Why This Company Decided Not to Hide its Biggest 'Weakness'Sometimes a startup's perceived weakness is really its biggest asset.

大多数蛋白质bars have an image on their wrapper. Gatorade, PowerBar and Nature Valley show the food itself, often coated in chocolate. Clif Bar shows a rock climber. But Exo's packaging is minimalist, with no image. That's because its founders feared drawing too much attention to its special ingredient: crickets.

It's not as if Exo hides anything -- "cricket powder" is on the package, though in a smaller font than "protein bar." But when it launched last year as part of a boomlet of cricket-selling startups, nobody knew what Americans would swallow. So Exo was understated. Then paleo diet and CrossFit enthusiasts embraced crickets, Exo netted $4 million in Series A financing and Exo became a leader in this burgeoning industry.