Brian Rudolph

Brian Rudolph is on a mission to change pasta forever. Unable to find a nutritious pasta he liked, he set out to make his own. Brian became obsessed with chickpea flour, which led to his creating the ...Show More

Brian Rudolph is on a mission to change pasta forever. Unable to find a nutritious pasta he liked, he set out to make his own. Brian became obsessed with chickpea flour, which led to his creating the first-ever chickpea pasta, and then to launching Banza in 2014 at the age of 23 with his brother Scott. A lucky break to appear on CNBC's reality series Restaurant Startup led to heartbreak for Brian when they sunk $100,000 into a big run to meet sudden demands from supermarkets and the pasta turned to mush. Brian then worked obsessively for months in a factory in Northern Michigan to figure out how to make his pasta in large batches. A year later TIME Magazine named Banza one of the Top 25 Inventions of 2015, and they won the $500,000 first prize in Accelerate Michigan's pitch competition. In 2016 Brian was named to Forbes' list of 30 Under 30 in Food, Crain's Detroit 20 in their 20's and Entrepreneur of the Year by Michigan State University. Banza is now in over 2500 stores nationally, the company has helped create 32 new jobs, and they recently opened a factory in California. Brian originally moved to Detroit as a 2012 Venture for America Fellow and worked for two years as the first employee at the startup Quikly. He received his BBA from Emory University. Hide