Young Founders Podcast

Nik Ingersoll (Co-Founder & CMO, Barnana)

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Nik Ingersoll joins us on this episode of the Young Founders Podcast as we discussed his experience building the Barnana brand.

Barnana is a healthy, organic snack product found across the US in popular chains like Healthy Living, Whole Foods, and even Starbucks. Barnana has been featured in a ton of publications like Clean Eating, Good Housekeeping, The Vegetarian Times, Womens Running, Popsugar, and more.

Nik himself was recognized by Forbes as a top 30 under 30 entrepreneur.

Some of our conversation includes:

  • Raising $300k in the first year of starting Barnana
  • How much equity you should give away in your first round of funding
  • His mindset around entrepreneurship and hustle
  • Why his first real business was a web consultancy and how he used it to support his second business
  • What it feels like to be too early to market (his augmented reality business)
  • Why you should ignore the doubters

    • Nik Ingersoll, BarnanaYou really have to be confident in yourself and feel happy within yourself. You don't have to look for external motivation in that way. Anybody giving you the advice that your idea sucks, your products sucks, they can suck it.
    • How he keeps track of his to-do lists and holds himself accountable
    • Why execution trumps ideas every time
    • What is an "escalation of commitment" and why you should avoid it
    • Why your goal in business should be to optimize for freedom
    • The importance of building a personal brand
      • Nik's Top 3 Recommended Books for Young Entrepreneurs
      1. The Dichotomy of Leadership by Jocko Willink
      2. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
      3. Letters from a Stoic by Seneca the Younger
        4. Nik Ingersoll, BarnanaA true entrepreneur is someone who has a very high tolerance for risk taking that truly does love to make things out of thin air. To think of something and then turn it into a reality. And also somebody who is willing to eat plates and plates and plates of shit until the shit turns into steak.

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