353: Eating Natural and Being Natural – with Steven Novick

Meet Steven

Steven Novick is the CEO & Founder of Farmstand. Farmstand cooks & delivers fresh, fast, healthy, and affordable meals to businesses and consumers that they personalize. Their website is www.EatFarmstand.com. Steven previously built 2 billion-dollar businesses & climbed seven summits (including Everest – the very top). Beating cancer made him passionate about food and the environment, and growing up working class made him appreciate affordability and convenience, which is why he started Farmstand.

With so many meal delivery services out there, how is Farmstand better?

Like you said, there’s certainly a tremendous amount of meal delivery services out there. And how we distinguish ourselves is really in four ways: we’re affordable, we’re fast, we’re healthy, and we’re also zero waste. So we describe the Farmstand formula as: we’re $7 a meal, five minutes to heat, zero added sugar in zero ways. So it’s “seven, five, zero zero”. To add a little bit more to that, we think, ultimately, we’re 10 times better than the competition. Firstly, as much as we do a direct-to-consumer service, and we deliver directly to homes, what makes us highly unique is that we have large contracts with Office caterers and large institutions. But what makes us 10 times better than the competition is we’re fresh, versus frozen or a meal kit. So we’re ready to eat. We’re 50% less expensive. We’re 90% faster to cook, and we have 100% personalization. And oh, by the way, we take up 90% less fridge space than a HelloFresh would.

You’re not available in the US at the moment, correct?

Yeah, at the moment, we’re just in the UK. We cover the UK nationwide. But a contract that we’ve signed with a food service provider called ISS and the UK’s largest bank, Barclays, that contract, although it starts in the UK, is a subscription agreement (because we’re a subscription-only business) allows us to expand into Europe and the US. And so our hope is to be in the US starting on a B2B basis as early as the first quarter of 2023.

You’ve previously built two billion-dollar businesses. How have you done that and what’s important to get right from the very beginning?

Yeah, so prior to starting Farmstand, I co-founded an investment firm that now manages about $2 billion invested in private companies. And then prior to that, I was head of business development at a health tech business that raised about $50 million in venture capital. We scaled to $20 million in revenue, and it filed for an IPO of $650 million valuation, which in today’s dollar might be about a billion dollars, and then that business was acquired. So I think the fundamental thing is like, when we started Farmstand, I think that the foundation of everything is our values, behaviors, and ultimately what you stand for as a business. In any business you start or you join, I think you have to be very values-driven. And so for us at Farmstand, that’s been a real big driver. And so one of our big values that we really centered around, especially in the environment we’re in, is making sure that what we’re doing has zero food waste, zero packaging waste. We’re a B Corp certified business, just like Patagonia or Ben and Jerry’s. So these are kind of some of the things that are really important. I think that if you don’t have the right foundation when you start a business, you can’t grow from that.

So it comes down to what you believe, that’s going to help attract the type of people that align with your thinking and philosophy?

Yeah, I think that’s right, and ultimately your customers are going to follow you and get excited based on what you do. So we ultimately want people to take a stand – and take a Farmstand for that matter. So it’s on affordability; you know, healthy meals shouldn’t just be for the wealthy. And you ultimately want these meals to be healthy. So no added sugar is a really important thing. I mean, 73% of the US population now is overweight or obese, if you eliminate sugar, that helps a lot. And then ultimately, we all are short on time. And so you can pop our food in the microwave, and you have to be ready in three minutes, or boil some hot water and you can make that happen. In that way we kind of describe our business as a build-your-own-salad bar meets Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice, because our pouches, which are our meals, are basically a base, a main, and a side, they all come separate, so you just put them in boiling hot water, and that’s a really great solution. And then now with the environmental problems that we’re having, and the increasing temperatures, making sure you have zero waste. So what’s great about us is we have no food waste, we have no packaging waste, and after three deliveries, customers can return all the packaging to us. And we reuse that. So we effectively make a profit on the return which is great for us, for growing our business.

So I hear you’ve been writing a book for about five years now.

It’s something that I wanted to do for a while. You read books like Shoe Dog, written by Phil Knight about Nike, and other books out there about your experience. Our business effectively started as a dark kitchen, and we were mostly a B2B play pre-COVID. So we had 12 Farmstand branded concessions inside large corporations like JP Morgan, Barclays, BlackRock, and KPMG, when COVID hit, we had to shut that entire business down. And we started completely from scratch. So the book is called Keep going. So the five things you do when things get difficult, and this is not only in work, but in life. The first thing is that you write down the list of the problems when things get difficult. The second thing is you come up with, hopefully, a set of potential solutions to those problems. The third thing you do is you, you know, ask for help. And then the fourth thing is you start executing on those things. And then the fifth thing, ideally, is that when you fix your problems you try to help other people. That’s the general idea around the five things. And, you know, I think in life, it’s the same thing, when you have a, you know, you have something, it’s difficult, you have to really think about what the problem is and, and be rational about it and try to come up with solutions. So I think whether it’s work or life, you really want to rally around, just keeping things as simple as possible, trying to be as rational as you can about it, whether it’s a relationship with your partner, or with a work colleague, or it’s work in general, you have to be solution-oriented. It’s one of the things that we believe at Farmstand, one of our behaviors, people can talk about anything they want with us, or complain about anything they want. But ultimately, you need to find solutions to problems, not just simply complain about them.

What’s the timeline to get the book wrapped up?

Well, with restarting the business from scratch in February, and the business growing, you know, more than 20% a month, you know, since we started, you know, folks right now are raising a bit more venture capital, which we just started doing. We’re part of an accelerator in Milwaukee, which is how we met called generator, which is, you know, top 10 nationwide business accelerator. So we’re focusing on raising capital right now, you know, and if we’re here at the end of January now, it would be nice to get something out probably by next year is kind of the idea, maybe to coincide with us launching our business in the US.

Can you share with our listeners one of your favorite networking experiences that you’ve had?

I think every opportunity we have, when we’re walking down the street or in the park, or in a grocery store, or wherever we have an opportunity to meet people, I don’t actually like the word “networking”. Connecting with people is how I view it. I’m actually much more of an introvert. People have a hard time believing that because I can get up in front of large groups of people and talk, but my natural inclination is to be more of an internal person. So I think on the networking side, I think the best thing to do whenever you’re reaching out to people, LinkedIn is probably the most helpful platform that’s out there to help you build a business. And I think if you’re genuine in your approach, and you’re honest about things, I think people generally respond very well to that if you open up by trying to sell something, or super aggressive or send repeated emails, it’s not going to work. So I think you’re always putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. So whether it’s, for us in the case of trying to contact people or food service providers, or corporates, or people looking to help us, you know, that’s, that’s kind of how I’ve gone about, I guess, you know, networking or connecting with people. I think a lot of times what is super helpful, whether you’re trying to raise capital, or you’re trying to build your business, is getting introductions through other people. And the easiest way of getting your introductions to other people is preparing an email that’s very simple, very short. And to the point, asking someone to make that introduction, it’s clear what you want the reduction for, and then they can just forward that email on to other people. So I think, you know, one, you know, example of a relationship that helped get our B2B business started as we went to our first office catering relationship was with JP Morgan, and a friend of mine, Stefan happened to work there, run a division. We had a pop-up restaurant in my house before we started the business. He came over like we were doing when we had a gathering, you know, to kind of launch the business, his daughter came along, and most of our food is gluten-free. And she was like, hey, you know, Dad, wouldn’t it be great if you had this at JP Morgan? So Stefan was able to make an introduction to Aramark, which was the food service provider. And then the person that worked at JP Morgan oversaw the relationship with Aramark and effectively headed food services for JP Morgan. So there’s a good example of using effectively a friend and obviously the help from his daughter who liked the food, you know, proposing the idea that progressed with us, that was our first relationship with an office caterer. And that led to our second with Compass. And then the third is with ISS, which is based in Copenhagen in a very large relationship for us now. There’s like three ways to describe people, either you’re a giver or a taker, or you’re kind of a bit of both, I’m definitely a giver, I don’t expect anything in return. So if I happen to be talking to someone or having a chat with someone a couple days ago, looking to invest in our business, he works in a sector that’s not really similar to ours. And I happen to know someone that knows a lot about his sector, that also runs an investment fund. And I said, Hey, you know, you’re looking at potentially moving into this investment field, you can probably talk to my friend, he didn’t ask me to do this. But I think just volunteering and, and willing to help other people out, usually, that comes back and helps you as well. So I think being a giver versus a taker generally works to your advantage, you don’t want to be taken advantage of because you also may have to do your own job. But I think being generous with our relationships and our network with other people can be a useful thing, too.

What advice would you offer the business professional who’s really looking to grow their network?

So the first thing about me, which is kind of maybe a bit odd, is I never offer advice. I’m not a person that offers advice, because that presumes that I know more than the other person. And nine out of 10 times, I probably don’t, even though I read sometimes up to a book a week. But what I do is offer suggestions, but only when asked. So my suggestion, you know, if you’re going to try to grow your business, whatever it is, whether it’s a B2B business, or direct consumer business is figuring out like, if especially if it’s gonna be focusing on sales or, you know, looking at ways of network effects, which Reid Hoffman talks about in his book, “Blitzscaling”, is ultimately look for the two or three or four contact contracts or relationships that could potentially lead to large revenues, versus taking in, so be more of a rifle shooter or a sniper versus using a machine gun approach. And just try to keep the approach, very targeted, very focused, versus being too broad-based. When you launch a business even for us. There’s a lot of things we could not have done to launch our business. We, you know, initially started off our business, you know, meals for four, and that was portions for four, then we started with meals for two. And ultimately, we settled on meals for one because individuals are probably easier to market to than families at the end of the day.

If you could go back to your 20-year-old self, what would you tell yourself to do more or less of, or differently with regard to your professional career?

Well, it’s a really good question. I really haven’t thought much about that. But I would say to anyone, especially when you can look in the rearview mirror, is always work with people that have, you know, good values and good behaviors, because ultimately, being around good leaders has the right influence long term. And I think some of the jobs I’ve taken in the people I’ve worked with, some of them have had exceptional ethics, and others haven’t. So I think the 20-year-old self would be, you know, focused on working with really high-quality people and high-quality organizations, because that will lead to further opportunities with similar people in businesses.

Connect with Steven

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevennovick/ 

Instagram: @steven_novick

Transcript
Unknown:

We've all heard it before. It's cool, you know.

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Welcome to Social Capital, weekly podcast that dives into

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social relationships and why the investment you put into them is

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so important. Your host, Lori Highby will connect with

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industry leading professionals and dive into their networking

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experiences. expert advice.

Lori Highby:

Hey everybody, Lori Highby here, welcome to the

Lori Highby:

social capital podcast. Our show notes are found at social

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capital podcast.com. To you the listener, I want you to know

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that I appreciate you and I'm thrilled to have you here for

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another episode. If there's ever anything that I can do to

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support you. Please reach out. That being said if you're

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looking to connect with me, LinkedIn is the channel that

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you're going to find me most active on just search for Lori

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Highby you can simply click the Follow button as I post pretty

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much daily information related to marketing strategy tips, all

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podcast episodes and any upcoming events. If you'd like

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to connect, make sure to send a note with your connection

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requests that simply references social capital. I can't wait to

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hear from you. This podcast is sponsored by Keystone click a

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strategic digital marketing agency that believes in order to

Lori Highby:

successfully market to your ideal customer. You first need

Lori Highby:

to understand that customer you can learn more at Keystone

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click.com Okay, today's guest is Steven Novick Steven Novick is

Lori Highby:

the CEO and founder of farmstand farmstand, cooks and delivers

Lori Highby:

fresh, fast, healthy and affordable meals to businesses

Lori Highby:

and consumers that they personalize. Their website is

Lori Highby:

eat farmstand.com Stephen previously built $2 billion

Lori Highby:

businesses and climb the Seven Summits including Everest, the

Lori Highby:

very top. He's beaten cancer, which has made him passionate

Lori Highby:

about food and the environment. And growing up working class

Lori Highby:

made him appreciate affordability and convenience,

Lori Highby:

which is why he started farm Stan. Steven, welcome to the

Lori Highby:

show.

Unknown:

Thanks very much. Great to be here.

Lori Highby:

Oh, I've got that's a goodies to dive into. But

Lori Highby:

let's let's talk about farmstand. I mean, there's so

Lori Highby:

many meal delivery services out there. And it just seems like

Lori Highby:

there's more today than there ever has been before. How is

Lori Highby:

farmstand better? Well, I

Unknown:

think there's a lot of things that are out there. Like

Unknown:

I said, there's there's certainly a tremendous amount of

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meal delivery services out there. And I think you know, how

Unknown:

we distinguish ourselves is really in four ways we're

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affordable, we're fast, we're healthy, and we're also zero

Unknown:

waste. So we describe as the farmstand formula is we're $7 $7

Unknown:

a meal, five minutes to heat zero added sugar in zero way. So

Unknown:

it's 7500. To add a little bit more to that as we think

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ultimately, we're 10 times better than the competition.

Unknown:

Well, firstly, as much as there, we do do a direct to consumer

Unknown:

service, and we deliver directly to homes. Ultimately, what makes

Unknown:

this highly unique is we have large contracts with Office

Unknown:

caterers and large institutions. But what makes us 10 times

Unknown:

better than the competition is we're fresh versus frozen or a

Unknown:

meal kit. So we're ready to eat. We're 50% less expensive. We're

Unknown:

90% faster to cook, and we have 100% personalization. And oh, by

Unknown:

the way, we take up 90% Less fridge space than a HelloFresh

Unknown:

would

Lori Highby:

love all of that. And now this is the part that

Lori Highby:

I'm sure most of our listeners are going to be not super happy

Lori Highby:

to hear. But you're not available in the US at the

Lori Highby:

moment. Correct?

Unknown:

Yeah, at the moment. We're just in the UK. So we

Unknown:

cover UK nationwide. But a contract that we've signed with

Unknown:

a food service provider called ISS and us is sort of the UK is

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largest bank, Barclays, that contract, although it starts in

Unknown:

the UK, it's a subscription agreement, or subscription only

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business allows us to expand into Europe and the US. And so

Unknown:

our hope is to be in the US starting in a b2b basis as early

Unknown:

as the first quarter of 23. All right,

Lori Highby:

love that I'm definitely eager to learn about

Lori Highby:

more about when you are in our territory a little bit. Let's

Lori Highby:

talk about this other item that was in your bio. So you've

Lori Highby:

previously built $2 billion businesses. How have you done

Lori Highby:

that? And what's important to get right from the very

Lori Highby:

beginning?

Unknown:

Yeah, so prior to starting farmstand, I co founded

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an investment firm and now manages about $2 billion in

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invested in private companies. And then prior to that, I was

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head of business development at a health tech business that

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raised about 50 million in venture capital. We scaled to 20

Unknown:

million in revenue, and it filed for an IPO a $650 million

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valuation, which is today's dollar might be about a billion

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dollars and then that business was acquired. So I think the the

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fundamental thing is like We start when we started farm,

Unknown:

Stan, I think that the foundation of everything is on

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values. And then you know behaviors as well. And then

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ultimately what you stand for as a business. But I think you in a

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business, you start or you join, I think you have to be very

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values driven. And so for us at Farm, Stan, that's been a real

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big driver. And so one of our big, you know, values that we

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really centered around, especially in the environment

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we're in is around, you know, making sure that what we're

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doing has zero waste, we have zero food waste, zero packaging

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waste. We're a B Corp certified business, just like a Patagonia

Unknown:

or Ben and Jerry's. So these are kind of some of the things that

Unknown:

are really important. I think, if you don't have the right

Unknown:

foundation, when you start a business, you can't grow, grow

Unknown:

from that.

Lori Highby:

I love that. And I agree 100% With all those and I

Lori Highby:

started my business fairly young and didn't have that foundation

Lori Highby:

fleshed out. But it's definitely been a core focus of mine and

Lori Highby:

something I communicate to my team and even clients when it's,

Lori Highby:

you know, we're talking about their marketing and their

Lori Highby:

messaging, it comes down to you know, what is what is it that

Lori Highby:

you believe that's going to help attract the type of people that

Lori Highby:

align with your thinking and your philosophy?

Unknown:

Yeah, I think that's right, and you ultimately your

Unknown:

customers are going to follow you and get excited about us,

Unknown:

you know, based on what you do. So we're ultimately want people

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to take a stand and take a farm stand for that matter. So it's,

Unknown:

it's on affordability, you know, healthy meals shouldn't just be

Unknown:

for the wealthy. And you ultimately want these these

Unknown:

meals to be healthy. So no added sugar is a really important

Unknown:

thing. I mean, 73% of the US population now is overweight or

Unknown:

obese, if you eliminate sugar, that helps a lot. And then

Unknown:

ultimately, we all are short on time. And so you can pop our

Unknown:

food in the microwave, and you have to be ready in three

Unknown:

minutes, or Wilson hot water. And you can you can you know

Unknown:

make that happen. You know that way we kind of describe our

Unknown:

business as kind of a build your own salad bar meets Uncle Ben's

Unknown:

ready rice, because our pouches, which are our meals are

Unknown:

basically a base a main and aside, they all come separate,

Unknown:

and you just put them in boiling hot water, and that that's a

Unknown:

really great solution. And then now with with the environmental

Unknown:

problems that we're having, and the increasing temperatures,

Unknown:

making sure you have zero waste. So what's great about us is we

Unknown:

we have no food waste, we have no packaging, waste, and after

Unknown:

three deliveries, customers can return all the packaging to us.

Unknown:

And we reuse that. So we effectively make a profit on on

Unknown:

the return which is great, great for us for growing our business.

Lori Highby:

Yeah, I think that's fantastic. That's one of

Lori Highby:

the things that I always kind of struggled with, when I did the

Lori Highby:

any sort of food meal prepping is the amount of packaging, I

Lori Highby:

felt there was a ton of waste involved. And, and that was it

Lori Highby:

was hard to make the investment from a waste standpoint. I love

Unknown:

that if you look at if you also look at you know, these

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meal kit businesses like HelloFresh, they've been around

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since 2011. And you know, as much as their their pricing

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might be slightly less than a farmstand, we would retail in

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the US for $7 a meal. You know, the problem you have with meal

Unknown:

kits is that, you know those meals, the ingredients can go

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off just like groceries very quickly. Ours are vacuum sealed

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pouches. So you have no food waste, you often have 25% of the

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food delivered to your house goes into waste. So at the end

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of the day, if you have a ready meal, you have no food waste,

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and you have no packaging waste. So it's a win win situation.

Lori Highby:

I love that. So I hear you been writing a book for

Lori Highby:

about five years, five years now.

Unknown:

Through that, yeah, so it's something that I wanted to

Unknown:

do for a while. So you read books like Shoe Dog, you know,

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which is written by Ray Knight about Nike, and you know, other

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books out there. There's about like your experience. So yeah,

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so we, our business, we initially started it was

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effectively a dark kitchen, and we were mostly a b2b play pre

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COVID. So we had effectively 12 farmstand branded concessions

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inside large corporates like JP Morgan, Barclays, BlackRock and

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KPMG, when COVID hit, we effectively had to shut that

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entire business down. And we started completely from scratch.

Unknown:

So the book is, it's called Keep going. So the five things you do

Unknown:

when things get difficult, and this is not only in work, but in

Unknown:

life. So the first thing is, is you write down the list of the

Unknown:

problems, right? So when things are when things get difficult.

Unknown:

The second thing is you come up with, you know, hopefully a set

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of potential solutions to those problems. The third thing you do

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is you, you know, ask for help. And then the fourth thing is you

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you start executing on on those things. And then the fifth thing

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ideally Is that when you fix your problems and you try to

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help other people's, that's the general idea around around the

Unknown:

five things. And, you know, I think in life, it's the same

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thing, when you have a, you know, you have something, it's

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difficult, you have to really think about what the problem is

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and, and be rational about it and try to come up with

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solutions. So I think whether it's work or life, you really

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want to rally around, just keeping things as simple as

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possible, trying to be as rational as you can about it,

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whether it's relationship with your partner, or with a work

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colleague, or it's work in general, it's just, you know,

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got to always keep going, you gotta be solution oriented. You

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know, it's one of the things that we believe at farmstand,

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one of our behaviors, people can talk about anything they want

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with us, be, you know, complained about anything they

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want. But ultimately, you need to find solutions to problems,

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not just simply complain about them.

Lori Highby:

100% agree with all of that. I like that thinking.

Lori Highby:

So what's the timeline to get the book wrapped up? Well,

Unknown:

obviously, with restarting the business from

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scratch in February, and the business growing, you know, more

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than 20% a month, you know, since we started, you know,

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folks right now is raising it raising a bit more venture

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capital, which we just started doing. We're part of an

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accelerator in Milwaukee, which is how we met called generator,

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which is, you know, top 10 nationwide business accelerator.

Unknown:

So we're focusing on raising capital right now, you know, and

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if we're here at the end of January now, it would be nice to

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get something out probably by next year is kind of the idea,

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maybe to coincide with us launching our business in the

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US.

Lori Highby:

Cool. Love it. All right. Well, this would be a

Lori Highby:

good time to pause for a quick message from our sponsor.

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Social capital is sponsored by Keystone click OK

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did in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Keystone click is a strategic

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digital marketing agency focused on helping their clients

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generate and nurture opportunities online. For social

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capital listeners, they've created an awesome guide to

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your own guide today.

Lori Highby:

Even the purpose of my show here is to help people

Lori Highby:

not so feel not so fearful or scared when they hear that word

Lori Highby:

networking. So I'm hoping that you can help remove some of that

Lori Highby:

fear by sharing one of your experiences or you're more

Lori Highby:

successful or favorite networking story that you've

Lori Highby:

had.

Unknown:

I think every opportunity we have, and we're

Unknown:

walking down the street or in the park, or in a grocery store,

Unknown:

or wherever we have an opportunity to meet people I

Unknown:

don't like actually like the word networking, I just, you

Unknown:

know, effectively connecting with people is kind of how I

Unknown:

view it. I'm actually much more of an introvert people have a

Unknown:

hard time believing that because I can get up in front of large

Unknown:

groups of people and talk and do that. But my natural inclination

Unknown:

is to be, I like to read and I'm much more of an internal person,

Unknown:

I'm an external. So I think on the networking side, I think the

Unknown:

best thing to do whenever you're, you know, reaching out

Unknown:

to people, I think LinkedIn I, you mentioned that you're on

Unknown:

that platform, it's probably the most, you know, helpful platform

Unknown:

that's out there to helping you build a business or learn or

Unknown:

think about building a business. And I think if you're genuine in

Unknown:

your approach, and you're honest about things, I think people

Unknown:

generally respond very well to that if you open up by trying to

Unknown:

sell something, or super aggressive or send repeated

Unknown:

emails, you know, it's not going to work. So I think you're

Unknown:

always putting yourself in the other person's shoes. So whether

Unknown:

it's, for us in the case of trying to contact people or food

Unknown:

service providers, or corporates, or people looking to

Unknown:

help us, you know, that's, that's kind of how I've gone

Unknown:

about, I guess, you know, networking or connecting with

Unknown:

people. I think a lot of times what is super helpful, whether

Unknown:

you're trying to raise capital, or you're trying to build your

Unknown:

business, is getting introductions through other

Unknown:

people. And the easiest way of getting your introductions to

Unknown:

other people is preparing an email that's very simple, very

Unknown:

short. And to the point, asking someone to make that

Unknown:

introduction, it's clear what you want the reduction for, and

Unknown:

then they can just forward that email on to other people. So I

Unknown:

think, you know, one, you know, example of a relationship that

Unknown:

helped get our b2b business started as we went to our first

Unknown:

office catering relationships was with with JP Morgan and a

Unknown:

friend of mine, Stefan happened to work there, run a division.

Unknown:

We had a pop up restaurant in my house before we started the

Unknown:

business. He came over like we were doing, when we had a

Unknown:

gathering, you know, to kind of launched the business, his

Unknown:

daughter came along, and most of our food is gluten free. And she

Unknown:

was like, hey, you know, Dad, wouldn't it be great if you had

Unknown:

this at JP Morgan? So Stefan was able to make an introduction to

Unknown:

Aramark, which was the food service provider. And then the

Unknown:

the person that worked at JPMorgan that oversaw the

Unknown:

relationship with Aramark and effectively headed food services

Unknown:

for JP Morgan. So there's a good example of using effectively a

Unknown:

friend and obviously the help from his daughter who liked the

Unknown:

food, you know, proposing the idea that led to things you

Unknown:

know, progressed with us, that was our first relationship with

Unknown:

an office caterer. And that led to our second with Compass. And

Unknown:

then the third being with ISS, which is, is, you know, based in

Unknown:

Copenhagen in a very large relationship for us now.

Lori Highby:

Yeah, I love that. And then just letting being

Lori Highby:

clear on what type of connections you're looking for,

Lori Highby:

it makes it so much easier for someone to, to make that

Lori Highby:

connection actually turn into reality.

Unknown:

Yeah, there's another really good book out, free the

Unknown:

name of it now. But there's like three ways to describe people,

Unknown:

either you're a giver, or a taker, or you're kind of a bit

Unknown:

of both, I'm definitely a giver, I don't expect anything in

Unknown:

return. So if I happen to be talking to someone having to

Unknown:

have a chat with someone a couple days ago, looking to

Unknown:

invest in our business, he works in a sector that's not really

Unknown:

similar to ours. And I happen to know someone that knows a lot

Unknown:

about his sector, that also runs an investment fund. And I said,

Unknown:

Hey, you know, you're looking at potentially moving into this

Unknown:

investment field, you can probably talk to my friend, he

Unknown:

didn't ask me to do this. But I think just volunteering and, and

Unknown:

willing to help other people out, usually, that comes back

Unknown:

and helps you as well. So I think being a giver versus a

Unknown:

taker, I think generally works works to your advantage, you

Unknown:

don't want to be taken advantage of because you also may have to

Unknown:

do your own job. But I think being generous with our

Unknown:

relationships and our network with other people also can be

Unknown:

can be a useful thing, too.

Lori Highby:

Absolutely. What advice would you offer the

Lori Highby:

business professional who's really looking to grow their

Lori Highby:

network?

Unknown:

So first thing about me, which is kind of maybe a bit

Unknown:

odd, is I never offer advice. I'm not a person that offers

Unknown:

advice, because that presumes that I know more than the other

Unknown:

person. And nine out of 10 times, I probably don't even

Unknown:

know I realized we sometimes up to a book a week, but what I do

Unknown:

offer suggestions, but only when asked. So my suggestion, you

Unknown:

know, if you're going to try to grow your business, whatever it

Unknown:

is, whether it's a b2b business, or direct consumer business is

Unknown:

figure out like, if especially if it's gonna be focusing on

Unknown:

sales or, you know, looking at ways of network effects, which

Unknown:

is taught which Reid Hoffman talks about in his book

Unknown:

Blitzscaling is ultimately look for the two or three or four

Unknown:

contact contracts or relationships that could

Unknown:

potentially lead to large revenues, versus taking in, so

Unknown:

be more of a rifle shooter or a sniper versus using a machine

Unknown:

gun approach. And just try to keep the approach, very

Unknown:

targeted, very focused, versus being too broad based. When you

Unknown:

launch a business even for us. There's a lot of things we could

Unknown:

not have done to launch our business, we, you know,

Unknown:

initially started off our business, you know, meals for

Unknown:

four, and that was portions for four, then we started with meals

Unknown:

for two. And ultimately, we settled on meals for one because

Unknown:

that individuals is probably easier to market to them to to

Unknown:

families as at the end of the end of the day.

Lori Highby:

Sure. Yeah. Interesting. So here's a fun

Lori Highby:

one. If you could go back to your 20 year old self, what

Lori Highby:

would you tell yourself to do more of less of or differently

Lori Highby:

with regards to your professional career?

Unknown:

Well, it's a really good question. I really haven't

Unknown:

thought much about that. But I would tell like, any one,

Unknown:

especially you can look in the rearview mirror is always work

Unknown:

with people that have, you know, good values and good behaviors,

Unknown:

because ultimately, having being around good leaders, you know,

Unknown:

has, you know, the right influences long term. And I

Unknown:

think some of the jobs I've taken in the people I've worked

Unknown:

with, some of them have had exceptional ethics, and others

Unknown:

haven't. So I think the 20 year old self would be, you know,

Unknown:

focused on working with really high quality people and high

Unknown:

quality organizations, because that will lead to further

Unknown:

opportunities with similar people in businesses.

Lori Highby:

I think that's great advice. It's definitely

Lori Highby:

something that if I can go back, I would, I would put a little

Lori Highby:

bit of emphasis on that as well. Gordon, I'm gonna give you the

Lori Highby:

opportunity to interview me here, Steven. So what is

Lori Highby:

something you'd like to ask me? Well,

Unknown:

you know, Laurie, so what why did you decide to I

Unknown:

guess, first thing, you know, launch a marketing business.

Unknown:

That's the first question and the second question is, you

Unknown:

know, why a podcast? You know, I've been on a handful This is I

Unknown:

like the format of this. But I guess the first question is, uh,

Unknown:

how'd you get into marketing? And what what made you choose

Unknown:

marketing?

Lori Highby:

Yeah, I actually started going to school for

Lori Highby:

commercial art, because I love very creative like, you know,

Lori Highby:

making beautiful pieces of art, a lot of painting on a drawing

Lori Highby:

and how I could translate that into a career. commercial art

Lori Highby:

was the path I start pursuing. But while I was actually going

Lori Highby:

to school, I took a sociology course and was simply fascinated

Lori Highby:

by how colors and sounds and messaging have such an impact

Lori Highby:

and influence on the decision making process that people make

Lori Highby:

and, and cultural impact, and how people actually end up

Lori Highby:

buying products. So I took that passion for creativity and kind

Lori Highby:

of took it at a bigger, broader picture. And that's how I

Lori Highby:

decided to pursue the marketing path. I've always been on the

Lori Highby:

agency side, I worked at two other agencies before starting

Lori Highby:

my own, I have learned a ton over the last 14 years that I've

Lori Highby:

been running my own business, I'm sure you've learned a ton as

Lori Highby:

well. No, I learned something new every single day. But I

Lori Highby:

absolutely love what I do. And I love sharing my expertise and

Lori Highby:

what I've learned with others. And that was kind of one of the

Lori Highby:

reasons for Springboarding getting a podcast started. So as

Lori Highby:

a business owner, especially in the marketing space, best

Lori Highby:

practices to have some form of thought leadership to share

Lori Highby:

expertise, and build, build authority, build your audience

Lori Highby:

as a means to potentially generate new business

Lori Highby:

opportunities. And I wasn't, I tried blogging, doing email, and

Lori Highby:

I struggled with the consistency of it. Video was something that

Lori Highby:

I was interested in, but I just felt there was too much required

Lori Highby:

from not only does it have to sound good, but it has to look

Lori Highby:

good. So there's another layer of complexity with video. But I

Lori Highby:

was interviewed on a couple podcasts. And I was just really

Lori Highby:

fascinated with the medium, just as you kind of commented on and

Lori Highby:

decided, you know, this is this is the channel, this is the

Lori Highby:

medium that I'm going to leverage for my own thought

Lori Highby:

leadership. And here we are episode. Oh, goodness, I think

Lori Highby:

it's like 350, something something

Unknown:

amazing, amazing. Yeah, like, look, I think it's a great

Unknown:

format as well. And I think when you get to know someone,

Unknown:

especially initially, getting to know them through their voice

Unknown:

versus in person is often the best way because you could just

Unknown:

connect with them and understand them and not have the

Unknown:

distraction of like you said colors, faces and things like

Unknown:

that. So I think it's a great, it's a great format. And like,

Unknown:

Look, I've there's only a handful of ones that I listened

Unknown:

to. But I think it's really interesting. As as a format, I

Unknown:

guess in terms of advice, is there any advice you give to a

Unknown:

business, whether it's direct consumer, or b2b, if you were

Unknown:

going to, you know, launch a business, what would that one

Unknown:

bit of advice that you would give

Lori Highby:

launching a business, um, you know, there's

Lori Highby:

so many pieces of information that I'd share. But I would, I

Lori Highby:

would say, and you kind of spoke to this a little bit, but find

Lori Highby:

someone who's already paved the path a little bit, find a

Lori Highby:

mentor, someone that's got, you know, 510 years of experience in

Lori Highby:

that same space so that you could learn from them, get some

Lori Highby:

counsel and kind of build a team around you some, you know, not

Lori Highby:

just people in the same space, but you'll you'll need a team of

Lori Highby:

experts to help guide you in and give you some direction. Because

Lori Highby:

you can't go it alone. And it can be very lonely, running a

Lori Highby:

business on your own, but having that support, and that

Lori Highby:

professional counsel and expertise can just help you get

Lori Highby:

from A to B, a hell of a lot faster than if you were trying

Lori Highby:

to do it on your own.

Unknown:

Yeah, I mean, I completely agree. I mean, our

Unknown:

core team, when we first started the business was through friends

Unknown:

of friends, you know, and I, having come from different

Unknown:

sectors and having to learn food tech, you know, you're getting

Unknown:

advice and suggestions and authority of people you can

Unknown:

figure out things important than you have to try lots of stuff

Unknown:

and yeah, but I think that's that's great. That's great

Unknown:

advice.

Lori Highby:

I love it. Alright, so I'm gonna throw the advice

Lori Highby:

back to you any final word or based off for our listeners

Lori Highby:

around growing and supporting your network? Oh, yeah, I

Unknown:

mean, I think the back to you know, kind of what your

Unknown:

we talked about originally, which if you're going to be

Unknown:

doing posts, whether it's daily or weekly or monthly, I think

Unknown:

authenticity is the best thing that people gravitate towards to

Unknown:

gravitate towards. Because you know, you can post about lots

Unknown:

Some other things, but I think what people really like

Unknown:

especially is authenticity, storytelling, whether it's good

Unknown:

news or bad news. I mean, life isn't perfect. It's not always,

Unknown:

you know, linear. It has ups and downs. And I think sharing that

Unknown:

with, you know, your network and your friends and your family is

Unknown:

really important in this day and age of Instagram and Twitter and

Unknown:

all this other stuff. I think it's important that and I think

Unknown:

longer term, we're going to find that authenticity is going to

Unknown:

really win. And I think that, to me, is the most important thing.

Unknown:

So if you're going to be maintaining relationships with

Unknown:

your network, whether it's through a podcast, or through

Unknown:

email, or, or getting together in person, just, you know, being

Unknown:

honest, being authentic and and talking about the good news and

Unknown:

the bad news, because people like to hear both.

Lori Highby:

I love that. And that's, I've got my three, three

Lori Highby:

rules of networking. And my first one is to be genuine and

Lori Highby:

authentic. So you're right on with, with what I preach all the

Lori Highby:

time on this show. And people always say people can smell

Lori Highby:

fake, they can, you know, if you're trying to be something

Lori Highby:

that you're not, it's pretty obvious, I would say to most

Lori Highby:

people in the professional space, but 100% Agree, Be your

Lori Highby:

authentic self, and you're gonna attract the type of people that

Lori Highby:

you actually want to spend time with and do business with.

Lori Highby:

Absolutely. I see. But if anyone was interested in getting in

Lori Highby:

contact with you, what's the best way that they can reach

Lori Highby:

you? Kind of

Unknown:

like you it's the best way is through LinkedIn. I'm

Unknown:

just Steven Novick. There's a nice photo on there of me and

Unknown:

there's some farmstand food which is which there and then

Unknown:

I'm also on Instagram on Steven underscore Novick and o vi CK

Unknown:

and it's Steven with a V.

Lori Highby:

All right, we will include all that information in

Lori Highby:

our show notes. Thank you so much for being on the show

Lori Highby:

today.

Unknown:

Absolute pleasure. Really enjoyed it. And yeah,

Unknown:

thanks again.

Lori Highby:

Absolutely. All right, this wraps up our episode

Lori Highby:

of social capital. Huge thank you to Steven for taking the

Lori Highby:

time to connect with us. As mentioned before, let's connect

Lori Highby:

on LinkedIn connect with me connect with Steven, we're both

Lori Highby:

looking forward to hearing from you. I hope you enjoy today's

Lori Highby:

show. Most importantly, go reach out and connect with someone.

Lori Highby:

Reconnect with someone from your past or find someone new that

Lori Highby:

you'd like to connect with. That's what it's all about. Go

Lori Highby:

build those relationships.

Unknown:

That's all for this episode of the social capital

Unknown:

podcast. Visit social capital podcast.com For show notes, more

Unknown:

episodes, and to see who will be on the show next. Thank you for

Unknown:

listening, and we'll see you next episode.

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