Lessons from the Lab

From scientist to founder, Jessica Schwabach (MBA ‘27) shares what five years in food tech taught her about building, scaling, and starting again.

When Jessica Schwabach (MBA ‘27) signed up for UC Berkeley’s “Alternative Meats Lab” on a whim, she never imagined it would become the thesis, then the company, then the exit, that defined the first chapter of her entrepreneurship journey. What began as genuine curiosity about why plant-based meats tended to taste dry evolved into Sundial Foods, a startup built around solving this very problem. Schwabach and her cofounder, Siwen Deng, developed a novel plant-protein processing technology, piloted the product in Swiss grocery stores through a partnership with Nestlé, built up manufacturing in the U.S., and ultimately sold the technology.

Sundial became Schwabach’s first lesson on what it means to move from experimentation in the lab to experimentation in the marketplace. Turning research into a startup taught her how to raise capital, manage operations, build teams, and navigate the realities of commercializing a product — lessons that have shaped how she is approaching her next venture in agricultural biotech.

An Early Experiment in Entrepreneurship

At Berkeley, Schwabach hadn’t set out to be a founder. That changed when she enrolled in the “Alternative Meats Lab” in 2019, which paired students with industry partners to solve technical issues in plant-based food. 

Assigned to explore why plant-based meats tended to dry out, Schwabach and her classmate, Deng, approached the question like scientists. 

“We started by asking, why is it so difficult to take plant proteins and convince them to behave, not just functionally but [also] texturally, like animal proteins?” she recalls. “We were obsessed and worked on the technology constantly.”

Their research eventually evolved into a new method of structuring plant proteins to mimic the texture of meat more closely, a technical breakthrough that began to attract outside interest. 

“We met a venture capitalist. We had no clue about raising money or building a company, but when we told him our idea, he said, ‘have you thought about founding a company?’ After that meeting, we looked at each other in a Sprouts parking lot and said, ‘you know what? We do want to start a company.’”

That decision marked the birth of Sundial Foods. Over the following months, Schwabach and Deng incorporated the company, filed their first patent, and began exploring how to turn their research into a viable product.

Building Beyond the Lab

Sundial’s first investor was Nestlé, which was seeking to expand its alternative protein portfolio. Nestlé invited Schwabach and Deng to Switzerland for 12 months to test whether their technology could scale beyond the university lab. There, they set up a production line and launched their product in roughly 40 Swiss grocery stores, where they saw better-than-expected product velocity and received positive customer validation. 

Early success in Switzerland opened the door to raising venture funding and building operations in the U.S. In 2021, the duo joined a Bay Area accelerator and raised a $4 million seed round. Backed by Nestlé and new investors, they grew their team, stood up a manufacturing plant in the U.S., and launched their product on both coasts. 

This increased scale brought new layers of complexity. “Entrepreneurship is addictive because you have total freedom to be obsessed with something and drive its direction,” says Schwabach. “In the early days, it’s thrilling — it’s just you and your cofounder proving things quickly. But when you move into large-scale manufacturing, it’s a completely different kind of company. That was a culture shock for me. Every new stage meant learning from scratch.”

Over time, Sundial’s focus shifted from innovation to execution — and for Schwabach, from building an idea to leading an organization. Scaling production, aligning investors, and managing day-to-day operations was a new kind of challenge.

Lessons in Letting Go

By 2024, after years of steady growth and a few business model pivots, Sundial reached an inflection point. The company had proven its technology, but scaling further in a crowded, cost-sensitive market was becoming difficult. 

Schwabach and Deng decided to sell the IP to Nestlé and exit the business. For Schwabach, the decision to exit was both pragmatic and personal. 

“At some point, you have to be honest with yourself and your investors and say, ‘this isn’t going to be the billion-dollar idea we hoped for.’ We decided to exit in a way that gave everyone the best possible return and allowed Nestlé to benefit from the technology,” she says.

Looking back, she credits her mentors as some of the most important assets she gained from her first venture. “We had guidance from people with much more experience than us. As first-time founders, that helped a lot,” she reflects. “But it can also be distracting. I learned that you have to take advice, make a decision, and stick with it. Not to the point of stubbornness, but you can’t be indecisive.”

After the acquisition closed, Schwabach and Deng planned to take time off to reflect on whether they wanted to continue down the path of entrepreneurship. But within months, a conversation with one of their former professors at Berkeley sparked the beginnings of a new idea. 

A Second Experiment

The conversation turned out to be the start of a new chapter in Schwabach and Deng’s journey as entrepreneurs. The idea centered on the drought-tolerant Chilean soapbark tree, which produces valuable compounds used in food and medicine. 

For Schwabach, the idea was too intriguing to ignore. “By December, we were full-time cofounders again [alongside our professor]. And of course, once you start working on a startup again, it’s hard to stop,” she says.

Schwach and Deng’s new company aims to grow these trees sustainably in California and engineer them to produce the same compounds without harvesting the bark, a huge step forward from an environmental and supply chain resilience standpoint.

Reflecting on what has stayed constant through both ventures, Schwabach points to one lesson above all: “My biggest takeaway, as cheesy as it sounds, is that people matter more than ideas,” she says. “There are so many amazing ideas out there but far fewer people who can execute well together. Startups are high-stakes and emotional. Your futures are tied together. Finding people you can be in a room with for 20 hours a day — that’s the most important thing. I feel really lucky that I get to do this again with the same cofounder.”

As she embarks on her second venture, Schwabach still sees herself as a scientist at heart: testing ideas, learning from the results, and refining her approach. While the variables have changed, the method remains the same: experiment, adapt, and keep moving forward.

Katerina Gan (MBA ’27) is originally from Riverside, California. She graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in Economics. Prior to HBS, she worked at Linden Capital Partners, a healthcare private equity firm based in Chicago.