John Mackey
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
We had no background in this at all, except I'd worked a little bit in this natural food store.
But it was gonna be fun.
So we went out and hustled money.
We raised $45,000.
found Safer Way.
Safer Way, it was very idealistic store because it was vegetarian and we didn't sell alcohol, we didn't sell coffee, we didn't sell sugar.
We did very little business.
That was the takeaway.
That was the takeaway, yeah.
We were very idealistic, very pure, but we didn't meet the market where we found it.
And we were also on a residential street.
We lost
Half our money, we lost $23,000 in the first year.
But then it was like, I started reading all those books.
My dad's mentoring me, making mistakes, learning from him.
And I realized, oh, we need a different location for one thing.
We're on this residential street.
Renee and I moved out of the co-op.
We're living in the house now, this old Victorian house on the third floor, sleeping on a futon couch at night.
There's no shower or bathtub in this place.