Justin Mares built Kettle & Fire into one of the best known bone broth brands in the country. Then he walked away from it to go after something a lot less exciting on paper: the red tape standing between Americans and the preventive health products that actually keep them well.
His new company, Truemed, gives people a simple way to use money they already have set aside for health on things like workouts, better food, and sleep, instead of letting it sit unused or only get spent once they're already sick.
Alisa Cohn, executive coach and author of From Start-up to Grown-up, sits down with Justin to talk about why he left a thriving consumer brand to go build something in one of the most regulated, paperwork heavy industries there is. You'll hear how he tests ideas before he feels ready, how he hires for real mission alignment, why he chose venture capital this time around after largely bootstrapping Kettle & Fire, and how he still wrestles with imposter syndrome four companies in.
You’ll learn:
- Justin Mares walked away from Kettle & Fire, one of the best known bone broth brands in the country, to go build Truemed instead.
- Launching an imperfect product, like Justin's ghost landing page for Kettle and Fire built on $500 of ads, beats waiting for a perfect one.
- Justin chose venture capital over bootstrapping Truemed after growing Kettle and Fire to hundreds of millions in revenue on less than $10 million raised.
- Hiring your first five to ten people purely for mission alignment shapes every hire that follows, including Truemed's best employee, who found the company through Justin's newsletter.
- Andreessen Horowitz brought Truemed access to founders and operators that a bootstrapped CEO could never reach cold, well beyond the capital itself.
- Justin still deals with imposter syndrome after twelve years and four companies, and uses a specific reframe to move from doubt into action.
- Justin believes startups are fundamentally momentum games, and wishes he had learned to trust his own judgment earlier in his career.
We talk about:
00:00 Justin Mares introduces Truemed and its preventive health mission
00:29 Why Kettle and Fire exposed how expensive prevention really is
02:37 The red tape problem hiding inside health savings accounts
04:43 Why Justin pivoted from consumer products into fintech
07:39 What Truemed tested before writing a line of code
09:54 Why an ugly MVP still proved real customer demand
14:21 How Truemed built its first team around mission alignment
19:37 Why Justin chose venture capital over staying bootstrapped
24:39 What Andreessen Horowitz brought beyond the check
29:00 Why the MAHA movement matters for chronic disease
39:38 How Justin worked through his hardest founder decisions
43:57 What Justin wishes he had known earlier as a founder
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