The story of Justin's nut butter company illustrates how innovation in an overlooked product category, combined with strategic product development and community building, can lead to significant entrepreneurial success.
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Let's say you wanted to reinvent an everyday item
you buy at the grocery store, for example, peanut
butter. How would you make your product stand out?
Would you change the label?
Offer a bunch of eclectic flavors?
Maybe you'd just repackage it in a way that people had
never seen before.
It's crazy to believe that we're talking about peanut
butter, right? It's like one of those categories that
no one really ever thinks about.
Justin Gold is the founder of, you guessed it,
Justin's, an organic nut butter company whose
products can be found in grocery stores all over the
country. Over 12 years, Justin went from grinding
peanuts in his kitchen to inking a multi-million
dollar sale of his company.
But it didn't happen without hard work and a lot
of luck.
Every day I had to show up and do the work.
The dream is one thing, and then the reality of all the
steps it takes to achieve that dream is overwhelming.
There's three numbers to look out for in Justin's
story. $75,000: the amount he borrowed to produce his
first nut butter squeeze packs.
$50 million: the amount that Justin's was making in
sales by 2015.
And $281 million: the amount that Justin sold the
company for in 2016.
Here's how Justin Gold cracked the nut on nut
butter. This is Founder Effect.
In 2004, Justin was living in Boulder, Colorado.
As an avid biker and vegetarian, he needed to
find alternate sources of protein.
One of those sources was nut butter.
20 years ago, there were two types of peanut butter
smooth and crunchy.
There was one almond butter brand. It didn't taste very
good, but when you ate a handful of almonds, it
tasted amazing.
Unsatisfied with the grocery store selection, Justin
opted for a different route.
Curiosity got me thinking.
Well, if you can grind your own peanuts and make peanut
butter, how hard can it be to make your own?
Using his food processor, Justin began grinding his
own nuts and experimenting with flavors.
He used ingredients like cinnamon, bananas, even
Sriracha. The problem was, he had hungry roommates.
And I was making all these concoctions, and I would put
jars all over the kitchen and my roommates would stop
and like, would always be eating them all.
So I literally wrote "Justin's" on all the jars.
And that kind of became the– the origin of the whole
company.
His nut butters good reviews, at least from his
roommates, made Justin think about where he could
go from there.
The idea popped into my head.
This could be a great business, but how do you
start a business? I don't have a business degree.
And so then I asked myself, well, I wonder if there are
any natural food companies here in Boulder where I can
gain some insights.
And that's when, like, that's when someone turned
the lights on in the room, basically.
It turned out that Justin had plenty of resources for
guidance. Boulder is home to many organic and natural
food and beverage companies like tea company Celestial
Seasonings, Horizon Dairy and Rudi's Organic Bakery.
There's a lot of camaraderie, there's a lot
of high energy, there's a lot of creative thinking and
a lot of entrepreneurship.
Boulder also has a thriving farmer's market, which
became the perfect testing ground for Justin's product.
He sold peanut and almond butter not just in their
classic flavors, but also with cinnamon, cayenne
pepper, chocolate and honey.
You get instant feedback on what products are working,
what products aren't, you know, based on variety,
based on flavor, based on price.
The reality of being at the farmer's market and seeing
all these other brands that are also trying to get their
products elevated to that category in that space was
really overwhelming.
Justin eventually started selling his peanut butter in
local stores, including Boulder's Whole Foods.
I literally would make it myself.
I would deliver it to the back of the door, and then
I'd stick around and I'd do a demo and I'd hand out
samples and I'd, you know, give samples to the cashiers
and people working the front end and the back and,
and really built this kind of community at each store I
visited. And it was that community that I have a lot
of gratitude towards for helping also build the
brand.
Still, the amount that Justin was selling in stores
wasn't enough to offset the cost of production, and he
was still waiting tables and working in retail to
make ends meet. It wasn't until he started thinking
outside of the jar that Justin's really took off.
So I'm on a mountain bike ride and I'm eating an
energy gel, and I was curious why you couldn't put
peanut butter or almond butter in that same type of
squeeze pack and have– and have an on-the-go plant
based protein experience like an energy bar.
Justin was able to find an old machine that made
squeeze packs. He borrowed $75,000 from one of his
roommate's parents to purchase it.
In 2006, Justin began distributing his new
product.
We launched the first commercial nut butter
squeeze pack, which really differentiated us in the
category and led to other innovations which continued
to grow the brand.
Justin began getting orders for squeeze packs from
chains like Whole Foods and Wegmans, and eventually
larger retailers like Target.
In 2011, the company expanded its product line,
introducing its own chocolate nut butter cups.
In 2015, the company that Justin started in his
kitchen was bringing in over $50 million a year in
revenue. It was around that time that Justin's got an
offer of sale from food giant Hormel.
The answer at first was no.
You know, we weren't ready.
Six months, maybe another year went by and they asked
again. And at that point I was like, well, let's have a
conversation. Let's talk.
Justin told Hormel that he would be willing to sell on
one condition.
The business has to stay in Boulder.
It's the people that make businesses extraordinary so
no one can lose their job.
What blew my mind was– it was really encouraging was
they were like, that's why we love it, you know?
And so to me, it wasn't, you know, Justin's was being
sold is that they were buying in to what we were
doing here in Boulder in this organization.
In 2016, Justin's was acquired by Hormel for $281
million.
There was something here that they found special.
They reached out to us and said, we have to have this.
You never want to build something that you want to
sell. You want to build something that somebody
wants to buy.
Justin eventually left his namesake company in 2021.
He says that ultimately, his success comes down to
being in the right place at the right time.
The one thing that a lot of people, I think
misunderstand is how lucky I was, right?
And so, yes, I put in a lot of work and yes, I asked a
lot of questions and had a lot of coffee and bike rides
with people. But there was a small window of
opportunity and I was able to disrupt a category that
was kind of sleepy at the time.
And because this community was here and so supportive,
I was able to move fast and– and I just feel a lot
of gratitude for that.
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