Challenge
Starting from scratch
In 2010 Jason Burke started making his dehydrating meat from pasture-raised animals when he couldn’t find high-quality, on-the-go protein snacks for his new way of eating. By 2012 he found himself with a rapidly growing business as word spread and people and the 1100 store supermarket chain Publix loved the product and began stocking it. Jason needed a clear understanding of the company’s financials to enable him to make smart decisions for growth. How could he keep dreaming and growing his business while having to crunch numbers? “We were using QuickBooks Online for payables and receivables and knew there was a month-over-month increase, but we didn’t know how that was happening or truly understand our margins,” says Jason.
Solution
Keeping the focus
Jason realised that while his philosophy of “bite off more than you can chew, then chew like hell’ may work starting a business, it wouldn’t take it to the next level. As the “dreamer” focusing on creating products and inspiring his team, he decided that help dealing with financials needed to come from outside the company. Jason hired Accountfully, who introduced him to Fathom. Fathom was an ideal solution to help small-to-medium business owners such as Jason grow their companies. “If I go by the ‘80/20 rule,’ manually pulling reports is not a good use of my time. Fathom makes it super clean and I love the integration with QBO,” Jason said.“For any dashboard or key performance indicator we set up — BOOM — now I have beautiful reports with amazing, clear data.”
"We’re great at making great jerky, we’re not great at accounting and finance."
Jason Burke
Impact
Making confident business decisions
As a direct result, Jason identified and eliminated poorly performing products. Having intuition validated by data, Jason and his team now have the confidence to create the right product extensions. “We have so many ideas, but we are able to pull back,” he said. Newfound clarity gives them the discipline to say no. One solid new idea is jerky sticks, a popular product predicted to increase consumer brand awareness and generate quick sales to satisfy retail partners. After all, small businesses have limited time and resources. With Fathom, The New Primal team can better focus their attention and narrow ideas down based on what is profitable. The plan is to take the company to the next level, aiming for $10 million in sales. “Our business changes quickly," Jason said. “Every month is like a new year. This approach is the perfect model for a rapidly growing start-up.”
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