Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
340 Philipp Stangl - Why an award winning hybrid blended regen meat company decided to exit before becoming a ‘unicorn’
A check-in conversation with Philipp Stangl, co-founder of Rebel Meat (now Rebel Kids), a company we featured earlier working on hybrid blended meat. The story isn’t over, but definitely didn’t develop as we discussed more than 3 years ago.
Let’s all talk much more about changed plans and pivots and companies not being overnight unicorn successes. The founders of companies, in general, have to be very optimistic and visionary people. They need to convince people to join their crazy ideas and people to partner with them and invest in their vision. But things don’t always go as planned; actually, usually they don’t go as planned. But we hardly talk about that. We as society mostly cover the beginning of a story where everything still seems possible or the end where exits or big successes happen.
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Today it's time for a slightly different type of interview. Founders of companies in general have to be very optimistic and visionary people. They need to convince people to join their crazy ideas and people to partner with them and invest in their vision. But things don't always go as planned. Actually, they usually don't go as planned, but we hardly ever talk about it. We, as Societly, mostly cover the beginning of a story where everything still seems possible or, quote-unquote, the end where exits happen and big successes, etc. Society mostly cover the beginning of a story where everything still seems possible or, quote unquote, the end where exits happen and big successes, etc. Today we have a check-in with a company we featured earlier, working on hybrid blended meat, mixing regen meat with really high quality vegetables, and the story is absolutely not over, but it definitely didn't develop as we discussed more than three years ago. I hope this is interesting and relevant and useful for you and let's all talk much more about change plans, pivots and companies that are not being an overnight unicorn to success.
Speaker 1:Agriculture and food podcast Investing as if the planet mattered, where we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems, while making an appropriate and fair return. Why my focus on soil and regeneration? Because so many of the pressing issues we face today have their roots in how we treat our land and our sea, grow our food, what we eat, wear and consume, and it's time that we, as investors big and small and consumers, start paying much more attention to the dirt slash, soil underneath our feet. To make it easy for fans to support our work, we launched our membership community and so many of you have joined us as a member. Thank you. If our work created value for you and if you have the means and only if you have the means consider joining us. Find out more on gumroadcom slash investing in RegenAg that is, gumroadcom slash investing in RegenAg or find the link below Welcome to another episode.
Speaker 1:Today we have Philip back on the show. We had him on July in 2021. He's the founder and co-founder of RebelMeet and today we sit down to see lessons learned. There was recently an exit, but not the way you normally have, these celebrating stories of I don't know the multiples, et cetera. This is a company in the region space of the blenditarian movement, as we called it, or you called it back then and I'm really looking forward to unpack a CPG brand trying to disrupt the clean label space, trying to disrupt the meat replacement space and trying to disrupt the need replacement space and see what we can learn here. And the story is not done yet. This is not a postmortem, it is an in-between step, but I'm very, very thankful for Philippe to come here and be vulnerable, because it's not something we often see with founders. Unfortunately, we only see the success stories and then things go silent if things which often happen don't go exactly as planned. So welcome back, philippe, and thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1:And for anyone that didn't listen to the original one, shame on you. I will definitely put the link in the show notes below. But just as a brief introduction into RebelMeet, how did it get started? We're going to keep this brief, brief, but still just to get a bit of a framing, because rebel meats could mean many different things. Could be completely alternative. Protein side, could be lab-grown meat. It could be like what should people imagine when they hear rebel meat?
Speaker 2:yeah, so, basically, I think we were one of the pioneers in this blended meat movement and the idea really was more or less at the peak of alternative proteins, probably back in 2020 or at the maybe first peak of excitement, and when we realized that there are a lot of plant-based options but back in the days, still only very few people actually, um, you know, consumed it on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:There were a lot of people trying, but most of people still then went with the meat based options, and we thought there's got to be a way, um, to build this, to build this bridge between people always eating meat and then some vegans or vegetarians eating the plant-based products, and we thought that hybrid products or blended products, which is probably a bit better word for it would be a great way of getting people that love meat to put a bit more plants into their diet by basically offering products that consist of half meat and half plant-based products, with the additional benefit that, if you go with this route, you have perfectly you know organic origin meat in the products, which tastes amazing.
Speaker 1:So, for the plant-based part, you don't need any highly processed ingredients and, yeah, you can basically have a very natural product to to, yeah, have the perfect meat taste yeah, because I, if I remember correctly from then I think it's still the case the fact that you basically only need half of the like 50 percent of the weight in meat and animal protein in general means which is usually the most expensive piece of uh, of the uh of the ingredient list, means you have a lot of space left and it tastes amazing, which means you don't have to put a lot of additives on flavor, and that means meant basically you could buy uh the best quality meat and the best quality vegetables and still reach a price point. That was interesting and not have you completely out of any kind of reach of range of people. And so what happened? What happened over the last years we had a blenditarian movement hasn't completely broken through.
Speaker 1:I think you also mentioned the peak of the alternative protein. I think it's been deflating quite a bit, not going away anytime soon, but definitely the hype phase, probably for good of, for good reasons, um, and for anybody in the space, probably also better, because now you can get back to work instead of being hyped the whole time. Um, what? What is? What has been a big shift from um july 21 to to now the end of the summer in 2024?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's been definitely quite a ride, so maybe, um, there's there's several things that that we could look at here. Maybe start a bit with the product um timeline or product roadmap. So we started out with a very high quality premium product, so it was an organic beef and organic king oyster mushrooms. Now, for people in the space know that mushrooms have a lot of water, and to be able to to somehow and really use it for our products, we had to basically use two kilos of mushroom for one kilo of final product.
Speaker 2:Now, you probably know it doesn't sound like it yeah and you can see that you know it's gonna be quite expensive. The end product and I mean it was amazing, right, the beef and and mushrooms, it's really umami, a bomb and you can, you can imagine it tasted really amazing. It won a lot of prices, but it was. It was a very expensive product and you were making it yourself no right.
Speaker 1:You were working with third party. We were always working with partners yeah, and then selling it into the retail, which is notoriously difficult.
Speaker 2:Right. So we actually started going into food service and gastronomy when we started in 2019. But due to the pandemic which hit in early 2020, and which basically closed down a lot of food service or at least closed down their doors for new products because they had other problems, we had to pivot into retail, which actually worked well in the beginning because they were quite open for innovation. They had really amazing years retail during the pandemic, so it worked.
Speaker 1:So they were happy to try something. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So getting in is the easy bit, staying on the shelf is the harder bit, and so, yeah, we soon realized this product was a bit too, too expensive and we basically then made a switch away from from mushrooms towards vegetables. But it was actually quite a good switch for us. On the one hand, of course, we made the products cheaper, but it also made us more flexible, so so we could use a wide variety of vegetables and really have a big range of different products frozen and fresh, and it was quite a good product portfolio that we had, portfolio that we had. Um, but I think with the, the blended meat products, even though they again the one price is, when we compared them to other products, many people actually preferred the blended meat product and to the 100 meat product I'm starting to doubt, like if you win prizes and it's not a guarantee.
Speaker 2:It definitely isn't. But again, like, the funny thing is this just recently there came out a study you can probably put the link in the notes or something and where again a very big study in the us where blended meat products actually outperform 100 meat products in terms of taste and also plant-based products in terms of taste. So there is definitely something there, but it's just so hard to communicate that we couldn't really find product market fit for these products, just because I guess you know it's always easy to communicate extremes. Because I guess you know it's, it's always easy to communicate extremes um, either super meat, masculine kind of communication or, on the other hand, super revolutionary, planet-based vegan communication, but kind of the sensitive middle ground that makes sense on paper and it's, it's very hard to communicate and put with in connection with positive emotions.
Speaker 2:So we we tried really a lot to get these products going, but in the end we had to realize, you know, we just don't have product market fit for these kind of blended products. But fortunately we realized one thing and that was a use case for the products that we hadn't anticipated at all at all, and that was when parents told us that they use our products to feed their children because that's the only way they would eat vegetables, and that was really a very interesting do you remember when that, that that realization hits you, or when somebody?
Speaker 1:yeah, I think you know, we, I don't remember. If you have children yourself, you can relate to that. But like, how did that? How does?
Speaker 2:that it. It actually came in conferences.
Speaker 1:You're busy on changing the protein space You're busy on, and then somebody says, yeah, this is the only way I can sneak in some good veggies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it happened to us on conferences. So we spend a lot of time on both B2B trade fairs but also a lot of B2C conference or trade fairs and events where we had tastings and actually tried to speak a lot to our consumers to understand if they like it or not and why and if they know it already, etc. Which is one of the best research channels, especially if you sell via retail and you don't have this direct customer access. So and then, yeah, basically, uh, we started to hear that more often and we thought, okay, there might be something there and we actually started a children's product line which was first called rebel meat kids yeah, I remember because, just full disclosure, we, we are small with janry regeneration, we are syndicate, we're a small investor in rebel meats.
Speaker 1:I remember not super active, but I remember the updates coming in and new releases and the kids side, which makes a lot of sense. We've talked about kids, uh, food and and not that I'm in favor of sneaking in vegetables, necessarily, but I know how tricky it can be sometimes. Um, yeah, the kids side. Let's say you cannot start young enough with good food, definitely, and and people and parents are willing to pay.
Speaker 2:That's that definitely and and once you, once you had that insight and started looking into kids food oh my god, did we find out? There was so much to do there. I mean, there's a lot of products that are marketed towards children and that use a lot of very expensive licensing of hollywood children brands, etc let's not mention them here, but yeah, you can imagine there are certain ice theme things that are, uh, they're cold if people know exactly, and many others and which, of course, are super expensive.
Speaker 2:I always thought, of course, yes, it's such a and unfortunately, really there tends to be a correlation the more marketing there is um, the worse the product. It's not true for all of them, but um it's avoid. Yeah, it seems like um really products marketed towards children typically, you know um a lot of a lot of sugar and very little organic options um, probably because you know the the money just goes into marketing rather than in product quality, and so and even the organic options.
Speaker 2:I remember we had jacqueline I'm gonna find the name pumpkin she's.
Speaker 1:She's one of the of the good examples, definitely and we had her on here and she was saying, yeah, even the organic options are like mainly organic apple and banana because it's the cheapest filling you can find, still very, very um sweet. And actually most research suggests and most people like it's not that fruit is the first thing that children should eat. They should actually eat vegetables, different blends and different things. We should get them used to the more bitter flavors because maybe then you don't have the issue you have later. But the world there is shocking. I would encourage any new parent or parents in general and any non-parent just have a look. It's fascinating. The margins are very interesting if you look at the kilo prices for a lot of these foods. But if you look at the kilo prices for a lot of these foods, but if you look at the ingredient list even of the organic options, it's shocking most of the time.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And, on the one hand, you have all these terrible options and, on the other hand, there's actually quite a big need for convenience, because you know parents, they're often overwhelmed. Obviously, it's quite difficult with children and they're hungry when they're hungry and they need food now. And so we started looking into this category and realized, okay, there's actually so much potential. And, yeah, we developed a couple of more kids' products and finally took the decision to do a pivot and really, um, focus 100 on the kids products and renamed the company to rebel kids, which was a very good decision product-wise, a very hard one, because we also lost a lot of of revenue.
Speaker 1:um, but I think you know, just being able, you didn't keep like the people that kept buying the stuff even though it's in the kids kids aisle or that.
Speaker 2:Well, you know how do you take a decision like that?
Speaker 1:not to keep going for two like how do you, how do you decide something like that you have a revenue source which is not exploding but still significant, and then you close like what, what was the the decision to not do it?
Speaker 2:parallel yeah, I think really, we. We know that we have very limited resources, both in terms of, you know, staff, but also a marketing budget, and if we then have a parallel product line and then basically we cannot spend on either of them in any meaningful amount, that is basically a recipe for failure. So we knew we had to focus and, you know, it also felt the right thing to do because we had one thing that worked well and another product line that didn't work well. So it felt like the right thing to do and and just focus but you said you had to change the products as well.
Speaker 1:What kind of changes did you?
Speaker 2:yeah, of course, like you know, earlier we more had sausages, burger patties, etc. And then, with the kids line, we focused more on chicken nuggets, meatballs, these kind of kids-friendly products.
Speaker 1:Oh, I hate that term, I'm really annoyed. In restaurants Sorry, I'm getting on my pedestal Now we can make something for the children and I'm like, yeah, they eat the same as we do, they just might be a bit more picky. Or they decide X, y, z today, and not A, b, c, but at the same day we order exactly the same. And it's a fascinating world of kids, uh, kids, food. So what you, you pivoted, you change takes a lot of time, takes a lot of money, and and so what? What was the reaction, let's say, of the, of the market, and not just of the parents that were happy, that were already buying it anyway, to, to sneaking in things like what happened next?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think so. On the product and and consumer and also on the retail partner side, reactions were very good. Um, but we also realized okay, now we have changed from a food tech startup, which we were in the beginning, to a cpg startup and what's the difference, like how, how was it?
Speaker 1:how did that change?
Speaker 2:well, there's, there's several things to to discover here, but, like, one thing is that in the beginning, we also had this vision of blended meat becoming the entrance point for, uh, lab-grown meat. So, you know, that is, that is probably still what's what's gonna happen like if lab-grown meat is gonna know that is, that is probably still what's what's going to happen like if lab-grown meat is going to come to the market at all. It's definitely going to come as a hybrid product, and our basic idea when we started was you know, we're building this hybrid brand and we're preparing consumers for it and once there is a lab and we can, we can, you know, just switch the source very easily.
Speaker 2:We already have all the hybrid recipes, etc interesting you know, yeah, we, we actually we had um a lot of conversations. We had even had one um signed partnership with a lab grow meat startup and where we actually also reserved um the supply chain of uh, of lab-grown meat. But yeah it, it never, it never came and it probably won't be able to. You know, there won't be hybrid lab-grown meat products anytime soon, um why is that?
Speaker 1:for I'm not really following I'm seeing it from like the outside the incredible hype you mentioned before, and then sort of deflation and and I'm also seeing it from the outside, so I don't, I don't know what the actual yeah, but for sure, if you're able to sign, yeah, yeah, an mou or something with with a company, you're a bit more inside.
Speaker 2:So I think back back in 2022 or 2023 when we took the decision, it did seem like that lab-grown meat will still take a lot of years before it can come to market.
Speaker 2:Like the upscaling issues were just very, very tough to crack, and obviously, I mean especially for Europe. Still, the whole regulation regulation issue, of course, comes on top, and so, yeah, it didn't seem like there was, there was a good way for us to, to wait to get that going. And, on the other hand, um, we also realized that blended meat you know it's it's actually more a matter of product development than actual research, and so this is, you know, this is what cpg companies do as well, and, um, yeah, we basically that, of course, changed a lot the investment case. Right, because you suddenly, um, you need to have a pnl, uh, that is more according to, yeah, cpg company, and you cannot invest a lot of money into research and at some point it's going to scale crazy, but you have to, you know, grow organically into um, into making a profit, and that is something very different just from a business case, or investors, conversation with investors, yeah, and your investor base, and things like that as well.
Speaker 1:So when you realized that, then then what did you do?
Speaker 2:um, yeah, basically, and so there was one thing that changed, um in in the setup of our company, I guess, and then the second thing that changed, of course, in 2022, was the crazy food inflation that followed the Russian war and with that later on, the complete collapse of the venture market, more or less, especially, uh, food startups or anything non-ai related. And did you think about putting?
Speaker 2:ai somewhere oh, we definitely had it in the deck somewhere, um, but yeah, so I think these three components moving to cpg but not having the traction that is required to raise the cpg startup, and the inflation which was showing in our attraction, because the high inflation meant that you know that our sales were not going as planned because people were buying cheaper products again. And number three, the, the difficult fundraising environment. It just meant that it was really tough for us to to raise on the financial markets. We also started discussions with strategics and that was basically, in the end, where the the exit came from from one of those discussions, basically about fundraising, and with a strategic from Austria, the concept of blended meat as a CPG product was something quite new, also for those CG players that we talked to.
Speaker 1:And yeah, it was a very interesting two years of fundraising in many different ways and then you decided to, to exit or to, let's say, um, make sure a company continued within a large organization. How difficult is that process? To, yeah, to, I mean, you're running a kids food brand at that point and, and it's sort of your baby as well. So how, how did that? Um that realization and um, like this is not going to be something you're going to run for the next 10 years and it's going to be an enormous company, etc. Etc. Etc. Like all the founder visions you might have had. Um, how did that? How did that happen? Or how did that land?
Speaker 2:well, obviously you know it was. It was not super easy. It was not something that came from from one day to the to another, but I think what would really help was that the, the company who now bought rebel kids. They are a family-run business and they really believe in the vision of rebel kids. They really like the products. There are a lot of parents that work in this, in this company as well, and it's it's just good to see that they actually like the vision of the products and so we really think it's it's in good hands. And we also realized how inefficient we were. So we had, for not even 10 products, we had a person doing quality management, a person doing organic certification, a person doing back office, a person you know so many functions that you just need to have as a CPG company. That we did for very few products and even less revenue, whereas this family-run business they have over a thousand products and you know their back office was not much bigger than ours and so just you know.
Speaker 1:Economies of scale people. There's a reason for some of it.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. And so, just just you know, realizing this um really showed us okay, this is um. We're playing a different, different game here, and it just makes sense for rebel me to be integrated into a more established structure, um. And so what we then try to do is, of course, you know, implement the seeds of the, of the culture of the vision, into the new company um and and um. Yeah, make sure you know it's the best possible um way forward for, for the, for the product and the brand and so I mean, this is, of course, tricky to to to summarize, but what are your, your biggest lessons learned?
Speaker 1:what are things that you really? Yeah, if somebody asked that, what's the like, like, yeah, now, um, what, what's your? What are, looking back, big lessons that you've learned?
Speaker 2:I mean one. One thing for sure is I mean you. We obviously knew that before coming, coming out of the startup world, but it's always difficult to actually then eat your own dog food, as people say. Um, not developing something in the ivory tower and putting it out there and just expecting consumers to to buy it, just because, uh, on your slides they make a lot of sense, and so I guess that the kind of what happened with um, with our hybrid meat products. We were so sure that they make a lot of sense and they do on paper, but consumers just went and on your plate, and on your plate but not exactly exactly.
Speaker 2:Um. So making sure you develop not only the product but I guess also the way of communicating the product, of positioning it and communicate or develop that very close um with the consumers, is super important. Um, I mean, obviously we had a lot of tasting sessions etc. But I think we at the end of the day, we still thought that we know how to do it and then, you know, we just put the best product out there and people will buy it, and yeah, that that doesn't work we, we build, yeah, I mean it probably sometimes works in in the case of apple, but uh, typically it it doesn't work yeah, I think that's a different, a different, um, a different set of circumstances.
Speaker 1:And what would you do if you had to pick one thing to do differently? What would you do differently, or earlier, or completely like? What would you, um, if you could? Of course we cannot run another scenario, but just just giving you that, that opportunity, and you must have thought about it what would you do differently?
Speaker 2:I would have probably earlier again tried to have a more coherent food service strategy, because we were I mean, we always tried to do food service, but more as a sidekick and, you know, not really coherent Just trying to sell more or less the same products that we had in in retail also to food service.
Speaker 2:And I think food service you need more like solutions and in the end we had really had good ideas, especially with the kids products. There's a lot of things you can do and of giving a whole package and to to food service, and I think that we should have done earlier, because food service is such a good channel, also in terms of in terms of marketing. If you, if you manage to, if you have a new brand, get that out in food service and you know people will, they will remember it if they had it and they had a good experience somewhere and they are much more likely later to buy it in retail. So I think that's probably the one thing that I would have done. I mean, there's a lot of things that I would have done differently.
Speaker 1:I can imagine. I think that's the biggest one probably. And now for you and your co-founder maybe not together, but what are your plans for the future? Are you going to build something else? Are you going to you heard it here first. Are you done with the Regen, food space or food space in general? What are your? Do you have to recover first for a bit? What are your thoughts on the future?
Speaker 2:It's definitely an exciting time and it's a privilege, of course, to be able to now and take a bit time off and and think about what's what comes next, and I think the the food space is definitely a very interesting and impactful space.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that's where we went there in the first place. Right, you can do a lot of bottom-up change. People decide three times a day what they're eating and take big decisions basically there every time. On the other hand, it's also a very tricky one because it's a lot of very big players and a lot of interests that are baked very deep into it, and always this huge price issue and that is so in the foreground that you can't like innovation and and esg and all of this. It's uh, it's. It just feels like it's such a so much in the background and when you actually inside the industry and see what's going on, that is quite, of course, discouraging, but I still believe, um, yeah, if, if, uh, I mean, and you see a lot of very successful brands out there that show how it can be done.
Speaker 1:What are some you're looking at when you say very successful? What are inspirations for you?
Speaker 2:Oh well, I mean probably what we mentioned earlier, Pumpkin Organics, right, I mean, of course, they've been working for a long time and against a lot of obstacles, but at the end of the day now it seems to me they're doing quite well and they show that healthy kids' products can be done in the market. So they're definitely an inspiration. But yeah, of course there's other. Uh, you know, patagonia is also active now in the food space and, um, I think they're, I, I always see more products coming from them. So I think, of course, uh, it can be done, um, whether it's the, or where exactly in the in the value chain, and I would like to be um, it's, it's, uh, it's something I haven't decided yet. Um, am I going to start a cpg brand from scratch again? Uh, probably not right now and why is that?
Speaker 2:um, good, good question. But I think um, um, it, it, uh, it takes a lot of conviction, definitely. And yeah, I don't think I would have that conviction right now to do that journey once again. But I have the fullest respect for anyone doing it and maybe I will be contributing in a different way to other founders. But yeah, not go the whole way myself again.
Speaker 1:It's interesting and what like compared to the tech or the startup world you came from before and, of course, the more tech startup space, startup space like, apart from the things are slower and all of that. What were the biggest differences you've seen, also in terms of your own, maybe in terms of your own interest in the space of your own drive, in that, if it was different at all, like what were were big different approaches to to what you've seen before in the, in the tech startup space?
Speaker 2:well, probably it more feels like in the food space. Um, you have a much bigger like day-to-day business right. You're so consumed by getting your supply chain right and having products that have a shelf life, and having logistics issues and having certification issues, etc. It really feels like you have to deal with a lot of day-to-day stuff that you have very limited resources of on on building, building new products, building the company, etc. So I feel like that's probably a bit of a a downside, definitely, or or like difference to, compared to when I now speak to a lot of digital founders and of course it's, it's, you know, the grass is always greener on the other side and and and of course, there are other issues that that digital startups need to work with, but it just felt like a lot of stock that can go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and it's somewhere hanging, not certified.
Speaker 2:You send an update over the air.
Speaker 2:It's a bit tricky for 10 pallets of frozen goods that are somewhere wrong headed and these are the kind of things that of course, and they take a lot of time, they cost a lot of money and it's hard to experiment, it's hard to try hypothesis, and maybe one thing that is actually that comes to mind is this lack of direct consumer feedback, especially if you don't have a D2C channel, which we never had, because it's very tricky for frozen and for fresh food, and so really trying to understand your, your consumer, is a lot harder if you don't have that direct feedback.
Speaker 2:And that was definitely very challenging. You know understanding if they like the product or what they like the product for, what they use it for, but also, um, trying different communication ways, marketing ways, and it's very hard to to attribute your marketing spend if you have absolutely no idea ab testing is exactly yeah so that is, that is definitely something that's very challenging, yeah and what would be your main advice for other let's say, food founders that are starting now or have been starting in the last bit of time?
Speaker 1:um, what would be? Of course, this is general and super, not maybe super relevant for the individual case, but in general, having gone through this process, um, and this journey, what would be your main pieces of advice?
Speaker 2:you know, coming from, coming from our first product line, I think it was super important for us to discover this insight of how people actually use our products, and maybe other founders haven't gone through such a process. So I would say you know, if your products don't perform as you wish, um, try to speak to your customers. Always try to speak to your customers, but try to find out if there are different angles or different ways of of using the products or different target groups that you probably haven't thought of yourself and that might be super interesting for your product, and I think that, for us, really was a game changer and I would be surprised if if that wouldn't happen more often. Right that people use someone else's products other, in other ways than they originally thought of yeah, probably.
Speaker 1:Actually it happens in tech as well, very often that people are figuring out other ways.
Speaker 1:But it's great advice and I want to be conscious of your time as well, and we said to keep this short and a nice update on what has happened, what is happening still.
Speaker 1:This is not the end of the story, but definitely some twists and pivots that we didn't discuss three years ago, and I want to thank you for coming on here and share about it. I can't imagine it's easy A lot of time and energy, blood, sweat and tears spent on a company and then it doesn't go exactly as you hoped. So thank you so much for being an inspiration and coming on here to share about the journey. I think it's very relevant for many other founders that might be in similar situations, because it's extremely hard to build any kind of company, but CPGs probably consumer packaged goods are among the harder ones, let's say, to build and get right because of distribution, because of processing, because of all of it what you have to do and not easy access to money to build up all of it yourself. So thank you very much for being here and sharing about the journey and hope it's helpful for some of the listeners.
Speaker 2:Thank you, cohen, for having me, and also for Genry Ventures and you personally to invest and for actually all other investors also on our end to really um, you know, understand us in our difficult decisions. I think that's maybe one more advice also to founders be very transparent always about um, you know what are the challenges right now and if you're open and transparent, investors will understand, and we always just had good conversations and people were very understanding and respectful and I think that's a very good way of how to partner and build a company together through good and through bad times. Thank you so much for this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been a journey. We haven't been extremely active but, of course, follow the conversations and and naeem has been involved in a few of the meetings etc. And you see, you see the struggle even from afar, because of course we're not in it in the weeds every day. And then the pivot to kids, which makes a lot of sense, and then it starts to take off a bit, but it becomes a very different company, as you said, and so it's uh, it's good to see it, because it's not all roses and and and sunshine and rainbows etc.
Speaker 1:Building, building these kind of companies, new approaches that are maybe much more intuitive and make much more sense. But there you cannot shout them about them so much because they're not so extreme in your marketing and communication. So it's a, the sensitive approach might be, might be tricky, which is one of the lessons learned here. I think, um, and I, yeah, saw the process evolving and just wanted to also have you back on here to to talk about it. Of course, understanding it's not the easiest, um, and uh, yeah, it's not done again, but it's not the outcome we all hoped a few years ago when you were on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely well, thanks going thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. For the show notes and links we discussed in this episode, check out our website investing investinginregenerativeagriculturecom. Forward slash posts. If you liked this episode, why not share it with a friend? Or give us a rating on Apple Podcasts? That really helps. Thanks again and see you next time.
