Episode Description
In this episode of Profits on Purpose, host Nate Littlewood interviews Beckie Prime, founder of Beck's Broth, a brand focused on functional beverages. They discuss Beck's journey from holistic nutritionist to entrepreneur, the challenges of scaling a business, and the importance of sustainability. Beckie shares insights on funding, the evolution of her product, and the lessons learned from her experience on Dragon's Den. The conversation highlights the balance between quality and cost, the significance of building in public, and the dynamics of co-founder relationships.
Key Takeaways
- Beck's Broth started from a passion for bone broth and holistic nutrition.
- Farmers markets provided valuable customer feedback but were exhausting.
- Transitioning from liquid to powdered broth improved shelf life and sales.
- Grants and subsidies played a crucial role in funding the business.
- Building a strong co-founder relationship has been key to growth.
- Sharing the business journey publicly has led to unexpected opportunities.
- The experience on Dragon's Den was a learning moment despite not securing a deal.
- Understanding the differences between Canadian and US markets is essential for expansion.
- Sustainability is a priority, but profitability must come first.
- Educating customers on product value is vital for premium pricing.
See More from Beckie and Beck’s Broth
Listen to the full episode to discover how Beckie’s experiences can inspire and guide you on your entrepreneurial journey. Don't forget to subscribe for more insightful conversations!
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– Nate and the Profits on Purpose podcast team
Transcript
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00:00 Introduction to Profits on Purpose
01:03 The Journey of Beck's Broth
02:49 Lessons from Farmers Markets
05:30 Evolution of Product Form Factor
09:34 Understanding Unit Economics
11:04 Funding the Business
14:31 Navigating Debt and Equity
18:25 The Risk of Personal Guarantees
21:01 Building a Strong Team
24:37 The Power of Building in Public
28:54 Surprising Support and Community Engagement
31:02 The Dragon's Den Experience
34:31 Processing Disappointment Publicly
36:36 Expanding into the US Market
41:19 Sustainability Initiatives and Ingredient Sourcing
45:13 Balancing Quality and Cost
49:51 Understanding KPIs and Business Metrics
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Nate (00:01)
Welcome to Profits on Purpose, which is a podcast for CPG and e-commerce founders who are looking to scale their businesses both profitably and purposefully. I'm your host, Nate Littlewood, and I'm the founder of Future Ready CFO, which is a go-to fractional CFO solution for seven-figure founders who are looking to turn financial chaos and confusion into business clarity and confidence. Anyway, today's guest is Beckie Prime, who is a founder
of Beck's Broth, which is a brand that offers functional beverages reimagined for everyday rituals. So Beckie, from what I understand, she first became aware of the benefits of bone broth when she was working as a holistic nutritionist. So she ended up taking her idea to the farmer's markets initially and is now scaling it up through retail across both Canada, where she's based, and the US.
Beckie, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you here.
Nate (00:01)
Welcome to Profits on Purpose, which is a podcast for CPG and e-commerce founders who are looking to scale their businesses both profitably and purposefully. I'm your host, Nate Littlewood, and I'm the founder of Future Ready CFO, which is a go-to fractional CFO solution for seven-figure founders who are looking to turn financial chaos and confusion into business clarity and confidence. Anyway, today's guest is Beckie Prime, who is a founder
of Beck's Broth, which is a brand that offers functional beverages reimagined for everyday rituals. So Beckie, from what I understand, she first became aware of the benefits of bone broth when she was working as a holistic nutritionist. So she ended up taking her idea to the farmer's markets initially and is now scaling it up through retail across both Canada, where she's based, and the US.
Beckie, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you here.
Beck (01:03)
Yeah, thank you so much. Also, you nailed that intro. So thanks so much for sharing my story.
Nate (01:09)
Of course. Well, truth be told, I did practice it once or twice before we jumped on the call here, but I'm glad you approve. So Beckie, let's get started. Why Bone Broth? Like what is so special about this product and what was kind of wrong with the existing solutions?
Beck (01:12)
I know.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so when I was actually in school to become a holistic nutritionist, everybody was drinking bone broth. are all and when we are learning about it in class, I remember the class that we were talking about all the benefits about it and everyone was so excited and jazzed up at the end of the day that we all went home and we made bone broth. So I think it was a huge thing in our inner class where everyone kind of discovered it at the same time. I mean, needless to say, it's been around since literally the very beginning of time pretty much as soon as people started to harvest animals for food. But in my
world when I was in my mid-20s I just started making it myself so
Nate (02:03)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (02:04)
I really fell in love with the benefits. I love the way that it made me feel. It really helps support your gut health. It's super easy to absorb the nutrients that come from bone broth and really big leaning into sustainability. I love the aspect that you are able to take an animal byproduct and turn it into something that can nourish you, your family, and your neighbors. I just thought that was so cool. So I fell in love with bone broth in that way and then when I started offering it to my clients, nobody really wanted to drink the bone broth. They didn't know what to do with it, but then I still noticed that they were spending their $10.
at Starbucks every day. So then I was like, okay, let's make the bone broth taste like something that they already want to enjoy, which was Starbucks. So that's how we were able to create a unique product to service our customers.
Nate (02:37)
Hmm
Okay, very interesting.
And I understand that, you know, early on when you were just starting out, you spent some time in farmers markets, which is something that a lot of CPG founders do. You know, one of the great things, I guess, about selling in a farmer's market is you don't need, you know, huge amounts of inventory and you get, you know, one-to-one contact with the customers. I'm curious, though, if there were any big surprises from that era, like, you know, going into it.
but I assume you were looking for some product feedback from real people, but were there any specific things that you learned during that era that you didn't anticipate learning going into it?
Beck (03:30)
Yeah, there's actually a couple things that come to my mind right off the bat. So it was an exhausting process. I wasn't expecting it to be so tiring, but the farmers markets, they open up at 7 a.m., right, or at least my local farmer.
farmers market did. So I needed to make sure that I was in the kitchen getting everything packed and organized and I was up some days at like 4 a.m. on on Saturday and I didn't really think about how tiring that would be and how much of a toll it took on my body but then after doing that for a full year I realized like I couldn't like I couldn't keep doing it. It wasn't sustainable. At the end of the farmers market day I would just often go home and crash like I mean I would have no energy to talk to anyone. I was ravenous. I was so hungry all the time. So that's a big thing that I learned. It was just my
I already had a really hard time working that hard and that early. And then also another thing, it's really hard to sometimes put yourself out on the line in front of people at the farmers market, especially your neighbors. And people see, like hear of a new business starting in town and they wanna come and say hi to you. So it's really hard to just say, is my baby and I hope you love it too, type of thing. Because there was some people that didn't connect with the product or didn't love it or would give you that funny look of like, good luck.
like wish you luck, all the best. So I felt like I got like a lot of sympathy in that way and like it was.
Sometimes embarrassing but then also just really hard to process it was like okay like Sundays I wish I could just show up at work and have a mask on and not be the the face behind the brand So yeah, those are two things that surprised me, but I loved the the product feedback like the customer feedback about the product I think that that's exactly what made me grow the product line into where we are at today, which is the powdered the powdered bone bra
Nate (05:16)
Okay, so the product today is quite different to what you were selling back then, right? So back when you first started, it was a liquid in a jar from what I understand. And you now mentioned a powder in a packet. Tell me what happened in between. Like, why did you have to change the form factor?
Beck (05:22)
Yeah.
Yeah.
For sure. And yeah, a little bit of history on my products. So we make a bone broth, hot chocolate, coffee, matcha, and we just have a salted caramel hot chocolate as well now. So in the beginning, when I first rented my commercial kitchen, I was getting started with all of this. I was making the bone broth in bulk. So I think I was making about 400 liters at a time, which was pretty crazy. And then I had to, and I was housing the liquid in like a glass jar, and then I would have to put that in the freezer just because it had a short shelf life of like five to seven days. And I didn't really,
Nate (05:56)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (06:06)
I was really nervous and feeling like I was like handling a dangerous food sometimes because sometimes people don't know how long things go in their fridge for and if it's past the seven days and it goes bad then I feel like really empathetic towards that customer for spending their hard earned money on a product that they weren't able to enjoy. But so yeah, I was making it in liquid, storing it in glass jars, keeping those glass jars in the freezer. And I knew one day once I realized the farmers market was so hard and it's not getting me like the complete amount of sales that I really wanted, I would say, okay.
Nate (06:13)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (06:36)
well, let's focus in on also like I want to tap into the retail market and then I really want to tap into ecom and both of those things it's really hard to sell a glass jar frozen product on either of those channels whether that's retail or ecom So then I just sat to myself one day and as a cave I want to take Beck;s broth Seriously, if I have that vision to go for it Then I need to create a product that is shelf stable and light and weight Which means that it is going to be a pastured boat a pastor Sorry a powder bone broth
Nate (06:37)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Beck (07:06)
And so yeah, that's exactly what we did. It took nine months of innovation and research and development, but we eventually got there.
Nate (07:13)
Very cool, very cool. so did, just to clarify, did you ever try to sell the liquid version through e-commerce or you didn't even bother? Uh-huh.
Beck (07:22)
We tried. So at this time I was really
building my community out loud through Instagram. So was pretty much Instagram customers. I even remember going on Facebook Marketplace once and putting Beck;s Broth up at Facebook Marketplace and saying, hey, like I'm your neighbor. I'm really shooting my shot, like come and buy some. So I would get orders through that way. And then there was a courier company at the time that would pick up a box and deliver it within Ontario, which is where I'm from, for like a flat fee of like 20 bucks. So we tested that out for a couple of months, but it was just so expensive.
Nate (07:29)
Mm-hmm.
wow.
Mm-hmm.
Beck (07:52)
and there was damages and it really was not, it was not ideal.
Nate (07:56)
Mm hmm. So this is,
guess, a great example of case study in kind of product channel fit, I guess you would say. You recognize that, you know, shipping liquids all over the country is expensive. And I'm guessing there's probably a fair bit of breakage as well, right? Like, did you have a lot of issues with that?
Beck (08:03)
Thank
Luckily, we didn't experience too many issues with breakage. I just, I knock on what every single day I feel like during those times, it was always kind of like I was holding my breath until a customer received their order. So the courier company that we worked with, they knew what was inside the box. So they knew they had to pick it up from my house and literally put it in their car and then deliver it right to the other person's house. So it wasn't like it was getting bopped around in warehouses, just pretty much a vehicle. But making that product that way, there's a crazy amount of kitchen horror stories of things.
Nate (08:20)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Beck (08:45)
breaking or not working out in my advantage. I remember one day actually on the topic of this I was going home from the farmers market and I had two of those five gallon pails full of raw honey because that's how we sweetened our product at the time and I was put those in my trunk and I was driving to my kitchen to unload the ingredients for the week and somehow in transit maybe I slammed on the brakes too hard and both those buckets fell over and the lids opened up and I had about this much probably an inch and a half to two inches of raw honey in the back of my trunk.
Nate (08:45)
I bet.
Beck (09:15)
Fully coated and I remember opening my trunk Looking at it and being like you have to be kidding me and this was a Saturday So I called around to all these car detailing shops be like can somebody help me and four of the five of them said no We're not touching that that's we don't want to do that on a Saturday and I could not blame them. But yeah
Nate (09:16)
my God.
Hahaha
Wow, what a disaster. Well,
it sounds like a very smart evolution in terms of the product. I'm curious as I think, you know, I'm a bit of a numbers and finance nerd. I have to ask, like, what is the difference in unit economics and profitability of these two different, you know, form factors that you've, you know, been using?
Beck (09:39)
Thank
huh.
Yeah, so profitability and just the finance model around the powdered product. It's so much more easier to calculate. because now we just have a co packer. have all of our raw materials. We don't have all that, like some like waste. So when I was doing it myself in my commercial kitchen, it was so hard to track the true costs. And I know if my husband listening to this, he's just laughing because the first month of my business, he finally comes to me and was like, Beck, like you need to know that with every jar you sell, you're practically giving your customer your doll.
Nate (10:07)
Mmm.
Beck (10:25)
Like my pricing was not it did not make sense. I was trying to sell it for like seven dollars But there was all the ingredients and the materials going into that jar. It didn't even calculate like my My salary at all. So I'm just making all of this for free just for the fun of it So it was really hard to track the cost of me being in the kitchen because I would be coming and going so frequently Things would happen. I felt like it was just always on and it was really hard to capture that true number So it's just a lot easier now with the product that we have like it's co-packed
Nate (10:27)
Ha
Yeah.
Sounds like a wise change then. Wise change indeed. on... Good, good, good.
Beck (10:59)
Yeah, no more tears on the kitchen floor.
Nate (11:04)
Well, on the topic of finances, I'd love to understand a little bit about how you've managed to fund this business so far. I gather it was probably not from profits of selling the stuff in jars. But how have you managed to get the business to where it is today in terms of the funding side of things?
Beck (11:27)
Yeah, this is always a tricky one, for whenever new businesses reach out to me now for asking for advice, I always tell them that they need to lean into their small business center and then look up different grants that are available. in the beginning, I am so grateful for being located here in Guelph and then also Kitchener-Waterloo is right next door. Those are two cities in Ontario. But we have such phenomenal small business centers and I was just honest from the very beginning of like, hey guys, I have no idea what I'm doing. I need money.
Is there any programs that I could be doing that maybe have a grant attached to them or associated to them? So I really leaned into the grant aspect. I think since the very beginning I we've gosh Captured I think over two hundred fifty thousand dollars just three grants and wage subsidies. So we've yeah, it's been really helpful I think that's really the true benefit to building a business out loud It's because whenever we find ourselves in these pickles of needing cash fast for a
future innovation or something like that. It's always we go to LinkedIn or we go to the people around us in business and say, like what grants, like do you guys know of any grants that we can apply to? Do you know of any programs that can help us with different types of wage subsidies? Because that truly allows us to help grow faster without having all that risk associated with it. So yeah, in the beginning, a lot of grants, heavy on the grants. When my business partner came on board a year ago, really her whole role in the beginning was just
Nate (12:47)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Beck (12:56)
applying for grants and then she eventually within the first month of her working she ended up finding a grant that covered her salary for a year. So it's just really trying to get savvy with the programs out there and keeping the ear to the ground.
Nate (13:12)
That's an unbelievable amount of money. I assume that you, mean, as grants, like you didn't have to give away any equity, right? You don't have to give a cent of that back. That was all your money. Is that the only capital that you've accessed today? Like, has there been any other equity or debt that you've raised along the way?
Beck (13:30)
Yep.
So right now we have debt financing. So I think we have about 400,000 in debt right now. So loans, lines of credits, that type of thing. We still have full equity of the business. My business partner and I, we are working towards our first raise, which is coming up fairly soon. We're just trying to put all those puzzle pieces together. But I'm sure you hear this time and a time and again, it's so expensive to start a business. But then also when you think about scaling that business, it's so hard to finance that growth because
Nate (13:35)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (14:01)
is a lot people don't think about the cash flow cycles. If you are expecting to grow, say 10 % every month over the next six months, you need to make sure that you have the cash to pay for everything ahead of time, and then you don't see a dime of that until that sells through, really. So we're kinda getting to a point where we're growing fairly quickly, and it's a little scary just looking at projections being like, holy crap, I need this amount of money to fund this future growth. So now we're at a stage where we're feeling finally comfortable.
with starting that project.
Nate (14:33)
Very cool, very cool. The podcast that I recorded actually earlier this afternoon, just before yours, was with Kat Weaver, who is the founder of a company called Power to Pitch. And she actually helps founders with grant funding, which you've clearly already been very successful at, but also helps them prepare for, find other options for financing, whether it's angels, angel networks, VCs, corporate grants, whatever.
I'm not sure exactly whether her episode will be just before or just after yours, but if you have a look at the published podcast queue, it will be very, very close to when this episode came out. Anyway, you mentioned that an equity raise is in your future. What's the status of that right now? mean, have you actually started talking to investors? Is there any commitments at this stage? How far along are you?
Beck (15:14)
Yeah.
Yeah, so I think we're gonna open up to a friends and family round first. And I think our goal is to try and raise, I mean, like anything at this point would be helpful. We're safe, if we're just starting out, it would be great to get like.
500,000 in our pockets and then eventually I think a year later try and raise like a big boy amount like 2 million so that's coming But Dawn my business partner. She's really leading leading this project, but I feel like our hopes and goals were to have it Out there to our friends and family and people in the industry I feel like our names getting bopped around a lot and people know that we're starting this round soon So hopefully people come in but hopefully by q4 I think it's really just just around the corner. We just need to I think gain that
Nate (16:07)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (16:11)
confidence to get that extra push in us.
Nate (16:15)
Okay, cool. I'll
be looking forward to see that story coming to life soon. Back to the debt piece though. I mean, you mentioned, I think $400,000, which I'll be honest, it's like a pretty big chunk of debt for a company your age. I'm not sure where you've borrowed that from, but I'm guessing you're probably in, you know, well into double digit interest rates. So we're talking...
Beck (16:19)
Yeah.
Thank
Yeah.
Not even quite yet.
think we've got really lucky with some of our interest rates. mean, definitely interest is up there, but I think we were able to score some pretty great loans and lines of credits are around like 8%. I want to say, this is a Dom question, my business partner. So she might be like, girl, you're very wrong. But there's, of course, there's also, so we worked with Farm Credit Canada, which is a lender here up in Canada, I guess to you.
Nate (16:44)
No? Okay.
Yeah.
Wow. Okay, okay. I went. Okay, I went.
Mm-hmm.
Beck (17:11)
And they really help any type of agricultural business or food business really help grow, which has been super great. I think we've been able to secure, I believe, $75,000 from them. We've worked with business development, like BDC, Business Development Canada as well. I think we have 150,000 from them. And we have two other lenders as well. So yeah, but it's been really great. It does sound super scary to anyone listening who has...
thinking about taking on these big people, like these big girl loans, that's what me and my business partner called them when we were first starting to talk about them. And it was really, it was a scary decision to make because of course, it's my house on the line, right? It's mine and my husband's house that's co-signed onto all these money, right? So I think a big thing, like we're so sure of our growth and we feel so passionate about it, but also...
Nate (17:42)
You
Beck (18:00)
we make sure that the conversations and the data are there. So we meet with Farm Credit Canada and our rep from them every single month and they go through our P &L reports and our balance sheets meticulously with Dom and they really work on a growth strategy and our projections. So it's not likely we just blindly borrow this money. Our lenders are really aware of our financial situation and we work with them every single month to be like, hey, like.
Do you guys still think that we're on the right path? Do you guys feel confident in this? And at the end of the day, it's a risk for them. So they really want to know the businesses that they're trusting with their money, right? So they've been incredible helping us learn, month after month what we're doing and if we're on the right track. So yeah, I highly recommend it. you guys borrow money from, if anybody's listening, borrowing money from somebody somewhere, ask if they can help you and just kind of sit down once per month and just make sure that things are moving in the right direction. Because at the end of the day,
If you can borrow more money from them, perfect, that's what they want because that's a goal, a strategic goal of theirs, right, too. So yeah, that's what we've been doing so far.
Nate (19:05)
Okay, cool. Well, you mentioned...
a personal guarantee of types there and you'd actually put up your house as collateral. So, you know, if worst case situation happens here, you've got some serious risk on the line. Talk to, if you don't mind sharing, like talk to me a little bit about that decision. That's a big deal to put your house on the line for a startup business.
Beck (19:17)
I did.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, risk, but you know what? I couldn't have done it without my husband. He bought the house before we got married. So luckily when we got married, he said, I think it was him that brought it up. And he was like, you know what? I fully believe in your vision. We're growing Beck;s Broth. We're going to sell it one day. You need the money now. So let's just leverage the house, I guess. So it wasn't technically an easy decision to make, but it made sense. a huge thing about me is I love to work.
and listen to my intuition, like how's my check feeling, feeling with all of this, and really leaned into that and realized that we were both comfortable with that and we just need to make sure that in borrowing this money we need to be so smart about every single dollar that we spend and we just need to analyze every single number out there. So I think once we really committed to that it was easier to sign those papers.
Nate (20:19)
yeah.
Beck (20:27)
technically, but I don't I don't regret it at all. think it was a necessary step to get to where we want to go.
Nate (20:28)
Yeah.
Got it, got it.
Well, I understand in terms of, you know, contribution to the business that kind of numbers are not necessarily, you know, your core strength. Tell me a little bit about how you've managed to get comfortable with the numbers over the years. And I mean, you talked about reviewing a balance sheet and a profit and loss statement. Like how have you managed to get there?
Beck (20:46)
No.
Yeah. So we work with a great bookkeeper. We work with a great accountant. I think a big part of this process has been me having to strip away my ego and fully show up being like, I don't understand numbers. They're not my strong suit. I will never enter a conversation thinking I know, I know all of that type of like type of that world. Like it's hard to carry on a conversation sometimes with them. I can get by the bare minimum. But so whenever I have these conversations with my bookkeeper, the lenders or the accountants.
Nate (21:08)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Beck (21:31)
I'm the first one to say, like, hey, let's maybe take this through a little bit slow. I'm not fully comfortable here, but I'm so willing to learn. And I think by really putting that out on my sleeve, just showing up who I am and not pretending to be someone else, it's allowed me to approach this topic with less fear. I think in the beginning, I didn't want to look at those numbers. When my husband was telling me when I was in the farmer's market days that I was losing money, just was, ignorance is bliss. Like, it's fine, it's all gonna work out. then...
Nate (21:47)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (21:57)
Eventually, I just started to say, you know what, I need to lean into this, but as long as I can recognize that this isn't my forte, I'm gonna be okay. But that's definitely where having a well-structured team makes a life or death difference pretty much. So, love that.
Nate (22:06)
Okay.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, I get the sense that you're kind of the brand, the marketing, like the product person here. You mentioned earlier, you have a co founder, tell me about like what she brings and how did you decide that she was the right person for you?
Beck (22:32)
Yeah, so Dominique, is the president of ExpoRafnow and my business partner. she, her background is in like food sustainability and food sustainability engineering, sorry. And she went to the University of Guelph and we actually met at, through the small business community here in Guelph. So we were attending the same webinars. I think we were attending the same like networking events, the same farmers market. She also started.
rewind she had a product at the time of her own which was like a high protein gluten-free waffle mix so and she was a couple of years she's a couple years younger than me so she was kind of like literally doing exactly what I was doing we were kind of in the same stages of business very new businesses I'm talking with it like six months
And then we became friends. remember reaching out to her on Instagram one day just being like, hey, like do you just want to go for lunch? Like I would just love to be able to talk through some of my challenges or what I'm kind of working on. Like how can we help each other out here? And we went for lunch and honestly like the rest is history. We ended up becoming best friends. So then about a year goes, a year and a half goes after we met for the first time in person. And at that point we were really good friends already and then she called me and was like, hey, like
Are you sitting down? Like I just have something to ask you and I had no idea where like where we were going with this. So was like, yeah, like you're scaring me. Like what's what's going on? go with how would you feel if like I became your business partner and like sold the happy era her business and just went full on with Beck;s Groth and me I'm always like I see. Yeah. So I was saying that I was so taken back and I always see the best in everything and I'm trying to catch myself sometimes to be like, okay, well like
What would my business mentor say? What would my husband say? Like you can't just jump to say yes to everything even though it feels good in that gut, because I definitely lean into that. So I was on the phone, I was like, oh you know what, like I love this so much, thank you for asking me and wanting to join this, but like just give me some time, like let me rethink it. Like I just want to make sure I'm fully thinking about blindly saying yes. And I remember running upstairs to my husband being like, oh my gosh, like.
guess what, Dom just said on the phone, I just flopped down in the bed and I told him all about it he's like, you know you're gonna say yes. Like look at the smile on your face. Like you've already said yes to yourself. And so brought her on and within, she's been at Beck;sbroath for a year and a half and has completely changed the growth trajectory of our business. I feel like she is just such a power horse. She really leans into the finance side of the business and the operations side and yeah, so she's just.
Nate (24:44)
You
Beck (25:05)
She's so smart and I definitely could not do this without her.
Nate (25:09)
Sounds like a great pairing. you feel like, or were you aware that you needed someone like her before you met her? No, okay.
Beck (25:18)
No, no, I was I was still
a solo entrepreneur at the time. I knew that it would have been nice I think we joked to with each other before me they go would be so nice with like a co-founder but that idea co-founder was in my mind and it didn't really occur to me that I could hire like a business like I have a business partner without them starting the business with me from the start so I think I was really getting confused by that term and then when she like brought it up to me and then I was like like this is actually like this is exactly what I need because we're complete
Nate (25:42)
Hmm.
Beck (25:48)
We are so good at staying in our own lane, like me being the sales and marketing, her being finance and operations. So we really make such a beautiful team and we have such great communication with one another, love each other like best friends. So it just, it really made sense and there hasn't been any icky, sticky things to do, like think conversations. In the beginning we hired a business mentor for three months to walk us through the process.
Nate (26:09)
Mm.
Beck (26:12)
Because we knew we needed somebody who knew what they were doing to help guide and facilitate the conversations that we have to have as business partners, especially because it was my business and now I'm pretty much dividing that up and handing it over to somebody else. Yeah, so that was a little intimidating, but we just said, you know what, we're going to talk through everything that comes up and we're going to make sure that we see each other as humans first and friends first. And yeah, it's just been great. The power of communication is...
Nate (26:24)
Yeah, opening the doors and giving some of it to her. Yeah. Got it. Yeah.
Beck (26:41)
is incredible.
Nate (26:43)
So Beckie, I first became aware of you through LinkedIn. I can't remember when or how exactly, but you suddenly start popping up on my LinkedIn feed like every day. And I was like, who is this girl? And since then I've come to appreciate and learn that you're actually very active in terms of building this business in public and being fairly open about it. I'm curious, how did you decide that that was a good
Beck (26:48)
Mm-hmm.
Bye.
Nate (27:13)
thing to do.
Beck (27:15)
Yeah.
Yeah, in the early stages when I was still at my commercial kitchen making the bone broth myself in the previous format, I was always listening to the Midday Squares podcast in my ears. So I was listening to them and their story, and I'm sure that you're familiar with their story, Jake Carl's, Leslie Carl's. So I was listening to their story and I just thought it was so fascinating and it really leaned on, like dawned on me where it's like, wait, like I'm that person that I want to know what other businesses are going through and how they've grown. And I want to know like the juicy, like in
and outs of business and I was like so why aren't I giving that back to my customers in return you know like let's like why am I doing this all alone it doesn't make sense if I build out loud hopefully I'll get some good feedback I'll learn something I'll grow my network so it really became intuitive from the very beginning that like that's the type of business that I'm gonna run it's never been a challenge to me because I love to socialize for one that's a something that I've just always been naturally great at and then whenever I'm procrastinating the hard things my mind instantly
Nate (28:09)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Beck (28:16)
goes okay well like since I don't want to do this hard thing yet so let me build on my own personal brand which is like LinkedIn or social media so it becomes an easier outlet for me to tap into if I'm trying to avoid a hard task so it's just been become really natural and but it's paid off in more ways than I could even count whether that whether that means meeting somebody new or being introduced to an incredible opportunity because they know that I'm really trying to grow this brand in this business and I'm playing it all on the line so then I
have a lot of great unique opportunities that come my way because of that. So yeah, it's been super fun for me to grow this network online.
Nate (28:55)
What are some of the biggest surprises or positive things that have come out of it for you?
Beck (29:01)
Yeah, my goodness. Okay, so one crazy thing. So we were in a pickle a couple of months ago with financing. We were about to get a loan. Something fell through last minute and it kind of, it put us in a time crunch to secure some ingredients. And so we put it out online that we were looking for money fast. Can anyone help us? And somebody literally wrote into our DMs that they were like willing to front us like a 70K or something like that. So we didn't end up taking, we just said like, my gosh,
incredible. you so much. It's so nice to know that like people like you exist that are just willing to kind of help us out when we are in a pinch. So it's helped us out from a financing standpoint. People have recommended to us different other lenders and avenues that we can that we can go after. It's also helped us when it comes to different programs that we attend. So I recently recently got a grant a couple of months ago to travel to New York to help grow our business and then also to Vancouver. So out west here in Canada. So just
Nate (29:37)
Hmm.
Beck (30:01)
really cool opportunities like that where it's like people know that we're trying to grow this so then they see an opportunity whether that's like a grant, a travel grant or like a networking event and they pass it to us. But then that's how we've met a lot of even our employees. I think every single person right now on payroll that we've worked with is because we've built up a relationship with them online. Like we've been growing the business out loud, they're tapping into our story so then it's kind of building us together and then when we open up these positions it's like we already know this person, we know that they kick
Nate (30:15)
Wow.
Beck (30:31)
because I mean like we're still a very tight community here at Beck;sboro so we really want to make sure that we're only hiring people that fits our current personality type and not personality type but just like being our people that can really like go through the weeds with us. So yeah we've hired everyone that we've hired it's just because of our community as well which has been super helpful.
Nate (30:51)
Amazing, amazing. Well, there's clearly been
a lot of benefits from doing it. And you you've had some great wins to share over the years, but
The other day when we were chatting about this, you told me the beginning of a story about Dragon's Den, of the Canadian equivalent of Shark Tank. I understand that you recorded a pitch with them. Tell me what happened and how did that kind of play out with your whole social media slash LinkedIn strategy?
Beck (31:27)
All right, so since the very beginning, all of our customers and people in our community always said like, need to go on Dragon's Den, you need to apply on Dragon's Den with this product. I can really see it on there. And we were at a networking event a little over a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, and we actually met with one of the producers of Dragon's Den, and she said that we needed to apply. So we did. And we instantly, as soon as that happened, we got online to our LinkedIn network and our Instagram, and we told them that we were going to apply and like actually pitch in
front of the dragon so this was probably our biggest social media campaign to date I like the amount of like
just conversation that was happening around it was huge. Everyone was ant for us. They've been waiting for this moment. The hype was so high. And then we didn't get it. We did not get a deal from the Dragons. Everybody said no. And it really, it broke mine and my business partner's heart. We were not expecting that. And it was, we really went in there thinking we have a great product. We can pitch like crazy. We work so well together. Like in no world did I think that we gonna walk away without an offer.
And so when that happened, I think it just broke us in a way. part, the part of that reason why is because we had so many people in our corner rooting for us. And I felt like it was, we almost were disappointing them in a way because we didn't get a deal. So it was very heartbreaking. And then it's also interesting because we want to share the full story of exactly what happened. But I mean, we have an NDA signs that we can't really talk about it for four years. So we've recorded a whole podcast to like lay out all the nitty gritty of what happened. And then we're like, my gosh, we need to read the NDA before we break.
this to the world so we don't get sued and then we realize we can't really share anything.
Nate (33:12)
Wow, I had no idea that they
had such a strict NDA. That's crazy.
Beck (33:16)
Yeah, very
strict. So we really couldn't tell our community the whole story, but they're dying to know the details. So we took that podcast that we weren't able to share and we pulled some pretty funny clips to it and just kept on like bleeping out.
Like the like keywords and whatnot and just tried to write it out just saying like listen We didn't get a deal But the feedback was incredible from the investors that we would have wanted to invest in Beck;sbroff anyways We it just wasn't the right time so at that point the business was still fairly new The powder product was only six months old so it still very young and it is a premium price product So I think that was also a fear of the Dragons But yeah, it was a very it was an emotional time when that was happening
Nate (33:57)
Yeah, well,
it sounds like a real bummer. I'm sorry it didn't work out, but I'm,
Beck (33:59)
That's okay.
Nate (34:03)
curious given the approach that you kind of committed to with LinkedIn at that point, how, like what do you do? I I'm just imagining myself in that situation. Like the last thing in the world I want to do is like jump on social media and tell, you know, the world that like, I didn't get it. We didn't get ed. Like none of this stuff that I thought was going to happen, you know, played out. Like how did you kind of process all that like publicly and privately at the time?
Beck (34:18)
orderly.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I remember the week after that. I felt very like emotionally drained even that day I felt so emotionally drained To the point where like I just the only thing I could do was nap I think just because I was so skyrocketed on like anxiety Beforehand and being so anxious about it and then that the combination of that with the disappointment it just like flattened me on my ass So I really we I didn't we didn't share the story even and like up until really like
couple of months ago so we didn't go on right away saying we didn't get it because of the whole NDA thing and we didn't know really what we could say. If people messaged us individually like reached out and said my gosh what happened of course I would always tell them I like get on my voice notes I hop on video like I'll call them like so a lot of people do know what happened but if they actually ask us we'll tell them the story.
But a big portion of it is I always just have to show up who I am. feel like it's... And I feel very comfortable saying, hey, like guys, like we didn't get it. Like it's such a huge disappointment that so like it's so upsetting. It took a lot out of me. But I just know that that's also going to be greeted with so much love and support. So it doesn't make me feel nervous or sad to share those types of loses or losses just because I know everyone's going to try and make me feel better about it. But then they're just like, wow, you shared this like that took balls like in
here's my story in return. And then that's where you really get to grow these special, like friendships because other business people, they've walked that same path and they can relate, right? So it's not like you're just sharing your losses all on your own. You often get some really great stories back in return that make you feel a little bit better and a little bit more connected, which I always enjoy.
Nate (35:59)
Mm-hmm.
I love it. love it. Well, you're certainly doing a great job on LinkedIn and for any founders listening who might be looking for an inspiration or a case study and personal brand building online, I definitely recommend you check out what Beckie's up to. She does a great job of it. So Beckie, you're based in Canada, Ontario, but I understand you're already selling in the US. Is that right?
Beck (36:18)
Thank you.
Thank you.
We're in a couple, I would say probably like 10 or 15 stores. So very small in the US right now. Yep, yep.
Nate (36:41)
Okay, so pretty early days, right.
So I'm curious, as a Canadian, with, you know, having dipped the dip the toe in the US, so to speak, what is the relative importance of the two countries today in terms of your sales and distribution? And what do you think the answer to that is longer term? How are you thinking about the Canadian market opportunity versus the US market opportunity, you know, a few years down the road?
Beck (37:11)
Yeah, no, that's such a great question. So the US opportunity, and things are changing now, especially because of...
everything happening in the tariff world. So we were supposed to go live with everything in the US, hopefully like in Q3, Q4 this year. And then when the tariffs started happening earlier this year, we needed to dial it back. But pretty much our product, if we can get into the US market and really grow there, we can do like 20 times business than when we're doing here, like in Canada. Right now our products sell so well since it is a premium priced product, premium luxurious product. Toronto is such a great place for us to sell this product. There's always these really nice boutiques.
Nate (37:21)
Yeah.
Beck (37:48)
and smoothie shops and people are more familiar with and like want that like nice fun beverage type of thing. So I just see it doing so well in places like Dallas and Texas and New York and LA so those are always definitely our goal markets and they're huge compared to Canada which I feel like a lot of people don't really recognize there's so many more doors in the US compared to Canada. But now the whole thing is do I just have my blinders on is based on the given like
state of the relationships, the trade relationships with Canada and US, is the US the next destination that's actually smart for the business or am I doing that just because it feels familiar and less scary? So these are the conversations I'm really trying to lean into because I just had a great conversation with another founder the other day who completely, they're Canadian, but they completely launched their product in China. They don't even sell it here.
but they just go right to China. And they're like, honestly, all the food founders in Canada have their blinders on thinking the UX is the next market when that might not be the case. It's just because when you think of exporting to places like China, you just, don't know what it's like. You don't know really anybody doing it. You can't speak the language. So it makes it a little bit intimidating, even though there's our people, people to help you support that. So right now we're in an interesting situation, but I think we'll definitely try and take a stab at US retail.
Nate (39:00)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (39:10)
going into 2026, I also, this was my year to really grow at retail here in Canada, like really go wide and deep instead of before exploring into the US. So that's what I've been doing. And if anybody listening has a product that is sold on the store shelf, it is so expensive. we really realized that we needed to take this project more seriously and spread it out a little bit because it's impossible to do big splashes.
Nate (39:32)
yeah.
Beck (39:39)
everywhere all at once. You don't really think about that when you're trying to build this vision in the early days, but then when you're in the trenches, you're like, my goodness, like there's no way I can expand into the US right now until we get like actual real investment. We're still a bootstrapped business. So it's just, it's too much to take on the Canadian market and the US market all on our own. So until we get that investment, we're just gonna really try and smash out of the park here in Canada, which we're doing first and then yeah, get to the US soon.
Nate (40:06)
I hear you, hear you. Certainly expensive and takes a very long time. I know it's only early days yet, but I'm curious, know, based on the experience you've had so far, are there any significant or particularly notable differences when it comes to selling via retail in Canada versus the US?
Beck (40:26)
I haven't really leaned into that so much right now the right now the retailers that were sold into the US More most of them are independent. So we're in a few we're in about five of the foxtrot locations, which is super fun and exciting But the other the others are more so independent So right now I'm working really hard with like my district my distributors and my brokers really getting into that world We're seeing as we don't have a distributor or a broker in the US. It's kind of hard to compare apples for apples
But also the US doesn't really, we don't have that brand awareness there yet either, right? So the sales have been slower, the velocity, we're not seeing it as high compared to here in Toronto, just because Toronto, everybody knows Beck;s Broth, but in the US, in Brooklyn where you are, I'm sure people are like, Beck;s what? What is that? So give us a year, and hopefully I'll have a different answer there.
Nate (41:15)
All right, all right, I'll keep an eye out. Hope you make it down here soon. Beckie, the other day we spoke briefly about some of the sort of sustainability paths or sustainability initiatives that you've been exploring. I'd love to learn a little bit more about what's on the cards over there. From what I gather, this is a somewhat important topic to you. What are some of the initiatives that you're looking into at the moment?
Beck (41:17)
Thank
Yeah, so right now we source, I'll start at the ingredient aspects and kind of work my way through the certifications. So the ingredients that we work with are super special to us. Every single one of them. Our coffee is roasted right down the road from us. Our bone broth is the best bone broth on the market, sourced from New Zealand. Pasture is grass fed, really high quality. The cacao that we source from comes from, the person that we work with here lives in Victoria, but she works with her family.
farm down in Africa and imports it in for us. We really try and be so selective with all the ingredients that we choose just to really make sure that we know who's farming what ingredients and making sure that they're doing things as sustainably as possible. A couple of things that we really want to look into is like 1 % for the planet. I feel like that's always been a certification that has just like when I see that on products that I'm purchasing, I'm like, hell yeah. Like that just, it makes you feel so excited and happy inside when you see that. And I want to be able to provide that same feeling to our customers.
I do remember in the beginning when I was working really closely with my small business centers, that was one of the first questions I asked them. was like, when's the right time to add these certifications to your products? Like, really wanna lean into that, that's super important. And she laughed at me, which was actually super discouraging. But she's like, until like, and we are a profitable business now, but at the time I wasn't. But she's just like, can't, if you're not paying yourself a proper salary and if you're not a profitable.
Nate (43:00)
You
Beck (43:09)
profitable business, you need to forget about these certifications until you reach that point. So I just remember feeling super sad after hearing that, but it totally made sense. mean, you need to have help in the business first before you can make some big decisions. And we're finally coming to a place and we're having the team around us that are gonna be able to make these decisions moving forward. So even whether that's just a seal on a company that we work with to really help reduce any of the plastic, because we do serve our packaging right now, our packaging right now is plastic.
Nate (43:20)
hardly.
Beck (43:38)
So working with a business to help us remove plastic from the oceans is definitely a priority of ours. And then we are switching to a bulk tin format as well, which we're super excited about when we start to kind of hit the food service level of Beck;s Broth just so we can reduce all of the plastic that we're using. So yeah, there's currently a lot of different things in the works, but yeah, just making sure that the business health is like 100 % before investing in these big programs is pretty important.
Nate (44:06)
I love it. love it. For what it's worth, I think that was some...
great advice that you got there for whoever this woman was. And listen, I think this is such a perfect topic to be talking about on the profits on purpose podcast. And I just wanted to kind of reiterate, circle back and reiterate what you just said there, which is that you basically needed to make sure that you had a profitable foundation and that your business was, you know, financially sustainable before you went and pursued
Beck (44:10)
Yeah, it was.
Nate (44:39)
these more purpose oriented things, which are clearly very important to you. But you're doing it in the right order, right? If you don't have a business that can pay your bills and put a roof over your head, then all of this charitable stuff, it doesn't matter. Because if you're not able to continue doing this personally, then you're never gonna be able to give a cent to 1 % for the planet or any other charity that you might wanna support. So yeah, just wanted to circle back on that.
Beck (44:44)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
tonight.
Nate (45:09)
I'm curious though.
about the tension or I'm guessing, I don't want to put words in your mouth here, but maybe a conflict that might exist from time to time. A lot of these things that you have talked about, like I understand why, you know, it's important to you to source high quality ingredients from, you know, New Zealand or this, that. But a lot of these things come with a cost, right? Like you are paying higher costs as a result of some of the procurement and materials decisions that you've made.
Beck (45:35)
Mm-hmm.
Nate (45:43)
made.
And I'm guessing that a large part of your customer base may be completely unaware that you're paying what you are to procure these premium ingredients. And probably a lot of them wouldn't even notice if you downgraded and bought cheaper inputs. How do you decide which of these initiatives and costs are worth incurring and which ones are not?
Beck (45:51)
Mm-hmm.
Thank
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, great question. So our product retails for $9.99 per serving. So that is per one cup of coffee if you're not on our subscription model or if you don't purchase Beck;s Broth when it's on sale. So definitely more of that luxury priced item. so that was a really hard decision to make in the beginning because I really, I wanted this to be affordable to the majority of people, but I also didn't want to sacrifice any of the quality or the integrity of the products and the people that I work with. So we made that
early on when my business partner came on board too that was the conversation that we had to have because she's like well this conventional bone broth is so much more cheaper like I think we we really need to look here and then we tested it out and we tried it and we both disagreed you know what like we're we don't want to downgrade the quality of our ingredients but that means that we need to put an emphasis on why our product costs so much so if you do go through like our Instagram and sometimes I talk about it on LinkedIn as well it's like you're not gonna find us on like for two dollars or three dollars like
your product is $10 but this is why. So we really try and lean into that education of the product and really make it aware to the consumer why something is priced this way. Just even you saying that reminds me like hey maybe we just need to do that a little bit more especially as we grow so quickly the people that we're gonna grow into our network this month might not have seen that huge rant I did last month on why our product is priced this way but I just know it's something I personally want to feel really proud of the
Nate (47:36)
Hmm.
Beck (47:40)
work
that we're doing here and I just think the quality of the ingredients that's what I strive for every single day. So I feel like in order to grow the business that I truly do want to grow deep down in my heart we just really need to stick to that business model. it's yeah we just really we carefully select the ingredients that we work with and then the suppliers as well and just make sure the gut check is aligned.
Nate (47:55)
Mm-hmm.
Okay, very interesting, very interesting. appreciate the approach. you basically...
making decisions that are aligned with your values and picking the stuff that is important to you and then reminding customers why it should be important to them too, right? You know, we are what we eat and the reality is that you're being very selective about the stuff that you put into product and you know, people who value it, I'm sure they'll pay out for it but I suspect there'll be people who won't as well and I guess you've come to peace with the term that, know, okay, they're just not my people.
Beck (48:11)
Yep.
Yeah.
Thank
Yeah. Yeah.
Nate (48:39)
and you you went...
Beck (48:39)
And that's something that actually,
that was something hard to really navigate because I didn't want to make anybody feel uncomfortable with the price tag. Like that definitely wasn't my point. But I needed to learn that it's not for everyone and that's okay. Like it doesn't have to be for you. That's why I think like the power of gifting Beck;s Broth is just super cool because people are buying gifts for people all the time. And if you have a friend that really loves high quality local,
ingredients or products, how cool is it just to give them a little sweet treat, but that they normally wouldn't buy for themselves, right? So that's why I love when people write in saying, you know what? You're right. This is the best thing to give, like, or like the best thing thing to gift someone because yeah, like they wouldn't buy it for themselves. So really, yeah, need to tap into that as well.
Nate (49:25)
Well, there's a novel gift idea and I should be publishing
this podcast sometime in October. So I think our timing might be perfect here. We should come up with some sort of profits on purpose discount code or something that maybe we can talk about that later. We will? Okay, cool.
Beck (49:30)
Perfect.
yeah, we'll put one in the notes. Yeah, yeah, we'll put one in the notes.
Yeah. no.
Nate (49:43)
All right, all right. I didn't mean to put you on the spot there, but okay. I have no idea what Beckie's code is going to be, but look in the show
notes if you want to find a profits on purpose discount code. Okay, very cool, very cool. Well, Beckie, I've got a slightly new tradition here. And as we move towards the end of this conversation, my new tradition is that I'm asking every guest about their favorite business KPI or performance metric. I would love to know what yours is.
Beck (49:51)
Thank
Thank
Nate (50:13)
how often you look at it and why.
Beck (50:16)
Okay, this question If anyone on my team is listening to this, they're probably just rolling their eyes and laughing I KPI is like the worst word in my vocabulary Partially because I'm just so that like no, I'm not bad at tracking my KPIs Sometimes they get me a little bit nervous and I like to be that ignorance is bliss But my whole team is so good at hitting their KPIs and we reviewed them every single month So I should not be scared of this word
Nate (50:18)
Why was that such a funny question?
Ha
Beck (50:46)
So I wish I had a good one. I a huge KPI for me is that I'm making sure that we are hitting our sales goals within a certain margin each month. I know that's kind of a silly way of wording that one. Outside of that, I'm not a KPI girly, guys. So trust me, if you're a founder and you're not either, you're not alone. I hear the word KPI and I want to run away. But they are important to have. So make sure somebody on your team.
Nate (50:58)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Okay.
Beck (51:12)
is drilling me with the KPI questions and keeping track of things. Personally me, that is not my personality. So I hope that's an okay answer. Nate. I thought about it. almost have technology issues. I'm freezing.
Nate (51:20)
It's a fine answer and thank you for not hanging up on me in the middle of the podcast and running away. I appreciate it. What? Hey, where did Beckie go? Okay.
Well, Beckie, this has been really fun. I've enjoyed hanging out and having you on here. You've got such a fascinating story and I love what you're doing with the product and I love, I think...
Beck (51:35)
Yeah.
Nate (51:45)
The thing I respect and appreciate most about you is just the hustle and grind. Like you're just getting out there and getting it done. And you know, I really, really respect that. So keep doing what you're doing. It's been amazing to have you on. Final question before I let you go. If anyone would like to learn more about you or what you're up to, where should they go? Where should we send them?
Beck (51:52)
Yeah.
Thank
Yeah, if you want to be entertained, would highly suggest going to our Instagram or our TikTok, which is just Beck;sBrah. I feel like the main purpose that we view these channels is really just to make friends and entertain you. I feel like we're all silly girls here that work at Beck;sBrah, so the content you can really resonate with there. And then also if you're at LinkedIn, just search at Beckie Prime and you'll find me there. Yeah, thanks.
Nate (52:28)
Okay, amazing. Thanks so much, Beckie. Well, been great to
have you again and we'll be in touch. Take care.
Beck (52:34)
one more plug. Also,
since you are US based, we just launched our Amazon US storefront. So your listeners can head on over there if you want to try the product.
Nate (52:42)
Okay.
We'll get that link off you later and I'll include that in the show notes as
Transcript
Nate Littlewood (00:18)
Welcome to Profits on Purpose, which is a podcast for CPG and e-commerce founders who are looking to scale their businesses both profitably and purposefully. I'm your host, Nate Littlewood, and I'm the founder of Future Ready CFO, which is a go-to fractional CFO solution for seven-figure founders who are looking to turn financial chaos and confusion into business clarity and confidence. Anyway, today's guest is Beckie Prime, who is a founder
of Beck's Broth, which is a brand that offers functional beverages reimagined for everyday rituals. So Beckie, from what I understand, she first became aware of the benefits of bone broth when she was working as a holistic nutritionist. So she ended up taking her idea to the farmer's markets initially and is now scaling it up through retail across both Canada, where she's based, and the US.
Beckie, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you here.
Beck (01:18)
Yeah, thank you so much. Also, you nailed that intro. So thanks so much for sharing my story.
Nate Littlewood (01:24)
Of course. Well, truth be told, I did practice it once or twice before we jumped on the call here, but I'm glad you approve. So Beckie, let's get started. Why Bone Broth? Like what is so special about this product and what was kind of wrong with the existing solutions?
Beck (01:28)
I know.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so when I was actually in school to become a holistic nutritionist, everybody was drinking bone broth. are all and when we are learning about it in class, I remember the class that we were talking about all the benefits about it and everyone was so excited and jazzed up at the end of the day that we all went home and we made bone broth. So I think it was a huge thing in our inner class where everyone kind of discovered it at the same time. I mean, needless to say, it's been around since literally the very beginning of time pretty much as soon as people started to harvest animals for food. But in my
world when I was in my mid-20s I just started making it myself so
Nate Littlewood (02:16)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (02:17)
I really fell in love with the benefits. I love the way that it made me feel. It really helps support your gut health. It's super easy to absorb the nutrients that come from bone broth and really big leaning into sustainability. I love the aspect that you are able to take an animal byproduct and turn it into something that can nourish you, your family, and your neighbors. I just thought that was so cool. So I fell in love with bone broth in that way and then when I started offering it to my clients, nobody really wanted to drink the bone broth. They didn't know what to do with it, but then I still noticed that they were spending their $10.
at Starbucks every day. So then I was like, okay, let's make the bone broth taste like something that they already want to enjoy, which was Starbucks. So that's how we were able to create a unique product to service our customers.
Nate Littlewood (02:48)
Hmm
Okay, very interesting.
And I understand that, you know, early on when you were just starting out, you spent some time in farmers markets, which is something that a lot of CPG founders do. You know, one of the great things, I guess, about selling in a farmer's market is you don't need, you know, huge amounts of inventory and you get, you know, one-to-one contact with the customers. I'm curious, though, if there were any big surprises from that era, like, you know, going into it.
but I assume you were looking for some product feedback from real people, but were there any specific things that you learned during that era that you didn't anticipate learning going into it?
Beck (03:38)
Yeah, there's actually a couple things that come to my mind right off the bat. So it was an exhausting process. I wasn't expecting it to be so tiring, but the farmers markets, they open up at 7 a.m., right, or at least my local farmer.
farmers market did. So I needed to make sure that I was in the kitchen getting everything packed and organized and I was up some days at like 4 a.m. on on Saturday and I didn't really think about how tiring that would be and how much of a toll it took on my body but then after doing that for a full year I realized like I couldn't like I couldn't keep doing it. It wasn't sustainable. At the end of the farmers market day I would just often go home and crash like I mean I would have no energy to talk to anyone. I was ravenous. I was so hungry all the time. So that's a big thing that I learned. It was just my
I already had a really hard time working that hard and that early. And then also another thing, it's really hard to sometimes put yourself out on the line in front of people at the farmers market, especially your neighbors. And people see, like hear of a new business starting in town and they wanna come and say hi to you. So it's really hard to just say, is my baby and I hope you love it too, type of thing. Because there was some people that didn't connect with the product or didn't love it or would give you that funny look of like, good luck.
like wish you luck, all the best. So I felt like I got like a lot of sympathy in that way and like it was.
Sometimes embarrassing but then also just really hard to process it was like okay like Sundays I wish I could just show up at work and have a mask on and not be the the face behind the brand So yeah, those are two things that surprised me, but I loved the the product feedback like the customer feedback about the product I think that that's exactly what made me grow the product line into where we are at today, which is the powdered the powdered bone bra
Nate Littlewood (05:19)
Okay, so the product today is quite different to what you were selling back then, right? So back when you first started, it was a liquid in a jar from what I understand. And you now mentioned a powder in a packet. Tell me what happened in between. Like, why did you have to change the form factor?
Beck (05:26)
Yeah.
Yeah.
For sure. And yeah, a little bit of history on my products. So we make a bone broth, hot chocolate, coffee, matcha, and we just have a salted caramel hot chocolate as well now. So in the beginning, when I first rented my commercial kitchen, I was getting started with all of this. I was making the bone broth in bulk. So I think I was making about 400 liters at a time, which was pretty crazy. And then I had to, and I was housing the liquid in like a glass jar, and then I would have to put that in the freezer just because it had a short shelf life of like five to seven days. And I didn't really,
Nate Littlewood (05:58)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (06:08)
I was really nervous and feeling like I was like handling a dangerous food sometimes because sometimes people don't know how long things go in their fridge for and if it's past the seven days and it goes bad then I feel like really empathetic towards that customer for spending their hard earned money on a product that they weren't able to enjoy. But so yeah, I was making it in liquid, storing it in glass jars, keeping those glass jars in the freezer. And I knew one day once I realized the farmers market was so hard and it's not getting me like the complete amount of sales that I really wanted, I would say, okay.
Nate Littlewood (06:15)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (06:38)
well, let's focus in on also like I want to tap into the retail market and then I really want to tap into ecom and both of those things it's really hard to sell a glass jar frozen product on either of those channels whether that's retail or ecom So then I just sat to myself one day and as a cave I want to take Beck;s broth Seriously, if I have that vision to go for it Then I need to create a product that is shelf stable and light and weight Which means that it is going to be a pastured boat a pastor Sorry a powder bone broth
Nate Littlewood (06:38)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Beck (07:06)
And so yeah, that's exactly what we did. It took nine months of innovation and research and development, but we eventually got there.
Nate Littlewood (07:12)
Very cool, very cool. so did, just to clarify, did you ever try to sell the liquid version through e-commerce or you didn't even bother? Uh-huh.
Beck (07:21)
We tried. So at this time I was really
building my community out loud through Instagram. So was pretty much Instagram customers. I even remember going on Facebook Marketplace once and putting Beck;s Broth up at Facebook Marketplace and saying, hey, like I'm your neighbor. I'm really shooting my shot, like come and buy some. So I would get orders through that way. And then there was a courier company at the time that would pick up a box and deliver it within Ontario, which is where I'm from, for like a flat fee of like 20 bucks. So we tested that out for a couple of months, but it was just so expensive.
Nate Littlewood (07:28)
Mm-hmm.
wow.
Mm-hmm.
Beck (07:50)
and there was damages and it really was not, it was not ideal.
Nate Littlewood (07:54)
Mm hmm. So this is,
guess, a great example of case study in kind of product channel fit, I guess you would say. You recognize that, you know, shipping liquids all over the country is expensive. And I'm guessing there's probably a fair bit of breakage as well, right? Like, did you have a lot of issues with that?
Beck (08:00)
Thank
Luckily, we didn't experience too many issues with breakage. I just, I knock on what every single day I feel like during those times, it was always kind of like I was holding my breath until a customer received their order. So the courier company that we worked with, they knew what was inside the box. So they knew they had to pick it up from my house and literally put it in their car and then deliver it right to the other person's house. So it wasn't like it was getting bopped around in warehouses, just pretty much a vehicle. But making that product that way, there's a crazy amount of kitchen horror stories of things.
Nate Littlewood (08:16)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Beck (08:38)
breaking or not working out in my advantage. I remember one day actually on the topic of this I was going home from the farmers market and I had two of those five gallon pails full of raw honey because that's how we sweetened our product at the time and I was put those in my trunk and I was driving to my kitchen to unload the ingredients for the week and somehow in transit maybe I slammed on the brakes too hard and both those buckets fell over and the lids opened up and I had about this much probably an inch and a half to two inches of raw honey in the back of my trunk.
Nate Littlewood (08:41)
I bet.
Beck (09:06)
Fully coated and I remember opening my trunk Looking at it and being like you have to be kidding me and this was a Saturday So I called around to all these car detailing shops be like can somebody help me and four of the five of them said no We're not touching that that's we don't want to do that on a Saturday and I could not blame them. But yeah
Nate Littlewood (09:07)
my God.
Hahaha
Wow, what a disaster. Well,
it sounds like a very smart evolution in terms of the product. I'm curious as I think, you know, I'm a bit of a numbers and finance nerd. I have to ask, like, what is the difference in unit economics and profitability of these two different, you know, form factors that you've, you know, been using?
Beck (09:29)
Thank
huh.
Yeah, so profitability and just the finance model around the powdered product. It's so much more easier to calculate. because now we just have a co packer. have all of our raw materials. We don't have all that, like some like waste. So when I was doing it myself in my commercial kitchen, it was so hard to track the true costs. And I know if my husband listening to this, he's just laughing because the first month of my business, he finally comes to me and was like, Beck, like you need to know that with every jar you sell, you're practically giving your customer your doll.
Nate Littlewood (09:55)
Mmm.
Beck (10:13)
Like my pricing was not it did not make sense. I was trying to sell it for like seven dollars But there was all the ingredients and the materials going into that jar. It didn't even calculate like my My salary at all. So I'm just making all of this for free just for the fun of it So it was really hard to track the cost of me being in the kitchen because I would be coming and going so frequently Things would happen. I felt like it was just always on and it was really hard to capture that true number So it's just a lot easier now with the product that we have like it's co-packed
Nate Littlewood (10:15)
Ha
Yeah.
Sounds like a wise change then. Wise change indeed. on... Good, good, good.
Beck (10:44)
Yeah, no more tears on the kitchen floor.
Nate Littlewood (10:49)
Well, on the topic of finances, I'd love to understand a little bit about how you've managed to fund this business so far. I gather it was probably not from profits of selling the stuff in jars. But how have you managed to get the business to where it is today in terms of the funding side of things?
Beck (11:09)
Yeah, this is always a tricky one, for whenever new businesses reach out to me now for asking for advice, I always tell them that they need to lean into their small business center and then look up different grants that are available. in the beginning, I am so grateful for being located here in Guelph and then also Kitchener-Waterloo is right next door. Those are two cities in Ontario. But we have such phenomenal small business centers and I was just honest from the very beginning of like, hey guys, I have no idea what I'm doing. I need money.
Is there any programs that I could be doing that maybe have a grant attached to them or associated to them? So I really leaned into the grant aspect. I think since the very beginning I we've gosh Captured I think over two hundred fifty thousand dollars just three grants and wage subsidies. So we've yeah, it's been really helpful I think that's really the true benefit to building a business out loud It's because whenever we find ourselves in these pickles of needing cash fast for a
future innovation or something like that. It's always we go to LinkedIn or we go to the people around us in business and say, like what grants, like do you guys know of any grants that we can apply to? Do you know of any programs that can help us with different types of wage subsidies? Because that truly allows us to help grow faster without having all that risk associated with it. So yeah, in the beginning, a lot of grants, heavy on the grants. When my business partner came on board a year ago, really her whole role in the beginning was just
Nate Littlewood (12:28)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Beck (12:36)
applying for grants and then she eventually within the first month of her working she ended up finding a grant that covered her salary for a year. So it's just really trying to get savvy with the programs out there and keeping the ear to the ground.
Nate Littlewood (12:50)
That's an unbelievable amount of money. I assume that you, mean, as grants, like you didn't have to give away any equity, right? You don't have to give a cent of that back. That was all your money. Is that the only capital that you've accessed today? Like, has there been any other equity or debt that you've raised along the way?
Beck (13:07)
Yep.
So right now we have debt financing. So I think we have about 400,000 in debt right now. So loans, lines of credits, that type of thing. We still have full equity of the business. My business partner and I, we are working towards our first raise, which is coming up fairly soon. We're just trying to put all those puzzle pieces together. But I'm sure you hear this time and a time and again, it's so expensive to start a business. But then also when you think about scaling that business, it's so hard to finance that growth because
Nate Littlewood (13:11)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (13:35)
is a lot people don't think about the cash flow cycles. If you are expecting to grow, say 10 % every month over the next six months, you need to make sure that you have the cash to pay for everything ahead of time, and then you don't see a dime of that until that sells through, really. So we're kinda getting to a point where we're growing fairly quickly, and it's a little scary just looking at projections being like, holy crap, I need this amount of money to fund this future growth. So now we're at a stage where we're feeling finally comfortable.
with starting that project.
Nate Littlewood (14:04)
Very cool, very cool. The podcast that I recorded actually earlier this afternoon, just before yours, was with Kat Weaver, who is the founder of a company called Power to Pitch. And she actually helps founders with grant funding, which you've clearly already been very successful at, but also helps them prepare for, find other options for financing, whether it's angels, angel networks, VCs, corporate grants, whatever.
I'm not sure exactly whether her episode will be just before or just after yours, but if you have a look at the published podcast queue, it will be very, very close to when this episode came out. Anyway, you mentioned that an equity raise is in your future. What's the status of that right now? mean, have you actually started talking to investors? Is there any commitments at this stage? How far along are you?
Beck (14:38)
Yeah.
Yeah, so I think we're gonna open up to a friends and family round first. And I think our goal is to try and raise, I mean, like anything at this point would be helpful. We're safe, if we're just starting out, it would be great to get like.
500,000 in our pockets and then eventually I think a year later try and raise like a big boy amount like 2 million so that's coming But Dawn my business partner. She's really leading leading this project, but I feel like our hopes and goals were to have it Out there to our friends and family and people in the industry I feel like our names getting bopped around a lot and people know that we're starting this round soon So hopefully people come in but hopefully by q4 I think it's really just just around the corner. We just need to I think gain that
Nate Littlewood (15:29)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (15:33)
confidence to get that extra push in us.
Nate Littlewood (15:37)
Okay, cool. I'll
be looking forward to see that story coming to life soon. Back to the debt piece though. I mean, you mentioned, I think $400,000, which I'll be honest, it's like a pretty big chunk of debt for a company your age. I'm not sure where you've borrowed that from, but I'm guessing you're probably in, you know, well into double digit interest rates. So we're talking...
Beck (15:41)
Yeah.
Thank
Yeah.
Not even quite yet.
think we've got really lucky with some of our interest rates. mean, definitely interest is up there, but I think we were able to score some pretty great loans and lines of credits are around like 8%. I want to say, this is a Dom question, my business partner. So she might be like, girl, you're very wrong. But there's, of course, there's also, so we worked with Farm Credit Canada, which is a lender here up in Canada, I guess to you.
Nate Littlewood (16:06)
No? Okay.
Yeah.
Wow. Okay, okay. I went. Okay, I went.
Mm-hmm.
Beck (16:33)
And they really help any type of agricultural business or food business really help grow, which has been super great. I think we've been able to secure, I believe, $75,000 from them. We've worked with business development, like BDC, Business Development Canada as well. I think we have 150,000 from them. And we have two other lenders as well. So yeah, but it's been really great. It does sound super scary to anyone listening who has...
thinking about taking on these big people, like these big girl loans, that's what me and my business partner called them when we were first starting to talk about them. And it was really, it was a scary decision to make because of course, it's my house on the line, right? It's mine and my husband's house that's co-signed onto all these money, right? So I think a big thing, like we're so sure of our growth and we feel so passionate about it, but also...
Nate Littlewood (17:02)
You
Beck (17:18)
we make sure that the conversations and the data are there. So we meet with Farm Credit Canada and our rep from them every single month and they go through our P &L reports and our balance sheets meticulously with Dom and they really work on a growth strategy and our projections. So it's not likely we just blindly borrow this money. Our lenders are really aware of our financial situation and we work with them every single month to be like, hey, like.
Do you guys still think that we're on the right path? Do you guys feel confident in this? And at the end of the day, it's a risk for them. So they really want to know the businesses that they're trusting with their money, right? So they've been incredible helping us learn, month after month what we're doing and if we're on the right track. So yeah, I highly recommend it. you guys borrow money from, if anybody's listening, borrowing money from somebody somewhere, ask if they can help you and just kind of sit down once per month and just make sure that things are moving in the right direction. Because at the end of the day,
If you can borrow more money from them, perfect, that's what they want because that's a goal, a strategic goal of theirs, right, too. So yeah, that's what we've been doing so far.
Nate Littlewood (18:18)
Okay, cool. Well, you mentioned...
a personal guarantee of types there and you'd actually put up your house as collateral. So, you know, if worst case situation happens here, you've got some serious risk on the line. Talk to, if you don't mind sharing, like talk to me a little bit about that decision. That's a big deal to put your house on the line for a startup business.
Beck (18:30)
I did.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, risk, but you know what? I couldn't have done it without my husband. He bought the house before we got married. So luckily when we got married, he said, I think it was him that brought it up. And he was like, you know what? I fully believe in your vision. We're growing Beck;s Broth. We're going to sell it one day. You need the money now. So let's just leverage the house, I guess. So it wasn't technically an easy decision to make, but it made sense. a huge thing about me is I love to work.
and listen to my intuition, like how's my check feeling, feeling with all of this, and really leaned into that and realized that we were both comfortable with that and we just need to make sure that in borrowing this money we need to be so smart about every single dollar that we spend and we just need to analyze every single number out there. So I think once we really committed to that it was easier to sign those papers.
Nate Littlewood (19:28)
yeah.
Beck (19:36)
technically, but I don't I don't regret it at all. think it was a necessary step to get to where we want to go.
Nate Littlewood (19:37)
Yeah.
Got it, got it.
Well, I understand in terms of, you know, contribution to the business that kind of numbers are not necessarily, you know, your core strength. Tell me a little bit about how you've managed to get comfortable with the numbers over the years. And I mean, you talked about reviewing a balance sheet and a profit and loss statement. Like how have you managed to get there?
Beck (19:54)
No.
Yeah. So we work with a great bookkeeper. We work with a great accountant. I think a big part of this process has been me having to strip away my ego and fully show up being like, I don't understand numbers. They're not my strong suit. I will never enter a conversation thinking I know, I know all of that type of like type of that world. Like it's hard to carry on a conversation sometimes with them. I can get by the bare minimum. But so whenever I have these conversations with my bookkeeper, the lenders or the accountants.
Nate Littlewood (20:14)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Beck (20:36)
I'm the first one to say, like, hey, let's maybe take this through a little bit slow. I'm not fully comfortable here, but I'm so willing to learn. And I think by really putting that out on my sleeve, just showing up who I am and not pretending to be someone else, it's allowed me to approach this topic with less fear. I think in the beginning, I didn't want to look at those numbers. When my husband was telling me when I was in the farmer's market days that I was losing money, just was, ignorance is bliss. Like, it's fine, it's all gonna work out. then...
Nate Littlewood (20:51)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (21:00)
Eventually, I just started to say, you know what, I need to lean into this, but as long as I can recognize that this isn't my forte, I'm gonna be okay. But that's definitely where having a well-structured team makes a life or death difference pretty much. So, love that.
Nate Littlewood (21:09)
Okay.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, I get the sense that you're kind of the brand, the marketing, like the product person here. You mentioned earlier, you have a co founder, tell me about like what she brings and how did you decide that she was the right person for you?
Beck (21:32)
Yeah, so Dominique, is the president of ExpoRafnow and my business partner. she, her background is in like food sustainability and food sustainability engineering, sorry. And she went to the University of Guelph and we actually met at, through the small business community here in Guelph. So we were attending the same webinars. I think we were attending the same like networking events, the same farmers market. She also started.
rewind she had a product at the time of her own which was like a high protein gluten-free waffle mix so and she was a couple of years she's a couple years younger than me so she was kind of like literally doing exactly what I was doing we were kind of in the same stages of business very new businesses I'm talking with it like six months
And then we became friends. remember reaching out to her on Instagram one day just being like, hey, like do you just want to go for lunch? Like I would just love to be able to talk through some of my challenges or what I'm kind of working on. Like how can we help each other out here? And we went for lunch and honestly like the rest is history. We ended up becoming best friends. So then about a year goes, a year and a half goes after we met for the first time in person. And at that point we were really good friends already and then she called me and was like, hey, like
Are you sitting down? Like I just have something to ask you and I had no idea where like where we were going with this. So was like, yeah, like you're scaring me. Like what's what's going on? go with how would you feel if like I became your business partner and like sold the happy era her business and just went full on with Beck;s Groth and me I'm always like I see. Yeah. So I was saying that I was so taken back and I always see the best in everything and I'm trying to catch myself sometimes to be like, okay, well like
What would my business mentor say? What would my husband say? Like you can't just jump to say yes to everything even though it feels good in that gut, because I definitely lean into that. So I was on the phone, I was like, oh you know what, like I love this so much, thank you for asking me and wanting to join this, but like just give me some time, like let me rethink it. Like I just want to make sure I'm fully thinking about blindly saying yes. And I remember running upstairs to my husband being like, oh my gosh, like.
guess what, Dom just said on the phone, I just flopped down in the bed and I told him all about it he's like, you know you're gonna say yes. Like look at the smile on your face. Like you've already said yes to yourself. And so brought her on and within, she's been at Beck;sbroath for a year and a half and has completely changed the growth trajectory of our business. I feel like she is just such a power horse. She really leans into the finance side of the business and the operations side and yeah, so she's just.
Nate Littlewood (23:37)
You
Beck (23:57)
She's so smart and I definitely could not do this without her.
Nate Littlewood (24:00)
Sounds like a great pairing. you feel like, or were you aware that you needed someone like her before you met her? No, okay.
Beck (24:08)
No, no, I was I was still
a solo entrepreneur at the time. I knew that it would have been nice I think we joked to with each other before me they go would be so nice with like a co-founder but that idea co-founder was in my mind and it didn't really occur to me that I could hire like a business like I have a business partner without them starting the business with me from the start so I think I was really getting confused by that term and then when she like brought it up to me and then I was like like this is actually like this is exactly what I need because we're complete
Nate Littlewood (24:31)
Hmm.
Beck (24:37)
We are so good at staying in our own lane, like me being the sales and marketing, her being finance and operations. So we really make such a beautiful team and we have such great communication with one another, love each other like best friends. So it just, it really made sense and there hasn't been any icky, sticky things to do, like think conversations. In the beginning we hired a business mentor for three months to walk us through the process.
Nate Littlewood (24:58)
Mm.
Beck (25:01)
Because we knew we needed somebody who knew what they were doing to help guide and facilitate the conversations that we have to have as business partners, especially because it was my business and now I'm pretty much dividing that up and handing it over to somebody else. Yeah, so that was a little intimidating, but we just said, you know what, we're going to talk through everything that comes up and we're going to make sure that we see each other as humans first and friends first. And yeah, it's just been great. The power of communication is...
Nate Littlewood (25:12)
Yeah, opening the doors and giving some of it to her. Yeah. Got it. Yeah.
Beck (25:29)
is incredible.
Nate Littlewood
So Beckie, I first became aware of you through LinkedIn. I can't remember when or how exactly, but you suddenly start popping up on my LinkedIn feed like every day. And I was like, who is this girl? And since then I've come to appreciate and learn that you're actually very active in terms of building this business in public and being fairly open about it. I'm curious, how did you decide that that was a good
Beck (26:00)
Mm-hmm.
Bye.
Nate Littlewood (26:23)
thing to do.
Beck (26:24)
Yeah.
Yeah, in the early stages when I was still at my commercial kitchen making the bone broth myself in the previous format, I was always listening to the Midday Squares podcast in my ears. So I was listening to them and their story, and I'm sure that you're familiar with their story, Jake Carl's, Leslie Carl's. So I was listening to their story and I just thought it was so fascinating and it really leaned on, like dawned on me where it's like, wait, like I'm that person that I want to know what other businesses are going through and how they've grown. And I want to know like the juicy, like in
and outs of business and I was like so why aren't I giving that back to my customers in return you know like let's like why am I doing this all alone it doesn't make sense if I build out loud hopefully I'll get some good feedback I'll learn something I'll grow my network so it really became intuitive from the very beginning that like that's the type of business that I'm gonna run it's never been a challenge to me because I love to socialize for one that's a something that I've just always been naturally great at and then whenever I'm procrastinating the hard things my mind instantly
Nate Littlewood (27:17)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Beck (27:24)
goes okay well like since I don't want to do this hard thing yet so let me build on my own personal brand which is like LinkedIn or social media so it becomes an easier outlet for me to tap into if I'm trying to avoid a hard task so it's just been become really natural and but it's paid off in more ways than I could even count whether that whether that means meeting somebody new or being introduced to an incredible opportunity because they know that I'm really trying to grow this brand in this business and I'm playing it all on the line so then I
have a lot of great unique opportunities that come my way because of that. So yeah, it's been super fun for me to grow this network online.
Nate Littlewood (28:00)
What are some of the biggest surprises or positive things that have come out of it for you?
Beck (28:06)
Yeah, my goodness. Okay, so one crazy thing. So we were in a pickle a couple of months ago with financing. We were about to get a loan. Something fell through last minute and it kind of, it put us in a time crunch to secure some ingredients. And so we put it out online that we were looking for money fast. Can anyone help us? And somebody literally wrote into our DMs that they were like willing to front us like a 70K or something like that. So we didn't end up taking, we just said like, my gosh,
incredible. you so much. It's so nice to know that like people like you exist that are just willing to kind of help us out when we are in a pinch. So it's helped us out from a financing standpoint. People have recommended to us different other lenders and avenues that we can that we can go after. It's also helped us when it comes to different programs that we attend. So I recently recently got a grant a couple of months ago to travel to New York to help grow our business and then also to Vancouver. So out west here in Canada. So just
Nate Littlewood (28:40)
Hmm.
Beck (29:01)
really cool opportunities like that where it's like people know that we're trying to grow this so then they see an opportunity whether that's like a grant, a travel grant or like a networking event and they pass it to us. But then that's how we've met a lot of even our employees. I think every single person right now on payroll that we've worked with is because we've built up a relationship with them online. Like we've been growing the business out loud, they're tapping into our story so then it's kind of building us together and then when we open up these positions it's like we already know this person, we know that they kick
Nate Littlewood (29:15)
Wow.
Beck (29:31)
because I mean like we're still a very tight community here at Beck;sboro so we really want to make sure that we're only hiring people that fits our current personality type and not personality type but just like being our people that can really like go through the weeds with us. So yeah we've hired everyone that we've hired it's just because of our community as well which has been super helpful.
Nate Littlewood (29:48)
Amazing, amazing. Well, there's clearly been
a lot of benefits from doing it. And you you've had some great wins to share over the years, but
The other day when we were chatting about this, you told me the beginning of a story about Dragon's Den, which is kind of the Canadian equivalent of Shark Tank. I understand that you recorded a pitch with them. Tell me what happened and how did that kind of play out with your whole social media slash LinkedIn strategy?
Beck (31:15)
All right, so since the very beginning, all of our customers and people in our community always said like, need to go on Dragon's Den, you need to apply on Dragon's Den with this product. I can really see it on there. And we were at a networking event a little over a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, and we actually met with one of the producers of Dragon's Den, and she said that we needed to apply. So we did. And we instantly, as soon as that happened, we got online to our LinkedIn network and our Instagram, and we told them that we were going to apply and like actually pitch in
front of the dragon so this was probably our biggest social media campaign to date I like the amount of like
just conversation that was happening around it was huge. Everyone was ant for us. They've been waiting for this moment. The hype was so high. And then we didn't get it. We did not get a deal from the Dragons. Everybody said no. And it really, it broke mine and my business partner's heart. We were not expecting that. And it was, we really went in there thinking we have a great product. We can pitch like crazy. We work so well together. Like in no world did I think that we gonna walk away without an offer.
And so when that happened, I think it just broke us in a way. part, the part of that reason why is because we had so many people in our corner rooting for us. And I felt like it was, we almost were disappointing them in a way because we didn't get a deal. So it was very heartbreaking. And then it's also interesting because we want to share the full story of exactly what happened. But I mean, we have an NDA signs that we can't really talk about it for four years. So we've recorded a whole podcast to like lay out all the nitty gritty of what happened. And then we're like, my gosh, we need to read the NDA before we break.
this to the world so we don't get sued and then we realize we can't really share anything.
Nate Littlewood (32:49)
Wow, I had no idea that they
had such a strict NDA. That's crazy.
Beck (32:53)
Yeah, very
strict. So we really couldn't tell our community the whole story, but they're dying to know the details. So we took that podcast that we weren't able to share and we pulled some pretty funny clips to it and just kept on like bleeping out.
Like the like keywords and whatnot and just tried to write it out just saying like listen We didn't get a deal But the feedback was incredible from the investors that we would have wanted to invest in Beck;sbroff anyways We it just wasn't the right time so at that point the business was still fairly new The powder product was only six months old so it still very young and it is a premium price product So I think that was also a fear of the Dragons But yeah, it was a very it was an emotional time when that was happening
Nate Littlewood (33:32)
Yeah, well,
it sounds like a real bummer. I'm sorry it didn't work out, but I'm,
Beck (33:34)
That's okay.
Nate Littlewood (33:38)
curious given the approach that you kind of committed to with LinkedIn at that point, how, like what do you do? I I'm just imagining myself in that situation. Like the last thing in the world I want to do is like jump on social media and tell, you know, the world that like, I didn't get it. We didn't get ed. Like none of this stuff that I thought was going to happen, you know, played out. Like how did you kind of process all that like publicly and privately at the time?
Beck (33:51)
orderly.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I remember the week after that. I felt very like emotionally drained even that day I felt so emotionally drained To the point where like I just the only thing I could do was nap I think just because I was so skyrocketed on like anxiety Beforehand and being so anxious about it and then that the combination of that with the disappointment it just like flattened me on my ass So I really we I didn't we didn't share the story even and like up until really like
couple of months ago so we didn't go on right away saying we didn't get it because of the whole NDA thing and we didn't know really what we could say. If people messaged us individually like reached out and said my gosh what happened of course I would always tell them I like get on my voice notes I hop on video like I'll call them like so a lot of people do know what happened but if they actually ask us we'll tell them the story.
But a big portion of it is I always just have to show up who I am. feel like it's... And I feel very comfortable saying, hey, like guys, like we didn't get it. Like it's such a huge disappointment that so like it's so upsetting. It took a lot out of me. But I just know that that's also going to be greeted with so much love and support. So it doesn't make me feel nervous or sad to share those types of loses or losses just because I know everyone's going to try and make me feel better about it. But then they're just like, wow, you shared this like that took balls like in
here's my story in return. And then that's where you really get to grow these special, like friendships because other business people, they've walked that same path and they can relate, right? So it's not like you're just sharing your losses all on your own. You often get some really great stories back in return that make you feel a little bit better and a little bit more connected, which I always enjoy.
Nate Littlewood (35:27)
Mm-hmm.
I love it. love it. Well, you're certainly doing a great job on LinkedIn and for any founders listening who might be looking for an inspiration or a case study and personal brand building online, I definitely recommend you check out what Beckie's up to. She does a great job of it. So Beckie, you're based in Canada, Ontario, but I understand you're already selling in the US. Is that right?
Beck (35:44)
Thank you.
Thank you.
We're in a couple, I would say probably like 10 or 15 stores. So very small in the US right now. Yep, yep.
Nate Littlewood (36:06)
Okay, so pretty early days, right.
So I'm curious, as a Canadian, with, you know, having dipped the dip the toe in the US, so to speak, what is the relative importance of the two countries today in terms of your sales and distribution? And what do you think the answer to that is longer term? How are you thinking about the Canadian market opportunity versus the US market opportunity, you know, a few years down the road?
Beck (36:32)
Yeah, no, that's such a great question. So the US opportunity, and things are changing now, especially because of...
everything happening in the tariff world. So we were supposed to go live with everything in the US, hopefully like in Q3, Q4 this year. And then when the tariffs started happening earlier this year, we needed to dial it back. But pretty much our product, if we can get into the US market and really grow there, we can do like 20 times business than when we're doing here, like in Canada. Right now our products sell so well since it is a premium priced product, premium luxurious product. Toronto is such a great place for us to sell this product. There's always these really nice boutiques.
Nate Littlewood (36:42)
Yeah.
Beck (37:08)
and smoothie shops and people are more familiar with and like want that like nice fun beverage type of thing. So I just see it doing so well in places like Dallas and Texas and New York and LA so those are always definitely our goal markets and they're huge compared to Canada which I feel like a lot of people don't really recognize there's so many more doors in the US compared to Canada. But now the whole thing is do I just have my blinders on is based on the given like
state of the relationships, the trade relationships with Canada and US, is the US the next destination that's actually smart for the business or am I doing that just because it feels familiar and less scary? So these are the conversations I'm really trying to lean into because I just had a great conversation with another founder the other day who completely, they're Canadian, but they completely launched their product in China. They don't even sell it here.
but they just go right to China. And they're like, honestly, all the food founders in Canada have their blinders on thinking the UX is the next market when that might not be the case. It's just because when you think of exporting to places like China, you just, don't know what it's like. You don't know really anybody doing it. You can't speak the language. So it makes it a little bit intimidating, even though there's our people, people to help you support that. So right now we're in an interesting situation, but I think we'll definitely try and take a stab at US retail.
Nate Littlewood (38:18)
Mm-hmm.
Beck (38:28)
going into 2026, I also, this was my year to really grow at retail here in Canada, like really go wide and deep instead of before exploring into the US. So that's what I've been doing. And if anybody listening has a product that is sold on the store shelf, it is so expensive. we really realized that we needed to take this project more seriously and spread it out a little bit because it's impossible to do big splashes.
Nate Littlewood (38:47)
yeah.
Beck (38:54)
everywhere all at once. You don't really think about that when you're trying to build this vision in the early days, but then when you're in the trenches, you're like, my goodness, like there's no way I can expand into the US right now until we get like actual real investment. We're still a bootstrapped business. So it's just, it's too much to take on the Canadian market and the US market all on our own. So until we get that investment, we're just gonna really try and smash out of the park here in Canada, which we're doing first and then yeah, get to the US soon.
Nate Littlewood (39:20)
I hear you, hear you. Certainly expensive and takes a very long time. I know it's only early days yet, but I'm curious, know, based on the experience you've had so far, are there any significant or particularly notable differences when it comes to selling via retail in Canada versus the US?
Beck (39:37)
I haven't really leaned into that so much right now the right now the retailers that were sold into the US More most of them are independent. So we're in a few we're in about five of the foxtrot locations, which is super fun and exciting But the other the others are more so independent So right now I'm working really hard with like my district my distributors and my brokers really getting into that world We're seeing as we don't have a distributor or a broker in the US. It's kind of hard to compare apples for apples
But also the US doesn't really, we don't have that brand awareness there yet either, right? So the sales have been slower, the velocity, we're not seeing it as high compared to here in Toronto, just because Toronto, everybody knows Beck;s Broth, but in the US, in Brooklyn where you are, I'm sure people are like, Beck;s what? What is that? So give us a year, and hopefully I'll have a different answer there.
Nate Littlewood (40:24)
All right, all right, I'll keep an eye out. Hope you make it down here soon. Beckie, the other day we spoke briefly about some of the sort of sustainability paths or sustainability initiatives that you've been exploring. I'd love to learn a little bit more about what's on the cards over there. From what I gather, this is a somewhat important topic to you. What are some of the initiatives that you're looking into at the moment?
Beck (40:26)
Thank
Yeah, so right now we source, I'll start at the ingredient aspects and kind of work my way through the certifications. So the ingredients that we work with are super special to us. Every single one of them. Our coffee is roasted right down the road from us. Our bone broth is the best bone broth on the market, sourced from New Zealand. Pasture is grass fed, really high quality. The cacao that we source from comes from, the person that we work with here lives in Victoria, but she works with her family.
farm down in Africa and imports it in for us. We really try and be so selective with all the ingredients that we choose just to really make sure that we know who's farming what ingredients and making sure that they're doing things as sustainably as possible. A couple of things that we really want to look into is like 1 % for the planet. I feel like that's always been a certification that has just like when I see that on products that I'm purchasing, I'm like, hell yeah. Like that just, it makes you feel so excited and happy inside when you see that. And I want to be able to provide that same feeling to our customers.
I do remember in the beginning when I was working really closely with my small business centers, that was one of the first questions I asked them. was like, when's the right time to add these certifications to your products? Like, really wanna lean into that, that's super important. And she laughed at me, which was actually super discouraging. But she's like, until like, and we are a profitable business now, but at the time I wasn't. But she's just like, can't, if you're not paying yourself a proper salary and if you're not a profitable.
Nate Littlewood (42:00)
You
Beck (42:08)
profitable business, you need to forget about these certifications until you reach that point. So I just remember feeling super sad after hearing that, but it totally made sense. mean, you need to have help in the business first before you can make some big decisions. And we're finally coming to a place and we're having the team around us that are gonna be able to make these decisions moving forward. So even whether that's just a seal on a company that we work with to really help reduce any of the plastic, because we do serve our packaging right now, our packaging right now is plastic.
Nate Littlewood (42:18)
hardly.
Beck (42:35)
So working with a business to help us remove plastic from the oceans is definitely a priority of ours. And then we are switching to a bulk tin format as well, which we're super excited about when we start to kind of hit the food service level of Beck;s Broth just so we can reduce all of the plastic that we're using. So yeah, there's currently a lot of different things in the works, but yeah, just making sure that the business health is like 100 % before investing in these big programs is pretty important.
Nate Littlewood (43:00)
I love it. love it. For what it's worth, I think that was some...
great advice that you got there for whoever this woman was. And listen, I think this is such a perfect topic to be talking about on the profits on purpose podcast. And I just wanted to kind of reiterate, circle back and reiterate what you just said there, which is that you basically needed to make sure that you had a profitable foundation and that your business was, you know, financially sustainable before you went and pursued
Beck (43:04)
Yeah, it was.
Nate Littlewood (43:31)
these more purpose oriented things, which are clearly very important to you. But you're doing it in the right order, right? If you don't have a business that can pay your bills and put a roof over your head, then all of this charitable stuff, it doesn't matter. Because if you're not able to continue doing this personally, then you're never gonna be able to give a cent to 1 % for the planet or any other charity that you might wanna support. So yeah, just wanted to circle back on that.
Beck (43:36)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
tonight.
Nate Littlewood (44:01)
I'm curious though.
about the tension or I'm guessing, I don't want to put words in your mouth here, but maybe a conflict that might exist from time to time. A lot of these things that you have talked about, like I understand why, you know, it's important to you to source high quality ingredients from, you know, New Zealand or this, that. But a lot of these things come with a cost, right? Like you are paying higher costs as a result of some of the procurement and materials decisions that you've made.
Beck (44:25)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Littlewood (44:33)
made.
And I'm guessing that a large part of your customer base may be completely unaware that you're paying what you are to procure these premium ingredients. And probably a lot of them wouldn't even notice if you downgraded and bought cheaper inputs. How do you decide which of these initiatives and costs are worth incurring and which ones are not?
Beck (44:40)
Mm-hmm.
Thank
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, great question. So our product retails for $9.99 per serving. So that is per one cup of coffee if you're not on our subscription model or if you don't purchase Beck;s Broth when it's on sale. So definitely more of that luxury priced item. so that was a really hard decision to make in the beginning because I really, I wanted this to be affordable to the majority of people, but I also didn't want to sacrifice any of the quality or the integrity of the products and the people that I work with. So we made that
early on when my business partner came on board too that was the conversation that we had to have because she's like well this conventional bone broth is so much more cheaper like I think we we really need to look here and then we tested it out and we tried it and we both disagreed you know what like we're we don't want to downgrade the quality of our ingredients but that means that we need to put an emphasis on why our product costs so much so if you do go through like our Instagram and sometimes I talk about it on LinkedIn as well it's like you're not gonna find us on like for two dollars or three dollars like
your product is $10 but this is why. So we really try and lean into that education of the product and really make it aware to the consumer why something is priced this way. Just even you saying that reminds me like hey maybe we just need to do that a little bit more especially as we grow so quickly the people that we're gonna grow into our network this month might not have seen that huge rant I did last month on why our product is priced this way but I just know it's something I personally want to feel really proud of the
Nate Littlewood (46:22)
Hmm.
Beck (46:27)
work
that we're doing here and I just think the quality of the ingredients that's what I strive for every single day. So I feel like in order to grow the business that I truly do want to grow deep down in my heart we just really need to stick to that business model. it's yeah we just really we carefully select the ingredients that we work with and then the suppliers as well and just make sure the gut check is aligned.
Nate Littlewood (46:40)
Mm-hmm.
Okay, very interesting, very interesting. appreciate the approach. you basically...
making decisions that are aligned with your values and picking the stuff that is important to you and then reminding customers why it should be important to them too, right? You know, we are what we eat and the reality is that you're being very selective about the stuff that you put into product and you know, people who value it, I'm sure they'll pay out for it but I suspect there'll be people who won't as well and I guess you've come to peace with the term that, know, okay, they're just not my people.
Beck (46:54)
Yep.
Yeah.
Thank
Yeah. Yeah.
Nate Littlewood (47:21)
and you you went...
Beck (47:21)
And that's something that actually,
that was something hard to really navigate because I didn't want to make anybody feel uncomfortable with the price tag. Like that definitely wasn't my point. But I needed to learn that it's not for everyone and that's okay. Like it doesn't have to be for you. That's why I think like the power of gifting Beck;s Broth is just super cool because people are buying gifts for people all the time. And if you have a friend that really loves high quality local,
ingredients or products, how cool is it just to give them a little sweet treat, but that they normally wouldn't buy for themselves, right? So that's why I love when people write in saying, you know what? You're right. This is the best thing to give, like, or like the best thing thing to gift someone because yeah, like they wouldn't buy it for themselves. So really, yeah, need to tap into that as well.
Nate Littlewood (48:05)
Well, there's a novel gift idea and I should be publishing
this podcast sometime in October. So I think our timing might be perfect here. We should come up with some sort of profits on purpose discount code or something that maybe we can talk about that later. We will? Okay, cool.
Beck (48:10)
Perfect.
yeah, we'll put one in the notes. Yeah, yeah, we'll put one in the notes.
Yeah. no.
Nate Littlewood (48:21)
All right, all right. I didn't mean to put you on the spot there, but okay. I have no idea what Beckie's code is going to be, but look in the show
notes if you want to find a profits on purpose discount code. Okay, very cool, very cool. Well, Beckie, I've got a slightly new tradition here. And as we move towards the end of this conversation, my new tradition is that I'm asking every guest about their favorite business KPI or performance metric. I would love to know what yours is.
Beck (48:30)
Thank
Thank
Nate Littlewood (48:50)
how often you look at it and why.
Beck (48:53)
Okay, this question If anyone on my team is listening to this, they're probably just rolling their eyes and laughing I KPI is like the worst word in my vocabulary Partially because I'm just so that like no, I'm not bad at tracking my KPIs Sometimes they get me a little bit nervous and I like to be that ignorance is bliss But my whole team is so good at hitting their KPIs and we reviewed them every single month So I should not be scared of this word
Nate Littlewood (48:55)
Why was that such a funny question?
Ha
Beck (49:20)
So I wish I had a good one. I a huge KPI for me is that I'm making sure that we are hitting our sales goals within a certain margin each month. I know that's kind of a silly way of wording that one. Outside of that, I'm not a KPI girly, guys. So trust me, if you're a founder and you're not either, you're not alone. I hear the word KPI and I want to run away. But they are important to have. So make sure somebody on your team.
Nate Littlewood (49:31)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Okay.
Beck (49:44)
is drilling me with the KPI questions and keeping track of things. Personally me, that is not my personality. So I hope that's an okay answer. Nate. I thought about it. almost have technology issues. I'm freezing.
Nate Littlewood (49:50)
It's a fine answer and thank you for not hanging up on me in the middle of the podcast and running away. I appreciate it. What? Hey, where did Beckie go? Okay.
Well, Beckie, this has been really fun. I've enjoyed hanging out and having you on here. You've got such a fascinating story and I love what you're doing with the product and I love, I think...
Beck (50:04)
Yeah.
Nate Littlewood (50:12)
The thing I respect and appreciate most about you is just the hustle and grind. Like you're just getting out there and getting it done. And you know, I really, really respect that. So keep doing what you're doing. It's been amazing to have you on. Final question before I let you go. If anyone would like to learn more about you or what you're up to, where should they go? Where should we send them?
Beck (50:18)
Yeah.
Thank
Yeah, if you want to be entertained, would highly suggest going to our Instagram or our TikTok, which is just Beck;sBrah. I feel like the main purpose that we view these channels is really just to make friends and entertain you. I feel like we're all silly girls here that work at Beck;sBrah, so the content you can really resonate with there. And then also if you're at LinkedIn, just search at Beckie Prime and you'll find me there. Yeah, thanks.
Nate Littlewood (50:53)
Okay, amazing. Thanks so much, Beckie. Well, been great to have you again and we'll be in touch. Take care.
Beck (50:58)
one more plug. Also, since you are US based, we just launched our Amazon US storefront. So your listeners can head on over there if you want to try the product.
Nate Littlewood (51:05)
Okay. We'll get that link off you later and I'll include that in the show notes as well. Okay, cool. Thanks, Beckie. Take care. Bye.
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