3 Food Hacks for Startup Founders and Indie Hackers (2022)

I share my food hacks for indie hackers and startup founders in this article! We’ve all been there. The hours go by and before you know it, it’s already time to have dinner and you forgot you skipped lunch. Yeah, it’s not easy to plan your eating routine while you’re typing non-stop at your keyboard to ship out your product, market it, have conversations with customers, figure out what your churn rate is high, build in public, and so on and on… you get the idea.

How do I do it?

I have a LOT to improve upon in this department haha.

I’m the founder of Sparrow and I’ve spent almost a year building it so founders are able to get actionable advice for building and scaling their startups. Time management is really difficult as is planning the most impactful way of doing tasks that drive the highest value for your startup. I get it.

For me, I always have the exact same thing for breakfast. Avocado toast, sometimes with bacon / eggs on the side. I try to have hash browns with cheese in the morning as well, as potatoes (which hash browns are made from) take a while to be fully digested — meaning you stay full for longer. And then I usually have a late lunch, not good for acids in your stomach. Followed by a dinner and midnight snack…. which really needs to stop.

For lunch and dinner, I go for ready-made meals which can be frozen. Costco has chimichangas, which go for $2 a piece when you get a whole pack of them. They’re good to eat throughout the day, or to have alongside your favourite greens for lunch or dinner.

What do I recommend?

Ready-made meals when can be frozen are really fun to make, and easy to prepare. I try to avoid burgers or things that need to be fried in cooking oil. I recommend going for meals which can be heated in an oven, or a pan with just olive oil or butter. Here’s my list of recommendations:

Greens

I know, I know. Who the hell likes to eat leaves for lunch. But with the right combination of greens and moving away from carbs (like rice), you’ll feel lighter and not feel like sleeping throughout the day. I recommend going for:

1. Spinach, Kale, Arugula

2. Baby corn, pees, carrots, beats

These two combinations are cheap to buy and easy to get. You can just buy boxes or cans of these at any grocery store and mix them all up in minutes. Adding some pumpkin seed oil to the first mix is my best-kept secret, but good luck sourcing it ;)

Pasta

Yep. Fast to make. Easy to pack up for “to-go” or carrying it with you to your workplace. This is a carb so try not to eat toooo much of it throughout your day as this WILL get your sleepy.

I recommend the following steps:

1. Get a box of pasta from your local grocery. I recommend getting the ones pre-stuffed with spinach/cheese as these add flavour very easily.

2. Get a bottle of pre-made pasta sauce. Very cheap to get and will serve you for 2–3 meals if you’re not an overly hungry indie hacker…

3. Boil the pasta, and once it’s ready, mix it with the sauce. Shred your favourite cheese on it while it’s still warm so that it melts.

4. Pack it. Take it. Eat it. Enjoy.

Freshly blended juices

Yeah okay, don’t judge me but I recently just found this out and guys, it’s so fast and effortless to make it should be illegal. Just get a blender under $50 from Amazon or your local grocery store. Don’t go ham. We’re indie founders, we don’t have money. We’re bootstrapping our diet so just stick to the basic blender that people don’t complain about haha. Here’s my steps:

1. Find a recipe that you love. Do NOT overthink this step. Here’s a list to look at. Pick 2 that stick out to you in the first 30 seconds of going into the page.

2. Go to the grocery store. Pick up the fruits you’ll be using. Enough fruits for 3–4 meals for yourself. Remember, we’ll be complimenting our lunches with these an also having these throughout our day, so be generous for yourself please! You need to take care of yourself :)

3. Come home, blend and taste the goodness!

The more you get used to enjoying greens, juices and fresh pasta, the quicker you’ll get at making them over time and the more you’ll enjoy them! Ideally, you would prepare them ahead of time so that you don’t obsess with preparing them on the day when you have 20 urgent things to do. But I wouldn’t stress too much about it.

Take your time. Build your routine and more importantly — stick to it!

Btw, if you want some guidance for scaling your startup, I’d love to help! Our startup advisors have built, scaled and sold their companies and they’re very empathetic so they’d love to help you too!

Let me know if you want a session.