"While leading NASA's food system for the International Space Station, one of the projects Ryan Dowdy worked on was developing a balanced meal for astronauts that was efficient, convenient, and compact. It was from this project that Dowdy came up with the idea for READYBAR, a bar that serves as an entire meal. But, instead of feeding astronauts, it is marketed to first responders and others who need a quick, balanced meal on the go."
"Two weeks later, Trump paused all federal grants and Dowdy was left without the capital he was counting on to get the business off the ground. Dowdy reached out to NPR, and they picked up his story as an example of how Trump's pause on funding caught people off guard and left them struggling to decide what to do next."
"My entire life, I said I'm not going to start a business, Dowdy said. I always felt like it was too risky. Why would I want to start my own business when I can work someplace and not have to take on that risk. Dowdy had seen and felt this risk firsthand. When he was growing up, his father started a construction business that ended up going bankrupt. Since then, he has always thought that starting a business was a bad idea."
Ryan Dowdy led NASA's food system for the International Space Station and developed a compact, balanced meal concept that became READYBAR, a bar intended to serve as a full meal. READYBAR is marketed to first responders and others needing quick, balanced nutrition on the go. Dowdy won a small-business grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture but lost the promised capital when the federal grant program was paused. NPR coverage of his situation increased business interest. Dowdy had long avoided entrepreneurship because of family experience with business failure, moved to the Bay Area for food-tech opportunities, and ultimately decided that starting READYBAR carried different risks than he had assumed.
Read at www.berkeleyside.org
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