Cafeteria Credits Teens for Their Insights

A new startup called Cafeteria is hoping to disrupt the consumer insights and marketing industry with an app that connects brands with the opinions of its most hard-to-pin-down customers — teens.

Why It Hits: There’s a growing number of protections around the ability to harvest the data and insights of younger users, which is the sector most prized by marketers looking to go viral and create early customer loyalty. So, companies that can find a way to connect them widely (and legally) could be a winning business.

Behind The Curtain: Cafeteria is paying kids for an inside look into their brains.

• When onboarding to Cafeteria’s app, teens are asked a range of questions about topics like retail, food, music, and more. They’re also prompted to select the brands they love.
• They can then participate in five-minute surveys (“Tables”) about anything from product development to advertising ideas, which they can answer via text or voice (data is anonymized only to show gender, age, and zip code).
• Teens are paid $5 to $20 for their answers, which can be transferred to a bank, Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App. Teens can only do up to five Tables per month, which prevents them from being addictive.
• Brands can access these insights in a dashboard (dubbed “Albums”), which is organized by category. Subscriptions for brands start at $5,000 per month.

The Future: Cafeteria isn’t starting from scratch. It’s already raised $3 million in a funding round led by Collaborative Fund and Imaginary Ventures, already has thousands of users after being in beta for three months, and has 2,200 Tables with over 50,000 insights already completed. That should entice brands with a little money to spare in their marketing or R&D budgets.

As the app grows, don’t be surprised if teens who provide insights get granted special perks or access when projects being tested on the app are brought to life.