About the Company
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.
Kettle & Fire | Perfect Keto | Surely Wine
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
Episode Guide
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
Justin Mares’ Favorite Books
Justin Mares shared his all-time favorite books including:
The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge
- With apologies to Hegel, Marx, and Lenin, the basic unit of modern society is neither the state, nor the commune, nor the party; it is the company. From this bold premise, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge chart the rise of one of history’s great catalysts for good and evil. The authors reveal how innovations such as limitations on liability have permitted companies to rival religions and even states in importance, governing the flow of wealth and controlling human affairs–all while being largely exempt from the rules that govern our lives. Justin Mares loves The Company because, “I’m interested in what social technologies that can be created, invented, and promoted to address some of the challenges we face today.”
- Buy it now: Print | eBook | Audiobook
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
- Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. Justin Mares says of The Three-Body Problem, “It’s just utterly fascinating. It made me think in a different way.”
- Buy it now: Print | eBook | Audiobook
Related Episodes
If you enjoyed this episode with Justin Mares—Founder of Kettle & Fire, Perfect Keto, and Surely Wine—don’t miss our other interviews with serial founders and entrepreneurs:
- #65 Peel, Shepherd, and NeedWant: Solving Simple Problems and Building Profitable Businesses | Marshall Haas, Serial Entrepreneur
- #92 1-800-GOT-JUNK and O2E Brands: How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success | Brian Scudamore, Founder & CEO
- #44 The New Consumer: What The Best Consumer Brands Get Right and The Future of D2C | Dan Frommer, Founder
Searchable Transcript
For more, explore the transcript of this episode.
