Groups I’m Grateful for in 2018

A lot has changed this year. I moved, I started a company, and that’s about all.

It’s that weird feeling where you feel every day is exciting, but you can’t believe it’s Thanksgiving. A paradox between if life is going too slow, or too fast? Do you know the feeling?

This is a short post to give a shout out for those who have made my year 2018 a crazy good year. Without them, life wouldn’t be as fun. Being back in California has energized me, has made me happier just seeing faces, old and new. I’m working my dream job, eager to make an impact on the future of food, I am meeting with old friends, inspiring them about my exodus to Phoenix, and every month, I am meeting these bright and passionate people all over the bay area.

So in short, thank you for all of those who’ve made 2018 my best year yet.

Here are the groups of people specifically that I want to thank. Without them, moving to a new city would be a lot more lonely.

The Better Meat Co.

A few articles back, I said I was planning to stop My Food Job Rocks podcasts at episode 100.

I interviewed Paul Shapiro on episode 102.

If I stopped at 100, the company might have never actually fruitioned.

The journey that Paul, Joanna and I have gone through the past 5 months has been loads of fun and a huge learning experience from all sides. I’ve learned how to sell, learned how to write legitimate technical data sheets, and learned how to negotiate all sorts of things to quickly bring 2 products into commercialization, with so many more on the way.

I’m so glad I chose to take this venture up. Every day there’s something new that moves the needle forward. Every experiment matters, every meeting matters. It’s really fun.

The Food Industry Contacts

Though I wish I could name these people out on the internet, I can’t. However, the contacts that I’ve kept in touch over the years have allowed me to accelerate all aspects of Better Meat Co’s R+D abilities from sourcing to commercialization and it has been so fun getting my friends on board turning these projects into reality.

These people were the people I knew when I was in Isagenix. I noticed their other ingredients had value, so I decided to try them and they were the missing puzzle piece to my products.

What is also extremely useful is if my friends didn’t know the answer, they would connect me with someone who did. If we had a good conversation, we would get going. Fast.

And this is where My Food Job Rocks truly showed its worth. The legitimacy of my character was proof that I was a good person to work with. If someone wanted to find out who I really was, how legitimate I was, they could google “Adam Yee”, and find over 100 hours of audio, and over 100 articles of food science.

When you work for a greater cause, people respect that and want to work with you. It also helps that you are someone who is known to get things done, fun to work with and is passionate about what they do.

The People in Phoenix

I left Phoenix with a great group of friends from all walks of life, a great job, and even better coworkers.

I still talk to David Despain and the CSO of Isagenix, enough where I convinced them to write my LinkedIn recommendations.

I still text my old coworkers on past projects and checking up on how they’re doing. My partner in crime’s brother just had a baby. Congrats to them!

I used to host monthly barbeques at my house and had a blast just getting everyone together. That’s one of the things I miss the most in Phoenix, the nights in fall where we’d just sit around the makeshift campfire and talk for hours.

I do want to thank my perhaps longest known friend in Phoenix, Shane Busse who is not in the food industry but listens to My Food Job Rocks regularly and likes my Facebook posts. We only hit it off during my final year in Phoenix, but I had so many awesome adventures with this dude.

It was really hard to leave Phoenix, the biggest loss being the people I’ve met. I learned a ton in the past 4 years, and perhaps I should write about it more….

The People in Sacramento

When I moved to Sacramento, I took all of my friend making tips I learned from Phoenix and on day one, went and met people.

There are three meetup groups in Sacramento that are very active, and that’s where I met most of my friends. A bi-monthly board game night, a young professional drinking meetup, and an Asian meetup. I’ve met so many cool people and I try to go to these ones as often as possible.

Unfortunately, most business is done not in Sacramento. In the past 4 months, I might have spent only half of my entire time in NorCal, in Sacramento.

I really do wish I could stay more often. I love living in my low-quality apartment in midtown, a very walkable part of Sacramento. It feels amazing living in a walkable town, where I can end up at a festival or farmer’s market on a random day. I am slowly acquiring a list of great Asian food to eat, and I already feel like an expert.

The People in the Bay Area

I went to high school in the Bay Area, most of my college friends work in the Bay Area. I’ve connected with people I haven’t seen in 5 years and it’s so fun reminiscing about our past and talking about the future.

My old food science friends from college are also here and I try and meet up with them from time to time. It was refreshing to see Tiffany Lau, Phil Saneski and Andrea Zengall at the IFT networking events.

What I’ve also really enjoyed is being involved in the food tech scene in San Francisco. Thanks to Alex Shirazi, I became a guest speaker to many food tech events including a Symposium. I’m even doing another one with Terramino December 6^th.

Thanks to Paul Shapiro, I get a really fast jump in on the food tech scene and the key players that surround it and there is a nice little community that is moving the discussion forward on the alt-meat movement. It’s an exciting time to be in the Bay Area if you’re into this space. There’s plenty of room for you.

My Mom and Dad

As I mentioned before, I am only in Sacramento about half of the time I’ve been in NorCal. I save a lot of money and a lot of stress staying with my parents in Pleasant Hill, which is the midpoint between all of the meetings I have to do, and Sacramento. In fact, I am typing this article out right now after a trip to Redwood City, and Oakland.

Crashing at your parent’s house is interesting. It feels like I’m living there, but I’m just a guest. If I was living there, I’d probably have to pay rent, get my own food, or something but since I’m only there half the time, I eat all of their food, sleep in a warm bed, and can take a shower with good pressure and lasting heat (As I also mentioned earlier, my Sacramento apartment is not the best).

But in all seriousness, I miss my parents. Even though we don’t have super deep talks, just talking to them makes it

Some article somewhere mentions that after 18, you will never see your parents as much as you did before you’re 18 (few exceptions of course, but you get the point). I’m so grateful to see the people who put up with me as a kid, allowed me to choose my passion for college, and were happy to see me move to Phoenix, often. I’m so grateful for them to allow me to do the thing that I love. In stereotypical Asian culture, this is not always the case.

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2018 brought a lot of change, yet the relationships and the techniques to build these relationships I’ve forged paid off. These connections, from elementary school to last week, every single one of these people holds value to my life. From the rival in 2^nd grade to every single listener of My Food Job Rocks.

Thank you for being part of the journey.