The Exchanges

Q And these processors, producers are, they don't want to just sell you 500 dollars of the meat. So you, you know, 10,000 dollars you had of your own money, how are you going to get the cash to launch this thing?

A Right, and it's amazing how these, like, constraints can actually shape the business that you're in. So we launched with a Kickstarter campaign, um, and the idea behind the Kickstarter campaign was that we were going to be able to get a whole bunch of pre-orders, and then we were going to be able to order the meat from Nesvig's and ship it to customers. And the, the other thing that we did, which was, like, very unique and had really never been done before, And again, it was because we wanted to like save money was we said, you're just going to choose. Do you want beef? Do you want beef and chicken? Or do you want beef, chicken and pork? And then we're just going to send you whatever we want. Like we're going to surprise you.

AI assessment note: “we launched with a Kickstarter campaign”

Q What, tell me the story of, about what was custom made?

A Sure. So, yeah, this is, um, 2007. Seth is, has moved into an apartment and decides that he wants to get a fancy coffee table, and he wants to custom make his coffee table. And so he's doing his research, and he's on this website, custommade.com, and that ends up getting this beautiful coffee table from a woodworker in Maryland. And he's talking to the woodworker, and the woodworker's like, I get all my business from this website custom-made. It's amazing. And I pay 35 dollars a year for my membership. And a light bulb goes off in Seth's head, and Seth calls me, and he says, hey, we should buy this, this website custom-made.com. You know, this, this guy gets all of his business, and he's paying 35 dollars a year.

AI assessment note: “Seth is, has moved into an apartment and decides that he wants to get a fancy coffee table”

Q So, eventually, you You leave the business and it, it sort of starts to wind down. And I, I read that you were able to find new jobs for most of your employees, which is correct. It's pretty great. Um, but what about the, about custom made with the website and stuff? What, what happened to it once, once you left?

A So the website, uh, remained. So what ended up happening is, um, Seth and four other people remained at custom made. And essentially bought it out of bankruptcy. And he has done the miraculous job of pivoting it to a jewelry site. So it's custommade.com. It's a custom jewelry, and they do everything themselves. So there's no back and forth with a maker. You're going back and forth with a designer who is an employee of custom made. And the, the, the model actually works amazingly well. You can get, uh, you can get a custom engagement ring for cheaper than you can get it in a store, and you get to actually say exactly what you want, what you want done. So the dream that we always had is actually starting to, um, come to fruition.

AI assessment note: “Seth and four other people remained at custom made. And essentially bought it out of bankruptcy.”

Q So if, if, if, if your link gets somebody to subscribe every month that they pay the subscription fee, and it's anywhere from like 99 to now almost 300 bucks, right? Depending on the box that influencer would get 10 bucks a month.

A Yeah, at the time we had one box, it was a 129 dollars. Um, and so they would get anywhere from 10 to 15 dollars per month, and they loved it. You know, I, I often joke that I think the American dream is to sit on your ass and collect checks, and that was essentially what was happening. I mean, people were able to send an email a quarter to their email list and say, hey, ButcherBox is great, you should sign up, and then just on a monthly basis just get pretty sizable checks. And so we reached out to anybody in paleo, in CrossFit, in keto. Keto was just kind of starting, but in that world, we reached out to all of them to try to get them to promote ButcherBox.

AI assessment note: “they would get anywhere from 10 to 15 dollars per month, and they loved it”

Q And why did you, what, what was interesting to you about joining? What, what attracted you to that?

A I just felt like, um, the world was not going to be in a better place if we just let corporations do whatever they want. And I remember reading a book when corporations rule the world, and I remember being very scared about corporations being allowed to do whatever they want to do. And so I go to this protest, and I'm holding a sign. I believe I was outside the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. I was outside some hotel in New York City. And I'm sitting there with my sign being like, hey, hey, ho, ho, you know, corporations have to go. And I just got this, this, this voice almost in my head that said, you won't change the world from this side of the fence. And that was a turning point in my life where I decided to dedicate my life to Being on the other side of the fence, to, to running companies, and to try to prove that you can do well by doing good.

AI assessment note: “I decided to dedicate my life to Being on the other side of the fence”

Q All right. Now the question is, how do you do that? Right.

A And the reason for the monthly subscription was when we were at custom made and we had these makers who were at the very beginning who were this listing service, monthly subscription is amazing if you keep the person, right? And so I just thought, well, people buy meat all the time. I imagine they would just prefer to have a monthly subscription. And so, and I was looking for a hobby business and I felt like it would be much easier to just sell someone once and then, you know, kind of dial in their meat subscription. And so Ron comes in and he says, first of all, he's like, It's too much beef. You need to move into other things as well. He's like, you know, people are going to want chicken and they're going to want pork. And by the way, those two species have the same issues in terms of being able to get a high quality product. And so it became rather than just like grass-fed beef, it became a beef, chicken, pork. That was kind of what we were, what we were looking at. And Ron had all these connections. He had a connection with a company in Wisconsin called Nesvig's, and Nesvig's had, uh, meat cutting next to a frozen fulfillment, uh, distribution center. So it really solved all of our problems all at the same time.

AI assessment note: “Ron had all these connections. He had a connection with a company in Wisconsin”

Q So is there a world where you could create a system in the US where a small farmer with a hundred head of cattle certifiably raises those cattle on grass and then sells them to you, and then you guys continue to raise them on grass And then you actually take over the process of slaughtering. And I mean, is that efficient? Could, could you imagine getting into that business?

A Yes, absolutely. Um, I'm going to take a detour and answer your question, but I read somewhere that CEOs have a seven year shelf life. And at the end of seven years, you need to either replace yourself or reinvent yourself. Um, And my seven year mark was Memorial Day weekend of 2022. And I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to replace myself or reinvent myself. And I don't want to replace myself, but I do want to reinvent myself. And if I look at the last seven years, what did I do? I'd spent a lot of time with my hands in the business and my head down. And now I want to have my head up and to be really, to be working on what I call the transformation. You know, we've said as a company that our mission is to transform meat. That's a big mission.

AI assessment note: “I'm going to take a detour and answer your question, but”