Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Kris Schlesser, founder of LuckyBolt, located in San Diego, CA, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
LuckyBolt makes everyday food with ingredients that we source directly from local farms, including seasonal produce, pasture-raised chicken and eggs, and regeneratively-raised grass-fed beef. The quality, freshness, and sustainability of our ingredients are really what sets our food apart. We make everything in-house from scratch, including a variety of baked goods, pickles, ferments, and preserves. There are a couple of different ways to get food from LuckyBolt. Our weekly meal prep service offers prepared meals and staples that make it easy to stock your kitchen with good food for the whole family. Customers can either have our food delivered right to their home, or they can pick it up from our Kitchen + Takeaway in Sorrento Valley, where we also serve breakfast and lunch from 10 am - 3 pm Mon - Fri.
We're always looking for ways to elevate the experience for our customers, so we do a lot of experimenting with different ingredients and techniques in our kitchen. We also do a lot of collaborations with other chefs, which is always fun and rewarding because we get to learn new techniques and our customers benefit from getting really nice food crafted by chefs who have spent decades training in Michelin-starred kitchens.
LuckyBolt is for people with discerning taste who want to know they're consuming healthy and environmentally sustainable food. Our team focuses on nourishing our customers and making sure they feel connected to the community of farmers who produce the ingredients that we use.
Tell us about yourself
I've always been interested in good food as a lifestyle. As a young adult, I was hip to the old saying, "you are what you eat," and I always looked for eateries that used fresh ingredients from local farms. The inspiration to start LuckyBolt came from early in my career when I was working a busy desk job in New York City. I was in finance, chained to a desk all day, and found it challenging to maintain a steady diet of good food. By "good food," I mean honest, clean meals crafted with care using fresh ingredients from local farms that practice healthy agriculture. Even in Manhattan at the time, it wasn't all that easy to find good food. Of course, there were plenty of fine dining establishments with impeccable supply chains, but those types of places are of little help when you're busy and don't have an unlimited budget.
In my mind, it shouldn't be a luxury to get this kind of food. It's what everyone should be eating all the time. I had an idea for a way to make it super easy and affordable for busy people to get good food when they're busy at work, but I didn't pursue it right away. The idea kept rattling around in my head. After talking about it for several years, I set out to bring this vision to life, and it was then that I first got into the business of feeding people.
My main motivation is to improve other people's lives by making it easier for them to consume food that's good for them and good for the community. I got into the food business very naively, which is to say I had no idea how hard it really is to operate a sustainable business. Doing what we do to nourish customers while providing a meaningful quality of life for all of our workers is a tremendous challenge, especially in the COVID era. It presents a wildly complex problem. At my core, I am a problem solver, so I feel constantly challenged to solve a problem that has the potential to improve the lives of others.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
I view LuckyBolt's supply chain as my greatest achievement. Knowing that we're using ingredients that are raised in a sustainable fashion means a lot to me. If it were easy, then every restaurant in town would do what we do. Unfortunately, it's not easy to get food that's made with local, sustainable ingredients.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
Owning a business, especially as a solo entrepreneur, comes with a lot of responsibilities. The biggest challenge is building the right team, which means recruiting the right people and ensuring they have the resources they need to be successful. It's unlikely that anyone will care as much as you do about your business, so you have to work hard to nurture your team and get them to embrace your values. In order to be successful, you have to trust your team to do a good job. The landscape is riddled with challenges and opportunities, so it can be easy to get distracted from working on the things that will deliver the most impact to your business.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- "Starting" a business is pretty easy. "Growing" a business is one of the hardest things you'll ever do. Take care of yourself first. This may sound selfish, but it really isn't. If you're not paying yourself a livable wage, staying in shape, maintaining a healthy work/life balance
then it will ultimately come to a head. - Be honest with yourself about how your business is doing. Don't delude yourself into thinking something is working when it really isn't. It's perfectly okay to try and fail, so long as you give it your best try and you're honest about the results. Success will come from trying lots of different things and doing more of what works and none of what doesn't work.
- Think of your business like a three-legged stool. The legs are You, Your Team, and Your Customers. Marketing is very important because that's how you build a strong base of customers who literally support your business. You have to know who your ideal customer is and how to find them. It can be easy to prioritize other things over marketing. If you do that, then you're basically building a stool with a weak leg.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
You can't do everything yourself, so don't be afraid to seek help.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.luckybolt.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LuckyBoltSD
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luckybolt/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristopherschlesser/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own subscription business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.