Alter EatGo
Chef Eric Paul was an audacious 13-year-old entrepreneur when he got the idea for a healthy foods company from, of all people, his mother. Twenty-seven years later, Mondays and Thursdays find Chef Eric and his mom, Doris, hard at work in a kitchen they rent at Kennedy King College’s Washburne Culinary Institute on Chicago’s South Side.
The company, Alter EatGo, has changed since young Eric first sketched out a marketing plan for it two and a half decades ago. What he had envisioned as a “healthy McDonald’s” retail restaurant became a company that twice a week delivers fresh, made-to-order meals to customers all over the city.
Chef Eric possesses that rare combination of a fascination for ideas with a compulsion for acting on them. He dreams it then he does it, and he’s not afraid to take risks.
He started Alter EatGo in 2008 with $20,000 – severance money from his previous job. He knew he needed to develop a skinny business model but he wasn’t sure how, and that’s when he found Chicago Community Ventures.
He entered his business plan in the 2008 City Treasurer’s Business Plan Competition, which CCV has been managing since its inception. With a little coaching from CCV counselor Doug Cannon, Eric won the competition.
“I’m the king of trying to enter competitions,” Eric said. “It keeps you sharp. And Doug drilled into me that at the end of the day I should have a fast pitch.”
In addition, with a Challenge Grant from CCV, Eric was able to launch a website and develop a marketing plan that would “imitate, assimilate, originate.” He approached 150 physical trainers about distributing his materials to their clients and offered them 5 percent back on referrals.
“What we lack in experience,” Eric said, “we make up with creativity.”
Steadily the company grew, and by the end of 2008, Alter EatGo had expanded from five customers to more than 30, including CCV Co-Presidents Anita Hollins and Susan Alnaqib. Chef Eric hopes for 100 by the end of 2009.
“CCV has been invaluable,” Eric said. “I really appreciate their open-door policy.”
Alter EatGo is looking at getting its meals in grocery stores, and Eric still envisions opening his retail store someday.
“I know I’ll keep going back to CCV for help as I continue to grow my business,” Eric said. “I want this to be a legacy business. This is something I feel good about.”
For more information on Alter EatGo, visit www.altereatgo.com.