YouSaid · the spoken record

Shazi Visram

lines on the record: 103
first: 2020-01-20
most recent: 2020-01-20
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

“It took like at least six months, and then as soon as I raised that money, I started raising the next million, like because we were like on the verge of spending it all. You know, it's just, it's like it was a churn.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He was done it originally. He was going to give us $5,000. But then he told me that his wife really needed a new oven that year and it was going to he was going to have to cut it down to $2,500.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was hearing now a million times. I could probably still remember the original investor roster. I think it was 36 people for $550,000. And Seth Goldman of Honesty was $2,500. Seth Goldman?”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. So you tell this VC firm, I'm not going to take your money, but that means you now have to find the $500,000. Because this is the number in your head. So where do you go? Who do you, how do you start to get that money?”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it might be obvious to you or to someone else, but you know, when you're in the thick of it and you're stressed out, I mean, you're using your Amex to charge peanut butter. I would eat peanut butter in my apartment in Brooklyn with a chopstick to make it last longer. Like who does that?”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we met on the internet, and we were walking into this little place in Soho, and I meet Joe, and he's this cute puppy dog of a guy. And I'm just like to kind of tell this guy my whole, and then he's like, not a business guy. And I remember part of the story is just the advice he gave me, which was like, don't do something that doesn't feel right. Like, I don't have an MBA from Columbia or a degree from an Ivy League school to tell you that. He's like a snowboarder yoga guy. I mean, but he was right. And I didn't take the deal.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was 70%. They would own 70%, have every blocking right, every right to, you know. And I was ready to sign on. And then one day one of them was just like, yeah, we love the name FAIR, F-A-R-E. And I'm like, I don't know. It doesn't feel good. And it's kind of gross. And I was just funny that was like the day that I met my husband for our first internet date.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I'm thinking the terms were so bad when they finally gave me the term sheet. That I shared it with a few different advisors, and everyone was like, Shazi, you can't take that deal. Won't really own this thing, and you know, all the things that you want to do, you're jeopardizing them by bringing on a partner who you don't really know.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I just didn't feel comfortable. And it was kind of like when I wanted to be an artist, I didn't want to ask them to support me so I could paint pictures in New York City. It just didn't feel honorable and right. And so I got a job. And then this time I found someone and I thought, okay, this is it. I'm going to raise this money.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A disappointment to my family that here I was went to Columbia Business School. I never recruited for anything. You know, everybody else is like, you know, talking about their job at Morgan or whatever. And, you know, like some of them, you know, some of my friends would be like, we're going out for sushi. I mean, I could never go.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep, the original plan was to launch in a few stores in New York, find a manufacturing facility to make it partner put together best-in-class advisory board microbiologists, nutritionists, pediatricians, like the whole, like to make it feel that I'm not an expert. I needed to bring those people together and to build out a team and have people to help because you just nobody does any of this stuff by themselves. And I almost made the worst mistake of my life. I almost took half a million dollars from a VC group because I felt so alone, you know, and I felt So broke and I felt like”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I tried everything, so I wanted to raise like half a million dollars, which to me was the current equivalent of maybe a trillion dollars.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At first, I didn't actually see it. I was the one I wanted to go with was nurture me, and our incorporation name was Nurture Inc. And then finally I started seeing happy baby and happy and like pairing the emotion. With health and I was just like who in the world doesn't want to have a happy baby? That's everything”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it was called Fresh Start Organics. That was the name I wanted. Was Fresh Start Organics And it actually turned out when I went to finally get to the trademarking that Fresh Start was taken by a woman in California who was going to do fresh frozen organic baby food, which never ended up launching. But even still, we had to come up with options. And so I remember having these little boards. And there was a naming shop. Where are they from Minnesota? And they came up with a number of options and they were like Twinkle and Google Gaga. And I mean, funny names. And one of the names they came up with was Happy Baby. And I was like,”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, no, at that point it was just me, and then I had a lot of friends who knew what I was doing. I had like almost like a support group.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was lentils, French lentils, and potatoes, carrots, and we used coriander and a tajic human and just a hint of cinnamon and all of those things had, you know, like everything had a reason. It wasn't just... It was like if you only had good stuff under the kitchen sink and you threw everything in the kitchen sink, it would be good because you started with good stuff. It was kind of like that just, you know, so many different fun combinations that... Felt right and sounded good and tasted good.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, there was one inspired by my mom called Baby Doll, and that had some more spice and some flavor in it. Was it lentils?”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did a lot of research. I talked to so many nutritionists. I have a lot of friends. And I found myself excited to just always be kind of trying new things and coming up with cute names. We had one with beets and carrots. It beta carotene. And the peas were a nice one, and they were so bright green, but I felt like they needed something, and so it would make this like really nice mint tea and steam the peas with the mint. And that, you know, I don't know, you play with it and you learn. It's fun.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think of like a little ice cube tray and then you pop out what you need. And freezing is sort of nature's best preservative.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, those were like in my kitchen. I used to have these little containers and I would make all the flavors that I thought we would one day launch.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I kept putting myself in these positions to meet people and learn because I didn't know anything about the food industry.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was doing both. I was trying to make something that I could be proud of, and then I was trying to think, well, how do you scale this and make it commercial? And you can't, here's the thing, which you're totally right about. I mean, most of the people, I mean, 99.85% of the people were just like, you are absolutely crazy. I will not touch that business with a 10-foot pole. No one is ever going to manufacture that for you. This is a hazard just from the get-go. And, you know, don't touch this industry and don't try to wake a sleeping giant. And I was like, you know, I just started talking to people. I called the Organic Trade Association. I started calling Trade Association, started going to trade shows. I met so many special people that some that you've even interviewed that I'm just so humbled about. I called them, like I called Seth Goldman, you know?”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I'm thinking. Let's come up with something that answers this need, putting some charred lamb and some kale and white beans in a puree feel so special. I'm like, let's make these special. I mean, who's putting quinoa and baby food?”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was all I lived for. After that point, I just became the baby food girl. And I did a little polling, you know. And this was, I don't think, 230 parents. More than 70% of them didn't like the taste of jarred baby food. Of that, 70%, twelve percent had made their own homemade or tried to. Of that twelve percent, I think it was only like four percent continued to do so.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And met these two women who started a frozen baby food company. And the more I looked into it, see, this is what really drove me. It was like, I actually saw this whole company as an opportunity to change children's health for the better. I really did. I thought, well, if we're starting ourselves off on processed foods, and then we're hooked on processed foods, and then we eat the standard American diet. Then we get sick. And we get sick because we don't have this health blueprint that could be based on a more natural way of living.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There was a small organic player called Earth's Best. There were little players. There was another one I remember looking at. And then there were innovations from around the world. I started seeing like there were some fresh and frozen options in the UK. I mean, I went and visited. I try to learn as much as I could about what was going on.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But in 2003, like presumably Gerber and Beechnet were like the Coke and Pepsi of baby food, but there weren't a whole lot of Know, if you think about Coke and Pepsi, you also have like a thousand other great beverages out there that you can sort of check out and organic and kombuchas and whatever is out there. Like you go to Whole Foods and there's just like endless shelves of cool, interesting drinks. Was it mainly Gerber and Beechnut in 2003 when it came to baby food?”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know, but that didn't meet the needs of my friend. She wanted something fresh and premium and alive, and she wanted something that was going to contribute to their health and that tasted good.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so what I found was So interesting that baby food as a category was created around the 1930s. Okay. And the category was created to be This new market for convenient and cheap product was consistent. And that, you know, started in the 30s with kind of the two mega giants, Beechnut and Gerber”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I asked her, you know, what's the best? Why are you feeling guilty about buying something? Like, isn't it good? And she's like, no, it's gross, comes in a jar and smells and it just doesn't, like, it's not fresh. And I thought, wow, you know, this shouldn't be one thing that you stress out about. There should be something that makes you feel good about how you feed your children. And then I started looking into it.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like was going to be the movement of the future towards creating abundance in a way that felt right, and it just kind of came together where it was like, you know, I have to do this”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I hadn't seen her in a while, and she had had twin babies, which I still think is a superhuman feat for anyone to have more than one baby at any given moment. And she was telling me she was a bad mom because, you know, she didn't have the time to make all of their food fresh from ingredients she got at the local farmer's market. And I never like to see my friends upset and berate themselves. And this is something I really cared for. And I'm like, I haven't seen you in a really long time. You just had twins. It's amazing. And you're not a bad mom from feeding them baby food out of a jar. And then it's like all of a sudden I was like, oh, well, there's got to be something better. There's not? Oh. Well, then I'm going to make something better. Because if I can make something better, it all came together for me. It wasn't just like selling a product. It was contributing to what looked like.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What happened actually was it was like the time that people started talking about the new green economy. And there was, I think it was Fortune or Forbes, but there was a story about, you know, how this could be the business of the future that makes change is like going green. And that sounds so cliche right now. But remember, this is like 20 years ago. And I remember I was like, within a day or two of reading that article, I ran into a friend of mine.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was the black sheep of the business school. I mean, I did not fit in. I did not feel like I belonged. And it's not like I was alone and everyone hated me or anything. I just didn't, I felt like I felt like a lot of the students, and this is totally different now. What brought them there was different than what brought me to business school. And I expected and wanted to meet more people that were similar-minded to me. And at that time in that era, pre the sort of 2008 humbling of the economy, there was a lot of hubris in that environment.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, I decided to go to business school because I realized that I needed more tools. So that if I had the idea to do something big, like I could do it big. And I was totally terrified of going to business school. I mean, I didn't think, and I didn't, you know, I didn't fit in. But I went with that mission. I went with, okay, I'm going to do something big one day and I'm going to need the credentials and I'm going to need the skill set to be able to really go big with it.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and using your God given incredible talent. To create abundance, but then for the wrong reasons. It's not up to you where the money goes. And I kind of grew up seeing that for yourself, you're in control and your values are the ones that you bring to the table because you're the one doing the directing. And I felt, yeah, I felt like I had to do something else.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. And it was fun. I mean, I learned a lot and it was cool. I mean, it was literally, I think the agency that I worked in was the one that Madmen is kind of based off of loosely. And I think one of the things I learned is that I was good at it. And I didn't, you know, like I didn't want to be so good at business, but I'm kind of good at it. I was on a good track for success there, but I just didn't feel good about working so hard for someone else whose values I didn't truly identify with. And when I say that thing about madmen, think about what that means. Like, why am I killing myself to make someone else so much money that they then gift their admin who's about to become their wife, a Porsche? It just, it didn't feel right.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I got a job as the first interactive media buyer at what was then and might still be the largest independently owned agency for media buying.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Never. You know, if you think about it like what I'd witnessed and kind of lived through, I had not a disdain for it, but I was just like, I don't want to be a slave to the way that they were just always on. And I saw them with the grind and it was, it's like never ending. And I didn't want”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wanted to be an artist. I went to Columbia. I was excited because I wanted to be in New York City. And so while I was in high school, I painted. My undergrad degree was in visual arts, and I did a double major in history. But yeah, I just wanted to paint pictures.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think with Indian parents, doctor is usually number one. And then you have to go to Harvard. So when I went to Columbia, it was sort of like, For my mom, it was like, well, why not Harvard? But the funny thing about them is that, of course, they wanted me to have every opportunity and they wanted me to do their mind was the traditional version of success. But the way that they lived and the ethos that they had showed me something very different. They always talked about how Meaningful and how proud they were to be owners and to be the ones who are their own boss. I mean granted they were working all the time but they're working for themselves, they're working for us, not for someone else. And I had never let that go”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I really believed that for a while. And I would come home and question my parents saying, you know, we're really good people and you guys are so nice. Why would we go to hell? And I think in that environment, I felt definitely different, but I had friends. I was like a regular kid. You know, I could invite people over to swim in the pool. We could have really good slumber parties.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I have a lot of heart for Alabama, I have to say. And my experience was really unique. So my parents, despite us living in a motel, they knew that the most important thing for us was to get the very best education. That was part of why they came to America, right? And so for them, that meant private school. And so I first through third grade went to a private Catholic school. And I was the only Indian girl in the class. And then after that, we found another school and it was a Baptist school. And so for fourth and fifth grade and sixth grade, I went to a Baptist school. I definitely felt more different there because there's when I felt like, and I was told this all the time, that because I was who I was and my family was who they were, we were clearly going to hell. And, you know, that our salvation would be if we were saved.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They figured it out, they made it work. They got some billboards off of the highway, and just like anything in life, you figure out the right price point to attract your customer. You say we have a great swimming pool, an HBO. I mean, these are early marketing lessons, I suppose, and they made it work.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Huge swimming pool. I mean, at the time it was one of the biggest in Alabama outdoor. Wow. And if you think about it, if I ever wanted something to eat, there was this chef. His name was Randy Crowder, and he would make me a burger and fries. Oh, you guys heard there was a bar. There's a little restaurant”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so we lived. Sounds so terrible, but it was actually really nice, but we lived in room 123 and 125. And they were, you know, it's like, imagine stopping at a day's in somewhere as a motel and imagine getting two adjoining rooms. That was where we lived. You know, my brother and I kind of had fun. It was like, you know, someone might say, oh, wow, you must be so poor. This must be so hard. I'm thinking, we have a hundred and four-room house. And do you have a swim? Do you have a swim?”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you're three years old, is you, your brother, your mom, and your dad, and they just relocate to this town right outside of Birmingham, Alabama to Basically, take over a day's end motel. And that's it. That's where you end up growing up. Tell me about that. I mean, so did you guys live in a apartment behind the reception area where you guys lived and then the motel was in front? Like, how did that work?”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I want to remember the exact number. I think it was $300,000. I think they had saved up $100,000 after working in Canada for seven years. And I think they put that down. And I think they bought it for $300K.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, they're inherently already risk-takers. I mean, both of them grew up completely with dirt floors under their feet. They had grit, you know what I mean? You know, and it's not like it's rocket science, it's a business like any other, and you wrap your head around it and you figure out what do we need to make this successful. Yeah, they didn't have experience. But I think like so many other things, you figure it out as you go.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I remember I was three years old, and my dad had this friend, and he was in the motel business and in the southeast. And there are a lot of Indians in motels in the southeast. And this guy sold my parents a motel outside of Birmingham, Alabama. We packed up all of our stuff and then we moved down to Fultonale, Alabama and lived in the motel.”
2020-01-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT