on design at night. He applied and I did not know. We have two other co-founders that are engineers. We did not know that he applied. Joe is a very go-getter type. He knew what he was doing. So he applied, we got accepted. After we got accepted, he told us. And then he pitched us the idea, like, "Okay, so this means that we have to move to California for three months and work on the idea." And we were all here in New York.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, so if you get accepted into Y Combinator, you have to go there?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
You could do it remotely, but we wanted to be all in.
Kerry Diamond:
And for folks who don't know Y Combinator, that's the startup accelerator. And a lot of amazing brands and companies have come out of it.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah, I would say it is probably the most prestigious and the most difficult to get accepted. I think that they accept less than 5% of applicants.
Kerry Diamond:
So you uproot your life and head out west?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah, we just put all of our stuff in storage. It wasn't a hard pitch to me. I quit my job. Our other two co-founders did the same. And we put our stuff in storage. They had significant others and everybody just came. And we moved into a house in Silicon Valley that looks like the house in the Facebook movie. And I lived in the house with my three male co-founders. We had mattresses on the floor. It was not chic at all, but it was thrilling that we had some investment enough to quit our jobs to really fully focus on building our concept.
Kerry Diamond:
We're going to talk a lot about fundraising because you all have raised a lot of money. And we've been raising money and I'm just like, "Oh my God, this is the most painful thing ever."
Vanessa Torrivilla:
It's so hard.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you get the initial money?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
So initially, Joe was investing his own money in the idea. I was investing my time. And then Y Combinator, part of the acceptance is that they invest in you. So enough money for you to sustain and survive for the next few months until you raise a seed round. But we didn't really raise any real capital until our seed round. Now when I say Joe funded it, he also had a couple of college friends. He went to Vanderbilt and some of his best friends also invested in us like in an angel round very early on.
Kerry Diamond:
What did you learn from the Y Combinator experience?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
It was very intimidating to be there. This is where Dropbox came out of Airbnb, some of the most iconic companies of today. We were surrounded by incredible mentors. The person who launched Gmail, the co-founders of Airbnb would come and advise us. Peter Thiel came and spoke to us. So we were surrounded by very inspiring, very successful people. But I would say that my favorite thing about that experience was our peers. We met so many people that were building companies in totally different industries, but they were facing the same challenges as we were. So in a way, it was kind of going to college for the first time and just being with a whole bunch of people that were facing the same challenges in life. And that to me was the most valuable part of that experience. To this day, when we want to feel supported by a community that truly understands us, those are the people that we reach out to.
Kerry Diamond:
It's also a lot of wind in your sails. Because so many times when you have an idea and you start a company, you're like, "Oh, What am I doing?"
Vanessa Torrivilla:
It's very lonely.
Kerry Diamond:
It's very lonely.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
When we started the concept in New York, our friends just thought we were unemployed. They did not know anything about startup. When we got to Silicon Valley, everybody was doing the same thing. We did not feel like we were missing out on anything. We felt like we were in the right place. But I do have a funny story for you because you just did Wefunder, right? Wefunder was in our class.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that is funny.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yes. They were a company that was accepted by Y Combinator. The founders of Wefunder were our peers. I remember that they helped us with our pitch. So they allowed us to pitch to them and then they would give us feedback. And we also did a very early angel round on Wefunder too.
Kerry Diamond:
I wish I could have invested in that because Goldbelly is clearly a good investment.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I think we did it because we were trying to support them and they were trying to support us, and that was the kind of community that is built around Y Combinator.
Kerry Diamond:
That's amazing. Wefunder, for those who don't know, we had bootstrapped for the first decade and decided it was time to raise some money. And because we had such an amazing community, it was important to me to bring the community along in whatever we did next. I learned about Wefunder because I had invested in two things and just thought it was such a great experience.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
They're amazing storytellers. They do a really good job at really connecting people who love your brand, bringing them in. We had the best experience with them and I'm so happy that they're still around and they're doing well. And that helping you, helping a lot of people.
Kerry Diamond:
They really do help you. Yeah, they held our hands through a lot of this. If there are folks out there who do want to raise money, you have the community, you just don't feel like people who are going to write those big checks, this is a great option and you should definitely, definitely look into it. And I'm also happy to answer any questions if you want to DM me about Wefunder.
Let's keep talking about fundraising because you all have raised 133 million plus to date, right?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah. I lost count, but that sounds right.
Kerry Diamond:
That is a lot of money. And I guess from what you're telling me, is you haven't been involved directly in the fundraising process or have you?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I was very early on. And I would say in the first two rounds, like your seed round and series A, like investors really want to hear from all the founders. Now I am currently another step in the process because I run such a large part of our operation. So definitely I am involved in some of the fundraising, but it's mostly left to Joe at this point.
Kerry Diamond:
What have you learned about raising money? What advice do you have for everybody out there?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
It's really hard. It's really hard to raise money and it really matters who you take money from. I didn't just learn this from our own experience, but from our friends that have raised money. No money comes for free. And you really want to, when you're taking investment, you really want to partner with people that are going to add value, that are going to believe in you, and that are really in it for the long haul like you are. And I feel like just finding the right investor is just as important as actually doing the fundraising because our investors are our partners. We have incredible investors. I mean, we have Danny Meyer who is an amazing mentor to us, right? The guys at Spectrum in Silicon Valley, they are our partners. They are people that we really rely on for advice and it's really critical that you have a good relationship with them.
Kerry Diamond:
That's a good segue into talking about partnerships on Goldbelly. You very, very kindly sent me the Ina Garten cakes. I mean, that was so much fun. I didn't know they were from you at first and I was like, "Oh my God, somebody sent me the Ina cakes." I was like, "Who sent me these?" Again, back to your brand being joy and smiles, you open a box and it's like the barefoot contestant coconut cake. If you're not smiling, something is wrong.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I just think there's something, it's one of my favorite gifts to send because you can't get that anywhere. You cannot get that anywhere. She doesn't sell in stores. She really only works with us. I mean you can bake it, but...
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. You could bake it, yes.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
But this is every ingredient, every taste approved by Ina. She places secret orders to make sure that the quality is maintained. Ina is who she says she is.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Absolutely. And it's such a great product.
Kerry Diamond:
So not only is Ina one of your partners, but you have all the top chefs. I mean you've got Mashama Bailey, Nancy Silverton, Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller. Who's in charge of partnerships? How do you attract these amazing people?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah, I would say that there were some chefs that really believed in us from the get-go. I would say Daniel Boulud and Mashama Bailey were on the platform way before the pandemic. And they were just really excited to be a part of something new and really sharing their food, and that says a lot about them, right? I think during the pandemic, a lot of, especially the top restaurants, they realized that they needed to diversify their businesses. And I think that when they saw that Goldbelly was successfully shipping foods from other really incredible chefs, then they were a little bit more open to the idea. So during the pandemic, there was a huge influx, a lot of interest from a lot of chefs. And post-pandemic, obviously that has continued.
So I would say in the early days we had to really pitch hard for a chef to do it. At this point, it's more like we handle a massive amount of inbounds. Really it's kind of like Y Combinator. They have to apply to the platform. We accept a little bit under 5% of applicants just because it's a lot of work and it really needs to be a great experience for it to be on Goldbelly.
And then we also have a business development team. They have their target list. There's certain chefs that we really want to work with that in some cases we really have to work on for years. You have to work on the relationship. We have to talk to them for years before they're open to doing it, and I would say Ina was one of those. We were friends with her first. We became friends with her, she got to know us, we spent time with her. She wanted to understand how we run our business, how much we care. And I think that these are relationships that we nurture for a long time before going into partnerships.
Kerry Diamond:
You brought up the pandemic. And obviously things really changed for Goldbelly during the pandemic, not just in terms of what it did for your business, all these food businesses reaching out to you who wanted to now be part of Goldbelly, but it must have been emotional for all of you inside there because all of a sudden you became a lifeline for a lot of restaurants. How did you deal with that?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I remember when that happened. So I remember the day that we sent everyone home from the office because we're like, "Hey, we don't know what this means. This is very scary." And I remember the executive team met in the office and we talked about like, "What does this mean? What if everyone shuts down? Obviously we're probably going to go out of business, but what if people don't shut down? We have to stay operational." But what we did is that we committed that day. We're like, "No matter what, we're not going to cut our team. No matter what, we're going to continue to operate through this. And if we have to forgo our own salaries, we're going to do that." But we felt that that was an important moment to make that decision, and then we sent everyone home.
And then kind of crickets the first few days because that's when restaurants were starting to shut down, sending their teams home. But at that point, we were already Goldbelly, we had already been operating for a long time. We had significant orders, so people had already placed orders for the next few weeks, and we just started actively communicating with customers like, "Let's just be honest, hey, this restaurant in New York City, they can't get their staff in so we cannot ship your order. We're going to push it to next week."
What was amazing was how understanding customers were when we explained to them the reality because everybody was living it. I believe that a big driver for our entire company to work hard and support merchants was us realizing that how much merchants were struggling to keep their staff. And we started hearing of different merchants having to shut down either for illness or because they were just going out of business. And so that made us work even harder about keeping them afloat because we could see that like, "Oh, UPS is still operating. FedEx is still operating. We can still do this." And I feel like we saw a lot of businesses shut down at first and then come back and we were able to increase their orders and then they were able to rehire their staff. And that was just so motivating for us.
I can say that my team really cares. We all really care about who we're doing this for, not just the customer. It's not just feeding the customer, but it's also making sure that all of these businesses would be operational. But then over time, during the pandemic, you saw that people started feeling disconnected. They started feeling disconnected from each other. They could no longer go to their coffee shops and their bakeries and the places that really made them feel like home and normal. And then we realized how much the foods that we were selling meant to them. So it went from wanting to order Goldbelly because you wanted to have a beautiful occasion with someone to like, "Actually, I really need this to comfort me, to help me go through this difficult time without my family."
Kerry Diamond:
Now you all of a sudden had to start saying no to a lot of folks, which must've been hard. I'm just curious for you emotionally going through all that. And were you a new mom at the time?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, I had a one-year-old. I don't remember a lot of the details. We really went into survival mode because not only was I terrified for our own family's safety and our families in Florida, my parents were in Florida, Joe's mother was living alone in Long Island, so those were very scary times, but we were also managing the emotional circumstances that our teams were going through and also feeling a lot for the restaurant community that we were supporting. So I would say it was a very emotional time, but there's something about just going through hardship that you just kind of arm up and you just do it. And it's only in retrospect do I realize how hard that time was.
Kerry Diamond:
How is Goldbelly a different company today?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I would say it's not different. So let me just put it to you this way. When we shut down and sent everyone home before the pandemic, we were 34 people. When our business went like 3X during this time for a very long time, for I would say two and a half years, it was very, very hard for a very small team. So we had to go into beast mode, right? I think what's different now is that we're a bigger team. We have a lot more support. There's a lot more exchange of ideas and collaboration across team, but the same level of care and passion for what we're doing is still there. The biggest compliment that I receive when people come into the office for an interview or just to meet us, the first thing that they say is, "I love the energy here. It's so vibrant. People are just talking and sharing ideas. It's a very collaborative environment. People are very nice to each other." I don't know, I just feel like we've had that since day one, and that's truly what our culture continues to be.
Kerry Diamond:
How many employees do you have today?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
About 130.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest.
Our sister podcast, The Future Of Food Is You, is doing a live event in Miami on Friday, March 8th, which happens to be International Women's Day. It's taking place at Chef Valerie Chang's restaurant. Chef Valerie is a big, big talent and I can't wait to catch up with her. Get tickets and all the details at cherrybombe.com. Thank you to Kerrygold, Walmart, and OpenTable for making this event possible. If you are in the Miami area, I would love to see you there.
Explain to everybody how restaurants make money through Goldbelly. They're shipping, like I used the example of The Clam Shack. You're not making stuff that's similar to what The Clam Shack makes and sending that out. It's literally the restaurant sending it out, or the food business because not everybody is a restaurant.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
We work on a wholesale basis. So there isn't like a percentage that we need to make. It's more like, "Restaurant, how much money do you want to get paid for this product?" So it really works for them. And we really work with them to make sure that the packaging costs are kept down. We have a lot of resources to make sure that we're supplying the restaurants with the packaging that they need. And we work with them on a wholesale basis, so they name their price.
Kerry Diamond:
Shipping is the hardest part obviously when you're sending perishable things across the country. How big is your team dedicated to shipping and making shipping greener and more environmentally friendly and getting products there that aren't spoiled and the boxes aren't broken?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah, there's a tech component and there's a human component. So our platform, like one of my teams is responsible for building the logistics of our ordering system. So when you order something on Goldbelly, it comes to the merchant. That's what we call the restaurants and the food makers. They come into the merchant and it tells them when to make it, how much of it, when to have it ready, when UPS is going to show up to pick it up. And then it's also accounts how much packaging to put in that box and time in transit. So what we want is for the restaurant to really focus on making a really great product and packaging it really well. Then UPS shows up, picks it up. And we have really deep ties with UPS where we have a level of service from them where they really care about our packages as much as we do.
We also have an internal team, we call them the Gravy Seals. They are so responsive. It's composed of a group of employees that we hired very early on. They've been with us for a very long time. And they've had to build our logistics playbook from the reality of how shipping functions. So they're really, really great at watching every package at navigating around storms. They have gotten packages from one plane to another because if it didn't take off that day, that package was going to get spoiled. So it is a lot of tech and a lot of people who care that are focused on this.
Kerry Diamond:
And where do you ship? Do you ship just in North America?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yes, we ship in the US right now.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. All 50 states or just continental?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah. I think the only place we don't ship to currently is Puerto Rico, unfortunately.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
But I think that anywhere where FedEx and UPS can go, that's where we ship.
Kerry Diamond:
How many brands are on Goldbelly today?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
We have close to a thousand brands.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a lot.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I know. It's like a "pinch me" every time I remember.
Kerry Diamond:
Are there any that are purely Goldbellys? Have you expanded into private label where you're making your own products or everything is someone else's product made somewhere else?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
No. We want to represent and leverage the expertise in brands from existing incredible food makers. We are not trying to be a ghost kitchen. We don't think that we can make a better product than a chef can. But we do have a really amazing culinary team and they'll work with someone like Ina for example, who has her own team, she doesn't have a restaurant, but we really help them in figuring out how to make her recipe per her specifications with her ingredients and we collaborate with them in figuring out how to scale it. So we do have a team that is really focused on quality of culinary production, but we don't make our own products.
Kerry Diamond:
So if one of our listeners is thinking, "Oh my gosh, it's my dream to have my product on Goldbelly," and they heard you say, "We take less than 5% of the folks who apply," what's your advice to them?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Oh my gosh. I think that it's beyond the food. We really care about the story of the person or the place, why they're doing it, how long they've been doing it for. And it really matters like you're following. How many people love you, can't live without your product? I think that it's more than just the food. This is why you have to apply. And then also you have to be able to provide the level of quality that would be expected from ordering food. The challenge with us just opening it up and doing like an Etsy model, for example, where just anyone can just set up shop is that food is different than products. If I go to a restaurant one time and I have a bad meal, I'm probably never going to go there again. And I think that that's what we have in common with a lot of the chefs in restaurants that we work with, which is like, "No, we really care about the end experience for the consumer so it needs to be guaranteed an amazing, delicious experience."
Kerry Diamond:
I would love to talk about your career. We have a lot of folks who have pivoted throughout their careers, so I think they're going to find your story very inspiring.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Queen of the pivot. That's me.
Kerry Diamond:
You studied engineering, then you pivoted to art and design. Why did you start with engineering?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Honestly, because it was hard. Listen, I've always been known for being stylish and loving fashion. It's always really irked me that people just assume that that's all I'm about. And I would say that I'm also extremely technical. And I love technology. I love gadgets. I love apps. I love interfaces, I love experiences. I am a very nerdy fashion girl. I think that that is very much my brand. And I would say that I gravitated towards getting a computer science degree because it was hard and I had something to prove and I just wanted to be part of building the future. Now, I also did not know I was really creative because-
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's really interesting.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I didn't know.
Kerry Diamond:
You do have so much style.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah, but I didn't-
Kerry Diamond:
You weren't always that way?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah. But I grew up in Venezuela. In Venezuela you have three options. You go to school to be a doctor, an engineer, a lawyer if you want to be perceived as successful. That is the environment I grew up in. And so design wasn't even an option for me. If I even said to my dad like, "Oh, I might want to be a designer," he is like, "Oh, you might as well die of hunger right now." That was how dramatic. We're Venezuelan. We're very dramatic. But I would say that looking back at my childhood and realizing how I was... I used to wallpaper my entire room with amazing advertising and photography. I grew up in Venezuela. I had friends that would bring old Vogue magazines and Seventeen magazines. I couldn't get a subscription at the time. They would bring me months old magazines and I would just go through them and the beautiful photo spreads and the Obsession by back Calvin Klein ads and all of those things. That was what inspired and that's what I had all over my room.
So I would say that I was always into fashion and merchandising and beautiful photography, but I didn't realize that I could do something with it. It's only after I graduated and I had the technical ability to build websites and understand how to design interfaces and things like that, that I realized I could actually marry the two. I didn't know that. There was no way that I could have discovered that earlier in my life. I think it's just who I am. And I was presented the opportunity to start introducing design into my interfaces, and that is really when I became who I am today.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us a little bit about UX, because I see UX jobs advertised on LinkedIn. I think I know what it is, but I'm not sure, and I think our listeners would benefit from knowing what it is.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah. So UX is all about designing an interface that helps someone accomplish something in a really smart way with very minimal design, putting the button in the right place, putting an input in the center of the screen if it's important. I would say that we are all surrounded by interfaces constantly. Our phones are interfaces that allow us to access our bank accounts or make payments for things or even watch a show, right? That is UX. A good UX is intuitively being able to use an application without having to read any instructions. You just know what to do. And I just love that. I love marrying that, the smart side of design with the beauty and aesthetic of branding and merchandising.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so cool. I wish I had known you years ago when I built the Cherry Bombe website on Squarespace. We're working with an actual agency now to redesign it, but yeah, I just-
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Squarespace is amazing. I would say-
Kerry Diamond:
Well, it was. It was a lifesaver.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I would say that that is a very inspiring platform for me, the fact that as a designer, I could use Squarespace's tools to design a beautiful interface. I mean, I am always inspired by Squarespace because of that. That was the right thing to do. That's what I probably would've told you to do if you had hired me when you started. "Let's do this in Squarespace."
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about a few of the people or things that inspire you today. We talked a lot about food, but I know you love fashion, I know you love designers, you love magazines. What do you find exciting right now?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I love e-commerce. I love e-commerce and I love platforms that enable me to do something that I wasn't able to do before. That's what Goldbelly is, right? So I would say e-commerce I remember seeing when brands really started caring about their experiences. Do you remember Gilt?
Kerry Diamond:
Yes. Yes.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Do you remember when Gilt came about and how cool that was that they were selling interesting products and it was a limited time and you had to do it by a specific time? And then they merchandise the pages, that was my first like, "Oh my God, we can shop like that?" And I feel like that has always been super inspiring to me, which is creating a shopping experience to attain something that I didn't know I needed until it was presented to me in a very beautiful way.
Fab was one of those companies. Fab was doing this with home decor and design. Bradford Shellhammer, who you would love, was the creative director at that time. And his aesthetic to this day is incredible. His homes, he's a maximalist and he has the best taste ever. But he was selling his taste. He was selling the products that he loved the most and this beautiful interface. And I remember seeing that and being like, "I want to do this with food." And that's really where a lot of my inspiration for Goldbelly came from. And it continues to be so to this day. So I really love innovative shopping experiences. And I love an application like Instacart, which might not be sexy, but with five clicks, I can get something delivered to me that in my very busy day of running a company and being a mom and trying to be a person, it enables me to do something very easily. So things like that that just kind of elevate my life and give me access to things that I need are always inspiring to me.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so interesting getting a little insight into how you think. When I go through the world, I can't help but notice things like typos and how signs are designed and posters on the subway are designed and it becomes a little bit of a curse after a while. It's like, "Can I just shut my brain down and not think about these things?" But you must be with every app, every website, you're obsessed.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I am obsessed with having a button for everything. This is what I always thought. I need a button for that. And that is what I always use to inspire my product team who comes up with the features on Goldbelly. If there's something that people want to do that is hard that they have to do a lot of emailing and working around to attain, create a button for it. One of my favorite interfaces is when you get to the airport and you check in on a screen. Nobody teaches you how to do that. You're usually stressed. You are usually afraid that you're going to miss your plane even if you're early. You just have anxiety. And that gets you through so smoothly. Even though you're distracted, you're stressed out, there's lines everywhere, but you're able to go through those screens so easily and that's like, it's intense. They're verifying your identification. They're double checking that you're sitting where you want to sit. They're asking you all these legal scary questions of whether or not you have-
Kerry Diamond:
Firearms.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
...illegal things. I just love these experiences that I'm just like, "Oh." That's what I noticed. I just noticed flows.
Kerry Diamond:
Who are your favorite fashion designers?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Right now?
Kerry Diamond:
I can't let you go without a few fashion questions.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Altuzarra. I love him. I just love him as a person. I'm kind of obsessed with him. And in my head, he's my best friend. He is in the Hamptons in New York City.
Kerry Diamond:
And because of him we have Wishbone Kitchen.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I didn't know that that was the connection between them.
Kerry Diamond:
I think so. I think she was his private chef. Yeah, Meredith.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I know everything about her and I know everything about him. I did not know that they were connected. I love Altuzarra. Schiaparelli right now is really blowing up.
Kerry Diamond:
That tech collection they just did with the baby-
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I mean, his stuff is just always incredible.
Kerry Diamond:
And those angel wing dresses, that was amazing.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I just love brands that are iconic too, and just come up with new takes. Like Moncler does such a beautiful job with these, remember those coat gowns? What?
Kerry Diamond:
I still think about that. There's a picture of... Oh, didn't Sarah Jessica wear one in And Just Like That?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so beautiful.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I just love anything that's creative, out of the box. But I don't get to wear that stuff.
Kerry Diamond:
Right. You're not going to wear that on the subway.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
That is for sure.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
But there's also really cool casual brands that I'm really into like Staud. Love Staud and Frankie's Shop. I could wear it to work. It's still cool, but it's not too extra. I love fashion. I always have.
Kerry Diamond:
Same. My dream is to do a food and fashion podcast.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Oh my God.
Kerry Diamond:
Wouldn't that be fun?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I have some hosts in mind, but we can-
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Oh my goodness.
Kerry Diamond:
We can talk later. Because like you said, I don't know if we were recording when we talked about it, but the intersection of food and fashion has been so interesting on so many levels and what each has brought to the other and personalities who have emerged from it, like Peter Som. I don't know if you're friends with Peter.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
No, I wish I was. I heard your interview with him and I'm like, "He said Goldbelly."
Kerry Diamond:
He's the best. But yeah, it's an interesting moment. It's fun to see all these things come together and their impact on the culture.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I mean, it's what I loved about your publication when it first came out. I mean, I remember vividly that the Christina Tosi cover and just being like, "Oh my God, this is the moment that I'm so happy I'm alive for this."
Kerry Diamond:
That means a lot. Thank you.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I really came alive... When we started Goldbelly, there wasn't a lot of editorial content about the chefs or even their foods. There was photography that was all about the tablescape and the dishware and all those things, but I'm like, but I am more about like, "No, the aesthetic of the food, the colors, to me, a plated dish or a beautiful dessert is fashion." So your publication did a lot to move the ball forward with that.
Kerry Diamond:
And that combined with storytelling.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
I think that's one of the things we share. At the end of the day, we both love storytelling and telling other people's stories. I think that's a big part of what you do on Goldbelly.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah, I think that I'm a creative and I know that my brand represents a lot of creatives. Chefs and restaurants are creative people, so I really take it seriously to try to understand why they're doing something or where it came from or what is the inspiration and really have that come across. We've never wanted to just push product just to sell product. There's always a reason why we're showing you a cake or speaking about a specific chef, and it's because it's relevant for one reason or another and it's because of who they are.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have a motto or a mantra?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah, like seek joy. I really take that seriously. I feel like I try to represent that in the way that I dress. I try to represent that in the way that I inspire my teams to do things. I really do feel that people are great at their job if they're passionate. And if they're passionate about what they're doing, they're happy. It's represented in the name of my company. It's like anything that just makes you smile. And I really feel like I went for that when I was pivoting in my career because I could have chosen to stay in my area of just computer science, and then instead I'm like, "No, I really want to go after something that makes me happy." So I think joy at the center of everything. I prioritize joy.
Kerry Diamond:
What's the best advice you've ever been given or that you've received?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I think it's that, and it came from my mother. It's very scary to pivot from a career after you've paid all this money for a degree, after you've invested all this time. My mother has said this to me in two occasions. One when I was trying to change careers, and I'm like, "I don't think I like this. I want to do more design." And I was afraid to tell her because my parents helped me pay for my education and then I thought she was going to be mad at me. And instead she was like, "Do what makes you happy." She said it to me again when I grew up Catholic and Venezuelan and my husband was Jewish. And so we were discussing converting and I was also afraid to tell my mom. My mom's like, "If that's going to lead to your happiness, just do it." And I would say that is the best advice that I've gotten and it's really my mantra.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you take care of yourself mentally and physically if you do?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I do.
Kerry Diamond:
I know it's hard to find time sometimes.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I do, but I've also experienced burnout multiple times, and it's horrible. I have a lot to say about burnout and how that occurs. I went through that during the pandemic and after the pandemic. It happens. It just happens, especially if you're a really focused person. I do try to practice a lot of... I work out a lot and it's because it gives me more energy and it disconnects me. I always like learning something new. So my new thing is horseback riding because it forces me to just be in the moment and just-
Kerry Diamond:
Right. You can't be on your phone.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah, you can't like, "Don't die."
Kerry Diamond:
You're not watching the latest thing on a Max or HBO.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Well, you realize that you have to-
Kerry Diamond:
Don't die.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
You're just like, "I'm on the horse." I'm like, "Just don't die. Just don't fall." Because also you don't want to injure yourself. So I do a lot of things really to mentally give me a break of my day-to-day, because my day-to-day is very intense. It's a lot of strategic thinking, a lot of decision making, a lot of motivating and inspiring, a lot of being in the weeds. So I do a lot of things to get out of the weeds. I love an infrared sauna. I love a meditation. And I would say the number one thing that really keeps me sane is being a mom, spending time with my son. So at night I get home and we have this thing where he has to read books and I'm teaching him how to read. And being immersed in that moment really does help me mentally.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's do a speed round. I could talk to you all day. What is one of your favorite books on food or cookbooks?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I really love Athena Calderone. I love everything that she does. And so her “Cook Beautiful” was a really beautiful book. It's not just a beautiful table book, but it's super inspiring for me personally. But everything she touches is just so chic.
Kerry Diamond:
I love Athena. And she's so nice.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
The kindest. Really sweet.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Best food movie?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
“Chef.” I love “Chef” because when I saw it back in 2014, we had just launched Goldbelly. And it was like a startup movie about food, and I remember just feeling like, "Wow, I've never seen a movie like this." I really love that movie.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you cook?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I do not. I Goldbelly cook. I Goldbelly cook.
Kerry Diamond:
That's funny.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
And it's like my proudest achievement. Joe is the cook in the family, but I Goldbelly cook, which is I get my things from Goldbelly and I spend the 20 minutes to plate it and make it look beautiful. And I really take all the credit for it, but I did not.
Kerry Diamond:
You're an assembler.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I'm a great assembler and a vibe creator.
Kerry Diamond:
What's one thing that's always in your fridge?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Two things, Stumptown Cold Brew Coffee. It's how I survive. And cheese. I love all sorts of aged and fancy cheeses. I love cheese.
Kerry Diamond:
I love cheese. Kerrygold has been a good partner of Cherry Bombe over the years, and they always send me a big package.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Oh, you're so lucky.
Kerry Diamond:
During the holidays. And they're cheddar cheese, they're reserve cheddar, it's the best.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
That's my favorite.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Yeah, I can just eat it out of the fridge.
Kerry Diamond:
Favorite childhood food?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Arepas. I grew up in Venezuela. And to this day, anytime I eat an arepa, I cry. 100% of the time I cry. It's my childhood. It's who I am. And I didn't know. I didn't know at the time how much an arepa would mean to me.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your snack food of choice?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Cheese. I'm telling you, at home I take a slice of cheddar or a slice of Parmigiano. I snack on cheese all day.
Kerry Diamond:
Last question. If you had to be stuck on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Vanessa Torrivilla:
Oh, it's such an easy one. Ina. My favorite thing about Ina when I met her, I feel like everybody loves her cooking and her recipes and her food, and yes, I obviously love that too, but that side is also very intimidating to me because I'm not a chef. So imagine talking, cooking with Ina and you just don't cook. That is terrifying to me. She was so interested when I first met her in understanding, "Wow, you work with engineering teams? You do this design?" She was so impressed with the level of responsibility that I have in the company. I'm like, "Inam you just keep asking me questions, but I can't even believe it." And she is funny. She is so funny. And she is a very smart business woman. And I could just talk to her all day.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that answer. And you know we love Ina here too. Well, Vanessa, we love you too. Thank you so much. You're so gracious and generous with your time today.
Vanessa Torrivilla:
I love this. I really do feel like everything that you've built around your brand really speaks to me and represents who I am in the food world in a way that I've never seen before. So thank you so much for inviting me.
Kerry Diamond:
That means a lot. Thank you. That's it for today's show. Our theme song is by band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is a studio engineer for Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center. Our producer is Catherine Baker. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu. And our editorial assistant is Londyn Crenshaw. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.