Capital and Exit Strategies for Impact Founders with Miyoko Schinner

Hi. This is Paul Zellizer, and welcome to the Awerepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help increase your positive impact, your profitability, and your quality of of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps more people learn how to have positive impact through a values based business. Thank you so much. Today, I'm really honored, like, really honored to introduce you to Miyoko Shiner.

And our topic today is capital and exit strategies for impact founders. Mioka is like an OG, like, has been involved in this for 30 plus years, maybe more. Let me read you her Instagram bio because I really like this. Miyoko is a Epicurean activist out to create justice for animals, people, and planet by connecting our palate to our futures. I just like that. I just think that's awesome. She's been a vegan activist for 30 plus years and is the founder of what is now known as Miyoko's Creamery. If you go to Instagram, you'll see she has one of those coveted little blue check marks.

There's a lot of people who look to Miyoko as a leader and a founder in the justice and food space, Also, an increasing area of focus, and we'll get into this, is how founders can take care of themselves when it comes to capital and exit strategies, and also some of the ways that founders are not being taken care of. And we'll talk more about that. But I just am deeply grateful to have you here, Miyoko. Welcome to the show.

Hi, Paul. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

So you've been at this a long time, and this could be a 30 hour interview, but we're not gonna do that. But it could easily be. But if somebody didn't know you and they wanted to get a little sense beyond of this intro, and, obviously, Paul's, like, kind of fanguying a little bit, interviewing Miyoko. Like, who is Miyoko, and what would they need to know about you and your journey so we can get into this topic of capital and exit strategies?

Okay. Well, there's always the the public bio that everyone puts out, and that's, you know, part of any, introduction of any podcast or anything. But the real me is I'm an evolving human being. I am somebody who is constantly thinking about how do we become better as human beings in this world, and how do we participate in a way that can create more justice and equity for all? So that that is who I am, and I've done it through a variety of activities, through businesses, through nonprofit activity, etcetera. And my thinking about the world, about the economy, about business, because I've always been an entrepreneur at heart, and I've only ever been an entrepreneur. I've never been an employee except for my own companies, is is really how do we create a thriving opportunity? Well, how do we create a thriving venue environment for entrepreneurs to succeed, and what does that success truly mean? Is success at any cost to other people, the planet, to animals, or is success are you successful when you succeed and others around you also succeed? How do we create a win win as entrepreneurs? So those are the questions that I am thinking about, and that's why I say that I am a forever evolving human being. I'm not I don't have answers. I'm not this brilliant person who has the wisdom that's gonna go and set legislation or anything like that.

I have a lot. I am refining the questions that I should be asking and thinking about as I get older over time. Beautiful.

What are the areas that has been consistent? Not everything you've done, but this idea of food and justice and what we eat and eating well both for our own well-being, but also for the collective well-being. Is it fair to say that's been a through line for much of your career?

Oh, absolutely. Food has been everything to me. You know, food became a major part of my life when I was 12 years old. Because when you're 12, most people just eat unconsciously. You eat what your parents put in front of you. You never really think about it. You you know, you go to the you go to the, the the baseball game and you eat hot dogs and you just don't you eat what everyone else eats and you don't think about it. When I was 12 years old, I made a conscious decision to become vegetarian.

And so that intention was set at a very young age. And that's when I really started thinking about what is food and how does how does what I eat impact others around me?

So you were talking about 12 years old, and you decided to be a vegetarian, and that was not necessarily common in the circles you moved.

No. Definitely was not. You know, obviously, this was in the, the late 19 sixties. So this was, you know, the highlight the the high the height of the the hippie movement, and there were lots of people becoming vegetarian. But, you know, typically when you're 12 years old, you're not thinking about what you eat. And for most of human history, I can say most of humankind has never thought about what they ate. You know, they ate whatever was available. And we have been opportunist eaters for most of human history.

What's different about today is that we no longer have to be opportunist eaters. We can think intentionally about our food choices and we can think about how does the way I eat impact the rest of the world? How does it impact the planet, the animals, whether or not somebody eats in Africa, in in in India? You know, what do my food choices have to do with the rest of the world? And so that social justice component is now an important part of our intentionality behind food. And I believe for us to evolve as humankind as humans, we have to think about that.

Couldn't agree more. And, like, for instance, some of the research data says our our food, how we feed ourselves is one of the biggest levers we can pull on in terms of climate. Right? Yes. Certain things we eat have a massive climate for carbon footprint, and other things have a smaller carbon footprint. And more humans eating more on the plant based end of the spectrum is one of the easier ways we can start to have a positive impact. That's just one recent example that is all database. If you're not interested in research, don't care about evidence, go listen to some other podcasts. I'm not gonna fight with you.

You're just on the wrong podcast. But if you care about research and evidence, there's so much evidence in that one example, but there's many, many, many examples about justice and sustainability and equity and how our food choices and I'll put some links to that in the show notes. But just I'm here to say 100% agree with what you say, Miyoko, and anybody that doesn't agree. Like, I'm not really open to argue. Go find another podcast.

Yeah. Very well put. But I do wanna add that this is really a first world

issue. 100%. Yeah.

Because there are parts of the world where people are just trying to get food. Yeah. And and they don't have a choice. The point is, if you have a choice, then you have a responsibility.

Yeah. Cool. So you started having these sort of ethical and justice oriented like, at 12, I think you said. Give us a sense, and you've never worked for a company. You've never been an employee. So pretty early on, you decide, alright. Like, I'm passionate about these things, but I gotta figure out how to buy some of this food. Right? Like, give us some example of some of your early entrepreneurial endeavors that try to walk these values.

Yeah. Sure. The very first business I had was in Japan in the 19 eighties, and I had, at that point, transitioned to veganism. And I should just just correct. I had part time jobs. So, you know, I always had a part time job at throughout my life. But in my early twenties, I decided, okay, I've gone vegan, and I need to figure out I need to convince people that you can eat wonderful, delicious vegan food, and it's not just lent, you know, boring brown lentil loaf and this kind of thing. So I started a little vegan a wholesale vegan bakery in Japan, and I peddled my wares.

I made pound cakes initially, and they weigh a pound. And I had a backpack, and I could fit 70 of them in there. So that was 70 pound, my backpack. On my back that I delivered by subway to, you know, a handful of stores. But that's kind of how I got started, and I just got really, really passionate about it. For me, it became a crusade to convince people that you could eat delicious food that was vegan, that was healthy, that was that saved animals. You know, I didn't really know about climate change at the time because people weren't discussing that 1980s. But definitely in terms of the impact on animals and human health, you know, that was really what I was a crusader for at the time.

Our topic is capital and exit strategies. So, like, that version of your journey, what was the capital strategy for making your loads? Right? Sounds like there was there

was no capital strategy. So back in the old days, you started a business with on a song. You know, you had a few dollars and you bought a few ingredients and maybe you sold to a couple of stores. You did what you could and then you grew your business from there. It wasn't like I'm going to go out and raise $10,000,000 and I'm going to be in 5,000 stores by, you know, within 6 months. We were just trying to have the way most of humans, you know, the way societies have evolved for 1000 of years. You start a little business you sold to your community. You fed the people that you knew.

You made enough to have a livelihood. And that that is how we have approached businesses, entrepreneurial ship for really for millennia until fairly recently where we've gotten this idea that it's growth at all costs. It doesn't matter what you do, and you got to fight for that few feet of shelf space. Yep. And that takes gobs of money. And so you can't even start a business anymore unless you got $10,000,000. Yeah.

So the technical language for that would be bootstrapping, and I've been blessed. And I started 17 years ago, but I've been blessed. Never taken more than $10,000 from any source, lending on a credit card or family for a particular sprint of growth opportunity. But in 17 years, I've never borrowed more than $10,000. So that that's a bootstrapping business and just we're just trying to build vocabulary here. So I'll put a link to what boot strapping is, but that would be the technical name. You have an idea for a vegan business, and you start making loaves, and you deliver them by Subway, and you get a few customers and then a few more, and you buy a few more lentils or whatever.

That's exactly what

I that's bootstrapping.

I mean, and that's what everyone did. But, you know, I don't think back then we called it bootstrapping. It was just what you did.

Exactly.

Bootstrapping is a term that we apply to the way businesses operated for thousands of years.

Exactly. Ret retroactively putting if we were to give a name to the model that you're describing now in 2024, where social entrepreneurship is one of the fastest growing majors at college campuses all around the world. Many folks in that environment, if they were gonna say this is the business model or how you got the capital is you bootstrapped it. So if you wanna research it more, I'll put a link to what it is, and that'll give you some vocabulary So give walk us forward a little bit. So that's like your early state of bootstrapping, vegan businesses in Japan, delivering by subway, etcetera. Like, walk us forward. Like, what was one of your more again, to use some blingo, a little bit more scale. You've done everything at that scale to some very large I have a product of yours with your name on it that's sitting in my refrigerator right now, and many people in and around the US could get something that has your name on it in their local grocery store.

That's a little bit different scale than what we're describing. So what would be another venture that has a little bit more scale?

Yeah. A little bit more scale would probably be about 10 years after I started the bakery. I've moved back to the United States, and I started a little restaurant, and that morphed into my first, I would say, larger product company. And so back in the mid 19 nineties, I started a company that made alternative meats, And I started selling them locally and regionally initially, and then they went national. But even then, the business climate was very, very different. You know, today you fight. If you don't get into a major distributor like UNFI, you can't land on shelves and you have to sell to an entire chain because it's sameness everywhere. It doesn't matter what Whole Foods you go to today.

They have the same range of products everywhere. Whereas 30 years ago, mid the mid 19 nineties, every region of any chain such as Whole Foods had different products. So if you went to NorCal, you'd have different products. Not only that, it would be it was store by store. Buyers had the autonomy to say, hey. Yeah. I wanna bring your product in. And you might only be in 3 or 4 Whole Foods stores.

And today, you It costs

a lot less to get in those 3 or 4 than to get in Whole Foods all across America. That's it.

Right. But but not only that. The the way the model is designed today where we have sameness everywhere limits the number of brands that can be on shelf because there's only so much shelf space. So it means that you only have a handful of national brands that are on shelves rather than hundreds of small local regional brands, giving those entrepreneurs an opportunity to make a livelihood. So that's part of the change that's happened in the last 30 years. That's why it's harder to succeed as a business because if you don't go big, you can't succeed. Whereas years ago, you could be a small local regional business, and you could make a living.

So that alternative meat company, like, give us an idea. You know? Go like, what was the how how big a scale did that get, and what was some of the capital strategies to help you get to that level?

So there really wasn't much capital put into it. I had a couple of, you know, $5,000 investments,

you

know, friends and family.

Friends and family. Yeah.

Friends and family.

More vocabulary folks. Right?

Yep. And I did get a loan from the city of San Francisco because I was in a so called enterprise zone. And, the company back in the 19 nineties reached about a little over $1,000,000 in sales, which at the time seemed like a lot of money. I mean, it was it seemed pretty pretty sizable, but that was kind of it. We made I had I was the leading competitor to Tofurky. I had a product called the unturky. I also had other seitan products, the unstakeout, the breast of unshooken, and the unribs. And then we had the 1st nondairy vegan whipped topping on the market called hipwhip.

So those were kind of our products. And I also had some cakes. I had some, you know, the leftovers from my the bakery and all of that. So we were making a bunch of products. I also had a contract with United Airlines. We made cookies for United Airlines, vegan chocolate chip cookies. So I was kind of all over the map there just trying to, you know, keep things going. But that was I think that was sort of the beginning of the shift from companies just trying to stay local and small to feeling the pressure of these consolidated distributors kind of forcing you to go big.

And what happened was we got to them, I don't know, up over $1,000,000 threshold. And we got to a size where distributors and retailers started wanting all these advertising dollars. Initially, they didn't care. They were like, you're small. We don't care. We just love your product. We're happy to have you. Yep.

And, you know, became sort of a local hero hero product in that sense. Next thing you knew, we were shipping to the East Coast, and we were sort of all over the map. And now everybody wants these, discounts and advertising dollars. And at that point, I needed to raise money. I mean, I didn't there wasn't enough money to to pay for all of

that. Yep.

And at the time, it was during the dotcom bubble, and I couldn't raise any money. I mean, this is the first time I actually went out to investors rather than, you know, friends and family. And I was unsuccessful, And I could not get my my company to that next level. And I decided to just to sell primarily to just, you know, get out of debt and

Get out of that.

Yeah. Just get out of it. I mean, it it became it wasn't fun anymore. Yes. It became painful. And I think, you know, that is kind of what happened to a lot of companies. I mean, we started entering a different trajectory in the early 2000, And that's a trajectory I think it started with with the dotcom era. Yeah.

And that's the trajectory we've been on for the last 25, 30 years. And I it we're going towards consolidation in everything. The bigger the better consolidation, a healthy exit to one of the to a multinational corporation. And then, you know, you live on 100 of millions for the rest of your life, but all of the other entrepreneurs lost their shirt.

Yep.

And and I don't know if that's the world I wanna live in.

Part of the reason I'm really grateful you're here, Miyako, because it's not my vision. I've heard it called hunger games capitalism. And

I love that.

It's it's That's

what it is.

It it really is. Like like, I'm an entrepreneur as well. But if you take compassion and you take regionality out of the story of business, out of the values of business, we are headed towards some really rough times, and and a lot of founders are having some just heartbreaking stories. We were talking about it before we hit record. And and so much of that heartbreak is access to capital and what happens when you're done, that exit strategy, which is why I'm really grateful you're here. A couple things about what you said with the alternative meat company that I just wanna kinda highlight and and go a little deeper is, again, that getting to a certain level and and is such a great example. There are still stories of that, like, you came from an enterprise zone, an enterprise zone. Like, I live in Albuquerque, and our one of our enterprise zones, most still locally call it the war zone.

Now it's been rebranded as the international district, but you can imagine the war zone and and what happens in the war zone and what life looks like there and what the economics of somebody who lives in the war zone. And the idea of an enterprise zone is, like, there's a, you know, there's a lot of homelessness. There's a lot of folks, you know, less college degrees, and overall income is less, and properties more abandoned properties or more drugs, etcetera, etcetera. Schools aren't as good. Right? And an entrepreneur comes through there, and there's various opportunities both in terms of capital, being able to tap into loans that the city or the state or whoever might wanna make available to try to do something and move the needle. But, also, there oftentimes are more access to media and the ability to tell a story because it's helpful to certain people's goals. Let's say a politician to say, I'm doing something about the war zone. Right? I just wanted to kind of give a sense.

And I hear that because of what I do. A lot of impact founders might be able to tap into that beginning, but then you get to that sort of upper threshold for a business from an enterprise zone, And it's not yet fully national. Let's say it's a food business. You're not in every Whole Foods in America. And it takes a lot of money to go from that, like getting a lot of visible, a lot of media attention and a lot of just the community being excited that a brand is making it and getting a lot of media attention and selling in a lot of local stores, but it's not yet fully sustainable for many businesses at that scale. And then getting to every Whole Foods or whatever brand you're talking about of grocery store in America, it takes a lot of money to get from that level to in every ex in every store, and that includes paying for premier shelf space, being in flyers, being on their TV or radio ads, etcetera. So is that a fair summary, Miyoko?

It's a very, very fair summary, and the question is, okay. So do we just play that game, or do we rewrite that game?

Yeah. And,

you know, the question that I get from a lot of people, I was giving a talk at a university fairly recently, and someone came up to me and said, hey. I'm an entrepreneur, and I really wanna speak to you. And I have a question. I and her question was, how do I raise capital? And my answer to her was that's the wrong question to be asking. And that's the problem is that we all think that this is the only game we can play, that this is the only system that's viable, and that we have to play accordingly. And we don't realize that by doing so, we're actually contributing to the inequity that this system is creating, the the lost opportunities for so many others. And we are feeding into the the pockets of those that actually wanna play the game. And that is it it's built around this this notion.

The only game that investors wanna play is the gamble that they gotta spread their wealth around. And if they just play their cards right, they're gonna have one really big win Yep. And everything and that's gonna pay for everything else. But if they were to spread their wealth around and just nurture businesses so that they create a livelihood for their just their founders and their family, they're not gonna make any money off of you. Right. And so, you know, this is the game. Investors have to put their money somewhere because their business is making money from money. They're not actually making money from creating value.

They're making money by making more money, and the only way they can do that is by finding talented entrepreneurs and betting on them. And then when they don't need you anymore because now you you have created the base, they let the entrepreneur run the show until the business is at a certain size. And that's when they removed the entrepreneur because now the entrepreneur is now in the way because the entrepreneur has their own ideas. They never I mean, if if they really wanted the business, they kick the entrepreneur out the very beginning, but they don't. They need you to do the hard work. And what that does is it feeds into this whole system where businesses are now designed to make money for a handful of people and not distribute wealth across entrepreneurs, founders, workers, etcetera. It's it's designed for a few people to get very, very rich and for most people that lose their shirts. And that's where we're headed.

We're we're moving towards consolidation. Wherever you go in the country, you see the same products, the same stores. There's no culture anymore. It's basically sameness everywhere. You could be it doesn't matter if you're in the Midwest or SoCal or Atlanta, Georgia. It all looks the same. There's no regional uniqueness, no regional color. There's nothing like that at all.

It doesn't exist because regional and local don't make money.

Absolutely. So let's do this. In a moment, I wanna come back and hear you've had an even more scaled business, and an exit recently that we could talk a little bit more about. But I also want to talk about having these experiences, how you would recommend entrepreneurs that wanna have impact and not get burned by the consolidation that you're talking about. What kind of recommendations you have for founders? Before we do that, I just wanna take a quick break and hear words from our sponsor. Are you facing 1 or more important decisions in your impact business? And you'd like an experienced thought partner to develop a plan about how to proceed in the complex times we're living, but you don't feel the need for an extended coaching or consulting contract that's gonna cost you many 1,000 of dollars. You're looking for an affordable, targeted, and time efficient type of support. Through paulzellizer.com, I offer a strategy session package.

These packages are ideal for entrepreneurs who are facing 1 to 3 immediate decisions, like how to increase your positive impact, fine tune your marketing strategies to get more results for less effort, launch a new product or service successfully, or refine your pricing structure so it's both inclusive and provides you with a great quality of life. You can find out more by clicking below, and thank you so much for listening to this podcast. So welcome back, everybody. I'm honored to be here with Miyoko Shiner, and we are talking about capital and exit strategies for impact founders. And before the break, Miyoko, you're just talking about some of the challenges that how in an environment where things just keep getting more and more consolidated. You're talking about the typical sort of VC mindset. Like, basically, I'm looking for 10 x return in 5 years or less. And then when I start to see that kind of return happening, then we've got a unicorn, and we get rid of the founder team and put in a team that can play the consolidation game.

They're more experienced with the consolidation game and all the pain and suffering that's creating in for local communities, for the founders and the leadership team, and the inequity that's built into that system. That's where we were highlighting before we took a break. So when you're let's just let's just talk a little bit about your most scaled venture, at least the one that I'm most familiar with because you took a start up that was focused in the vegan food space to a scale that is bigger than the ones we were describing and started to get involved in that and had a tough experience. What what would our founders and listeners need to know about Miyoko's Creamery and and what happened, what that journey was like?

Well, you know, I will say it was a a wonderful journey for me in many ways. When did it start? I founded the company in 2014. 2014.

And what what is it if somebody is not familiar with it?

So it's a company that I started out making vegan cheese, epicurean, upscale vegan cheese products. Yeah. Once again, I was on my crusade to show people that vegan cheese could be every bit as good as animal dairy cheese. That was kinda and then we ended up creating a lot of other products, including butter and and cream cheese and a liquid mozzarella and a bunch of other products. And it was, a really fun experience. I parted ways with the company in 2022, almost, 2 years ago. And, you know, I we wished each other well and went along our our merry ways. And I would say that my exit has been very good in in certain ways in the sense that it really forced me to take a look at myself.

Like, who who am I anyway? What is this journey about food been? You know, what has it been? Why did I get involved to begin with? And, how does what I'm doing or what I have been doing play into the global food system and everything that it impacts, the food justice and inequities and animals and planet and everything. And it's just really given me a chance to think deeply in a way that I wouldn't have been able to do had I, you know, were I still a part of the company.

Yeah.

So for that alone, I am I'm deeply grateful because it allowed me to continue to evolve as a human being. Yeah. And, you know, I've done a lot of reading and thinking. I've also had an opportunity to talk to a lot of other founders. You know, I think because our parting of ways was was so public that it allowed so many people, so many founders who had similar experiences to come and come forward to reach out to me and share their stories. And let's just say I've heard a lot of stories. Most of them weren't happy ones. The ones that you read about, you know, where somebody exited making, you know, whatever, 1,000,000, tens of 1,000,000, 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars, those are rare.

Those are few and far between. And the statistics are such that less than fewer than 20% of founders who have a so called successful exit ever make any money from that exit. And that is a very little known fact. And I have heard from, let's say, those 80%, but even more than that, because most people never even get to the point where there is a successful exit. Most people companies are are either they either fold within, you know, the first 5 years, the first 3 years because our global food system, as we talked about before, is not designed for everybody to succeed. It's not because your product wasn't good. It's not because you couldn't even raise enough capital. It's just that the system is designed with only so much shelf space, and that is what determines the numbers game.

So you it's already from the time that you launch your product, you already know you have maybe 1 in a 100 chance of ever becoming successful. Those are the odds. I mean, that's the reality. And then there's the other you know, before I talked about the 20% who make money from a successful exit. Well, but even before you get to that point, 50% of founders are removed from their companies. And that's another fact. So I think, you know, you if you're going to be going into business, maybe the question about how do I have a successful exit is the wrong question. The question maybe should be, how do I have a profitable business that can support me and my family and feed the needs of the community around me.

The focus on exit, on making that huge return, that's the I'm sorry. That's the wrong question to be asking. And if we keep talking about that, then we're not we're not aware. We're not aware of the nurse, in my opinion. We need to change that whole model.

Yeah. Really appreciate you saying that, Miyoko. And let me just say, I have some Miyoko's butter in my refrigerator right now, and I bought it here at this grocery store, you know, that pretty prominent in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So so, obviously, you helped steward a company to the point that you did get things on shelf space. And we could unpack the capital and the exit strategy of that particular brand, but I just wanted to say that out loud so our listeners know you've had a variety of scales and experiences. And I think what's more interesting is the part you were just saying, Miyoko, now. And I'll I'll give you an example. I don't usually do 2 interviews back to back, but I just finished an interview with the super awesome local we called her an intrepreneur, but we have a local solar company here in New Mexico.

They have a 120 employees, been in business 27 years. It's a b corp, and it's workaround. And she went on the marketing team and then got she pitched, and they said yes for a role that's called community and business impact manager. Right? And they're doing awesome work. I mean, they're they're not just doing awesome solar work, but they are moving the needle in New Mexico. And you can go listen to that episode. This nurse should be live before this one goes live. But I'm using that as an example of structuring something differently than most when we see the word entrepreneurship celebrated in pick your favorite magazine or blog.

They intentionally did it differently. And the people who are working there, they have very low turnover rates. I looked, a 120 employees. Right? We're hearing people saying you can't keep employees engaged. They have 0 positions open right now because people don't wanna leave. Why would you wanna leave? Right? They're, like, paying for people to, like, get new certificates or become a certified solar installer. Right? That that as an impact space, I think it's important that we reclaim what does business mean and what's the model that's the right fit. I don't think b corps is the right fit for everybody, but I'm using that as an example of, by definition, they can't experience a hostile takeover because they've thought a lot about what they're trying to do, and they created a structure that you would have to get their employees to vote and approve a hostile takeover, which the employees aren't going to do, right? So they've designed for the outcomes and the values that they wanna have.

And, again, this isn't about everybody should be a b corp or everybody should be worker owned, but there are emerging structures that can allow us to put some things in place that the impact space I I want us to talk about these things. Let's just say that given the experience that you have had of all varieties from really, like, a backpack on a subway with your loaves on it, I love that image, to, like, getting something on the scale in Whole Foods and other chains all around the country. What would you suggest to a founder who wants to pay attention and understands that what kind of capital they raise and who they raise it from has a pretty big impact on what happens with their company and the kind of long term impact that they're able to have through that company. What would you say to somebody who's in that thought process right now?

Okay. Well, before we even get there, if I were to talk to that person, I would say, first of all, before you even think about what kind of capital you should take, think about what kind of business do you want and why. What is it you're trying to do with your business? Are you trying to, you know, just grow big? Is that your goal? Or is it to be able to make enough to to feed your family, to serve your community, to become a beak, you know, to have time on the weekends to, you know, go to the ballgame with your kids. Like, what is it you really want from life? And what is what does entrepreneurship mean to you? How does it play into your life to you as an end of as a human being, as a member of your community? And think about that first. And I think everybody just initially jumps to how do I raise money and to from whom do I raise money? And I think that's a question that you ask later on after you figured out how do I want my business to serve me? Is it, you know, am I gonna be do I wanna be a slave to my business, or do I want a business that will create a livelihood for me that would that will allow me to become a full human being in my community? And that's the question I'd rather have people start out with. And then once you ask that question and answer it and say, this is how I see my business, I see it. You know, I see myself living, doing this thing for the next 30, 40, 50 years. I want to pass it down to my kids or I want my my my family to be involved in this.

I mean, there are businesses like that all over the world, believe it or not. Or is your answer I want to make, you know, I want a 3 x return in 5 years. I want an exit. Like, is that what you're after? That's a high stakes game. If that's your question, I'm the wrong person to talk to because I'm not interested in that game anymore. Yeah.

So thanks for those great questions. I'm with you on them a 100%, Miyoko. And and your why is like, before the how much, like, why and who, I think are the 2 fundamental questions. Right? Why are you doing this? What's your core values? What's your impact you wanna have? And then who do you wanna help? Like, I wanna pay my bills. I wanna support my family. But, also, if you haven't been listening to this very often, obviously, I'm pretty passionate about New Mexico and who lives here and awesome place. And it's not it's not like every other place in the US, which I am super grateful for, and I'm trying to do everything I can to help protect it because we reach certain thresholds of certain people in the business and entrepreneur ecosystem, and more money is pouring in here than every any other time since I've lived here in 1993. So I'm working hard with other folks who wanna, like, okay, cool.

It's great if certain ecosystems wanna play here, but we wanna still keep a local flavor to who's driving, and hopefully, we'll be successful. I'm not sure. Anyway, I say all that to say the who is super important. Me, my family, and the communities I care about, those get designed into everything I do. And then the question of how much do you need to do that well and at what scale. But I think sometimes people put that question first, and then they wind up saying 5 year 10 or 20 years later, I wish I hadn't done that.

I see. And I wanna add something, Paul. What you said, I think is really, really important too, that your community is really important to you. Today, I wanna add a aside before I tell you that. I actually lived in Santa Fe for a year. I went to Oh, cool. For years. So I I love I love New Mexico.

It's beautiful. But the fact is most people today no longer think about being part of their community. They're part of a global community. They spend a lot of time being part of the LinkedIn community or some social media community, but they're not living in their communities anymore. Physical communities like we did for millennia. And we need to go back there. And if we can become part of our actual thriving physical communities again and we find a community that we actually like to live in, a lot of the questions we'd be asking about business would be completely different.

Totally agree, 100%. Megan and I met at an event called Business For Good. And, you know, we were there were 40 of us in a room looking at social entrepreneurship here in New Mexico. Right? Not just in theory or yes. I'm also passionate about this community globally. But we met here, and I was like, will you be on my show? And and now I have another connection here in my ecosystem, and we're doing things collaborating here. So that's one of the reasons I love living here, and a screen can't replicate that. Even the most awesome person in the world, a screen can't replicate what happens when you're you know, you talk about the restaurants and the food and the unique aspects of living in place.

It really does make a difference, and it can sort of immunize us about some of that just bigger is better. It's all, like, just one big conglomeration of, like, a market. The New Mexico market is different, and I love that we're different. And, you know, it does have its own complexities. But I can't agree more that one way you immune you build your immune system from some of the more toxic elements of chasing capital and chasing the big exit is go hang out with your neighbors and go for walks and eat good food. And things sometimes get reevaluated of what's the scale and what is the quality of life that you wanna live as you're building your business. So I I can't agree, like, 10000%. So, Mioka, tell us, like, alright.

2 years ago, you left this very scaled thing, and you anybody wants to, you know, get more information. Some of that's online. You can do your homework.

But what are you doing now? Well, right now, I am cranking as I'm approaching a deadline for my next book. So this is called the vegan, the homemade vegan creamery. Nice. And it's about all things, you know, that you would make in a vegan dairy. And I have created new ways to make cheese out of just a variety of seeds and legumes that that replicate the the animal dairy cheese making process and making curds, separating the whey, long aging, that sort of thing. So I'm really proud of that, the new innovation that I've been able to do there. It also has recipes from milk. I just made milk from melon seeds, for example.

Oh, really? I didn't know that was a thing.

Well, you can do it. I mean, you can make milk from lots of different things. And so a lot of what I do is like no waste. Like, how do I, you know, if I eat a melon, what do I do with the seeds? Well, why not make milk out of it? And so there's, you know, anyway, so that's kind of how I operate now is, is how do we really just really do things for the the for the climate, for the planet? So anyway,

so When does that book come out?

It comes out next year. My deadline's mid July, so my publisher needs it then. So I'm ranking on that. I'm also doing a lot of lot more trips to leading more trips to Europe and Japan. So I'm going to Italy soon to lead a trip there. And then in the fall, I'm teaching 3 weeks of cooking classes in Naples. Nice. I'll send you the link.

So, yes, please

register for a week long class at a time in Naples. And so there are vegan cooking classes I have a trip to Japan in February. So I'm doing a lot of stuff that I'd like to do. And, you know, and part of it's not just the travel component. It's the community forming component, which is so important to me. So with that in mind, I have another community building project that I'm working on with others, which is to start the first vegan village in the world with,

oh my gosh,

and restaurants. And and anyway, that's something that we are exploring right now. We're going to go look at a location. It's in Europe. I'll share with the world more when we're ready to. And so the next chapter of my life will really be about creating community.

Love it. Community is one of our core values at Awerepreneurs, so I I I can't just acknowledge enough how much that resonates. So we'll put a link to the trips, and I don't know if there's anything out about the book. Or when you do have something, please circle around because I'd love to help people find out about it. And same thing with the vegan village when when when you're comfortable sharing, love to help spread the word. So, Yoke, you've been doing this for decades. Again, this could be a 30 hour interview, but I know you're busy as our listeners. So as we start to wind down, is there anything you were hoping we were gonna cover and we haven't touched on it? Or just something you wanna leave our social entrepreneur impact founders with that it feels important because you've had a wide variety of experiences, and this is the next generation.

What what would you like to share with our listeners as we start to say goodbye?

I think I would just reiterate, really think deeply about what kind of life you want to create for yourself and the others around you and design a business that supports that rather than thinking about how do I create a successful business? That's not the right question. It should always be, how do I create a business that supports me and my community?

Design a business that supports you and your community. How could we pick a better place to stop? You know? Go. Does go. Yes. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

It was a pleasure, Paul.

And and if somebody wants to get a hold of you, obviously, we'll put stuff in the show notes. But if somebody wants to reach out and connect, what's the best way to do that?

Probably LinkedIn. You can also reach out on, Instagram.

Great. Awesome. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it.

Alright, Paul. Thank you.

So, listeners, you know what we do. Please go out and share this episode. Tell people about Miyoko's work. If you like to travel and you like to eat, go check out one of the trips. If you like to cook and you're vegan, keep your eye open for the vegan creamery book that's coming out soon. I wanna say we love listeners suggested topics and guests, so if you have an episode idea, please go to the Awarepreneurs website. And on our contact page, we have 3 simple guidelines. We try to be really transparent what we're looking for.

It's all right there. If you read those and you think it's a fit, would love to hear your idea. Please pitch us through the contact page. And then I wanna say, finally, thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times, and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our