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EP27: Rooted in Integrity: How Regenerative Business Can Heal People and the Planet | Justin A.H. Snyder
44 Plays1 month ago
“I think it’s really important to like, keep your morals and your values in your business that you have in your private life.”
Many people dream of doing meaningful work, but few manage to build a business that regenerates both human health and the planet. This episode dives deep into what it means to grow a regenerative brand—literally and figuratively—rooted in whole foods, soil health, and uncompromising quality. From freeze-dried mushrooms to rainforest conservation, this is entrepreneurship in service to life.
We hear from someone who bootstrapped a business from a dusty festival stall to a globally shipped wellness brand without compromising on values. Through stories of failed ventures, compost bucket disasters, and high-integrity product decisions, he explains why growing food and growing business aren’t so different: both require patience, consistency, and reverence for nature.
Justin A.H. Snyder is the founder of Forest Superfoods, an Australia-based company offering high-integrity superfood products. A lifelong entrepreneur and regenerative advocate, he’s also a passionate home grower and conservation supporter funding rainforest protection through every sale.
Learn more & connect:
- Forest Superfoods
🔗 https://www.forestsuperfoods.com.au
🔗 https://www.forestsuperfoods.com
- Rainforest Rescue
The nonprofit Justin partners with to protect and restore Australia’s Daintree Rainforest.
🔗 https://www.rainforestrescue.org.au
- Bill Hicks
A comedian referenced by Justin for his sharp, unfiltered commentary on society and nature.
Explore these valuable resources to further your journey in regenerative design:
Discover more about Paulownia trees and their sustainable potential at https://www.paulownia-la.com/.
Dive into the Twelve Laws of Nature and unlock the secrets of harmonizing with our planet at https://www.12lawsofnature.com/.
Fulfill your garden aspirations with expert guidance from the Garden of Your Dreams masterclass at https://www.gardenofyourdreams.com/.
Ready to take actionable steps towards your dream garden? Book a complimentary 30-minute training session with Matthieu for immediate results: https://calendly.com/garden-of-your-dreams.
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Transcript
Introduction to Self-Sustainability and Regenerative Design
00:00:00
Speaker
I was really interested in this idea of like self-sustainability and being our self-sufficient and growing food and being connected with the food that I was eating. There's such a disconnect between the food we eat and how it's grown.
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Regenerative Design Podcast. I'm your host, Mathieu Mehuys, and in this show, I interview the leading authorities in the world of regenerative practices.
00:00:27
Speaker
People who do good and do well. Are you a person that cares about your environment and our planet? Are you a person that wants to leave the planet to our children to be something that we can be truly proud of?
00:00:40
Speaker
something to enjoy for many generations to come. But are you also a person that believes we can do all of this and do good in business? Well, I have really good news for you.
00:00:52
Speaker
You're here listening to the podcast that is all about making our planet a better place and making your business more successful. Enjoy the show.
Justin Schneider's Entrepreneurial Journey
00:01:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Regenerative Design Podcast with your host Mathieu Mehuys. And today we have another amazing guest. His name is Justin A.H.
00:01:16
Speaker
Schneider and he's the founder of Forest Superfoods from Australia. And I'm super excited to have Justin on the show because he's built a big business. brand with um new supplement supplements, supplements that are both good for the environment and are good for ah your personal health.
00:01:35
Speaker
So, Justin, welcome to the show. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on, Mattu. I'm me excited as well. Yes, so we'll dive in immediately. I'd love to hear your backstory. Like, where did everything start? Were you already working with mushrooms as a child?
00:01:50
Speaker
Because most of your supplements are are related to mushrooms. yeah How did this happen? how did this happen so my I came from a long list of business owners. like My great-great-grandfather had his own general store in Poland and my grandfather had a jewelry store in Melbourne and i used to spend my weekends going and helping him in the store and I loved the business. I just i always was fascinated by this idea of being able to like...
00:02:19
Speaker
converse with people and build a business and build relationships with people and and give people something that they really appreciated. And so business was kind it's kind of like, you could say it's in my blood, but I always was like, I always wanted to go into business from when I was very young. So I studied accounting and economics at school and in university. And um when I was in high school, I started my first business and I was selling these, um,
00:02:44
Speaker
these like little gel plastic CD cases and stuff that were awful. They were awful. And I ended up throwing out most of them. But like i you know, like you have to fail in or you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.
00:02:58
Speaker
So that one was a big fail. And then I started another one where I was doing this thing. I still have this business. It's called Happy Cow. And it does like leather bags, like hip bags, like from the festivals and stuff.
00:03:08
Speaker
Like if you ever go to Boom Festival in Portugal and like those kind of festivals, everyone's got these bags where they can like carry everything with hands-free. So you can dance but carry your things. So I started business doing those but doing like high-quality handmade leather ones and and it did pretty good but like – I was always looking for something else where there was like a lot of demand, you know, like this kind of business. it was only for people that went to like the hippie festivals.
00:03:35
Speaker
It's a very small market.
Inspiration and Founding of Forest Superfoods
00:03:37
Speaker
And so, um, I spent a lot of years, um traveling around India when I was like 20, 19, 21, um,
00:03:45
Speaker
Where were you? Everywhere. I went everywhere. went from the very south to the very north. like Nice. um Yeah, I spent a lot of time in India. And in India, I think, um there's the Ayurvedic medicines. There's this whole idea of like food and medicine combined with each other.
00:04:07
Speaker
You know, they use plants as a way of healing and a way of being more healthy, like all humans did before pharmaceuticals. It was just normal. And so when I was in India, I discovered spirulina and I was really amazed by it and I was vegetarian at the time. And I love this idea of having like,
00:04:22
Speaker
that I could eat this food which was super high in iron and be vitamins and protein and like didn't have to have an animal source. and And I became fascinated by this idea of like these foods that could change your life for the better and make you more healthy and improve different parts of your life.
00:04:38
Speaker
And it kind of stayed with me in the back of my head. And then when I was... think I was about 27, 28. My best friend, he hated his job. He was working in like corporate mining company, like destroying his soul was the way he he described.
00:04:53
Speaker
I said to him, I've got this idea for a business if you want to start it with me. And he was, it was great because he was very much about like, He was the um creative type, very much about graphic design and creativity and making things beautiful. And I was very much about like the numbers and logical and planning and all that kind of stuff. So together we worked pretty good for a couple of years.
00:05:13
Speaker
um And um and so we had this so I had this idea to start this business. And so we started it and we had no money. So we just did everything ourselves. So we i would I learned how to web design for the Happy Cow business.
00:05:27
Speaker
And we did the marketing and we did the packaging design and we did the sourcing of the products and everything. We just did ourselves because we couldn't afford to hire anybody. And so we we started the business and we originally we called it cheap superfoods because the idea was there was like a couple of other superfood companies that were very expensive.
00:05:46
Speaker
But and there was only maybe two and they were super expensive. So we thought we'd start one called cheap superfoods and undercut them. But the problem was we were selling the highest quality stuff.
00:05:56
Speaker
So was all like certified organic and Australian grown and without fillers and no like alcohol extraction or and it was all like super high quality stuff because I thought i don't want to sell rubbish. You know, like I don't, I didn't want to be selling people crap. And so I wanted to sell the highest quality stuff, but calling it cheap superfoods, there was this disconnect between like the name of the business and what we're actually doing.
00:06:18
Speaker
And so one day i turned to him and I said, how do you feel about the name cheap superfoods? And he said, I hate it How do you feel? And I said, i said, i feel embarrassed telling people about it.
00:06:29
Speaker
So we changed it. So we changed the forest superfoods and forest superfoods made sense because we were donating money to like protect endangered rainforest. And we will also, lot products come from the forest. So it like, it all fits in together and it's all plant-based whole foods. And so like the idea of Forest Superfoods worked really good. And once we changed the name, I think we became, well, I became much more passionate about the business. He kind of lost interest in and and disappeared, but I kind of like became much more interested and much more enthusiastic about the business.
Business Philosophy and Achievements
00:07:01
Speaker
And I think it kind of resonated much more with the audience as well. And so things started to work much better, but for like,
00:07:09
Speaker
I heard this quote the other day that you have to be, to start your own business to start your own business, you have to be a bit of a psychopath because it like because it it takes 20 years.
00:07:20
Speaker
you know read For me, it took 20 years to get to the stage where I'm at now from like when I started my first business to actually like you know making good money. And um most people would go like, I can't be bothered doing this anymore. I'm just going to go get a job and do something else. But like I was really...
00:07:38
Speaker
ah i guess I guess for me, I wasn't scared of the business failing. To me, what was more of a scary idea was getting a job that didn't mean anything to me and spending my life doing something that it meant nothing to me, giving up all my time and making a little bit of money in exchange for my time, which is really the only valuable thing we have, right?
00:07:58
Speaker
ah guitar say The is the only valuable thing. And so I think, you I think it's really important to like spend your time in a way that you think is valuable because you want to if you drop dead tomorrow, you want to be able to say like, I lived the life the best I could. You don't want to you know, I think it's so sad when people get to like 60 or 70 or 80 and they feel like they've wasted their life, you know, like it's,
00:08:24
Speaker
that's That's a tragedy. I think you have to live life the way you want to live it and and get the most out of it and and and value the time because it's the only thing that, you know, you can't get back. No, I fully agree with you, Justin. And I think you said something very interesting about, well, it's quite extreme, but I think it's true in a way that you have to be a psychopath to do do this ah entrepreneurial journey. and And yeah, even for me, it's like, it's it's not easy. It's like you have really difficult moments. you ah
00:08:55
Speaker
You have financial instability at the beginning. There's like so many risks involved. You have to like do everything yourself. You have to wear all kinds of hats. You have to wear the sales hat. Then you have to wear the the delivery hat and do everything.
00:09:09
Speaker
Yes. So I think it's very beautiful and honest to tell that that that it's not an overnight success. No, think there was... Even though for many people it will look like it. Exactly. Because now have this brand. And it's like, oh, wow, you just created that.
00:09:21
Speaker
Amazing. Yeah, you got lucky. No, i think it was like I think it was like four or five years of paying myself $100 or $200 a week and like never having any money. So like you know a supplier would call and say, your invoice is late. And I'd be like, okay, I'm paying it tomorrow. And then I'd have to delay someone else. and like just try Because we we've never taken $1 from outside.
00:09:42
Speaker
There's never been any loans, no debt. i've never given I own 100% of the equity. There's never been anything taken from outside because I don't want to owe anybody. And I don't want to feel like...
00:09:53
Speaker
I have to, someone else can tell me what to do, not tell me what to do, but someone else can be part of the decision making. Like, for example, if we can't get like a high, you know, if we're like, we all have all the mushrooms are grown in Australia. So we grow them all here.
00:10:06
Speaker
So like, imagine a situation which has happened before when we sell out of all the mushrooms. And then there's a temptation to buy cheap quality mushrooms that are imported from China.
00:10:18
Speaker
And if I have someone else who's involved in the business, now I need to work with them to explain, no, no, I don't want to sell this rubbish. It's not good for our reputation.
Environmental Commitment and Impact of Rainforest Conservation
00:10:27
Speaker
It's not, you know, don't feel comfortable.
00:10:29
Speaker
But if I just own everything, i don't have to talk to anybody. I can just go, you know what? Our shrooms are sold out till we get more. So there's like that dependence that comes from 100%. Yes, it's a very, very interesting topic looking at the fact that you have created 40 million in ah revenue or in sales, and which is the same in in essence, but that you created that in as long as the company is existing and that you've done that without external equity is quite amazing.
00:10:59
Speaker
And I agree with you, like you keep your independency because I've heard heard a new ah number of stories where people say like they start to do a startup, they get equity in, it all sounds great and amazing and they're going to support you.
00:11:12
Speaker
But actually they already come in with the with the the the equity comes in with the wrong intention. They'll be like, they promise you a whole bunch of stuff, like we're go to help you management team, this, that. yeah And then they get in, they put in their equity and they don't do anything.
00:11:25
Speaker
on purpose and you can't get rid of it oh okay and you kind of lead start leaning back a little bit and you start depending on them and they do and and they purposefully don't do anything because they want to completely buy you out at a low price uh and and that's very unfortunate because it's like your baby and then all of a sudden you're forced to to sell it or they come in and they they yeah they will they want to increase the profit margin so they will either cut costs and lower the or lower the quality so they can have a bigger um margin.
00:12:01
Speaker
And then you look at your soul of your of your brand, which I can clearly see your your brand has this really strong ah soul, I would say, because it's really honest. It looks amazing. The branding is great. You're super passionate about it.
00:12:15
Speaker
So we don't see that often. So, yeah, I really appreciate that. What you were saying before about like look like an overnight success, I think um Jack Dorsey who started Twitter, he said like 10 years of hard work, perseverance and failure will make you look like an overnight success.
00:12:34
Speaker
I love that. Yeah, that's a really good quote. yeah and It also reminds me like what you're doing and how you did it is like one of my mentors has this quote. Well, we say you have to go the extra mile to be successful and and he kind of turns it around. He says that there's no traffic on the extra mile. So when you persist and you keep going and like less and less and less people will be your competitors.
00:12:59
Speaker
So even though it probably you're still in a very competitive industry because it's been growing a lot. Yes. I'm just very curious to to talk a bit more about why you decided to, which is amazing by the way, you spent for every ah order there is, you spent $1 on nature conservation in Australia. Can you talk a bit more about it and why you decided to do that?
00:13:24
Speaker
So um in that there's a place called the Daintree Rainforest in Australia, which is near the Great Barrier Reef, which has got, is one I think there's one or two other places in the world that has got ancient rainforest from 100,000 years ago.
00:13:40
Speaker
and the Daintree is one of them. So it's this incredible natural place with like cassowaries, which are these weird kind of ostriches with like bones, these big bones on their head. And like, it's just, it's, it's, it's the jungle. Like it was a hunt. There's plants there that were existing when the dinosaurs existed.
00:13:59
Speaker
Like it's, it's crazy. And so i always kind of felt like, I wanted to make sure that we the business gave something back. you know It wasn't just about like making profit and giving people products they really liked, but it was also about making the world a better place.
00:14:15
Speaker
And so I was thinking a lot about how to do this and I met i um discovered this company called Rainforest Rescue in Australia, which is a not-for-profit company. And what they do is they will buy up sections of the daintree rainforest and change the title on the land So it becomes an environment but it's owned by an environmental trust, a conservation trust.
00:14:37
Speaker
So it can never be developed. No one can ever buy it and put you know houses there or put a freeway there or knock down
Critique of Pharmaceutical Industry and Natural Remedies
00:14:45
Speaker
the rainforest or whatever. It's designated as like environmental protection forever.
00:14:50
Speaker
well so And so we've give it we give them a dollar from every order. So it's like, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. and um it's because And so we've saved thousands and thousands of acres of rainforest.
00:15:06
Speaker
And then also they will buy, so so we'll we'll work with them to buy some land and say it's like 10,000 acres and some of it might already be cleared. So what they'll do is they'll replant the rainforest in that area that's been cleared.
00:15:19
Speaker
and then lock the whole thing up so that it can never be developed. Wow. Yeah, it's a really it's really cool it's really cool. And it's, um yeah, they're amazing. We've been working with them, I think, for like eight years or something now. Well, that's amazing because, yeah, I saw on your website you've already had 150,000 acres that you were able to put in conservation. And that's, congratulations. Thank you. You talk about leaving an impact or leaving a a legacy.
00:15:45
Speaker
That's it Congratulations. Yeah, it's a way to really make a difference in like, you know, the there the the rainforest is the lungs of the planet. Without the rainforest in the Amazon and Australia and everywhere else, like humans don't survive and the planet doesn't survive. like it's and it's and And to protect like ancient rainforest is so important because...
00:16:07
Speaker
Even if you just repplay like do rainforest regeneration and replant the rainforest, it takes hundreds or thousands of years to be able to sequester the amount of carbon that these ancient rainforests do now.
00:16:20
Speaker
So if we could just protect them, that's way better than replanting new rainforests. Oh, I agree. yeah That's a very smart way of looking at it. yeah and then yeah We've talked about it already offline, but it reminds me of your world-famous countryman Steve Irwin. If people know about conservation and a lot of nature development, and you'll clearly know Steve Urban. And if you haven't, then you should go on YouTube and watch some of his interviews. They're so epic.
00:16:50
Speaker
Yeah. Very inspiring. Yeah. yeah Sorry. Go ahead. No, was just going to say, he also really shows how important it is to have passion and enthusiasm for what you do.
00:17:02
Speaker
You know, that's why he became so popular around the world was because he had so much enthusiasm and so much passion for what he did that it resonated with people. And before him, like, you know, environmental kind of, um you know, environmental celebrities were pretty boring, you know, like they talk very monotone and talk very quietly and very like kind of boring. And he's this exciting, like over the top crazy Australian. He's like jumping on the back of like the the snake and like, yeah, is is it? is
00:17:37
Speaker
Steve Irwin was a really good lesson in like the magic of having enthusiasm for what you do. I agree. And then i i still remember one of his, well, one of the interviews that stuck the most with me is that he's saying like, uh, um,
00:17:52
Speaker
something around money. He says like, ah, he's like an interviewer is asking him. So I see you have a business and that, that you're making quite a lot of money. And he says like, yeah, you know what? I cannot make enough money. And you, you know why? Because I'm going to put everything into conservation and I'm going to make, and like, it's so ah contagious. And i I like it because it also sets the stage for, I think ah maybe even a new age way of looking at, at, uh,
00:18:20
Speaker
protecting nature restoring nature is like okay we don't necessarily have to depend on non-profits and the government which is still we don't have to like say that they're useless that's that's the wrong way of putting it yes but it's also a little bit risky like it's a non-profit when when they have financial problems they have to like close their doors or if funding stops same with the government when we have like a world that is Now it's like a world where we're heading into more war. So they want to spend a lot of money and on war and nature is like the last thing that is our of our concern.
00:18:55
Speaker
It seems like then businesses like yours are way more stable to provide, ah to have more and more protected areas. and yeah And this relationship between human beings and nature is something that I think about a lot. And I think up until very recently,
00:19:12
Speaker
humans were all about conquering nature and controlling nature. And I think now we've become a little bit smarter as a species and realize that we can't control nature and that we're much better off working with nature. And even like in my own business, I see this a lot. So all our competitors sell mushroom extracts.
00:19:30
Speaker
So they take the mushroom and they soak it in water and they soak in water or alcohol or both, throw away the mushroom and just sell the alcohol or the water. That's an extract. right? That's 99% of all mushroom products in the world.
00:19:44
Speaker
That's what it is well It's mostly alcohol. And, but like, this is, seems so weird to me because like you talk about how amazing these mushrooms are, how they can do all these incredible things for your brain and your gut health and your immune system and everything, but it doesn't work without alcohol. Like it doesn't, it doesn't make sense.
00:20:02
Speaker
You know, like, so what we do is we take the whole mushroom and freeze dried and put in capsules. Well, It's like, it's a bla different thing. But when you, when you put it with the alcohol, now you have a product which you can patent.
00:20:16
Speaker
Now you have a proprietary product which you can control and you can sit like, like, and so that's why i think, I think that's what happened ah hundred. 150 years ago, there was no pharmaceuticals like pharmaceutical industry started early nineteen hundreds That's when it started.
00:20:33
Speaker
And I think what they did is they saw, well, there's all these amazing plants that are medicine that can help to heal people and make people better and fix their immune system and whatever else. But we can't make any money off that.
00:20:46
Speaker
But what we can do is we could take the plant and we can pull out a certain compound or we can put it in alcohol and extract certain elements of it. Or but if we could change it in some way, now we've got a proprietary product that we can sell and it becomes a business.
00:21:01
Speaker
And in order to make in order to make that work well, they had to discredit all of the plant medicines. So, like, it became witchcraft and, like, humbo-jumbo. And they took over the universities and talked about pharmaceuticals and synthetic ingredients and all these kind of things. And pharmaceuticals became, like, the dominant thing. But I think now human beings are going – I think most of us have had like a bad experience. Like I think Western medicine is amazing and there's lots of good things to it.
00:21:27
Speaker
But think lots of us have also seen that there's some strange things happening with it as well. like Like I remember once I had this rash on my, i all of a sudden I got this rash on my arm. And so I went to the doctor and I said, you know, what's going on? He says, I don't know, but now you have to put cortizol cortisol cream on it for the rest of your life.
00:21:45
Speaker
And I said, but it came from nowhere. Like there has to be a reason. And he's like, Here's a prescription for the cream. I've got someone else to see. And like, I kind of, that was a big moment for me because I went, oh, the doctors don't have all the answers all the time. And like, you know, sometimes, so I think there's a place, I think what's happening now is people are using this, what we call in Australia, integrated medicine.
00:22:07
Speaker
So you have like, sometimes you need Western medicine. You have an infection in your leg, you need antibiotics. But like sometimes, you know, it's much better. There's a plant that can help to make you better or help to improve your health that doesn't have the side effects that a lot of these um pharmaceutical products do have.
00:22:25
Speaker
And a lot of people find they get onto a pharmaceutical for their heart, which thins their blood and then they need something else to stop the blood from coming out every time they get a cut and then they need something else to do with that. And like, it's, it's just like snowball effects, but like if you could just add a food to your diet,
00:22:41
Speaker
there's very little if any side effects from that. And so I think there's, I think the reason why my business has become so popular and the whole industry has exploded is because people are going, people are wanting to be more healthy and they're wanting to improve their lives. And, and, and they're seeing that there's these amazing foods out there that can do
Challenges of Authenticity and Business Growth
00:22:59
Speaker
that. You know people have,
00:23:00
Speaker
brain fog and and can't concentrate and can't get their work done and they take lion's mane and they feel like the brain fog clears away and they can focus and they can think clearly. Like that's just a mushroom, you know, without any really known known side effects and and any issues. it's You don't have to take Ritalin or, you know, these which is speed, really. You know, like all these all these drugs that are pharmaceutical drugs that are there to like improve your concentration that they give to the kids with ADHD and stuff, it's speed. It's amphetamines.
00:23:31
Speaker
You know, and there's all kinds of side effects from that and and issues that come from taking that. Whereas lion's mane, there's nothing, you know, it's, as far as I know, there's nothing. And so i think people are getting, starting to wake up to the plant medicine as a much of a loaded term that is, but waking up to this idea that there's like, that nature can really help to improve them and make their lives better and improve their health. And it's just getting more and more popular all the time.
00:24:00
Speaker
ah It's beautiful the way you put it in the sense of like also little bit demystifying all the, the like you said, plant medicine it has quite a heavy word. And for many people still, it's like a witchcraft, which yeah as it seems, the the pharmaceuticals kind of worked. What they wanted to do is to yeah kind of, and there's been like a lot of, I read about it, that a lot of natural ways of healing became like a,
00:24:26
Speaker
um forbidden and all that stuff yeah but it's clearly coming back and then I have to say like you've been doing this for over 10 years what were like some of like it's interesting to know for other people like myself starting the well in the beginning of the intern and into growing a business like what were some of the your biggest challenges and how were you able to overcome them because it sounds like you went up against a the big pharma in a way, like probably not at the beginning, but yeah, it wasn't an road, I assume.
00:24:59
Speaker
I think, I think big pharma is definitely threatened by the natural health industry to one degree or another. And there's been like, like for example, moringa is this incredible plant, which has got 96 nutrients. And there's actually been studies which have shown that for inflammation, Moringa works as good or better than the pharmaceutical drugs do to reduce inflammation.
00:25:21
Speaker
And so that's a big issue for the pharmaceutical companies, right? And so Moringa was actually banned in Australia for five years or something and and only was allowed recently. And the reason why they banned it It's a tree, right? it's the With the green leaves? It's a subtropical tree. I came across it in in Indonesia.
00:25:40
Speaker
It's a beautiful tree. It's super healthy, super food, clearly. But what they did... It was forbidden. How crazy? Because it's like a tree. you can't How can you forbid a tree to grow?
00:25:51
Speaker
they They did a study. And in that study, they gave rats... 200 times the dosage. So if, ah so whatever, whatever 200 times the dosage of what the human would have a teaspoon, they'd give the rat, they'd force feed the rat 200 teaspoons, right? Like the equivalent for a human.
00:26:08
Speaker
And then there were some rats that had their fetus aborted, so they couldn't have their babies. And so they use that to say that it was dangerous and that it wasn't allowed to be sold.
00:26:20
Speaker
Crazy. It's wild. But, um but yeah, so I think, I think getting back to what you said about challenges, I think there's always been challenges and there's still challenges, but um I think I always just wanted to, I just always thought about like, what's the next step? Like I never really had business plans. I never really had like you know mentor, like I've spoken to, I've done a few like one-off one hour, or one hour sessions with mentors about certain things, but like, I've never really had people to like,
00:26:50
Speaker
Guide me, I've just kind of gone, take one step in front of the other. You know, just like, what's the next step? Take the next step And there'd be times when things would be bad. And you know like I heard someone say the other day on a business podcast, you'll love your business one third of the time.
00:27:07
Speaker
you'll hate it one third of the time and the other third you'll be indifferent, you know? And I think that's true. I think that's actually true. That's actually accurate. But I think, but um I don't know, there's been some really hard times. And I think one of the things I've done is like not take on debt because I think once you take on debt, I think that takes away a lot of the fun of it and puts a lot of pressure on And I, you know, I don't like when people say I'm starting a business, I'm going to, I'm going to sell my family house and use that money to start the business. Start the business with no money. you know, and make sure it works first before you like start investing and whatever.
00:27:39
Speaker
Um, because most businesses don't make it, most businesses do fail. And so one thing was one thing that I've always been really adamant about was not taking on any debt. So I don't owe anybody anything. So if it, if the business falls apart tomorrow, i can walk away and I don't know anybody, anything, and they can't take my house and things like that.
00:27:56
Speaker
And then, um, the other thing is just try like having some cash in the bank so that like when we have a bad day or a bad week, i don't have to go like, how am I going to pay these invoices?
00:28:09
Speaker
Like I don't, like I hated that feeling. I had that feeling for like seven years or something. And I ah hated that feeling of like not having enough money to pay the bills. And so I've always just made sure that we have more than enough cash so that if we have a bad situation,
00:28:23
Speaker
year we've still got enough money to be able to pay our bills and yeah yeah and always try to pay invoices as quickly as possible because, again, that's debt. That's owing money to people. So try and pay – try to not owe anybody anything and have money put aside for a rainy day the way we say it in Australia is like money for rainy day.
00:28:40
Speaker
And – And yeah, but I mean, there's still challenges, you know, I think it's like, I think when you're doing the business by yourself, I think the challenge is that you have to do everything and you have to do all the stuff you don't like. And you have to, like you said before, you know, you have to be the accountant and you have to be the marketing person.
00:28:57
Speaker
And you have to be this the logistics person. You have to do all those kinds of roles and you have to do it yourself. And then as you get bigger, you can start bringing people in to do the stuff that you don't want to do, or you're not very good at, but then you have to manage those people.
00:29:10
Speaker
You know, when you have, you have, you have issues with those people and headaches of people not showing up and people having a bad attitude and people like, not doing their job properly and people, you know, whatever it is. And so like managing people is like, in some ways it's harder because although you don't have to do the jobs you don't want to do, you have to manage other people's emotions and feelings and childhood trauma her and whatever else.
00:29:35
Speaker
Like, So i think it's, you know, there's always challenges in business. I don't think it ever ends, but I think, um you know, you just try and surround yourself with good people and get rid of the the bad people as as quickly as possible and and take yourself, like, get bri as soon as as soon as you can afford to bring on people who can do the parts of business that you don't want to do or you're not good at.
00:30:01
Speaker
But, like, at the end of the day, it's, you business is... it's It's constant challenges and it's constant obstacles and issues. And you know you just got to try, like I try really hard not to stress about things and not to like not to get upset about things and just to it's just part of the game.
00:30:21
Speaker
you know we can We've got enough money to pay our bills and just move on. this podcast is brought to you by the garden of your dreams masterclass are you struggling with finding the right tools and tricks for your garden are you lacking the confidence to be a self-sufficient gardener do you sometimes get overwhelmed by the lack of knowledge and time you have to actually do gardening then the garden of your dreams masterclass is for you yeah that's amazing that's some really good advice i like just like there's no
00:30:53
Speaker
uh secret to it or there's there's not like oh you have to do this it's just like one step in front of the next yeah keep going and and just to try to enjoy it you know like i think I think there's a big problem in our modern society with people thinking that buying stuff that they don't need is going to make them happy.
00:31:12
Speaker
And so I think a lot of people are spending more money than they brit than they make. And I think that creates a massive issue. And then you need credit cards and and debt and all kinds of things to be able to sustain your lifestyle.
00:31:23
Speaker
And does it make you happy? You know, I think... you're much better off finding ways to make you happy that don't cost a lot of money and then saving the money that you make because every dollar saved is one less dollar you have to make tomorrow.
00:31:36
Speaker
And so i kind of realized a long time ago that buying stuff wasn't going to make me money. wasn't going to make me happy. And like I drove an old van until like one and a half years ago.
00:31:49
Speaker
Like I had this old van and it was worth $400 because I put tires on it that cost $400. Like the fact the van was worth nothing, you know, but I just drove it because I didn't want to like, I didn't want to have to like get the new car. Not that I had to take out a loan to get the car, but get the car. And then you have to look after it and you have to be very careful with it. Is someone going to scratch it and I have to keep it clean and you have to get serviced properly. And like it, it creates all this like dramas that I don't need. I'd rather put that energy towards like,
00:32:19
Speaker
my business and growing food. you know And i think um i think i think we should I think people should think more about the and the brain energy that they use towards things you know and what the real cost of that is. It's not just like the physical energy of like going for a run. It's like the energy of having to deal with crap that doesn't push you towards your goals and try to minimize that as much as possible and go like, where do I want to get to? Okay, I want to build this business that helps people all over the world.
00:32:52
Speaker
okay, I'm goodnna i'm not going to waste time on thinking about this or that or this new couch or whatever else um because it takes me away from having energy towards working on my um where it is I want to go. Yeah, that's very beautiful. You center your energy and and you pinpoint it on what you want to achieve and and go for that and then have as little distractions as possible.
00:33:16
Speaker
Yeah, and i think I think, like, for example, with the business one, like it's – yeah I heard some really good advice so that someone said, as soon as you can afford, as soon as the business can afford it, get somebody else to do the customer service.
00:33:28
Speaker
Why? Because the customer service, even if you have, we send out, i don't know, maybe like 8,000 orders a month or something. But like, if you send out 8,000 orders, you're going to have problems with 20 orders.
00:33:40
Speaker
You know, it's it's not possible not to. and But those are the people that send all the emails and call all the time, where's my order? You lost my order. You know, my order arrived broken. You're awful, all these things.
00:33:51
Speaker
And it makes you feel it makes you feel like your business is rubbish, you know, because all you do all day is hear people talking about how bad it is because you don't hear from the 4,980 people who had this incredible experience.
00:34:02
Speaker
You only hear from the people – you mostly hear from the people who had a bad experience. And so it's it stuffs with your head a bit because you start to think like – maybe my products aren't that good and maybe like, you know, my systems are good and my business is good and I should just shut it all down and and it it screws with your head. So I think well yeah having somebody else to do the customer, if you're selling like a ah ah product, having someone else to do the customer service is amazing because they're not like connected with it in the same way that you are as a business owner.
00:34:30
Speaker
And you can focus on those other thousands and thousands of people and making sure they have a good experience without thinking about these four or five or 10 or 20 people who had a bad experience. And because again, that's like, you know, there's things to learn from that, of course. And we're, you know, our whole thing is about someone has a bad experience. That's great. Cause now we have a good opportunity to show them how awesome we are, you know? So like someone has a bad experience, the order does it something gets lost or whatever. We send them the new one plus a free gift. And we you know, like we, we go above and beyond to make sure we solve the problem quickly and solve it beyond their expectations.
00:35:06
Speaker
but and like And then that that person turns around and goes from someone who's who was angry to someone who goes, wow, I can trust these guys. You know, they're really good. And you take a negative and you turn into a positive.
00:35:18
Speaker
But like as ah as a business owner, you know, you don't want to be focused on those few people. you want to focus on the thousands of people and how do you reach more people and how do you status how do you get to more people and how do you give those more people an amazing experience?
00:35:34
Speaker
rather than the 1% or 0.5% or 0.1%, whatever it is, who have a bad experience. ah It's very interesting that you put it in that way because ah
Embracing Challenges for Personal Growth
00:35:43
Speaker
somehow we, I think we as humans, we are wired, or that's what I heard even, that we are wired for bad news.
00:35:52
Speaker
As we were like living in the bush, we had to be like, oh shit, there's a line. We have to be like, oh, yeah have a little shock and have that stress. And we focused on the bad things more than the good things.
00:36:03
Speaker
But now we're we're not no longer in the bush as much. Well, we're going for other reasons now. yeah was anyway Exactly. It's the same with our ads. you know like i don't like There's a lot of ads where I'm talking about the products and whatever. and like I don't read the comments on the ads because I don't want to see like people...
00:36:22
Speaker
you know, negative stuff and like, you know, how my eyes look weird, whatever it is. Like, I don't want to like, I don't need to, I don't need to see that negative, those negative things. So someone else does that. But I think, yeah, humans are hardwired to take notice of the negative because there's a so survival trait when we're living in the, debt in the, in the Amazon.
00:36:40
Speaker
But I think like, and I think to that, I think we, I think I, that like, if we don't have challenges in our lives, if I think we create challenges in our lives,
00:36:51
Speaker
And I think when we're bored, we look for things to make complicated and we look for things to create issues out of because we've always like so humans are happiest during times of struggle.
00:37:04
Speaker
You know, you hear about like during, you know, the world, the war time when everyone's working together and there's rations and people talk about how that was like that where everyone was the happiest, you know, because they're working to walk together towards a common goal.
00:37:16
Speaker
And they're also like appreciating their life because you don't know if you're going to wake up tomorrow. And so, like, i think that I think that, like, life now is so easy. Modern-day life is so easy comparative to the rest of, you know, human history that we need to create...
00:37:35
Speaker
challenges for ourselves. Otherwise our subconscious will create the challenges in our relationships and our business and our own minds and everything. So like I'm very much about doing cold plunges and doing like sauna and doing martial arts and all that kind of stuff, because I want to make sure that like I choose the challenges in my life, not my subconscious chooses the challenges in my relationships or in my business or whatever it is.
00:38:00
Speaker
And so I think it's really important to like, um, to challenge yourself. I think, especially for men, I think it's really important to challenge yourself every day and create struggles for yourself in a controlled environment, like a five degree water for five minutes. Like, I think that is a really healthy way to then put everything else in perspective. And I think you know, when you do a cold plunge and you don't want to do it and it's freezing and you do it anyway, afterwards you feel so good and everything comes into, and puts things in perspective a bit more and you go, that problem with the business isn't such a big deal. You know, I can deal with it.
00:38:35
Speaker
I've just like almost got pneumonia. You know, I could deal with that business problem much better. Well, it's a very interesting way of you putting it. Why creating, like I knew for a certain, to a certain extent, like when you consciously create certain challenges, the bigger other challenges become easier.
00:38:56
Speaker
Yeah. ah So if you do that cold plunge, you, it just becomes easier to take care of something that is uncomfortable in the business. But I never thought of like, if you even don't do it, then you subconsciously create other,
00:39:12
Speaker
challenges in your life. So, wow, that's very very interesting. yeah designed We're designed for struggle. Like we're designed for survival. and and and And when we live in a situation where we don't have to think about survival, that then creates implications in our own minds.
00:39:31
Speaker
Wow, very, very interesting. And then doing it consciously is is the best way because then you don't have to be completely yeah overwhelmed and constantly in stress. yeah So, yeah, I think that's that's a great way you've put it.
00:39:45
Speaker
Now let's talk a bit more about your personal experience. journey as you said you're growing your own food you're sitting in a beautiful environment for those people who are watching ah on YouTube you can watch the the interview it's it looks like you're sitting in a beautiful environment as the sun is going down there in Australia tell me more about um your garden experience, what you're doing and and how that's been going on.
00:40:11
Speaker
So around the same time when I was traveling around India, like when I was 19, 20, I was thinking a lot about this idea of like, We go and get a job, we make money, and then we give that money to someone else to grow our food for us or to provide us with food.
00:40:29
Speaker
And I was thinking about like, why can't I just, instead of doing the job I don't like to make money to grow food, just cut out the middle part and just grow the food myself. And that seemed like such a logical idea to me to like just grow the
Journey to Self-Sufficiency and Homegrown Food
00:40:42
Speaker
food myself. And so I had no experience with farming. my fat my not Nobody in my family has ever done any kind of, you know maybe growing some flowers, like no no farming whatsoever. But I was really...
00:40:54
Speaker
I was really interested in this idea of like self-sustainability and being out self-sufficient and growing food and being connected with the food that I was eating. And so started, I was living in the city at the time and I had like, I decided I was going to start composting. So I had like a bucket on the balcony and some plants and it was like a massive disaster and it stunk so bad. i didn't have any air and like,
00:41:19
Speaker
And it was a disaster. But like the next year, I got a little bit better. The next year, I got a little bit better and a little bit better. And my dream was always to like, live on land and have animals and grow my own food. And i just always thought like, there's such a disconnect between the food we eat and how it's grown.
00:41:40
Speaker
And I think when you can grow the food and then eat it yourself, you feel so much more connected to the food you're growing. And it's also a really good excuse to be like in nature all the time with the, all the insects and like, you know, all the animals and like, and, and connected with the soil and the food you're growing and the food you're eating. And so i still, like I've been growing food now 20 years twenty years And it still blows my mind that like a little seed has a hundred kilos of food trapped inside.
00:42:11
Speaker
Like that's crazy to me. Like a little pumpkin seed, you know, there's a hundred kilos of food inside that little seed. It's the same size as my nail, you know, like that's, that's a miracle. That's a miracle.
00:42:22
Speaker
And that's why I try to teach my his son as well as like, that's, you know, don't worry about Santa. Like that's proper magic, you know, like that's real magic in nature, in life. And like, um so I was always- exactly had that. early One of my earliest memories as a child was exactly that.
00:42:38
Speaker
Like I was just mind blown. Like how on earth is this possible when you have this tiny seed and you put it in the soil, you can grow massive crops or even in some cases like a massive tree. Like how on earth is that possible? That's that's exactly the biggest magic on this planet, yeah.
00:42:54
Speaker
it's wild. And I think that like has really helped with the business as well, because I understood that like, if the food is not grown or the mushrooms or whatever it is, if it's not grown in good quality soil, if it's, if it's grown in soil, which is full of chemicals and which has been tilled a lot, and but then the food can't be high nutrients because it doesn't have, if the nutrients aren't in the soil, the plant can't get the nutrients.
00:43:19
Speaker
And if the mushrooms are growing in, you know, in, in, in pollution with heavy metals, whatever, they're going to absorb that. And it's going to, you're going to be eating that when you eat the mushroom. So I, I had this from growing food. I had this deep appreciation for like high quality, uh, soil and a high quality growing of food. And so everything we do is organic, certified organic.
00:43:40
Speaker
And we try to do Australian grown because in Australia, you can grow stuff without pollution, without heavy metals, with clean water. And so I know that if it's grown in Australia, it's going to be high quality and safe to consume.
00:43:52
Speaker
And so, um, so I've, so yeah, I've thought a lot about like, because, because you like, it's probably cheaper to grow the food for, to buy the food from the supermarket.
00:44:03
Speaker
When you think about the time and the money and the, the, the losses you have and the seeds and the water and everything to grow it, it's so, you know, you can go and buy that pumpkin for $4 from the supermarket.
00:44:15
Speaker
you know and it's so much work and time involved in growing it so like to grow it yourself you have to be growing something which is so much better than what you get in the supermarket and that's possible just by having really good organic matter in your soil and having like not using chemicals and growing the heirloom varieties that don't store very well for supermarkets but have all these incredible nutrients in them and and, and, um, eating stuff fresh, you know, like I saw a study, um, a couple of, I saw a study last year where they were looking at like one apple in the 1950s, how much nutrients it had in it, nutrients, vitamins, and comparing it today. And you would have to have 16 apples today to get the same amount of nutrients you would have gone in the 1950s from one apple.
00:45:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's crazy. With oranges, it's 30 to 1. So today you need to eat 30 oranges to get one 50, 60 years ago. and so um And why is that? It's because they're like' they're growing it in poor quality soil where there's not a lot of organic matter. And so the plants can't take the nutrients.
00:45:18
Speaker
They till it every year, which kills all the all the good fun all them but good microbes in the soil and all the good fungi and all the good stuff. that helps to give the food its nutrients. And then they're storing it for six months or 12 months before they sell it to you.
00:45:31
Speaker
And it's, ah it's, it's, they've inbred it over and over again in order to make it store well and look nice on a shelf, not for the nutrient quality. And so by growing it yourself, you can kind of like get back to eating high nutrient food, fresh off the tree ah you know, just harvesting the plant. And, um,
00:45:50
Speaker
I try to encourage everybody to grow themselves. Like I think growing food yourself is like, you know, makes you that little bit more self-sufficient, but also makes you more connected to your food, more appreciative of your food. And you know exactly what's going into it. You don't have to, you know, there's no chemicals in it because you've grown it yourself.
00:46:06
Speaker
And that's also the reason why we use for most our products, we use freeze drying. So like much everybody else, when they sell like ashwagandha root or Boringa or the mushrooms, they just spray dry or sun dry it.
00:46:19
Speaker
But when you dry anything, you have nutrient loss during the drying process, except when you use freeze drying, because freeze drying takes the, let's say the lion's mane mushroom and it freezes it to negative 230 degrees in it like less than a second.
00:46:35
Speaker
So there's no, nu so it's, it's, it's dried before there's even any nutrient loss can occur or very minimal nutrient loss. And there's actually scientific studies that have actually looked at freeze drying compared to other drying processes.
00:46:47
Speaker
And they've gone, yeah, actually freeze drying is better than all the other drying processes. And it's almost nutritionally equivalent to eating the food fresh. So say to people, like the best thing is to have fresh, but if you can't have fresh, freeze dried is the next best.
00:46:59
Speaker
And so that's why we do the products freeze dry. And it costs a fortune. Like to spray dry is like... if spray, if spray drying is $1 freeze drying $7, like it's, it's the cost is like, but and is, is phenomenal. It's way, way more expensive.
00:47:15
Speaker
So nobody else does it because it's too expensive and it reduced their profit margins. But I'm like, I don't care. I just want to sell the highest quality product. That's it. And like some people will, will buy. And so it's more expensive than everyone else, a little bit more expensive.
00:47:28
Speaker
And some people will go, I'm just going to buy the cheap stuff. And, That's okay. they're they They're not the right customer for us. But a lot of people go, actually, no, I'm happy spending a little bit more to get a much better quality product.
00:47:39
Speaker
And that's why I think the business has done so good is because people like me didn't want to you't want to eat crappy health foods. You might as well just not have them, you know, rather than have poor quality.
00:47:50
Speaker
And so we've been able to resonate with people like that all over the world. And People appreciate having really high quality stuff and they trust what we do. And so we've got customers who have placed more than a hundred orders with us.
00:48:04
Speaker
That one customer, you know, because they like, they've been with us for six years or seven years and like they order regularly and we've got 50 amazing superfoods. And so they're always trying new things and getting refills and buying for friends and family. And like, you know, that's, that's, that's something that I love is that like people, there's a lot of people out there that really appreciate what we do.
00:48:24
Speaker
That's amazing. And I love the way you link it to growing your own food. And ah like what you said about the fact that gardening or growing your own food is like the best way to connect with nature. I'm not sure if that's exactly what you said, but something in that line is like, yeah, you can walk in nature and it's great and you should do it.
00:48:44
Speaker
Or you can make your hands dirty and be directly connected with nature. and scientifically proven as well, as you said, there's microorganisms ah in the soil, we can absorb them through our skin with our hands.
00:48:58
Speaker
Yes. ah So generally when you garden you always feel better. And I had someone else saying it's actually the grandmother of my cousin who said that When you have problems in your life, go and work in your garden and you'll find some of your answers. what is not most What's that quote about like the sickness in society can be directly contributed to our disconnect to nature?
00:49:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah. You know, like we're so disconnected from nature that like, you know, it's no wonder that there's so much mental illness and so many people who are like struggling with anxiety and with, you know, with everything else. And like, you know, you go outside and, and you know, this um comedian Bill Hicks from the 90s, from the eighty s and 90s.
00:49:45
Speaker
No, no. He was amazing. He used to get booed off stage because he didn't care and he just said everything, but he was incredible. go back and listened to But he talks about how like he'll watch the news and on the news, it'll be like famine, disease, murder, poverty, death, all this stuff.
00:50:00
Speaker
And then he looks outside and he just hears the crickets. you know, he's like, where's it all happening? It's all good here. And it's that whole thing of like, you know, we can get so caught up in our own minds and all the negativity of the world and all the trouble that's going on around us.
00:50:17
Speaker
But like, once you step into nature, you realize there's this whole world going on. That's got nothing to do with that whatsoever. And like, yeah, Yeah, and I think um yeah and i think i think if if if growing a little bit of food can help people connect more with what they put in their bodies and and connect more with nature,
Values in Business and Consistent Improvement
00:50:38
Speaker
I think that's amazing. I think that's that's time well spent.
00:50:41
Speaker
I agree, and then add a few high quality supplements that are freeze dried. then you'll have have an even better life. I love that.
00:50:53
Speaker
So, um Justin, we're getting towards the end of the interview. I'd still love to ask for you, what what is your single best piece of advice for people that are looking to either start their business, have started their business, and they want to do something good for the environment? Because that's what this podcast data is about. And you're an obvious example of how you can do good in business and do something good for the planet.
00:51:18
Speaker
yeah So, yeah, I'd love to hear your your final and most important piece of advice. um I think... I think that maybe it's hard to pick one, but I think, I think one thing, I think one thing would be like, I think in business, I think people often go like, I have all these values as an individual, you know, I'm not going to rip anyone off and I'm going to be honest and I'm going to have integrity and all this stuff.
00:51:46
Speaker
But in business, I don't have to worry about all that because business is cutthroat and you have to just win at all costs. And I think that's a bit silly. I think, I think what we need to realize individuals is there's more important things than money, like our reputation our and our integrity. And I think you need to be able to go to bed at night feeling like you're happy with who you are and what you're contributing to the world and what you're doing in the world.
00:52:11
Speaker
And that's more important than the money. Cause I think the money's going to come and money's going to go, but like your integrity and your reputation is like, it only takes one second to destroy that.
00:52:23
Speaker
And so i think it's really important to like, keep your morals and your values in your business that you have in your private life. So like for me, I wouldn't take any low quality like mushrooms that were, you know, that were grown in a dodgy way from overseas. So I don't sell that.
00:52:38
Speaker
I could make a lot more money, but I don't sell that because I wouldn't feel comfortable with it and I wouldn't feel comfortable with myself. So I don't do it. So use your gut instinct and your moral instinct and and your morals in business like you do in life.
00:52:52
Speaker
But like, you know, i be I think be prepared to take the long haul for with business. Like, Understand that it could take you 20 years to get to wherever it is you want to get to So you need to learn you need to really believe in what you're doing and be passionate about it and enjoy the process along the way and don't think like, you know, ah ah you know, I'm i'm not i'm not making $10 million dollars a year yet. Think like i'm I'm so much further ahead than I was a week ago or a month ago or a year ago. Just keep moving forward like we said at the start.
00:53:28
Speaker
And I think it's the same in the personal life as well. Like I think, You know, we have this idea of becoming these, you know, incredible, perfect humans. And i don't, that that never happens, you know, just keep moving forward and keep growing. And if you can turn around and go like, look, look at, you you know, look at yourself from a year ago and go, wow, I've grown so much. That's a win.
00:53:50
Speaker
That's, you know, that's, I think the scariest thing would be not growing at all. And I think, I think with business as well, you know, people, ah people often say to me, like, you know, most people have said, how come you're still so passionate about your business? Like I thought you would have, you know, be over it by now because the business is being successful.
00:54:06
Speaker
But I don't think I don't think that's I think everything's always changing. You know, you look at nature and you look at us as as as as animals and everything in the world is constantly in a state of change.
00:54:17
Speaker
And so a business is the same. And so a business is either growing or it's dying. There's no such thing as staying the same. And so I'm always thinking about, like, how to grow the business and how to make it better and how to reach more people.
00:54:28
Speaker
Because if we didn't do that, then our competitors would be, you know, taking over and we'd be getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And so I think, um, I don't think you never arrive, you know, you never, you never get there. It's just a constant thing.
00:54:42
Speaker
Like 20 years ago, i was thinking about, okay, how can I get the business a little bit better today? How can I improve our systems a little bit? And I'm still thinking that same way today. How do I like make these things a little bit better than what they were yesterday for our customers and also for our business profitability and for all that kind of stuff. Like how can I just improve a little bit dayto day to day?
00:55:04
Speaker
um Because there's no journey, you know, it's, it's yeah I mean, there's no destination. You don't, you're not trying to get, there's nowhere to get to. It's just about, it's the journey of improving and getting better all the time as individuals and also as business owners.
00:55:18
Speaker
Wow, I love that. That's a really good piece of advice to not like, yeah, there's only such and such, like so there's only 24 hours in a day.
00:55:30
Speaker
I also need to get some sleep so you can only focus on a certain amount of things. But then if you keep doing it daily, daily, add on top of it, ta techc tech eventually it'll add up. And that's,
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:55:42
Speaker
yeah. Yeah.
00:55:44
Speaker
And the other the other thing I want to say to you as well is I like, because I love numbers and I love mathematics and accounting, I used to always think it's all about making your business profitable. You know, the most important thing is to make sure it's profitable and keep costs down and make, it's all about the numbers, but actually that's not true.
00:56:00
Speaker
It's more important than the numbers is the marketing and reaching the customers because if you reach, if you don't have customers, then the numbers don't matter. And if so, it's it's just the the most important thing is reaching customers. So I think every day it's very easy, especially when you're like running the business. It's very easy to spend your day working on marketing.
00:56:22
Speaker
you know, flyer and a new thing for the website and like all these little things you have to do But most important is you need to do something every day it gets you more customers. That's the most important thing. And then once you've done that, work out what that is. What can I do today that's going to get more customers and do that and then do all the other stuff afterwards? Because it's really easy to get distracted with all the other things you have to do and not focus on the customers. And then your business just can't ever get anywhere because you don't have the customer base.
00:56:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that's this kind of boom and bust cycle yeah that honestly I've been going through. it in in like We had a few new clients and then you have to like focus on delivery and you kind of stop promoting or you stop ah reaching out to people and then you deliver the work and then it's like, oh, shit, we need new clients to keep going.
00:57:10
Speaker
yeah So I love that every day, even if it's just a small thing. and pan and And it could even be, you know, doing it doing some posts on social media about the job you're currently doing because that's that's reaching new customers.
00:57:25
Speaker
That's part of it, you know, but it's just about being able to market your business and get the word out there to the right people at the right time, whatever that means. And that could be posting on social media. It can be your book.
00:57:36
Speaker
It can be, you know, all kinds of different things. um But it's just you've got to always be thinking, how do I get, more customers? How do I get to my customers and cut through the noise? Because without that, nothing else matters. And if you have that, you can make everything else work.
00:57:54
Speaker
Well, beautiful. Well, Justin, on that note, I think we're going to end here. So thank you very much for all your wisdom and sharing all your insights of how you've grown your own business.
00:58:07
Speaker
And ah also, a mate like I said, it's so amazing to see how you can build a good business, make good amounts of money, and then still be able to live a ah beautiful life and support reforestation now specifically in Australia.
00:58:21
Speaker
yeah So again, congratulations and thank you for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. um Yeah, we ship we ship our superfoods worldwide. So if anyone wants to get some high quality Australian grown mushrooms and superfoods, they can just go to forestsuperfoods.com.au or forestsuperfoods.com. And um yeah, we send worldwide.
00:58:40
Speaker
Yes. So people can reach out to you. and Also, ah you're active on most social media platforms to follow your journey. Yeah. So we've got've we're on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok. And people, if they want advice or they want to reach out to me specifically, they can reach me on LinkedIn.
00:58:55
Speaker
Okay, great. So we'll put that in the show notes. So again, Justin, thank you for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. It's lot of fun.