#144 Kettle & Fire, Perfect Keto, and Surely Wine: Spotting Trends and Building D2C Brands to Own Them | Justin Mares, Serial Entrepreneur

Learn how Justin Mares identifies trends and builds direct-to-consumer businesses (and brands) to own them. Including all of the hard lessons that Justin has learned along the way, from why he’s learned to bring on a head of finance early, why consumer business are “cashflow businesses”, to how he competes with generic brands. And so much more. “The Iron Law of Ecommerce across everything I’ve ever started is that I start out thinking I’m selling to people like me and it always turns out that it’s 45-year old women that are buying the product.” — Justin Mares EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED) https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/kettle-and-fire-perfect-keto-surely-wines-justin-mares  FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/kettle-and-fire-perfect-keto-surely-wines-justin-mares-transcript/    CHAPTERS (00:00:00) - Introduction (00:01:19) - Getting Fired from 13 Jobs and Discovering Entrepreneurship (00:08:34) - The Origin Story of Kettle & Fire (00:15:39) - Evolution of Kettle & Fire’s Branding and Packaging (00:19:10) - Distribution: Direct-to-Consumer vs Wholesale & Retail (00:22:10) - How to Compete with Generic Store Brands (00:24:27) - The Challenges of Building a Sustainably Profitable Business (00:27:13) - Raising Venture Capital for Consumer Brands (00:33:01) - Painful Lessons: $800k in Unpaid Invoices and Why Finance is Strategic (00:39:24) - Launching Perfect Keto and Surely Non-Alcoholic Wine (00:41:48) - Justin’s Annual Review and Goal Setting Process (00:45:44) - Why Extreme People Have Extreme Outcomes (00:49:32) - How to Become an Extreme Person ABOUT THE COMPANIES Kettle & Fire, Perfect Keto, and Surely Wine all have something in common. They were founded by Justin Mares and built to own an emerging health and wellness trend—from drinking more bone broth, to making the move to a keto diet, or deciding to drink only non-alcoholic wine. Listeners can save 15% off any non-subscription Kettle & Fire order by using promo code Outlier15 when checking out on KettleAndFire.com. 💌 FREE NEWSLETTER https://www.outlieracademy.com/newsletter 🎙 LISTEN ON iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/outlier-academy/id1523851182 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/58edVNgqaPNaCSGSxM6pef?si=88f37a5d20434775 Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1523851182 ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Website: https://www.outlieracademy.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/outlieracademy ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts. Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices