Sean Knecht is a Los Angeles-based entrepreneur who loves to bring ideas to life. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst with a major in Sports Management and a minor in Economics, Sean worked at IMG and later Premier Partnerships before leaving to pursue a new business venture. In 2013, Sean co-founded PrideBites which serves as a turnkey solution for brands to expand into the pet space. Sean and his business partner appeared on ABC’s “Shark Tank” in 2016, and since then, PrideBites has sold millions of pet products and partnered with some of the biggest brands in the world.
Like most entrepreneurs, Sean is always cooking up a new passion project, and his latest endeavor quite literally got him cooking. In 2024, Sean teamed up with celebrity Chef Joe Sasto to launch Tantos – the world’s first puffed pasta chip to hit the snack aisle. After seeing Joe compete on Bravo’s “Top Chef: Colorado,” Sean, a lifelong lover of cooking, slid into Joe’s DMs on Instagram to find out his dough’s “flour to egg ratio” – a tale as old as time. From there, the bromance blossomed, and thanks to their mutual love of carbs, the two became fast friends with a common goal: to create a product that exists at the intersection of where pasta meets snacking. Thus, Tantos was born. Sean serves as the company’s CEO, overseeing all aspects of the business.
In his free time, Sean enjoys being with his family, following his favorite Houston sports teams, solving a rubik’s cube, making homemade pasta, pizza, and bread, and of course, annoying Joe with cooking questions – although he no longer has to slide into his DMs.
