Food for Thought: How Do You Accelerate the Growth of the Health Culture?
Well, you could start a company that focuses on just that. Find out how WholeMe co-founder & CEO, Mary Kosir, plans to change our perspectives on snacks with her healthy and delicious alternatives.
WholeMe is a food company that creates nutrient-dense, delicious, convenient foods such as granola bars and clusters. They offer an alternative to the current convenient, preservative-filled, sugar-laden snacks.
What is your story?
WholeMe got started quite a while ago. About 7 or 8 years ago, my husband was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, which was sort of unusual for an over 40 adult. As a result of that diagnosis, we really looked long and hard into how we were eating as a family. We started trying to eat a cleaner diet. In particular, we eliminated grains and gluten from our diet. I have two now teenagers, they were grade schoolers then, who immediately missed two things: they missed cereals and they missed bars.
And so that was the impetus for me to start experimenting in the kitchen, certain sorts of recipes. I would bring what I made at home to my gym community. One thing led to another and I developed these bars and this granola that everybody really loved. The owner of the gym, who is now one of my closest friends, started asking me to make them for competitions and things that were going on. And I was encouraged by enough people at that time to start a business, where even though I wasn’t sure what we were going to do, we incorporated the name, bought the domain and kind of went out and did a few things just in case we wanted to make something out of it it someday.
If you could go back to day one of your startup, what would you tell yourself?
I would tell myself to not take things too seriously, to be flexible, to build my network and to always ask for help.
How do you choose who you want to work with?
I’m a big fan of really making sure that I bring people on to the team that are smarter than me in some particular area — they fill a niche, they are thinking outside the box and are creative. I’ve never been one that’s ashamed of hiring someone who can bring in different ideas, connections or new approaches to the table because if you’re not open to change, there’s no way you’re going to be able to build a company.
Do you feel like you are maximizing your growth? Why or why not?
No, I think we’re in the process of working towards that in the next 18 to 24 months but right now we’re working similarly to many other small food companies. Cash flow is really interesting, it’s something you read about in the textbooks, and then you live it and you realize it’s a real problem. When you’re buying $150,000 worth of ingredients and then you have to pay the person that manufactures and packages your product, and then you have to pay the person that runs your products and delivers them to your stores. It’s a lot easier said than done.We’ve really been operating on a shoestring, of course, and we’ll continue to be very scrappy in terms of how we use our money. But we’re actually in the midst of raising capital, and that is actually going to give us some breathing room so we can grow aggressively.
Would you like to be famous? If so, in what way?
I would love to be famous. Given the fact that I’m resigning from my position here at the university and going all in at WholeMe, I think that proves that I really believe in the concept of the company and what we’re growing and building right now. I think what’s unique at WholeMe is that it speaks to a younger demographic like you, because I think we can create a community of followers in our product who believes that even making small changes can help you become better.
That’s really just a long way of saying I would love for WholeMe to explode, to be a wildly successful company. When people ask me what I want my legacy to be, I think that I would love in 10 years to be stepping away, maybe from WholeMe, and spend my time mentoring women and helping women start viable companies that they’re scaling across the country. Because I think a lot of women start companies, but still when you look around the entrepreneurial community, it’s still dominated by men. Not unlike major industries. And I think we as women need to help each other out and be each other’s mentors and lift each other up, and I want to be a part of that. So that’s how I hope to contribute, by building this company and ultimately being able to help other women do it as well.
When you’re 90 years old, what will matter most to you in the world?
I think what I love about WholeMe is that idea of building and being the best you that you can be. So when I look back and think about how I’ve lived as a wife, as a mother, as a mentor, as a friend, as a business leader hopefully, I hope to see that I was the best person I could be. I always wanted to be a role model to my children, especially my daughter, to show her what’s possible.
When it’s all been said and done, it’s those key relationships that you’ve built and sustained over time that really matter. Were you true to them? Were you authentic?
What bad habits do you want to break?
My goodness, so many. So fitness has always been a passion of mine and over the past several years I’ve been juggling a bunch: I’m a mom of two teenagers, I have the job here as Assistant Dean, I’m trying to get my company started. And I’m not just doing these things, I’m trying really hard to be good in all these different areas. Because of that, my fitness hasn’t been as much of a priority as I wanted it to be and I haven’t been able to take as much time for myself to make myself as happy as I am when I’m regularly exercising. So what I hope is to really invest an hour a day into me and to get that activity that I need, because it makes me a whole lot happier when I can do that.
Universal Truths & Pivots ← P R E V I O U S
N E X T → Whistle While You Work
Make sure to buy some of WholeMe’s delicious snacks! If you want more stories featuring entrepreneurs and their quirky, fun and deeper sides, follow The Lemon Scope on Medium. We interview really cool people like Mary and write about them for you all to see!
