YouSaid · the spoken record

Justin Gold

lines on the record: 114
first: 2026-05-25
most recent: 2026-05-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Be kind of like, you know, for me, it was like, all right, well Pearl is doing okay, you know, and his other stores, if I can get them to do what Pearl's doing and now I can get into 30 or 40 of those, the target's always moving. So now the target's moved from getting in the farmer's market to getting into Whole Foods. All right, now I'm in Whole Foods. Now I got to get into UNFI so I can get into more Whole Foods and then I'll have made it. And so the target's always moving.”
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
“Well, enough, right? And like, you know, so you get into the store and maybe two weeks goes by. And it's like, okay, well, I got to get into another store because I can at least service 15 stores. So now you go to the Whole Foods across the next town over. And you're like, hey, you know David over at Whole Foods Pearl. Well, yeah, he just brought us in. You guys should be carrying us here. And they're like, well, you and UNFID. Oh, no, no, no. I'm going to deliver it. I'm going to stock my shelf and I'm going to do demos. And they're like, well, okay, well, David has it, then I guess we'll try it. And then, you know, you really leverage that one relationship. And then I would get into more and more stores and I would deliver to these stores and I would.”
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
“Starting at one store, and I thought that by getting into the store, it would be this big unlock. Once I was on shelf, I kind of thought, okay, everyone's going to notice it. It's going to be great. And then like nobody really noticed it. I had to stand there like three, four times a week and hand out samples and get people excited about it. But still, like the internal optimist is like, okay, well, hey, this is just one store. Get into 30 stores because then once UNFI has 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
“Have to worry about it. It's like, well, All sounds great, Justin, but you know, I'm nervous as a new product no one's gonna notice it. Are you gonna be able to support it? And I'm like, how about if I'm here every day and I'll do a demo and at the end of a month or two, if we don't sell enough jars that makes you happy, you can take everything off the shelf, give it to the staff, take it home, and it's free. It's on me and you'll never see me again. And if I only, he was like, oh my gosh, he's like, okay, fine. Like take your jar, take it over to, you know, this person at scanning and let's get it set up in the system and we'll see you next week.”
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
“They're like, oh, we can't get you just into one store because we have this big warehouse, and in order for us to get enough economies of scale to deliver to enough stores, you need to be in at least 30 or 40 stores, which is usually the whole region. And I'm like, well, I don't want to be in the whole region. I don't have enough capacity for that. I just want to be in a few stores. And she's like, well, you know, maybe they'll make an exception and just work with you. And I'm like, well, okay, I get it. It's going to be harder than I thought. So then I go back to Pearl Street and I find Dave Spice, who's, you know, again, working in the store. And so the next time I came in, I was ready. Like, hey, Dave, it's Justin. Hey, I went to UNFI and they said that they can't just deliver to your one store. So what if I come in and I'll check my own shelf and I'll deliver just what you need. And then I'll walk it out to the shelf and I'll stock my own shelf. And so you'll never even.”
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
“He's like, all right, stands up. He's like, look, here's what I need you to do. I need you to get into a food distributor called UNFI. You know, UNFI is who distributes all of our food products once you work with them, then I can”
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
“So two thousand six was when I started to deliver to retailers. And here's how it started. I had kind of an idea of how this might work. And so then I walk into the One Whole Foods that was in our town, ask who the grocery buyer is, and that the buyers at that moment in time stalking a shelf. And I walk up. And I'm nervous and I'm in my 20s. And I've done this a few times, but not with Whole Foods. And so I ask the buyer who's like wearing knee pads. And he's, you know, sock something in a low shelf. And I'm like, hey, do you have a second? I ask you a quick question. And this guy's name's David. David Spice. And he's like, looks up at me. He's like, yeah, come on. Spill it, spill it because I got lots of stuff to do here. And I'm like, hey, my name is Justin. I have a food company. And I really want to sell it to, and as soon as I said that, you could kind of see I lost him, right? He's like, God, you know, kid, I hear this five times a day.”
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
“Yeah, I'm certainly breaking even on good days. But I was having so much fun, like it was fun to be in a community of other entrepreneurs, of other food companies, but I knew that it wasn't going to last forever. I knew I had to figure it out and I didn't have a girlfriend. I didn't have a dog. This was all I wanted to do. So as I'm in the farmer's market, I'm like, okay, scale is what I need. And then when the farmer's market ended, Me, it was like, okay, once I get into Whole Foods, like game over, you've done it, you're just going to have this big company and let's get the whole foods. Like that's the goal. So that became my obsession how do I get into grocery food 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
“And then I was like, oh my gosh, well, that's interesting. So then the next week I came back with classic, right? Not plain. Nobody wants something that's plain. Right. So it was, I called it classic. And guess what? It became our bestseller, right? Because people just wanted something simple. And now I'm scratching my head. I'm like, well, I thought the flavors are what was important, but people just want to support something that's local and that tastes good”
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
“I want to support you, so I'm going to buy something. Okay. So, what should I buy? What should I buy? Well, do you have just plain peanut butter? And I'd be like, no, no, I don't have plain. Why would I have plain? You can get plain at the grocery store. Well, you know, I really like you and I really like supporting local. And I really want something I can have every single day, not just on a special occasion, like the cinnamon would be once in a while.”
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
“You know, lying in the sand. This is what it is. I'm not going to change it. The second thing I learned, which was so fun for me to learn, was when I first launched, you realize I didn't have like a plain peanut butter. Everything had a flavor to it because that was, to me, that was the big point of differentiation, right? So you have the farmer's market and someone comes along and they're like, oh my gosh, this is so exciting. You're brand new. I'm going to take the tour. I'm going to try them all. And maybe I had four or five different products because I would come up with some specialty ones like pumpkin pie or chocolate or something, you know. And so someone would come like, oh my god, okay, I'm going to try them all. I'm going to try them all. And they'd be like, oh, the honey. Oh, that's really nice. It's really, really subtle, but I really like it. Oh, there's a maple, a maple almond. Wow, that maple's really complements the almonds. I really like that. And okay, here's another one. Oh, the pumpkin pie. Oh, that's just too much nutmeg for me. Too spicy. Okay, what do I...”
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
“We're the only nut butter company there. So it's not like you're at the store price shopping for what is the cheapest. You're like, well, I need peanut butter and there's the only one here. And so that was really fun. The biggest learning for the farmer's market for me was two things. Number one, I realized you can't make everyone happy, right? So eventually someone's going to come by and be like, you know what? I don't taste enough honey in this. Or you know what? This is too sweet, too much honey. And then they're telling you, can you add less honey? And you're like, oh yeah, yeah, of course. I'll work on that. And then after like a year, you're like, you know, it is what it is. And if you don't like it, I'm sorry, but I'm not changing it, you know, because when you first launch, you want to make everyone happy. And you're like, okay, well, how do I create something that everyone's going to love? And then you realize, okay, I just got to put my...”
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
“It's the whole experience like people just love To buy a product from someone that they can look in the eye and be like, you made this. Wow, that's really special. And the other thing that really helped the guy is like,”
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
“So, the farmers market says, you know, yeah, I don't know, you know, I don't think this is a good fit for us. And you're like, oh shoot, like, well, I'll tell you what, you know, I'll make a deal with you. How about we'll come in early in the spring before all the farmers start to harvest their vegetables. And once all the farmers come in and the honey vendors come in, if there's no room for us, we'll leave. And then we'll come back again in the fall when more space opens up because you'd rather be selling something than nothing, right? And then once I got in, you know, and there was probably the first farmer's market a week or two, they kicked us out because there wasn't any room. And people complained. They're like, where's our nut butter? And then all of a sudden I was able to get a little corner, you know, not a full 10 by 10, but a little corner and I could, you know, slowly work my way in and become a regular.”
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
“It was so important. So now it's into the winter, and it was tricky even getting the farmers' market because we're not an agricultural product that's grown locally.”
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
“No, no one was buying them. Right. So I would I'd set up a demo so I would dedicate time to set up a table and I would hand out samples. And that's where the farmer's market down the road became such a great avenue 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
“You know, probably four dollars. And so I was making virtually no money on any of these things. And it was a hobby. This wasn't for me to make money. This was for me to build something that someday could be a business that makes money. For me, it was real. I treated it as a business, but I'm working on waiting tables. Now at this time in my life, I'm working at REI, which is a sports retailer. And I'm not paying myself. I'm paying my roommates. I'm paying the kitchen I'm working at. Everyone else except me because I already have a job. And I know that if this thing works, eventually I'll get paid.”
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
“And you know, it's tricky because when you're first getting started, you know you can't price yourself too high even though you should. So we're probably selling peanut butter for $6 and almond butter for eight or nine dollars and not charging enough.”
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
“Do I remind them of their grandson? And so if I'm at a specialty store, I'd be like, look, this is the most premium top tier gray coupon nut butter you can buy. And it belongs here in your store of all these fine cheeses and meats, right? Yeah. Or you go to a great harvest and say, look, you know, this is, you can eat this with a spoon. You don't need to add anything to it. It can go on a slice of bread and you're good to go. You don't even need the jam because we have honey and we have cinnamon. Or you go to a Whole Foods or to a co-op in this case and say, look, this is a really unique product that has differentiation for what you're already carrying.”
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
“So you have to know your audience, right? And I was so good at this. I'd understand is it local that they really like? Is it something that differentiates on the shelf? Is it something that's highest quality premium? Do they feel sorry?”
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
“Correct. So long story short, we don't use a ton of palm on our products, but when you have a food product that has two or three ingredients, you notice it. And so, peanut butter, people associate palm oil with a lot of peanut butter brands because there's only a few ingredients and in a lot of other food companies they have more palm oil or cosmetics, but they don't even list the ingredients. And so it's a little unfair, but at the end of the day, we still use it. We own it, and we have to step up and do the right thing.”
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
“Right, which is what we use. And honestly, when I first started, palm oil wasn't a thing. Like when I first started, you know, I was trying shea butter. I was trying cocoa butter. You know, as I'm working on all these things, you know, palm oil is introduced as a hardened vegetable oil. And so it was that now this new ingredient. It's like awesome. It's a new ingredient. Let's use it. Wow, it works. It's not perfect, right? If it sits in a hot car for too long or if it or if you don't add it correctly at the right temperature so it melts perfectly it doesn't work but it's good enough and it limits the oil separation which i think solves a problem in the marketplace”
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
“I had three products that I started with. I had honey peanut butter. I had honey almond butter, and then I had cinnamon peanut butter. And so when I first started, the almonds were natural. And then the peanuts were organic. And on top of that, what I was obsessed with was stabilizing the peanut oil.”
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
“He looks at me like I've got three eyes and he's like, you got peanut butter? He's like, okay. He's like, huh, interesting. He's like, all right, I'll take it. And I'm like, are you sure? That was it. Wow. And he's like, yeah. He's like, you have any, you have any now? And I'm like, I'll be back in 10 minutes. You'll be here, right? And so then I went home. And I had samples and things and I came back, you know, and I had a cell sheet that I made that had pricing. And then so great harvest spread was my first customer in Boulder”
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
“It's a bakery, but they're franchised And there's maybe 50 of them around the country, and there's one in Boulder, and I'll never forget I went into this great harvest bread, and they have like honey and maybe, you know, some jams there, like a little retail section. And I told them about the peanut butter. And this guy, Scott, Scott Creevy.”
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
“Yeah, so in every store I went to said no. Wild Oats said no because they only wanted to carry, you know, a national, they only want to work with brands that could work nationally. So then I went to some specialty stores. And they all said, okay, you know, we'll think about it. And then I went to the co-op here. And they're like, okay, drop off some samples. We'll get back to you. And then I went to this store called Great Harvest Bread. Have you ever been to one of those? Great harvest bread companies?”
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
“Yeah, God bless John Ichabone. So my first co-worker, employee, partner was my roommate. He was chasing a career that wasn't something that was exciting him. And then he saw how passionate I was about this. And he's like, hey, I'm here to help.”
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
“Here's what's interesting. So, this guy, so the classic thing for an entrepreneur is we can't take no for an answer, right? We've got to find a way to get to the yes. And this was the only place that had the equipment that I needed to be successful. And you never saw me, and it'll just be extra money in your pocket. You'll never know I'm there. And that's what we did is we went in on off hours at the end of the day when their shift ended is when my shift would begin. And at that moment, I was still waiting tables and eventually switched to a different job, a side hustle in order to accommodate those hours.”
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
“Like, hey, how much does this cost to use this? He's like, well, I don't have any openings. We're booked solid throughout the day making all these different products. And I'm like, all right. You were asking.”
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
“Yeah, so in order to sell to even a farmer's market in the state of Colorado, you need to have an FDA certified kitchen facility. The ceilings are clean, and there's no rota infestation or insect infestation, and that there's a three-compartment sink that allows you to sanitize all your utensils correctly and those floor drains. Now you're right. I have to find a kitchen. And so, what I did is I'm like, okay, well, I have the grinder. Now I need the jar filler and the labeler. So who uses that equipment? Pasta sauce companies, salsa companies. Let's find one of those. So then I found a salsa called all the salsa companies and they're like, well, we use this shared kitchen facility in South Denver about an hour and a half for me. We pay to use their jar filler and their kettle and their jar labeler. And so I meet this guy.”
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
“And then I would have to pick up this big container, put it on like a roll cart that would be like, you know, chest high. Pick it up, put it on this roll cart, and then I'll take a spatula, and I'll spatulate into a hopper that was probably, you know, above my head. And then once that hopper is full, you could stand under it with one jar at a time and there's a little foot pedal and you'd stand on the foot pedal and it would cycle this jar filler and you'd hold the jar underneath it and it would fill it like ice cream comes out of a Soft But what happens is you fill it, and there's a little bit of air in it, so you have to tap it on a table every single jar.”
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
“I was using liquid honey at the time, but at a small enough percent that still worked. I literally had to go to a restaurant supply store and I bought a stainless steel soup paddle mixer. And I would make maybe 50 pounds, 40 pounds at a time, which is, you know, 40 jars, 30 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
“It's literally this Ursul is like a jet engine, right? And on one end, you put in a peanut, and it literally you turn on. And you put peanuts in it, you know, and it literally pulverizes them, and the other end comes out, this peanut butter goo. And it kind of drips out. And I'd have to collect it into a bin, into a stainless steel bowl.”
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
“And it would be in the hundreds of thousands of units just to turn the equipment on. And they're like, look, kid, we can't help you. But I tell you what, here's what you need to do. And that's how I found out the type of equipment they were using. And I'm like, okay, I want the equipment that these big guys are using because, you know, that's what they use. And that's, and someday, you know, I want to make 100,000 units. A production run. And so that was the goal. How do I get started so eventually I can hand this over to somebody else? I always had that in my mind.”
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
“So, I talked to a few stores about them, and they break down a lot. And so then you talk to other peanut butter companies. Because, I mean, the first thing I did, guys, is before I even looked at buying equipment, I contacted a few peanut butter companies. And I asked them, hey, you know, do you guys make peanut butter for other companies? They're like, yeah, we do stores, we do other companies. I'm like, that's great. Could you make it for me? And they're like, yeah, of course. Send us your recipe. And then we got to the where the rubber hit the road, which is the MOQ. What's the minimum order quantity? Yeah.”
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
“Urshall representative Ted Dietz and Ted like, look, I really shouldn't be doing this, but I got an old one that's 40 years old. I'm taken out of an old factory because they're buying a new one. I'll sell it to you at a really cheap deal.”
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
“Yeah, so this took forever. So the first thing I had to do was I defined an industrial-sized grinder. And I found out there's two types of grinders. There's a stone mill that has two grinding plates that come together and the peanuts come through the grinding plates and the tolerance of the plate is what creates the butter. And then there's a food processor, which is basically an impeller that pushes product through this circular Cutting head Called an Ursul. They make soy milk. They make ketchup, all kinds of stuff. So right away, I'm like, okay, I need this Ursul. New ones cost $75,000. And I'm like, okay, well, I can't get that. So I found the local.”
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
“And, you know, and literally, the first thing people say is peanut butter is fine, it's been like this. Some people thought was really cool. And so, anyway, so then I went to my friends and went to my family. My first investors were my uncle, my mom and dad, and my sister. And then I was able to kind of, you know, get some inheritance that, you know, was being saved for me by, you know, my grandma. So I was able to get $35,000 together. And that's how I got started.”
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
“And they're like, oh, you know, is this a college application? Are you going back to school? And I'm like, and I take the lid off the shoebox and I'm like, I want to make peanut butter. Here's a plan that I wrote.”
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
“You know, are studying to become a lawyer and then you move to California, you know, and I had a fantastic Jewish grandmother, Gladys Gold, who when I went to university, I was on work study and financial aid and at all this debt that I was going to have to repay. And then when I graduated, her gift was she financed my college, which was incredible. But she was a real stickler on education and making sure I got a good career. And so I move out west, moved to Colorado, and I'm waiting tables and everyone's, and I'm like, yeah, I'm getting closer to go back to school. You know, I'm in a college town now and everyone's, so then I come home and I'm like, hey, I've got something I want to show you guys. I'm really excited about 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
“Wrote the business plan for friends and family. The idea was $35,000 was going to buy me a grinder, buy some raw materials and some labels, and then rent kitchen time and have built enough inventory then to get started at a farmer's market. So I would basically take my business plan and I'd have a shoebox of jars that I would make with a food processor of different flavors. And I probably had about five that I wanted to launch with. And so I would go back to Western Pennsylvania and visit with my family. And you can imagine the, what's the right word here? It wasn't disappointment. It was confusion when you...”
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
“And we have natural grocers called vitamin cottage. And so I was able to learn all of these things in a condensed amount of time and fast track the whole process.”
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
“Frank Moyes, who is one of the business school professors. And I got to, I'm like, hey, Frank, could you like go through my business plan and, you know, and give me input and tear it to shreds? And so I had people like him who had given me advice on my business plan. I would meet with other founders of small companies. And I'd be like, hey, how do you scale a company? How do you grow it? Like, well, it's going to cost a lot of money. And you got to go out there and find angels. I'm like, well, how did you find an angel? Well, you got to meet with this person. So then I met with someone who was an angel investor. And I'm like, hey, what are the things that you need to see? And being naive gave me an opportunity to ask really silly questions. And I met with almost every small company that I could get my hands on. And not only did Boulder have the natural food companies, but they had a natural food retailer here called Wild Oats. And they were number two to Whole Foods.”
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
“So here I am with the library. It's a summer and it's the weekend, right? And a librarian comes up and it's like, oh, hey, what are you working on? What class is this for? I see you here every day. And I'm like, oh, I'm not a student here. I'm doing this for fun. I want to start a company. And you say that. And the librarian's like, wow, that's really cool. You know, have you talked to any of the business professors here? And I'm like, I don't know anybody here. She's like, would you like to meet one or two? And so then now, you know, I got to meet.”
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
“A little bit of both. I was writing it for me, but I knew that at the end of the day, the business plan is what I would use to try to find angel capital. Right. So, the idea was okay, let's say that this company is either going to go, get big enough, or it'll go public, or it's going to get acquired. And so here's an estimate on your return on invested capital could be. And I had to write it in that perspective. Otherwise, nobody would want to invest because there's no endgame to get their money back.”
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
“No, when I first started it was paragon peanut butter. So I wanted something that was really catchy. And so Paragon, I started calling it Paragon nut butter. Paragon naturals, paragon peanut butter. And my friends, they didn't know what paragon meant. And they couldn't remember it. So they just started calling it Justin's”
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
“That's not where I started, you know, because I didn't have permission, I felt like, to go right to celestial. So instead, I found a tiny salsa company that had glass jars and had labels and was in had to use a jar filler and had to put in there somehow. So I contacted salsa companies because that was the most like product and I started to form these relationships and they were all like in this community and they were all really helpful. Everybody wanted to be helpful.”
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
“Boulder, Boulder, Colorado. I mean, here's what's crazy so I'm writing the business plan, but the hardest part was, you know, what type of business entity do I want to be? I want to be an escort, a C-corp, an LLC. Where do you get a UPC? And how do you find an FDA food license kitchen facility? Like, where do you order jars from? Like, those are all things you can't just learn in a library. And so what I decided to do was, well, I'm going to figure out if there are any companies that are from Boulder, Colorado and just ask them. And this is where things went bonkers for me is there are a lot of food companies 20 years ago, 30 years ago that were national companies that were out of Boulder, Colorado.”
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
“Yeah, so the first thing that I knew I had to do was write a business plan. And I don't know why I thought that maybe I was talking to some friends and they said, you know, a business plan is probably what you need. And so, where I really got lucky is being in a college town. So I went to see Hughes Business Schools Library. And I wasn't intimidated to go in the library because I wasn't a student there. In fact, I felt like a student because I was the same age as a lot of these, a lot of the kids there. And what was really fascinating is at the time. The library had an encyclopedia of business plans, literally from A to Z. And so I started to write a business plan. That took probably almost a year. But that's when I'm writing the business plan, that's when something unlocked. That really gave me a competitive advantage”
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
“Yeah, I was. And I was working at a restaurant, so I'd bring samples in for the chefs and for the wait staff. And I'd be like, do you like this? Do you think it tastes good? And it was so silly because I'd be like, this is 10% honey and this is 15% honey. Like which one do you like better? And it's like, you know, who cares? But I cared. Like I was really curious.”
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