Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Jordan Cohen, Co-Founder and CEO of Heritage Biltong, located in Brooklyn, NY, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Heritage Biltong sells healthy and delicious meat-based snacks with flavors that represent the heritages of cultures around the world. Our customers range from busy moms to high-performing athletes: anyone who is health-conscious and cares about the ingredients they put in their body without sacrificing flavor.
Tell us about yourself
My partner Jason and I (Jordan) first discovered Biltong at a rugby match in Cape Town, South Africa. Used to the beer, hot dogs, and soda offered at American stadiums, we were skeptical at first… until we tried our first bite. Then, we were hooked.
The taste, the texture, everything was miles better than any snack we had ever tried in the US. But when we returned home, we couldn't find it anywhere (it's illegal to ship to the US). The only commercially available products were nowhere near the moist, tender, delicious beefy goodness we got our hands on in South Africa.
We're very different in personality and in business. But two things we have in common are a passion for staying active and a love of good food, cooking, and trying new culinary experiences. Biltong was a perfect meld of our interests: insanely delicious, insanely healthy. No junk, tons of protein, and adaptable to flavors from around the world.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
So far, customer feedback has been our biggest accomplishment! People who are familiar with Biltong love the product, and folks who have only ever tried jerky are blown away by the differences in taste and texture. Before we discovered Biltong, we had trouble finding healthy snacks that met our needs: high in protein, no artificial inflammation-inducing junk, etc... We got into this business to educate like-minded people on the existence of this incredible superfood. Our biggest accomplishment thus far has been simply getting it into the hands of those individuals and hearing how everyone has the same overwhelmingly positive reaction.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
Making decisions and prioritizing! Especially as a founder of a small team, there are countless ways you could feasibly spend your time. The trick is identifying where your efforts will have the most impact. Making decisions is also challenging: the easy stuff never finds its way to the top or across the founding team. Those questions or decisions are easy to make; the challenging stuff requires deeper thought and a process or framework, especially when you have multiple stakeholders and opinions to juggle.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- JUST START! You'll learn from trying to execute any idea, even if it fails. You can't plan for everything, and your best feedback will come from your customers. It's hard to get that if you don't have any!
- Do one thing every day that contributes to the bottom line.
- Solve your own problems. You'll care more about the business if you're selling something you would buy, and you'll be able to connect with the target audience more effectively if you have a lot in common with them.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://heritagebiltong.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heritagebiltong/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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