| Tell us about your company: |
| DEFI Snacks is rewriting the rules of better-for-you snacking. Founded by NYU Stern MBA ’15 alumna Tatyana Jones, DEFI is a breakthrough snack brand built for people who refuse to compromise — bold flavor, clean ingredients, and a nutrition profile that actually delivers. We’re not another “healthy” snack hiding sugar behind a wellness label; we’re engineering products that defy the trade-offs the category has trained consumers to accept. We’re at an inflection point — growing fast, building a community of brand-loyal fans, and proving that a founder-led, mission-driven snack company can compete head-to-head with legacy giants. As a proud NYU Stern alumna-led brand, we’re thrilled to bring DEFI to the Alumni Emporium community with an exclusive NYU20 discount for fellow Violets. |
| What inspired you to start your business? |
| I started DEFI Snacks out of pure frustration. As a working professional and lifelong snacker, I kept hitting the same wall in every grocery aisle: snacks that claimed to be healthy but were loaded with sugar, fillers, and fine print — or genuinely clean snacks that tasted like cardboard and left you hungry an hour later. The category had trained us all to accept a trade-off: flavor or nutrition. Never both. Coming out of NYU Stern, I’d spent years in business and finance learning how to spot inefficient markets — and the snack aisle was screaming inefficiency. Consumers were demanding better, but the legacy giants were too slow, and the “healthy” upstarts were too willing to compromise on taste. I knew there was room for a brand that refused to pick a side. DEFI was born from a simple belief: you shouldn’t have to choose between food that loves you back and food you actually crave. We named it DEFI because that’s exactly what we’re doing — defying the false trade-offs, defying the legacy playbook, and defying what the category told us was possible. Every product we make starts with one question: why settle? |
| What are your proudest achievements so far? |
| • Sold in 150 independent retailers • Earned velocities of up to 16 SKU/store/wk (compared to category norms of 2-3) • Secured placement at Raley’s, HomeGoods, Wakefern, Hy-Vee • Been selected for UNFI Up Next Program • Featured on Good Morning America • Won Mintel’s 2026 Most Innovative Award, Good Housekeeping Best Snack Award, Startup CPG’s Shelfie Award, the Enthuse Foundation’s Pitch Competition Grand Prize, and the NYU Stern Female Forum Pitch Competition (named “Best Pitch”) • Upcoming pitches: NYU Stern Entrepreneurship Challenge, Naturally Rising Conscious Pitch Competition and InvestCPG |
| What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs: |
| Don’t wait, just start. |
Alumni Emporium 