How I Built This: RXBAR: Peter Rahal
Peter went to his dad and asked if he knew any investors. His dad said: “You need to shut the fuck up and sell a thousand bars.” (1:09)
Peter was miserable at school. He said he is not meant to do anything linear. (6:25)
His first business was selling weed in high school - It’s fascinating you plant a seed, you take care of it, you put it in a good spot, you nurture it and it grows into a tomato and you harvest it” great metaphor for any business. (8:15)
Peter's first job was at a red food processor in Belgium. (11:56)
Failure didn't bother Peter. He was used to it: “I was used to eating shit. Failure was not foreign to me.” (14:42)
Peter was motivated to do because he had a miserable job: "There was that drive to find an opportunity.” (16:52)
A lot of people told him that RXBAR was “a dumb fucking idea.” (18:38)
What was RXBAR like at the beginning: “We moved quick. We were small. We started in my parent’s basement. We didn’t have much exposure - we were doing literally every part of the business ourselves.” (25:00)
People think raising money will solve your problems - but being forced to sell we were focused on what was actually important - figuring it out. (32:08)
We started selling....emailing, calling... giving bars on consignment. We would do anything. (32:53)
Within 9 months of launching this company, we did $600,000 in sales. (37:48)
RxBar grew quicker than he expected: In 2016 we did $36 million in sales. Our aggressive forecast was like $16-$18 million. (43:38)