YouSaid · the spoken record

Justin Gold

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114
first
2026-05-25
most recent
2026-05-25
sittings or episodes
1
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podcast

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  1. “I like the joke that you know we're gonna go into skincare, we're gonna come out with peanut butter deodorant and peanut butter shampoo conditioner, some crunchy for exfoliation. So, you know, the sky's the limit, but at the end of the day protein snacking is really kind of what's Not going to go away.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “Probably 50 50. I think that I don't take no for an answer. I worked hard when most people were, you know, partying and traveling the world at a young age. But if I wasn't in Boulder, Colorado, if I didn't, if Lance didn't find me and I didn't find Lance in the moment in his life when he was hungry and ready to prove himself, if I didn't go on a mountain bike ride and was eating a lot of squeeze packs, if Reese's hadn't done a great job at training consumers on what a peanut butter cup should be like and I could make one organic and all these things laddered up into success and I can't take credit for all of it. But if I didn't work hard and take no for an answer and surround myself with people who are smarter than me and take direction, I wouldn't be where I am. And I pinch myself every day for how lucky I've been. I don't deserve, you know, nearly as much credit as everyone else does, but because my name's on it, everyone's all.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “Yeah, so It's to do what should have been done in the first place. It's to grow the company, to reach its full potential. We really think that we can double, triple, quadruple the size of this business. And then once we build a business and get it to a size that is larger, it could go anywhere. I think that the opportunity is to find it a home where it can continue to thrive. Just by being a bigger business and then being acquired by a larger group, well, I give it a healthier opportunity to be integrated because now the size demands that it gets attention.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “Controlling interest Yeah, so I'm an owner and I'm also a board member, but I'm not a board member. I'm a founder. And so I don't just go to board meetings. I'm there for all the big calls. I'm there at the office almost every day. And I'm a big part of the team, but I'm not running the team, which is a blessing for me.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “Pulling those brands out and then giving them attention and focus and building them back, building them up, maybe back up and then finding a better home for them. And so he loves the Justin's brand. He grew up with it, right? He's a kid. He grew up with the brand, and he's like, so one day he calls me up, and he's like, Hey, I've been trying to pull the Justin's brand out of Hormel. What do you think about coming back and being a part of it? And it's like. Okay, here we go.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “It's kind of a every entrepreneur's dream when their company isn't living up to its fullest potential. And usually what happens is a company falls off a cliff and is barely salvageable and the founder comes back and buys it for pennies on the dollar. But by then it's too late. You can't revive it. You just have a corpse. But what happened here, like we talked about earlier, was Justin's is just, you know, kind of frozen. It's just kind of on cruise control. And this one investment group out of Connecticut Forward, their founder is a young super intelligent, way smarter than me guy. This kid Matt Leeds, and Matt had just come off of another fund and started his own. And he's found kind of his sweet spot, which is finding brands that are kind of trapped in a corporate umbrella that aren't living up to their full potential.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “Wow, yeah. I would oftentimes lie if someone who's like a peripheral friend was like, oh, hey man, how's business? You know, I'd be like, great, because the 20 minutes it would take to explain what happened and what I was doing wasn't worth it. And so I would just, it's great, you know, and yeah. Move on. But then, you know, like I just accepted it and was really proud of what we accomplished and what we did and the disruption.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “I was a line item that wasn't adding value. And so I was crossed off. And I was like, oh my gosh, what do you mean you're firing me? Like I didn't do anything to get fired. And I'm like, it was just bizarre. It was so bizarre to me. And I was angry and I was resentful. And then I, you know, went through all the phases of grief. And then I was like, okay, then I went through, you know, acceptance. And then I went through joy. Like, oh my gosh, my life is mine. And I can do whatever I want and I can go live a sabbatical in another country and I can do other, help other companies. And, you know, I'm set free.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “It's interesting. So, yes and no. So when I first left Justin's, I was pretty upset. It was like a bad breakup. You were upset.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “I wasn't being utilized. I wasn't helping the company. I was maybe even getting in the way. And so it just didn't make sense to continue to stay there, especially when a company like Rudy's really could use some help and use support.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “I think to Hormel's credit, there are, I don't know, a $6 billion company that's been around for 110 years. They clearly know what they're doing. They're good people who run that organization. And Justin's was such a small company that they just didn't know how to run a company of that size. And then when they integrated it into all the functions of the Hormel portfolio, the people there didn't have the focus on the Justin's brand because that wasn't paying their bills, you know, Skippy and Dinty Moore Stew and Spam was paying the bills. And so Justin's didn't get the focus that it needed to be successful. But to their credit, the Justin's brand didn't fall off a cliff. They didn't change all the ingredients. They didn't try to turn it into Skippy. But it didn't grow. It just kind of been frozen right from when it was acquired to right where it is today. It's just been on cruise control. And so during COVID.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “That wasn't even an option. I was going to be, you know, kind of the founder on the sidelines, but I would input with innovation and with purpose and with mission and culture and things. Got it.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “Because when you're a small independent business in a liberal values oriented organization, being independent and being local is so important. And when a large company buys you, you kind of feel like you've sold out. But what I did, which I'm proud of is I stayed for five years to learn. We stayed in Boulder and everything kind of continued on in a great way. And here's what's interesting. If someone's going to acquire your company and they want to scale it and grow it and turn it into a larger company, I would like to learn and figure out how they, what the unlocks are so I can maybe either do it again or help other companies achieve that. So I was really excited to stick around and to learn anyway.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “Yeah, it was overwhelming and it was complicated, right? So it was the most joyous moment of my life to realize this great opportunity to set yourself free financially. And everyone in the business was an owner. Every single person had an equity stake. So we changed everyone's life in a meaningful way. But at the same moment, I had sold out.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “Larger companies started to reach out to us to say, hey, we love what you're doing. We would love to know if you'd be open to a conversation to be acquired. And that's what triggered a process to kind of figure out, okay, maybe this is a good time for us.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “No, it didn't. Advice I got early on, which was you build the best company that you can build and don't go out and try to sell a business. Have somebody want to come and buy it. And so I was so head down, all of us, so head down focused, we knew that someday we'd have to take out debt to pay back our investors or go public or get acquired. We knew that was in the horizon. But we were only three years in with VMG and generally five years is when they say, okay, let's start to think about what's next, guys. We need our money back. So we're three years in and we were just building a really healthy business.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “Yeah, so what we did is we hired really intelligent people who had experience working in food companies that were scaling as fast as we were. And so we're developing new products, getting into more stores, and we are trying to grow outside of just groceries. So, you know, we're getting into REI. And it's everything is just working.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “Yeah, so we're about a year in, and one of my board members, Peter Burns, who had just left Celestial, was ready for his next thing. And so I was able to recruit him to come and become the CEO. And at first, I was like, hey, let's be co-CEOs. And he's like, okay. And then I saw what a really amazing, fully functioning CEO can do. And I was like, oh my gosh, like, hey, man, this is yours. You can have it. I'm going to focus on quality, on culture, on marketing. I'm going to go to all the sales meetings. I'll be there for trade shows. And I focused on my stuff, which was making sure that our messaging and quality was right and tight. And this is the magic of having Peter because Peter knows how to set expectations and how to manage private equity groups expectations on how things are going to have and how we're going to grow the company. And he had the experience to do that, which would have probably”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “So we had a really fast growing company and a category that was notoriously stagnant. We had an innovation with the squeeze pack. And so we had a really good brand story. And so we had an opportunity where we could really interview and partner with who we wanted to partner with. And I really wanted to work with a local group because I really felt like supporting local was the right ecosystem for us. But then I met a group out of San Francisco called VMG. And dang it, like these guys, they specialized in kind bar, pretzel crisp, pirates booty. They knew exactly how to scale food companies. They had a great track record. And so I didn't take the best deal that was offered. I took the best partner that was there that knew how to help me scale. And it requires a level of sophistication to make sure that everything lines up, that, you know,”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “Yeah, so the idea was if Reese can't sell a peanut butter cup into Whole Foods or into any natural food store, then someone should. And why can't it be Justin's? We already make the best peanut butter. Reese wasn't even a competitor. And where it really caught me by surprise, two things. One is the velocities on peanut buttercups are much higher than jars and even squeeze packs. You know, people will eat peanut buttercups every day if they could. Hopefully they don't. But so the velocities were higher. And then people would come into the franchise in a whole new way. So now we're in a different part of the store. They see a peanut butter cup. They buy it. They're like, wow, this is really good. Now they're walking the store and they're in the peanut butter aisle. They're like, oh, these guys make peanut butter and almond butter. Now is the surround sound in the store and it amplified both sides of the business in a really critical time.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “Yeah, the beautiful thing about the Boulder community is I had a lot of great people I could lean on for advice and get support from. But at that moment, I kind of knew I had a window of opportunity and it was closing because people were noticing us. We now had a national brand and we were in Starbucks and people were like, okay, the squeeze pack's a real thing. And so now I felt like, okay, I need more support. I need another adult in the room And that's when I started to look for institutional capital”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “We brought a child into the world, and so now I have a business I'm running on my own, a newborn, and I think I'm no longer working at REI now. So my left REI is there for five years. And all this stuff's happening all at once.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “One day he had a headache, and then the headache lasted three days, and then he went to a hospital, and then they did a brain scan, and they found a tumor, and he had no idea. So then at that moment, not only did we have to grieve and as a company, maybe there's eight of us, you know, pause what we're doing and really honor someone who is a dear friend of ours and be there for his family. And he was a larger than life human. And so the whole community was really in shock. But we had to, you know, get back to work. And I had to step up into a really powerful leadership role where I had to show empathy and courage, but also roll up my sleeves and be like, all right, you know, we've got to move on because the world isn't going to wait for us to be ready. And that was a really, really hard moment for me. And then at that moment in time, my wife was pregnant with our first. And so a little bit after he passed away,”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “So 2010, I'll just set the stage. We're in Starbucks nationally, right? We are in Whole Foods nationally. We are now getting a lot of conventional retailers like Kroger and Target to notice us. And then Lance, who is my mentor, my hero in kind of this everywhere all the once guy is diagnosed with brain cancer and has two young kids and then within a year passes away and so now it's 2011 2012 and Lance is not only like not with the company but he's he's dead like he's gone”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “Room and moved it into their facility, and they made a bunch of other food products there. And then they had the credentials and the licensing and the auditing that Starbucks needed in order for us to be a customer of theirs. And I kind of like. Them, we already had these things, hoping that if they accepted it, this food company would want to bring us in anyway.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “Or something like that. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Right away, the first thing that happened was we got into Starbucks. The squeeze pack, and they put us into a bistro box, which is we're still there. It's like their protein plate little grab and go. But in order to get into Starbucks, we had to have a food audit and our little shared kitchen space with Bobos wasn't cutting it. And so we had to find a food manufacturer who would overnight take our existing peanut butter making process and put it into their facility where they have full sanitation team, parts and maintenance team. They have employees that are come in all the time. And so we literally took this whole”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “Yeah, I really did enjoy it. I felt like I didn't feel like I was alone anymore. I felt like I had someone who was not only more talented than I was, but was in it as deep as I was and felt like a real partner in the business”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “Yet Lance was everything everywhere all at once and wherever we need help Lance is there if it's working on production you know Lance is there helping with production if it's meeting with a retailer Lance is there if it's marketing as his genius and so Lance's title was was president you know I was CEO but really like I was working for him because he knew what he was doing and I was learning”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “I had to go to every single store and talk it in. And you'd have to work this system and get people to want to help you. And the biggest advice I can give to an entrepreneur who's doing this, I kept a notebook. And in my notebook was the names of all the stores and the people who worked in those stores. So when I would walk back into a Houston, Texas Whole Foods, I hadn't been in a year, I would have the names of all the people I'd met a year ago and I would memorize the names before I walked in the store and I'd write a description of what they look like and maybe kids they had or where they grew up and I'd walk into that store. I'd see that person and I'd call them out by their name and tell them a little story about what I remembered and it would blow their minds. And they would be like, oh my God, if this guy remembered me, at least I can do is help him.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “Well, so it took about a year, but here's where things went a little interesting. Lance meets me and he's like, hey, I'm looking for my next career. I really like what you're doing here. I think I can help you. And I look at him and I'm like, good, because I could use some help. Yeah. And so then we get together, and he's like, All right, well, tell you what, you need to raise money because you can't afford me, and I couldn't. Like, you probably need a million dollars, and that's going to allow us to hire a few more people, including me, and then let's rebrand the packaging. Let's update it so it looks a little different. And I'll help you go out there and try to raise the money.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  31. “Yeah. I mean, it was really like an eye-opener for me how lucky I got. So now I'm like, okay, all this is working. Now I'm like, oh no, like the word is out. I couldn't patent protect it. I didn't invent peanut butter. I didn't invent the squeeze pack. I couldn't protect it. I couldn't do anything. And now my secret's out and people know. And what if this natural food company starts making squeeze packs? And what if a squeeze pack company starts in the now paranoia really like grabs a hold of you? And I'm like, okay, well, I got to raise money and I got to move fast. And that's when I started to continue to revamp and rewrite the business plan and then really go for angels.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  32. “And then what happened is the squeeze pack became this trowel vehicle, so now our jars that weren't selling that well started to pick up.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  33. “And that way people will, you know, they'll know what it is instantly. And boom, like, it started to work. People started to buy them. And when I started to learn was the number three reason why people were buying the squeeze packs was for portable protein, right? And I was like, oh, well, that's why I created it. I'm glad put it on fruit, put it on a piece of toast. That's great. The number two reason I learned why people were buying them was for portion control. And then the number one reason why people were buying the squeeze pack was for a trial size. Like, you know what? I saw a squeeze pack of almond butter and I've always wanted to try almond butter, but it's too expensive and I don't want to take the risk. But, you know, I'm going to buy this squeeze pack and see if I like it. And you know what? I really like almond butter. Turns out I like your almond butter. So I'm going to buy your jars.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  34. “And so I was devastated. But instead of just, you know, pulling it off the shelf and giving up, I literally stood at the shelf and watched people shop for, you know, half an hour. And it came really clear to me that when people, and I know this isn't like, you know, earth-shattering news, but when people go shopping, they're in a rush. And so it's so hard to get people to try new things. And the problem was people would see it. They'd pick it up, they'd be like, all right, this is a squeeze pack where my bars are. It says protein on it. It says energy on it. I don't understand. Like, what do I do with this? What is it? And then they would just ignore it. And so at that moment, it was like, oh my gosh, rather than try to force this to be an energy food, like people don't know what it is. It's just peanut butter and a squeeze pack. I should just sell it next to the jars.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  35. “So, after a few months, the buyer's like, hey, Justin, you know, these squeeze packs aren't really moving. I'm probably going to have to ask you to remove them because, you know, I feel like the test is over and we're probably not going to bring them in. And to me, the squeeze pack, this was the big idea. This is what was going to elevate the brand and set us free and put us into every REI and running store and, you know, and be this big athlete food.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  36. “And I have this great idea. Here it is. Here's a sample. It's for athletes and it belongs right here with the energy bars. And I don't want to sell it to you in a fi because I just want to sell it to a few stores and see how it does. I've been working this for the past year and a half. I'm so excited. It's going to crush. Let's, you know, can I put, oh, yeah, Justin, we see her all the time. Yeah, we'd love to put an energy bar section. We'll put it right next to the Lara bars and it'll be great. And it doesn't work, it doesn't sell”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  37. “We shared a kitchen together and we'd work like we hired some employees and we'd share them and on even days we'd make Bobos and on odd days we'd make Justin's and we had the squeeze pack machine now hardwired into this facility and so I'm making these squeeze packs”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  38. “Correct. It's too Is the size of a small car was this squeeze pack machine? And so I was able to find another company that was also growing at that moment. And they were a few years in called Bobo's Oat Bars.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  39. “That then allowed me to go out and buy this machine. Now I needed a kitchen, and I found a kitchen facility in Boulder of a company that had just gone out of business, but it was too big of a facility. I couldn't use it by myself.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  40. “Dirty, okay. Well, okay, so if that's 30,000, I'm going to need a kitchen to wire it into because it's not going to fit in the salsa company. I need one in Boulder. And so at this moment in time, I'm like, okay, well, to get that, I need 75,000. And I went out to my family. They didn't have any more resources for me. I talked to a few angels and they were like, excuse me, a squeeze pack of peanut butter to do what I don't know, too risky. So I had nowhere to go. The only place that I could go, and God bless him again was my roommate, who was helping me with the farmer's market. He was helping me make it at night. And I went to his parents and laid down the idea, showed them the business plan. And his parents loaned me $75,000”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  41. “I get really excited and inspired, and then I find out that the squeeze back machines, as you can imagine, are hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so finally, like through calling around, I find a equipment broker who sends me to someone out of New Jersey. And this guy has a company called Protopac, and they basically would take these old machines and refurbish them. So I started talking to him. He's like, well, you know, I got this machine that does one at a time back in like the 80s and 90s. He'd open the Sunday paper and there'd be like this, you know, squeeze pack of, you know, Perel hair conditioner and things like it was it was that machine. It's been sitting here collecting dust and I'll happily sell it to you. And I'm like, how much? She's like, well, it'd be about $30,000. And it's like, oh man.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  42. “Yeah, the liability was too great, and you'd have to label on the product process in a facility that handles or shares a line with, and nobody wanted to do that. And at first, as you can imagine, I was kind of devastated. I was like, oh, I had this great idea. And it was going to be so fun. And now no one can make it. And then it was like, wait a minute. Maybe if I'm the only one who can make it, I should make it. All right. Well, now all of a sudden I'm energized. Okay, well, how do I find a squeeze pack machine? I got to make it myself. And this is, you know, this would be really interesting. And so then the goalposts have moved again. Once I get this squeeze pack, it's going to fix all my problems. So, anyway, so I get.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  43. “And so I'd call him up. I'd be like, hey, you know, my name's Justin. I have this natural foods company in Boulder, Colorado. I was hoping you could, you know, put my food product into a squeeze pack. Oh, yeah. Like, yeah, of course. No squeeze packs too big or too small. We're squeeze packs or us. What are you doing? And I'm like, oh, wow, this is really great. I'm doing peanut butter. I'm doing almond butter. I want to do a chocolate hazel. And they'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can stop right there. We're not going to be able to help you. All three of them just said, no, flat out. Outright said no.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  44. “Like, well, how do I find out if I can even make a squeeze pack? So I talked to a few friends. I've made a lot of friends now in the natural foods community. And one of them was the founder of Boulder Chips, this national potato chip brand, and John Maggio. And I talked to John. I'm like, John, I got this great idea. How can I find out if someone can make it for me? He's like, well, you know, just like there was for peanut butter, a contract manufacturer, there's contract manufacturers for squeeze packs. Here's three that I found for you. They're the largest three in the country. Call them up, see what they have to say.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  45. “I'm obsessed with something. I'm with peanut butter all day, every day. And here I am with a gel pack, you know, and I'm like, and I just put one and two together. And it's like, why isn't anyone doing this? Holy cow”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  46. “And as I'm eating the energy gel, I'm like, man, you know, this energy gel is good, but why isn't I really want peanut butter? Why isn't anyone putting peanut butter into a squeeze pack?”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  47. “And at this point, I realized that this isn't working because now I have real data. I'm like, oh, yeah. I was a little overly optimistic on how many jars I was going to sell my first year at this pace, it's going to take me a lot of stores to get to the scale that I need to break even. I'm like, oh man, this is, so now reality's setting in. And when I would get really, I don't know, nervous or upset, I would go and exercise, you know, go on a big bike ride, go on a big trail run, clear my mind, come back exhausted and just feeling refreshed. Next day. And so I'm on a big mountain bike ride, you know, and this is now 26 ish, 2007, and I'm on a bike ride, and I'm eating a squeeze pack of an energy Joe.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  48. “About three or four days a week, I work at REI part time. And it's mostly to maintain the minimum to get health insurance and benefits.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  49. “So, you were a really tiny, small, small. Tiny. Yeah. And the thing about peanut butter is the velocity of it, right? So the velocity is how often it moves off the shelf. And for a consumer, you might buy peanut butter once a month. If you're a heavy consumer, once a week or once every two weeks. And so it just wasn't flying off the shelves like a bar or energy drink would because you'd have one every day. So now I'm a few years in. I'm working now at REI. You're still working at REI.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  50. “So 2006, I'm like two or three years in, I could deliver to specialty stores. I could deliver to natural grocers, and I could deliver to wild oats into about 10 to maybe twelve whole foods stores. So now I've gotten into about 25 stores.”

    2026-05-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT