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Why This Company Decided Not to Hide its Biggest 'Weakness' Sometimes a startup's perceived weakness is really its biggest asset.

By Jason Plautz

This story appears in the July 2016 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

Exo

Most protein bars have an image on their wrapper. Gatorade, PowerBar and Nature Valley show the food itself, often coated in chocolate. Clif Bar shows a rock climber. But Exo's packaging is minimalist, with no image. That's because its founders feared drawing too much attention to its special ingredient: crickets.

It's not as if Exo hides anything -- "cricket powder" is on the package, though in a smaller font than "protein bar." But when it launched last year as part of a boomlet of cricket-selling startups, nobody knew what Americans would swallow. So Exo was understated. Then paleo diet and CrossFit enthusiasts embraced crickets, Exo netted $4 million in Series A financing and Exo became a leader in this burgeoning industry.

Now Exo thinks it's time for a new strategy: Flaunt those bugs. "It's what makes us stand out," says cofounder Greg Sewitz. "It's what makes retailers knock on our door instead of the other way around."