Meet Matt Newberg | Founder, HNGRY

We had the good fortune of connecting with Matt Newberg and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Matt, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
I think the most important factor behind my success will be authenticity. I’m personally 100% all-in on the future of our food system and it’s crucial that I maintain my unique point of view despite the constant pressures to appeal to a wider audience. As a creator, it’s sometimes impossible (and futile) to know what people will be most interested in reading from me. The most important thing is consistency and thoroughness, and being surprised by what people gravitate towards over time. I have to constantly remind myself that my content isn’t for everyone and to engage with those with whom it resonates with vs. trying to appeal to a moving target that is a mainstream audience.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
HNGRY actually started in 2019 as a documentary about the pending disruption of ghost kitchens, namely Travis Kalanick’s CloudKitchens. I had left my job as a product manager at Vimeo in 2018 and was consulting for a prepared food delivery startup called CookUnity. After I released the video, I had more conversations in and around the intersection of food and tech than ever before, so I decided to go all in. That led me to publicly blog for a year about some of the wildest delivery trends I saw unfolding for restaurants and grocers leading up to and during the pandemic before launching my own subscription media platform.

For a while, I struggled to get reporters at top-tier outlets to care about trends like ghost kitchens, but after breaking a number of stories on companies like Amazon, DoorDash, and Instacart, I quickly became a go-to expert source. The most important thing was to have conviction about my vision for the future, do the work that nobody else would dare do, and be patient about letting the world catch up.

What sets me apart from other coverage of the food tech space is my boots-on-the-ground approach to writing. I have gone undercover as a delivery driver for many delivery platforms in order to pick apart unit economics and better understand where everything is heading. My goal is to be one of the most knowledgeable experts in the industry, and to do that requires getting to the nitty gritty of primary research.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Taco truck tour of LA. One taco at each spot:

1. Angel’s Tijuana Tacos (Al Pastor)
2. Jalisco Mariscos (Taco Dorado de Camaron)
3. Birrieria Gonzalez (Quesabirria)
4. Tire Shop Taqueria (Carne Asada)

And Pirate’s Cove at Point Dume…

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d like to thank my good friend Boris Silver who pushed me towards the creator model in 2019. As an early-stage investor in Substack, he saw the potential for a new media model that has been the backbone of HNGRY since 2020. As I open up HNGRY as an investment platform, he has been one of the most supportive friends that can offer sound advice as I begin a new chapter as investor.

Website: https://hngry.tv

Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/mattnewberg

Twitter: https://twitter.com/thenewb

Image Credits
Patrick Fallon, Nick Agro