MEAT Jake: making a real impact through social entrepreneurship

We hear from Jake Goldberg about how he's tackling a social issue by delivering ethically and locally raised meat straight to your doorstep with NIKU farms. With only 3 months into the business, Jake offers valuable insights on what it takes to start a business from the early stages!

Name: Jake Goldberg

Where you’re from: Toronto

School/discipline: Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University & MSc from Ivey School of Business

Sirloin or Prime Rib? As long as it was grass-fed.

Are you more excited for coffee or your work each morning? I look forward to work, but I’m not productive without my coffee. So I guess coffee.

Special talent: Doing my own plumbing and electrical work via youtube videos

What are you most likely doing in your free time? Biking or Hiking

Most relevant piece of knowledge you gained from University: That the friendships and networks you build tend to have a better impact on your career, more than the things you learn in the classroom. Foster more of those relationships.

On a more serious note, we're eager to learn more about the company you created:

180 degrees: What is NIKU and what issue does is resolve?

NIKU Farms is an online platform that connects people to purchase ethically raised meat directly from local farms and have it delivered to their door.

Consumers are beginning to question what’s in the food that they’re eating - and we should be asking these questions! For meat, people are taking a hard look at industrial and factory farming. At the same time consumers still want convenience, and that’s why they still go to the grocery store more often than a farmer’s market. We make getting to know the farm where your meat came from easy. Best of all we keep the convenience factor, and meat is delivered directly from the farm to their door.

180 degrees: What was your inspiration for NIKU’s inception?

It was a actually a book. I read “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer while I was traveling, and it opened my eyes to factory farming practices that make up the majority of meat that we eat today. I decided that I would eat less meat. But when I do eat meat, I’ll buy it directly from farms raising animals the right way. The problem was that it is very hard to figure out who those farms were, and even harder taking time to drive out to those farms to buy directly from them. That’s why I started NIKU.

180 degrees: Why do you feel we should place such a great emphasis on transparency in farming practices?

Food that is grown in a sustainable and ethical way is overall better for our health and the environment. We should all have the right to know how the animals were raised and exactly where our meat is coming from - that way each and every consumer can make their own educated decision about their meat purchases. At the end of the day, we all would make better choices about our food if the food system had to be more transparent.

180 degrees: How can people do more to contribute to this initiative?

Start going to your local farmers’ markets and getting to know the farmer that’s raising the animals or growing the produce. The grocery store may seem very convenient but it’s not convenient for the planet. Most of the items at the grocery store come from thousands of kilometres away. Most towns have a farmer’s market. Start there, then come to NIKU Farms of course :)

On a more personal note, we'd love to hear about any lessons you have learned along the way:

180 degrees: What did you want to be originally/did you always know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

I honestly never really knew what I wanted to do..I probably still haven’t figured that out. What I do know is that I’m enjoying building my own business. Who knows where I’ll be in 5 years from now.

180 degrees: 5 years ago, did you expect your life to be what it is today? Would you say your life did a 180 of sorts?

I wouldn’t say my life is not where I expected it to be, because I’ve always wanted to get to where I am today. But my life still took a bit of a spin. I worked as a management consultant for many years - on other people’s projects. Worked long hours, wore a suit everyday, and spent too much time living out of a suitcase. At some point I decided to finally take the jump to the life I wanted. I quit consulting, traveled for a year with my wife, then came back to start my own business. It’s where I expected my life should be, but it took me a some time to get here.

180 degrees: Was it difficult establishing NIKU’s credibility in the early stages of the company’s formation?  

We are still a very early stage business. We’ve only officially been launched for 3 months so we definitely see it’s going to take time to build credibility. But we are learning that credibility and trust are very correlated. Right now we are focused on building customer trust. We’re relentless on making the customer experience as flawless as possible, knowing that this trust will turn into credibility when we get it right every time.

180 degrees: What do you consider to have been your greatest challenge as a young entrepreneur thus far?

Prioritizing my time. As an entrepreneur starting to grow a new business, it always feels like I have a never ending To-Do list. The biggest challenge is figuring out how to prioritize all of the initiatives I want done. When you start a business, everything is important and urgent. You need to grow quickly because you don’t have a salary. You need the perfect customer experience, but you don’t have the time or resources compared to larger companies. It’s overwhelming because it’s all on you. I’m learning that while everything is important and ideally needs to get done now, I have to make tough choices and put a pause on some of the marketing while I work on some operations, or a pause on the platform while I try to focus on sales - and that’s okay.

180 degrees: What advice would you give a young student in his early twenties, who is considering creating their own business?

Start something earlier than later. My biggest regret is that I was always coming up with business ideas throughout my time in University, but never took it to the next step of testing them out and trying to execute. You don’t have to make the full plunge into entrepreneurship right now if you don’t have the right idea, but make sure you’re at least playing with some of your ideas. Maybe work for a startup, or start a side hustle while in school. Either way get small exposure to entrepreneurship as early as you can.

180 degrees: How would you define success?

I define success as doing something meaningful. You’ll meet people everyday that have achieved more than you, by making more money, getting that big title, or gaining press recognition. These people still might not feel like they’re successful. But if you live your life with meaning or work on something that you actually enjoy doing, you’ll feel a bit of success every day.

Thank you so much for your time Jake! We appreciate your insights and hope they help other entrepreneurial spirits in their own endeavours.

Learn more about NIKU Farms here:

NIKU's Website

NIKU's Instagram