Indiegogo made my friends make me build a business

By Karen Freer, Owner of Free Bread, Inc.

In May of 2011 I was, how shall we say, let go, from my job as a secretary at a large investment bank for typing “NO,” in caps, to my boss on instant messenger. I had no money, tons of time, and big dreams.

I have Celiac Disease, which means that I cannot ingest gluten (the protein in wheat, rye, and barley) or anything made with or around ingredients containing gluten. This means, among other things, that I am only entitled to eat the tasteless, plain, terrible bread offered by gluten-free businesses in the United States. I decided to stop wasting my money and try to make some bread that was actually satisfying. I spent months adding and subtracting ingredients, switching out this for that, and after hundreds of flops I finally came up with what I had been missing so much ever since my diagnosis. I took the bread to a party, got incredible feedback, and Free Bread, Inc. was ‘born’.

I learned about indiegogo.com from my business counselor at the New York State Small Business Development Center at Baruch College in Manhattan.  Thankfully there are tremendous amounts of high quality, zero-cost resources available to startups in New York City. I knew I needed to crowd fund, but eventually chose Indiegogo because of their goal policies. In terms of my business, this was the best decision I ever made. 

On June 20th, 2011 I logged in to Indiegogo.com, made up some silly perks, arbitrarily decided on a goal of $10,500.00 and doodled a logo on Mac Paint. I took a photo of some of the rolls I had baked the day before, wrote up some goofy information about my ideas, and all within a span of about two hours I had a business idea and an Indiegogo campaign. I posted the link on Facebook, and that very day my friend Melora contributed $50.00.

So then it was real.  I was taking my friends’ money, so I had to actually build this thing.  I had to build this business that Indiegogo made me write up in order to get people to give me money to build. Would I spend the money wisely? Would I be able to do all the things I had written that I was going to do?  How could I represent how grateful I was to all of these insanely generous people? 

By trying really, really hard, and by working even harder.  Follow my progress at www.freebreadinc.com. 

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Free Bread, Inc. Was established by Karen Freer in 2011 to fill a nagging void in the New York City Food Marketplace. The objective of Free Bread, Inc. is to provide artisanal and delicious, fresh, wheat-free bread rolls to customers with wheat allergies, either wholesale via local establishments or retail directly to the customer.