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Ricky Hirsch is the founder Think Jerky, a company that has been redefining beef jerky for over 10 years with innovative branding and celebrity chef created flavors. Ricky started his career in the finance industry before getting into jerky because he loved food and wanted to create something tangible. Despite statistics that suggest that 90%+ of consumer products companies fail, within a few years Think Jerky was in thousands of GNC and Starbucks locations.
In this episode we discuss the rise of Think Jerky as well as connections between art and entrepreneurship via Ricky’s music outlet, Handpan Boyband.
Top Takeaways
Think Jerky saw an opportunity to break in to a competitive category with gender neutral packaging and celebrity chef created flavors, appealing to women who make up ~40 - 50% of the beef jerky consumer audience.
Great artists and entrepreneurs both have a vision for what they want create, a willingness to sit with problems for as long as the answers take to reveal themselves and a high standard of excellence
Resources:
Full List of Topics Covered:
Why start a jerky company
Process to bring the product to life
Hardest part about breaking into CPG industry
Why Think Jerky succeeded
Skills Ricky had vs. had to develop
How has CPG changed over the last 10 years with the rise of D2C and e-commerce
An artist identity
Connections between entrepreneurship and art
Hope you enjoy the conversation, feel free to share and let me know if anything resonates with you in the comments.
-Adam