Martha Stewart, Pitching Obama, & Lessons Learned From Justin Anderson: Serial Food Entrepreneur

Garrett (00:00:00) - Hello. Welcome to the pod with Garrett Elconin. And this is where I interview local entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, ranging from business founders and entrepreneurs to creatives and artists, to peel back the curtain on on their success and their stories so that hopefully we can extract some tools, tips and tactics that they use to become successful. And through that, I hope to inspire you, the audience, as well as hopefully give you some tangible things you can apply to your personal or professional life so that you can grow and live the life of your dreams. Hello everyone! Today I'm excited to speak with my friend and,, serial consumer packaged good entrepreneur Justin Anderson. Justin Anderson has over 20 years of experience with food products and brands that have pulled in an impressive $300 million in sales from major retailers. Beyond business, Justin's passionate about mentorship, conducting speaking engagements and even established the Dare to Dream scholarship program through sales proceeds. Since 2021, he's been focused on making Bel-Air ranch the number one seasoning rub at Central Market ECB's meat department, as seen front and center here on the display.

Garrett (00:01:20) - And then Justin's journey started in high school when he created his first product. This trail mix over here Anderson Trail and then iterated on that success creating what's oat snack. This one over here to the right, which reached 8500 points of distribution, landing spots and stores like target, Walmart, H-e-b, Whole Foods, and on air nationally with HSN. He's been recognized for his achievements through being honored at the white House and named one of the top 100 entrepreneurs in the US under 30 by Startup America and the Kauffman Foundation. In addition to his entrepreneurial pursuits, Justin served as the Olympic correspondent for Made Worthy magazine, covering the games in 2018 and 2020. So today, I have the great pleasure of peeking into the mind of an experienced CPG entrepreneur, Eagle Scout, and the brains behind Bel-Air Ranch and Justin Anderson TV. Justin, welcome to the pod. Thanks for having.

Justin (00:02:19) - Me on, Garrett.

Garrett (00:02:21) - Yes, I'm really,.

Justin (00:02:23) - That was a very nice introduction. I appreciate that, thank you.

Garrett (00:02:26) - It's,, it's quite the background in bio.

Garrett (00:02:28) - They're very wide ranging and excited to to dive deeper in all those different brands and engagements that you've been a part of. Thank you. Well, I had a great time visiting you at,, one of your demos at Central Market Tasting your newest product, Bel-Air ranch. And just got to say for the audience, I'm not a huge,, ranch guy, but either. But tasting your product, it was amazing. And it definitely converted me.

Justin (00:02:56) - Awesome. Glad to hear that.

Garrett (00:02:57) - Yeah. Whether it was the dip that you were sampling, as well as the seasoning on,, on the chicken that,, Central Market was preparing, it was absolutely delicious.

Justin (00:03:06) - I'm so glad to hear you loved it.

Garrett (00:03:08) - Yeah. So,, well, we'll definitely get into the products,, a little bit later, but,, talk about kind of when you were growing up, what,, did you have entrepreneurial passions? Where where did you end up like this?

Justin (00:03:21) - Yeah. So,, I got started, actually, my first business was before Anderson Trail.

Justin (00:03:27) - I started a audio production and video production company with my best friend Spencer Simonsen in Houston. And what got us started with entrepreneurship was Spencer's mom, Nancy. Let us have this book called How to Be a Teenage Millionaire. And Spencer and I read that, and it got us both very interested in entrepreneurship and learning how to get a business started through this book, and also had profiles from various successful teenage entrepreneurs. So it was very motivating. And Spencer and I got started with this first business back in. It was like 2001. So when we got started, I did audio production and voiceover and Spencer did video production, and we were selling things to our high school and small businesses around Houston. And. That's where it all got started was,, with that first company.

Garrett (00:04:27) - Did that make $1 million? Did you accomplish,, the book there?

Justin (00:04:30) - The really my goal, my the goal with that business was to make enough money to pay for all the equipment that I purchased, and I did that.

Justin (00:04:40) - I learned a lot about recording and editing, and today how I still use those skills today with video editing. Because essentially, if you know how to edit a piece of audio down from, you know, ten minutes to a very punchy, effective 30s, you can use that for video as well. And of course, with how technology has advanced TikTok and YouTube shorts, that's the name of the game is telling a story in the shortest amount of time possible. So those are skills that started building within me back in high school, way back when.

Garrett (00:05:16) - So then you were,, kind of growing up and then Anderson Trail. Tell me,, the origin story from that. Yeah.

Justin (00:05:23) - So again, my friend Spencer was involved with this one as well. What happened was with Anderson Trail, I went on a vacation with Spencer and his mom to a bed and breakfast in New Mexico. And around this time, I had had braces on my teeth, and I had broken a bracket off my braces from eating crunchy granola.

Justin (00:05:42) - So that had already happened. And we went to this bed and breakfast in Taos, New Mexico that Spencer's mom loved because of the granola that they had. And so at breakfast, we were served this granola and it tasted like a fresh baked oatmeal cookie. And I loved it. I could eat it with my braces. And I asked the owners of the bed and breakfast if they could sell me some, and they didn't want to. They said, this is only for guests when they're at the bed and breakfast and we don't sell it. So that was a bummer. But they did invite us to watch the owner make the granola. So from there, you know, we were taking notes and, and,, on the way back home to Houston, Spencer's mom said if somebody would sell something like this, they would be rich because granola is crunchy and dusty and tastes terrible. And this, this granola here, it's so fresh and delicious that it would blow competition out of the water. So I initially got that inspiration from Spencer's mom, and we'd already been doing this audio video production business.

Justin (00:06:53) - And so entrepreneurship was the name of the game back then. And from there I started thinking, excuse me? From there, I started from there, I started I could adjust my okay, oh, that's what's happening. Sorry. The cord starting to slowly strangle me.

Speaker 3 (00:07:12) - We don't want that.

Garrett (00:07:12) - Please stay alive during this.

Justin (00:07:15) - So. So after that trip, I started to research what it would take to start a food business in Texas, and got into the kitchen and I started to iterate on my own version of that recipe. And a little over a year later, I launched Anderson Trail. And how that product got launched was I first made it for friends and family, and then I also brought it on a Boy Scout campout for my friends to try. And I brought a gallon Ziploc bag of what was to become Anderson Trail,, on a Friday night through Sunday camp out. And by Saturday morning it was all gone. So it was supposed to last the whole weekend. But my friends in troop 705 down there in Houston, we just tore it up so that that that was the first feedback that I got that really the first customer feedback from.

Justin (00:08:21) - Well, I don't think 15 year olds are really customers, but they can tell their parents they want them to buy something for them. So that was the first real world feedback that I was getting. On what would become Anderson Trail Premium Soft granola.

Garrett (00:08:36) - That makes sense. And then,, you went off and and started selling to the marketplace and.

Justin (00:08:41) - Well, from there, that was really the beginning of, of of that journey. I had to learn what it took to start a food business in Texas. And then one of the big challenges of, of my first brand was finding a commercial kitchen to make it in. Back then, we weren't blessed with what we have now, which is rental kitchens where you can rent space in a commercial kitchen by the hour,, which is a fantastic innovation that did not exist in 2003. And so I had to look for my ideal was, let's find a caterer, because a caterer is not going to use their kitchen all, all day, all night.

Justin (00:09:25) - They don't usually use it on the weekends., they've got downtime. So let's find a catering kitchen that would have some space and some availability. And I went to one that I had called called met with the owner. And it sounded like we would be able to rent this space when I needed it. And over the like, over the months that occurred after this conversation, I had done what it had taken to get it into my first store, which was Central Market in Houston, and had to get $5 million of insurance and had to get all the nutrition facts panel figured out and your barcode and create package design. So over that process, I got to the point where Central Market wanted it. We're about to get into the store and. When it was time to reach back out to that caterer and say, hey, you know, we time to schedule some time to make the product. I was given the runaround and was not granted access to her kitchen, so that was a big letdown. And from there, what I did is I got the Houston Business Journal Book of lists, and I started calling the top caterers in Houston and one of the largest caterers.

Justin (00:10:40) - The owner called me back, got a meeting, and she basically let me into the family of her business and said, when do you want to start, you know, and had access to her space and, and was able to make the first round of that first production run of, of Anderson Trail.

Garrett (00:10:58) - So man, that's a quite a quite a path there. And being resourceful and thinking about who could solve your problem in terms of what spaces you would need and how to go about,, contacting them and finding them.

Justin (00:11:12) - Yeah. Another fun. Story from that period of time was okay. So we figured out the kitchen and we we were the week that we were making the product, I actually got friends from school to help me make my initial production run, and the initial run was to do ten cases of this of actually my original product. This is the blueberry and there's trail, which, by the way, that's that that bag is 14 years old. Don't open it and don't try it, please, Garrett.

Justin (00:11:45) - Because it looks okay, but I don't know how that's gonna taste.

Speaker 3 (00:11:49) - It's for show for tonight. Yeah.

Justin (00:11:51) - So anyway,, the week that we were making product,, we it was one night that we did it, and we got there, like, around five, and we didn't leave the,, the, the kitchen until like, three in the morning. And like, we all had school in the next day. And,, what I was told at that point was,, from my contact Central Market that it was going to take another week to have the product. To give the product the all clear for it to be on the shelf, because they needed to assign me an account number. And so I had just, you know, done all this. I had just done all this to, to make the product, you know, at the time when I thought we were going to need it, when they originally said they needed it. And then I had this,, adversity that was put into my face.

Justin (00:12:44) - So I didn't want to wait another week. I was ready to launch this thing. And so what I had,, what I did was there was a contact that I had at the local ABC affiliate and reached out to them and told them that they wanted to know when I was going to launch at Central Market. So I told them, hey, we're about to launch. And they wanted to set up this interview, you know, in the store. And so I used that interest from the media to relay back to the Central Market team, and they got that account number within a few hours. So I was able to launch that weekend.

Garrett (00:13:21) - Very smart. Get some leverage there and then pull up, pull the necessary strings to to make it happen, make it happen.

Justin (00:13:27) - Find a way to make it happen. That's that's what my journey has been about over these last 20 years. If you could sum it up.

Speaker 3 (00:13:33) - Yes.

Garrett (00:13:34) - What do you kind of what lessons did you learn or what was kind of your your most impactful lesson through creating Anderson Trail?

Justin (00:13:41) - So with Anderson Trail, one of the big learnings was the package design.

Justin (00:13:46) - The way that this product was designed was to look like every other granola product on the shelf, and so it didn't really stand out. And if you're selling something that is as unique as the whole texture and quality of the product is completely different from what is currently on the market, then you don't want to look like every other product on the market, so you can see the shiny. A glossy package, the big window and it says Anderson Trail Natural Soft Granola. The point of difference is really not communicated very well on that package. So that's, that was that was a big learning for for that brand was how it's positioned in the packaging.

Speaker 3 (00:14:31) - So Justin.

Garrett (00:14:32) - Before we get into kind of the other brands that you have, what about food do you enjoy so much. What does food mean to you?

Justin (00:14:39) - To me, food is the most powerful form of communication that we have. It's love. It's friendship. I love having friends and family over and coming up with a completely unique menu that suits the occasion for why we're gathering, picking the dinnerware and the the tablecloth.

Justin (00:15:03) - And I'm creating a completely unique experience that is not just the food, it's everything else and the setting and the environment in which you're eating. And I don't see anything else that is as powerful as that experience. So that's what I love about food. And with the products that I've created over the last 20 years. I've seen this as an opportunity to bring high quality food products made with the best ingredients available to Americans all over the U.S. so. Giving people access to things that they're not normally going to. Find in grocery stores is what I'm trying to accomplish with my products and my brands.

Garrett (00:15:57) - Yeah, and your I will get into it. But your use of different ingredients and then kind of show people different,, tasting palettes or food palettes,, is is special. And you get to share your story and, and your unique taste and, and,, with the world. So that's amazing. I love that answer. It's about the story. It's about the culture and connecting over a shared meal, which is so intimate.

Garrett (00:16:21) - And it's a great experience. So then you took Anderson Trail and then you were in college, and then you decided to keep pursuing the food path and decided to iterate on Anderson Trail and go for your next product. Tell me a little bit about why you decided to create What's Oats?

Justin (00:16:41) - So I was building Anderson Trail throughout my time at TCU, and then a couple of years after graduating, I had built it into stores across the southwest and I really just got to a point where I knew that I needed to reinvent the brand and the product based on trends I was seeing in the marketplace for healthy, indulgent snacking. And I went to. The largest natural products expo in the US. It's out in your part of town in Anaheim, California. It's called Expo West and that happens every March. And I went there actually with my best friend Spencer. We had actually at that time, we were doing a lot of Costco roadshows with Andersen Trail. And the roadshow experience is very unique in that you are in a Costco from Thursday through Sunday, from when they open until when they close and you are sampling your product, selling it on consignment, and you're selling a lot of it.

Justin (00:17:39) - And during that experience, I actually we did over 50 roadshows in about a year and a half. So I was doing that to build the brand, and the goal was to get one of my items into Costco in the southwest region. Typically you do less than 50, but it was such a great way to make revenue. And then I was learning a lot about my customers and then getting a lot of fantastic feedback from customers on the product. And so I essentially spent a year and a half learning everything that was great, not so great bad about the product and the positioning, and that was arming me to reinvent it into something else. Even though I really didn't. I wasn't really realizing that at the time. But when it was time to do something new with it, I had all of all of those learnings from that year and a half experience at Costco. And so. Spencer and I went out to Anaheim. We were there to. Look at trends in the marketplace. Find packaging ideas and brand ideas.

Justin (00:18:49) - And if you've ever if you haven't been to a trade show. It's a very hectic experience. And there are at Expo West over 3000 booths that are there with. Their product and graphics, and it's just very loud visually, and everybody's offering you a sample and it just becomes taxing on your senses. And there was a booth that I walked up upon, and it was this beach scene with white. White sand ocean, a coconut tree. And it was the booth. It was about 12ft high by 30ft wide. It was huge. And they had this inflatable beach of furniture that you could go sit on. So it was 100% relaxing. And I understood what this brand was about from the moment that I had experienced it. And it was for Zico, coconut water, which you've seen there, their brand. I'm sure you're familiar with what that looks like. And so I complimented the people at the booth on their branding and their the architecture of of how they did that, and I let them know how it actually relaxed me.

Justin (00:20:07) - And they said, oh, well, you know, you can tell the person who did it, she's right over here, the one who designed it. So I met this, this woman, Mary Beth Rampal, and she was actually the sister of the founder of Zico, Coconut Water, and architect. And I got to know Mary Beth and,. I knew that with the reinvention of my product, I wanted to work with her on the new brand and the new package design, and Marybeth and her team would be the dream team to work with. And so at that point, I knew the work here is done. We've I've found someone that I could work with on this new package design, this new brand. And and then from there, I set out to find a new partner. And so to go raise some money so that we could do this.

Speaker 3 (00:20:58) - So you were at.

Garrett (00:20:59) - This expo and then you met Mary Beth, and then you realize that you really wanted her as some strategic vision behind kind of the packaging and to help the branding and the visual aspect of, of taking this to the next level.

Garrett (00:21:12) - And so from there, how did you kind of create the, the brand what's out snack and go from there?

Speaker 3 (00:21:18) - Yeah.

Justin (00:21:18) - So after that trade show, I went out to find a new partner to work with. And through a mutual friend, I found this guy named Bill Schneider, who was the lead M&A person at Frito-Lay for several years. And Bill was looking to do something entrepreneurial, and he really liked my background and my story and the products that I had been making with Anderson Trail, and we met over several occasions here in Dallas and eventually partnered up to create votes together. And at the time, we didn't know it was going to be called votes. But I had met Mary Beth and knew that Mary Beth was the person I wanted to work with for the branding. And once Bill came on board, we were able to use some of the capital that that he provided through an angel investment to engage Mary Beth and her team to create the votes brand.

Garrett (00:22:19) - Very neat. And so what was that kind of design process like? What did you learn from Mary Beth through that branding process, and what questions did she ask that really helped set the vision?

Justin (00:22:30) - So the design process happened over about an eight month period.

Justin (00:22:35) - As soon as Bill came on board, we jumped right into it. And this was in April of 2012, and I had gone to the Expo West show the year before. So about a year in between those two things, I mean, I guess that really doesn't matter. But anyway. So we started. We started the design process in April of 2012, and we had several phone calls where we were talking about what this product was going to be, who the customer is, and. Why it's different than Anderson Trail. And the big thing with Watts is that woods is a healthy, indulgent snack. It's not granola. Anderson Trail was granola, but oats was the snack. But what's is the snack ification of granola? And so if you look at those two different packages there, you can see how Anderson Trail has the glossy finish. You can see the product. What's on the other hand, we're using white prominently. We're using a matte finish on that bag. And the product is photographed beautifully.

Justin (00:23:50) - So you know exactly what that product looks like. And if you go down the snack aisle or the chip aisle,, chips tend to be packaged where you have a photograph of the chips. So to us, a photograph communicated snack and not granola. And then we., we did a,, we did a shelf study with several different concepts that,, Marybeth and her team came up with for not only the the design of the package, but the brand name as well. So before we even had,, jumped on on the words brand as what we were going to do,. We had these different designs that were mocked up and then placed. On store shelves at different retailers, in the snack section and in the healthy, indulgent snack section, which is where we ideally wanted to have what's being sold. And so from there, we were able to see how does this product look on the shelf compared to the competition at the time. And the goal is that you want customers to look at your product first.

Justin (00:25:01) - Have it be impactful on the shelf and get someone interested enough in that few seconds that you have their attention to pick it up and learn more and then put it in their basket.

Garrett (00:25:10) - So the kind of the clean look, the packaging and the way you prominently show the branding and all of that plays a part in grabbing that attention and conveying kind of what the product is all about.

Justin (00:25:23) - Exactly. And initially it was what's with an exclamation mark? And. The bones of the design that you see here was for a different brand that they had come up with. And so I took the,.

Garrett (00:25:43) - Took the framework.

Speaker 3 (00:25:44) - I took the, the.

Justin (00:25:45) - Framework of one design. We really liked quotes, but we wanted to make that as simple as possible. So my feedback was, let's drop the H and the exclamation mark and just make the brand as impactful as you can. And so one of Marybeth designers decided to add that seven degree upward tilt, which is very subtle but helps to make it more impactful. And then overall it's what's oat snack? So we created our own description of the product in creating the word oat snack.

Garrett (00:26:22) - So then fast forward a little bit. What was your go to market strategy. And then how did you grow this brand from just inception to then getting into 800 or 8500 points of distribution, including major retailers and then nationally on HSN.

Justin (00:26:38) - So within two years of going to Expo West to get ideas for packaging and and looking at trends in the marketplace, I was launching this brand new brand with Bill in my team. And so from that experience and launching at Expo West with Mary Beth's team, we designed this beautiful and very minimal booth that made the brand even more impactful. As you're walking through this very loud space of a trade show. And there was one point on the second day where I saw this younger guy walking towards the booth and and typically I was in the booth handing out samples. But at this point I was kind of in the front bringing people in. And notice this guy. And he had he had the same pants on that I did. And so as he walked up, I said, hey, man, nice pants.

Justin (00:27:30) - And he wanted to know what what was all about. How long has it been on the market? Wanted to know all about the product. And I said, okay, well, this is our second day. We just launched it. He tried the product. So the other some of the other flavors, my favorite. In addition to the jam and strawberry shortbread, there is the Cookies and Dreams, which has a natural Oreo style cookie. And then our gently baked chunks of oats and honey. And that's that's the one that that this guy wanted to try. And he loved it. And after our few minutes of talking about whoa, it's I wanted to know his background and he had no name badge on. And I found out that he was the non Frito-Lay snack buyer at target. He was looking to test out an end cap at target of innovative snack brands. And he said at the time, like, I can't promise anything, but I'm really interested in this. We'll be in touch. Send me some samples and we'll go from there.

Justin (00:28:29) - So this was in March of 2012. By January, we were testing out loads in 50 targets on an end cap with a couple of other emerging snack brands, and from there, within a month they wanted to expand it into another 200. And then a few months later, over the summer, another 800. And so it just kept building into all of these target stores. That's amazing. Some of the other retailers that were that we were getting into from that trade show. And so, yeah, from right from the beginning. We had no problem getting the product on the store shelves. Buyers wanted it, but the big question that people had was where do we put it? Because it's not granola. It's not candy, it's not a cookie.

Speaker 3 (00:29:19) - It's an indulgent snack, healthy, indulgent snack.

Justin (00:29:22) - So we wanted to put it in the healthy indulgent. We wanted to put words where the other healthy, indulgent snacks were being placed, which at the time was a new category within certain stores.

Garrett (00:29:36) - Sort of an educational process.

Garrett (00:29:38) - With regard to this question and how to educate these retailers about this and talk to them about placement and and where this category could be and what it could what it could become.

Justin (00:29:48) - Yeah, exactly. And if they had this set or if they were testing it out, it was a no brainer. But then for other retailers, we had to get more creative, which led to more learnings for the company.

Speaker 3 (00:30:02) - So a lot of your.

Garrett (00:30:03) - Selling for these products, which is probably similar to many different products in the consumer packaged goods space, is really 1 to 1, whether it's demos, whether it's presenting to buyers. What from your experience, what lessons have you learned or what tips do you have for others when you're presenting one on one to someone? Your your product.

Justin (00:30:23) - With a with the retail buyer?

Speaker 3 (00:30:25) - Yes.

Justin (00:30:26) - So the buyer is going to want to know why your product is unique, why they should sell it, why customers are going to want it, how you're going to market it in their store, and how you're going to not only market it, but then promote it as well.

Justin (00:30:40) - So marketing a product in a store can be something like doing an in-store demo. Like what? You joined me out a few weeks ago. Or it can be,, hiring a company to do that for you. It's not going to be as good as the founder or someone from the company going in and promoting the product. But if you're looking at scaling, you know, and doing 100 demos across the state of Texas and H-e-b, for example, you might have to hire a company to do that., social media is a really powerful way to market your product as well. And so if you've built up a strong audience on social media, that's another selling point for a buyer for why they should put your product, why they should put your product on their shelf.

Garrett (00:31:24) - So tell us what happened with what's out snack.

Justin (00:31:27) - Yeah. So we ended up building that into over 8500 stores across the country. And, essentially got it to a point. Our goal was to build this brand off of our cash flow, and we were growing so quickly that, as with any company that's growing quickly, we would run into cash crunches were on our working capital, where we would have to get creative or open up a line of credit or expand it, get a shareholder loan.

Justin (00:31:57) - And we just kind of got to a point where. Bill and I had always talked about. When those cashflow crunches came up, we would talk about the need to raise capital from outside investors, not just the partners that we had established with quotes and as a two person team. Who was focused on everything. To raise money like that's a full time job. So, you know, you also have to keep the business running. And so what we would do is when a cash flow situation would happen, is we would find a way to creatively solve that in-house, either through a shareholder loan or like I had mentioned, more bank debt or what have you. We just kind of got to a point where our growth kind of stalled because we didn't have enough working capital to keep expanding the brand and adequately marketing the brand. And so when we started to when we got to the point where we said, okay, we do need to raise money. It over that period of time that that we were doing that sales dropped off.

Justin (00:33:04) - And an investor, the first thing they're looking to do when you're pitching them is a reason to say no. And so when you've got sales that are starting to weaken because of,, issues. Hold on. Don't want to use the AI word when you're with an investor, and they see that your sales have started to decline because of working capital., because of not having the adequate working capital to,, to, to keep making that product., they're going to think that there's something wrong with the business. So,, yeah, we just,. We spent several months, like eight months raising capital and. Looking back at that, we should have started that earlier, like when we were growing with targets and. It's just something that we had pushed forward. In the name of. Solving the solving the issue at hand and continuing on with the business at the time, whereas we should have. Said, hey, we've got a great brand here. Let's go raise a couple million dollars and take it to the next level.

Garrett (00:34:13) - Pour some gas in the fire. Given we have this good backer and target, and we can really grow with them and be a partner with them and then see how we can expand this.

Justin (00:34:21) - Yeah. And so. It was Bill's belief, and in mine as well, that. We had a brand that had a healthy 50 plus margin, and we could keep growing here off of our working capital that we're creating off of our sales and our growth. But. In the grand scheme of things. You're not giving yourself enough to work with. And so it created some working capital challenges.

Speaker 3 (00:34:51) - So for someone.

Garrett (00:34:53) - Who has a consumer packaged good product and they're getting great traction, and all of a sudden they get a large account, large accounts can really,, provide you with a great boost, but also comes with lots of strings attached, including production and so forth. So what questions, you know, given your experience, what questions should some founder ask themselves on whether, you know, there's this fork in the road, put some gas in the fire and go for it, or to just really say, you know, that account is a little bit too big for me for right now.

Garrett (00:35:27) - Let me maintain this organic growth and go at a more linear path versus the exponential path.

Justin (00:35:31) - It's really easy to say yes to something that can shiny, like getting into 1500 Walmarts, but. You will start to realize once a few months into that. There's going to be things that come up that that are going to be issues. And so I'd say. What I've learned in doing this for 20 years is it's a piece of advice that a mentor of mine, Clayton Christopher, told me way back when. And that's go deeper, not wider, with your sales and distribution. And that was initially our goal with quotes was we're going to build this off of our cash flow. We're going to establish this in Texas in natural and specialty stores. But after Expo West, getting the interest from target and and everything that happened from that show. There were these opportunities for growth. And we had and we didn't say yes to everyone, but,, the ones that we said yes to,, you know, we we went on it and built the brand in that way.

Justin (00:36:34) - So. There was one way that we were intending to establish a launch. Woods. Leading up to Expo West. And then once we launched there, we were given these this whole new set of opportunities of distribution, and it was up to us to decide what to to say yes to., but then once you have a product that is brand new and, and even though it's doing well, like on these end caps at target. There's a point where the end cap stops for us. We were lucky that we were on these end caps and over 1200 target stores for over a year and a half, but then there was a point where target wanted to be paid for those end caps, and we could not afford $30,000 a week to do that. And so which is a crazy number. And so we from there we're moved to a different part of the store. And so they put quotes. And this is where placement matters. So we were on this set with emerging snack brands. And then they moved us to the candy aisle.

Justin (00:37:46) - Not with the can't excuse me, not with the candy, but where you have., you know, the Utz cheese balls, like, in the big plastic container, like it was with. That made no sense. And so we were trying to get it on the granola aisle there at target, which would have made more sense than than on the candy aisle with Utz cheese poofs. But that's where they put it.

Speaker 3 (00:38:10) - So, yeah.

Garrett (00:38:11) - I mean, I also obviously I don't have experience in this realm, but I could imagine that you really want to look at what percent of your sales are coming from one customer. And if you're going to have to create all of this,, administrative work and production work just to service one customer, and then all of a sudden that customer pivots on you, such as saying, okay, the price has gone up for where your placement is. And then that could be a catastrophic fall. And now you're really at a shortfall for production because you're not meeting certain sales goals.

Garrett (00:38:43) - And so maybe taking a look at what percent of your sales are coming from that one customer, making sure you have the backbone and the foundation from your other customers to support that growth, and making sure you don't jump to the next ring that's too far in advance before you're ready, because you might hit that three that third year goal in the first year. However, you're not going to hit that seven year goal because you jump too quick and you didn't have the right foundation to build upon.

Justin (00:39:13) - Exactly.

Garrett (00:39:13) - So that's definitely something to think about. And,, make sure that you're creating the right foundation for growth. If you want to have a long term and a viable business to really scale that operation, even though that great shiny object like a, like a target, a Walmart, a Costco looks great when you get that interest.

Justin (00:39:32) - Exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:39:33) - So let's.

Garrett (00:39:34) - , take it into,, the product that you're currently working on and the brand, which is Bel Air Ranch. So tell us,, you know, quickly the, the formation story and then where you're at right now and where you think you'll, you'll be in a couple of years or what you're working on with Bel Air Ranch.

Justin (00:39:51) - So I started Bel Air Ranch two years ago after cooking a lot in my kitchen during the pandemic, which everybody was at the time, I got tired of the seasoning blends that were in my pantry, and so I went to Central Market's bulk department and got a ton of different spices there. And I started to experiment with different blends. And the one that became Bel-Air ranch was the most popular with my friends and family that I was sharing it with. And,, I got an opportunity to pitch my product to Central Market,, through through a friend that, that,, that works there. And the idea from the beginning was, don't compete with all of the other spices on the spice aisle. Let's put Bel-Air ranch in the meat department, because ultimately, a seasoning is going to go on meat or vegetables, but primarily meat. Central market has a very strong meat market program, and all their stores and beautifully executed if you've ever been in one. And there was not a lot of competition there.

Justin (00:40:59) - And so I launched Bel Air Ranch in February of 2020,, in February of 2022. Gosh, the years have gone away from us here. And,, had that in the,, Fort Worth store initially. And then by May of 22, we expanded to all their stores across Texas. And so I have been building Bel Air Ranch with the intention of going as deep as possible with Central Market and having my blinders on and not,. Doing some of the things that were done in the past, like expanding it too quickly. And so that's what I've been doing for the last two years with Bel Air Ranch, with one item, and I'm actually selling one item in three different places in their meat department. And so we've got the retail product that you see here. And then in addition to that, central market puts belly or Ranch on their pork chops and their chicken thighs, which are sold in the meat case, and then also as a pre-packed item that's like a ready to cook that you can take home and and make a quick, delicious dinner.

Garrett (00:42:11) - That's amazing. And forming that relationship with the store manager and asking them, you know, what do they need? Where do they see a product like this fitting? And then really giving you insight on how to best,, position yourself. And I think that placement and pricing is what I'm getting is the most important with consumer packaged good where you're placed and who's around you as well as, you know, kind of the price of that placement in the area, whether it's the end cap or whether you're in a refrigerated area that's more expensive for for Operation Sense. Anything else in regards to the store format that's important?

Justin (00:42:46) - Yeah. With,, with with your brand, your want, you're going to want to go to the buyer with a selling story of how you develop this product in this brand, why customers are going to want to buy it and why they need it in their store. And so like having a strong selling story, having some strong,, you'll want to have a success story that you can tell from another retailer of how you built that from, you know, two units per store per week to ten and, and, and how you've got how you've gone from 2 to 10 units per store per week.

Justin (00:43:24) - You've kept it at the ten on deal. It goes up to 15. When you put it on sale. They're going to want to know. How it's going to be successful in their store, and how you can replicate that success story in their in their stores.

Speaker 3 (00:43:39) - Makes sense.

Garrett (00:43:40) - And so what separates Bella Ranch from the other seasonings?

Justin (00:43:44) - Well, number one, Bel Air Ranch is not in a bottle. To me, a bottle spice is something that just sits in your pantry and gets old and is not made with high quality ingredients. When you've when you've got Bel Air Ranch here, you can see it's in a pouch. And the grind of those ingredients is proprietary. With my manufacturer that I have here in DFW, they grind our spices,, to a particular size for each urban spice that I use in this blend. And so when you look at it, it looks more like an everything bagel seasoning than it does a typical rub for your meat. And. Yeah, that was pretty funny.

Speaker 3 (00:44:30) - So sorry.

Speaker 3 (00:44:32) - I think we're talking about seasonings. Yes.

Justin (00:44:36) - We're breathing the same oxygen here. It's starting to get,, too much carbon dioxide.

Speaker 3 (00:44:42) - No, I think what's.

Garrett (00:44:42) - Neat about your product is the fact that, like you said, how each ingredient is, is grinded specifically for what it is and to make sure the most flavor is extracted from it for its purpose. And that really enhances the food that it's,, prepared for.

Speaker 3 (00:44:59) - Yeah.

Justin (00:44:59) - And also the ingredients that I'm using, you don't see them in spice blends. It's purple shallot, green peppercorn, a smoky Korean red pepper. Then you've got some chive garlic onion and some kosher salt. And that blend it just it elevates the flavor of whatever you put it on. And I didn't initially set out to make a ranch seasoning. But the, the flavor profile of of what that combination is. Once you put it in mayonnaise, sour cream with a little lemon, that's going to be the best tasting ranch dip that you've ever had in your life.

Justin (00:45:37) - And. That's what it is most closely associated with. When you taste those flavors. And so to me, Bel-Air means the best. And then ranch is. Kind of the flavor profile that we're going for when you make it into that dip. But as a seasoning, Bell Ranch is amazing on a steak. I,. I had so I was,, a couple of years ago, I went to Martha Stewart's garage sale, and I gave Martha some Bel-Air ranch, and I told her that it has purple shallot and green peppercorn, and it caramelizes beautifully on a steak. And she said, who eats steak? It's a beautiful Martha ism right there. But it does. And so like when you. Here's how you make the the best steak on the planet. Get.

Speaker 3 (00:46:29) - Let's hear it.

Justin (00:46:29) - Get a New York strip. You got to dry it off with a paper towel. And then you take the belly of ranch and you put it on every side. Just liberally sprinkle and coat each side of the of that steak with Bel-Air ranch, and you'll want to grind some black pepper.

Justin (00:46:46) - Why are you adding black pepper? Well, Billy Ranch has green peppercorn in it. And when you're making red meat, when you're making a steak, you'll want to have that black pepper to help round out that flavor. And then you sear it on your cast iron skillet, get it to the temperature that you want, and that Bell Ranch is going to make a fantastic crust on your steak. And when you're letting it rest right before you eat it, you want to let it rest for like ten minutes. Take some butter that's ideally a room temperature, and you just spread that butter on the steak, let it melt, and then you've got the best steak that you've ever had in your life.

Garrett (00:47:23) - I'm I'm salivating just thinking about that.

Justin (00:47:27) - And then it's also great on pork chops. You can put it on chicken thighs. Really good on salmon. What the buyers at Central Market really like about Bel Air Ranch that you can put it on every cut of meat that they're selling in the meat department. And then it's also great on vegetables.

Justin (00:47:45) - If you're making baked potatoes with a little sour cream and butter, you can taste with that addition of the fat and the acid of the sour cream. You can taste all of the flavors that are in Melia Ranch and taste all those herbs and spices. That's one of my favorite ways to eat it. And. There's versatile really nothing that it doesn't go well with.

Speaker 3 (00:48:10) - So.

Garrett (00:48:11) - So get yourself some premium seasoning. Bel-Air ranch. Do what you want with it, but it fits on fits on many different foods.

Speaker 3 (00:48:19) - Right.

Garrett (00:48:19) - So you just talked about a Martha Stewart story. You've had some awesome, unique experiences in other realms. Tell me a little bit more about the opportunities that you've been afforded, given the different products.

Justin (00:48:31) - One of the most interesting things that happened with Anderson Trail is that I had the opportunity to meet President Obama when he was in Texas, and. About two years before that, I was invited to the white House, and I got this award for being one of the top entrepreneurs under 30 in the US.

Justin (00:48:51) - And so for that trip I had actually, because we weren't sure if we were going to meet the president on that trip. And so I worked with a company to. Design. Well, I designed it, but,, I worked with I worked with the digital printing company to come up with essentially a bag of Anderson Trail that was about the size of the Billy or Ranch bag. But what we did is we put the presidential seal on it and gave it the colors of Air Force One. And if you're familiar with, like, presidential history on Air Force One, since I think Reagan, they've had customized boxes of M&Ms that they give to people that tour the plane, like if the president's in town and you're lucky to get a tour, you'll get him M&Ms. And so with President Obama, with he and his wives,, health initiative,, for. Trying to make students healthy and getting them to move. I thought, oh, it'd be great if we can get some Anderson Trail on Air Force One.

Justin (00:49:53) - And so I created these bags that had the seal and his signature, which on the M&Ms, they have the presidential signature as well. And, and had made these prototypes that I brought when I was invited to the white House. Didn't meet, I didn't get to I didn't get to meet President Obama on that first trip. But two years later, I was invited to meet him when he was in Texas, and I used that 32nd opportunity to pitch him, putting Anderson Trail on Air Force One, because what else are you going to do with that?

Garrett (00:50:25) - 30s that's amazing.

Speaker 3 (00:50:27) - It's a sales meeting and.

Garrett (00:50:28) - You had the product ready to go, so might as well use it.

Justin (00:50:31) - I showed so how this works if you're going to meet the president, there's someone that right before you meet him, they're going to want to know your name and your quick like background. And then so it was kind of like the little pre pitch before I pitched him. And I told him, Justin Anderson, I'm an entrepreneur in Fort Worth and I make Anderson Trail Premium soft granola.

Justin (00:50:52) - And I made this for him, you know, to try and you know to see not I'm not going to expect him to the president is not going to eat your food. and so what what happened was that,, advance guy,, said, okay, you can't give it to him, but I'm going to show it to him. So he, you know, I gave it to the to the guy that I just told that to. And then right after that he said, sir, it's Justin Anderson and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like he basically. And then he set me up so that I could tell him the story. And, and then he, he, he leaned in to look at the bag as the guy who showed it to him. And, and, President Obama says,, thank you. We'll,, we'll give it a look.

Speaker 3 (00:51:33) - It is not like, yeah, I've never heard of it.

Justin (00:51:35) - But hey, you know, that's fun. And,, hopefully President Obama remembers that moment that that that kid was, like, trying to sell him something for Air Force One.

Speaker 3 (00:51:46) - I'm sure.

Garrett (00:51:47) - Vividly.

Speaker 3 (00:51:48) - Yes.

Justin (00:51:48) - Not everybody else just, you know, wants a picture. So we did take a picture as well.

Garrett (00:51:52) - So that's nice. You snuck in with,, the pitch there.

Speaker 3 (00:51:56) - Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Garrett (00:51:57) - Well, another.

Speaker 3 (00:51:58) - Interesting.

Justin (00:51:58) - But with the president.

Garrett (00:52:00) - Exactly. And you got a maybe, but he said we'll.

Speaker 3 (00:52:04) - Look at it exactly the.

Justin (00:52:06) - Perfect answer.

Garrett (00:52:07) - Well, a lot of people, maybe not a lot of people, but,, a famous story of someone kind of using the press from a president is Airbnb. Do you know their story? So they basically created a funding round through creating Obama O's and Captain McCain's.

Speaker 3 (00:52:25) - Yeah. Okay. Right.

Garrett (00:52:26) - , yeah. I think I'm getting McCain's crunch. Or maybe it was.

Speaker 3 (00:52:29) - That during.

Justin (00:52:29) - The wasn't it during the convention.

Speaker 3 (00:52:31) - Exactly.

Garrett (00:52:32) - And so that was a little publicity stunt, but as well as,, you know, selling these collectible items and they, they basically created a funding round, but they didn't really leverage that so much as that was actually a way to show their creativity.

Garrett (00:52:47) - So then when they were pitching investors, they actually I'm blanking on which investors it was. But,, at the last second, I think Brian Chesky or Joe Gebbia took one of their boxes of Obama O's into the meeting. And right before, you know, the meeting didn't go so well, but they handed them this box that they created and said, oh, here you go. And the investor goes, wait a minute, what is this? And he said, oh, we created these for the convention and we raise some money. And that just was a way that this investor saw the creativity in these founders, and the way to make something out of nothing and to keep the runway, which I think is quite a story and a way to always stay creative and to then show unique ways of impressing people,, and, and solving problems.

Justin (00:53:36) - It's the way to do it. And there have been several times that I've done something like that over, over the course of these businesses. And so you had mentioned the Olympics and really the story behind that quickly is I had pitched votes for Shark Tank and had moved through the casting process to the point of them wanting a video and had filmed that submitted, that kept moving up in casting.

Justin (00:54:04) - And they had asked us to create,. So the casting people said, all right. If you can tell us what you can do with your company having the prospect of being on Shark Tank, what can you do big sales wise and marketing wise if you get that opportunity? So that's like giving an entrepreneur a blank cheque, you know? And so I had met with 7-Eleven. We had been testing quotes in some of the 7-Eleven stores here in Texas and let them know that, hey, being considered for Shark Tank, if we get on, can we get into more stores? And they were on board for that. And then on the other end, the marketing piece,, this was the time in 2018 when we had the Olympics in South Korea. And I got this wild idea to. Create this cheer squad that was going to go cheer. American athletes in South Korea. And at that time, back in 2018, thing. Tensions were very high with American and South and North Korean politics. And so remember, President Trump said, you know, he called President Trump, called Kim Jong un rocket man.

Justin (00:55:31) - And this was before they had agreed like, this wasn't even there was no concept of them meeting. Right. But then they eventually met and things were better. And so what I had noticed was there was talk about the North Korean cheerleading squad. And with the Olympics, there are no country specific cheer squads. All the countries send their best cheerleaders and they have this non country specific like Olympic cheerleading team that cheers for all the athletes. And so North Korea was able to get away with having their own cheer squad at the Olympics. And so got this idea to create squad cheer USA. The official superfans of America. And what I did was integrated that in with quotes. And I have a friend who was working at American Airlines and we were in the sauna at LA fitness talking about this idea, and I'm like, how much would it be for me to go to South Korea? And, you know, a couple hundred bucks on standby. And so I was able to use his travel benefits to go to South Korea.

Justin (00:56:39) - I created this viral style video. And a character cheers Justin, who essentially provoked Kim Jong un and challenged him to a thumb war. And we played twister and we had these big bubble balls that we were in. So I got a friend to play Kim Jong UN in the video, and essentially it was the US versus North Korea in this in this fun video. And then the US wins. And that's how I was selling the idea of going to South Korea, to the Olympics to cheer on our American athletes. Because if North Korea is going to have a cheer squad at the Olympics, America needs to have one.

Garrett (00:57:23) - We're going to need incorporated this video somewhere in,, in this podcast. We can.

Speaker 3 (00:57:27) - Do that.

Garrett (00:57:28) - Great. Bring it back from the archives.

Justin (00:57:29) - And when I was over at the Olympics, I was only there for like three days, and I was invited to a party at the Heineken Holland house through,, my friend,, drew, who was working with the he was working with team USA and,, we were able to get in.

Justin (00:57:49) - This was the last Friday of the Olympics and I had my squad cheers USA outfit on and had quotes and it was this huge party that was. Really fun. And there were all these Olympic athletes that were there. And I met the women's ice hockey team, and they had just won their gold medal. And. After this event, we were all outside, kind of waiting for our Ubers back to where we were going, and I was talking to one of the ice hockey players about quotes, and the goalie overheard me say, whoa! And she says, no way. I she's like, she's cussing, right? It's after a party. She's like, no way. I love what it's like. And she lived in Detroit. She was buying it at target. And I said, hey, could we make a quick little video about what it's like? I'm trying to get on the Shark Tank. And we did. So, you know, I had read all the rules about sponsorship and all that.

Justin (00:58:52) - And, you know, Olympic, Olympic athletes are under so much red tape for products that they can promote while they're there. And knowing that, you know, hey, like we're going to make a video with whoa, it's really quick. And I just double checked, I was like, sure, you can do this. And they're like, oh, this is over. Like it's fine. So yeah, we got had this, made this quick little video about, you know, them promoting quotes and use that as. I put that into my package to the Shark Tank casting folks to show them what I can do marketing wise with the brand.

Garrett (00:59:30) - That is going to quite the next level for a picture or a presentation for for something.

Speaker 3 (00:59:38) - So I didn't get.

Justin (00:59:39) - I know that that's what you want to know. Did he get on Shark Tank? I didn't get on Shark Tank, but I got like that process kept going. For several more months. I kept getting moved up closer and closer, and I was in like a final pool of of of candidates, but ended up not getting on that season.

Speaker 3 (00:59:57) - So I think that's an interesting it was such a great.

Justin (01:00:00) - Experience and I'm so glad that I did that. I learned so much about international travel and going to the Olympics and marketing the product and creating video content on the fly. And I met some really interesting people that I'm still friends with today.

Garrett (01:00:17) - It's an amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18) - Experience. Yeah, I think.

Garrett (01:00:20) - That's an interesting question to ask an entrepreneur is instead of providing constraints, which is usually what entrepreneurs face, whether it's money, whether it's talent, whether it's time, resources to to remove the constraints and to, you know, have a thought exercise on how big can you go that., that was what I believe Masahiro son from SoftBank did with his $100 billion vision fund. And unfortunately, that didn't really pan out too much because you kind of have too much,, flexibility and you don't really use that much creativity when you face the constraint problem. But I think it is, you know, valuable to to ask yourself those questions in general and just see how large you can think of it and kind of work your way into that large goal.

Garrett (01:01:13) - , and kind of start with the end in mind.

Justin (01:01:15) - Exactly. That's the way to do it. You have to start with the end in mind and then piece together. How can you get started on that journey today with the resources that you have available to you right now? And I think that's what people everybody's got a great idea, but it's hard to get started and actually get those wheels in motion. And so that's my biggest piece of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, is figuring out how you can prototype that idea, that product, and get started on it today so that you can start getting feedback from people and from your from your customer base that you're going to be seeking when you're actually on the market with it.

Garrett (01:01:56) - Can you elaborate on that? Let's say someone in the audience has an idea for a consumer packaged good. What would you say is, you know, the next month to three months, what should they focus on? And and how do they, you know, see if it could be a viable product.

Justin (01:02:13) - Say,, come up with your brand name, do a quick trademark search to see if anybody is using that name on that type of product. Go on Fiverr, find you can interview designers on Fiverr, where you can put up a project prompt and have them,, create examples for free. And then you can go through and find your ideal graphic designer to create that initial packaging. Probably going to be a label., and then you can find stock. Packaging online that you could put that label on and then,, start researching suppliers and. With how the internet has grown and with Alibaba and everything and all the innovation, you can pretty much find what you need and the quantity that you need. That's not just straight up retail. And so you could probably find your ingredients or your components in a way that's accessible to you today. You might pay a little more for it right now, but at least you're able to create that prototype product and start selling it and getting feedback on it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27) - That makes sense.

Garrett (01:03:28) - And so you'd probably start with friends and family, get feedback. But a great book is the Mom test, and it's a way to ask questions in a way that,, your mom wouldn't hurt your feelings through the answers because the questions are,, proposed in a way that it's not due like this, but instead getting constructive criticism.

Justin (01:03:49) - Oh, yeah, that's a great way to do it. And for me, when I knew that I had something with my first product, Anderson Trail, it was when I had people that were not related to me tell me that they liked it because I, you know, just like people on on a, on American Idol, like your family's going to tell you you're a great singer and then you go on there and you just sound terrible, right? Like, I didn't want that for my product. And so I wanted to get that feedback from from folks that I didn't know personally. And, and then the ultimate,, in that case, the ultimate,.

Justin (01:04:24) - Positive feedback for my initial product was getting Central Market interested in it, because they only sell the best stuff on the market, so if they wanted it, then I think I had something going on there.

Speaker 3 (01:04:34) - So Justin.

Garrett (01:04:35) - This is,, Bella Ranch's your third product and,, and brand. So what lessons have you learned from your other brand experience that you've incorporated into this one that you've seen,, bear fruit?

Justin (01:04:48) - So the biggest lesson that I've learned with my other two brands that I'm incorporating into Bella Ranch are go deeper, not wider, with your distribution.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58) - Can you explain that a little bit further?

Justin (01:05:00) - Going deeper, not wider, means to optimize your sales and marketing in the stores that you're in and making your product sell as much as possible in those accounts, and not losing focus on other retailers where you could spread too thin with your distribution and lose track of your overall product and brand and turn in those stores.

Garrett (01:05:29) - Makes sense. And has there been a pivotal moment or a milestone in either of the brands that you've started that kind of stands out to you?

Justin (01:05:38) - Well, with Anderson Trail, the big milestone after the initial success with getting it into central markets was realizing that I've got something bigger here, and it's not granola, it's a snack.

Justin (01:05:55) - And so that realization that it was time to rebrand and go a different direction was the biggest milestone from the first product there and then with Bella Ridge. So far I've been growing it on a bootstrap based off of the. Revenue that we're making. And. I've used everything that I've learned from my first two brands in that product, and it's been going well. So I've, I've, I've just been in Central Market in those ten stores, going as deep as I can with the marketing and the sales and with just one item. And so where it's going next is I've been developing some new products for Central Market,, for their meat and seafood departments, where I see Bellaire Ranch going after Central Market is going into HEB. So that's the next natural step from establishing your brand in those ten stores is go to central markets, as they call it, their Big Brother retailer, which H-e-b owns Central Market. And so I'm already technically I'm I'm already an HEB vendor, but we're just selling the central market.

Justin (01:07:09) - So I've got all that paperwork done. Let's just get into,, into their stores next. So that's where I see it going. After expanding Bellaire Ranch into some new flavor profiles, I can see building it from there into H-e-b.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26) - That makes sense. You've been on.

Justin (01:07:28) - That success in their sister company.

Garrett (01:07:30) - You've been in the entrepreneurship game for a little bit of time. What are some,, embarrassing stories that you have,, being in the trenches, whether it's,, yourself or that you've been a part of.

Justin (01:07:42) - Another Martha story is. Well, she's been an inspiration to me since I was a kid, and I had an opportunity to go to her office for this event that she did, called American Made and with American Made. She was looking for the best makers in America in different categories like food and upholstery and fashion design and housewares. And so I went to her office in New York with,, my friend Camille Carlyle, who was helping me with what's social media at the time and at this two, at this two day event, we were chosen to have lunch with Martha and.

Justin (01:08:26) - Well, about 20 people were chosen to have lunch with Martha. And as we were lined up to go back to where we were going to have this lunch, I was like, Camille, we have to like, we have to sit next to her or whatever it takes. So Camille amazingly followed Martha into the room, and there were three tables, and you had to figure out, like, where is she going to sit? So we figured that out, and I was set to Martha's right. And then Camille was right next to me. And so the embarrassing part of that story was when lunch was served. They put down the plates in front of us and Camille says, I love quiche. And Martha said, it's frittata.

Speaker 3 (01:09:10) - That's a good one.

Garrett (01:09:13) - Martha loves those little quips.

Speaker 3 (01:09:15) - And she's good. She's so dry.

Justin (01:09:16) - With her humor. Yeah.

Garrett (01:09:18) - Yes she.

Speaker 3 (01:09:18) - Is.

Justin (01:09:19) - But so the other part of of kind of the two different Martha things that I've told you was, well, lunch with her and then going to her house for that tag sale.

Justin (01:09:28) - Well, at the tag sale, I ended up finding the unique chairs that we sat in at the lunch in her office at the tag sale. So I ended up buying those. And at the bottom of the chairs it says Personal Property of Martha Stewart. And so when we had that lunch, we were actually in her personal office at our headquarters there.

Speaker 3 (01:09:48) - So if you could go.

Garrett (01:09:49) - Back in time and share one piece of advice with your younger self, what would it be and how would it change the course of your journey?

Justin (01:09:59) - If I was here with 16 year old Justin, I would tell him. Go deeper and.

Speaker 3 (01:10:06) - Wider with your.

Justin (01:10:07) - Distribution because, I mean, that was the big that was with Watts. Which of the three products? That's the one that has been most widely distributed. It's learning when to say no to a retailer and only saying yes when you know you can adequately market your product and your brand in their.

Speaker 3 (01:10:27) - Stores to.

Garrett (01:10:27) - Make your product successful. So it performs well and shows well.

Justin (01:10:31) - Exactly. That's that's the advice that I, that I would give young Justin.

Speaker 3 (01:10:36) - That's great.

Justin (01:10:37) - And that's, that's the advice that I'm living by today by. Building, Bel-Air Ranch and Central Market. There have been opportunities to go to other retailers, but I've stayed focused and there are great things that are on the horizon for the brand. That's great.

Garrett (01:10:55) - All right, let's play a couple fun, creative games and test your entrepreneurial creativity mixture with the branding and marketing as well as your your food expertise. With this one, you're going to combine two distinct food genres. And then you're going to merge elements from both genres, food genres to create an amazing product and then describe kind of the flavors, the ingredients, the cooking techniques, as well as how you would market it and distribute the product. So first,, let's start with what are two distinct food genres that come to mind, okay.

Justin (01:11:33) - , Tex-Mex and Japanese.

Garrett (01:11:36) - Tex-Mex and Japanese. So what food product would combine both of those food genres to create a great.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47) - Food.

Justin (01:11:47) - Two words. Sushi. Tacos.

Garrett (01:11:50) - Sushi. Tacos. Tell me more. What's in them? How would you make them and where would you distribute them?

Speaker 3 (01:11:56) - You've got your.

Justin (01:11:56) - Sushi grade salmon, and then you make a nice spicy sesame based sauce for it. No rice. We're not using rice. We're going to have that crispy taco shell though.

Speaker 3 (01:12:08) - Yeah, but it's.

Justin (01:12:09) - Going to be custom for that product. And this would be at a restaurant. Of course you hard to sell that fresh unless we're going to innovate in-store sushi production which there is an opportunity there. You've got tens of thousands of. Sushi. Restaurants that are in grocery stores across the country are like, not they're not restaurants, but they're making it fresh every day.

Garrett (01:12:33) - I also believe that the sushi tacos would be great for those that have difficulty using chopsticks, and they're fearful. They don't want to be embarrassed. They end up going for that fork, which we know that's pretty unfortunate at a sushi restaurant. So you just order the sushi tacos, pick it up with their hand, eat it delicately.

Garrett (01:12:50) - The the taco shell just falls apart in your mouth, and it tastes delicious, but it's still sturdy, so you can go for that second and third bite.

Justin (01:12:57) - And it's social media on trend also. I think,, that sounds really delicious. And it needs to happen. So when are we going to start this thing?

Speaker 3 (01:13:07) - It does.

Garrett (01:13:08) - We'll add it to the list., this has been great. Justin, do you have anything else that we haven't yet talked about? Any words of advice for any aspiring entrepreneurs, whether it's consumer packaged goods or just in general, whether it's,, starting and launching a company during school partnerships, anything that you would,, that we haven't talked about yet that you'd like to share with the audience? Yeah.

Justin (01:13:31) - So I'd, I'd recommend aspiring entrepreneurs to find someone in the industry that they want to go in that either they've already been doing it for many years, or maybe they're just a few years ahead of you. But find someone who can be a mentor figure to you and reach out to them and ask them if they're open to being a mentor, and meet with them regularly so that as you get started in your entrepreneurial journey, you have someone that you can get advice from.

Justin (01:14:02) - Or if you run into an issue, you can excuse me. If you run into an issue, you can get,, their feedback and what they would do in that situation., and,, it's just it's great to have someone in your corner who has been through what you're going through,, who can,, be a good sounding board for how you can get over whatever your situation is when that comes up, because you're going to run into roadblocks. Things might be smooth sailing,, for for a bit, but then you'll eventually come to a point where you'll need,, some, some advice to,, get over that hump and keep growing your your business.

Garrett (01:14:42) - That's great advice. And someone that's that's been there before and can help you because entrepreneurship is a is a lonely path. And so making sure that you have someone to, to talk through,, issues, roadblocks, whatever it is on your mind so that you can continue pushing forward.

Justin (01:14:57) - So the second piece of advice that I have for entrepreneurs is to get as much industry specific education as you can get.

Justin (01:15:04) - And by that I mean finding the industry trade association involved with the industry that you're going into. So for me, it's the Specialty Food association. And back when I was in college, back when I was in college, I had a mentor, David Miner, who was the founding director of the entrepreneurship program at TCU. And there was an opportunity that came up to go to the Fancy food show in New York and not only attend the trade show, but. Experience the educational sessions that they have. And so it's kind of on the fence about going. It was quite a big investment. And David told me, Justin, if you go to that trade show and you don't feel like you got enough value out of it,, for the money that you spent, I will pay for the trip. So he challenged me to make the investment and go experience it. And it was one of the best things that I'd ever done. So it taught me firsthand that, number one, get that industry specific education and then continue it as you build as an entrepreneur.

Garrett (01:16:16) - Yeah, I think that's great advice. And I've always heard, you know, just get in the room because you never know what you'll learn, who you'll meet or what, what may come of it and the skills you may get., so that's a great piece of advice. And that's a great mentor as well, to really challenge you and then come up with a solution to really push your thought process.

Justin (01:16:36) - Getting in the room helps you get a seat at the table.

Speaker 3 (01:16:39) - Oh, there you go. That's a good one. Well, this has been.

Garrett (01:16:43) - Wonderful, Justin. How can people find your product? Bel-Air ranch? And then how can they contact you and,, yeah, see more of what you're up to.

Justin (01:16:52) - So Bel-Air ranch is on social media. Eat Bel air, eat Bel Air. That's the website. Also, if you want to buy it online, you can find it at Central Market and their meat department. And then you can find me on Instagram at cheers, Justin Wright.

Garrett (01:17:10) - And then also on his Instagram, he,, explains or he publicizes where his demos are so you can,, taste his product. You can meet the maker at his events,, here in DFW. And,, yes, it's,, I definitely suggest that I did that. And, Justin, this has been such a great conversation and looking forward to seeing the evolution of Bel-Air ranch, what other products you come up with. And,, continuing,, the progression with,, your CBD products.

Justin (01:17:41) - Thank you so much, Garrett, for having me on. I really enjoyed our conversation today.

Speaker 3 (01:17:45) - Anything. Thank you.