Ben Pasternak's App-to-Food Journey

A story about a young entrepreneur named Ben Pasternak who Shaan met years ago and went on to create Simulate (NUGS).

"I met this young guy Ben Pasternak when he was about 17 or 18. He had built this app called Monkey, which was kind of like Chat Roulette but for your iPhone. It would randomly match you in a video chat with somebody else, and you could skip to somebody else.

I reached out to him because I saw he was cleverly gaming the app store charts. Though I didn't think the product would stick, I liked the branding. We had a chat and he seemed super smart. This was maybe 5-6 years ago.

I remember thinking this kid was a future superstar. I gave him the highest compliment I could - I didn't even try to recruit him. I told him, 'You're better than me, you're ready to do this on your own. If we work together we build one company, if we're apart you're going to build two companies.'

Now he's gone on to create Simulate, making plant-based chicken nuggets called NUGS. They just raised $50 million recently. It wasn't his first app Monkey that hit, but his second or third attempt with NUGS that's really taking off."