Greg Vetter: Losing It All and Writing It Down - #195

In this episode of Hustle Inspires Hustle, Alex Quin sits down with Greg Vetter, founder of Tessemae’s, to discuss how a stolen bottle of his mom’s homemade salad dressing sparked the creation of a national clean-food brand. Greg shares the realities of building a business from scratch, including cold-calling executives for insights, inventing clean manufacturing, and scaling Tessemae’s to a $300–$500 million valuation—only to later face investor conflict and a complete collapse of the company. He opens up about writing his book Undressed, launching new ventures like Altaresh, Quenchers, and Tushies, and how staying grounded through family, routine, and faith helped him rebuild and support other entrepreneurs through his brand accelerator.

Episode Outline:

[00:00:04] Greg Vetter joins Alex Quin; summer recap and background

[00:01:45] Exposure to wealth at college sparked entrepreneurial curiosity

[00:04:22] Cold-calling executives to learn about success

[00:05:29] Developing a sales system for tracking daily productivity

[00:06:26] How a stolen bottle of dressing sparked a business idea

[00:08:02] Early reactions from wife and mom to Tessemae’s concept

[00:09:00] First retail demo and 660 bottles sold in 5 days

[00:11:35] What made Tessemae’s different: clean ingredients and taste

[00:12:55] Early marketing strategies: Facebook, in-store demos

[00:14:12] Building a manufacturing plant from scratch

[00:15:54] Business valued at $300M–$500M

[00:17:27] Investor conflicts, legal battles, and business implosion

[00:20:39] Launching the book Undressed after losing the company

[00:23:20] Daily routines, mindset, and resilience as a dad and entrepreneur

[00:26:33] New venture: Altaresh, and major partnerships with Sam’s Club and Costco

[00:28:59] Other businesses: Quenchers (vodka beverage), Tushies (portable toilets & wipes)

[00:31:30] Brand accelerator and helping others scale their product companies

[00:32:51] Legacy thoughts and personal branding symbols

Wisdom Nuggets:

Curiosity Fuels Success: Greg’s success started with asking questions—first to wealthy teammates' parents, then to CEOs. Curiosity and the willingness to learn opened massive doors.

Track Progress, Not Busyness: By creating a point-based system to track real sales progress, Greg focused on results over appearances. Real productivity drives outcomes, not just effort.

Clean Ingredients, Clear Value: Tessemae’s succeeded by removing unnecessary ingredients and offering better taste and transparency. Consumers valued authenticity, especially when paired with a strong story.

Chaos Isn’t the End—It’s the Shift: Even after investor lawsuits and the collapse of Tessemae’s, Greg used the experience as fuel to write a book and build new businesses. Failures can spark reinvention.

Build Systems That Serve Others: Altaresh streamlined grocery prep with pre-portioned kits. Solving industry pain points and making others' jobs easier can be a path to big wins.

Power Quotes

"We were the first clean ingredient salad dressing on the market." - Gregory Vetter

"We got valued between 300 and 500 million bucks." - Gregory Vetter

Connect with Gregory:

Website: (https://www.gregoryvetter.com/)

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/glvetter/)

LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregvetter/)

Connect With the Podcast Host Alex Quin:

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/alexquin)

Twitter: (https://twitter.com/mralexquin)

LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mralexquin)

Website: (https://alexquin.com)

TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@mralexquin)

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