We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Scott Hayes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Scott below.

Hi Scott, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I’ll be blunt. Going out to eat with celiac disease is a pain in the butt. Unless the restaurant is 100% gluten-free (and sadly these are few and far between), there is a risk of cross-contamination. And one crumb is all it takes to set off the autoimmune response.

I wanted to create something that makes it easier for people like me to eat out. There was only one app on the market that was geared toward finding safe places to eat, but the app is crowdsourced, which can lead to a restaurant being labeled ‘celiac safe’ when indeed it’s not.

At first, the idea of the app was to list ONLY 100% gluten-free restaurants. After tons of research, we had our complete list and there were less than 700 GF restaurants we located. This would not help nearly enough people, so we added another category of restaurants called “Dude Vetted”. These are restaurants that 1) have been recommended by someone in the GF community; 2) got good reviews online; and 3) responded to our vetting email. If they understood the seriousness of celiac disease and had precautions in place to minimize the risk of cross-contamination, we added them to the app.

This provides an extra layer of protection for the GF community that other apps (there are now several on the market) do not offer. We do this because as a celiac advocate for 10 years before launching the app, I truly care about the community and it was important we put their safety as our top priority.

Scott, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m Gluten Dude, a passionate celiac advocate with over a decade of experience raising awareness and providing support for those living with celiac disease and gluten intolerance.

My real name? Scott Hayes. Husband of Mrs. Dude and proud father of my two amazing Dudettes.

My main symptoms started in 2006 and consisted mostly of constant stomach pains and weight loss. Every night, I’d lie in bed complaining that my stomach hurt. And every night, Mrs. Dude would implore me to go to the doctor. And every night, I’d say “Oh…I’m fine”. But after about a year of this, I decided to go to a recommended GI in Princeton, NJ.

Being the organized soul that I am, I kept a food journal for a week before my appointment. What did it consist of? A bagel here and there; a few bowls of pasta; a few beers. I thought I was being pretty healthy. The doctor took one look at my journal and my symptoms and asked me if I had ever heard of Celiac disease. I had not. He said that I need to get tested ASAP.

The blood work came back first and he said they were the highest numbers he’d ever seen. He told me this as I was on the table about to get my endoscopy. So before I was put under, I pretty much knew. When I awoke, he said the villi in my intestine were pretty much gone and I indeed had Celiac disease…quite badly.

And so my journey began.

I can’t say I handled the diagnoses real well. At first, I was angry, mad, pissed, upset. Pick a strong adjective and that was me. Six months earlier, I got a diagnosis of bladder cancer and now I had to deal with THIS?

All I could think about was the food that I could no longer have. My focus was not on my health, but on what I would miss out on. Not the best attitude I admit, but at the time, that’s what I felt (and still do once in a while by the way).

I still remember going to Wegmans (our grocery store) for the first time after my diagnosis and just going up and down every aisle saying “I can’t have that. I can’t have that. I can’t have that.” It was so bizarre to me that all of the sudden there were so many foods that I could never eat again.

From there, Mrs. Dude and I immersed ourselves in all things celiac. We knew we had to be our own biggest advocates so we read and we read and we read some more. We brought all new kitchen cookware and utensils just for me. We made one shelf in the fridge and one in the freezer just for me. We made the pantry just for me. We made one of our kitchen counters off limits to everyone but me. I was my own island.

There is no way in h*ll I could have made the transition without the amazing support of Mrs. Dude. She was, and continues to be, incredible in her support and in trying her best to make me feel “normal”.

It was a tough transition though, accentuated by the fact that I was 100% gluten-free (never cheated, never will) but I was not feeling better. Going gluten free became easier but it took two years before I could feel myself begin to heal. And coincidentally, that was about the same time I stopped buying the gluten-free processed crap and focused on more natural foods.

It’s a real mindset to give up some of those foods. You buy gluten-free Pizza so you can still have pizza. You buy gluten-free chocolate chip cookies so you can still have cookies. And I’m not knocking companies that make these products. I’m thankful for them. But it wasn’t allowing me to heal. It’s now very rare where I’ll have something processed.

Do I miss it? Yep. But do I mourn my old lifestyle? I do not.

A few frustrating years after my celiac diagnosis in 2007, I knew I had to use my background in marketing/technology and my ability to connect with people to make a difference in the gluten-free community. Through blogging and other various advocacy efforts, I’ve been fortunate enough to become a trusted voice within the celiac community.

My personal struggles with dining out safely, and my frustration with other crowdsourced apps, inspired me to create the Gluten Dude app in 2021.

I recognized the need for a resource that goes beyond crowdsourced listings and one that prioritizes safety and quality for the celiac community.

By personally vetting each restaurant in the app, I’ve ensured that the highest standards for gluten-free dining are met, making it a unique and essential tool for those navigating a gluten-free lifestyle.

My commitment to advocacy and helping others is at the heart of the Gluten Dude app, and I’m dedicated to making life a little easier for those living with celiac disease or gluten intolerance.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

At the time (2020), I ran a small web design company. I had been doing this for 15 years and not only was business drying up a bit with all the third party tools coming out, I was also getting bored. So I was looking for a change and I knew it had to be something entrepreneurial.

I had/have a strong connection to the celiac community and thought how could I start a business helping the community without selling myself out. Up to this point, even though by glutendude.com blog was getting tons of traffic, I never opened it up to advertising and have never taken a penny from any company. It was real important to keep my authenticity!

I came up with the idea for the mobile app and put some feelers out. The response was very positive. I then decided to run a Kickstarter program. I set a goal of raising $30k in 30 days. If I reached that goal, I’d move forward with my business idea. If not, I wouldn’t get a penny.

I ended up raising over $33k and I was off to the races.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Well…I feel I’ve been pivoting pretty much my entire life. I was the guy in college who had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. While most of my friends were off doing summer internships with top accounting firms, I was at home in a cloud of confusion, with no direction.

At age 25, I decided to pursue my dream of being an actor. 10 years and 2 kids later, I was still pursuing it and was absolutely miserable. I taught myself html, css, javascript and other web languages and became a web designer in 2000 before finally going out on my own in 2005.

Fast forward 15 years and the Gluten Dude app is about to launch and COVID hits. Considering the app is mostly a restaurant directory, this was a direct hit on my business. So I added more features to the app (coupons, airport directory, GF beer directory) while COVID was still going full blast and by the time it finally receded, I was in pretty good shape for launch.

Still, as a business owner, every day is full of decisions to make and there is always a pivot on the horizon. I just keep telling myself that every decision I make must be to the benefit of the GF community and not simply to my bottom line.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://glutendude.app
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/glutendude
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/glutendude
• Other: My personal blog as a celiac advocate is glutendude.com and I have a Facebook group page for my app at https://www.facebook.com/groups/glutendudeapp.