Today we’d like to introduce you to Roxanne Golkar and Bradley Reitler.
Roxanne and Bradley, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Meet The Source started slowly and came out of another business we own called Rawmond Milk. We were making almond milk and not knowing what to do with all the pulp that was leftover from the process. We knew we did not want it to go to waste and after a lot of trial and error, we made something we loved, a raw carrot cake.
This is where Meet The Source was born, although we did not know it at the time. We worked at a local farmers market and started bringing little samples of what we were working on to some of our long-time customers and they were loving it. Soon they started asking us to bring more than just samples so that they could buy and snack on the goodies we were making and it has all sort of evolved from there!
We had no idea we would own an unbakery at the time but we have loved our journey and we are so grateful to everyone who believed in us, supported us, and got us to where we are today. We are still a small company but we have very big dreams and we can’t wait to see where we can take this!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Owning your own business is never smooth sailing, and we have yet to meet another business owner who will say that it has been smooth for them. It is hard and it is easy to become unmotivated but pushing through is so worth it.
As we had mentioned, we started off essentially as an almond milk company. We loved our product and we still do, but it was something we knew we would never be able to scale up very much since we made a raw product that had a very short shelf life.
There was a day that we both will never forget but some back story really fast. We sold our milks at the farmers market but we also were in several coffee shops locally. We had these accounts for a very long time and in our own minds, we thought we would never lose them. There came a day where a new milk came to town that was much cheaper and easier to use than ours and within one week, we lost all but one of our accounts.
Now, this was a blessing in disguise looking back, but we were devastated. Luckily, we had been growing our raw dessert business alongside this so losing these accounts allowed us to focus solely on Meet The Source but we still look back and realize that had we not been building something else. We would have lost our whole business and everything we did in one week. That was a hard lesson for us to learn and we do things a bit differently now.
The biggest advice we could give anyone is DO NOT, we repeat, DO NOT give up. We know that sounds cliche but it is so true and just know that there will be many moments where you think that you can not keep doing it but it is amazing what you are actually capable of getting through.
You will only get out of your business what you put into it and owning your own business will take dedication, patience, sacrifice and a whole lot of trusting your gut. Once you have made it through a few road bumps, the rest get a little easier to maneuver and you start to realize that the low moments don’t last forever.
Please tell us about Meet The Source.
We specialize in raw vegan desserts and bliss balls at Meet The Source.
We make raw cakes in a variety of different flavors as well as raw cinnamon buns, and lots of rotating flavors of bliss balls. For those of you who have never had a raw cake, they are basically like cheesecake in texture except that they are all coconut and cashew-based.
We are proud of so many things as a brand. We are proud to offer a healthy twist on most of your favorite desserts and we are even more proud to say that they taste just as good as they sound. So many brands out there offer “healthy” dessert alternatives, but, in our opinion, they just don’t really taste too great. We strive to make things that everyone, regardless of their food preferences, can agree tastes amazing.
We are also so grateful to be able to say that we have the most amazing team working with us. We couldn’t have asked for better people to be surrounded by day in and day out and they make coming into work and getting through tough days so much easier. We wouldn’t be able to do what we do as a small company without these amazing and caring people by our side.
Often it feels as if the media, by and large, is only focused on the obstacles faced by women, but we feel it’s important to also look for the opportunities. In your view, are there opportunities that you see that women are particularly well positioned for?
We are so happy to see that there are so many opportunities for women in business nowadays. An example right off the top of our heads is that there are small business loans that only women-owned businesses can apply for and receive. There are also bigger companies like Starbucks, who look for businesses that are owned by women, or that give to amazing causes and they try to work with them before working with others.
There are so many small businesses owned by women these days and all of them are so supportive of each other. There is an amazing community and that feels like an opportunity in it of itself.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1980 Placentia Ave. Unit A. Costa Mesa, CA 92627
- Website: www.meetthesource.com
- Email: questions@meetthesource.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meetthesource
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meetthesource/
Image Credit:
Jessie May Snyder
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