Founder Spotlight: Courtney Boyd Myers (AKUA)

Courtney Boyd Myers

Startup:
AKUA

Business Description:
AKUA is on a mission to raise awareness for the climate crisis, food sustainability, and ocean health. Our first product aimed at the U.S. market is "Kelp Jerky", a vegan snack, which is the world's first meat alternative product made from regeneratively ocean-farmed seagreens, specifically a macro algae varietal called “Kelp".

Startup Stage:
Seed

City:
Brooklyn, NY, USA

What led you to where you are today?
My father was a big food marketer and my mother was a botanist!

What do you wish you knew before embarking on your entrepreneurial journey?
In 2016, I visited my first kelp farm in Connecticut, not too far from where I grew up. I fell in love with eating kelp right out of the sea and immediately started helping the nonprofit GreenWave to raise funds to train ocean farmers to support the industry. When I asked the GreenWave farmers what they needed beyond funding, they said, “We need your help creating a consumer market for kelp.” So I set out to do just that with AKUA. What I wish I knew then? Just how hard starting a food business is - like actually making healthy, delicious, sustainable food at scale. I would've spent much more time building out our manufacturing process before doing anything related to marketing and sales.

What can you help the VEGPRENEUR community with?
Peer mentorship.

How can the VEGPRENEUR community help you?
Peer mentorship.

Fun fact about you:
I'd rather be kitesurfing!

Anything else?
I'm also the Community Director at Summit who oversees our food + bev community!!