Justin Mares

Kettle and Fire hit $100M+ on only $10M raised

Justin Mares says Kettle and Fire passed a $100M revenue run rate while raising only $10M in primary capital over 9 years, running profitably with just 34 employees.

“one of the things that I'm very proud of is we've raised only $10 million in primary capital since starting the company. And so it's been pretty capital efficient and we've been focused on building the trend, but also building a good business since we started it 9 years ago.”

Take any human health trend and build the dog version

Mares' core thesis: pet health trends lag human ones by a few years (like Farmer's Dog followed Blue Apron/HelloFresh), and with millennials/Gen Z owning more dogs than babies, there's gold in porting human health products to dogs.

“I think that there are a lot of these health trends that like people are getting into that you are going to see become popular now and in 2 to 3, 4 years are going to be popular for pets, especially because now it's something like, I think that millennials or Gen Z like literally have more dogs than babies or something like that. The market is growing incredibly quickly, although I don't have a dog, but I think there's like a lot a lot of gold in that sort of like take human health thing and apply it to a dog like health product.”

Steal thisPick a hot human health product (clean water, supplements, fresh food) and ship the dog version 2-3 years before the trend arrives for pets.

Premium dog health products: water filters, peptides, natural kennels

Mares riffs on specific dog-health startups for owners who already view life through a health lens: a high-end dog water filter (a 'Rorra for dogs'), peptide supplements, and kennels made from natural materials.

“why is there not a reasonably sized company just doing like Aurora, like a really, you know, R-O-R-R-A, like a really high-end water filter., but geared towards dogs or something like that. I don't know. I think like dog saunas and dog cold plunges is probably a little too far, but certainly I think that, uh, there's like a bunch of peptide supplements, you know, water filtration, things like that, that even like doing dog kennels and things like this with more natural materials that probably would do quite well”

Steal thisBuild a high-end dog water filter brand aimed at health-obsessed owners who already filter their own water.

Light Labs: modern toxin-testing lab that turns results into marketing

Mares describes his brother's company Light Labs: a modern lab that tests CPG brands not just for required heavy metals but for PFAS, phthalates, glyphosate and pesticides, then publishes results via website or in-store QR code so transparency becomes a sales driver.

“what Light Labs is doing is they're basically building a lab testing, toxin testing company, like a modern one, for consumer brands like Kettle Fire, where they do two things. Like, they will test for nutrition, nutrition fact panel, uh, run the normal, like, heavy metals testing, things like that. But they also do a longer tail of rarer tests like phthalates, PFAS, glyphosates, pesticides, things like that. And then once they run these tests, they actually expose it and push the most recent versions of a brand's lab tests to both their website.”

Steal thisTurn a brand's mandatory lab-testing cost center into a consumer-facing transparency badge (QR code on shelf) that drives sales.

Eurofins, the lab giant, is an $11-12B company

Mares names Eurofins as the biggest incumbent lab-testing business at roughly an $11-12B market cap, framing it as a slow, hard-to-use competitor Light Labs aims to beat on product and service.

“the biggest one is called Eurofins. I think it's like an $11 or $12 billion company.”

Turn a cost center into a revenue line

Mares frames Light Labs' wedge as converting Kettle and Fire's $500K/year lab-testing expense from a compliance cost into a revenue-generating, marketing-style function for the whole industry.

“We can do a better job servicing CPG brands. We already know how to do that from his experience at Kettle and Fire. And then we have the opportunity to build out this entire other business where we can build like consumer awareness of these different toxic compounds and turn, you know, Kettle Fire's $500,000 a year of lab testing expense into an actual revenue-generating function and almost like a marketing line item.”

Steal thisFind an expensive, mandatory cost every company in your industry already pays and rebuild it as a revenue-generating, brand-building product.

The capital-heavy startup is a perfect Act 2 company

Mares argues that businesses requiring millions upfront (buying a lab, equipment) are hard to fund for a 22-year-old but make sense as a second company for a 29-year-old founder with domain expertise and a track record.

“it's the type of company that I think is, it's the perfect like act 2 company. Like Nick has experience, domain expertise, can raise money. And when your first thing is like, hey, we have to raise, you know, millions of dollars and we're going to write a check for like, you know, multiple millions to like buy a laboratory and buy lab equipment, all this stuff. It's tough to make that bet on like a 22-year-old, but on a 29-year-old with some experience, like, it makes more sense.”

Steal thisSave capital-intensive, expertise-heavy ideas for your second company, when your track record can raise the money a first-timer can't.

FDA tolerances let nutrition labels be off by up to 50%

Mares explains the FDA allows wide error bands on nutrition facts, often plus or minus 10% but up to 30-50% depending on the compound, which is why labels (and calorie counts) can be substantially inaccurate.

“the FDA, first, depending on the, the compound, or the nutrient, like they'll have a limit that is often it's 10 plus, plus or minus 10% for sure. Oftentimes it's upwards of like 30, 40, even 50% depending on the compound. Because as you can imagine, some of these things are fairly sensitive, like potassium or iodine or things like this that are present in minuscule amounts.”

Why Function Health wins: one price for $7-8K worth of bloodwork

Mares attributes Function Health's explosive growth (a fast-growing a16z company) to a simple value prop: one ~$500 annual membership for 190+ blood markers that a doctor would charge $7,000-$8,000 for or refuse to run.

“It's like one price, one annual membership. Get this slew of tests. Like if you had— if you went to your doctor and asked for the same test that Function would give you, it would be like, do they don't let you? Well, well, so if you went to— right, they either don't let you or it would be like $7,000 or $8,000. And so Function is like $500 a year.”

Steal thisBundle a fragmented, gatekept, expensive service into one flat annual membership priced at a fraction of the a la carte cost.

Biomarker coaches will replace 'get shredded' personal trainers

Mares predicts that as millions get cheap blood testing, a new wave of apps, trainers and services will emerge built around optimizing specific markers (ApoB, LDL, thyroid) rather than just visible aesthetics.

“So sort of like today we have personal trainers who help you get shredded because like that's kind of the only thing people can see. I think in the future we'll have like apps, trainers, services, things like this that are specific to Sam wants to lower his ApoB score or Sam wants to improve his, you know, LDL or something like that. Sam wants to improve his thyroid. Like, I think all of these things are newly going to be marketing angles and things that people talk about because they have this insight into their body.”

Steal thisBuild coaching/products that target a single named blood marker (ApoB, LDL, thyroid) instead of generic 'get fit' goals.

Creators will own equity in distribution-dependent businesses, not just take affiliate fees

Mares predicts the future of creator monetization is owning chunks of good businesses that rely on the creator's distribution (like Mark Hyman with Function Health), rather than collecting per-referral affiliate fees.

“this is how creators are going to monetize more in the future is like owning chunks of very good businesses that rely on distribution rather than just like, I'm Mark Hyman and I get an affiliate fee every time I refer someone to check out Function Health or something, you know?”

'Function Health for your house' — a home toxin-assessment service

Mares describes his investment Lightwork, which sends someone to test a home's air quality, water, VOCs and EMF exposure; even a billionaire's home rated badly. He sees a big opportunity in 'home health' assessments.

“I think that a company like Lightwork or others that brings this sort of home health test assessment almost like function, you know, function health for your house is like a really, really big opportunity.”

Steal thisOffer a concierge home-health audit (air, water, VOCs, EMF) now, then scale it with an AI app that lets owners self-assess by walking around with a phone camera.

A moldy house on a power line nearly destroyed a healthy 31-year-old couple

The Lightwork founder and his wife, both healthy 31-year-olds, moved into a house atop a power line with hidden mold; over a year every health marker collapsed. Only after extensive experimentation did they realize their home was making them sick, which inspired the company.

“He and his wife actually moved into a house. That house was on top of a power line. That house had like a bunch of mold issues that they didn't realize about when they moved in. And over the course of a year, their health on like every marker, energy, everything just like collapsed. And so they went, you know, they went— they're healthy. They're 31. They went to normal doctors. They went to all these people. And only after a crazy amount of experimentation and talking to doctors did they realize, wow, it's our health that like our home is actually making us sick.”

Skincare from the inside out: gut-health + topical cosmetics brand

Mares has wanted this company to exist for 7 years: a large cosmetics brand that treats skin as an expression of gut health, combining effective topical skincare with gut-based interventions (probiotics, bone broth, an elimination diet) to outperform topicals alone.

“I think there is an opportunity to build an incredibly large cosmetics company, you know, a skincare company. Combining topical applied skincare that's actually effective with gut-based interventions that are going to like improve your skin from sort of the inside out. And I've like wanted this company to exist for 7 years now.”

Steal thisLaunch a skincare brand that pairs effective topicals with a 30-60 day gut protocol (probiotics, bone broth, elimination diet) and sell it as inside-out skin transformation.

Dogs in polyester underwear lost 60-70% of sperm count

Mares cites studies where dogs made to wear polyester underwear saw sperm counts drop 60-70%, which rebounded after switching off polyester. He calls polyester the number-one contributor to microplastics from shedding in the wash.

“polyester clothing is like the number one contributor to microplastics basically. They like shed like crazy when you're washing them. And there was, there's some studies that have been done around, they basically took dogs and had them wear polyester underwear and their sperm count went down like 60 or 70%. And then they switched them off of polyester underwear and like it came right back up.”

TrueMed: buy exercise and healthy food with tax-free HSA/FSA money

Mares' current company TrueMed lets consumers spend tax-free HSA/FSA dollars on exercise, healthy food and supplements, giving partnered brands a built-in discount mechanism.

“My company now is called TrueMed. We're basically making it so you can buy exercise, healthy food supplements using tax-free HSA or FSA money. So if you go to TrueMed.com, you can see a bunch of the brands where you can spend tax-free dollars.”

Steal thisLet customers pay for your health-adjacent product with pre-tax HSA/FSA dollars to effectively discount it 20-40% with no margin hit.

Chronic conditions up 700% in 90 years

Justin states that chronic conditions like cancer, asthma, heart disease and diabetes have grown 700% over the last 90 years, while a century ago the US chronic disease burden was roughly 95% lower than today.

“things like this that have grown 700% in the last, you know, 90 years.”

Chronic conditions up 700% in 90 years

Justin states that chronic conditions like cancer, asthma, heart disease and diabetes have grown 700% over the last 90 years, while a century ago the US chronic disease burden was roughly 95% lower than today.

“things like this that have grown 700% in the last, you know, 90 years.”

An annual health checkup for your house

Justin pitches a home-services company that audits the spaces you spend 80% of your time in (bedroom, kitchen, office) for water, air, EMFs, light and mold, then sells ongoing remediation services. Home services is a ~$40B/year market where no one optimizes for occupant health.

“How do we make it so that these spaces that you're spending time in are maximally healthy and health-promoting? And I have a friend actually who just started a company in the home health testing space that's doing super well. They're testing like water, air, EMFs, light, stuff like that.”

Steal thisSell a free home health audit (water, air, light, EMFs, mold), then upsell recurring remediation services like the pest-control playbook.

Premium ribeye: $60-70/lb vs $20 at Whole Foods

Justin contrasts pricing to show the willingness-to-pay for premium meat: a top Whole Foods ribeye runs about $20/lb, while a Snake River Farms ribeye runs $60-70/lb.

“If you buy Whole Foods Best Ribeye, probably going to cost you like $20 a pound or something like this. If you buy like the best ribeye from, um, you know, from Snake River, it's going to be like $60 to $70 per pound.”

Premium ribeye: $60-70/lb vs $20 at Whole Foods

Justin contrasts pricing to show the willingness-to-pay for premium meat: a top Whole Foods ribeye runs about $20/lb, while a Snake River Farms ribeye runs $60-70/lb.

“If you buy Whole Foods Best Ribeye, probably going to cost you like $20 a pound or something like this. If you buy like the best ribeye from, um, you know, from Snake River, it's going to be like $60 to $70 per pound.”

99.5% of US chicken is one breed, harvested at 6 weeks

Justin states nearly all chicken eaten in the US is a single genetic breed, the Cornish Cross, bred purely for how fast it gains mass, with an average born-to-harvest life of about six weeks.

“Today, 99.5%, I believe, of every chicken eaten in the US is one genetic breed, which is the Cornish Cross, which is bred for how quickly it puts on weight and the types of grains that it can basically eat.”

Calibrate for Fertility: a pre-IVF subscription

Justin pitches a 3-6 month subscription of peptides, supplements and environmental fixes to boost natural fertility before couples spend $20K-30K on invasive IVF. He frames it as a several-hundred-dollar-a-month lifestyle intervention as the first step.

“do this like, you know, several hundred dollars a month sort of lifestyle-based fertility approach. Uh, and we're going to try and help you conceive naturally without having to go through IVF.”

Steal thisOffer a low-cost monthly fertility protocol (peptides, supplements, environmental review) as the cheaper first step before couples commit to IVF.

Calibrate hit $100M+ revenue in first 2 years

Justin explains Calibrate paired GLP-1s like Ozempic with coaching to wean patients off the drug, got it partly insurer-covered, and scaled to over $100M in revenue within its first two years.

“And so in the first 2 years, they got to like over $100 million in revenue and just scaled insanely quickly.”

Pick one problem to compound your whole career

Justin's approach to entrepreneurship: choose one problem you deeply care about (for him, the chronic disease crisis) and orient your entire career around it. The relationships, brand, and domain knowledge compound across many shots on goal, even when the specific ventures look different.

“I think that if you decide This is the problem that I am the most interested in the world, that I deeply care about, that I read about for fun, and just orient your career around trying to start things or be involved in things that make that problem better or solve that problem. Like, you get so many shots on goal, even if they may look different.”

Steal thisPick one problem you'd read about for fun and aim your whole career at it; the relationships and knowledge compound across every venture.

Validate a CPG product with a fake landing page first

Before having any product, Justin mocked up an ugly Unbounce landing page, paid $10 on Fiverr for a logo, and ran Facebook/AdWords/Bing ads selling a $29.99 box of bone broth. He put in $500 and sold ~$2,000 in a month, then refunded buyers, using the test to confirm demand.

“mocked up an ugly landing page on Unbounce, paid someone on Fiverr $10 to make a terrible logo, and basically started selling a box at $29.99.”

Steal thisTest demand with a fake landing page and paid ads before building the product; refund early orders if it works.

Kettle & Fire: $120K life savings to $2.8M year one

At 25, Justin put every dollar of his life savings into a $120K first production run of shelf-stable bone broth, joking he'd either succeed or eat bone broth for two years. The company did $2.8M in year one and got pulled into Whole Foods after a buyer saw an influencer post.

“I put literally every dollar of my life savings at that point. I was 25 into doing the first run of our product. They had $30,000 minimum runs. It was like $120K kind of run budget. So I was like, either this is going to work great or I'm going to eat bone broth for 2 years.”

Kettle & Fire + Perfect Keto did over $100M combined in 2019

Justin Mares reveals that his two DTC food/supplement brands, Kettle & Fire (bone broth) and Perfect Keto, did north of $100 million in combined revenue in 2019.

“that's not cumulative. You know, we stopped sort of disclosing revenue numbers recently, but I can say in 2019, like, the two businesses combined did north of $100 million.”

Side hustle type 1: buy an underpriced asset and upgrade it

Justin Mares's first category of side hustle: buy an existing cash-flowing asset, apply your skills to make it more cash-flow positive, and capture the value of the upgrade. He cites buying an email newsletter for $1M and selling it for 3-5x after improving it.

“the first one that I talk about is like buying an existing asset. Basically, you can look at like what's an existing asset that, that you could try and purchase leverage your skills, connections, resources, whatever, uh, to upgrade that, you know, make it more cash flow positive, make it do better, whatever. And then you get to capture the value created by upgrading that asset.”

Steal thisFind an underpriced cash-flowing asset, apply one skill you have to lift its value, then capture the delta or flip it.

Bought FOMO app with $0 down, paid seller from its own revenue

Justin Mares and a partner bought 85% of the Shopify app FOMO (then doing $14K/month) for under $400K, structured as monthly payments over 20 months funded by the app's own revenue. They came out of pocket roughly $0 to acquire it.

“we bought 85% of the business, we bought it, and then we were basically like, we're going to buy this and pay you in monthly chunks for the next 20 months. And so every like month for 20 months we used the revenue that we were making from FOMO to make our payment to him. And like my partner and I basically came out of pocket $0 to acquire this asset.”

Steal thisStructure an acquisition as seller-financed monthly payments funded by the target's own cash flow so you put in near-zero of your own money.

FOMO app grew from $14K to $95K/month after acquisition

After buying the Shopify app FOMO for under $400K (when it did $14K/month), Justin Mares grew it to about $95,000 per month.

“Now it does about $95,000 a month.”

Bought a 14-unit Vegas building, Airbnb'd it, sold for 70% more

Justin Mares applied his buy-an-asset playbook to real estate: bought a 14-unit apartment building in Vegas, put it all on Airbnb to roughly triple the cash flow, then sold it 18 months later for 70% more than he paid.

“we ended up doing this too with an apartment building in Vegas where we bought a 14-unit apartment building., could put it all on Airbnb, basically like tripled the cash flow and then sold it 18 months later for, you know, 70% more than what we paid.”

Steal thisBuy a multi-unit building, convert units to short-term Airbnb rentals to multiply cash flow, then sell on the higher income.

Side hustle type 2: own the supply side of an existing marketplace

Justin Mares's second side-hustle category: find a marketplace with existing demand (Airbnb, Amazon, Udemy) where you only have to provide supply. The platform finds the customers; you just learn its ranking rules and feed it inventory.

“look at what is a marketplace with existing demand where you don't have to go out and find the customer. You just provide the supply side stuff like buying, you know, putting a property on Airbnb. All I have to do is understand how does the property like, or how does Airbnb dictate where I rank, you know, and what does it want from me as a supplier? And then my shit is going to get booked up.”

Steal thisPick a marketplace that already has demand and become the supply, learning only its ranking algorithm rather than hunting customers.

A bedroom-filmed Udemy course still pays $1K/month years later

Justin Mares filmed 'SQL for Marketers' over 5 days in his bedroom with no editing. Because Udemy was an early platform with little competition in technical marketing, the course sold ~$60K over a couple years and still earns him about $1,000/month.

“that course sold, I think like $60 grand over the next couple of years. And to this day, I still get like $1,000 a month from that course from Udemy. Which is absurd. And, you know, that was all because like, here's an emerging platform, they want people creating stuff on the supply side.”

Steal thisBe early on an emerging content platform and own a niche topic before competition arrives to capture long-tail passive income.

Kettle & Fire was validated by 2,000 monthly 'buy bone broth' searches

Justin Mares validated Kettle & Fire before building by checking the Google AdWords keyword tool: ~2,000 people/month searched 'buy bone broth online.' At a 10% conversion and ~$50 orders, that math suggested a viable side hustle, which is why he launched.

“there's 2,000 people a month looking for like buy bone broth online. And so if we can be the supplier that will sell you bone broth online, like, you know, assuming we convert like even 10% of those people, 200 orders, $50 a month, like, you know, that's a pretty material side hustle.”

Steal thisBefore building a product, multiply monthly search volume by a conservative conversion rate and order value to size the opportunity.

Incubate-and-install: hand a vetted business to an operator-CEO

Justin Mares's model for new ventures (e.g. Surely non-alcoholic wine): he generates and validates the idea, lines up supply chain and investors, then recruits an operator-CEO who walks into a ready-made company taking equity upside but a salary instead of the usual founder risk.

“I incubated the idea, had everything lined up, validated that it was big, brought investors, uh, and basically was like, hey man, if you want to be a founder and CEO, you can just walk into this role. You take zero healthcare, zero salary risk, uh, and you're, you're good. Like, you're a founder, you have a ton of upside, you're this operating CEO, we have investors lined up, it's a big opportunity.”

Steal thisDe-risk the founder role by incubating and validating the idea yourself, then recruit an operator-CEO to run it for equity plus salary.

A $25/day accountability bet that fills 50-person CGM cohorts monthly

Justin Mares ran a wearable glucose challenge: participants pay ~$950 for 30 days and get $25 back each day they stay under a glucose threshold. The tiny daily incentive drove strong adherence and filled 50-person cohorts every month with no marketing.

“how well that incentive of like $25 a day really worked for people to keep them, keep them honest. Like, you go through, you know, pay $950 for 30 days, every day that you stay under a barrier, I like give you $25 back. And just that tiny little behavior like incentive where that brownie or whatever is not $4, but it's $29.”

Steal thisWrap a health goal in a daily cash-back bet so each small temptation carries a visible financial penalty.

First clean-label non-alcoholic wine brand in a wide-open category

Justin Mares launched Surely after noticing the non-alcoholic boom (Bud Light bought 3 Super Bowl spots, including Bud Zero) had produced good NA beers and spirits but nothing in wine. He built the first clean-label, high-quality non-alcoholic wine brand to fill the gap.

“we saw like a ton of really good non-alcoholic beers, some really good like non-alcoholic spirits options. And nothing in the wine category. And so we decided to build the first clean label, really high quality, nonalcoholic wine brand and wine company hired like real winemaking talent and the like.”

Steal thisWhen a category is booming, find the one product format nobody has built yet and own it as the first clean, high-quality brand.

Matchmaking by credit-card purchase history, not Hinge profiles

Justin Mares pitches matching people by their spending history rather than dating-profile self-descriptions, arguing where someone spends money reveals real lifestyle compatibility. The group concludes it works better as a matchmaking service than a broad dating app.

“I think that like where you spend your resources tells a lot about someone that a Hinge profile doesn't. And so I suspect if like you were to say, hey, we are matching the two of you up because you spend an absurd amount of your income on Atlas, like weird butcher shop in Austin or at Whole Foods, like, we're probably going to get along, you know, or at least have a higher odds of doing that from a lifestyle compatibility standpoint than, than Hinge does, you know.”

One VA per two employees for ~30% more productivity

Justin Mares runs Kettle & Fire with one virtual assistant for every two team members, trained to take repetitive work off people's plates, which he credits for roughly 30% more productivity. He also pitches automation-as-a-service: someone who embeds in meetings and continuously automates processes.

“I think the average company— and we do this at my company— could just be 30% more productive. Like, we have basically one virtual assistant hire for every two people that we have that are on the team. And we give them like a training that's like, here's how to use virtual assistants, get all of the repetitive stuff off your plate.”

Steal thisHire one trained VA for every two employees and systematically offload repetitive tasks to lift team productivity ~30%.

Money + measurement weight-loss challenge with glucose monitors

Justin Mares ran a 28-day challenge: 20 people Venmo $900 (he keeps $100), get a glucose monitor, and earn back $800 over 28 days by keeping blood sugar under the limit. Sam calls it the most effective weight-loss product he's tried.

“A few weeks ago, he tweeted out that he was going to do this thing where we would all Venmo him $900. He keeps $100 for his fee and $800 we can earn back over 28 days. And the catch is, is that he gave us all glucose monitors, which is like something a lot of people who are diabetic, they put in their arm and it monitors your blood sugar.”

Steal thisPair real money on the line with an un-cheatable hardware measurement to build the most effective behavior-change product.