Founder Unfriendly Live AMA with Amanda Hesser of Food52
For every 100 founders in the room, only a handful will raise venture capital — and most never get a straight explanation of why.
As part of the launch of Charlie O’Donnell's book, Founder Unfriendly: What Investors Won’t Tell You About Getting Funded, we’re hosting a series of live, 30-minute AMAs with experienced founders and operators who’ve been through the process — successfully and unsuccessfully.
These sessions are designed to give founders what they rarely get:
An honest look at how investors evaluate opportunities
Clear insight into where the bar actually is (and why)
Practical advice on when to push forward — and when to pause, rethink, or walk away
This session we're featuring Amanda Hesser of Food52.
Amanda Hesser is the Founder and Executive Chair of Food52, a next-generation cooking and home company that was named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company in 2020. Amanda and her co-founder, Merrill Stubbs, built a hub that seamlessly combines content, commerce and community. Under her leadership, Food52 acquired the lighting and lifestyle goods company Schoolhouse, and the heritage home brand DANSK.
Food52 has been named, repeatedly, one of the fastest-growing private companies in America in the Inc. 5000 and one of New York's fastest-growing companies by Crain's. The company has also been named the best food website by the James Beard Foundation and IACP, and one of the "hottest voices on the Internet" by AdWeek.
In 2025, Amanda launched Homeward, a Substack sharing her own home renovation as well as her insights on home design, cooking, and travel.
From 1997 to 2008, Amanda was a reporter, feature writer, and food editor at The New York Times. She is the author of the award-winning books Cooking for Mr. Latte: A Food Lover’s Courtship, with Recipes and The Cook and the Gardener, and she edited Eat, Memory. She is the co-author of three Food52 cookbooks, including A New Way to Dinner, and her The Essential New York Times Cookbook was a New York Times Best Seller. In 2021, Amanda’s updated edition of the compendium was published with 120 new recipes.
Amanda has been named a Woman of Impact by Entrepreneur Magazine and one of the 50 Most Influential Women in Food by Gourmet, played herself in the Nora Ephron film, Julie & Julia, created the Twitter app Plodt, and served on President Obama's Commission on White House Fellowships. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and twins.