Hi there, everyone. Im j. J. Ramburg, and welcome to your business. The show dedicated to helping your growing business. It made headlines as the plantbased burgers that bleeds, and with celebrities like quest love declaring their love for impossible foods on social media, publicity is one thing this company does right. How is this brand getting those same customers to keep coming back after the hype wears off . We take a bite into this Innovative Company thats changing how the world thinks about meat. I love the meat in burgers, and i like my i was the first one done, so it looks like a burger. It feels like a burger. It even tastes like a juicy beef burger. But if i wasnt told that it wasnt meat, i wouldnt have known. Like it was delicious. This is the impossible burger. Made of a completely plantbased brown meat that has been taking the culinary world by storm. Its an incredible product, and what you can do with it is really limitless to this point. This alternative meat product was created by ceo and founder of impossible foods pat brown who never set out to create a brand. I had at the time essentially no interest in going into business. Zero would be overstating it. I was honestly not very interested in food. I was one of the least qualified people in the world to do this. He was a Stanford Medical School professor who while on sebas cal started mulling over how to solve one of the big problems. Using animals as a food source is by far the most destructive youre not going to solve the problem by trying to get people to change what they eat. Its just absolutely not going to work. That meant that the only option was to figure out a much more Sustainable Way to produce the foods that people are going to continue to demand. So in 2011 he traded his classroom for a laboratory where he got together a Top Secret Team of scientists to work on finding the answer to one big question. Just what is it that makes meat so tasty . They started with ground beef. The very first time we tested the proto type, it was characterized by some of our tasters as tasting like rancid polenta. We can get better every single day, and the cow stopped Getting Better a million years ago at making meat. A couple of years in they had a proto type in hand, and it was time to get it in front of consumers, but they werent interested in reaching people who are already open to veggie burgers and other alternatives. The only consumer that matters to us is hard core meat lover. People who love meat falsely assume that delicious meat has to come from animals. To crack through that fallacy we needed people who were uncompromising meat proponents whose lives depend on serving great meat, who will put their reputation on the line serving our product as meat. Thats because this company is mission based. Our mission is to completely replace the worlds most Destructive Technology by creating the most delicious, nutritious, affordable meat, fish, and dairy foods in the world directly from plants. Meat lovers are meat lovers, and pat and his team knew impossible foods would be a hard sell, so instead of going directly to the consumer, they enlisted the help of top chefs known for their love of all things carniverus. They could take the impossible burger and insure that it would be delicious and delightful to consumers for the first time. You know, i like to think im a pretty good home chef, but i know that i have messed up many a burger, and we didnt want to take that risk. They started with david chang. David tried the burger. He called it a game changer. Reached for his mobile phone and immediately posted it even before i could stop him. That broke the door open for people who followed great chefs like david. And martin, who is the chief culinary officer for some of the countrys hottest hotels, night life, and food brands, including the very influential and very popular umami burger. Sort of mindboggling in a way because you sort of didnt expect something so real in front of you. This is real meat. This partnership with chefs and restaurants is paying off for both sides. After putting the impossible burger on the menu for the first time in 2017 umami burger saw a lift in sales of 26 in just the first few weeks. We put a Big Marketing push behind it, and then i think people were excited. I think they were very curious, so you drove a lot of people to our restaurants. The marketing made them curious, but it was the taste that had them coming back. The impossible burger is now one of the brands top three best sellers. Up to 75 of the consumers were seeing it in places like umami and other great burger chains are hard core meat eaters. Its the reason why its driven such great business for umami because its their core customer that keep coming back making it the best selling burger for weeks on end, and its why theyve launched several new versions of it. And not only are they making a tasty first impressions, but chefs talk. Even more restaurants adding the product to the menu. Great chefs love discovering something new, something innovative, and the undercurrent among chefs is really well developed. They follow each other. When you have a great hit, suddenly all the chefs that follow david chang are interested in trying the impossible burger. That followership isnt just true with consumers in social media, but its true with chefs who really make a lot of the decisions in what to serve in the restaurants theyre in. The impossible burger is currently served at more than 1,600 locations spanning every price range from top dollar restaurants in napa valley to your local White Castle Burger chain. With the companys quest to completely replace animals as a Food Production technology by 2035, other cuts of meat may soon be on the table. We started with the impossible burger because its an iconic factor. Its a high bar for the American Meat eater, and now that weve surpassed it, it gives us permission with the consumer to pursue all of the other products that are coming. We can do impossible chicken. We can do impossible fish. Just the other day i had an incredibly compelling impossible steak. The sky is the limit for this technology. Were doing something a little bit different for this elevator pitch series. Instead of having people pitch to potential investors, were going to have them pitch to influencers. Can they get people to write about them because it doesnt matter how great your company is. Nobody knows about it, its going to fail. The stakes for this elevator pitch are real, and they are big. Were at the she knows offices. Its a lifestyle brand that reaches 75 million people, and they have a conference called the blog her conference. If the pitcher gets the heart emoji, theyll get to go to blog her. The blog her confidence in new york city. Theyll get to present in front of 3,000 influencers which could change the trajectory of their company. Lets see how our pitcher does. Hey, sarah. Judge. J. Hi, j. J. Nice to meet you. So nice to meet you too. I have been playing with your app. Its amazing. Thank you. What would it mean to you to get to speak in front of blog her . It would be huge. You probably know its really hard to get the word out about things, and i love my app, and i would love for all these people to know about my app and to love it and to share it. How long have you been working on it . Ive been working on it for three years now. Have you pitched to influencers before . Not really. I hope you have been practicing. Do you feel nervous . Yes, yes, yes. You come off as so calm. You come off as so calm, and then i touch, you are going to do great. Youre pitching to two people. Sam ski. Shes fantastic. She runs she knows. Shes the president of it. Then also Katie Storino who has her own blog, twelvish style. Across her social media channel she reaches about half a million people. Thats incredible. Shes the kind of person you would be talking to. I hope she loves it. Your product is awesome. Lets go see. Thanks, j. J. Hi. Im sarah. Hi, sarah. Im katie. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. So i love music. I love festivals. What i dont love is spending half my day trying to find my friends. If your friends are anything like mine, they can be pretty bad with giving directions, like im in the middle holding up my phone. So i created hot, hot cold. Its like the kids game. It tells you whether you are getting warmer and cooler in terms of direction. Its way more intuitive than looking at a dot on a map, and a lot more fun. At the moment brand spent 1. 4 million a year on music event sponsorship, and theyre always looking for demonstrative ways to engage with festival goers. I would like to partner with these brands and use hot hot cold as an innovative and activation. Imagine using hot hot cold as a secret vip entry or the closest titos bar. Right now the app is available to Download Free in the app store, but right now im looking for partners to help us take it to the next level. Cool. All right. Very cool. Nice to hear. Pitching to influencers. I want to hear what you thought of it. Not as an idea, but as an idea that you would write about. Right . Shes out here pitching to influencers to get them to write about it. Im going to give you a second to ask any questions. Good job. I thought you did a great job. I think its a really cool idea. One additional place i think this could be cool for is theme parks. Families in theme parks. And myself, i am always losing my friends at, like new york city has great Summer Events where, theyre very crowded. I could download this. I can, apparently. Its free. You dont even need money. Sam, how did you think the pitch went . Dont tell us if you are going to do it or not. Oh, i wont. Okay. So i do run an event series thats very large for women influencers, and i may or may not think that would be relevant to the business i run. I feel like your pitch was tight, though. Very tight. You know what you are saying where are you went immediately to monotization strategy. I think eventually you might charge consumers, but maybe not. Its a fast way to leverage an existing market base, which is brands who pay to integrate into events. But the question here is shes want pitching to my partners. She gets to go into blog her. Shes going to want all of those influencers to write about her. Im going to give you two these. I feel like i go with this. As if theyre saying watermelon, watermelon, watermel watermelon. Im holding the cards here. Moment of truth. And does sarah get to go to blog her. Yay youre going. I really feel like the girls in the audience are going to engage, and i feel like everyone thought im going to cry. Youre going to cry. I feel like this is really going to be a very popular app. Only trouble spot we saw maybe the were not sure how the tech works. Tech has to be tight. The tech has to be really good. With continued success, you can tighten that up. Im going to add one thing. Sam is in charge of blog her. She can get everyone there to download it. You can create an event at blog her to get everyone to download it. We can send it ahead with all ticket sales and say its absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for being so nice to me. Maybe i can find my children with it. They might not want to find you where, theyll keep moving and make it a game. Thank you. Thank you, guys did. That you will see sam again at blog her. Yes. Not that many founders are experts at raising money because, frankly, you dont do it that often. So its not surprising that even very smart people who were really good at running their company make some really basic mistakes when theyre going out to raise capital. Ana and are female partners, and they are here to tell us what not to do. Great to see both of you. Thanks for having us. And you are entrepreneur turned investor. You have been on both sides of this, and you guys have seen some great successes and have as a result, so many people coming to you. This is going to be great information. Lets go through some of your points. Do not pitch the wrong investors. Do you find this happens a lot . I feel like its really a basic piece of advice. Zoo sure. I would say that its actually something that we find happens quite often, and ultimately, as an entrepreneur, when you are thinking about the fundraising process, step one should really be understanding your landscape. Who are the investors who are interested in the industry that you are focused on . What kind of backgrounds do they have . Are they excited about the space . Making sure to really leverage platforms like linkedn, fwit twitter, and angel list to kind of tap into that network so that ultimately, when you get down to the fundraising process, youre not wasting your time on investors who frankly arent interested in the space and really cant add value. What about talking to investors . You have a whole network of investors and just coming to you and saying, okay, i know this isnt what you do, but do you know anyone . Like let me just give you the quick elevator pitch, and do you know anyone . Its a great way to build your network. Right . As an entrepreneur, especially if you are raising money for the first time, it can be daunting to think how do i meet these people . The first step is at least meeting one. If that investor isnt the right fit for you, you can say are there other people in your network that you would feel comfortable introducing me to, who could be the right fit for my business and are interested in the industry and also the stage at which my company is in. The second part is about not underselling your team. Is that really something people do . They dont talk about their team . I think the point around that is that as investors ultimately across any stage you are investing in people. Of course, we want to understand your business. We want to understand the economics, but more importantly, with i want to understand what drives you and your team . Why are you excited about the space . What unique skill set do you have . What insights do you have, and really how are you going to make this a massive success . The idea is they may completely change their business along the way, right . We have seen that. You are partnering many times, right . You need to know that youre partnering with a smart team who can turn on a dime if they need to. And pivot. Really, you know, are looking to build business that they are passionate about. How do you explain that . In the pitch to you, how do you explain, hey, while theyre saying how great this company is that theyre starting and why you should invest and how big its going to be, also kind of get across, oh, and, by the way, if it doesnt work, im going to change it. I think its less about addressing that as part of the pitch and its more understanding what is your background and how are you tying that into the vision that you have for this business . You know, what are the unique insights that you have, what are you going to do from a Team Perspective to make sure you have that you have the right kind of Founding Team members that will insure success. Ultimately i think that, you know, resilience is a key piece of potentially having to pivot. Are you committed to building something but also have the flexibility to, you know, take a step back and reflect if this is not working, then, you know, we may need to rethink our strategy. Right. I mean, i think if i were an investor in your shoes, i would want to hear sort of what failure did you have and how did you deal with it . Youre going to have some along the way. You talk about not glossing over data. Where in the heres the best thing that can happen, heres the worst thing that can happen do you like people to pitch you . As investors were really looking for outside success. We want entrepreneurs who are really enthusiastic about the business and can see that billion dollar opportunity at the other end. At the same time that understanding of data, pieces really important because we want to know that you know how your business works, right . What drives revenue . How do you reduce costs over time . Understanding costs of customer acquisition, lifetime value. Those are things that indicate to us that you spent time researching the ins and outs of your industry and thinking about how you can build a business that scales over time. And then, finally, dont say you have no competitors. Nobody has no competitors. I would add to this also dont say your market is everyone. Right . I this i those are two red lights that say you havent thought very hard about this business. Do you see that a lot . We do. We do. When it comes to competition, its just not true that any company exists in a world where theres no competition, and that indicates to us if you say that, that indicates that you havent spent enough time thinking about your market, that indicates that you havent spend spent enough time researching who else is out there, but i think entrepreneurs can take that point and really turn it around to show how thoughtful theyve been about building the business, talking intelligently about your competitors, and then also speaking to why your company is going to do better is something that gives us confidence that you spent time and you are really investing in building this. Almost the easiest way to sell your business, right . To say heres whats out here. Heres the problem. Theyre not addressing those, and heres why we are going to. Thats right. Absolutely. Its great to get to pick your brain since you see so many companies. As i said, some very successful ones. Thank you guys for stopping by. Thanks for having us. A lot of dog owners consider their pets part of the family, and they sent e send those if you ary friends to get pampered just like people or maybe even better at deluxe resorts. Nbcs jolene kent went to check one out. Reporter from lassie to benji, americans have long had a love affair with their dogs. But the secret life of some pets may surprise you. Massages, blueberry facials and pawdicures. Its call the humanization of pets, and its become a big business across it is a big buss across america. This is nicer than my bedroom. It is nicer than mine as well. 11 billion was spent on pet pampering. 17 buy pet clothing, and 10 have a stroller for their little fur baby. Josh king is the owner of the fast growing d pet hotel and spa that takes traditional dog boarding and grooming to the next level. We give team this massage, a grooming, a net flix and chill, and a sirloin dinner. And ikea now lets you and your dog have matching sofas. And how about freshly cooked meals for your pooch dropped at your door. People want to feed their dogs similarly to how they feel themselves. All of the ingredients we get safe for you to eat, too. All of this pampering may have a human benefit, too. People with pets save 12 billion a year in health care costs. Everybody is looking to reward their pet in human terms. Everyone is finding the benefits they feel, the better health, more alert health. There is no shortage of dog owners looking to show their pups a high end experience. This is her disney land. We brought her here for her birthday because i knew it was the most fun place. What did she get to do . She got to play and get spoiled. The cost of thesefacients are a small price to pay for all of that love. When we come back, recent surveys show businesses are having a hard time recruits talent. What you can do in the recruiting process so people want to work at your company. Its Pretty Amazing out there. The world is full of more possibilities than ever before. And American Express has your back every step of the way whether its the comfort of knowing help is just a call away with global assist. Or getting financing to fund your business. No one has your back like American Express. So where ever you go. Were right there with you. The powerful backing of American Express. Dont do business without it. Dont live life without it. So in this economy, everyone that we interviewed already has offers. How do you stand out in the interview process to people want to work at your company. When youre competing with low unemployment, you have to start by thinking about selling your company in addition to asking the candidate to sell them to you. A lot of that comes down to the value propositions. So what is it like to work at your company. Give them an opportunity to walk around and see the organization. If you offer things like a flexible schedule or casual dress, tell them about that. Give them case studies about individuals you hired in a similar roll and where they have gone. They want to know if they are hired, they will be built on and giving more skills in the time they work for you. We now have the top few tipping you need to know. We have the ceo of beauty brands. Good to see both of you. Beautiful bags, fantastic hair care products, and both of you started these from nothing, right . And you have run some very big businesses as well. So lets start with you. Whats one thing you learn aide long the way. I raised a lot of money in my career. What i would say to you is if you dont have to raise money, are dont. If you do have to, make sure you build a really strong relationship. It ends up being something you have to deal with. What starts out good could end up not so well. So i really encourage people, if they are raising Venture Capital funds or Family Office money, its a pretty intense relationship. I just did a interview with the founder of mail chip. They did half a billion in revenue last year and never took a time. And there is another way to grow a money and grow it large, you dont always have to raise money. Exactly, the cost of entry, customer acquisition, were in a noisy space, air hair is very noisy, but if you can avoid it, avoid it. If you have to do it, do it with discipline and think of it like a marriage. Everything can start out great but you want really want to do your diligence. Deals that worked well and deals that didnt before you step in. Okay, your handbags are a big hit over there in the studio. Everyone going crazy about them, theyre beautiful, but you have run many businesses and started many businesses. Yeah, from the roofing, to finance, to luxury handbags. A normal path, right . Along the paths, you have to have a visual of where you want to go. Choose everybody you surround yourself with wisely. Your partners, the artisans that make our bags, and everyone that we associate with. No matter how small the business or how large you want to grow, you can only be as successful as the person that provides the highest value, and the last person providing the value. If you combine all of the emergenenergy of the people that youre doing business with, if it is positive, you will keep growing. And the New York Times had a neat piece about surrounding yourself with positive people only. I found if you let one negative energy in, no matter what it is worth financially, it will affect everybody. Your team, partners, business, and customers. You have to avoid it. All right, good to see both of you, thank you. This weeks your biz selfie comes from paula who hosts writing and wine. Participants, even people who are not writers, Craft Stories and use creativity while sipping their wine. Why dont you use your create ti creativity. Take a picture of you and your business and send it to us. Dont forget your name, the name of your company, and its location. Thank you for watching, we love hearing from you. If you have any questions, comments, or you want to say high, email us, also please go to our website, msnbc. Com slash your business. We put up everything from todays show and more for you and were on social media platforms as well. Finally, check out our pod cast. It is call been there built that. A lot of interesting conversations on there. We look forward to seeing you then. We make your business our business. The line between work and life hasnt just blurred. Its gone. Thats why you need someone behind you. Not just a card. An entire support system. Whether visiting the airport lounge to catch up on whats really important. Or even using those hardearned points to squeeze in a Little Family time. No one has your back like American Express. So no matter where youre going. Were right there with you. The powerful backing of American Express. Dont do business without it. Dont live life without it. A very good morning to all of you, im alex whit here. It is 8 00 a. M. In the east. The secret tape. What to make of the bomb shell levlation about a recording between the president and his former personal attorney. Did Michael Cohen betray you . The league late. The russian probe and a manhattan madame. After the summit,