Ep. 71 Life as a Scrappy Startup Exec: Doni Curkendall and The Better Meat Co.
Release Date: 08/01/2021
Ep. 81 | The Rapid Rise, High-Profile Fall, and Resilient Recovery of Juicero’s Doug Evans
Business for Good Podcast
This is a story about how one man entered startup life, rose to great prominence, got battered in the press and endured a very public downfall, and then got back up again and kept pushing his life’s mission to improve public health forward.
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Ep. 80 | Is What You Believe About Food Sustainability Wrong? Robert Paarlberg Thinks So.
Business for Good Podcast
When it comes to food, we often hear that switching to organic, local, non-GMO production methods are what’s best for the planet. But, what if the preponderance of scientific evidence doesn’t support such claims, and that actually both the planet and public health are better off with the synthetic fertilizer banned by organic standards; that buying local may not be better for the planet; and that it’s perfectly safe to eat genetically modified plants?
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Ep. 79 | From Sophomore to CEO: Jessica Schwabach of Sundial Foods is Flying on Plant-Based Wings
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For real: What were you doing during your sophomore year of college? Probably not what Jessica Schwabach was doing, which was starting her own plant-based meat company. Two years later, Jessica has gone through two prestigious accelerator programs, created products that have been sold in dozens of stores, and just raised a $4 million seed round, including investment from food giant Nestle.
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Ep. 78 | A Conversation with NYC’s Mayor-Elect Eric Adams
Business for Good Podcast
A year and a half ago, a guy few people had ever heard of came on to this show’s 44th episode to talk both about the business of police reform as well as his new book advocating plant-based eating. At that time, he was also rumored to be considering running for NYC's highest office. Well, spoiler alert: he won the mayoral race! So we're re-running our conversation with Eric Adams now that he's poised to take the reins of power in America's largest city.
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Ep. 77 | Creating a Cultivated Meat Community: Anita Broellechs and Alex Shirazi
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This is a story of two people who despite not having experience in the cultivated meat space felt so strongly about building a community around it that they started their own podcast, called Cultured Meat and Future Foods, their own conference, the Cultured Meat Symposium, and are now working on a children’s book about cultivated meat together as well.
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Ep 76 | Is Your Cat Ready to Eat Cultivated Mouse Meat? Shannon Falconer and Because Animals Think So
Business for Good Podcast
There’s already plant-based pet food, but what about growing actual animal meat for all of our carnivorous best friends? The company featured in this episode, Because Animals, is trying to do just that. And they’re starting with cultivated mouse meat for your cat.
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Ep 75 | The Sweet Side of Starting a (Dairy-Free) Ice Cream Company: Aylon Steinhart & Eclipse Foods
Business for Good Podcast
In 2019, two friends were both working in the alt-protein sector, one at the Good Food Institute and the other at Eat Just. Even though Aylon Steinhart and Thomas Bowman were both doing great things to advance the animal-free protein movement, they wondered if they should try their own hands at co-founding a food tech start-up that would put cows out to pasture and mimic dairy with plants. After serious deliberation, they both left their secure jobs to team up and found Eclipse Foods.
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Ep 74 | A Financial Journalist’s Prescription for Making the Economy Work for Animals
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In his new book, How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World, Henry takes his readers on a wild ride through our relationship with animals, including getting a job working at a slaughterhouse himself. Henry repeatedly weaves personal experiences like this one into his narrative, while also making prescriptions for a bold reshaping of the parts of our economy that currently involve animal exploitation.
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Ep 73 |From Dust to Dust...or to Soil: Katrina Spade and the Recompose Vision for an Eco-Friendlier Death Industry
Business for Good Podcast
Katrina Spade is on a mission to offer a better way to deal with human corpses, and it involves a process called natural organic reduction. It’s essentially a fancy way of saying she’s invented a method of accelerated composting for your body.
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Ep 72 | Plastic that Won’t Last Forever: Kristin Taylor and the Radical Plastics Story
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Sure, diamonds—including lab-grown—may be forever. But does plastic also have to be? Not so, according to Kristin Taylor, CEO of Radical Plastics.
info_outlineDoni Curkendall was born and raised in Mexico, came to the US as a seven-year-old, and when she entered the workforce started as a receptionist at Goodwill. As the years went on, Doni was continually promoted, got her MBA, and eventually was a Vice President at Goodwill overseeing more than 200 employees. But two and a half years ago, as fate would have it, Doni and I began exploring whether Doni could help run my own then-one-year-old, The Better Meat Co.
For the past 2+ years, I’ve often said that I may be the face of our company, but Doni is the backbone, serving as our Executive Vice President and overseeing all of our operations and logistics. She’s truly integral to the enterprise, and in this episode, Doni shares her secrets about what she’s looking for in job applicants, what the transition from nonprofit exec to scrappy startup has been like, how she thinks about compensation packages in Startupland, and more.
It’s a compelling insider look at startup life, so listen up, and I’m sure you’ll be as impressed with Doni as I am.
Discussed in this episode
- Past episodes with Goodwill Industries, Your Choice birth control, and Toni Okamoto.
- Doni has been inspired by Maurice Hilleman.
- Doni recommends both How I Built This and Radiolab.
More about Doni Curkendall
Doni's driving passion in life is to use the power of business to help solve social problems. Before serving as the Executive Vice President of The Better Meat Co., as VP of Operations of Goodwill Industries of Sacramento Valley and Northern Nevada, Doni worked to help people with disadvantages achieve self-sufficiency. By the end of her nine years at Goodwill, she was managing operations for $10 million in annual revenue and oversaw a team of 250 employees. She earned her MBA from California State University, during which time she also served as a career mentor for Women's Empowerment, an organization helping homeless women gain meaningful employment. In her spare time, Doni reads Spanish literature, hikes with her dog Penny Lane, and, as her dog's name implies, loves listening to The Beatles.