I am still stunned by the fact that my class was given the chance to have a product development talk by the one and only founder of Beyond Meat, Brent Taylor. Beyond Meat is a widely successful plant-based, meatless patty that has swept the market and is now being served in establishments from Whole Foods to Burger King. It has been one of the first companies to make a vegan meat patty like this and is done through careful genetic engineering of plant products and a lot of smart thinking.
Our speaker, Brent Taylor is now both the Co-Founder of not only Beyond Meat, but also Perrenial, a plant-based nutritional drink for seniors. He has gained a ton of experience in what it takes to start a successful business and even more what it takes to create a great product from scratch. Spoiler alert... it takes a LOT.
In our class he gave us a lot of advice about building a product from the ground up, along with some insightful advice about how to stay professional and strong throughout the whole process. I was jotting down countless pro tips from him throughout the lecture and I think the only way to continue this reflection is by quickly sharing those points:
Start with a meaningful purpose and vision
Controversy isn't always a bad thing - it can lead to discussion and value
Branding is critical
Sometimes you need to give people what they can't imagine until you put it in front of them
Don't rest, keep pushing on innovation
Sequence channel development in a focused patient manner that pairs well with your products development and brand efforts
Important to build trust, credibility and find validation
Find the right mentors to surround yourself with
Hardest obstacle of building a business is the mental stamina
Must separate ego from business "if the business fails, doesn't mean I fail"
Some pretty great points. A lot of the time, it can seem easy from the outside to start a business. However, its quite the opposite. For Brent, it took years for him to get his product off the ground, which makes him so wise in business advice today. Building a business is a roller coast of success, failure and confidence. Its important in these types of talks to remember that and to continually recognize the mental state that must be kept in check while developing a product. I think the key to success is keeping a steady, strong headspace. So I'm happy that Brent touched on some of those points in his talk.
After this, he also talked about the stages of product development. He said that each stage must be completed before moving on to the next stage which is an extremely valuable piece of advice. I took this with me into our Marketing for Good project, I think that most of the trouble we ran into was from moving too fast through the steps and completing some before they needed to. This resulted in a lot of failed project ideas, time wasted building products only to change it the next day and confusion. If we took each step a little slower and more careful, I think the outcome would have been much different. Adding onto before, building a business takes confidence AND knowing how to manage and work with a team well. Brent touched on this lightly towards the end of the talk, but it's extremely important.
Overall, I was able to leave this talk feeling inspired and with a new box of advice to take with me down the road.
Thank you Brent Taylor!
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