What do you have to lose?" were the words my brother spoke to me on the phone over six years ago, a quick chat between calls while I was working full time in pharmaceutical sales in 2017. "Like $700 bucks or something like that"
"That's really not a lot. Just do it."
I had called feeling a little defeated, asking if we were crazy for wanting to start raising and selling grassed and pasture raised meats from our farm, when nearly everyone goes to the grocery store, a cheaper and very dependable (at the time) alternative.
"And if it doesn't work, you lose $700 bucks. Big deal."
Starting a new business is pretty daunting, and honestly at the time I'm not sure if it was really about the money despite being what I told myself. Looking back now, I know it was more about trying and the fear of failing. The fear of putting in all this hard work and having it flop. The fear of the "I told you so's" from the ones that said don't quit your day job.
Life is so different now, 6 years into the journey. 6 years of building confidence. 6 years of making mistakes. The past year has been pretty chaotic getting the 1915 Meatery ready for our very own 1915 butcher – from deciding the budget, to where it would be, to how the navigate through all the regulations, and what path we wanted to take.
Balancing the farm, the 1915 Meatery build, and trying to balance the mom guilt of mothering a toddler and working on the business has kept us from taking a moment to "stop and smell the roses” until this week really. Maybe it's because we coincidentally cut up our very first beef in house the same day six years ago that we announced our new pasture raised and grassfed beef business, 1915 Farm, a 100% coincidence.
It's easy to say the $700 was money well spent, but it truly wouldn't be possible without a community that cares about our mission just as much as we do. Thank you. Bringing butchery in house is really going to open up so many possibilities, and allow us to do some really really cool things with and for you. Thank you for being apart of the 1915 journey.
