I don’t know what I thought starting a business would be like, but it wasn’t this. Branding, packing, marketing, social media, content creation, ads, pricing, responding to people... and this didn’t even include MAKING THE THING! After spending 7 years at Google, helping some of the biggest brands in the world make billions in profit, I had lost sight of how hard small business owners had to work. And I also started to understand why it was so hard for them to succeed.
My sisters and I started “Abbu the Baker” on social media, thinking we could create some posts and run some ads and get orders for my dad’s Bangladeshi biscuits. But we slowly realized there was so much more to it. Even between the 5 of us, there was so much to do and so much to figure out. As we started getting a hang of it, we realized there were so many people like us. Regular people who were trying to use social media to turn their passions and talents into income.
I realized there was a huge gap in the market for technological solutions for micro businesses like ours. Websites and e-commerce were expensive and complicated. We realized partnering with other small brands like ours was not only fun but helped build a community around our product and was effective for business! We also realized how important automating communication and reviews were but couldn’t find a tech solution to do this. I started building Lemon Juice for Abbu the Baker and 5 other brands we often partnered with, and saw how our sales grew 48% MoM.
Lemon Juice was built for small businesses like Abbu the Baker. I grew up in Queens surrounded by immigrants and young people who were using their side hustles to bring in supplemental income, so I deeply understand the challenges they face and as a tech person, I know scaled technology is the solution to it. Technology often leaves behind the small players in our economy, despite the fact that hold trillions in economic value. So it’s time we build for them.
About Lemon Juice:
Lemon Juice is an alternative to costly traditional websites for people with creative services side hustles. Our SaaS enabled marketplace complements their social media presence with critical bottom funnel information that is 44% more likely to convert their audience into customers than traditional websites at ⅓ the cost and 90% less time. We’re the go-to online marketplace for small, local creative businesses - enabling them to utilize economies of scale and discovery tech to convert their audience into sales.