I have become a weekly listener to the npr podcast called How I Built This: a podcast about entrepreneurs and innovators, and the stories behind their businesses. In each episode, the entrepreneur tells the narrative about the many failures he/she experienced while building the company, and highlights how persevering through the many failures has resulted in a successful and profitable company. There are many wealthy and well-known entrepreneurs on the show such as Mark Cuban and Richard Branson, to name a few, but the most inspiring podcast for me is the one from last week with Ethan Brown--the founder and CEO of Beyond Meat.
Beyond Meat is a plant-based protein company that has been able to use the yellow pea to create products that look and taste like animal meat. They have chicken strips, beef crumble, a beast burger, but their new and most ground-breaking product is called the "Beyond Burger," which looks, smells, tastes, and bleeds like a real hamburger. The Beyond Burger is the first ever plant-baed product to be sold in the meat aisle, and it has flown off the shelves in Whole Foods stores across the country (except in the Southern region).
To this day, Beyond Meat is still not profitable, but the company recently received an investment from Tyson Foods, the world's largest poultry producer, controlling 22% of the poultry industry. Tyson acquired a 5% stake in Beyond Meat in Beyond Meat's latest fundraising rounds and the company has investments from Bill Gates, Biz Stone (the founder of Twitter), and Kleiner Perkins. The Tyson investment is one that made Beyond Meat struggle with an ethical question: is it ethical for a plant-based, environmentally conscious company to receive an investment from the largest producer of poultry in the world, that has been criticized for the ill treatment of chickens as well as its own workers? In addition, Tyson is at the center of the meat industry, an industry that is the largest contributor to global warming. Beyond Meat ultimately decided to take the investment not because the company needed the money, but instead because an investment from Tyson decreases the amount of meat consumed in America, by more widely distributing Beyond Meat, a healthy plant-based alternative.
What inspires me about Brown, and what is clearly exhibited in the podcast, is that he has continued to work hard in spite of the recent success of his company. The Beyond Burger is flying off the shelves and the company has celebrity sponsors, but he has stayed true to his environmentally-conscious mission to decrease the amount of meat consumed by Americans. Ethan Brown is a truly admirable person: he has the ability to stay positive amongst his company's challenges and the ability to stay humble amongst his company's recent success. I think both of these traits are clearly shown in his How I Built This podcast. I definitely recommend listening to Ethan Brown's unique narrative. I also recommend listening to the other fascinating entrepreneurs on the show. Here is the link to Ethan Brown's podcast and below it is the main site of the How I Built This podcast. Enjoy!
https://www.acast.com/howibuiltthis/live-episode-beyond-meat-ethan-brown
http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this
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