The Start — Issue 01: Letter from the Editor
Hi friends and fam,
I’m starting food business #3, a farm-to-cone, plant-based ice cream company (coconut to be exact) in Kauai. This mini email magazine called Starter is where I’m going to share my journey of building this business.
I sat down for hours, combing through emails and photos of my friendships and relationships from the last decade as an entrepreneur. Whether we speak regularly or just here and there, you are one of the people that has made an impact on my entrepreneurial career and I want to share this next step with you.
A little over a year ago, Rob and I moved to Kauai and became parents soon after to our daughter Ava. Those two huge life shifts came after a decade of experience building two businesses in food & tech; one that sold (Foodzie) and one that failed and was shut-down (Din). While I had long since processed those experiences, I found myself doing some deep reflections about my previous work and what’s next for me.
While one sold and one failed, one thing they both had in common was the underlying structure that made them both reliant on tech venture capital funding from the outset. I realized that I needed a re-education on how to build a business that’s sustainable at every level.
I want to build a stable and strong foundation that goes a little slower (island life is good for this!), and shift away from leveraging a financial structure I learned in tech that is predicated on mass scale and hyper-growth from day one. I have no issues with scale, when scale is there to serve the customer experience at the right stage, but in the VC-backed tech world it was the first priority. Plus, if you start with a foundation of profitability where the founders have full control, it gives you the freedom to make decisions that maybe aren’t just for shareholders first or aimed at the next round of funding, but for other important factors like the community, family life, the environment, or other values you hold. There are many paths to building a successful business and I am very grateful for my time in tech for the passionate, ambitious people I met and the education I received, but this is the one that feels right for me now.
Starter is a place to share my story and my re-education building my ice cream business this way. I’ll be sharing the stories of other successful food & beverage entrepreneurs building triple-bottom-line businesses, the books I’m reading (with a book club each month), and the stories and questions that come from this community of entrepreneurs.
I’ll send out one email issue a month (ya know, like a traditional magazine), so hit subscribe if you want to hear more and please forward to any of your food-loving friends who have been dreaming about starting their own food business or who are already in the trenches so we can learn, create, and succeed together.
In good food we trust,
- ELO
PS — This magazine wouldn’t be possible without the fine design skills of Sharon McPeake and of course the endless support and business pillowtalk ;) from my partner in life Rob LaFave who isn’t a co-founder this go-around, but my biggest business cheerleader. Mahalo!
PPS — You can see the full issue and all past issues at thestartermag.com and subscribe to get this little email magazine delivered to your inbox.
