[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hey everyone, I'm Ray Latif and you're listening to the Top Podcast for the food and beverage industry, Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Mike Fata, the co-founder of Manitoba Harvest, a leading manufacturer of hemp-centric foods and best known for its Hemp Hearts brand. Within our conversation, Mike chronicles his path from an overweight high school dropout to one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the food industry. Just a reminder to our listeners, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues, and of course we'd love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Soft-spoken and projecting a calm demeanor, you might be surprised that Mike Fata was the driving force behind Manitoba Harvest, a global producer of hemp-based foods. Launched in 1998, Manitoba Harvest has played a critical role in education about and mainstream adoption of hemp, beginning in its home market of Canada and later in the United States. 17 years after the company's debut, Mike guided a majority sale of Manitoba Harvest at an enterprise value of $132 million. He helped lead a second sale of the company four years later when it was acquired by Canadian cannabis company Tilray for $419 million. Two nine-figure exits. Not bad for someone who dropped out of school at age 13. In the following interview, I spoke with Mike about how educating himself about nutrition and healthy living led him to hemp, overcoming government-led and generational disinformation about the crop, why he would advise his younger self to dream bigger, and where he drew inspiration for confidence as a CEO. Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I'm on a call with Mike Fata, the founder of Manitoba Harvest. Mike, how are you? Doing well, Ray. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for being with me. You know, ever since Clubhouse launched, I feel like you've been out there on the app quite a bit. And it's great to have you there, given your experience in our industry, because the conversations on Clubhouse can get a little convoluted, sometimes get a little repetitive. But there you are, whenever I open up the app, offering some wisdom and guidance in a pretty straightforward way. When did you join the app and what's been your experience so far?
[00:02:39] Mike Fata: I joined in early February, so I think it's just been four weeks or something. And I had Clubhouse pitched to me from five different friends saying I had to join. And the fifth one pushed me over the edge when they explained, no, you'll like Clubhouse. You can do live podcasting. You can be in conversations, on conference panels, all just by a touch of a button. And so that's been my experience. It's very easy to jump into a conversation and add some value.
[00:03:06] Ray Latif: You've added quite a bit of value. And I think that's been your sort of approach to our industry since you sold your company is how can I do for others what others did for me when I was building my business? You know, what are some of the most pertinent and pressing questions that you're hearing from entrepreneurs right now in Clubhouse?
[00:03:31] Mike Fata: Well, I think the beauty of Clubhouse is it's everybody is rushing to Clubhouse. So you get a good mix of folks that are just starting out as an entrepreneur and some very successful people that are all commingling. And maybe that doesn't always happen. So maybe that's a new thing that Clubhouse is bringing. But I think, you know, entrepreneurs are just looking for examples that they can follow that are relevant for their business. We all know there's not one way to do things, but the more business case that you can study or the more examples that you can get from other entrepreneurs, you're probably going to be more likely to try some of those things and find success in your own business with it.
[00:04:06] Ray Latif: Let's talk a bit about your background. When we chatted last, I was kind of surprised to hear that you dropped out of high school at 13. And given the pretty remarkable success that you've achieved to this point, why did you drop out? And what did you do next in terms of life and career?
[00:04:25] Mike Fata: I grew up with a single mom. So we were poor or had limited resources. So the survival instinct in me has always been strong. I think part of it was the urge and desire to go out and start making something of myself or making money that I could help the family with. And the other part of it was I wasn't educated about health. I found myself overweight. And going from junior high school to high school, the bullying and the pressures just took up another level. So I only made it for the first half of the year in grade 10. And I was like, I can't do this. I'd rather be working. I told my mom, I don't want to go to school. I'd rather work. And she said, if you get a job, then you can not go to school. And so I started working when I was 14. I was out in the workforce full time.
[00:05:13] Ray Latif: That's amazing. You know, being overweight as a kid is, I've never had that experience. I was always the really skinny kid in school and you can get bullied for that as well. But being the kid who doesn't know why he might be a certain way, I think is, could be pretty traumatic. When did you start to learn about nutrition and health and how it could potentially be a career path for you?
[00:05:43] Mike Fata: It was when I was 18, I'd say the moment was, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. You know, being 300 pounds is not just about being the weight, you know, being that heavy, being an extra hundred pounds of weight, moving every day is hard. You know, the immune system is just, was very low. So I was, I was always constantly sick or, or tired or lethargic. And I just had enough of that. For context, did you say 300 pounds? 300 pounds. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I'm 180 right now. So it was 300 pounds plus, you know, when you're 300 pounds, you, uh, you don't jump on the scale all that often. Cause it's not, it's not a great result. So, but I do, I know that I, you know, I saw the 310, 305, so it was more than 300 pounds. And, uh, Yeah, just life is hard living in that space. And I saw a different way. I had a moment where I was fed up with feeling like shit. And my brother had already been working out and bodybuilding. And he was never as heavy as me, but he was a little bit of a chubby kid. And he got himself into shape. And so I saw that if he did it, then I could probably do it too. And that started the journey at 18. But I've been studying health and nutrition and practicing a healthy lifestyle ever since then.
[00:06:54] Ray Latif: When did you first encounter hemp?
[00:06:56] Mike Fata: Right around the same time, actually, 1819. So I went on a no-fat diet, which was very popular in the mid-1990s. Dr. Nathan Pritikin and his materials on no fat, if you stop eating fat, you'll lose weight. And I did, but I started to suffer, as many people do, that cut fat out of their diet from essential fatty acid deficiencies. And I was reading a lot of health books at that time. I read Dr. Udo Erasmus' book, Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill, which is the Bible on fat. And Udo, in his book, said that you need these essential fatty acids, and the best source of it is hemp and hemp seed oil, but it's not available in North America. And right at that same time as I was reading that book, I met through friends of friends, Martin and Alex, that were the other two co-founders of Manageable Harvest. that were lobbying the government in Manitoba and the Canadian government to legalize hemp. They're coming as hemp activists. So my passion for hemp and understanding hemp nutrition with their hemp activism was part of the founding of Manitoba Harvest.
[00:07:56] Ray Latif: Did you ever know or meet David Brawner in the early days of building the business? I know he's quite active and has been for a long time and the benefits of hemp and the demonization that's come with that ingredient for many years.
[00:08:12] Mike Fata: Yeah, yeah, known David for 20 years. And back then, all the people that believed in hemp were all weirdos, including myself. We had to hang out together to at least form a group to say, you know, I think this is the future, not so much that, you know, we're standing up. But yeah, I mean, David and the whole Bronner family have put a lot towards hemp and making sure that hemp had a place and hemp had a voice. and have fought harder, not only through their voice, but through major capital resources put to helping hemp become legal in the US.
[00:08:44] Ray Latif: You said that hemp oil wasn't available in North America when you first started investigating the ingredient. How did you initially undertake lobbying efforts and what was ultimately successful in convincing government officials and regulators as to the benefits and safety of the ingredient?
[00:09:06] Mike Fata: The Canadian government had two concerns, the biggest one being safety, that hemp wasn't marijuana, people couldn't get high. It's not? Oh my gosh, I'm so confused. Well, hemp and marijuana are both in the cannabis family, but hemp by definition has under 0.3 parts per million THC. So it's not a narcotic, it's not going to get you high, but there's a lot of confusion on that back from the 1950s and 60s misinformation. So that was their number one concern. But number two, and it more was at a provincial level with the province of Manitoba, was that hemp was going to grow well. It would be a crop that would grow well in Manitoba and Canada, and it would benefit the farmers. And so we actually got the support from the provincial government, the Manitoba government first, because they got the first license with their agriculture department support to test the first hemp crop. And then through that test showed, hey, hemp grows really well in Manitoba. And they didn't produce any kind of marijuana or it was just hemp at the end of the day and so with the provincial support we lobbied the federal government and that was I think pushed it over the edge because there was the safety concern was addressed as well as there was the true argument for the economic opportunity with hemp for prairie farmers. What year was that? The trials were in 1995, 1996, and the lobbying efforts were in 1996, 1997, and federal legalization happened in 1998.
[00:10:35] Ray Latif: So did you have a business while this was happening, or did you have to wait until 1998 to launch Manitoba Harvest?
[00:10:40] Mike Fata: Manitoba Harvest was launched in 1998. the first crop had to be grown. Everything else that was done before that was all for research and development. So it wasn't commercial crop. And so the first commercial crop was grown in the summer of 1998 and Manitoba Harvest launched in the fall of 1998.
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[00:11:47] Ray Latif: I got to think that you aren't the only one or the only business person, the only person seeing the opportunity for hemp or hemp centric brands. How did you sort of emerge from the pack and come out with what is now perhaps the most successful brand in that space?
[00:12:06] Mike Fata: And there was, there's literally hundreds of companies. A couple of different things stand out. I mean, Martin, Alex and I, the three co-founders that started the business, having three co-founders versus some of our competitors that were a solo entrepreneur, I think that was an advantage to us. Being based in Manitoba versus some of the hemp competitors in Canada that were based in Ontario or some other provinces that weren't as supportive to agriculture. Manitoba is very, very supportive to agriculture. There's a lot of There's a lot of crops that are grown here. It's the breadbasket of Canada, similar in the US. And so we got the community behind us, the farming community, the government that support helping food manufacturers bring new products to market, and it gave us that start. And slowly but surely, we out-competed the competitors.
[00:13:00] Ray Latif: Out-competed the competitors. I haven't heard that phrase before, but I like it. The government in the United States wasn't as supportive of hemp and hemp production, to put it mildly. There's a law enforcement agency known as the DEA that tried to make life pretty difficult for you guys.
[00:13:21] Mike Fata: Yeah, well, the timing couldn't have been any worse for us. We launched the business in 1998. In 2000, after we had a couple of years under our belts, we said we're going to launch in the US. There's a lot of opportunity in the US. There's a lot of people interested in the US. And so we put our plan together, put some financing together. And in 2001, September 1, 2001, we launched into the US East Coast. So with Whole Foods and UNFI and it was there's a lot put into the launch a couple things happened September 11th happened which was not great for doing new business at that time and on the east coast of the US And then a couple weeks after that on October 9th the DEA came out and declared a war on hemp foods And it was a war of confusion because they said hemp is illegal, which was not the case but there Their media and publicity and fear tactics literally scared retailers from selling the product. And so everyone was confused and thought hemp was not legal to be sold. We have to stop selling it. And it compromised our launch. We did a couple of things. We turned to the Midwest which we had some distribution in the Midwest, and I could drive over the border from Manitoba into Minnesota, into North Dakota, even into Illinois. And we could talk to people, the retailers, and tell them what was actually happening, that hemp wasn't illegal, and this was all confusion. And at the same time, a number of hemp companies got together with a huge amount of support from the Bronner family. and the Hemp Industries Association, HIA, and took the DEA to court. So in 2001, that suit was filed. It was a two and a half year court case in the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco. And at the end of that two and a half years in 2004, the DEA was defeated in the Ninth Circuit Court. All three judges ruled against the DEA and said that hemp foods were legal to be sold. And so that was a pretty crazy time because there was two and a half years of unknown people. What is it really legal or is it not legal. The government saying it's illegal and the industry saying it's legal. But after that court case really started to to pave the path forward that that there was a real business and there was a real a real industry and hemp to be to be grown.
[00:15:32] Ray Latif: a war of confusion, a war of confusion, and one that's being driven by the government makes it that much more difficult to sell your idea to the public. So on one front, you're fighting misinformation at a state-sponsored level. On another, you're fighting misinformation that's generational. As you mentioned, you know, people had mistrust about hemp since the 1950s and 60s. So what do you do? You know, when you are trying to crack the U.S. market, how do you educate people as to the safety and more importantly, the functional benefits of what your products offer?
[00:16:18] Mike Fata: It was straight education, so it started out gaining the knowledge of ourselves and we had to become subject matter experts in hemp, from genetics, to growing the crop, to the quality control, food safety control, manufacturing, all the way to the nutritional analysis and testing and really understanding what the hemp seed had to offer from its benefits outside of great taste. once we were armed with that information, we shared it in every way possible. But back in 1998, we started out with a black and white brochure printed on our printers. There wasn't that many ways to share. We weren't affording full-page advertisements in magazines, and the internet was just starting to go. But a lot of demos in stores and a lot of consumer health shows, which are There's a lot of them in Canada. Each major city has a consumer health show where consumers are going for the weekend to learn about new things in health and health food products and other health and wellness products. And so every single weekend was a show. And when we launched in the US, we continued that. Back then it was the green festivals, the yoga journal conferences, places where we knew that there was a consumer that had an open mind and were seeking more information on how to improve their healthy lifestyle. and we met them there armed with the information and acting as subject matter experts.
[00:17:41] Ray Latif: Again, going back to your background and your education, it doesn't seem like you'd be the ideal candidate to become an educator, but an educator you became. How did you teach yourself how to be a better student? How did you teach yourself how to be a better salesperson? By salesperson, I don't mean hawking your goods, but someone who could convince a naysayer or a disbeliever as to the fact that you might be right.
[00:18:13] Mike Fata: Yeah, I mean it sounds a little cheesy but I found my why a long time ago, right? You know, I became super passionate about health and through my passion of health I became passionate about hemp. I just wanted to learn everything about it. There's a difference between education and school. There's a lot of ways to gain education. I got on to a role of realizing that I could seek out my professors in life and learn things that I needed to learn, whether it was about food manufacturing or if it was about consumer marketing, every aspect of the business I was just super excited about and I wanted to become better at it. Including, I'd say I'm a born entrepreneur but I'm a made CEO. I'm a made CEO by educating myself on how other CEOs grew and became better leaders themselves and then I adopted some of that, tested it and found what worked for me and then it became part of me.
[00:19:08] Ray Latif: What were some of those key lessons that you took from other CEOs? Who were those CEOs? And you talked about trial and error, test and learn. Often you hear about test and learn when it comes to consumer marketing. I haven't heard it applied to education as it relates to leadership.
[00:19:25] Mike Fata: There's been some great example from leaders in our industry. The folks that were in the natural products industry 20 years before I was, and when Manageable Harvest was starting out in 1998, they already were the foundation of our industry. The Gary Hershbergs Steve Demos Drake Sadler you know there's John Elstra there's a list of of the older industry men and women that not only prove success but they also had time and they were giving back through mentorship. And I was fortunate to be friends some of them and and be able to they were open to how they were running their business, what was important to them, because the culture of the natural products industry, especially at that time, was very different than society as a whole. People would say it was a little more hippie. Now, the natural and organic products industry is becoming much more mainstream. but then it was just a different culture. So absorbing and taking some of the best of that, even from retailers like Whole Foods and some of their culture and some of their leadership practices and bringing those into Manageable Harvest were very successful for me.
[00:20:35] Ray Latif: What's one thing that you adopted as a leader that really worked? What's one thing that you tried to adopt that didn't really work out well?
[00:20:45] Mike Fata: The one that comes to mind the best one for leadership that worked really well, and it was from Whole Foods was dropping the employee, or, and only using the nomenclature of team and team members have manageable harvest. You know, we grew and grew really, really rapidly. There was a lot of new team members that were coming onto the team constantly, and we wanted to make everyone feel like we were one tribe, one vibe. I also, you know, I like how competitive sport and the team of competitive sport is self-governing. If you create a team and everyone understands that they have to that they're all part of the same team but they have to earn their place on the team meaning it's you know they have to be able to support their other team members in every way possible. It really helped us cement our culture and being set up to win. So that's one. one that didn't work so well fighting with the government even though it did in the end it worked out for the company. It never worked so well in those moments. And you know we talked a little bit about the D.A. But you know we had when we launched hemp milk we had a fight with the FDA because the FDA told us we can't market as hemp milk. You had to call it something else.
[00:22:03] Ray Latif: because of the word milk?
[00:22:05] Mike Fata: Yeah, confusion at that time, thinking that the dairy board was threatened and was putting pressure on the FDA to say plant-based dairy should not be able to be called milk, even though killed and all the other major brands of soy and almond and you know we're all saying milk because we were hemp. We had an extra little standout. The FDA had an issue with that. And it was a another couple of year a fiasco that cost the business you know probably a million dollars. And I learned after that that in some of those cases it's just better to back away when you're under the spotlight a negative spotlight of the government even if it's unjust. there's a better way to get around it or to win.
[00:22:50] Ray Latif: So you wouldn't lock yourself in a cage on the White House lawn and require Secret Service to saw you out, you know, to defend your beliefs? You wouldn't do that?
[00:22:59] Mike Fata: Yeah, or plant hemp seeds, live hemp seeds on the lawn or, you know, but I'm glad that we had And part of that Ray was you know we had this was told to. So a little bit different than good old David Bronner and the broader family that are Americans. As Canadians it was very told to us straight from the FDA. We had zero rights as an international entity in the U.S. and if we wanted to sell in the U.S. here's how we had to comply. And there's a thing called the border. And if we didn't like it the border would be shut for us as a business forever. So, you know, when you talk about, oh, well, forever is a long time and that would mean really bad things for our business. And OK, we don't we don't want to we're not prepared to to fight that fight.
[00:23:42] Ray Latif: Yeah, let's talk about your product line up. You touched on hemp milk. You know, when you're trying to introduce a new ingredient to the market, a lot of times it's the product that's selling the ingredient. The ingredient isn't selling itself. So how did you figure out the types of foods and beverages that would most resonate with initially a natural foods consumer and then down the line, a broader or a more mainstream consumer?
[00:24:15] Mike Fata: Yeah, I think it started out first, hemp oil was our first product. So we started crushing the hemp seed into hemp oil. And from there, we were super interested in what else can we make with the hemp seed. And so we started de-hulling the hemp seed, making Hemp Hearts, but then we started making other products, making the Hemp Hearts into hemp seed butter as a spread, and then making hemp milk. We even played around with hemp ice cream, even though it never came to market with that. And so we were just doing a lot of experimenting on the food, because we own the facilities on the food manufacturing side, what can we make and then try it out with our family and our friends and see if people like those products. And I would say we were more in experiment mode until Until I realized that what we really had that was going to be the game changer was right under our nose and that was Hemp Hearts. And when we went through the rebranding exercise from Shelled Hemp Seeds and created the Hemp Hearts brand and it really started to work both from a new consumer awareness and interest in hemp as a product. hand parts rose above the protein powders the milk the other products by a magnitude of 10. And so we started to put a lot more focus there and all the rest of the products took somewhat of a side seat to hand parts and hand part opportunity.
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[00:26:24] Ray Latif: Okay, Mike, so you identified Hemp Hearts as the key product for Manitoba Harvest. A lot of times this comes down to partnerships as well. You know, you don't own retail stores. You are selling a product to retail stores. They are selling it to consumers. Who were those retail partners that really helped build the brand and allow Hemp Hearts to become known beyond the sort of niche natural foods industry?
[00:26:53] Mike Fata: It was about 10 years into the business, so about 2008, that a couple of things happened. We did a test at Costco, and at the same time as when we were doing the rebranding exercise, the product was shelled hemp seeds, and we created Hemp Hearts and the Hemp Hearts brand. The Hemp Hearts rebranding exercise timed perfectly with the Costco tests. And I think it was the framing of the product as Hemp Hearts, which consumers could tell you they think that Hemp Hearts are heart healthy, and they are, but just from the branding, it started to communicate that. And so when we put it in front of a tremendous amount of consumers at Costco, and you know that Costco is very good for demoing and sampling food, or it was pre-pandemic, All of a sudden, half of the consumers that were new to the brand were coming from a Costco demo. And we were still demoing in natural food stores and other grocery stores, but just the awareness building alone of Costco changed the game for the company. But the rebranding to Hemp Hearts was a big part of that at that time. What was your revenue at that 10-year mark? Yeah, about $10 million. It took us five years to get to a million dollars. And then from year five to year 10, we went from a million to 10 million. And then year 10 to 20 we went from 10 to 100. But that 10 million was made up of Hemp Hearts protein powders hemp milk hemp seed butter and hemp seed oil at that time. But fast forward from there the majority of the growth was from Hemp Hearts and the other products took more of a side seat.
[00:28:33] Ray Latif: Hindsight is 20, 20. Do you think you could have gotten to a hundred million dollars faster? Had you believed that you could get to that number faster? Yes. Yeah.
[00:28:47] Mike Fata: Yeah. In short, if I could tell myself, if I could go back and tell myself something and many entrepreneurs say this, so it's a little bit cliche, but it's true dream bigger. Um, you know, when I started the business because I didn't have the background in business, or the education and business, I thought a million dollars was success. And it wasn't until we got to a million dollars, I realized a million dollars can be successful, not for this business, because we have a manufacturing operation that we need to have at the right scale. And so until we got to a million, I couldn't see past a million. And even when we got to a million, I couldn't see past 10 million. And then when we hit that $10 million mark, I started seeing the $100 million opportunity for the business. But I think if I would have been able to envision that sooner, then we would have accomplished it sooner.
[00:29:33] Ray Latif: But at the end of the day, I mean, you still had a very successful exit.
[00:29:38] Mike Fata: We saw the growth opportunity. So we did sell the majority of the business at once in 2015 for $132 million transaction. And with that came a private equity sponsor to help us continue to invest in growing the business. But on the transaction to Tilray, the timing started to align. So the Canadian government had legalized recreational cannabis. And so the cannabis companies had an interest in, they had a lot of money and they had an interest in getting into the hemp and the hemp food space because it was not regulated. At the same time, the U.S. legalized hemp. And literally the day after Trump signed the farm bill to legalize hemp, the FDA approved our grass status, generally regarded as safe for Hemp Hearts and hemp protein and hemp oil. That was a multi-year application to them. It coincided with the timing of legalization. So I think timing is really everything. It allowed for the Tilbury transaction to happen.
[00:30:36] Ray Latif: So Mike Fata what point did you step down as CEO and how did you feel about handing over the reins to the company that you had built?
[00:30:44] Mike Fata: After we sold the business the first time, or the majority, in 2015, we used the private equity sponsorship money to acquire our largest competitor, Hemp Oil Canada. And then we integrated those two businesses in 2016. And then by 2017, I was quite clear that we would be best served with a classically trained executive to run the business and take it to the next level. And so we hired a CEO. I became vice chair of the board and from then operated at a board level.
[00:31:19] Ray Latif: be kind of difficult, right? I mean, to step aside and, and, you know, to admit, or at least, you know, acknowledge that someone could do your job better than you. But that's something that comes up quite a bit in the food and beverage industry. We see emerging entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs with emerging brands who might be great as visionaries, might be great as innovators, but when it comes to day-to-day business, it's not necessarily their strongest suit. Any advice to folks when it comes to handing over the reins and swallowing your pride when somebody else, again, could do a better job or could be better suited for that job?
[00:32:00] Mike Fata: It's tough, you know, I know it's I've been through it myself. And so there's a there's an emotional part to it that is. There's grieving of like not, you know, when we sold the business, everyone thinks, hey, sold the business is super positive and it is positive, but there's a grieving because there's a death of that part of the journey. Now, over the last three or four years, I've helped a lot of founders fulfill their mission. And sometimes that is bringing in leadership to run the organization and the founder can still be involved, but not as the chief executive. And so, you know, fit is a big thing. Being an entrepreneur, I didn't know that I could run a business that was a million dollars. And I didn't know I could run a business that was $10 million. But I was quite sure that I couldn't run a business or someone else could do a better job than me at $100 million. It's very disciplined to not only sustain a business at that level, but to grow a team of over 200 people to manage them.
[00:33:02] Ray Latif: You touched on this, you're an advisor and mentor and investor in a number of different brands. The one that comes to mind right now is Love Good Fats, which is run by a fellow Canadian, Susie York, a very fast growing brand, also involved with Oh Mushroom as an investor. These are very disruptive, very innovative companies. How are you advising this sort of next generation of brands when it comes to a natural food industry that has changed pretty significantly since you started? I mean, natural foods and products like hemp oil are pretty ubiquitous, at least in certain parts of the United States. It's a different game. So how are you advising these folks in terms of not just the opportunity, but the competitiveness of the food and beverage landscape, the natural food and beverage landscape?
[00:34:00] Mike Fata: That's a great question. And you know no two businesses are the same and no two opportunities are the same. And so what usually starts out whether I'm mentoring someone or I'm involved on their team as an investor advisor I always ask how you know how we did it at Manitoba Harvest which is one lens to look through. But it depends on the category, it depends on the product, what the go-to-market strategy is. And it's very different in the supplement space as it is in a bar category, as it is in beverage. But being well-networked and having relationships across the industry in Canada and the US, is very helpful to the founders and to the companies that I've joined. I don't have all the answers. I have one perspective of how things are done, how we did it at Manitoba Harvest. But the more time that I spent with entrepreneurs and understand and study their business case, it just gives me more and more perspective to share out into the community and the industry with others. But at the end of the day, people ask, I was successful at Manitoba Harvest, how am I helping other founders to fulfill their mission? I get into their products, you know, their products that I like to eat. Oh, mushrooms. I've I've learned so much and I've become such a big fan of functional mushrooms over the last three years being involved with, you know, Susie and and and understanding the the good fats and low sugar movement. It was a no brainer for me as a health enthusiast. And that's how I go at things. If if I personally like it and my family likes it, I would think that it's going to probably have an opportunity to grow with the right support, the right capital, and the right relationships.
[00:35:45] Ray Latif: It just occurred to me that there's a little bit of a closing of the circle and that you started out your weight loss program eating no fats, avoiding fats, and now you're an investor and an advisor for a company that is called Love Good Fats. So pretty interesting stuff. Mike, this has been so great speaking with you. I just have one more question, and that's about confidence. As far as I can tell, you're someone who knows himself quite well, knows his abilities, capabilities. but confidence is something that I've talked to a bunch of folks in our industry about. And there's this notion of imposter syndrome and, um, you know, how do I be confident without being cocky? You know, what, what's your approach to this word confidence and how to apply it to leadership?
[00:36:35] Mike Fata: Yeah, I mean, great question. And it gets talked about, you know, people say you can't fake it till you make it, or that's a bad thing, or some people say it's a good thing. For me, I came from a place where I didn't know how to do anything, and I learned how to do it. And so I did take the approach of being sincere, and I guess faking it till you make it, or have the confidence that I can do anything. And that's, you know, I believe that anyone can do anything that they really put their mind to. And so, you know, after you get some wins under your belt, it's easier to understand that you could win again. And maybe that's the flip side of people that have been struggling to be successful can continue to struggle. And sometimes they just need a little support to get them out of that mindset or onto a different path in their business. And it's a game changer. I'm hoping that I can be a great example of someone that was in an unhealthy space in life with no formal education, that found my passion and started a little business and just put a lot of heart and effort there and achieved great results because I do believe that anyone can do it.
[00:37:44] Ray Latif: Yeah, I mean, that's a good point. I think it's welcoming and it's encouraging to see folks who can do things in spite of significant challenges. At the same time, I also see folks that will say that they're driven by fear more than they're driven by an ability or a confidence in their abilities. Were you ever driven by fear? Is that something that ever motivates you?
[00:38:13] Mike Fata: Yeah, for sure. It's more of survival, you know, and it goes back to I lived for so many weeks of my life with my single mom and my brother that we had the bills paid, the minimum bills paid and $20 to buy food for two weeks, you know, and so it was it was real. My mom was very transparent about those things. And so the survival instinct is strong. I've also spent quite a large amount of time in the wilderness and as a Boy Scout when I was young and learned about survival when when you're not in a city or society. And and so taking that to business I don't want to fail. If I felt like something had to be done that weekend. I would work all weekend to get it done because I was probably was fearful that if it didn't get done that the next week wasn't going to look so good or the opportunities weren't going to be there. And I don't know how sustainable that is. But there's over the 20 years there was just there was so many hundred hour work weeks. And yes they were probably were driven by either the fear of something failing or the opportunity was right in front of us. And we just had to go and grab that carrot when it was there.
[00:39:21] Ray Latif: Well, as I mentioned, Mike, it's been so great speaking with you. I've gotten to know you a little bit through Clubhouse, and obviously we've had this wonderful conversation. I hope we can continue this budding relationship, no pun intended, but thank you so much for taking the time once again, and good luck with everything going forward. Yeah, thanks. Thanks again. Thank you. That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you so much for listening, and thanks to our guest, Mike Fata. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
