Welcome to "JUSTIN AND THE [FOOD] ENTREPRENEURS Show," where we bring you priceless food industry stories. In this episode, we sit down with Jack Schrupp, founder of Drink Wholesome—a top brand known for creating easily digestible protein powders specifically designed for those with sensitive stomachs.
In a compelling conversation, Jack shares his interest and knowledge of food and beverages, a passion that originated from his lifestyle as a ski racer. He talks about how the side effects of protein shakes ignited an interest in nutrition, leading him to create his own protein powder. Learn about his organic journey from sourcing ingredients from natural food stores, experimenting with recipes in his college dormitory, and later transitioning to becoming a high school teacher and coach.
Jack elaborates on Drink Wholesome's unique approach to protein powder, which prioritizes whole food protein sources over protein concentrates and isolates. His unique formulation is what has earned Drink Wholesome its reputation for being a protein powder that is easy on the stomach. He candidly shares the challenges he faced during the early stages of his venture, most notably during the COVID-19 pandemic and the struggles of marketing and selling his products.
Delve into the compelling story of how Jack found a niche—people with sensitive stomachs, and how he made the simplicity of his products a strong selling point. Discover how leaving his teaching job to focus solely on Drink Wholesome led to significant business expansion, and allowed him to bring his sister aboard to help manage the growing enterprise.
Don't miss this inspirational tale of entrepreneurship in the food and beverage space and join Jack as he shares his experiences, the importance of being adaptable, and his vision for the future of Drink Wholesome. For more information on Drink Wholesome, visit drinkwholesome.com or find them on Amazon and social media at Drink Wholesome.
IG: @drinkwholesome
Hosted By: Justin Ryan Bizzarro (IG: @justinbizzarro)
Who is Justin Ryan Bizzarro? – Justin Bizzarro is a serial food, restaurant, technology, media and marketing entrepreneur, who helped build a 24-year-old group of food and restaurant related businesses, he created with his father and business partners out of his family’s basement, in 1998. He is a highly desired business management, personal and athlete growth, free market, food diversity, and entrepreneurial leadership speaker. Justin’s expertise are in human growth, motivation, leadership and management development, health foods and beverages, global lean manufacturing facilities, vertically integrating businesses, food marketing and advertising, supply chain creation and management, direct to consumer fulfillment, transportation and distribution, personal brand building, restaurant development and construction, and entrepreneur acceleration. Justin received his BA in International Business and Management from Dickinson College, in 2002, and his MBA from University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, in 2014. He is currently pursuing his Master of Divinity in Leadership from Denver Seminary. His leadership and entrepreneur podcasts have positively impacted millions of people across the globe.
Thank you Deborah Michas [ IG: @deborahmichas ] for pushing me to do this Podcast, believing in me that I could conquer this and being my Co-Host for the first two years.
Find Us On SPOTIFY or wherever else you grow yourself through Podcasts . . .
Dominate Your Leadership Growth @ CENTURION LEADERSHIP BATTALION Show with Justin Ryan Bizzarro . . .
CHECK OUT: NY State of Mind [Clothing] Co. - www.nystateofmindco.com [ IG: @nystateofmindco ] . . .
Where Do I Crush My Fitness? - Step Up Training [ IG: @stepuptraining_ ] . . .
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:18):
Welcome, everyone, to the Justin the Food Entrepreneur Show.
I'm Justin Bizarro. I'm your host. That's B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
For anyone who's out there who wants to find us, you can find me on Instagram
at Justin Bizarro. Again, B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
You can also find this show, Justin Ryan Bizarro Show, as well as the Centurion
(00:39):
Leadership Battalion, all on Spotify or wherever else you grow yourself through podcasts.
This is a food and beverage entrepreneur show. Nutrition as well.
We do all those type of things on here. So I appreciate everyone who's listened
in. I appreciate all the downloads.
I appreciate all the love on social media and I appreciate everyone's feedback
(01:00):
and the support that you guys have all given me as I took a six month leave of absence.
To rebuild my life, to recreate myself, repurpose myself, truly find out who
I was and who I wasn't after 24 years in a business that I grew from 18 years
old with partners and with my family.
(01:20):
So I appreciate everyone giving that time. I should have taken that time sooner
before things got really bad.
But as an entrepreneur, we tie a lot of our identity in the businesses we build.
We tie a lot of our identity in the families we have.
And when that goes away, we kind of lose our identity, our purpose,
because we didn't put it in the right place in the first place.
(01:41):
So if you want to hear more about that, the Centurion Leadership Battalion podcast
will be starting to release episodes again.
And the first one being re-released is about what happens when we lose our identity.
So with that being said, I have a very special guest with us from Drink Wholesome,
Jack Schrupp out of Guilford, New Hampshire.
(02:03):
Hope I got that right. How are you doing today, Jack?
I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing very well. So I'm very interested in
your story because you have this cool protein powder.
It's specifically for those who have sensitive stomachs, I believe.
And so let's dive into your story, Jack. How and why did you get into this business?
(02:29):
How was it getting off the ground? But first, let's go all the way back.
Who are you? How were you brought up? Like, let's just really take the time
to give you the mic and talk about your story a little bit.
Sure. Well, first of all, thank you for having me on. It's always exciting to
share my story with others.
And I love hearing about other people's stories, especially in the food and beverage space.
(02:54):
Every founder, every business has a unique story, a really compelling story. story.
Mine started five years ago.
So I'm not new to the food and beverage industry, but I've only been doing it
full time for a few months.
And before I get into that, I'll mention that I'm from rural New Hampshire.
(03:18):
I grew up ski racing. That was a very important important part of my childhood.
And I raced all the way through the end of college.
So I was a division one athlete training year round competing at a very high level.
And along with that experience came an interest in nutrition.
(03:41):
So I was using protein supplements while I was training almost almost every day.
And I, at some point, became sick and tired of how they were making me feel.
Every time I drank a protein shake, I felt bloated. I felt lethargic.
And at some point, I became fed up with the side effects and decided to create
(04:08):
my own protein supplement.
And this was something that I made for myself, by myself.
I ordered ingredients from natural natural food stores online.
I went to the local food co-op. I bought a spice grinder and I cooked up a protein
powder recipe in my college dorm room that, to be honest, it didn't taste very
(04:32):
good, but it did the trick.
I was confident that I was getting the nutrition that I needed and it didn't cause any side effects.
And after college, after graduating, I became a high school school teacher and coach.
I actually worked at a boarding school. So I lived in a dormitory with a bunch of kids.
I taught them during the day. I coached them in the afternoon.
(04:53):
And then I kept them high on them in the evening.
And that was a very intense job, an awesome job, one of the best jobs in the
world as far as I'm concerned and the perfect fit for me at that time.
And one of the the big perks about being a teacher is that you get summer off.
So during the summer of that first year out of college,
(05:17):
I decided to take this protein powder that I was still making for myself and
using myself and see if I could turn it into a consumer packaged good.
I'd always been interested in entrepreneurship.
And again, I had some free time. So I set out.
First, create a product and then build a business around it.
(05:39):
I had no idea what I was doing, like many entrepreneurs, but I did believe in the product.
I had a feeling that other people would appreciate it as much as I did.
So after much tinkering and many, many iterations,
I came up with a protein powder that performed like a traditional protein supplement
(06:01):
in that you could mix it with milk or water in a shaker bottle and drink it on the go.
It wasn't the easiest to mix.
It definitely had a different flavor profile, a different texture than most
protein powders, but it did the trick.
(06:22):
And I was fortunate to get put in touch with a bakery in Cape Cod that was making wholesale granola.
And they ended up having all the equipment that I needed to make my protein
powder, which I will mention is fundamentally different than every other protein powder on the market.
(06:46):
And that's the main reason why it took me so long and so many iterations to
get it to look, taste, feel like a traditional protein supplement.
And that's because I was using whole food protein sources, which,
again, is a fundamentally different approach than every other protein powder company is using.
(07:07):
So most protein powders on the shelf, or nearly all other than Drink Wholesome,
are made with protein concentrates.
And or isolates, which are dietary protein sources stripped of everything but the protein.
They've had the fats, the carbs, the fiber, the digestive enzymes removed,
(07:28):
which is great if you are looking to increase your protein intake,
but it's not great for your gut.
And people with with sensitive stomachs and gut issues, can really feel the
difference between a protein concentrate or isolate and a whole food protein source.
A whole food protein source is something like eggs, fish, meat,
(07:52):
nuts, seeds, legumes, et cetera.
So I was using whole food protein sources and turning them into protein powder
without stripping everything else away.
So the final product looked a lot more like food than what all the other companies
were selling. For some people, the fact that my protein powder is made with
a whole food doesn't make a difference.
(08:16):
But again, for someone with a sensitive stomach, someone with a digestive disease,
chronic gut issues, it makes a world of difference.
And so that is the secret. It's not rocket science, but that is the secret to drink wholesome.
And that is why today we are known as the easy to digest protein powder,
the protein powder for sensitive stomachs. But that's not really how the business started.
(08:41):
As I mentioned, I partnered with this granola company in Cape Cod,
Massachusetts. At the time, I was living outside of Boston, so I could drive
and eat with them. And they helped me formulate my recipes.
And they effectively took me on as a client because they believed in what I was doing.
And I'm still working with them today. And so I created this protein powder.
(09:06):
I ran like 1,000 units. And that was in late February of 2020.
And if you remember, in early March of that year, the COVID-19 pandemic touched
down in the United States, the entire country shut down, it seemed like the world was ending.
So what happened was I found myself, I was 22, 23 years old at the time,
(09:33):
sitting in my parents' house with pallets of protein powder and no way of selling it.
My original plan was to go to sporting events in the area,
road races and triathlons, and connect with other athletes who I thought would
see the same value in a whole food, minimally processed protein powder.
(09:55):
I'll mention that in addition to being minimally processed and made with a whole
food drink, wholesome has a really, really short ingredient list.
There are no additives whatsoever.
My vanilla protein powder, for example, is made with egg whites,
coconut, vanilla beans,
and monk fruit, which is a melon-like fruit from Southeast Asia that is sweet
(10:20):
like sugar sugar without the sugar.
The sweetness comes from another compound, and that allows someone like me to
create a sweet protein powder without lots of added sugar.
Anyway, I'm sitting in my parents' house. I have pallets of protein powder.
I have no way of selling it. I didn't even have an e-commerce platform at the time, so I created one.
(10:43):
And for the longest time, I was only selling my protein powders to family and
friends, but the internet is a crazy and sometimes a beautiful place.
And people with sensitive stomachs ended up finding my protein powder during
the pandemic online, giving it a try.
The simplicity of the product spoke to them.
(11:04):
And I really hit my customers over the head with the simplicity of the ingredient
list because I put the ingredients in big, bold font right in front of the package.
I think it's really important for people with with sensitive stomachs to know
exactly what they're putting into their body.
And so I make that really easy for my customers and people intuitively chose
my protein powder, just looking at the ingredients and ended up working for them.
(11:27):
So I pivoted, I guess, or doubled down.
To focus on that group of people.
It's a very niche group of people, which is people with sensitive stomachs.
I wasn't making a protein powder for just anyone.
I was making a protein powder for people with sensitive stomachs.
Obviously, anyone can use Drink Wholesome.
(11:47):
We have lots of customers who are drawn to it just because it's one of the only
protein powders that's made without extra processing and added junk.
It's really, really simple.
And some people People just want the simplicity, but a lot of my customers use
Drink Wholesome because virtually all other protein powders upset their stomachs.
The reason why is, again, they're made with these heavily processed protein
(12:10):
sources that look nothing like
real food, and also they contain artificial sweeteners like sucralose.
They contain thickeners like gums and emulsifiers like lecithin.
All of these ingredients don't look a lot like real food.
For that reason, they're hard to digest. They resist digestion and cause a whole
(12:33):
host of digestive issues, especially for people with sensitive stomachs.
So that was sometime in 2020, 2021. I was still working as a teacher.
I eventually changed schools, but was doing effectively the same thing,
teaching, coaching, living in the dormitory and running this business on the side.
(12:56):
And over the course of four years, the business kept growing,
and I started to be spread too thin.
There was just not enough time in the day, and I did not have enough brain cells
to feel like I was doing a good job taking care of the kids and building this business.
So last year, in 2023, I decided to do the business full-time.
(13:19):
So I finished up the school year at the school where I was teaching and transitioned
to doing the business full-time. I immediately started making a lot of changes
and realized I was pretty in over my head doing it all by myself.
So I brought on my sister, who's about my age. She had been working in the food and beverage space.
So she was a great fit. And together, we took on the business full time.
(13:44):
And that was seven months ago.
And it has been a pretty wild ride since then. And the business has grown a
lot and it's been an absolute rollercoaster of an experience.
I felt very comfortable and confident.
Teaching. That was something that came naturally to me, something that I really enjoyed.
(14:07):
And although I have found some success as an entrepreneur in the food and beverage
space, it's definitely out of my comfort zone.
I am challenged every day. I make mistakes every day.
And the past month for the business has been truly wild and really challenging.
(14:27):
So right now I'm in a period of sort of a chaotic phase of the business where a lot is changing.
We're really rethinking what we're doing because we want Drink Wholesome to
be around for a while. We want it to be scalable.
We want to help more people boost their protein without side effects.
And in order to do that, we do have to make some pretty significant changes
(14:51):
to the way the business is structured, to the products themselves, etc.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that these days, in particular,
I have come to really understand how emotional being an entrepreneur is.
I can only speak for what it's like in the food beverage space.
I imagine that entrepreneurs in other industries experience similar volatility.
(15:16):
But, you know, some days I'm like, I feel like I'm on top of the world and other
days I feel like the world is crashing down around me.
And it's fun, but definitely taxing. So you just caught me at a funny time.
Yeah. And I, and I like this a lot because it is very emotional.
It could be emotional on the family. It could be emotional on the employees.
(15:38):
It could be emotional on the vendors and the customers also in some ways because
there are a lot of ups and downs when you're starting a business.
I want to go back to during COVID, you had mentioned you brought in the protein
powder and you had pallets of it.
What was your strategy to start to distribute that or sell it when you're sitting
(16:02):
on so So much product because you're in a very tight bind.
Like what was the mindset there and how did you go about it?
Fortunately, protein powder has a long shelf life, or at least my protein powder does.
But there certainly was a point in time when I wondered if I'd ever be able
to move all that product.
(16:22):
I wondered if I would just have to throw it out and move on with my life.
My initial plan was to get into local health food stores.
And it was somewhat of a naive approach.
But again, as someone with no experience, someone who was 22 years old,
(16:43):
I didn't help them thinking that far ahead.
I was just really excited about creating the product.
And I didn't really even think about e-commerce that much, which is, in hindsight,
silly, because Drink Wholesome is an e-commerce business today,
like most businesses in our space, which is the health, wellness,
(17:07):
nutritional supplement space. Yeah.
I think protein powder was one of the first things to be sold on the internet.
And I just, I didn't really see that for my business. I also wasn't particularly
interested in selling on the internet.
I enjoy in-person interactions.
(17:28):
Again, as a teacher, I had a very social job.
I interface with people all day long, every day.
We even had Saturday classes. So I was just immersed in a very interpersonal community.
And so I thought that I would lace up my boots and stomp around New England,
(17:49):
knocking on doors, sharing my product with people.
Ultimately, that is not at all how the business developed.
But it's who I was and what I expected at that point.
Talk to me about the hardships. What are some of the things that you've been
through over the last seven months, some of the ups and downs,
(18:12):
and what you've learned from them?
Well, the latest hardships or the most trying hardships that the business has
faced, that I have faced as the business owner,
have interestingly had to do not with the pandemic, which was trying,
but the business didn't really have its stethers at that point in time.
(18:36):
So the pandemic didn't affect my business.
It affected my trajectory and my approach to the business ultimately,
but it didn't shut me down like it did a lot of other businesses.
The most trying hardships that I've faced have had to do with eggs.
(18:57):
I make egg white-based protein powders. So I work with eggs.
I buy a lot of eggs. And a few years ago, there was an unprecedented avian bird
flu outbreak in the United States,
and millions upon millions of laying chickens died or were killed to prevent the spread of the virus.
(19:25):
And as a result, the price of finished egg products and eggs went up like 500%
overnight, which is a huge increase.
And for someone running a bootstrapped small business that really depends on cash flow,
that was almost devastating because I had a product with a healthy margin that
(19:50):
became virtually unprofitable overnight.
I really thought about shutting the business down and waiting until the outbreak started.
The outbreak passed. So it was like bird flu, not human flu that affected me the most.
(20:12):
But I decided to hang in there.
And I ultimately, at that time, chose to diversify my product line by introducing
a plant-based protein powder for sensitive stomachs using roasted California California almonds.
And that's now an important product for Drink Wholesome.
(20:34):
I don't think I would have done it had I not gone through that trying time,
a time when the price of eggs skyrocketed in just a matter of days.
So that was the first really challenging experience for the business. It had to do with eggs.
And recently, we've had an issue with production regarding eggs.
(20:58):
Because I won't go into too much detail, but effectively we've had to shut down
our production in order to update how we do things.
And that is an ongoing issue. Right now we are not able to produce our egg white protein powders.
We are blindsided by an issue.
And for a small business, this, not being able to produce product is a huge problem.
(21:25):
Going out of stock is not, it's like one of the last things you want to happen.
But unfortunately, we don't really have a choice right now. We're doing our
best to resolve this issue.
And like in 2020, I've chosen very recently to further diversify my product
line in order to build a more resilient business to decrease the business's
(21:51):
dependence on egg whites.
And so we've created this collagen-based protein powder for sensitive stomachs.
So now we have three different types of protein powder.
We have an egg white-based protein powder, we have a vegan almond-based protein
powder, and we have a collagen-based protein powder. That product just actually
went live last night on our website.
(22:13):
We're going to make an announcement to our community next week.
So it's brand new. We're really excited about it.
I would not have created this product and brought it to market had I not had
this production issue that came out of nowhere, just like the avian bird flu. flu.
So I'm not sure if I have effectively or accurately described or conveyed how
(22:38):
challenging these experiences were for the business, but they were almost like.
Lights out for Drink Wholesome. A small business can pivot, can adapt.
It's one of the beauties of a business like mine, but it's also very vulnerable
to changes in the market, to issues related to production.
(23:03):
A bigger business that produces hundreds of thousands of units several times
a year is much more resilient than a business like mine who produces a few thousand units every month.
And so hopefully, moving forward, we will be less subject to the whims of the
egg market and better able to weather these types of storms.
(23:27):
I mean, the changes that have happened were not changes that I planned to make.
But when I was confronted with sort of a life or death situation,
I thought on my feet, and I'm hoping that these collagen protein powders become
a staple in our product line. I think people are really going to like them.
(23:47):
So that's Drink Wholesome. And a few of, there have been many others,
but a few of the challenging moments and experiences.
Where are you hoping this goes? What is your dreams for this?
How are you going about getting there?
I know you've only been full-time seven months, but where are you hoping I mean,
(24:09):
you pursued this dream and this product for a reason. Where are you hoping it goes, Jack?
There are different types of entrepreneurs, which is something I've learned
from networking within the industry and from learning from others.
There are people who go into entrepreneurship with a goal.
(24:30):
They have a business idea. They have an outcome in mind and a playbook or a plan that they execute.
I'm not that type of entrepreneur. I, when I started this business,
never intended to do it full time.
It was very much a pet project, very, not even a side hustle.
(24:53):
I don't even call it a side hustle because it wasn't generating any income for
me personally. Unfortunately, everything that the business made went back into the business.
And it has not blown up overnight.
Certainly, there have been dramatic changes, some of which I just described.
(25:16):
But in business growth, it's been a slow roll.
It's been, I don't know if I'd say a grind. I mean, there's at times a grind.
But it's been slow, steady growth over the course of four years.
And because it happens so incrementally, my relationships to the business changes
(25:37):
in a very gradual, incremental way.
There aren't dramatic changes to how I see the business, what I think of the business.
And so I'm, I'm thinking a week out, I'm thinking a month out, I would love to plan 12,
(25:57):
18 months in the future, but it's just so hard given where the business has
come from, where it is today and where I think I'll be able to take it.
But I do, I mean, I now have, we sell.
A lot of protein powder to people with sensitive stomachs. And there are a lot
(26:18):
of people out there who rely on drink wholesome.
It's become a very important part of their diet, of their life.
And so I do feel obligated to these people to build something with legs that
is going to be around, that's going to be a household name.
I want people to know about drink wholesome and understand the value that it
(26:38):
can add for someone with a sensitive stomach.
So right now, Now, my number one goal is just to build a resilient business
with a long shelf life because it's helping people and I wouldn't want to see
it go away for that reason.
(27:01):
Being an entrepreneur from a personal standpoint has been really fun.
I've been able to live a completely different life than I was living before.
I do miss being a boarding school teacher.
In some ways, but in other ways, I love the independence. I love the freedom.
I do like working with my sister. We've made a great team.
(27:23):
And I learned a ton about not only business, but nutrition, which is something,
as I mentioned, when I started telling my story, that is,
something that interests me, something that I've been passionate about for a long time.
I was a French teacher and I,
(27:44):
what I did before doing this full-time looked very little like what I do today.
Obviously, I was running this on the side, so there's continuity.
But my day-to-day life has changed really dramatically. And for that,
I feel like I'm a new man in a way.
And I don't feel like my work is monotonous or that I'm stuck, which is great.
(28:10):
I know a lot of people find themselves to find themselves in that place in their professional careers.
And so for me, everything is novel. It's hard for sure.
I'm way more stressed than I used to be, but stress is motivating and it definitely
challenges me to learn, to innovate, to be creative, which are all good things.
(28:34):
What's your favorite part about this life that you're leading now?
I mean, because you were a teacher, you've obviously transitioned your life.
What's your favorite part now?
Well, I spent a few months in Asia in the fall, which is something I would have
never been able to do had I continued teaching.
(28:56):
So I've been able to travel. Now I'm living in Montana. I've always wanted to
live out on the West Coast.
Again, something I would have have never been able to do had I stayed at boarding school.
So that's for me, from a very personal standpoint, something that I appreciate
a lot about this, this life that I'm, that I'm able to lead because of the business.
(29:21):
I'm not, I guess I'm not, I'm not tied to anything.
When I, as a boarding school teacher, for people who don't know what boarding schools are there,
you may have only, you know, seen them in movies, but they're,
they're, they're intentional residential communities often secluded from the
rest of the world. They're in some remote part of.
(29:44):
They're basically in the woods. And when you live and work at a boarding school
as a teacher, you have this built-in community that is incredibly rich.
But you're also isolated from friends, family.
(30:04):
You're not able to do a lot of things that other people are able to do.
When I was 24, I was teaching on Saturdays and coaching on Sundays.
It was a full, full-time job. Again, I lived with the students that I taught.
I was, the school was my life and it was great. I loved it. There was nothing
I would have rather done at that time.
(30:26):
But for a lot of 24-year-olds, that is a nightmare.
I wasn't able to go out with my friends. I wasn't able to travel when I wanted
to. I had nice long school breaks. I had the summer off.
But when school was in session, I was there full-time. So it's been a very dramatic change for me.
I can travel. I can go anywhere I want. I'm not accountable to anyone or anything as I was in the past.
(30:51):
And it's a little scary, but also very cool.
I really appreciate it, given where I was just a short while ago. Yeah.
Awesome. The like products now, I mean, are they available in stores as well
as online? Where can people find them?
(31:11):
Like, how do they go about contacting you or ordering them? Where can they find you online?
Brinkwholesome.com. We also sell on Amazon.
We have a sizable Amazon presence and we are considering expanding into traditional
brick and mortar retail at some capacity. But we are...
(31:35):
Because we launched during the pandemic an e-commerce business.
So you can go to drinkwholesome.com. The entirety of our product line is available there.
In addition to protein powders, we sell meal replacement powders.
We have hydration powders.
We have a powder dairy-free milk alternative, all made for people with sensitive
(31:55):
stomachs, all formulated with sensitive guts in mind.
We ship for free to the United States, and we also ship to Canada, the UK, and Australia.
So it's an e-commerce business.
We try and make it easy for people to get the product. If you like it,
you want to use it regularly, you can subscribe and save.
(32:17):
And again, that's drinkwholesome.com or drinkwholesome on Amazon.
If you could tell anyone starting off in the entrepreneurial world anything
that you thought would help them get started or gain value or make their journey
easier, year, what would those things be?
I, and this is something that I've experienced more recently,
(32:42):
have found entrepreneurship to be extremely stressful.
I am just bound up, nervous, anxious about the fate of the business,
about the decisions that I make.
I feel responsible for everything that goes wrong.
And when you're running a business like mine, things go wrong basically every
day. So I'm running around putting out fires.
(33:02):
And my saving grace has been exercise. Exercise for me has been part of my life for forever.
And it allows me to take a step away from the business, to clear my mind,
to think about something else. I prefer mindful exercise.
I love to ski and mountain bike.
(33:24):
Those are things that require me to be present. it if your mind starts to wander
when you're mountain biking you tend to fall over or hit things so that for
me has been hugely important i'm not recommending that entrepreneurs exercise
exercise is not for everyone we all have different relationships to it but you have to have,
something i think it's extremely important to have something built into your
(33:45):
life that allows you to step away from the business on a daily basis if you
think about something else and there There are so many ways of doing that.
Some people find that in music.
Some people find that in other form of art. I choose exercise.
It's just something that grounds me. It keeps me sane, honestly.
(34:09):
I think it's really, really important.
I talk to a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs who burn out.
It's just really hard. Most businesses, I don't know about most,
but many fail and that's extremely, that's a hard experience to have.
And for those who don't fail, probably get pretty close at some point in time.
(34:32):
And so for your livelihood, for your reputation, your ego, your happiness to
be bound up in a business that is so whimsical is, it's just hard.
So I recommend that everybody has an outlet for, clearing their mind and stepping away.
I'm a firm believer in exercise as well. And the endorphins you need,
(34:55):
the composure you need, the peace you need amongst all the stress,
it's for sure important.
And if not, you can find a lot of other negative things that fill that space.
At least exercise is positive.
So I agree with you on that, Jack, 100%. What is it that keeps you going?
(35:16):
Because you've had bumps in the road. You've had obstacles.
You've had ups and downs. You've had almost failures, which I would say things you learn from.
But what really motivates you
to keep doing this? What's your drive to continue this product forward?
As I mentioned a few minutes ago, there are a lot of people out there who I
(35:40):
would say rely on drink wholesome.
There aren't really any alternatives that I would recommend at least to drink wholesome.
And for that reason, if Drink Wholesome were to disappear tomorrow,
a lot of people would struggle to meet the nutritional needs.
And a lot of my customers, I have plenty of healthy people who order Drink Wholesome,
(36:07):
but a lot of these people have serious health issues and rely on protein supplements
to meet the nutritional needs to make sure that they're getting enough protein
or just calories in their diet.
And drink wholesome
solves a problem in the sense that all other
protein powders are not options for these people or if they do use them they
(36:28):
pay a pretty heavy price so those are the people that keep me around it's sort
of a noble cause i guess but it's definitely motivating the longer i do
the more I realize how much I'm helping people.
I can see myself sort of get stuck here where I might not be able to summon
(36:50):
the courage to walk away and do something else without making sure that these
people's needs are taken care of. Yeah, no kidding. I know exactly what you're saying.
Even when it was time, I thought I should get out of a business.
I couldn't abandon customers or the people that I thought needed the help.
And it's not a selfish thing.
It's just you don't want to harm people in the process. I get exactly what you're saying.
(37:14):
So, Jack, is there anything you want to share? If you could go back to your
previous self and tell yourself anything, what would it be?
Or is there anything that you want to share with the audience or talk about before we wrap up here?
Some words of wisdom. Wisdom.
This has been a humbling experience for me in that every day I learn a lot more
(37:42):
about what I'm not good at than what I am good at.
It's hard as one person to have a wide array of competencies.
I'm good at certain things, but running a business requires a lot of different
skill sets. The way the business is
set up, I'm required to do pretty much everything, along with my sister.
(38:02):
And we are just two people. We're just two experiences.
So I have gotten a lot better asking for help.
I think that's true for anyone, even someone who's not an entrepreneur.
Ask for help when you need it.
I think people who go into entrepreneurship tend to be self-starters.
They tend to be self-sufficient. They tend to be problem solvers.
(38:26):
All of which are great attributes but at a certain point
you are you know limited by again your
own skills your own experiences your own chromosomes who knows and so it's it's
very healthy to ask for help and it sounds a bit like a cliche but i think a
lot of entrepreneurs can relate to the value that they found looking elsewhere
(38:47):
for guidance and so anyone who's.
A little stuck, especially entrepreneurs, I'd recommend asking for help.
There are people out there who would be more than happy to help you because
they understand that you might return the favor one day.
The thing I like about that is we have a tendency to isolate ourselves when things get stressful.
We have to sort of build our fort and protect ourselves in it when we're feeling
(39:12):
hurt or in pain or like a failure.
And you're right. We have to do the opposite. We have have to ask for help.
We have to be willing to receive help. And we have to be willing to put down
our pride and our ego sometimes in order to get that help, especially as entrepreneurs,
as men, as business people, as in our communities, whatever it is or whatever
(39:37):
we're going through mentally, physically.
Entrepreneurially, spiritually, it's okay to ask for help.
And I can say this because I like that you brought this up, is that I didn't
ask for enough of it in my life.
Over the 24 years I was with food service partners, I didn't ask for it when I needed it personally.
(39:58):
I just sort of shelled up because I didn't know what to do, because I didn't
understand how to even ask for help.
And I'm pretty good at receiving help in certain situations,
but not in everything. And I really had to learn that over the last two years,
is what does it mean to receive help?
What does it mean to build a fellowship around you that helps you?
(40:21):
What does it mean to build a fellowship of fellow entrepreneurs, of fellow humans,
of fellow men, if you're a man, whatever it is, women, if you're women,
to actually help you through those times? Because I didn't have it.
I've always had fellowship or been involved in groups and all that,
but I didn't totally invest in it where I trusted them because I don't trust
(40:44):
people. That's just who I am.
I will tell you over the last two years, I've had to learn to lean on people
and I've had to learn to listen to the ways that they're trying to help me and
that I don't know everything or half as much as I think I do,
even when I don't think I know a lot.
So I would say the other part of that is that humility piece.
(41:05):
You don't realize how much you need humility until you're needing to to be humbled.
And then life will humble you for you.
You know, I say God, God humbles you for you in my case.
And so the thing I like about what you said, Jack, is it's not an easy journey.
It's not easy. It doesn't come with trophies. It doesn't come with the feeling of success.
(41:32):
Today's wins are tomorrow forgotten.
You know, it's every day you have to start all over again, Again,
running your businesses, being an entrepreneur, being a father,
being a brother, being whatever, because every day is a new slate.
And it's hard for people to realize, but most of the time, the past doesn't stack up to the present.
(41:53):
Our skill set does. Our character does.
Our spirituality maybe does. But for the most part, saving money does.
But for the most part in business, every day is starting over.
Every day in our families, you never know when you're going to lose someone.
You never know when your relationship might fall apart.
So every day has to be cherished and focused on.
(42:16):
So I think that that's one of the things we're talking about here.
And it's hard to let your foot off the gas because when you let your foot off the gas, things happen.
You know, so being an entrepreneur is a tough road.
It's hard. It comes with a lot of heartbreak, comes with a lot of emotions,
comes with a lot of emotional days, as you talked about.
So I appreciate you sharing today, Jack, everything that you've shared.
(42:41):
Will you tell everyone where they can find you online, where they can find you on social media?
Yep. It's all at Drink Wholesome on social media, drinkwholesome.com,
drinkwholesome on Amazon.
If you have a sensitive stomach, if you're sick of protein powders that upset
your stomach, I highly recommend that you give it a try. We have sample packs.
(43:04):
We're one of the few companies that offer that to our customers.
And if you want to connect with me or my sister who's who's in charge of everything
marketing and customer facing. Please reach out.
Thank you again, Jack. I appreciate it. Thank you everyone in the audience for listening in.
Thank you guys around the world who are tuning in. Thank you guys again for
(43:27):
understanding the leave of absence I've taken over the last six months as well
as everyone out there, guests, fans, subscribers,
friends, all encouraging me to do this and keep going and get back on the horse
when I needed some time away from this to figure out who I was and who I wasn't.
(43:48):
To go through the trials and tribulations of life, to give me time to rebuild
my life, to go into Denver Seminary and pursue the Masters of Divinity and leadership
that I'm now pursuing, as well as building two new businesses.
Like I've talked about, anyone who's listening in, go to GorillaBrave.love.
It is for entrepreneurs and food and beverage space specifically.
(44:12):
So you don't have to go through this journey alone.
You have a group of people who are there for you, a group that's also educating you.
And I wish I would have had this group for the last 26 years of my life because
as well as, as much as I had entrepreneur groups, I didn't have people in the
food and beverage space that were living my journey.
(44:34):
Now I do. That's why we created the group.
The other one is leaders to owners.
That is for anyone who's in the food space that wants wants to own their own
business, we are building a platform that helps you do that because we know what it's like.
My partners and I in that, what it's like to be leaders in a business and want
(44:56):
to eventually own your own food and beverage business.
So that's why that's there. It's not just something that we thought of.
It's because we saw the opportunity because we've needed that in our own lives.
Lastly, if you want to find this podcast or the Justin Ryan Bizzaro show or
the Centurion Leadership Battalion, as we relaunch those, you can find us on
(45:19):
Spotify or wherever else you go yourself through podcasts.
Thank you guys. I love you guys in the audience. This show, Justin the Food
Entrepreneurs, is still number one out of all I do and all we We produce at
a better with bacon fat studios.
It's still the best one. It still gets the highest numbers. It still gets the
highest views. It's still the one that's in over 140 countries.
(45:44):
So thank you guys for listening in.
Thank you for, for the support again. And I love you guys. And thank you,
Jack, for coming on the show.
I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Yeah, absolutely. And we're out guys.
Music.
Music.
(00:18):
Welcome, everyone, to the Justin the Food Entrepreneur Show.
I'm Justin Bizarro. I'm your host. That's B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
For anyone who's out there who wants to find us, you can find me on Instagram
at Justin Bizarro. Again, B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
You can also find this show, Justin Ryan Bizarro Show, as well as the Centurion
(00:39):
Leadership Battalion, all on Spotify or wherever else you grow yourself through podcasts.
This is a food and beverage entrepreneur show. Nutrition as well.
We do all those type of things on here. So I appreciate everyone who's listened
in. I appreciate all the downloads.
I appreciate all the love on social media and I appreciate everyone's feedback
(01:00):
and the support that you guys have all given me as I took a six month leave of absence.
To rebuild my life, to recreate myself, repurpose myself, truly find out who
I was and who I wasn't after 24 years in a business that I grew from 18 years
old with partners and with my family.
(01:20):
So I appreciate everyone giving that time. I should have taken that time sooner
before things got really bad.
But as an entrepreneur, we tie a lot of our identity in the businesses we build.
We tie a lot of our identity in the families we have.
And when that goes away, we kind of lose our identity, our purpose,
because we didn't put it in the right place in the first place.
(01:41):
So if you want to hear more about that, the Centurion Leadership Battalion podcast
will be starting to release episodes again.
And the first one being re-released is about what happens when we lose our identity.
So with that being said, I have a very special guest with us from Drink Wholesome,
Jack Schrupp out of Guilford, New Hampshire.
(02:03):
Hope I got that right. How are you doing today, Jack?
I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing very well. So I'm very interested in
your story because you have this cool protein powder.
It's specifically for those who have sensitive stomachs, I believe.
And so let's dive into your story, Jack. How and why did you get into this business?
(02:29):
How was it getting off the ground? But first, let's go all the way back.
Who are you? How were you brought up? Like, let's just really take the time
to give you the mic and talk about your story a little bit.
Sure. Well, first of all, thank you for having me on. It's always exciting to
share my story with others.
And I love hearing about other people's stories, especially in the food and beverage space.
(02:54):
Every founder, every business has a unique story, a really compelling story. story.
Mine started five years ago.
So I'm not new to the food and beverage industry, but I've only been doing it
full time for a few months.
And before I get into that, I'll mention that I'm from rural New Hampshire.
(03:18):
I grew up ski racing. That was a very important important part of my childhood.
And I raced all the way through the end of college.
So I was a division one athlete training year round competing at a very high level.
And along with that experience came an interest in nutrition.
(03:41):
So I was using protein supplements while I was training almost almost every day.
And I, at some point, became sick and tired of how they were making me feel.
Every time I drank a protein shake, I felt bloated. I felt lethargic.
And at some point, I became fed up with the side effects and decided to create
(04:08):
my own protein supplement.
And this was something that I made for myself, by myself.
I ordered ingredients from natural natural food stores online.
I went to the local food co-op. I bought a spice grinder and I cooked up a protein
powder recipe in my college dorm room that, to be honest, it didn't taste very
(04:32):
good, but it did the trick.
I was confident that I was getting the nutrition that I needed and it didn't cause any side effects.
And after college, after graduating, I became a high school school teacher and coach.
I actually worked at a boarding school. So I lived in a dormitory with a bunch of kids.
I taught them during the day. I coached them in the afternoon.
(04:53):
And then I kept them high on them in the evening.
And that was a very intense job, an awesome job, one of the best jobs in the
world as far as I'm concerned and the perfect fit for me at that time.
And one of the the big perks about being a teacher is that you get summer off.
So during the summer of that first year out of college,
(05:17):
I decided to take this protein powder that I was still making for myself and
using myself and see if I could turn it into a consumer packaged good.
I'd always been interested in entrepreneurship.
And again, I had some free time. So I set out.
First, create a product and then build a business around it.
(05:39):
I had no idea what I was doing, like many entrepreneurs, but I did believe in the product.
I had a feeling that other people would appreciate it as much as I did.
So after much tinkering and many, many iterations,
I came up with a protein powder that performed like a traditional protein supplement
(06:01):
in that you could mix it with milk or water in a shaker bottle and drink it on the go.
It wasn't the easiest to mix.
It definitely had a different flavor profile, a different texture than most
protein powders, but it did the trick.
(06:22):
And I was fortunate to get put in touch with a bakery in Cape Cod that was making wholesale granola.
And they ended up having all the equipment that I needed to make my protein
powder, which I will mention is fundamentally different than every other protein powder on the market.
(06:46):
And that's the main reason why it took me so long and so many iterations to
get it to look, taste, feel like a traditional protein supplement.
And that's because I was using whole food protein sources, which,
again, is a fundamentally different approach than every other protein powder company is using.
(07:07):
So most protein powders on the shelf, or nearly all other than Drink Wholesome,
are made with protein concentrates.
And or isolates, which are dietary protein sources stripped of everything but the protein.
They've had the fats, the carbs, the fiber, the digestive enzymes removed,
(07:28):
which is great if you are looking to increase your protein intake,
but it's not great for your gut.
And people with with sensitive stomachs and gut issues, can really feel the
difference between a protein concentrate or isolate and a whole food protein source.
A whole food protein source is something like eggs, fish, meat,
(07:52):
nuts, seeds, legumes, et cetera.
So I was using whole food protein sources and turning them into protein powder
without stripping everything else away.
So the final product looked a lot more like food than what all the other companies
were selling. For some people, the fact that my protein powder is made with
a whole food doesn't make a difference.
(08:16):
But again, for someone with a sensitive stomach, someone with a digestive disease,
chronic gut issues, it makes a world of difference.
And so that is the secret. It's not rocket science, but that is the secret to drink wholesome.
And that is why today we are known as the easy to digest protein powder,
the protein powder for sensitive stomachs. But that's not really how the business started.
(08:41):
As I mentioned, I partnered with this granola company in Cape Cod,
Massachusetts. At the time, I was living outside of Boston, so I could drive
and eat with them. And they helped me formulate my recipes.
And they effectively took me on as a client because they believed in what I was doing.
And I'm still working with them today. And so I created this protein powder.
(09:06):
I ran like 1,000 units. And that was in late February of 2020.
And if you remember, in early March of that year, the COVID-19 pandemic touched
down in the United States, the entire country shut down, it seemed like the world was ending.
So what happened was I found myself, I was 22, 23 years old at the time,
(09:33):
sitting in my parents' house with pallets of protein powder and no way of selling it.
My original plan was to go to sporting events in the area,
road races and triathlons, and connect with other athletes who I thought would
see the same value in a whole food, minimally processed protein powder.
(09:55):
I'll mention that in addition to being minimally processed and made with a whole
food drink, wholesome has a really, really short ingredient list.
There are no additives whatsoever.
My vanilla protein powder, for example, is made with egg whites,
coconut, vanilla beans,
and monk fruit, which is a melon-like fruit from Southeast Asia that is sweet
(10:20):
like sugar sugar without the sugar.
The sweetness comes from another compound, and that allows someone like me to
create a sweet protein powder without lots of added sugar.
Anyway, I'm sitting in my parents' house. I have pallets of protein powder.
I have no way of selling it. I didn't even have an e-commerce platform at the time, so I created one.
(10:43):
And for the longest time, I was only selling my protein powders to family and
friends, but the internet is a crazy and sometimes a beautiful place.
And people with sensitive stomachs ended up finding my protein powder during
the pandemic online, giving it a try.
The simplicity of the product spoke to them.
(11:04):
And I really hit my customers over the head with the simplicity of the ingredient
list because I put the ingredients in big, bold font right in front of the package.
I think it's really important for people with with sensitive stomachs to know
exactly what they're putting into their body.
And so I make that really easy for my customers and people intuitively chose
my protein powder, just looking at the ingredients and ended up working for them.
(11:27):
So I pivoted, I guess, or doubled down.
To focus on that group of people.
It's a very niche group of people, which is people with sensitive stomachs.
I wasn't making a protein powder for just anyone.
I was making a protein powder for people with sensitive stomachs.
Obviously, anyone can use Drink Wholesome.
(11:47):
We have lots of customers who are drawn to it just because it's one of the only
protein powders that's made without extra processing and added junk.
It's really, really simple.
And some people People just want the simplicity, but a lot of my customers use
Drink Wholesome because virtually all other protein powders upset their stomachs.
The reason why is, again, they're made with these heavily processed protein
(12:10):
sources that look nothing like
real food, and also they contain artificial sweeteners like sucralose.
They contain thickeners like gums and emulsifiers like lecithin.
All of these ingredients don't look a lot like real food.
For that reason, they're hard to digest. They resist digestion and cause a whole
(12:33):
host of digestive issues, especially for people with sensitive stomachs.
So that was sometime in 2020, 2021. I was still working as a teacher.
I eventually changed schools, but was doing effectively the same thing,
teaching, coaching, living in the dormitory and running this business on the side.
(12:56):
And over the course of four years, the business kept growing,
and I started to be spread too thin.
There was just not enough time in the day, and I did not have enough brain cells
to feel like I was doing a good job taking care of the kids and building this business.
So last year, in 2023, I decided to do the business full-time.
(13:19):
So I finished up the school year at the school where I was teaching and transitioned
to doing the business full-time. I immediately started making a lot of changes
and realized I was pretty in over my head doing it all by myself.
So I brought on my sister, who's about my age. She had been working in the food and beverage space.
So she was a great fit. And together, we took on the business full time.
(13:44):
And that was seven months ago.
And it has been a pretty wild ride since then. And the business has grown a
lot and it's been an absolute rollercoaster of an experience.
I felt very comfortable and confident.
Teaching. That was something that came naturally to me, something that I really enjoyed.
(14:07):
And although I have found some success as an entrepreneur in the food and beverage
space, it's definitely out of my comfort zone.
I am challenged every day. I make mistakes every day.
And the past month for the business has been truly wild and really challenging.
(14:27):
So right now I'm in a period of sort of a chaotic phase of the business where a lot is changing.
We're really rethinking what we're doing because we want Drink Wholesome to
be around for a while. We want it to be scalable.
We want to help more people boost their protein without side effects.
And in order to do that, we do have to make some pretty significant changes
(14:51):
to the way the business is structured, to the products themselves, etc.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that these days, in particular,
I have come to really understand how emotional being an entrepreneur is.
I can only speak for what it's like in the food beverage space.
I imagine that entrepreneurs in other industries experience similar volatility.
(15:16):
But, you know, some days I'm like, I feel like I'm on top of the world and other
days I feel like the world is crashing down around me.
And it's fun, but definitely taxing. So you just caught me at a funny time.
Yeah. And I, and I like this a lot because it is very emotional.
It could be emotional on the family. It could be emotional on the employees.
(15:38):
It could be emotional on the vendors and the customers also in some ways because
there are a lot of ups and downs when you're starting a business.
I want to go back to during COVID, you had mentioned you brought in the protein
powder and you had pallets of it.
What was your strategy to start to distribute that or sell it when you're sitting
(16:02):
on so So much product because you're in a very tight bind.
Like what was the mindset there and how did you go about it?
Fortunately, protein powder has a long shelf life, or at least my protein powder does.
But there certainly was a point in time when I wondered if I'd ever be able
to move all that product.
(16:22):
I wondered if I would just have to throw it out and move on with my life.
My initial plan was to get into local health food stores.
And it was somewhat of a naive approach.
But again, as someone with no experience, someone who was 22 years old,
(16:43):
I didn't help them thinking that far ahead.
I was just really excited about creating the product.
And I didn't really even think about e-commerce that much, which is, in hindsight,
silly, because Drink Wholesome is an e-commerce business today,
like most businesses in our space, which is the health, wellness,
(17:07):
nutritional supplement space. Yeah.
I think protein powder was one of the first things to be sold on the internet.
And I just, I didn't really see that for my business. I also wasn't particularly
interested in selling on the internet.
I enjoy in-person interactions.
(17:28):
Again, as a teacher, I had a very social job.
I interface with people all day long, every day.
We even had Saturday classes. So I was just immersed in a very interpersonal community.
And so I thought that I would lace up my boots and stomp around New England,
(17:49):
knocking on doors, sharing my product with people.
Ultimately, that is not at all how the business developed.
But it's who I was and what I expected at that point.
Talk to me about the hardships. What are some of the things that you've been
through over the last seven months, some of the ups and downs,
(18:12):
and what you've learned from them?
Well, the latest hardships or the most trying hardships that the business has
faced, that I have faced as the business owner,
have interestingly had to do not with the pandemic, which was trying,
but the business didn't really have its stethers at that point in time.
(18:36):
So the pandemic didn't affect my business.
It affected my trajectory and my approach to the business ultimately,
but it didn't shut me down like it did a lot of other businesses.
The most trying hardships that I've faced have had to do with eggs.
(18:57):
I make egg white-based protein powders. So I work with eggs.
I buy a lot of eggs. And a few years ago, there was an unprecedented avian bird
flu outbreak in the United States,
and millions upon millions of laying chickens died or were killed to prevent the spread of the virus.
(19:25):
And as a result, the price of finished egg products and eggs went up like 500%
overnight, which is a huge increase.
And for someone running a bootstrapped small business that really depends on cash flow,
that was almost devastating because I had a product with a healthy margin that
(19:50):
became virtually unprofitable overnight.
I really thought about shutting the business down and waiting until the outbreak started.
The outbreak passed. So it was like bird flu, not human flu that affected me the most.
(20:12):
But I decided to hang in there.
And I ultimately, at that time, chose to diversify my product line by introducing
a plant-based protein powder for sensitive stomachs using roasted California California almonds.
And that's now an important product for Drink Wholesome.
(20:34):
I don't think I would have done it had I not gone through that trying time,
a time when the price of eggs skyrocketed in just a matter of days.
So that was the first really challenging experience for the business. It had to do with eggs.
And recently, we've had an issue with production regarding eggs.
(20:58):
Because I won't go into too much detail, but effectively we've had to shut down
our production in order to update how we do things.
And that is an ongoing issue. Right now we are not able to produce our egg white protein powders.
We are blindsided by an issue.
And for a small business, this, not being able to produce product is a huge problem.
(21:25):
Going out of stock is not, it's like one of the last things you want to happen.
But unfortunately, we don't really have a choice right now. We're doing our
best to resolve this issue.
And like in 2020, I've chosen very recently to further diversify my product
line in order to build a more resilient business to decrease the business's
(21:51):
dependence on egg whites.
And so we've created this collagen-based protein powder for sensitive stomachs.
So now we have three different types of protein powder.
We have an egg white-based protein powder, we have a vegan almond-based protein
powder, and we have a collagen-based protein powder. That product just actually
went live last night on our website.
(22:13):
We're going to make an announcement to our community next week.
So it's brand new. We're really excited about it.
I would not have created this product and brought it to market had I not had
this production issue that came out of nowhere, just like the avian bird flu. flu.
So I'm not sure if I have effectively or accurately described or conveyed how
(22:38):
challenging these experiences were for the business, but they were almost like.
Lights out for Drink Wholesome. A small business can pivot, can adapt.
It's one of the beauties of a business like mine, but it's also very vulnerable
to changes in the market, to issues related to production.
(23:03):
A bigger business that produces hundreds of thousands of units several times
a year is much more resilient than a business like mine who produces a few thousand units every month.
And so hopefully, moving forward, we will be less subject to the whims of the
egg market and better able to weather these types of storms.
(23:27):
I mean, the changes that have happened were not changes that I planned to make.
But when I was confronted with sort of a life or death situation,
I thought on my feet, and I'm hoping that these collagen protein powders become
a staple in our product line. I think people are really going to like them.
(23:47):
So that's Drink Wholesome. And a few of, there have been many others,
but a few of the challenging moments and experiences.
Where are you hoping this goes? What is your dreams for this?
How are you going about getting there?
I know you've only been full-time seven months, but where are you hoping I mean,
(24:09):
you pursued this dream and this product for a reason. Where are you hoping it goes, Jack?
There are different types of entrepreneurs, which is something I've learned
from networking within the industry and from learning from others.
There are people who go into entrepreneurship with a goal.
(24:30):
They have a business idea. They have an outcome in mind and a playbook or a plan that they execute.
I'm not that type of entrepreneur. I, when I started this business,
never intended to do it full time.
It was very much a pet project, very, not even a side hustle.
(24:53):
I don't even call it a side hustle because it wasn't generating any income for
me personally. Unfortunately, everything that the business made went back into the business.
And it has not blown up overnight.
Certainly, there have been dramatic changes, some of which I just described.
(25:16):
But in business growth, it's been a slow roll.
It's been, I don't know if I'd say a grind. I mean, there's at times a grind.
But it's been slow, steady growth over the course of four years.
And because it happens so incrementally, my relationships to the business changes
(25:37):
in a very gradual, incremental way.
There aren't dramatic changes to how I see the business, what I think of the business.
And so I'm, I'm thinking a week out, I'm thinking a month out, I would love to plan 12,
(25:57):
18 months in the future, but it's just so hard given where the business has
come from, where it is today and where I think I'll be able to take it.
But I do, I mean, I now have, we sell.
A lot of protein powder to people with sensitive stomachs. And there are a lot
(26:18):
of people out there who rely on drink wholesome.
It's become a very important part of their diet, of their life.
And so I do feel obligated to these people to build something with legs that
is going to be around, that's going to be a household name.
I want people to know about drink wholesome and understand the value that it
(26:38):
can add for someone with a sensitive stomach.
So right now, Now, my number one goal is just to build a resilient business
with a long shelf life because it's helping people and I wouldn't want to see
it go away for that reason.
(27:01):
Being an entrepreneur from a personal standpoint has been really fun.
I've been able to live a completely different life than I was living before.
I do miss being a boarding school teacher.
In some ways, but in other ways, I love the independence. I love the freedom.
I do like working with my sister. We've made a great team.
(27:23):
And I learned a ton about not only business, but nutrition, which is something,
as I mentioned, when I started telling my story, that is,
something that interests me, something that I've been passionate about for a long time.
I was a French teacher and I,
(27:44):
what I did before doing this full-time looked very little like what I do today.
Obviously, I was running this on the side, so there's continuity.
But my day-to-day life has changed really dramatically. And for that,
I feel like I'm a new man in a way.
And I don't feel like my work is monotonous or that I'm stuck, which is great.
(28:10):
I know a lot of people find themselves to find themselves in that place in their professional careers.
And so for me, everything is novel. It's hard for sure.
I'm way more stressed than I used to be, but stress is motivating and it definitely
challenges me to learn, to innovate, to be creative, which are all good things.
(28:34):
What's your favorite part about this life that you're leading now?
I mean, because you were a teacher, you've obviously transitioned your life.
What's your favorite part now?
Well, I spent a few months in Asia in the fall, which is something I would have
never been able to do had I continued teaching.
(28:56):
So I've been able to travel. Now I'm living in Montana. I've always wanted to
live out on the West Coast.
Again, something I would have have never been able to do had I stayed at boarding school.
So that's for me, from a very personal standpoint, something that I appreciate
a lot about this, this life that I'm, that I'm able to lead because of the business.
(29:21):
I'm not, I guess I'm not, I'm not tied to anything.
When I, as a boarding school teacher, for people who don't know what boarding schools are there,
you may have only, you know, seen them in movies, but they're,
they're, they're intentional residential communities often secluded from the
rest of the world. They're in some remote part of.
(29:44):
They're basically in the woods. And when you live and work at a boarding school
as a teacher, you have this built-in community that is incredibly rich.
But you're also isolated from friends, family.
(30:04):
You're not able to do a lot of things that other people are able to do.
When I was 24, I was teaching on Saturdays and coaching on Sundays.
It was a full, full-time job. Again, I lived with the students that I taught.
I was, the school was my life and it was great. I loved it. There was nothing
I would have rather done at that time.
(30:26):
But for a lot of 24-year-olds, that is a nightmare.
I wasn't able to go out with my friends. I wasn't able to travel when I wanted
to. I had nice long school breaks. I had the summer off.
But when school was in session, I was there full-time. So it's been a very dramatic change for me.
I can travel. I can go anywhere I want. I'm not accountable to anyone or anything as I was in the past.
(30:51):
And it's a little scary, but also very cool.
I really appreciate it, given where I was just a short while ago. Yeah.
Awesome. The like products now, I mean, are they available in stores as well
as online? Where can people find them?
(31:11):
Like, how do they go about contacting you or ordering them? Where can they find you online?
Brinkwholesome.com. We also sell on Amazon.
We have a sizable Amazon presence and we are considering expanding into traditional
brick and mortar retail at some capacity. But we are...
(31:35):
Because we launched during the pandemic an e-commerce business.
So you can go to drinkwholesome.com. The entirety of our product line is available there.
In addition to protein powders, we sell meal replacement powders.
We have hydration powders.
We have a powder dairy-free milk alternative, all made for people with sensitive
(31:55):
stomachs, all formulated with sensitive guts in mind.
We ship for free to the United States, and we also ship to Canada, the UK, and Australia.
So it's an e-commerce business.
We try and make it easy for people to get the product. If you like it,
you want to use it regularly, you can subscribe and save.
(32:17):
And again, that's drinkwholesome.com or drinkwholesome on Amazon.
If you could tell anyone starting off in the entrepreneurial world anything
that you thought would help them get started or gain value or make their journey
easier, year, what would those things be?
I, and this is something that I've experienced more recently,
(32:42):
have found entrepreneurship to be extremely stressful.
I am just bound up, nervous, anxious about the fate of the business,
about the decisions that I make.
I feel responsible for everything that goes wrong.
And when you're running a business like mine, things go wrong basically every
day. So I'm running around putting out fires.
(33:02):
And my saving grace has been exercise. Exercise for me has been part of my life for forever.
And it allows me to take a step away from the business, to clear my mind,
to think about something else. I prefer mindful exercise.
I love to ski and mountain bike.
(33:24):
Those are things that require me to be present. it if your mind starts to wander
when you're mountain biking you tend to fall over or hit things so that for
me has been hugely important i'm not recommending that entrepreneurs exercise
exercise is not for everyone we all have different relationships to it but you have to have,
something i think it's extremely important to have something built into your
(33:45):
life that allows you to step away from the business on a daily basis if you
think about something else and there There are so many ways of doing that.
Some people find that in music.
Some people find that in other form of art. I choose exercise.
It's just something that grounds me. It keeps me sane, honestly.
(34:09):
I think it's really, really important.
I talk to a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs who burn out.
It's just really hard. Most businesses, I don't know about most,
but many fail and that's extremely, that's a hard experience to have.
And for those who don't fail, probably get pretty close at some point in time.
(34:32):
And so for your livelihood, for your reputation, your ego, your happiness to
be bound up in a business that is so whimsical is, it's just hard.
So I recommend that everybody has an outlet for, clearing their mind and stepping away.
I'm a firm believer in exercise as well. And the endorphins you need,
(34:55):
the composure you need, the peace you need amongst all the stress,
it's for sure important.
And if not, you can find a lot of other negative things that fill that space.
At least exercise is positive.
So I agree with you on that, Jack, 100%. What is it that keeps you going?
(35:16):
Because you've had bumps in the road. You've had obstacles.
You've had ups and downs. You've had almost failures, which I would say things you learn from.
But what really motivates you
to keep doing this? What's your drive to continue this product forward?
As I mentioned a few minutes ago, there are a lot of people out there who I
(35:40):
would say rely on drink wholesome.
There aren't really any alternatives that I would recommend at least to drink wholesome.
And for that reason, if Drink Wholesome were to disappear tomorrow,
a lot of people would struggle to meet the nutritional needs.
And a lot of my customers, I have plenty of healthy people who order Drink Wholesome,
(36:07):
but a lot of these people have serious health issues and rely on protein supplements
to meet the nutritional needs to make sure that they're getting enough protein
or just calories in their diet.
And drink wholesome
solves a problem in the sense that all other
protein powders are not options for these people or if they do use them they
(36:28):
pay a pretty heavy price so those are the people that keep me around it's sort
of a noble cause i guess but it's definitely motivating the longer i do
the more I realize how much I'm helping people.
I can see myself sort of get stuck here where I might not be able to summon
(36:50):
the courage to walk away and do something else without making sure that these
people's needs are taken care of. Yeah, no kidding. I know exactly what you're saying.
Even when it was time, I thought I should get out of a business.
I couldn't abandon customers or the people that I thought needed the help.
And it's not a selfish thing.
It's just you don't want to harm people in the process. I get exactly what you're saying.
(37:14):
So, Jack, is there anything you want to share? If you could go back to your
previous self and tell yourself anything, what would it be?
Or is there anything that you want to share with the audience or talk about before we wrap up here?
Some words of wisdom. Wisdom.
This has been a humbling experience for me in that every day I learn a lot more
(37:42):
about what I'm not good at than what I am good at.
It's hard as one person to have a wide array of competencies.
I'm good at certain things, but running a business requires a lot of different
skill sets. The way the business is
set up, I'm required to do pretty much everything, along with my sister.
(38:02):
And we are just two people. We're just two experiences.
So I have gotten a lot better asking for help.
I think that's true for anyone, even someone who's not an entrepreneur.
Ask for help when you need it.
I think people who go into entrepreneurship tend to be self-starters.
They tend to be self-sufficient. They tend to be problem solvers.
(38:26):
All of which are great attributes but at a certain point
you are you know limited by again your
own skills your own experiences your own chromosomes who knows and so it's it's
very healthy to ask for help and it sounds a bit like a cliche but i think a
lot of entrepreneurs can relate to the value that they found looking elsewhere
(38:47):
for guidance and so anyone who's.
A little stuck, especially entrepreneurs, I'd recommend asking for help.
There are people out there who would be more than happy to help you because
they understand that you might return the favor one day.
The thing I like about that is we have a tendency to isolate ourselves when things get stressful.
We have to sort of build our fort and protect ourselves in it when we're feeling
(39:12):
hurt or in pain or like a failure.
And you're right. We have to do the opposite. We have have to ask for help.
We have to be willing to receive help. And we have to be willing to put down
our pride and our ego sometimes in order to get that help, especially as entrepreneurs,
as men, as business people, as in our communities, whatever it is or whatever
(39:37):
we're going through mentally, physically.
Entrepreneurially, spiritually, it's okay to ask for help.
And I can say this because I like that you brought this up, is that I didn't
ask for enough of it in my life.
Over the 24 years I was with food service partners, I didn't ask for it when I needed it personally.
(39:58):
I just sort of shelled up because I didn't know what to do, because I didn't
understand how to even ask for help.
And I'm pretty good at receiving help in certain situations,
but not in everything. And I really had to learn that over the last two years,
is what does it mean to receive help?
What does it mean to build a fellowship around you that helps you?
(40:21):
What does it mean to build a fellowship of fellow entrepreneurs, of fellow humans,
of fellow men, if you're a man, whatever it is, women, if you're women,
to actually help you through those times? Because I didn't have it.
I've always had fellowship or been involved in groups and all that,
but I didn't totally invest in it where I trusted them because I don't trust
(40:44):
people. That's just who I am.
I will tell you over the last two years, I've had to learn to lean on people
and I've had to learn to listen to the ways that they're trying to help me and
that I don't know everything or half as much as I think I do,
even when I don't think I know a lot.
So I would say the other part of that is that humility piece.
(41:05):
You don't realize how much you need humility until you're needing to to be humbled.
And then life will humble you for you.
You know, I say God, God humbles you for you in my case.
And so the thing I like about what you said, Jack, is it's not an easy journey.
It's not easy. It doesn't come with trophies. It doesn't come with the feeling of success.
(41:32):
Today's wins are tomorrow forgotten.
You know, it's every day you have to start all over again, Again,
running your businesses, being an entrepreneur, being a father,
being a brother, being whatever, because every day is a new slate.
And it's hard for people to realize, but most of the time, the past doesn't stack up to the present.
(41:53):
Our skill set does. Our character does.
Our spirituality maybe does. But for the most part, saving money does.
But for the most part in business, every day is starting over.
Every day in our families, you never know when you're going to lose someone.
You never know when your relationship might fall apart.
So every day has to be cherished and focused on.
(42:16):
So I think that that's one of the things we're talking about here.
And it's hard to let your foot off the gas because when you let your foot off the gas, things happen.
You know, so being an entrepreneur is a tough road.
It's hard. It comes with a lot of heartbreak, comes with a lot of emotions,
comes with a lot of emotional days, as you talked about.
So I appreciate you sharing today, Jack, everything that you've shared.
(42:41):
Will you tell everyone where they can find you online, where they can find you on social media?
Yep. It's all at Drink Wholesome on social media, drinkwholesome.com,
drinkwholesome on Amazon.
If you have a sensitive stomach, if you're sick of protein powders that upset
your stomach, I highly recommend that you give it a try. We have sample packs.
(43:04):
We're one of the few companies that offer that to our customers.
And if you want to connect with me or my sister who's who's in charge of everything
marketing and customer facing. Please reach out.
Thank you again, Jack. I appreciate it. Thank you everyone in the audience for listening in.
Thank you guys around the world who are tuning in. Thank you guys again for
(43:27):
understanding the leave of absence I've taken over the last six months as well
as everyone out there, guests, fans, subscribers,
friends, all encouraging me to do this and keep going and get back on the horse
when I needed some time away from this to figure out who I was and who I wasn't.
(43:48):
To go through the trials and tribulations of life, to give me time to rebuild
my life, to go into Denver Seminary and pursue the Masters of Divinity and leadership
that I'm now pursuing, as well as building two new businesses.
Like I've talked about, anyone who's listening in, go to GorillaBrave.love.
It is for entrepreneurs and food and beverage space specifically.
(44:12):
So you don't have to go through this journey alone.
You have a group of people who are there for you, a group that's also educating you.
And I wish I would have had this group for the last 26 years of my life because
as well as, as much as I had entrepreneur groups, I didn't have people in the
food and beverage space that were living my journey.
(44:34):
Now I do. That's why we created the group.
The other one is leaders to owners.
That is for anyone who's in the food space that wants wants to own their own
business, we are building a platform that helps you do that because we know what it's like.
My partners and I in that, what it's like to be leaders in a business and want
(44:56):
to eventually own your own food and beverage business.
So that's why that's there. It's not just something that we thought of.
It's because we saw the opportunity because we've needed that in our own lives.
Lastly, if you want to find this podcast or the Justin Ryan Bizzaro show or
the Centurion Leadership Battalion, as we relaunch those, you can find us on
(45:19):
Spotify or wherever else you go yourself through podcasts.
Thank you guys. I love you guys in the audience. This show, Justin the Food
Entrepreneurs, is still number one out of all I do and all we We produce at
a better with bacon fat studios.
It's still the best one. It still gets the highest numbers. It still gets the
highest views. It's still the one that's in over 140 countries.
(45:44):
So thank you guys for listening in.
Thank you for, for the support again. And I love you guys. And thank you,
Jack, for coming on the show.
I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Yeah, absolutely. And we're out guys.
Music.
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