How I Spent My Summer Vacation

An artisan food startup is born over summer break.

For us summer break meant a menial job, sleeping late, and watching more Jerry Springer than we'd care to admit. It turns out there are people out there who actually do something with their time off.

Take the case of Samplrs founder Jake Siegal. In '06 and '07, while still in high school, Siegal spent his summers interning at Seamless. And his breaks at NYU were no less productive. "I ended up going to India..." Siegal said, "working at a private equity firm. The most important takeaway from that was realizing that I wanted to be on the other side of the table. I wanted to start a company -- that felt more interesting to me."

And so, in the summer before his senior year in college, Siegal founded Samplrs -- a monthly subscription delivering artisanal and small-batch foods. He made his first deliveries out of a U-Haul truck, a day before the start of school. And when Gothamist wrote a piece about the company immediately after the launch, Samplrs customer base doubled in a week.

Siegal just graduated from NYU and is giving Samplrs a full-time go. All the better that the company has a year of history, a growing customer base, and some nice media exposure.

Sample the, uh, Samplrs here.

Now go forth (and try one)

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