George Milton co-founded Yellowbird Foods with his partner Erin Link, tilling up their Austin backyard for 150 habanero plants and building a national hot sauce brand on the belief that real food shouldn't need preservatives, sugar, and salt to taste good. He came to it from a music career, selling bottles out of a backpack at his own shows, and ran it self-funded for years before it became something that could pay him back.
In this conversation, we get into the Substack post where he publicly announced he'd hired his own replacement as CEO, the slow realization years earlier that he'd one day make this shift, and what it feels like now to sit in the room while other people make the calls he used to make.
We also talk about building a company alongside a life partner, why he used to personally call customers over a single damaged bottle, the resilience he pulls from endurance workouts, and the question he still can't fully answer about who you are when the thing you built no longer needs you.
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Find Yellowbird: www.yellowbirdfoods.com
More about Lucas: www.lucasballasy.com
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