A Better Bet

Last week, we debuted The Better Meat Co to the world. With my cofounders Paul Shapiro and Joanna Bromley, we plan to sell plant proteins that can be blended into meat and have no difference in taste or texture. We’re doing pretty well. We raised a lot of money, and we have a product being made as we speak. We have a good shot, which is why I took on this bet.

If you follow My Food Job Rocks religiously, you might have noticed the signs of me interested in entrepreneurship. Some say I am one. I still don’t think I am.

I’ve always wanted to pioneer something of my own. My original timeline was when I was 30 years old, but 4 years earlier is something I’ll have to accept.

Looking back on the progress, I will tell you that this opportunity was planned a long time ago. It took me 4 years of repeatedly tinkering to have the confidence of working in this company. If it wasn’t for product development competitions, failed e-commerce trials, an ebook, a Chinese food blog, and a podcast, I would have never even thought of having the courage to do this.

A Calculated Plan

At IFT 18, when I did the IGNITE session, I told everyone the only reason I wanted to do a podcast was to learn. Podcasting was the most unique way to learn because it allows you to not only consume knowledge, but to create it.

There are many side benefits to starting a podcast, but the most powerful one is the network you create. There was a sorta-calculated plan when it came to creating something bigger. In the beginning, I didn’t know what it was. I think I wanted a creative design firm? Whatever.

So you snowball these great guests and eventually, you get some amazing people. I was able to interview Paul Shapiro when I saw he was launching a book called Clean Meat. A podcast gave me a tip that you have a higher chance of getting a high profile author on the show if they are doing a book launch. Yet, I was still afraid of asking directly.

After doing some research, I saw that Paul used to be the VP of the Humane Society. Ken Botts also worked there, so the logical thing was to ask Ken to ask Paul. The power of referrals was a wonderful thing.

Fast forward to about Expo West, I asked my guest list if anyone was going to be there. This is important, to always keep in touch with your guests as opportunities pop up when you do so. This is how I got to work with Howard Moskowitz.

Paul asked if there were any food scientists who would help him with a project. Being the gatekeeper, I said I’d be interested. At the time, I’ve gotten into consulting and coincidentally, got 3 clients and accepted Paul’s challenge.

I delivered a product in about 2 weeks, Paul was vegan, so he couldn’t eat it, but his girlfriend’s dad ate it and liked it.

(Note that this prototype was nothing compared to what we commercialized)

So the offer to start this company happened. And 5 months later, I’m in Sacramento.

Risk Management

Most entrepreneurs talk about risk as this glorious thing that everyone has to do. As you dive further into it, it’s never about risk, it’s risk management.

Choices that involve risk manifests in multiple ways.

There’s psychological risk, or the stress it takes for you to accept change, and there’s technical risk, the risk it takes to make the right call when you’ve done a task

I treat psychological risk like adapting to poison. I think Cleopatra did it best when she heard she was going to be poisoned by her assassins so she drank a little bit of snake poison every day, increasing the amount little by little every day. She then drank the full poison and survived. (though googling this, this is not true, but this article helps)

A psychological risk is a step-by-step process where you have to practice accepting risk before jumping in. I think this is hugely important to galvanize how you view risk because when the big decisions come if you’re not ready, you’ll have a hard time coping.

Probably the best book about this is Little Bets.

For technical risk, perhaps the reason I had the CSO of Isagenix mentor me is the ability to gain access to know more than the average food scientist from a product development standpoint. I told the CSO I wanted to know everything and I was able to get my hands dirty in transportation, procurement, finance, quality, marketing etc thanks to him. This was a powerful tool because now I had knew a little bit of everything, or at least know who to contact when things get hairy. I knew about 80% of the whole product commercialization process when I left Isagenix. I could figure the other 20% on my own.

The Tipping Point

I loved my job at Isagenix, yet the decision to leave my friends, house, and career was a decision that wasn’t that hard.

In fact, when I told most of my friends and colleagues, everyone was really happy for me. They said “Adam, you’re young, you should do this”.

When I analyze a decision, I think of the best outcome, the worst outcome, and what we need to do to taste success.

The worst outcome was covered. Isagenix loved me so much that they would love to have me back if it doesn’t work out. In fact, my personal brand thanks to My Food Job Rocks is so ingrained in the food science community, I doubt I’d need to look for one. Even if I became unemployable, learning the skills to generate income means I could make it without a job. I am very fortunate to be in these circumstances. I would be sacrificing a bit of my cash podcasting to sustain myself, but other than that, there was little to no risk joining the Better Meat Co.

However, the benefits were astronomical. Paul’s network in the alt-meat space was extremely appealing. Going back to California where it was cooler, I was near my family, and my old friends, was a big deal to me.

And the big ticket is that I’d learn the ins and outs of creating a company. Something I always loved to learn about.

The benefits have fruitioned in just two months. I’ve been really getting involved in this growing alt-meat community thanks to Alex Shirazi, and have met some extremely bright people thanks to being associated with Paul. I can meet my grandma often, see my parents and connect with lost friends.

It felt like I never left.

Trust in Team

People never talk about teamwork in entrepreneurship but I think this is the most important step to success. You absolutely have to work with people to get things done and those that can’t won’t go far.

Working with people is all about giving up portions of control you know you’re not the expert at. With expertise, comes a person’s point of view and perception of life, which might be actually harder to manage than expertise.

I keep myself out of a good chunk of the company because my job is to create really good products and satisfy customers with intense discussions and rapid results.

A lot of companies and people don’t grow because they don’t trust people to do the work and that’s a bit of a problem one has to realize themselves.

I trust my team, and they’ve been put to the test when it comes to what is presented. I honestly think it’s our set of expertise that makes us stand out.

I’m Still a Food Scientist

I didn’t want a fancy Chief something something because I don’t deserve it yet. As of now, my only goal is to create products and I think what is an all-encompassing word for this is: Food Scientist.

As for now, I still want to be a food scientist because having that title stands for something. Even though you start a company, if you want to perceive a prestigious name, you can name yourself whatever you want. I chose food scientist because I want to give a sort of humble yet prestigious aura to the name, I want people to want the title as much as a Chief whatever. There are CEO’s of nothing and technicians of something. I’d rather be a technician of something.

My Food Job Rocks is getting harder and harder to process with this new project. As of now, I have more “free time”, but that’s changing fast. I think it’s only harder because the end goal has been reached so admittedly, the motivation is waning. The podcast gives me great joy, but editing it is very time-consuming. However, the editing process allows me to absorb the most knowledge, so I don’t want to outsource it.

In reality, My Food Job Rocks will not be growing, but rather, maintaining a consistent schedule. For me, doing this is like exercising my mind. And just like exercising makes you feel great with the benefit of looking great, the benefits will continue with podcasting.

But most importantly, these stories have to be shared.