NYC Roadshow: If You Can Make It There

We here at flatev had an amazing time in New York City, and even though we left just a few weeks ago we are already experiencing Big Apple withdrawal. In true startup fashion, we are always on the move. In fact, in the last few months we have been to Las Vegas, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, New York City, and now Zurich. That being said, we loved our NYC adventure and our little apartment in Williamsburg, so much so that we are going to get back to New York by the end of the summer. Our time in Zurich will be spent finalizing our Research and Development, and once we’ve all agreed that we have the best machine possible, we will return! Once back, we’ll be rolling out our machines for a Pilot Project in kitchens across the city and beginning the exciting industrialization phase.

Ok, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First, let’s take a walk down memory lane and recap our NYC escapades:

New York Entrepreneurs & Startup Network’s Food & Beverage Networking Party

Our first event was May 13th, the NYESN’s Food & Beverage Networking Party. It was the first opportunity we had to showcase our machine to New Yorkers, and it’s safe to say that we were a hit! Everyone in attendance was eager to see what’s new in FoodTech, so it gave us a great chance to interact with hungry customers – easily our favorite part of the job. The pièce de résistance? Our CEO Carlos wore a name tag that crowned him the King of Tortillas. Oh right, and the view:

Mexican Consulate

Our next event was sponsored by the lovely people at the Mexican Consulate of NYC. As we were the only company being feted, it gave us ample time to speak with each and every attendee and get their crucial feedback on our mission. The space was beautiful, there were two camera crews from Mexican television stations, and – perhaps most importantly – there were margaritas! (Click here to see more pictures!) We were especially fond of this event because we had a truly tough audience; they really knew their tortillas. From the number of smiles we earned, we think we passed with flying colors:

Zurich Meets New York

The third stop of our roadshow was during the 2014 Festival of Swiss Ingenuity; a prime opportunity for New York to come out and meet all of the great Swiss startups that are taking their respective spaces by storm! We had so much fun presenting our ideas along with great companies like Holstee, TrekkSoft, Skybotix, and Instahive. Of course, after the presentation we were able to break out our machine and feed the New Yorkers and Swiss alike. In fact, we had one gentleman come back three times – the last time with a number of his friends in tow.

flatev Happy Hour

The final stop on the flatev NYC Express was our very own happy hour which we hosted in the office we had come to call home, the Cowork|rs space in Manhattan. A perfect end to our New York excursion, we were able to invite all of the friends we had made in New York and feed them one last time. On top of that, we even had a Gizmodo staff writer come to check out our operation – of course, we convinced him to stay and test the product for himself. Our tortillas were such a hit, not a single person went home hungry. Smiles all around!

Thus ended our brief time in New York City, but we’ll be back soon. In the meantime, don’t forget to get your name on our Pre-order List to make sure you can get your hands on one of the first generation of flatev! We’ll be back to NYC before you know it, and we’ll be making you something like this: