Jessica Gury is the co-founder and CEO of Teuko, an online community for lunchbox packers. Originally from France and currently living in San Francisco, Jessica loves to cook and has packed thousands of lunchboxes for her two children. Jessica’s company has been featured in TechCrunch, CNN and Red Tricycle by Tinybeans, to name a few. Be sure to check out Teuko.com for lunch ideas kids will love, inspired by families around the world.
Can you tell us a little bit about the background and how your company came to be?
Hi everyone. I’m Jessica Gury, the co-founder and CEO of Teuko, the online community for lunchbox packers. So my mission at Teuko is to help busy families get easy, healthy, and fun lunch ideas and tips all in one place actually in teuko.com. So I got this idea because of my daughter. When she started preschool, there was no school cafeteria. I’m French. I have food in by blood, and lunch packing was easy and fun at the beginning, but you have to do it every day. So it was becoming hell in the kitchen for me. And my kid was even starting complaining, I would say. She was four years old. She was so young and yet she was so angry against me. So, and when she was younger, she was still a baby. Each time she was singing or something was good in her plate, she was singing, “Teuko, teuko, teuko.” So that’s what stuck in my mind. And yeah, when I created teuko.com, that’s because of her.
At what point did you realize that you were influential among parents in the same situation, trying to figure out what to serve their kids for lunch?
It started with my personal problem, and then I shared with some friends and friends of friends and the magic of the web. And because food brings us together. Yeah. We became a community of 10,000 persons, and we even have all the parents on social media now.
So we’re a group of 35,000 now and still growing as you say. Yeah. So that’s the power of food and being together, being parents. Positive. Creative. Yeah. That’s wonderful.
What are a couple of the few, most popular meals on the Teuko platform?
I would say just with fresh food, colorful food. Yeah. With fruits and veggies that pops to the eye. We have also some very intricate and fun lunchboxes with unicorns, rainbows, and stuff like that, because this is appealing and fun for kids to eat. But just with real food, I would say fruits, veggies.
You have to stay simple. You have to stay true to yourself also. And that’s the magic of Teuko, but we are all different, and we empower parents to stay true to ourselves. There is no one way to pack a lunch, actually.
You’re entrepreneur. You have a blog. You have everything going on with social media. How do you structure your average day so you get everything done that you need to accomplish?
I would say it’s multitasking all the time. So, and I’m also juggling with my kids right now because of COVID-19 and online learning. So you can add that to my busy schedule, but yeah. Well, you wake up, you get ready for a new day. In the morning, yes. I’m juggling with my eight year old with online learning and doing simple task, I will say.
Prepping social media posts and then it’s lunchtime. So we have this break at least 30 minutes for boosting our energy for the afternoon. And the afternoon, yes. It’s more about preparing blog posts and new campaigns. With fun themes, indulging, making sure that our community of parents are motivated with lots of fun.
That’s it. And then yeah, we are approaching the evening with dinner time. And during the evening, yes. It’s again social posts and preparing the next day. Yeah.
What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs and bloggers looking to dive into the business world? I watched some of your videos in terms of pitching the Teuko platform. It was interesting.
It’s the first time I am an entrepreneur, so I’m still learning every day. And that’s the magic of being an entrepreneur. You’re learning everything. Coding the product. I’m still learning with marketing and communication skills.
And that’s empowering at the same time, because you are exchanging with people. It’s the best practices and you discover new stuff, new products. So yeah, just entrepreneurship is a very interesting journey.
What are some of your goals for the next year or so, as it pertains to Teuko and growing the community?
Yeah, actually the dream is to make sure that our community can help having a better and healthier ecosystem, food ecosystem. That we can have our voice to say, “Hey, this is what we want. To have a brighter future for our kids.” So healthy doesn’t have to be boring. It can be fun, and it can be easy. So that’s the message I want to pass.
How can people get started on the Teuko platform?
Well, just, you can just browse, discover some new ideas in the Teuko feed. Teuko.com/feed or search by food or teams with Teuko.com.search. And if you want to keep track of what you’re packing, this is very empowering to keep track one lunchbox at a time. It’s like Strava. The app you record your running and cycling – [with Teuko] you can track what you pack. And like this, you have more organization in your lifestyle and you just have to sign up. It’s free.
Note: Influencer Spotlight interviews are edited for time and clarity.
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