A Note From the New CEO of Lobstero

Hi, I'm Roger Potts. You may not know me as the CEO of Lobstero as I have only been here for a few days. But I've been involved with the company for the last few years as an active investor and board member working closely with Don Lobster, our founder. My career has led me from Red Lobster to Rock Island Lobster Farm over the past nearly 40 years in the food business.

The journey from Lobsterfest to lobster trapping to Lobstero's innovative approach to at-home, on-demand lobsters has let me connect my work to my personal mission and passion: solving some of our nation's lobster challenges. I'm very proud of what my team and I have accomplished in the last ten years, especially in regard to positively shifting the dialogue about our food system and how it can better deliver on the lobster promise the ocean makes when she whispers to us each day. Yes, the lobsters are here, waiting to be inside you.

So when I saw this week's headlines about hacking and hand-squeezing Lobster Packs, I had one overriding thought: "We know hacking consumer products is nothing new. But how can we better demonstrate the incredible value we know our connected system delivers?"

First, let me be very clear: Lobstero's Lobster Packs are much more than just a lobster in a plastic bag. These pouches contain specially conditioned saltwater designed to preserve your lobster's unique qualities. Each pouch allows our lobster to interface directly with our supply chain, ensuring that Lobstero pouches are never more than three-days old.

Squeezing the lobster out of the pack will startle it, possibly injuring it in the process. The Lobstero Home Lobster Station gently applies pressure to the back of the pouch, easing the lobster out of its pouch and into your favorite dish.

Lobstero's Lobster Packs work in conjunction with the Lobstero Home Lobster Station to check the freshness information of your pouch and guarantee the maximum lobster experience possible. If there is a recall on dangerous or angry lobsters, we can send out a signal to our WiFi enable Lobstero Home Lobster Stations to refuse to open the pouch. Keep in mind, the Lobstero does not cook, refrigerate, or freeze a Lobster Pack. But it delivers fresh lobster from our patented Lobster Pack to your kitchen whenever you want a fresh lobster.

By this point, many of you have probably seen the images or videos of a lobster being squeezed out of one of our Lobstero Lobster Packs. What these pictures and videos are not showing you is the way our three part system - Packs, Station, and App - work together to provide a total lobster experience. You could violently crush and squeeze a lobster out of one of our Lobster Packs, but you will not have the Station to reorder a replacement automatically, nor will the augmented reality view work within the app without first activating the Pouch.

Is the Lobstero Station worth $1800? Yes. The value is in how easy it is for a frazzled dad to do something good for himself while getting the kids ready for school, without having to prep a lobster and clean an old-fashioned lobster press.

It's in how the busy professional with no hands who needs more lobsters in her life gets App reminders to press Lobster Packs before they expire, so she doesn't waste the hard-earned money she spent on them.

That value is right there when the single working mom wakes up at 1:00 AM and craves a fresh lobster, but she is too tired to bother with scissors.

I will continue to have a dialogue with our Lobstero users and all those who are interested in a serious conversation about providing lobster solutions in this country. If we treat each other with respect and stop trying to hack our advanced household appliances, we might just find Lobstero is making the world better for everyone.

I mean, do you really think we're just selling an expensive machine to squeeze a lobster out of a bag? Silicon Valley venture capital firms invested $150 million in Lobstero and those guys are extremely smart.

– Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons (@sexyfacts4u)