Andrew Shearer (Founder of Farmshelf)

The episode you're about to listen to was released back when the Mere Christians podcast was called the Call to Mastery. Now, if you love Mere Christians, you're still going to love these older episodes because the majority of each conversation focuses on how the gospel influences the work of our guests. With that disclaimer out of the way, please enjoy the episode. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Each week, I host a conversation with a Christian who's pursuing world class mastery of their craft. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how the gospel of Jesus Christ influences their work. Today's guest is Andrew Shearer. He's the founder and CEO of Farm Shelf, a fascinating venture that builds smart indoor farming appliances that enable anyone to grow food where they live, work, and eat. The company's got some serious traction. Before the company, Andrew spent time at Twitter and Pinterest. So. So Andrew and I sat down recently. We talked about how a bird pooping on his notebook at the site of Jesus's tomb. Yes, you heard that correctly, is what pushed Andrew to found his incredible company. We talked about what this Old Testament idea of gleaning can look like in our modern context and how night owls can fight for deep work. I think you guys are going to love this episode with my new friend, Andrew Shearer. Hey, Andrew, thanks for being here.

Thanks, Jordan, for having me.

All right, let's real softball question to start. What's Farm Shelf?

Farm Shelf. Our mission is to enable everyone to grow food where they live, work and eat the way we do. This is with bookshelf sized indoor farms that automate the hardest part and provide the user with just great tasting food year round in a way that's also enjoyable to grow.

So here's the deal. I don't think I could grow lettuce if I tried. I'm assuming lettuce is easy to grow, hence the analogy. Could I use this product? Like, how would this work inside my home if I had a farm shelf here?

Yeah. So a farm shelf. You know, the economist called us the Nespresso for lettuce because it really is just about that easy.

That's great.

The system shows up, you plug it into the wall and we send you all the things that you need. Plant pods that have the nutrients, the seed, everything right there. The system connects to the Internet, kind of tells you where to place the plant pods, and then we remotely Monitor it and provide the plant everything it needs and then tell you when it's time once a week to add water to a central tank and when it's time to harvest.

So that's all I do. I pour water in and I harvest.

Yeah. And it's this really fun process too, where you get to kind of taste these flavors when they're so fresh, where they haven't been into, you know, a bleach bath or through a refrigeration supply chain so that you're getting these flavors that almost seem just not real because there's just so much flavor. When we eat fresh produce, some of us have experienced that from, you know, you know, our parents or our grandparents backyards where they maybe grew a little bit of food in the summer at peak, you know, season.

Yeah.

But with kind of how we're able to provide these plants the ideal circumstances to grow, we can make that happen year round.

So we're going to see blind taste test videos from farm shelf of produce grown in the farm shelf and not. Are we going to see those soon?

Absolutely. We've actually. When we first installed, our first ever installation was in 2017 with the Co founder of this restaurant called Noma. His name's Klaus Meyer. He had a restaurant in Grand Central Station.

Yeah, yeah.

We put my business card on the back so that if anyone at the restaurant ever had questions or there were any issues. This is our first product in the market. Our alpha unit, call me. We'll be there in 30 minutes to an hour.

Yeah.

Regardless of time of day. Been a few days. We get a phone call and it's the executive chef being like, I don't get it. Like, like. And I'm like, what, what's wrong? He's like, how does this taste so, so good? Like, where's all this flavor coming from? Like, what did you spray on it? And we're like, oh, nothing. That's just what it should taste like. And so it's like, it's almost like we've lost touch with real fresh food and produce to the point where even chefs are just blown away by the flavor, regardless of whether it's a side by side taste test.

All right, so I love founding stories. And we'll come back to what was the impetus for this in a minute. But first, let's go to that first customer, first installation. Probably not even paying for this 2017 to get this thing installed. Tell us more about that. What did you guys learn? How did you scale from there? Take us from 2017 till now.

Yeah. So we went from originally we thought we would first build a small consumer system, but then quickly looking at did we want to build something that was, you know, like a hobbyist educational item, kind of like a Game Boy.

Yeah.

Or did we want to build a personal computer, desktop computer that could actually make an impact in the quality and the volume and the amount of food being produced. And so it made sense. Similar to how Keurig started in office buildings and hotels, how camera companies started with, you know, DSLR cameras and professional cameras, before then evolving to a mass consumer product for us to start with a B2B customer, a restaurant, a corporate cafeteria.

But now you're moving, you guys are moving direct to home. Right. Very soon you're going to be able to buy this for your house.

Yes. So similar to the way that, you know, Keurig started in kind of B2B settings and you saw Vitamix at a Jamba Juice before you ever saw one in your home.

Right, right, right.

It's really taking that technology and looking at who our customer is. Our customer is someone who takes food and turns it into its final product, a meal, you know, whether that's a chef in a restaurant or a corporate cafeteria or at home, and making sure that both people have the best possible produce at an affordable price. And so to go back to that kind of, that first customer.

Yeah.

It was being a part of a startup accelerator here in New York called Urban X and getting introduced to this guy, Klaus Meyer. We told him about our vision and what we were doing and he's like, okay, let's do it. And we're like, okay, what do you mean? He's like, let's, let's, let's put this in Grand Central Station at Great Northern Food Hall.

Yeah.

Like one of the busiest locations.

Oh yeah, I've been there.

Foot traffic in the U.S. like, it just was like, okay. Like we didn't even actually pitch him. He just like got it.

Yeah.

And then getting to install into Grand Central, which is a historically protected landmark, this prototype was quite the ordeal. Just all the approvals, their special granite plastics or granite safe plastics that we had to use to touch the floor. Like, it was just a. There was bomb sniffing dogs that had to inspect the farm shelves before they could go in. And we installed into Grand Central station at 2 in the morning between 2 and 5am when it's completely shut down. So here we are walking this indoor farm through the middle of this, like historic terminal and it was just like this. I can't believe this is happening and then to get to turn them on and see people, like just gravitate towards them. I literally saw a three year old boy walk away from his parents, walk up to the side of this farm shelf and just give it a hug. We're searching for that connection. And it was just so much fun to get that passion that chefs have for great ingredients and giving them a way to not only have even better access to them, but also to share them with their patrons and not just tell that story, but show it.

Give us an idea of the scale of the venture and traction so far. You guys have been primarily focused B2B. You're moving B2C so that we can get these in our houses. But what does the scale look like so far?

Yeah. So we started back in 2017, built a little bit under 10 units, then 2018 did 25, and then over 2019 into 2021, did over 200 units of kind of our current product.

Wow.

And we were scaling really quick when Covid hit. And so Covid, unfortunately, had to slow down. But through that time, we've raised a little bit over $10 million, developed custom hardware that really provides the plants what they need in a way that's not only beautiful, but also cost effective. And now we're getting ready to kind of scale up manufacturing over these next few months to launch a product that is for both B2B customers, but also for the home. And, you know, looking to ship thousands of units starting next year.

How big is this unit? If I bought one of these for my house, how big is it?

So it is 40 inches wide, 20 inches deep, and 5 foot 9 tall. It doesn't need to be connected to water, but you can connect it to water to decrease the amount of times that you have to fill it with water and have that done automatically. But it really is designed in a way that adds value from not just a nutritional level to your living environment, but from an aesthetic value. Something that's beautiful, that you want to have in your home and showcase.

It is beautiful. It's a gorgeous product. I want to come back to that in a minute. But first, before you were doing this, you were doing sales and BD work at Twitter and Pinterest, right?

Yes. So a little bit about my professional background and how I got here is growing up did a lot of nonprofit work, thanks to some awesome parents that got me involved in that and in the space of kids with cancer and supporting those families, and then also in microfinance and agriculture in Central America with a group called Agros which is an incredible organization that looks to end the generational cycle of poverty in Central America through land ownership, agricultural education and microfinance. Kind of getting to doing some of this work with my parents in a volunteer capacity, just having this passion to see what it would look like to use business in a way that not just, you know, say, made money and then donated afterwards or, you know, gave a better price to certain groups in a way that was more ethical. But how do you actually build a business and a business model that by the product and the model in and of itself drives positive impact and scales in a more capitally and virally efficient way. And so for us, that's looking at kind of the cost of our food and how do we make that in a way where we're really distributing the ability for anyone to grow food as we make the amount that a single system can grow more and more and decrease the cost of ownership. And so I went to Pepperdine Incredible University, where I just had some amazing mentors, studied abroad in East Africa, non governmental aid and Christianity and culture, and just learned so much about what it looks like to really serve others in a way that isn't. You know, sometimes when we try to help others, we can often hurt them instead of really empowering them where they're at. So from there, a mentor had also told me, if the numbers don't add, the dream doesn't matter which. Little cynical, but there's parts of truth to it. And so I studied finance, went into banking, and then did banking for a little while at Wells Fargo and then ad sales and business intelligence at Twitter and Pinterest, really looking at how to use data to enable various brands and startups to. To tell their story and to find their customers.

And when did you decide, when did you really catch this vision for Farm Shelf and decide to go all in on this?

So I was working at Pinterest and I had been collecting Pinterest boards on how to grow my own food. I'd always seen hydroponics and just thought it was fascinating. I'd also had a job in college where I did cherry exporting to Japan during the summer. Exporting millions of dollars worth of cherries for this company and just seeing kind of how crazy and in some ways broken our food system is through that. And so I did kind of like obsessing over this idea. I bought a few systems that were on the market to try and grow my own food at the time, San Francisco apartment. And it wasn't that easy. The food that came out didn't taste that great. And I just kind of started obsessing over the idea. And then when I started looking around at kind of what was necessary and some additional technology, that it was coming from different spaces. The appliance industry, the IoT medical device industry, and things that we were using at Pinterest and Twitter. From a machine learning and computer vision perspective, I just saw an interesting opportunity to steal technology from these other segments and kind of reassemble it to truly enable a way of growing food that would otherwise be not possible and do it in a way that could truly scale. Because I think scale is so important. The process of getting from the idea to actually making the leap was a little different. And it has some comical bumps along the way, but yeah, that's awesome.

I love it. So I read, I read this line in your bio that I loved. Andrew's personal mission is to feed and love the world well through business. I'm really curious in what ways your shape, your shape, your faith shapes that personal mission statement.

I think my faith is what created that personal mission statement. And it's like businesses really and capitalism can be a tool to scale and go after some of our ventures in loving people in a way that otherwise might not be possible. And that it's while I think that Farm shelf will someday be enabling millions of people around the world to grow food at 50% the price and almost double the nutritional value of what they could go buy at the store, making it available to a whole new population in terms of quality of food. It's not just about the arrival, it's about the journey and the process from A to B, and how you treat your coworkers, deal with the highs and the lows and love on your customers, even when legally you might not have to do something, but it's the right thing to do.

I want to go a layer deeper here because we met, because we're at the same event you were pitching at the Praxis Redemptive Imagination Summit. And we talked a lot about that conference about going beyond thinking more redemptively about the operations of our venture. So what your company does is so obviously redemptive and a part of God's restorative work in the world. Go a layer deeper. How are the operations of the company? How's the journey, how you're treating your team, your employees different, do you think? Distinctive? More redemptive because you're a follower of Christ?

Yeah. Starting with kind of coworkers. I think it's transparency and trust and really showing Kind of, you know, what's going on in the business. And being open and transparent about that. Not just about the good, but the tough circumstances. And the areas where you're doing well as a leader is also the areas where you're working on things or making mistakes and growing. And I think that that's such a key aspect of kind of what it looks like to hold your ego well and really lead in a way that is. That in turn can showcase and a better way to kind of hold these tough situations. Yeah. And then the aspect in which you grant equity into the company and look to enable and empower people in their careers, actively loving them, not just thinking, what can I get from this? But how can I make sure that I'm really not just loving this individual and investing in them from a selfish motivation of this makes Farm Shelf know, successful, but also like, what does this person want outside of Farm Shelf? What's going on in their, in their life beyond that? And really sitting and meditating on those things and, you know, stepping up like a. I kind of talk about farmshell sometimes as a family meets a football team. It's like, you know, stepping up and really being there and being present for people when they're going through tough things and actively loving on them in ways that I think we often in kind of the general cultural perspective have lost sight of.

Yeah, it's this difference between Dave Blanchard and I just sat down and had a conversation about this. It's this difference between being ethical, being redemptive, and truly seeking to bless people, not just treat them well, not just treat them ethically. It's this intentionality, this idea of being proactive and looking for ways to bless the people around you. Is that what you're saying, Andrew?

Yeah. Like, for example, if you say, provide some great jobs but don't really share kind of the success of the company as it kind of grows with others in what I think would be a more aggressive way that we're trying to do. Imagine someday this thing is a multibillion dollar company and goes public and I never have to work another day in my life. But everyone else, like, might get to go take a few months off and then find another job or keep working at the company. But no, like, you should be able to share that success and enable their dreams as well from a financial perspective. Yeah. And that even when we talk about the. I think a lot of the areas where we focus on what a redemptive business model looks like or business looks like is our business model at the end of the day, I envision, as we scale and kind of continue to drive value, bringing that cost of goods sold down, increasing yield, it's reallocating the capital that we're spending on our food and making it so that it's more human centric, both in the quality that we get and in the jobs and people that it provides access to, Stealing margin and jobs from food waste and plastic packaging and inefficient kind of pointless middlemen and logistics, and really reallocating that so that no longer is the farm that you're getting your produce from a large corporate facility on the other side of the country that's barely providing for jobs as is, but is really someone in your neighborhood who's not only providing food for themselves, but for their community with better quality product and a lower price point in a way that also sets up an opportunity to bring people together around that food in the way that we grow it, sell it, and commune around it.

Yeah, that's beautiful. So in prepping for this conversation, I was like, all right, talking to a guy building these indoor gardens, the most obvious question in the world comes from Genesis 2. God planted a garden. God instructed Adam and Eve to garden. Right. What are the implications of that truth for you personally and how you think about farm shelf.

Yeah. There's a part of Leviticus that talks about leaving the edge of your field unharvested for the poor and the wanderer. Yeah.

Gleaning.

Yeah. Yeah. And that is a segment, a piece of scripture I think about frequently. Just like, what is the edge of our field? And how are we really thinking about that? How are we enabling our customers even to think about that in the way that they share their abundance as, you know, as we scale. And so that. That does come to mind a lot. And then there's just something about food that is so powerful, the growing of it. I mean, there's no surprise. Yes. It was an agrarian society that the Bible really references throughout Scripture versus today, where only like 3% of people, I think, are involved in food production. Just crazy.

Yeah.

So it was a different context that way. But also there's this asp of something with growing, something that provides sustenance and the work and the enjoyment of that that goes into it. Getting to make that accessible to more people and kind of those small joys is something I do think about.

Yes. Seeing Genesis 2. 8 tells us God planted this garden. It gives dignity to work to the material world, says that working with our hands is good and not just the overtly spiritual things we do at work tending this earth, gardening. This earth is good. I love that you pointed a gleaning this command that you see all throughout the Old Testament, certainly in Leviticus. And the idea here, right, to contextualize this for our listeners was the Lord commanded his people to not harvest all the crops of the fields. Right. To leave some of the fields unharvested so that the poor could come alongside on the margins and also eat.

Right.

So what does that look like in our modern context for you? You mentioned your customers. Like what does gleaning look like for Farm Shelf?

Yeah, it's interesting in that we've had to look at this and talk about starting with a more luxury product that's enabling really at the beginning, more of the storytelling and the high quality ingredients for a certain type of customer. But that the way those customers are really enabling and giving back, whether they know it or not, is they're helping the technology and the efficiencies, you know, be developed that can make this a system that is something that is then available to people in food deserts and in countries around the world as we scale manufacturing and improve the technology. Because there is, I think, a certain aspect to which it, for ethical and even cost reasons, it doesn't make sense to experiment on populations who might have a better near term solution or stopgap versus the long term vision that we have that we think will, I mean, we can provide a product to them that really does drive that impact. I talk about our, our mission is explicitly not to grow leafy greens for rich people. If we end up where like you only see Farm Shelf or only know about it because you're like into Michelin star dining or something like that and no one else below that tier knows about Farm Shelf. Even if we're a billion dollar company, that's not success.

Right.

The founding story and of even selecting Farm Shelf is kind of the idea that I went for. Does has some interesting garden. And I literally decided to go after Farm Shelf while in Jerusalem. And it's kind of a crazy story.

Yeah, yeah, please help.

So was at Pinterest and had been kind of having an inkling to go after one of two ideas. Kind of this Farm Shelf idea or this advertising tools idea based off something that I'd built at Twitter.

Yeah.

So left Pinterest and went on a two week trip to Jordan in Israel. I had a friend who was teaching English in Jordan. And so we tour around and we're in Jerusalem and we go to the garden of the tomb. The location it's Run by this UK church. I believe it's where Protestants say the location is. Catholics say it's somewhere else. But it's where, you know, Jesus died on the cross and then was buried in the tomb and defeated death. And we go through this garden and have this kind of this time to sit, reflect, pray. And then afterwards we're sitting in the garden still just maybe 150ft away from the tomb. And I'm sitting there with my buddy Gifford, and I go, gifford, I don't think I'm supposed to go after this advertising idea. I think I'm supposed to go after this farming idea. And then sometimes God just wants to be like, hey, here's a clear sign that's also a little bit ridiculous and crazy. And then this bird in the tree above me literally pooped onto the notebook with the advertising idea. Literally pooped onto the notebook with that idea. And I'm like, okay, well, I guess I'm supposed to go after this farming idea. And there's been so many times where it's been prayers of like, hey, God, like if this is what you want and this is the thing that you want me to go after, like, I need some help. But yeah, I'll keep going after it, but here's what I need. And then even one time later down the road when Farm Shelf hit a kind of a rough patch, drafting an email to shut down the company and being about halfway through it in our office, 730 at night, you know, the lights are off and I'm just at my computer and all of a sudden, as I'm halfway through this email, someone physically knocks on the door.

Oh my God.

This is the only time anyone has knocked on the door of our office ever in this co working space and asked if they can invest. And I'm just like, wow, okay. And we've just had such amazing favor and just really giving it up to the Lord and these things that we're going after and the ways that we, we really want to build the company in a way that is not just the way in which the company is built and the employees are treated enabled, but in the way that we really strive after building a product that, that brings people together around food. Like at the end of the day, like, just imagine if you have this widget, forget what it looks like. It could not be like, you know, farmership looks beautiful, that's great. But just this widget that outputs the best tasting, most nutritious food, but you need someone to operate it because there's still like little Things, you know, like harvesting and putting the new pods in.

Okay?

So if you can take this widget, and all of a sudden, instead of having to spend all this money on logistics, you're getting a head of lettuce, say, out of your garage, you know, that's 50 cents to grow that you can then sell for 75 cents. And it's still way below the price of what the produce that's on the last part of its life at the grocery store is with double the nutrients. Like the ways that you can enable jobs and bring people together around that food. Where you grew tomatoes, I grew basil. You know, Farm Shelf recommends we get together and make a caprese salad and just unique opportunities to really use food to build not just abundance and wealth, but wealth that we're proud of, that we are a part of creating, that we also get to share with others and come together around the thing that we've always come together around, which is often food.

Two things I want to point out here that I love. One, going back to this idea of gleaning. I love how practical this is in a modern context. You're selling this to the wealthy to start that your beachhead market in a very intentional way so that you can fund R and D to serve the poor, serve the masses, right? I love this and how you're thinking about it. Number two, going back to the garden, right? Going back to the tomb in Jerusalem. You don't know this, but I just got done recording episode 100 of this podcast, which will have been released on June 23rd, and we flipped the mic. I had one of my producers on the show interview me for episode 100, and I talked about the garden in Genesis 1 and 2 and the garden of the tomb and how I think the writers of scripture, ultimately, God himself is doing something very intentional here, right? In Genesis 2, God put Adam and Eve to work in the garden. And it was only then that he was able to say, my creation is very good, after he created mankind and said, go create in my image. Same thing's happening after the resurrection, right? It's no mistake that Jesus was buried in a garden. It's no mistake that he was mistaken as the gardener by Mary, right? He's saying, hey, I've inaugurated this new world. Go work and restore creation until I bring heaven to earth, ultimately. And that's what you guys are doing. You're a small part of that puzzle, right, of restoring and redeeming creation. Andrew, I love it so, so much. You mentioned the design of the product. It's beautiful. Guys, go to farm shelf. What is a farm shelf.com right now, Andrew? Yeah.

Yep.

Go look at the product. It's gorgeous. I'm a big believer in great design is the most efficient way to communicate a dedication to excellence. Right. Like just instant you land on a website and in a half a second you know these people are serious about doing great work. I'm curious if you see a connection between your faith and your commitment to excellence. Is there a tie there for you?

Yeah, it's one of those things where I'm sure there is. It's just so tough to like really. I'm a pretty non linear thinker towards linear goals.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know if that makes sense.

It does.

Seeing these things that may seem disconnected but really are so much ingrained in each other. And so I think there's just this desire to really provide value and joy and kind of this just vision that's been put on my heart of what that could look like. And in that you want the technology to get out of the way. You want the beauty of nature to, you know that the God given nature and beauty and sustenance to really shine through. And so in some ways, yes. But I think it's also just this aspect of like getting to create a product that can truly drive joy and impact in a way that just seems like a dream. So lucky you get to work on.

Yeah.

Is awesome. And I probably don't fully understand what that potential impact or what the right way to bring this product together is. I just get to be this steward of like, hey, here are the things I think and let's put them together and see how people experiment with them and use them and does someone have an even bigger and wilder idea to take this technology, to take this product and empower people in even more amazing ways. I remember talking to an entrepreneur about using the data from your life to actually pay for your home. It was this crazy concept he had when he was designing these kind of pre built modular homes. And it just made me start thinking about is there a world in which providing a house or a structure in a country that's in a more like developing economy stage where the roof of the building pays for the building by growing food for that family, but also for others in the community. Like how can we really make these Lego blocks and these aspects available to others and let them with their creativity go and create things that I would never dream up? Hmm.

Yeah. I love it. You're proving your chops clearly as a founder, you Guys are scaling really quickly. I'm curious, what do you think is the delta between good and great founders?

Ooh, it's tough because people's definition of great is often so different, and it depends on whether you define and even that it's like, is a great founder someone that drives financial return for the investors, but ekes out all the value for themselves and out of their customers in ways that drive a lot of others, a value that could have easily been shared?

All right, so let me ask you this. How do you define great? What does it look like for you to be great in this venture? As the CEO of Farm Shelf, the.

Closest I've been able to come to it is a poem called if by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling wrote some interesting things that I don't agree with about colonialism. So that part aside, and he ends this poem in a way that is about mastering the world, which I really think should be about loving the world. But in this poem, if he talks about kind of how to handle and to meet triumph and disaster and treat both imposters the same. I think it's a great founders are able to hold these very difficult decisions and the ambiguities and hold them well and sit with them, pray and trust the Lord through them and make tough decisions that sometimes might not go the way you want. And that the best founders are those ones that can keep their head about them when all about them are losing theirs and blaming it on them, yet make allowance for their doubtings, too, is this line that's also in there. And I think the only way I see to achieve these things that are very well articulated through this poem is through faith, prayer, and really, in many ways, vulnerability. Yeah, I think the best founders are vulnerable. And I think, you know, some of the work that Bernay Brown has done and the lessons there that have been inspired from a faith perspective in many senses, from my understanding, are just incredible. And I think that's what I constantly look at, is farm Shelf can succeed and I can fail as a founder. Farm Shelf can succeed and I can succeed as a founder, but Farm Shelf can also fail and I succeed as a founder in the way that I steward it and went after it and. And responded to the situations in the best way that I possibly could.

That's really good. One of the reasons why I asked you to come onto the podcast, I think you're the only founder in this class of Praxis fellows that I asked to come on was because in your pitch, I just saw so much energy and enthusiasm for the mission that you guys are on. And I think that's a huge difference between good and great founders.

Right.

Like, are you cognizant of, of the fact that your energy can be an asset and a liability to the venture? Like, do you. Are you ever aware of that?

Definitely. And it's like jokingly, sometimes people are like, the founder is in many ways the biggest asset and sometimes the biggest liability.

Totally. Yeah.

And that's why you need to know when to get out of your own way. And innovation, I think, comes from obsession and desperation. Like, we see it in war a lot where, like, we're obsessed with like a certain outcome, but we're also desperate for it because there's no other option. In some ways it's like, why, like, limited capital helps you focus.

Yeah.

And you're only focusing on one problem. And it's like these lean startup methodologies. And so like, you really need to be obsessed with something in a way that while still, like, obviously obsession is a tricky thing to deal with that you need to hold it well still. And so it's this, that this product and what our mission is to like, you know, in the ways that we can look at, like, how do we feed and love people in radical ways, not just nutritionally, not just like, but emotionally, physically, communally. And this is really a tool as a company to do that. And through that, create incredible amounts of efficiency and wealth for investors, for employees, for users, but also for the world as a whole. You know, using less resources to create more food, providing better nutrition through better quality produce that enables people to live better lives. And then it's about community and it's about, with all these things, it's about people at the end of the day. And there's been, you know, Covid wasn't easy on us. Luckily investors really stepped up and backed us and helped us get through when kind of the corporate food service industry was, you know, also struggling. And we worked on, we built a product, this next gen product that because of the level of focus that we were able to have, is so much better than anything I think we would have been able to make otherwise is kind of the silver lining. But in those moments where it feels like, are we gonna make it? Is this the right thing? Getting to hear from our customers, but also see kind of this vision that feels like it's been put on my heart for where this could go. I found myself like just in tears listening to a little bit of worship music at multiple times during tough moments of like, okay, I don't know how we're gonna get there, but I know this is the right next step. And just to have faith and courage to take that and praying for wisdom to steward that opportunity well, including and you got to I think this is a healthy conversation to have as a founder in the right circles and in safe situations. Is there a point at which it makes sense for you to step down as CEO and into a different role? Like, you need to be a good steward of leadership, not just in the way that you are leading, but the way that you are also choosing to give that opportunity to someone else in small or in big ways.

Yeah. Being willing to sacrifice that for the good of the mission. If you believe the mission's from the Lord and this is part of how God's working in the world. I love it. Hey, take us through a typical day in your life. What is your typical routine from the moment you wake up to the moment.

You go to bed? Andrew yeah, so typical day, wake up around, know, 7:30, quick breakfast and then either try and get a workout in and if I'm a little bit groggy or if I'm a little bit more awake, then I'll just jump into some quiet time journaling and writing a few things that I'm thankful for for five minutes and, you know, just kind of setting an intention for the day. The reason I say sometimes going for a run because sometimes I don't want to sit there and journal and it's easier to just go for a run and think about things on that run.

Yeah.

Then heading to the office, bouncing between you know, various meetings with internal and external parties, and then trying to set a real intentional segment of two to three hours of kind of deep work time, whether that's midday or late day. Get out of the office by 6:30. Try and plan at least one fun social thing a few times a week, but that's, you know, dinner with a friend, community group, playing on a soccer team, and then try and not look at my phone after 9:30 at night and get to bed by 11:30.

So you're a night out. You're later than most guests, which there's a valuable lesson here because I was just writing about this in my next book, Redeeming youg Time, which is coming out in October. I think a lot of people listen to this podcast and most guests wake up at 5. Brett Hagler, who is in practice, wakes up at 4 and people get discouraged. It's like, listen, if you're a night owl, as statistically like 30% of people are in this group. You should do deep work later in the day. You should do it when your energy is at the highest. Right. Like don't try to do deep work in the morning.

Right.

Like wait until your energy is at its best. Did it take you a long time to figure that out, Andrew?

So it's interesting in that I feel it has changed with the type of tasks that my job entail.

Yeah.

When I was in finance, I was much more of a morning person when it came to kind of these financial model items and very like line them up, knock them down kind of tasks. But when it involved more creative work or more strategic and people coordination work, that that's when I started to move towards later in the day in part because getting into conversation with people early in the day and kind of getting wound up, if you will, through that helped me do better at those tasks throughout the day. And then, you know, I take at least a 24 hours off straight every week. Try to do kind of Saturday evening to Sunday evening just so I can get a few emails in. So I don't have a full Sunday is a Sabbath. But really try to make it a Saturday evening too. Very late in the day Sunday so that I can prep a little bit before going to bed.

That's exactly what my family does. Saturday night to Sunday night. How long have you been sabbathing and what has it meant for you?

The only time which I didn't was probably in part of my time at. I guess there was a time actually at Farm Shelf. There's like a segment.

So you grew up Sabbath?

Yeah.

Interesting.

I grew up in the Presbyterian church. Yeah. Went to university Presbyterian in Seattle. Earl Palmer, awesome pastor.

Yeah.

C.S. lewis, Buff.

Yeah.

And yeah. Grew up taking at least one day a week off in part because like you just can't be effective.

Amen.

If you're. You're not resting. Yeah. And interesting. If you look at the 40 hour workweek, it wasn't created for some humanitarian reason. It was created because people thought that it actually statistically led to more efficient and overall output. And so it's like, okay, so on one side we have this like, oh yeah, work all the time and sometimes you got to put in the hours but like take time off to recharge and make sure you are. It's something I'm constantly trying to work on and do better at. I am not the best at the. I've heard a lot of founders talk about a one week vacation once a year. Yeah. And that is something that for the first four Years of farm shelf I didn't do. Yeah. And I think we might have been in a little bit better place had I done that, but who knows?

So I was thinking about this the other day because I don't take a ton of of time off either. But our Sabbath, one day of Sabbath, is more restful than four or five days of a typical quote unquote vacation to me. Right. And so, in a sense, I have 52 of the most restful days. I'll pass. So I'm taking seven and a half weeks of vacation.

It's kind of how I look at it.

Right. It's just spread out.

Yeah.

You know, every seven days. It's kind of how I think about it.

I think there's some, like, deep relax. Like, the other thing is, I think there's some deep relaxation and work that comes from, like, completely turning off for a few days.

Yeah, yeah.

Outside of just the weekly Sabbath and that for me, that's even looked like. And maybe I'll get in trouble for this. One vacation I took one time was like, yeah, you know, a week off. But during it, I did some journaling about, like, some strategy items and some changes and things that I wanted to do better. Yeah. So in some ways, somewhat people would be like, oh, you were still working. Like, you touched your computer or you thought about work. But in many ways, it's like, how are you finding that time to reset and recharge, even on work where it's getting to kind of do the deep work? I know Bill Gates is famous for taking his one week in a cabin to read books and then come back with his ideas. If the type of work you do sparks that type of joy and you like to work on problems like, while essentially on a vacation, if that recharges you, great. There's no one size fits all, especially for how to recharge.

Yeah.

But I think it's like, I hear your point, but I would push back and be like, yeah, the weekly Sabbath is totally necessary, but so is a little bit longer break.

I agree with that. I agree with that. In fact, this summer, I'm taking more time off this summer than I have in a long time. Taking quite a few weeks off. So I completely agree. All right, three questions I love to wrap up every conversation with. Number one, which books do you find yourself recommending or gifting most frequently to others?

I really like the book Play Bigger.

I've never heard of this. What is this?

It is a business strategy book. How pirates, dreamers, innovators and innovators create and dominate markets. And what I like about it IS there's the C.S. lewis quote that goes like, it's not that our dreams are too big. No, it's that they're too small. We are far too easily pleased. And sometimes I think about this with business like, yo, yeah, you need to stay focused, but what's your bigger dream? Like, this could be so much grander if you just let yourself play a little bit into that. Well, what's possible? What. What could we pull off and invite other people into that?

And reminding ourselves that we worship the God who is capable of doing immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.

Right.

Like, Christ followers should be taking the biggest swings on the planet, and so often we're not.

And then taking the biggest swings on the planet and then also understanding that that does not always mean success and that your confidence and your success is found elsewhere. Like, we are not justified or, like, successful or not through works. It's really how we go through the process of, like, stewarding and approaching those things.

Right. We take big swings because of the security we have in the gospel, not so that we can earn any favor. We do it as a response of worship.

Yeah. And, like, just how do we push ourselves to love more radically?

Yes.

And we're called to love our enemy, but. And we're called to love our neighbor. But the key thing in all these, like, aspects, I think, of what are some of the most radical parts of Christianity? I mean, I love Crazy Love by Francis Chan, and there's a David Platt book that I think might be where I'm stealing part of that.

Radical.

Yeah, it's just, like, how do we do that in ways that, you know, actions speak louder than words? It's great to talk about the gospel. It's so much better to work to bring that into your life and struggle through that, but also see the fruits of that spirit in loving people, knowing that we'll fall short, but constantly pushing ourselves to love others in ways that are Christlike.

Yeah. Hey, who would you most like to hear on this podcast talking about how their faith influences their work?

The immediate one that came to mind was Bob Goff, just because he is such a bold, play bigger kind of guy. Yeah. And, yeah, I went to school with his sons who are also, like, the same type, so maybe actually Adam Golf.

Interesting.

Yeah. Because, you know, it's just. I think he's an awesome guy that it's just really fun to see the way his mind works and the way that he's Been thinking about business and, you know, living his life.

Yeah, that's a good answer. All right, what's one thing from our conversation over the last hour that you want to reiterate to our listeners before we sign off?

That it is about the journey from A to B and how you hold and steward that over the process, not about, like, the arrival of this venture is successful. This made a ton of money. I think it's one of those things. There's a saying that goes in, like fundraising sometimes that's ask for advice, get money, ask for money, get advice. And where I think you can take this and bring it to a spiritual level is like, if you focus on really loving others, adding value, and really pushing hard on challenging yourself to be vulnerable and take those risks in a way that I think in many ways requires faith that the success will come. It might look different than what you wanted. It might not be success in your definition of it, but more likely than not, the level of growth that you will have personally, the type of things that you'll be able to build will be so much greater than if you just focused on. This is a successful outcome. And that's the primary. That's the only item I care about. Yeah. Yes. You got to care about that and, you know, push things towards a successful company. But those other aspects and areas are what will actually lead to the real success.

There's a great John Piper quote. My job is faithfulness. God's is fruitfulness. We're not responsible for the results at all. Called to be faithful and obedient and as you say, radically love people. Period. Right. And trust the results of the Lord.

Yep. Show up and do what's in front of you and be the best steward of it that you can.

Hey, Andrew, I want to commend you for the incredibly important redemptive work you're doing in the world and with Farm Shelf. Thank you for your commitment to the ministry of Excellence, and thanks for hanging out with me today, guys. You can learn more about farm shelf@farmshelf.com and if you want to follow Andrew, he's at Shearer S H E A R E R on Twitter. Great handle. Perk of working at Twitter and having a different last name. Andrew, well done. Well done.

Thanks. Sometimes people think I'm a famous English soccer player, Scottish soccer player, which I unfortunately am not. I wish he was my uncle Alan Shear. I've heard. I love it.

Hey, man, thanks for hanging out with us.

Thank you.

Love that episode. Love how Andrew's thinking about his business. As a means of caring for the world, but in particular the poor and the marginalized. Hey, if you're enjoying the Call to Mastery, make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode in the future. If you're already subscribed, take 30 seconds right now to go leave a review of the podcast. I can't tell you how much those reviews mean to me and my team who reads every single one of them. Just go out and encourage this team of producers on this show in this work. Hey, thank you guys so much for tuning in. I'll see you next time.