29-year-old Brandeis alum Sam Terris was recently featured on Forbes Magazine’s 30 under 30 list that highlights the achievements of entrepreneurs who have been successful under the age of 30.
According to the article, his most recent success in business has been collecting $50 million this past summer for his company Simulate, which makes a vegan chicken nugget product called Nuggs. The funding came from companies and organizations such as Alexis Ohanian, Chris and Crystal Sacca, NOMO Ventures, McCain Foods.
Nuggs have garnered publicity through social media users on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Simulate and Nuggs have also gained publicity through online reviews from CNN, Glamour Magazine and more.
In a CNN Underscored article, Nuggs were described as “very tasty” and comparable to “the tendies you might have baked after school for your friends when you were a teenager, or picked up at a fast-food restaurant.” Glamour Magazine reports that Nuggs are “amazingly close to the real thing.”
The journey of Nuggs and Simulate began in 2018 when Terris and another Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree Ben Pasternak co-founded a plant-based food company. The company’s headquarters is in SoHo, Manhattan.
By using advanced soy protein technology to imitate the texture of real chicken nuggets, Nuggs has been able to gain success in the sustainable food industry. The main ingredients of Nuggs are wheat, corn and soy, which are some of the most common allergens in the United States. Therefore, nutritionist and co-founder of the Good Witch Kitchen Kristen Ciccolini says that people with allergies should be careful when eating Nuggs.
After graduating from Brandeis, Terris co-founded a dating app called Hater. According to a Reward Expert article interviewing Terris, “Hater creates romance by matching people based on who or what they loathe.” Terris reported that the apps mission was to get “dealbreakers on the table, instead of going on five dates only to find out that ‘Joe is a conspiracy theorist.’” While Terris and co-founder Brendan Alper started Hater as a joke, he eventually believed that there was a genuine need for a dating app of this kind. Within three weeks of the app launching, Terris and Alper had received more than three hundred thousand users with 70 million swipes.
Afterwards, Terris served as Entrepreneur in Residence at Sweet Studio, a venture capital firm headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden that is “dedicated to the early stages of the founder’s journey,” and helps co-create and fund companies by allocating expertise and funds to them.
At his current position as co-founder of Simulate, Terris and the rest of the team will be working on distributing Nuggs to more retail locations, restaurants and fast food chains.
