She's going to have the next 8 Figure Exit... Here's why.

There is a ton of money to be made in food brands. There are huge, sometimes publicly traded companies that want to buy food brands. Food brands have huge valuations and they're also really hard. But if you're able to create a food brand that gets enough customers to love you, the valuations and the amount of money to be made is quite substantial. Some of the most valuable food brands are small, sometimes single person teams that create healthier versions of popular snacks or introduce new foods into the marketplace. One example is Cauliflower, which is a cauliflower foods company that started as just pizza crusts and then went into some other spaces as well. That company passed $100 million in top line revenue in less than five years. Another would be SmartSuites, which was on Shark Tank, founded by Tara Bosch. That company recently sold for over $300 million after existing for less than four years. Interestingly enough, both of these brands were founded by women, young women, and they started as single person companies. That's one of the reasons why I'm always interested in small food brands that are bringing something interesting to the table and are healthier versions of popular snacks. So I was very keen to hear from Emily Griffith, who started a small food called Lilbucks, which is a snack brand that specializes in buckwheat sprouts, organic sprouted buckwheat seeds. And Emily is just the beginning of her journey, but she's already starting to see some really good success and has a very long term vision. It's that vision and that mindset that I wanted to bring to my members inside of our mentoring community called the 1%. And also I personally am interested in investing in her company. Full disclosure, at the time of this video, we we don't have a deal. I hope to invest in her company either now or in the future. But most importantly, I wanted to introduce the mindset and the vision that it takes in order to have one of these really big companies. Because a lot of the entrepreneurs that I work with want to make money or have a business that idea they want to bring to life. But the idea of raising money or having a really big vision or even, you know, a $10 million exit is hard for them to think about. I help entrepreneurs build towards an eight figure exit, but I wanted to introduce them to somebody who was already thinking about that from the start. Despite the fact that she didn't have a business background, she had less than a million dollars in annual sales and was a solo founder who didn't know how she was going to do it.

I don't want to spend too much time going into, like, how you came up with the idea for the business because you've told that story publicly a thousand times. But I do want to touch on it because I know that the idea for what this brand is came to you kind of on an impulse while you were traveling, which is kind of a common story among entrepreneurs. It comes to us in an instinct or in an impulse. Am I representing the story of how this brand came to you appropriately?

You know, it was just kind of something that, like, was bestowed on me, and it was like, in the right place at the right time. And I was like, oh, I. I'm the one. I mean, the long story short is that I discovered sprouted buckwheat's popularity in Australia on an acai bowl, of course. But that's kind of where it clicked immediately and was like, oh, my gosh, this isn't a thing in America. We need to bring this back to the U.S. simple as that.

So now let me ask you, because the idea of sprouted buckwheat, you said it's not a thing in the United States. A lot of entrepreneurs would see that and say, there's no market here. Like, there's no one doing this yet. Right. Like, especially in the E Commerce space, there is this instinct to if you got a new idea, well, nobody else.

There's.

There's no competition. Nobody's proved this idea yet. How did you know or what gave you the sense that this was gonna be a hit when nobody else had done it before?

Well, the first thing was really, really, really strong intuition based on my own experience.

You know, I'm not like that crazy of a person, but I had this experience with the sprouted buckwheat, the texture of these super seeds in this acai bowl, and then just how I felt after eating it. You know, it's high in protein and it's gluten free and grain free. So those things. And it's high in fiber. So I think with all those things, I just felt like, really satisfied and not. I didn't have like a sugar crash or anything. And so just based on that feeling, I'm like, just innocently, like, surely other people are going to be as excited about these seeds. Like, I have to share this with them. This is unbelievable.

Form is hearing you say, Emily is you liked it. And then you justified.

My work. Right? So, but, like, the important thing was that you liked it. The important thing was that you had excitement around this.

A lot of excitement.

And then it checked the boxes for like, hey, this might fly.

In the marketplace, knowing the how often keeps entrepreneurs stuck because they feel like if they have a goal, they need to know exactly how they're going to get there before they take any action. But one of the first pieces of insight that Emily shared with our group was that she didn't know how. She was operating on a moment of inspiration and excitement to bring this product to the masses. And it's been my experience, although it boggles my logical male brain that wants to figure everything out, it's been my experience that that excitement can carry you through the work that needs to be done in order to make something successful. So in order to have that passion, that motivation, it has to start with a moment of intuition or excitement or. Or at least interest. So I asked Emily how she merged that big gap between having the inspiration and the vision for something and doing the work that was necessary in order to make it a win.

A lot of entrepreneurs think they need to be at a certain point before they go out and get help or get support or cast a big vision. And you came in with the vision and made some relationships and raised some money before you even had proof of concept in the marketplace. Like, before, you were pacing half a million a year or a million a year. And that is the piece of the story that really stood out to me, because I noticed, like, your branding's on point. I notice food brands. When I try something, I'm like, this is different. I haven't seen this before. And one of our conversations really early was you were doing a raise, and you were already thinking about Series A financing. So you were already kind of thinking beyond where you were. That's the piece of the story that I want to understand because it stood out to me as somebody who might be interested in backing this company. But I also think it's really interesting to a lot of entrepreneurs. Can you help me understand your thought process around casting that vision and building the resources you needed in order to make this win?

Yeah. And I think that also kind of goes back to even the founding story of being excited about it and then figuring out, like, okay, this. Why am I so excited about it? It aligns with all these trends that I'm interested in. Let's see what we can make happen. But with the, you know, building the business, I had the vision. So then, you know, while I was in Australia, I'm seeing all these products that have sprouted buckwheat as a hero ingredient all over the country in grocery stores and cafes. So for me, I'm like, well, why not? We need. Sprouted Buckwheat needs to be in pantries across America. So there's a big vision to improve, you know, American diets and soil health, because buckwheat's good for soil health. And then now let's backpedal. How do we get there? Like, you don't just randomly launch Buckwheat Sprouted Buckwheat superfoods in Walmart nationwide, and people don't, like, magically fall in love with it because they weren't all trotting on the beach in Sydney, Australia, having their smoothie bowl. So there was a lot, obviously, in between that. And so that was where I did a lot of learning, talking to, like, any entrepreneur, especially in the CPG space, that I could on what's required of me to get from A to, you know, Z probably. And, of course, there's a lot of different paths you can go down. Like, you can raise a lot of venture money right out of the gate. But I felt there was still kind of some figuring out on my end to do with the product. So we started making it on our own and selling it in.

You know, markets in Chicago just to get that initial, you know, feedback. Like, is this formula right? Actually, all these conversations led to us launching our second product line, Clusterbucks, just through. That's our hero product in terms of mass retail appeal. And that was through talking to people. So there was always that vision of, like, okay, sprouted Buckwheat has this really unique crunch and health benefits. We're bringing it to the masses. I don't know exactly how we're gonna get there, but I have no doubt that everyone's gonna have it in their pantry.

Okay, so you said that you went and interviewed entrepreneurs who were in this space to find out what you needed in order from beginning stages to a winning business. What did they tell you or what did you discover needed to be in place in those early stages?

Yeah, I mean, one was, even with food, obviously, from the business perspective, we're still in the proof of concept mode, but food, you need early proof of concept, no matter what, in consumables. I think just because you, like, you might think, you know, you personally, like, maybe it was just me that was a psycho about and, like, the crunch and whatever. But if you don't, you know, prove at least in a sample audience that there are others out there who are, like, discovering this and they're like, oh, my gosh, it's so great to show that it's worth putting more money behind to get more people to discover it and have that same, you know, discovery experience. So everyone was like, you know, I think actually I got to talk to the RX Bar CEO once.

Peter.

Yeah, yeah. And because from Chicago, so are we. And he has some kind of infamous advice where his dad just told him to shut the F up and sell a thousand bars. And I kind of got the same thing, you know, I was talking about for so long. What's the brand? And I almost got caught, too caught up in the vision for a while, because I'm like, I've built this whole vision for the company and our sustainability and the brand. I did the design, so of course that's natural for me. And finally, someone's like, you need to go out and make sure people actually.

Want to eat this Buckwheat One. You did the work upfront to cast a vision that would require you thinking five years out or three years out or 10 years out, whatever it takes. But it started with the vision first. And then you said, in order for me to do this in the time that I want to do it, I'm going to need some help in the form of capital and relationships and learning from people who are ahead of me. That's the first nugget that I notice about you, is that you did the work or got the inspiration first or did the work of waiting for inspiration, however you want to dice that up. You waited for the inspiration for something that you were willing to cast a vision for. Based on that, you said, okay, what resources do I need? Whereas most people, most entrepreneurs are just so eager to take a sale or to make money that they're not casting the vision for what they actually want. Which is why I kind of. I poke fun at Amazon sellers, even though I am one. Because Amazon sellers go in, they start selling things, and they get to a million dollars, and we all celebrate. And I have to work really hard at getting them to slow down enough to say, now it's time to cast a vision for what you actually want to build. Mazel tov. You're selling some stuff now. Let's actually build something. But you did it. What I would call the right way of casting the vision first and then bringing in the resources.

I think when you start thinking about what other people are doing too much and you worry about what they're doing and what you should be doing or vice versa, it's just distracting from your North Star and what you need to do. And if you have the vision, you have the path to get there. Let's get to work. Let's not worry about all this, you know, extra stuff that's gonna stress you out and.

Yeah. Amen. Emily. Emily, how did you. Or do you have the plan for how you're going to get to where you want to go at this point? Or are you still letting life fill in the gaps?

You know, what's exciting is we're finally. And actually now that we're literally starting the second half of the year, I was thinking about how Q2 went this year. You know, we closed up some funding on Republic. I brought in two full time employees for the first time, right from being the solo entrepreneur, solopreneur bootstrapping to like being a leader of a team. And we are. It was the transition quarter from me building out, I would say almost up until through Q1 of 2021, which is almost. It's three years of me working on this business.

Was a lot of figuring out that path since I didn't know it. I had the vision and we were getting those first customers, building the brand, building the products, but all of that was kind of lining up those ducks to make sure that they're in. We contracted our regenerative farm so we were actually directly connected to our mission to improve soil health. So all these things are lined up. We're not big yet, but it's all there so that these things will be the same in, you know, a million, 5 million, 10 million sale in sales. And now we're into the growth stage. So it's been a big mindset shift for me from creating the thing to growing the thing. And that was a really scary thing to sit in for about a week because I'm such a. I mean, if you can't tell, like naturally, I am a cre. I'm very creative person. I design, I'm like graphic designer. I love the vision, I love the building and figuring it out. And then now you transition into the growth where it's like we have this all set up now it's time to execute and be focused on the goals. And we were talking about this the other day on making sure we do focus on what's going to get us to the next level as fast as possible. And so now it's just kind of as a leader, staying focused on that North Star and not getting too distracted with other cool things to like build the brand or improve. Like we're always going to be improving and doing that, but the forefront of our minds is growth, executing on the plan. So very, very clear in terms of like tactical stuff of what we need to do to get to that Series A level. There's a lot of things that you know, we're still building on at the Series A level, which is what we're talking about, you know, going into mass retail, Walmart's kind of stuff like that, that I don't totally know the exact execution. I know we're going to need more people to help with that. But the next two years we're like our next year and a half.

It's part of the plan.

In competitive markets, especially in E commerce businesses and food brands, all of the focus at the beginning of the business has to go into customer acquisition. That's how you win. There's a reason why Coke and Pepsi spend billions of dollars acquiring customers for something that costs 50 cents. It's because when you become a customer of a brand, you tend to buy it for a very long time. So when you have a food brand or any E commerce brand, the hardest part and the most important part is doing the work at the beginning to get that base level of customers. However, most entrepreneurs don't want to quote, lose money in order to get customers. But I see it as an investment in order to get the customers that you need to have a profitable and successful business. So I asked Emily how she was spending the money that she raised in order to make this company grow and how she felt about losing money in the short term in order to build an asset that was worth scaling and selling.

Now Emily, I can't imagine that someone who's as early stage as you that has two full time employees on a new business. I can't imagine that you're profitable or at least like extremely profitable. So do you worry about money at this stage in the process or do you feel comfortable and confident in kind of where you are in this stage of the vision?

This is the beauty of understanding your financials and your cash flows and how you're raising money and how that's impacting the business. So the money we raise is growth capital. We do have really amazing margins. So that is feeling the business, but everything that's going into.

It on top of those margins is the investments going into paying for payroll, which we're just not level that that would naturally support it. Contracting, regenerative buckwheat.

Any kind of growth capital in the marketing sense, mostly marketing.

And so I knew I kind of mapped out where we wanna get to to get to that Series A level and beyond. So have like a five year financial plan and.

Really try to be very realistic as possible. And then looking at our gross margins, that's going to help cover some of the growth expenses. But if we want to grow to these retailers and get this online presence, these are the things we're going to need. So then kind of coming up with, okay, what's that extra capital we're going to need? And came up with that figure and now I'm very comfortable with that figure and going, and then I'm just comfortable knowing, you know, it's part of the plan that when you are spending growth capital, right. That it's going to, you know, shake out.

So this is what I've heard you say. The money that you've raised is going into variable costs, meaning you could always fire those people. You could, you could always cut down on your marketing expense. Like they're, they're expenses that are not permanent. That's such a key insight that I, that I want to highlight for entrepreneurs because so often they think they, if they're running in the red, something's broken. That isn't always the case.

Sometimes it is the case and you.

Need to change some things.

It's hard.

It is, of course, right? Your, your mental mind, like your mind goes to what am I, are my investors going to think, am I going to end up working at Walmart? Of course your survival brain kicks on like that. But the point of raising money or taking on help is to make the investments that long term build that foundation. Which means if you raise $100,000 and it all goes into the acquisition of customers and you lose your $100,000, you still have the customers that you've acquired. And if you've done a good job of nurturing them, spoiling them, turning them into raving fans, turning them into reviews, turning them into followers, you still have a more valuable asset than before you lost the hundred thousand dollars. So the point is to invest that money. You raise wisely and not see it as money you lost, but money that you invested that built the value of the asset itself, which is the business. Most people who are bootstrapping do not understand this, which is why they don't feel comfortable casting that long term vision and thus raising the help that they need in order to that to go in that direction.

What impressed me so much about Emily's approach in particular is from the very beginning, she's creating the relationships and partnerships that she needs in to order order to be successful. She is doing the hard work of creating relationships with investors and making hard decisions about what is her company worth and what is the vision of her business long term, she's starting to look at what agencies to work with rather than figuring out every sales channel and knowing how to sell on Amazon and Walmart and through your own funnel. She's creating relationships with people that will do that for her. That's the foundation of a mindset set that we teach our students. We call it the owner's model and it's where the entrepreneur is in the visionary seat. They cast a long term vision for what they want to create, what they want to bring to this world. We don't worry about how we're going to do it or knowing every piece of the puzzle. We want to know the what and.

The why we're doing.

And then we create the relationships with people who are excited about that vision, who might want to fund it, who might want to carry out the sales processes, the relationships that open up new opportunities for that vision to come to life. That is how you build a successful business that you can scale and sell. It's why I wanted to bring this example to our mentees inside of the 1%. Because that mindset is what will carry Emily forward and what entrepreneurs can do in order to stay in that owner's seat and cast a visions that create change. If you are an entrepreneur who wants to go through a similar process of crafting the vision for your business, of creating those partnerships that can set you free to be in that owner and visionary seat and you want to have a profitable launch, but you don't want to manage all the details of the business. We teach the owner's model to our students inside of the Capitalism Incubator, which is our our incubator for helping entrepreneurs get clear on their vision, launch profitably, build relationships and have the foundation for a seven figure brand that they can sell brands like Emily's. And we have a fund that invests in these businesses. I hope to invest in Emily's and we invest in businesses that come from our incubator as well. So if you want to find out more about what we do and you want to start a business that you can scale or sell, one that reflects the vision that you have and the change that you want to create in this world world, head over to capitalism.com Inc. Capitalism.com Inc. Where you can discover how we use the owner's model to build seven figure businesses that you can sell. Thank you for watching this video. I hope it inspired you to think bigger and to cast visions that really excite you. And if you need help. That's what we're here to do. I'm Ryan. Daniel Moran with capitalism.com. thanks for watching.