Michael Salguero: Real Life Overnight Success

Michael Salguero is the CEO of Butcher Box, a meat packaging and shipping company which started in Sept 2015 as a Kickstarter campaign. Butcher Box manufactures grass-fed beef, pork and chicken and brings it to the doorsteps of thousands of consumers. They ship hundreds of thousands of meals per week and have been growing at an astonishing rate of 20%, month over month. Tune-in as Michael gives listeners an inside look at the operations of Butcher Box. He discusses what it’s like to work with influencers, how he drives operational efficiencies and saves on costs and shares the struggles he’s faced while growing the incredibly successful, Butcher Box.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:35 – Butcher Box clocked a revenue of 3.25 million dollars last month, shipping 150,000 meals per week 03:25 – Michael was contemplating a business with minimal infrastructure when he started his entrepreneurial journey 05:18 – Butcher Box has zero outside funding at the moment 30 – Michael raised 30 million dollars in his last venture and realized that some businesses do not really require that much money 05:40 – Self-enforced constraints on fund availability has fueled growth and led to new marketing avenues 06:27 – Michael spent a lot of time on brand building in the initial stages 06:45 – He went shopping for an investment banking deal—not with the idea of raising funds but to eliminate all objections 07:26 – Michael might consider selling out to a company that is able to source and cut at a cheaper rate, selling out to a private equity player is another alternative 08:42 – The best time to sell is when you don’t need to 09:00 – Michael’s five year dream is to develop a pipeline of several brands using the current Butcher Box backbone 09:57 – Venturing into dog food is a possibility 10:23 – Lean Cuisine is also an alternative 11:04 – Tracking the Amazon success story 11:04 – When Amazon was valued at $11 billion in 1998, quite a few detractors thoughts it was grossly overvalued 12:25 – Amazon leveraged their success through a very strong backbone for their products and Butcher Box is attempting to do something similar 13:10 – Build a platform to sell products and drive down fixed costs 14:44 – Michael divides his time equally between coming up with a marketing strategy and driving operational efficiencies 15:05 – Butcher Box’s Trojan Horse Marketing Strategy 15:05 – He received kickstarter signups after connecting with an influencer who is a paleo diet enthusiast 16:06 – Work with a kickstarter influencer and include their headshot and description on the recipe card 16:50 – Michael replicated this strategy with other influencers in the paleo space 18:38 – Understanding Butcher’s Box strategy of paying commission to propels sales further 21:00 – Similarities and differences between Influencer marketing and affiliate marketing 21:55 – ButcherBox has 400 affiliates at the moment, 40 or 50 affiliates are responsible for driving the majority of business 23:30 – The larger affiliates manage to sign up 100 people in one email blast 23:35 – The biggest campaign resulted in 500 signups 24:52 – Driving operational efficiencies at Butcher Box 24:52 – Growth results in opening up of different avenues of cost savings 25:09 – Saving a penny per pound will have a magnified effect, which can result in thousands of dollars in savings 26:35 – Streamlining your supply chain can result in better value for the customer, lower the costs to gain higher profits 28:18 – With intense competition from grocery stores and farmer’s markets, arriving at operational efficiencies is of paramount importance 29:48 – More distribution facilities have resulted in cutting down 4 days of shipping to 1 day shipping 31:50 – Overall meat consumption is rising, but beef consumption is stagnant; grass-fed beef, though is extremely high in demand 31:58 – There are two kinds of customers: An urban, quality-conscious customer and another one who lives in a “food desert” in the middle of nowhere 32:58 – A quality discerning customer against eating beef has warmed up to this new way of eating beef 33:28 – Reformed vegetarians are also pushing up demand 34:25 – What are the struggles that you went through? 34:45 – Walking in with a ton of “baggage” since his previous company, CustomMade folded 35:16 – Noone in the “bunker”; no co-founder or partner to help manage the company 35:43 – Wrestling with inner demons and maintaining confidence 36:37 – “It is grit. It is going out and doing it again and again and again till you get the right shoes to take you up the right hill”. 38:56 – Boxers or Briefs Keys or Pickup? – Pickup Jeans or Khakis? – Jeans Steak, Chicken or Fish? – Steak Mountains or Oceans? – Mountains Dog or Cat? – Dog Sailboat or Power? – Power City or Country? – City County, Rock and Roll or Pop? – Country 40:21 – Connect with Michael on his email 41:36 – Write down the culture and values of an organization

3 Key Points:

There are a lot of different businesses do NOT require a lot of money upfront. Influencer marketing or affiliate marketing is a cost-effective way to market your product. A small adjustment with your pricing can be magnified to thousands of dollars in savings as your business scales.

Resources Mentioned:

Butcher Box – Michael’s company website Lean Cuisine – possible partnering company Built to Sell – Michael’s Top Business Book