28-Year-Old Harvard Student's Dorm Room Side Hustle Made $7K In First Month — Now Targets $500K

A Harvard Business School student who developed a powdered hummus mix in a borrowed donut shop kitchen is projecting $500,000 (£378,000) in sales within the brand's first year on the market.

Brian Youngblood, 28, launched Prest in March 2026 with three flavours: Lemon Dill, Roasted Garlic, and Spicy Harissa Red Pepper, each retailing at $10 (£7.56) per pouch. The product is shelf-stable and both gluten-free and sesame-free. Customers add water and olive oil to the powder to produce fresh hummus at home, bypassing the short fridge life that plagues conventional tubs.

The brand recorded about $3,600 (£2,720) in revenue during its first week and was tracking at roughly $7,000 (£5,290) for the opening month. Sales have come entirely through the company's own website and TikTok Shop, with no paid advertising, Entrepreneur reported.

'I kept throwing away half-eaten tubs of hummus,' Youngblood told the outlet. 'When I started asking around, I realised it wasn't just me.'

From Chickpeas in a Dorm to a Co-Packer Deal

Youngblood began working on the concept in November 2024, shortly after starting his MBA. Before Harvard, he held a manufacturing operations role at Mill, a food waste startup. The position brought him face-to-face with the scale of the problem. Roughly a third of all food produced worldwide is lost or wasted each year, with households responsible for the majority at the consumer level, according to the UN Environment Programme's 2024 Food Waste Index. A product with no refrigeration requirement and a longer usable life addressed both cost and waste.

Early development happened inside his dormitory room at Harvard, where he purchased a pressure cooker, a dehydrator, and other basic equipment for a few thousand dollars. The heat from cooking chickpeas made the small space unusable, and the university told him to find somewhere else. He struck a deal with a donut shop in Cambridge to use its kitchen after closing time, travelling back and forth by bike with raw ingredients in his bag.

Youngblood, who grew up in rural South Carolina, spent months running blind taste tests with classmates and volunteers. He told Entrepreneur that standard supermarket hummus relied heavily on soybean or canola oil and preservatives rather than olive oil. By leaving the oil out of the powder and letting customers choose their own, Prest could extend shelf life while giving the finished product a fresher taste.

Production has since moved to a co-packer, though the first run nearly derailed the brand. Thousands of pouches jammed on the filling machines. Youngblood and a friend spent hours opening 5,000 of them by hand to keep the line moving. He needed finished stock for the Natural Products Expo West trade show the following day and barely made his flight.

A $10 Pouch in a Billion-Dollar Hummus Market

The US hummus market is valued at approximately $1.2 billion (£907 million) in 2026 and is forecast to reach $2 billion (£1.51 billion) by 2033, according to Persistence Market Research. North America accounts for roughly half of global hummus sales, with demand driven by growing interest in plant-based snacking.

Prest sidesteps the refrigerated aisle entirely. The dry format eliminates cold chain costs and opens distribution options that would be off-limits to a chilled product. Youngblood said upcoming plans include farmers' markets, produce subscription boxes and gifting bundles. The shelf-stable angle is central to his pitch. A conventional tub of hummus lasts roughly a week once opened. The powdered version sits in a cupboard until someone wants it.

Youngblood currently devotes about 25 hours a week to Prest alongside his MBA coursework and expects to increase that commitment after graduation. He also manages the brand's social media output himself, something he described as demanding for a one-person operation.

The business is self-funded. Youngblood has not taken outside investment and said all early spending came from personal savings.