Full Transcript

Jason Kirby: Everyone, welcome back to the show. Today we have Jack Hamrick with us, founder and CEO of Foraged. Welcome to the show, Jack.

Jack Hamrick: Thanks so much for having me, Jason.

Jason Kirby: It's great to have you and I'm excited for our audience. Good to know your story. Let's just jump right into things. Can you tell us a little about you and what you're doing at Foraged?

Jack Hamrick: I'm Jack. I'm the co‑founder and CEO of Foraged. We are the marketplace for wild and specialty foods. My background is in sustainability innovation—across education, academia, and early roles. I started at the EPA and realized the EPA was influenced by lobbyists, so my next internship was at a lobbying firm. Then I realized lobbyists were controlled by big corporations, so I went to business school and joined AB InBev—nice big old corporation—to connect those dots.

Jack Hamrick: I’m very interdisciplinary in sustainability innovation. Sustainability is everything and also nothing—you can add it to any system: roads, pipes, financing, housing. The thread that always carried me through was my passion for food. I originally set out to create something in aquaculture: sustainable seaweed (if anyone’s cultivating seaweed, let me know!), catfish, oysters, invasive species—anything harvestable sustainably.

Jack Hamrick: In 2020 I was exploring ideas and kept seeing mushrooms everywhere. I’m a big guy who eats way too much red meat, and I was tired of portobellos—the only mushrooms you could easily get. I was trying to find “chicken of the woods,” which I’d had at restaurants in D.C., and couldn’t find it anywhere. I talked to my now co‑founder Andy on the North Carolina coast. He knew watermen, and I asked about seaweed or oysters. He said no—random question, why? I mentioned mushrooms and that I was searching for chicken of the woods. He said, “No way. I have pounds of it. I’m trying to sell it.”

Jack Hamrick: He told me you can only get it in the wild—many mushrooms can’t be cultivated. He’s a forager and allowed to sell it, but he wasn’t going door to door and Craigslist was weird. Light‑bulb moment. At first it felt kooky—could many people have this exact problem? I looked into it.

Jack Hamrick: Turns out it’s a huge market. Edible mushrooms (we do not touch psychedelics) are about $13B in the U.S. and approaching $100B globally. The market is fundamentally fragmented. You can grow portobellos at scale, shiitake and oyster at smaller scale, and a few like lion’s mane—but many of the special ones (hen of the woods, chicken of the woods, morels, porcini, matsutake) generally must be foraged due to ecosystem relationships. Big market; fragmented supply.

Jack Hamrick: I checked Facebook, Reddit, Discord, TikTok—the community is enormous and engaged. #foraging has ~1.5B views on TikTok. Search any hometown on Facebook and there’s a wild foods group. The market is fragmented, the community concentrated. If you click those together and layer commerce on the community, you solve chicken‑and‑egg, barriers to entry, and geography. That’s what we set out to do.

Jack Hamrick: At the time I was chief of staff at a Series C startup helping with financing and M&A and was at the end of the rope for excitement. The president noticed and pushed me out of the nest: “Go start your own company.” He gave me a bit of severance. Perfect—I had been working on this idea. We turned the site on in April 2021, solved marketplace chicken‑and‑egg quickly, had revenue in week one, and it’s been growth since.

Jason Kirby: Amazing story—and a succinct pitch. For fun, going back to your EPA → lobbyists → corporate arc: where did you have the most influence on policy—or influence lobbying the most?

Jack Hamrick: The EPA carries out law, and law is largely written by lobbyists… pretty much written by lobbyists, yes.

Jason Kirby: Sad but not surprising. Back to the company: at what point did you realize you needed money, and what was your plan to get it?

Jack Hamrick: It’s a trap for first‑time founders: unless you’re hard tech or heavy‑reg, you can get far without money—and you’re often better off. We ran a $0.50/day Google Ad for the first nine months. At points it converted at ~70% and got us traction. We started on WordPress + WooCommerce—75 plugins; some to fix other plugins—bubble gum and gorilla tape. We still operate with that ethos: do everything possible short of adding capital or headcount. Prove impact with something that doesn’t scale; if it works, I’ll fund it.

Jason Kirby: Same. I’ve got the WordPress scars. But it’s a means to get started.

Jack Hamrick: I’m not sure we could have done this even five years earlier. Off‑the‑shelf tools are better; mobile networks are ubiquitous—many of our users are literally in the woods. Five or six years ago they might not have had the bandwidth or know‑how to engage with us.

Jason Kirby: Good “why now” for investors. You avoided raising—but you did a small pre‑seed (~$200k). Strategy and how did you get it?

Jack Hamrick: I purposely rejected money from people I knew. I wanted validation from strangers who’d been there: founders, execs. If someone I’d never met invests, that’s stronger than grandma’s money—and I didn’t want to risk friends/family capital on experiments. Only exception: a small check from a long‑time mentor as we realized a seed was coming. I didn’t meet an investor in person until months after taking their investment.

Jason Kirby: How did you get in front of those strangers for the ~$200k?

Jack Hamrick: Multiple paths—there are lots of spreadsheets/databases floating around. I focused on marketplace experience and food. Who has exits in marketplaces and now angels? Who in food? Our first angel came from a random spreadsheet + thoughtful cold outreach (no spray‑and‑pray). Early angels included a Silicon Valley operator (Facebook, other exits) and a marketplace expert who exited to Airbnb. They added value on focus, UX/UI, and strategy. I loved that most of our investors took a “only ping me if something’s wrong” stance—intrinsic motivation suits me.

Jason Kirby: You then raised a formal seed with Bessemer—$2.7M. When and how did you decide to raise?

Jack Hamrick: It didn’t go to plan—it went better. Winter 2022 I thought: we should get press. No money, so I’d do it myself. Researched TechCrunch reporters covering food/sustainability, pitched: early, weird marketplace, growing like crazy with no money. They bit. Original plan was to raise at end of 2022, but TechCrunch hit in April 2022 and VCs descended—blood in the water. We were fortunate to catch the last good window. We had diligence materials ready. Given our lean ops (I wasn’t even taking salary; maybe $5/day on ads), the check size mattered less than culture fit. Bessemer’s theses on e‑commerce unbundling and community‑based commerce resonated. Some other firms opened with “what’s revenue in 12 months / last 3 months growth?”—those are important, but for a weird, new category, that focus alone was a red flag. We moved quickly to term sheets and closed in ~6–8 weeks.

Jason Kirby: Mission alignment over pure KPIs—smart. Did Bessemer take the whole round?

Jack Hamrick: In negotiation I firmly requested room for high‑value individuals. We tacked on extra for operators across food, marketplaces, and tech. They’ve been fantastic—constant lightweight help and intros. I’m skeptical of fluffy “advisor slides,” but these investors add real value.

Jason Kirby: What were the frustrating parts of raising?

Jack Hamrick: Angels are a different game—they can be hands‑on; manage those relationships. On the priced seed: get good counsel early, but set pricing caps or fixed fees—formal rounds are expensive. Clarify scope; it can take a meaningful chunk of cash.

Jason Kirby: How much did counsel cost—ballpark?

Jack Hamrick: Six figures (not hundreds and hundreds). We had many documents that will persist; still, I wish I’d handled it differently up front.

Jason Kirby: Pro tip: cap fees and don’t let lawyers talk to lawyers without your OK—costs explode. Keep partner‑to‑partner conversations with the VC firm. Seeds can be $30–60k if clean; rolling SAFEs + cleanup drives cost up.

Jack Hamrick: We had cleanup: my co‑founder and I had never paid ourselves; we needed back pay configured. Also, we’d taken money from an unaccredited investor on a SAFE—wasn’t fun.

Jason Kirby: Another reason to know accreditation rules. Moving on: you delayed announcing the seed—raised summer 2022 but announced summer 2023. Why?

Jack Hamrick: A few reasons. We were scrappy on WordPress; I didn’t want a traffic surge until we rebuilt. A trusted angel advised against announcing: unless there’s strategic benefit, don’t flex—invites competition. We built hard for a year, then used the announcement as a PR wedge into broader consumer awareness. We still spend little on marketing—growth is organic, SEO and community‑driven with marketplace network effects.

Jason Kirby: Smart. After announcing, did you see a new wave of investor interest?

Jack Hamrick: Certainly. Many VCs even assumed the raise was older and we were just announcing—which was true. We had ~30 firms reach out over the summer. Conversations skipped the early patty‑cake; legitimacy helps. It took time, but we treated them as 30 free strategy sessions with top firms. It forced us to button up metrics, dashboards, roadmap, and hiring. Valuable feedback, though always contextualized. We’re not closing a round imminently, but I disagree that these convos are a waste if you can extract value without losing focus.

Jason Kirby: Great take. What’s next for Foraged?

Jack Hamrick: We provide small‑scale food producers a turnkey business solution: come for the tools + instant access to nationwide demand; stay for the network. Centralizing a fragmented market gives consumers access to rare foods never online before. Our destiny is tied to mom‑and‑pop businesses—alignment of interests. We need to drive more sales for vendors via product and engineering. We’re building a mobile app with POS and unified farmers market tooling. The marketplace already creates cross‑border network effects (average shipment >1,000 miles). Next: deepen local ecosystems, expand product portfolio, and grow restaurant/wholesale. Direct‑to‑consumer is ~90% now. We’re triangulating marketplace (exclusive inventory) + vertical SaaS (mobile app) + wholesale (chefs), experimenting to find the gravitational pull among the three.

Jason Kirby: Parting words for founders raising now?

Jack Hamrick: Find a mentor one to three stages ahead. Too far ahead and they’re out of the game; same‑stage peers are great, but someone slightly ahead brings context, intros, and managerial guidance. My mentor Alex has been pivotal.

Jason Kirby: Agreed. Best way to reach you or learn more?

Jack Hamrick: Visit foraged.com or find us on social as foraged.market across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Try something new—lots you’ve never seen before.

Jason Kirby: Last one—does chicken of the woods taste like chicken?

Jack Hamrick: It does. Check our recipes—our first hire, JV, does incredible culinary content and photography. There’s a buffalo “chicken” sandwich recipe using chicken of the woods—looks amazing.

Jason Kirby: Awesome. Jack, thanks for being on the show.

Jack Hamrick: Thanks so much for having me, Jason.

Jason Kirby: Hang in there.