Heidi Finley launched Maven Meals, a Seattle-based meal delivery service, 7 years ago and is expecting to bring in nearly $1 million in revenue this year. Hear how this former butler and personal chef turned her passion into a successful business through damn hard work and determination. And there is a love story too.
Originally published Dec 21, 2018
Transcript link (uncorrected machine translation)
Heidi Finley launched Maven Meals, a Seattle-based meal delivery service, 7 years ago and is expecting to bring in nearly $1 million in revenue this year. Hear how this former butler and personal chef turned her passion into a successful business through damn hard work and determination. And there is a love story too.
[00:00:09] Welcome back to the I Am Virago podcast, where we get real about the struggle, drop the occasional F-bomb, and hear how amazing Virago women imperfectly navigate the world around them.
[00:00:20] Today's guest, Heidi Finley, is the definition of a successful small business
owner. She launched Maven Meals, a Seattle based home meals delivery service,
seven years ago, opened two retail locations and is on track to have a million dollar
sales year. Hear about her journey, the setbacks, New Newlove and how she was able
to embody the idea that failure is not an option. Failure is OK simultaneously.
[00:00:48] So grab that cup of ambition and let's get started.
[00:00:52] Hi, I'm Heidi. And to pay the bills I own and operate, Maven Meals and
Maven Mercantile, we provide meals that are made from scratch that are delivered to
your doorstep or you can walk in and see us at either of our retail locations and make
mealtime a whole lot easier. And I'm passionate about living a life that feeds my soul,
whether it be nurturing relationships, experimenting in the kitchen, traveling horseback
riding, taking some time to just recharge my batteries. So you are doing quite a bit to
feed your passion. I am. I'm really passionate about the work I do. What are you
passionate about? What do you love about your work? I love a lot of things about it. I
love getting in the kitchen and just, you know, putting my head down and doing RSVP.
Dallman Or just making huge batches of food that we do. I love the development side of
it. Thinking about challenging my mind and how we can grow the business and what
people are really wanting out there really feeds my creativity a lot. I changed the menu
every week, every week, every week.
[00:01:58] Well, it has to be full disclosure. Everybody on the podcast and Heidi pretty
much feeds me and my husband every week we order and the food is to die for. It's
amazing. And how long have you been doing this work? Just over seven years. Seven
years? Yep. We had our first delivery seven years ago. September. Wow.
Congratulations. Thank you. How has it been growing a business?
[00:02:23] Oh, man. It's been a little bit like being along for the ride on some levels. This
has been a really interesting kind of trajectory we've been on. I started the business
before. The meal delivery craze was really a thing and just kind of on a hunch. Thought,
you know, this is what I want to do. I'm just going to do it. I didn't really do much market
research, just kind of, you know, followed my gut and the meal delivery business and
the meal kits has just like grown up and blown up around it. And it's actually been really
great for me and for the business to kind of let them do all the marketing. And, yeah,
we've got great recommendations. And the personal recommendations have been what
the word of mouth has really been keeping us going. And so there been a lot of just
trying to manage the growth. And also, you know, that sounds kind of glamorous, but it
means a lot of really long hours, hard work and trying to find the right people so you can
grow at the rate that you're needing to. So how did you even start down this path? Well,
in graduate school was getting an MBA in sustainable business. And I was kind of
hippie grad school, if you will. And we had a creativity and right livelihood class that, you
know, really challenges you to dig deep and, you know, search your soul and what is it
you're really passionate about. And I kind of came up with this idea that I really thought I
wanted to be a butler. A butler.
[00:03:55] Yeah. And so I was just at the time, I was waiting tables to put myself through
grad school, and I just said, you know what? I'm gonna find a job as a butler and I'll be
damned if I didn't. In very short order, I found a job working for a wealthy family. And
one of the Seattle neighborhoods and became their household manager and private
chef. And it's funny because the job was kind of uniquely set up where I would work
seven days, one week and one or two days and axton I would do all their meal prep the
beginning of the week, the week. I was only there a day. And I kind of thought, like,
man, these people are basically eating leftovers all week, like from what I'm making.
And it's just like I don't know about that. But they'd tell me the next week, like, would
they eat something on Friday that I made on Monday? And they're like, oh, it was
amazing. And it's not. And so it really kind of got the wheels turning to, you know, think
about the meal prep. And so I just kind of started thinking about it. And I have Janice to
thank for saying. Hey, will you help us with some meal prep, and I said, yes, sure. Find
me another handful of people and make it worth my time. And so I started doing this just
out of my home kitchen for about six to 10 clients, family, friends. And I did it for about
nine months. And I realize at the end of nine months kind of how much time I was
putting into it and really decided either need to do this full time or not at all.
[00:05:24] And so I kind of burned myself out on it. Trying to do it. Even at that small
scale in a small kitchen at home was a lot. And so I put it aside for about a year. I took a
contract job that I was not passionate about. It was fine, but it was coming to the end.
And I was like, what am I what am I going to do? I looked at the job postings and
nothing, nothing was even catching my attention. And so I said, you know what? I'm
going to do it. I'm just like going to do it. And I decided the 1st of July that, you know, I'm
going to do this. And by the 3rd of July, I had my business plan written and I handed it
out to friends and family and just said, okay, I need to raise 20 grand like any amount
will help. And I delivered the first meals the first week of September. And what. Yeah.
So it was like, you don't feel right. I just like literally failure wasn't an option. Like, I
mean, I look back on it and I was like, man, how foolish was I? But I'm thankful that I
just didn't really think and just jumped in because I mean, I had a mortgage to pay and
basically no money in the bank.
[00:06:29] So what do you think you learned most?
[00:06:32] What was the biggest lesson you took away in your first year of operations?
[00:06:36] I think probably the first year was realizing that I couldn't do as much myself
as I thought I could. And even with, you know, my projections of saying, you know, it
wasn't that business was just like bang. And right away it was growing at a slow and
steady rate. But I mean, it was like week two and I was like, oh, my gosh, I need some
help.
[00:07:02] So.
[00:07:04] So that was that was one of the things I thought that I would be able to be
going at it alone for quite a while before I would need to pay to bring on help. And I also
just kind of foolishly assumed that it would grow fast enough that I could strictly do the
meals. And very quickly I started having people ask me if I would do catering. And I was
like, yeah, I'll do anything to make some money. So and I hate catering. And I would say
that's been like a huge win over the last year is that we've pretty much taken our heart
out of the catering ring. And that feels really great to be able to make that decision. Like
BE2 a point to say, like, yeah, that's a significant piece of business and I hate it and I no
longer want to do it and I no longer need to do it. Congratulations on that.
[00:07:52] And the beginning was catering almost a marketing tool.
[00:07:58] It was the two kind of fed each other, if you will. I mean, we'd have our meal
clients say, oh, this stuff is great. We have really terrible catering at work, you know,
and kind of connect me in there and then vice versa. The people who would order the
catering, corporate catering was predominantly what we did, a lot of photo shoots and
business lunches and that sort of thing.
[00:08:20] And those people would then find out that we would deliver this delicious stuff
to their door. And so they did go back and forth. And so it was a good marketing tool
there for a long time.
[00:08:32] So you've been around for seven years. You have two retail locations. Yes.
So we haven't even scratched that part of your business. But how how big if you've
grown in the past seven years?
[00:08:45] So I was just looking over numbers and we're on track to do almost two
million dollars in business this year.
[00:08:51] Whoa, snap. Yeah. Congratulations. Dan grew.
[00:08:57] Yeah. So our client base has grown to close to 5000 clients just for me.
Meals stuff.
[00:09:05] Oh, that makes me so happy for you.
[00:09:07] So what's a recent personal or professional when you'd like to talk about?
[00:09:13] I think the whole man I have I have several. It's been a good year. But I think
the thing that I'm most excited about is being in a position to have promoted one of my
staff members into a general manager position and really had the confidence to kind of
hand over a lot of daily operations and just trust that it's going to get done in men. I have
been just so impressed with with her and the staff and how they have really taken a lot
of ownership there. Is it to let go the last year? There's a lot going on. So I was kind of
forced to to have to step back a little bit. And so it made it that much easier to kind of
have someone in place. I trust it. I can't imagine what the last year would've looked like
had I not had that.
[00:10:05] So circumstances were such that you you had to try to trust somebody else.
Do you think you would have let go those reins?
[00:10:14] If I do, I think that I was starting to get a little burned out. I had just come off
of opening up our second retail location, which I have worked hard in my life. I have
never I have never worked that hard 20 hour days back to back to back, just never
being able to catch up. And it was a lot. And so I was to the point where I like I just need
to be able to handle something off. And so I think that it was just good timing. And in the
right person, she jokingly was she sent me a text from Hawaii a couple weeks ago. She
was taking taking some time off. And she said, well, unless you want to open MAVEN
Maui, like, I'm going to put in my notice.
[00:10:59] And I said, well, I guess I'm selling the business. So she really does that
much. You know, I was I can't imagine if she leaves. So. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah. If
you're listening. So I'd ask for a raise. So just cat1. Oh she just got. Oh yeah. Well there
you go.
[00:11:20] You must feel good to be able to give your employees raises.
[00:11:25] Yes. It does feel really good. And the other thing are professional. When we
just rolled out a employee H.R. manual. Not exciting. I love H.R. manuals so that's really
exciting for me. But one of the things that I put in there is we have a paid vacation policy
that's going effective the first of the year that I'm really excited about. I'm really excited
to be to a point to be that employer that's able to offer that. So how many in place do I
have? About 20, huh?
[00:11:56] That's amazing.
[00:11:57] And as listeners of this podcast know and I know you've listened, so you
know where we're going next. Is there a professional or personal struggle you'd be
willing to share?
[00:12:08] Yeah. So right on the heels of opening our second retail shop, which I was
just spent about the same time, my husband came home and told me he was leaving.
And one of the many things he he said in all of this was, you know, I've really always
hated your business. You know, a lot of it was hard to hear, but that was that was tough.
That was basically like someone telling me, like, you know, I've always really hated you
because it's such a big part of who I am and what I've done.
[00:12:43] And, you know, it really was hard for a long time for me to go to work
something that I've loved so much, that backout really hard, you know, going in and kind
of feeling like, oh, like this is the thing that, like, ended, you know, made it end or as a
major contributing factor in. So, you know, that took some working through for sure. And
I'm on the other side of it now and I kind of look back and I'm in, like, such a better
place. But yeah, it is super touch and go, you know, for a little while there that all of that
passion kind of got sucked out of what I was doing. And I don't have a lot of creativity to
create new menus. And, you know, all that is just kind of like it was a slog. And so feels
really good to be back and want to be back in the kitchen and want to be creating
recipes again, want to be engaging and thinking about growing and, you know, what's
next. And so, yeah.
[00:13:35] How how did you get through that?
[00:13:40] I had a really great group of friends who supported me. My work colleagues
were nothing short of amazing.
[00:13:50] You know, if I was having a shitty day, I'd be like, you know, what do you
really want to be here? Go home. And, you know, they would be willing to pick up pick
up the pieces and.
[00:14:01] Yeah, well, it's pretty it's pretty powerful. It's amazing to kind of just have that
support and give myself the opportunity to evaluate, you know, kind of the whole picture
and not feel like I have to be focused on getting whatever accomplished at work. So just
being able to step back and have the band, but to process all that. Yeah. One of our
guests on the podcast, Melody Berenger, often says that relationships are the true
currency.
[00:14:38] And it sounds like your relationships are what helped carry you through a
really hard time. Absolutely.
[00:14:44] Yeah. In a number of different areas of life. Right. You know, my family, my
mom and my brother were, you know, I could call them at any hour. I have this amazing
group of girlfriends, my hunting club, their hunting club.
[00:14:59] Hunting club. Yeah. What does Hunting Club? We started as a book club,
and then we decided we've read like one book, I think. And then it just turned into kind
of, you know, dinner and wine as as they do. Most of them do. And so we decided to
nickname our hunting club because we read as much as we hunt. So why not be. Why
not have a fun name?
[00:15:20] Ok. All right. Nice. Yeah. Well.
[00:15:25] Well, so, you know, I've known you for a long time now, over over a decade.
And you are one of the hardest working women I have ever had the pleasure of
knowing. And what do you do for fun?
[00:15:42] I have a lot of fun. I own horse and I do a lot of horseback riding and that I
wanted. What are your horses now? Brace, brace, spray. Okay. Yep.
[00:15:54] And I love horseback riding because while I'm doing it, it is impossible to
think about doing anything else. So it has been kind of my therapy. I do cross fit couple
days a week, which I love and I love to travel. And so in this last year, I spent the first
many years of the business not being able to get away at all. And I've spent the last six
months mainly on vacation. It feels like so.
[00:16:24] Wow. Where have you been?
[00:16:27] I went to Vietnam and then I went to Iceland. Was up on Vancouver Island in
Canada, Austin and.
[00:16:38] Yeah. What's your favorite, favorite place? I have to say, Vietnam just blew
my mind. It was amazing. What about. It was amazing. Oh, man. Everything is just
authentic. It was delicious. The food was amazing. The weather was great. The
company was amazing. Yeah. Nice. So being such a hard worker. What advice do you
have for young women starting out in the workplace?
[00:17:06] You know, my dad told me when I was a young girl, my dad was an
entrepreneur. He worked extremely hard. But he told me, he said, do what you love and
you'll never work another day in your life.
[00:17:20] And it's so true. I would say find something that sparks your passion, sparks
your creativity and pour yourself into that. Like, just just do it. Go for it. You just brought
tears to my eyes, Heidi. What makes you a virago?
[00:17:40] I am a virago because I believe I have the ability to create my own reality and
to really have the mindset that failure is not an option, but failure is OK. But just to know
in my mind, to just be able to make quick decisions and just be able to really act
spontaneously with confidence.
[00:18:05] Yeah, you you are such a Virgo. Thanks, Janice. In one of the things you just
said, you know, the failure is not an option, but failures, OK? Kind of brought to mind the
idea of you can lose a battle or two, but ultimately you win the war. Yeah, I've definitely
had some failures in. I mean, it hasn't all been, you know, rainbows and puppy dogs.
And there definitely been some stumbles along, I guess. And you're going to make
almost a million dollars this year.
[00:18:39] I wish I personally was going to make a million dollar sales. Revenue.
Revenue.
[00:18:46] Yeah. That's humbling. I mean, I look at that and I'm like, wow. Like we did
that. Like, I'm really proud of that.
[00:18:52] You should be proud of that. So we're coming to the end.
[00:18:56] And I like to ask people if if there's a question they they wish I would have
asked them about that. I didn't. How do you how do you feel about online dating?
[00:19:08] Well, I feel pretty good about it. Oh, really? In what way do you feel good
about it? It's it's something you ought to talk about. OK. All right. So. Yeah. So how do
you feel. Pretty good about online dating. Tell me. Tell me why. So back in the winter I
had a few girlfriends here, like we're putting you on this dating app. And I was like, I
don't know about that. And then I met the most amazing man.
[00:19:34] And he was the great company that I spoke of in my Vietnam trip. His name
is Tim and man, he's everything I thought I had. But never did. And, yeah, he he's just,
like, totally opened up my eyes to really feel what it feels like to be appreciated and
loved. And that has just kind of flipped my whole world.
[00:19:59] Down and I have been able to observe you and Tim, and it is it is beautiful to
see you two together.
[00:20:07] Thanks. You're welcome.
[00:20:10] All right. Well, we are at the end of the interview. Thank you so much for
doing this and really proud to know you.
[00:20:19] Thanks, Janice.
[00:20:24] Thank you, my Viragos, for listening to the I Am Virago podcast. Check out new episodes every Tuesday. If you have ideas or suggestions of whom you'd like to hear from on this podcast, go to IAmVirago.com and leave a message. And remember, you are Virago.