Mike Salguero – Founder of ButcherBox on How He Bootstrapped a $550M Brand With a Clear Mission to Transform the Meat Industry

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am joined by Mike Salguero, the founder and CEO of ButcherBox. Mike, thank you so much for coming the show today.

Thank you for having me.

Of course, man. So I'm super inspired by your story just through entrepreneurship, the multiple ventures and of course Butcherbox. And to really dive into this conversation, There was a LinkedIn post that I came across that you wrote back in 2022 that I wanted to start here. And it was all about, you know, the series of Arbitrage is during the early days of Butcherbox. And I think it just reminds me and really brings to front and center of like where Arbitrage is are today and like what are the unique opportunities but for, for those that may have not, you know, read that post and I'll be sure to link it down below. I'd love for you to take us to the early days of Butcherbox and really like paint the picture of what Arbitrage did you see in the market at the time that really, you know, got you excited to pursue this and obviously start this as your next venture coming off as of your last company?

Yeah, it's an interesting question. I haven't really thought about the arbitrage starting with the market with Butcherbox. My wife and I were trying to eat better, eat more consciously, and felt really guilty about the meat that we were eating. It was like we had read Omnivore's Dilemma, we had watched some movies and we were trying to clean up our diet, eat more organic, less inflammatory, et cetera. And all these diets were saying eat grass fed beef and we couldn't find it. And I just got obsessed with finding grass fed beef and raising meat better. I think too often people feel guilty about the meat that they're consuming and there is a way, there is a path to eating better meat. And that is it's a hard path. And you need businesses like ours who care deeply about treating the animal well and the farmer, et cetera. I mean, I suppose you could say it's somewhat of an arbitrage, but it's like a very small portion of the market. It's like 1 to 2% of the market is claims based meat growing quickly. And I really got into the business because I had just failed at a business that I had been running for eight years. I wanted to go do something else and I thought that this would be a good hobby to keep my mind fresh while I decided what was next. And then I like to say that Butcherbox wanted to be something different. Than I want it to be. That I thought it would be, I guess is a better way of saying that. But in terms of arbitrages, so, you know, the classic arbitrage is the, they used to bring spices. Like they'd go to India, get spices, bring them back to Europe and sell them at a massive premium. And you know, it's because spices in India were, call it a dollar a pound, in England were $100 a pound. And it wouldn't cost that much to, you know, run a boat. And that was an arbitrage. And arbitrages have existed over, over time and on the Internet, you know, they've, they've existed. It's, it's kind of like the way, at least the ones that I recognize are ones in which it's like, if you know how to play the rules, if you know how to game it, you can have an outsized return to everyone else. And so, for example, way back when with Google, my first company was called custommade.com and we crushed organic traffic. So if you typed in anything custom into the search engine, custom made.com came up. Why? Well, the website was built in 1996. We bought it in 2008. It had a tremendous amount of backlinks and it had like, edu links. It had a whole bunch of stuff. And so if you knew the SEO game, all of a sudden you're at the top of the search results. Nowadays, Google's algorithm is much smarter, much more refined. They're using AI and then ads to basically cram down actual organic content. And that arbitrage is like largely over.

Yeah.

But for a while, if you knew how to play by the rules, you could like get your site at the top of the search result. And that is, I mean, whether the word arbitrage is the appropriate word. It's like, know how to play by the rules, play by the rules, game it and get yourself to the top. So the first thing that we did at Butcherbox, so I decided I wanted to start a company. I couldn't figure out how to like ship frozen. Figured that out and got going. But I didn't want to raise any money and I didn't really believe that there was a business. I just was like, well, let's see if there's a business. So the first thing I did is we launched on Kickstarter.

Yeah.

This is in 2015.

Verified page idea, right?

Yeah. Right. So we had, yeah, we, we, we figured out, we reverse engineered how to get like the verified badge got the very, the kickstarter Verified badge. And that created, instead of it being us just talking to our own audience and being like, please fund our Kickstarter. Yeah, it started being pulled so, like, random people were signing up for Butcherbox. Um, the next one was Facebook video. Um, I had this really cute, really funny video of my daughter screaming at me for more bacon. And we, we put it on Facebook on our, on our wall. This is like back in 2017 when videos were like, very, very new on Facebook and we just saw all this, like, interaction with it and we're like, we should run an ad with that. And the theory was that Zuckerberg and Facebook were probably going to be pivoting Facebook towards video. And of the first videos on there, similarly, it just like kind of took off. So we're kind of like always on the lookout for opportunity. And I think that's the job of an entrepreneur and of a, of a CEO, is to like, find opportunity and help push the company towards both having eyes open for those opportunities and then approaching those opportunities. Nowadays, I mean, you know, we're a lot bigger arbitrages are harder to come by. And I would say that one of the things that I have found that I enjoy and I think is somewhat of an arbitrage is doing things like this, like talking about why we exist, like my approach to business entrepreneurship. Hopefully some of your listeners are like, oh, it sounds like a cool company and a cool guy, and then buy from Butcherbox and like, you know, it's kind of. It takes a little bit of time, but it's a great way of getting our message out there and relatively cheap.

No, that's a fascinating perspective. And before we kind of backtrack, I wanted to talk about past company origin of Butcher Boxmore, but current arbitrage. I was going to ask you about and to what you just said. In this world of AI and things are moving so fast, my understanding of what you just said is taking time to do shows like this or podcasts, or tell the story and kind of do the things that don't scale, which I know Brian Chesky talks about in the early days of Airbnb. It seems that nowadays, in a world where things move so fast, so much innovation and AI where just going back to a. Telling your story, taking the time to do podcasts. Is that what you mean by that in terms of like the arbitrage of like doing the things that maybe don't scale, that require that one on one nature? That again, is just kind of like the counter culture of what's happening in terms of AI and technology today.

Yeah. I almost want to say that, like, authenticity is that arbitrage. One of our core values is authenticity. And I just try to bring my authentic self into conversations. And. Yeah, you know, I think, I think we're missing that in the world. There's a lot of people who are going to come on a podcast and tell you how amazing they are and how great their business is and how they're just wonderful at everything. And I'm not sure that's serving the entrepreneurship community as well as being like, look, it's hard, it's a slog. There's a lot of beauty in being an entrepreneur and there's a lot of pain. And I just, I like the way I run my company. And this could be that we haven't raised any outside funding, so I don't have anyone breathing down my neck. But the way I run my company and the way I connect myself in the world is to just continue to try to be as authentic as possible and to, like, lead from my heart and reveal my heart to the people I'm. I'm talking to. I'm also, you know, incredibly passionate about growing and, like, doing the things and fixing the stuff that's broken and all that. But I think as a leader, as a quote unquote successful person, what I can bring to the conversation is I'm not just going to tell you how amazing I am because I don't think I am. That's.

I can feel, I mean, I could feel the authenticity in the, you know, interviews that I've watched of you. And even just reading some of the content you put online, it screams authenticity. And I feel that already in this conversation. So I appreciate you talking about that. And something even just shed light on the authenticity, and you mentioned it, that I want to go back to. Is your past company custom made? I know you said, excuse me, that company, which is different than this company, you raised a lot of venture capital and obviously, as you said, it didn't turn out the way you wanted to there. I want to highlight that because in a world today where, just to give you context, I'm 24 years old. I think a lot of young founders, especially if you're building something in tech or whatever it may be, there's this glorification around fundraising valuations, and it's such a weird paradox that I've found where the celebrating around funding is more valued to some people versus growth and profitability and just customer obsession. And, you know, I hear you talk about this On Layla's podcast that I mentioned before, we got started around a customer obsession and the things that you and the team did during COVID which we'll get back to later. But I want to kind of speak about your past company before we dive in this conversation further because I think it's. There's so much context around like the place you were in as a founder and like those hard moments coming into this new venture. And I think, you know, it's one to be a founder, to start a company, to be super excited. Another thing to be defeated, maybe lost money. And it's like gotten beat up in this game of entrepreneurship to then say, hey, I want to go do it again. Whether on a large scale or a small scale or whatever scale it is, I just want to, I want to go build something. Take me back to that time, like early days of custom made and also like the transition point into Butcherbox, because I know you've shed light on this in other shows, but I think it's so important just to talk about like where you were personally emotionally and how you viewed this, you know, this sport of, of business and entrepreneurship overall.

Yeah. And I, I wanted to build another company, but do it my way. And I think that's like, important. Yeah. So I ran a company, custom made.com, with my best friend Seth for eight and a half years. We raised $8.5 million in, or sorry, $8.5 $30 million in venture funding, over five rounds of funding and had top shelf VCs, Google Capital, First Run Capital, founder collective, just a whole bunch of very well known VCs and the business didn't work. And I've talked to many of many podcasts about the whole story and about how we kind of got pushed into a business model of a marketplace and we knew it wouldn't work, but we couldn't unwind it. And you know, ultimately we had 60 people. At the end, we let everyone go and I closed the gate to the office and walked away. And leading up to closing the gate and walking away, where and what actually ended up happening is the bank foreclosed on us and then owned us and wiped everyone out and everyone lost their money. And leading up to that, what happened was I felt like I had built an organization that I no longer, longer belonged in. And really in the details, what happened was at least, you know, my story, which is obviously one side of a story, is that we, we started hiring people because we had raised Money and the VCs are like, you need to get better people. So we're like, great. So we brought in be better engineers and designers and product people and we tried to solve this marketplace problem with like people who knew what they were doing. And that didn't work. And I didn't, I didn't value the culture that we had. I didn't value like my leadership style that might be different than somebody coming in. You know, I'm a, I'm a heart based leader. Like, I'll get you to love me and then you'll want to rush through walls. Yeah. A lot of people are fear based leaders where it's like, I'm gonna fire you if you don't do this. And we brought in a lot of fear based leaders. So my executive team started being very different than like who I am. And it just became really weird. And what did I learn from that? What I learned from that, at least what I took away from it as, as, you know, as I started. Well, I took the weekend off and then started Butcherbox. So there wasn't much time. But when I started Butcherbox, I was like, I'm not raising money. I'm not going through that again. They r my company. And I don't think that's necessarily fair, but that was my, my headspace was like, not raising money, no way. And I, and I don't care how small this company is. Like, you know, if we can only be a thousand subscribers, we'll be a thousand subscribers. I don't care. I'm not raising money. And that was like my, my whole thing was this business was going to feed my lifestyle versus like run my lifestyle. And this business was not going to be a venture backed business. It was going to be like a small little hobby. And then Butcherbox just like wanted to be something bigger. The business wanted to be something way bigger than my dreams. And I do believe that people, people spend a lot of time focused on raising money and they don't even have an idea yet. And they certainly don't know what kind of lifestyle they want. And so my advice to entrepreneurs is like, come up with what you want out of your life first. Like, what does a day in the life, your ideal day in the life three years from now look like? And if that's like doing deals and talking to investors and stuff, like, great, go down the venture capital train, like, perfect, no problem. But if you're like, I really value my autonomy and I want to be home and like, I don't even know if I want to go to an office. What I really want to do is like, look at my laptop and be like, yep, numbers are great, I'm going to go back to fishing then like, don't raise venture capital. You're putting yourself at odds with your vision and that does not go well. Yeah.

And I think something, when you were in this transition phase, you take the weekend to think about Butcherbox. What was the answer to that question for yourself then? Like, what lifestyle did you want if you were to envision your life three years from starting the company?

Yeah. So I wrote a three year vision and my vision was that I was in a coffee shop in Argentina. I had traveled there with my wife and kids and we were, you know, I basically opened my laptop, checked in on this, this, this and this, and then closed my laptop and was like, business is good, let's go do something fun. And I had a lot of like details about what was happening and that there, there are many aspects of that that did not happen. I was not three years in the future in Argentina. I think I had thought that we'd be at 10,000 subscribers and we were at like a hundred thousand subscribers.

Something to just interject quickly, something that you, in your LinkedIn post that I have pulled up here to speak on that three year mark, which I think is good for context, you said, I should mention at this point our revenues have gone from 2015, $275,000. 2016, 5 million, 2017, 31 million. Yep. Seems, seems a lot bigger and faster.

And then we went 31 to 105 to 220 to 450 to 550.

Wow.

And then we, and then we've been flat. So. Which is a whole other, you know, mind bending experience of like, how do you get through that and whatnot.

But question for you, Those, those initial three years, 2015, 2016, 2017, like you, let's say after gone through the ringer in the last company, you wanted this certain lifestyle, you didn't want to raise capital. How did that change? Good and bad.

Right.

I think growth comes. Yeah, there's a good side of it, but also it's like, did this become something that's like, whoa, like this is bigger than I ever imagined or was this something that just, you know, you, you had to audit what it is you wanted or how did that initial, you know, 36 month process look from starting to, to seeing this type of growth and scale? Yeah.

So I think that like the thing that entrepreneurs are best suited to like figure out early is like that lifestyle plan and then to figure out your boundaries. Because what happens in these Companies. So if you start being really successful like we were, your boundaries can get tested really quickly. What does that look like? Well, you know, when I started the company, I said I didn't want to work on Fridays because I had a young daughter. And I was like, I'm just going to stay home with her on Fridays. Like, why would I go to work? And so I did that. And then it's like, well, we're a pretty big company, we should start having meetings on Fridays. Or like, oh, there's this important person who can only meet on Friday or whatever. Yeah. And I just kept saying no. I was like, no. Like my, my vision was to not work on Fridays and that's what I'm gonna do. Or I, I, I really don't like to travel. I love to travel, but I don't like to be away from my young family. Two eight year olds and a ten year old.

Oh, that's incredible.

And so, you know, the reality is that if I said yes to everything, I would be out every night. I mean, there is a CEO dinner, a roundtable discussion, all expenses paid, trip to wherever, a conference to speak at. I mean the, it's endless. It's endless. And if you believe that that's like, first of all, if that's where you get your value from, or if you believe that that's what's expected of you, you will be out every single night. And that's what I did in my first company. I was like, you know, constantly working, constantly out, constantly doing stuff. And thank God I had kids because it really like reframed my brain at the time where we were failing. I had a five month old and it's just like, man, like I am gonna miss out on her growing up if I keep doing what I've been doing. And so I changed the behavior and yeah, the company grew. But you know, funny enough, I still got people who wanted to invest in us and they're like, I'm like, well, why would I raise money? It was like, you could grow faster. I don't want to grow any faster than. We're growing plenty fast. We're good. Yeah. And yeah, I just kept to my, you know, kept to my knitting, kept to the, the, the boundaries that I had set up and it turned out to work really well.

That's so great. That's awesome to hear. And I think it's so easy to, I'm sure, like, bend those boundaries a little bit and make like, oh yeah. But you know, especially when it's like, oh, this you know, important person and can only meet on a Friday. And it's cool to hear that you really stuck to that. And something, too, just regarding kids that I've heard you talk about is you are the youngest of four siblings. You grew up single mother when it comes to your mindset. And just the purpose around being there as a father for your kids. And again, having those strict boundaries, where do you think that stems from? And I wanted to shed light on your personal life and growing up and kind of understand how you view parenthood in the sense of entrepreneurship. And I asked this one because I'm curious, but also, too, to give you context, I'm getting married in 30 days, 24 years old. My fiance's, she's 31. And I think our relationship and the setup of my life is about to go through a change. And I'm just genuinely curious about this whole topic around business as I have my company and of course, entering this next phase. So a little personal lens as well to give you context.

Yeah. Okay. So I guess fundamentally, like, I believe in the value of sitting around a table and eating a meal, and I want to be home for that. Yeah. And if I can't be home for that, I sure as hell want to be home for bedtime. But, you know, we're in the business. Butcherbox is in the business of people eating at home.

Yeah.

And I think I try to conduct my life in a way that feeds that kind of ethos, which is like, it is. It is actually proven to be healthier for your kids, both mentally and physically, to be eating at home. It's healthier as a family unit. It's healthier for my relationship with my wife. It's health. Like, it's all healthier. Not to mention that we're always eating butcherbox and it's cheaper and like, you know, whatever, all that other stuff, it's just downright healthier to eat at home. And so I, yeah, I conduct my, my life in a way in which, you know, it's like, hey, do you want to go to this dinner? There's going to be, like, some amazing person. And, like, I mean, I can't say I'm perfect. I'm not perfect, but I'm probably. I've probably gone one or two nights a month.

That's it.

And that's by design. And again, that means that you say no to some things, but it's the same thing as, like, being on a diet if you're going to be on a keto diet. And like, well, let's do a carnivore diet and only eat meat. Somebody's like, here's some birthday cake. Like, you're on a diet, that's not what you're doing. And you know, every once in a while you're like, you know what? I'm going to have the birthday cake. And then that's okay too. You just get back on plan, right? And so it's about setting your intentions. Yes. I grew up without a father. Um, so I'm sure there. And, well, there is definitely a piece of me who's like, I'm going to break that cycle and I'm going to be a very present father. And one of the things that, like, I reflect on even now is there's, like, being present and then there's presence, right? It's actually not enough for me just to be at dinner, right? If I'm at dinner and I'm on my phone or if I'm at dinner and I brought home some work that, like, is in my head, like, I'm not there, I might as well be gone. And so then it becomes like, okay, I'm going to be at dinner, but also be sharing, like, the gift of my presence because, you know, that's what people want. They want you to be present. And so that's a whole exploration as well. Like, I have a footer in my email that says, like, I'm not going to answer your email between 5pm and 8pm and then when I do answer your email at some other time, please don't feel like you need to then respond to me at whatever hour it is. Like, yeah, I'm taking time for myself. You could take some time for yourself as well. Um, yeah, I'm just a very, you know, I, I, I, I, I think, like my first company, I worked almost every Saturday. I'd never hung out with my friends. I gained 30 pounds. I gave that company everything I, I had for years. Years and years and years. We used to be like, it's a marathon, not a sprint. We just, like, pound it for years. It didn't work. And there was no, it wasn't like I could have worked any harder. I couldn't have worked any harder. And I think that a lie of entrepreneurship is that you need to work 24, 7, 365 days and like, just, you know, just grind it out and that's what it's going to take. Yeah, there's some hard work for sure, but you don't have to do that. And you know, like, I was just at a I was just teaching at Harvard Business School. Like, I came into teaching class and I said something that, like, it seemed like I blew people's minds, which was like, somebody's like, well, I don't know how to get started. Because the only way to get started is to make a thousand phone calls. And I was like, okay, yeah, just, you should not make any phone calls. Just hire two people for $10 an hour who will make those phone calls. And it's like, well, I thought as an entrepreneur, I'm supposed to do that. And it's like, no, as an entrepreneur, you should figure out what you're good at and just try to do that and everything else. Like, there's somebody who loves picking up the phone and hammering phone calls. Those people are kind of crazy. That's not me. If you gave me a list of a thousand people to call, I would never call them. And I am a hungry, ambitious individual. I would never call them. And so, like, don't set yourself up to do things that, like, you don't want to do. Just trust your intuition and find a different way to do it, and that's that, you know, the 24. 7. 365. I think that a business needs 24. 7 attention, but it doesn't need to be just from you. You need to find people and align teams around the things that you want to do.

Something that you spoke about before is this idea of, like, real core values within Butcherbox from the beginning. And on this topic of doing the things that you want to do when you first were starting the company, what were some of those key things that you are. Were very aware of that you did want to do as well as what you didn't want to do. And how has that changed in terms of running the business today?

What I wanted to do with, like, the, like, the staff or what I.

Wanted to do more like your time. Right. There's things in the early days that I'm sure you have to do, and now with the larger team, you don't have to do the certain things maybe you don't want to do. But, yeah, I'm just curious around, like, you know, having those boundaries also, for, like, yourself, I know we've talked about, like, how do you set up a business where, like, if you're. If you. If you don't want to be on, you know, the sales calls 24 7, like, don't do that. Like, find someone to do it and kind of like, it's parallel to what you just talked about. So I'm Curious to know how that's changed over time for you. And you know what that looked like in the beginning.

Yeah. So, I mean, day one of this business. So I closed Custom Made and then took the weekend off. It was a long weekend. It was Memorial Day weekend. And then on Tuesday at 8:30am I had an intern who I was paying $11 an hour. It was like the summer. It was his summer. He was a freshman in college, knocked on my door, all right, I'm here for work. What are we doing? And I'm like, let's go to a coffee shop. We'll figure it out from there. I had no idea what he was doing, but I knew it was really important to me to have somebody knock on my door at 8:30 in the morning because I had just failed at a company that had been running for eight and a half years. I was tired, and if I was left to my own druthers, I would have, quote, unquote, been working on the business for months. But really I'd be like, hanging out on the couch watching Netflix. And because I knew I had just come from running a team of 60 people, I knew that I needed people around me to inspire as well as to inspire me, that I wanted to be on a team of people that I didn't want to do this alone. I knew I wanted that. But I Also, I put $10,000 into this business to start it. I also, like, I was very doggedly focused on, like, I'm only spending $10,000. So what did I have to do? I had to go get, like, the cheapest person I could possibly find. And so it wasn't like, you know, I've got the seasoned marketing executive who's going to come in. It was like, I'm. Who can I find this guy? Who can I find to build my website? This, this company that built CrossFit websites that would do it for equity. Like, who can I find to do my design? Oh, this other thing. Like, I just like, compiled a group of people and inspired them towards what we were trying to do and shared in the upside. And like, yeah, it's. It, it worked. And so I think what I'm really good at is setting up systems for accountability, holding people accountable, and like, you know, having the vision and then inspiring people to, like, go take the hill. And in this case, it, it worked really well. But I also want to be humble enough to say that, like, I'm not, I'm not like a genius. I. Much of this is timing and luck and the right people at the right time. And like, you know, so my approach might not work for everyone, but I do think it's important for entrepreneurs to spend a little less time focused on raising money and worrying about like how everyone else raised money and spend more time like obsessing about your customer, trying to make a difference in the world and like running things the way you want to run them.

Yeah, it's, I, I find it fascinating, Mike, just, you know, your story when just the parallel of context of spending eight years raising capital and putting your everything into it. And then it seems that obviously there's so much experience there. But then you talk about this. The business wanted to become something more. It's like you don't want to work Fridays, you want to have your time, you don't want to raise money, you want to get scrappy. $10,000 max. And then boom. This is now 500 million plus dollar year company. And it's just, it's like mind bending. And I remember when I was first hearing your story, but now especially talking to you about it, it's just entrepreneurship in business, it's so like you have to really create your own path. And I see that so much in your story of just how if you take those two journeys and it's like, wow, they're so different and unique and it's just interesting to see how it's played out. And it's so cool to hear and it's really inspiring. And I want to talk a little bit more about just for the time we have today where the company is now. I know you mentioned earlier which sort of piqued my attention of, you know, we talk about the scale of the business and then in your words, you said it's sort of flatlined or has like peaked. I don't want to put the words in your mouth, but talk to me about that. Like, what, where is the business today? And again, it's something that you said there caught my attention. Would love to have you dive into that a little bit more and get your perspective there.

Yeah, totally. Well, I'm happy to report that we grew last year. We grew like 5% year over year on $550 million in revenue. So that's like good. But yeah, we, I mean we screen. We had screaming growth, so we talked about the growth. It was 450 and then 550 million and then 550 to 560. So it was like pretty slow. And then we went from 5 60. In 2023, we went from 560 back down to like 500.

Okay.

And that was really hard because like all we knew was winning. Like we're just like we grew, grew, grew, grew, grew. And all of a sudden it's like, what the hell? Nothing's working anymore. What's going on? The market shifted and the market did shift. This is post Covid. Lots of people in 23 were not eating at home. They were going out to restaurants and going out to eat. And Meta had changed some or iPhone had changed some stuff and it became harder to advertise on Meta. There was a whole bunch of Mac issues. But in the business we. So my first company, my biggest regret of my first company is when the VCs came in, I kind of moved on from all the people who had helped me start the company, like my head of engineering who like had helped us build to the point where Google invested in us. Then it's like, you don't know what you're doing. Let's get a better, better person in. And we did that across the company. And then I ended up with a bunch of people that I was like, I don't really even understand where these people are coming from. I vowed not to do that this time. And so when we started Butcherbox, you know, I had a 26 year old head of marketing who lasted up until we were at $200 million and then he replaced himself with somebody else. And like, you know, I took these people who like did not necessarily have the background to do the thing they were doing and we figured out a way to allow them to grow like beyond what they expected, beyond what any of us expected. The point at which we were at $500 million and apparently this is a common $500 million trap. We then brought in experts, brought in a board, brought in a bunch of people who, who kind of. And I created all of it. But like, it kind of were there to like make, make sure the company stayed out of trouble from me. Like, you know, like, we gotta stop being so pirate ish. We gotta stop being so go go. We gotta like build some structure. Because at the end of the day we're like feeding people. That's important. We can't mess that up. Like, we gotta like, we gotta put in some structure which is like. And so what I've learned is this is a classic like business life cycle thing. It's like the Go Go years where you have, there's a great book called like Corporate Life Cycles. Go Go Years. You have uppercase E for entrepreneurship and lowercase P for process. So a lot of entrepreneurship and Not a lot of process. And then you hit this point where you're at the adolescent years where you're like, we need process. So you crank up process and entrepreneurship dies. And so then you have lowercase entrepreneurship and uppercase process. And then like that company will fail if the founder or somebody doesn't get involved to increase the entrepreneurship. So you can have uppercase e and uppercase P that, that move. So 2023, we ended up losing a bunch of our early people. They were like, I don't like you here anymore. It's like so much process. It was a slog. It was a real slog for several years really starting in 22. So 22, 23. Then in 24 we grew. We finally got the right executive team in place. 2025, we're growing like mad again. Certainly double digit growth this year, which we're super excited about. And it's like we're off to the races again and we're doing that on a better platform. We rebuilt the entire website on Shopify. We have moved, we've done a whole bunch of stuff that I think is really going to set us up for some, some big years. So I'm really proud of like the mud that we walked through. I'm sure if I had done this before I would have like been like, we're going to skip this step by like, you know, doing whatever. But yeah, you know, you kind of got to learn the hard way sometimes. So. Oh yeah, we're about to celebrate our 10th year. So we started in May of 2015. We're about to be 10 years. Um, and yeah, I think, I think it's been a quite the ride, quite the journey and still more to go. I mean what I like to talk about. So we, we've never raised outside capital. I don't want to sell the company and I don't want to go public. Then it's like, okay, what's the plan? The plan is to try to transform meat. And I happen to think that that's going to take a really long time. And so if you are dedicated to making the right decisions on behalf of the customer, like treating the animal better, treating the environment better and like fixing the meat industry, that is a big undertaking. It's going to take a while and we're, we just, we're in for the long term.

Wow, you're, you're answered a couple of questions that I was planning on asking. Just, you know, because I know you haven't raised capital and I mean you said it and something that I got to say, like in the how you just said that I don't want to go public, don't want to sell like the authenticity going back to a value of yours. I feel that so strongly when you say that. I'm like, yeah, I am like, okay, got it. You don't have to convince anyone or myself or listeners. Sometimes I feel you'll hear early stage founders like, oh yeah, we're committed to this thing. And then I don't know, it just doesn't feel authentic. Right. That's so cool to hear. And when you say transform, meet what would the version of yourself, Mike 10 years ago think about the progress you've made so far?

I think there is an argument to be made that we've already done what we set out to do. What we have done by growing a half a billion dollar company in meat is we've proven to the meat industry that this is like a market to pay attention to. And so what we've seen is we've seen a meat industry respond by like, you know, we do pasture raised grass fed beef and antibiotic and hormone free and crate free and humanely treated and all these things.

Yeah.

All of which are like, by the way, each of those things that I rattled off are like incredibly hard to actually implement. But what we found is like larger meat companies are like, oh, there's a market here, so we should get involved and like provide that type of product and put it in the grocery store. And then grocery stores are asking for it. And so there's like, everyone's kind of seeing demand. And I believe that a big reason why is because we have this massive flag and we're like, we're, you know, like there's a big market here and people are like, great. These large, these large meat companies, like, they just want to do what the customer is asking for. And so if there's a customer out there asking for more of it, great. And so like the market for what we do, like grass fed or free range organic or MSC certified seafood is growing incredibly quickly. And the reason why it's growing is because many people like your listeners are they feel guilty about eating meat. It's like, I know it's healthy for me. I know I need the protein. I know animal based protein is good for me. But I, I just like, I feel bad. I've heard some stuff about the environment. I like know that these animals are in like confined things. Like I feel bad about it. And that is our customer. Our customer. It's like if you're Gonna eat meat, which I happen to believe you need to. We want to be a brand that you're like, they obsessed about everything, so I don't have to. I like to say we're like the Patagonia of meat. Like if you buy a Patagonia jacket, you know, they obsessed about like the environmental impact of the thread. We obsess over how that animal is treated, how the farmer was paid, like getting it to you at the most effective, efficient value price possible. And I think over so 10 years in, it's like we've done a lot. 10 years more. I mean, it's interesting because if we.

Do what excites you the most about.

The future, if we do our job really well, the industry should put us out of business. That would be interesting. Meaning like everybody, these massive conglomerates are like, oh my God, why don't we just raise animals this way for everybody? And then all of a sudden we don't have any competitive advantage and they've put us out of business. I would be okay with that. That'd be a life well lived.

That is. That's so cool to hear. Like, it's like a true systemic change.

Right.

Period.

Long term dent in the universe.

Yeah.

And by the way, in an area of extreme suffering. Yeah. Like, make no mistake, these animals that are living in confined feeding operations are suffering. The farmers who are raising these animals and then bringing them to a market and losing money on every single one and barely staying alive and in many cases going bankrupt are suffering. The people in the plants are suffering. And at the tail end of that is a consumer who is eating the product, literally ingesting it into their body and hoping that it's going to nourish them, but it's destroying the world. And like we have a path. An animal still dies, so there is like some suffering. We like to say one bad day, but like we have a path that is as little of an ethical wake as possible. And I believe that people are going to wake up more and more as like, we as a society are more and more conscious and more and more heart based and more and more open. We are more and more going to realize that we don't have to eat the stuff that represents such a massive amount of suffering.

Yeah, that's. No, that's. That's such a awesome perspective to hear, Mike. And it's, you know, I feel we could talk for hours and I'm so curious about like, how you measure personal success in your life as we start wrapping up this conversation. You know, as someone that, you know, like some, you know, entrepreneurs, it's like, you build this company to. One day you have this big exit, you go public, or you make investors all this money back. Like, how do you define success in your life? Because, again, the authenticity that comes across with how you want to build this business, the impact you want to make. I just. I'm curious to hear, like, what drives you and, like, what. How do you define success in your world?

Do you know a lot of people have sold their companies?

I happen to. Yes.

Yeah. Do you know any of them who feel successful?

It's always the same empty void feeling shortly after. Correct? Yes.

Yeah. It's funny. Feeling fulfilled is funny that way. You think it is. Like, oh, once I do this, and if I sell this company, it's gonna be great. I'm gonna feel awesome. And then you sell the company, you're like, oh, like, what have I done? Yeah, what have I done? What's next? And, yeah, I. So the way. The way that I look at my life is. And I've said this on other podcasts, but it's like a. It's like spinning plates. It's the circus act of spinning plates. And so you have this person who runs around, has a broomstick, and they take a plate and they put it up and they spin it, and then they grab another one and they put it up and they spin it, and then they have another one, and they spin that one, and you have all these plates going. And the circus act is the person runs around and one's wobbling, and they get it back going, and then another one's wobbling. Whole idea is to not let a plate fall on the ground. I think that that is a great metaphor for life. Like, I used to say that your job as an entrepreneur is to. And just a citizen is to recognize all the plates that you have in your life, your health, your family, your. Your business. Like, making those sales calls. Like what? Going to the gym, like, whatever those are. And then track each of them. So, like, what am I doing in this bucket? What am I doing in this bucket? What am I doing in this bucket? And just make sure they don't wobble. And one will always be wobbling and kind of be okay with that. It's like, oh, I didn't go to the gym this many times. But, yeah, I got the sales calls done. And yes, I went on a date. I wanted to, and yes, I was home. Like, whatever those, like, numerical metrics are, I now believe. So I've been running with that for A while. So across the different areas of my life, whether it's investing money or charitable donations or mentoring people or getting to the gym or how many days I at clean or how many dinners I was home for, you know, like a list.

Yeah.

I would keep a spreadsheet and be like, I now believe that there are three golden plates. Your health, your family, and your community. And ultimately, that's the only thing that matters. And so I've now kind of, like, reformulated the obsession over having, like, 10 plates spinning at any given time. And how are they all, like, like, going to, like, how are those plates going? And so you're about to embark upon this, you know, new family thing. And it's like, if you. If. If you are told that you have six months to live, your life would dramatically change. You would not be doing the same things you're doing. You'd just be like, it's not even worth it. Like, what am I doing? Yeah. Similarly, if you come home and your wife's like, I'm divorcing you, you're not going to be doing the same things. And so it's a recognition that life is very precious and fragile, and you want to treat some plates like they are the golden plates that they are. And so I spend a lot more time on that stuff and then try to make the company more successful and all that. And the really wonderful thing, which I've said a couple times on this podcast, whether it's my intern or the guy who's going to make phone calls, the wonderful thing is if you decide, and this would be a good reflection for you of, like, what are you holding onto that you could pass to someone else that you don't really like, if you decide to pass on that work to somebody else, you're actually giving them an opportunity to grow. And by holding all this stuff yourself, all you're really doing is capping the growth of everyone else. And so when I'm like, I'm not going to work on Friday, what I also did is I forced other people and empowered other people to go beyond what they thought was possible. And that's a really good thing. Like, then everyone grows. And so, you know, I just think that that's like, a great reflection. So when I'm like, hey, I'm going to do these things, I'm going to focus on my golden plays, like, blah, blah, blah. What does that mean? It means my executive team. It means my VPs. Like, people have to hold that. Like, you know, some of that running the company for me and that's a good thing.

Absolutely.

Wow.

No, that's. I love that perspective, Mike. And as we wrap up here, I just want to say I'm again, and I said at the beginning, I'm so inspired by, especially after this conversation, just how you've gone about this, like, dramatic change of how you're running a company. Like, the authentic values you bring, the, like, the strong boundary that you put in place. It's definitely conspiring, and I've learned so much today, and I know the listeners have as well. And before we wrap up here, for those that are still listening and watching, where is the best place for everyone to follow Bircherbox? Get involved, learn more about everything that you guys are doing, and, of course, just follow you and your journey, you know, into these next 10 years and beyond.

Yeah. So, I mean, we would love to have your audience as members. We can put a link in the show notes, I'm sure, but. Yep. So we'll do that. You can follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter. I try to write there on occasion, and I try to, like, play the intersection of philosophy, entrepreneurship, bootstrapping, just all. All sorts of weird stuff. And, yeah, I mean, we're really looking for people. If. If what I said to you in my impassioned plea about suffering and animals and, you know, like, if that resonates with you, we'd love to have you involved. Whether that's even pointing to this podcast, to have other people listen to it or deciding to be a member, we are on a mission, and the only way for a mission to be successful is to bring. Grow the tent, bring in more and more people. So that's what we're trying to do.

Love it. Well, once again, Mike, I'll be sure to link that all down below. And thank you again so much for taking the time today. I really appreciate it.

Thank you.