We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Matt Feldman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Matt below.

Matt, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business

After a year and a half of development and commercializing the process to make our mushroom jerky, we were ready for launch. We started creating buzz on social media, alerting our investors that were launching soon, and getting our Shopify site and Amazon pages ready to go. Our co-manufacturer had produced multiple tests to ensure the product was made correctly prior to the first production run and the plan was to pick up 2,000 bags of product from the manufacturer and drop it off at our fulfillment center and launch the following the week.

I loaded up my car with boxes and boxes of product, drove it to the fulfillment center, and helped them unload as I felt a sense of relief that I was about to make it to launch. As I was about to leave, something inside told me to try one bag of the product just to make sure it was good even after the multiple tests we had done prior to production. So I snatched a bag, opened it up and immediately I could tell something was wrong. The jerky was much more moist and wet compared to how it should look and the taste was completely off. I froze, not sure of what to do as the people in the fulfillment center were just staring at me. I called the owner of the manufacture to tell them the product turned out off and he shrugged it off saying they followed directions and it wasn’t their problem. There was only one thing to do, call off the entire launch and go back to square one… You get 1 launch and I couldn’t do it this way.

For the next 12 months, we reformulated the product, found a new co-man, and then launched successfully in the midst of Covid. This is just one story from the different pitfalls we have faced and still face today operating a food business in the US. The most important role as founder is to react positively and with grace to all the hurdles we face even when they feel like they can blow up the business. It’s part of being an entrepreneur! Go big or go home!

Matt, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I grew up on Oahu, Hawaii, always very passionate about our environment and sustainability.

I’ve always had the entrepreneurial bug since I was a kid. I knew I wanted to run my own companies when I was older.

It wasn’t until I was graduating from college that I realized it was probably a smarter move to get a job out of college and learn new skills and save some capital before jumping into starting my own company. I joined a software company in silicon valley doing sales and worked there for 4 years, waiting for that itch to come to start my own business while saving a ton of cash and sharpening my tool kit with skills.

In 2018, I decided to shift to a plant based diet for health reasons and was particularly lacking in healthy, savory snacks. After doing some research in the grocery stores, I realized there were not a lot of options for plant based jerky aside from a soy jerky which I was intolerant to. So I started playing around with mushrooms and made my own mushroom jerky. When I sampled it to family and friends, I got great feedback and I was ready to take it to the next level. From there I found a Michelin Star Chef that I partnered up with and he helped me to take my kitchen recipe to the next level. Two years later I launched three flavors of our jerky online and now we’re expanding to different retailers nationwide.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I realized quite early on in the journey that building a mushroom jerky line would require substantial capital for all of the development, testing, and commercialization. I’d say my biggest strong suit is networking and attracting great people to whatever I’m working on and this helped me a lot when fundraising. Through three separate rounds, we have raised a total of $4.5 million. While it sounds like a lot, food businesses are very capital intensive and it provide enough capital to launch and scale properly while still needing to run the business very lean.

How did you build your audience on social media?

We built buzz around our business mostly through social media. We shipped samples to 100+ influencers prior to our launch and brought on a tiktok creator at the time to push out funny and educational content to help spread the word. Most of our social media buzz has been through gifting product to influencers and them spreading the word.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mokufoods.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matt_kainoa/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/feldmanmatt/