The Founder Who Built a $20M+ Business and Kept 90% Ownership | Entrepreneurship | How We Profit | E1

**Hala Taha** (0:03)
Hey, Young and Profiters, when I think back to the early days of YAP Media, I was way too scrappy. I'm talking about working out of coffee shops, bouncing between public Wi-Fi networks, and hotspotting from my phone just to get through on a client call without the connection dropping. But looking back, it was actually adding a lot of unnecessary stress because you realize pretty quickly your business is only as strong as your connection. It's how you run meetings, serve clients, and keep everything moving.
That's exactly why I wish I had AT&T Business back then. They're built for small business owners who need their Internet to work without second-guessing it.
Once you've had that kind of reliability, you get real peace of mind. You can show up fully, close deals, serve your clients, and focus on growing your business without any of the stress.
You need a provider that is as serious about your success as you are, like AT&T Business. Built to work, get AT&T Business at business.att.com.
Hey, YAP fam, we are about to launch something that might be my favorite thing we have ever done on the podcast. A brand new series called How We Profit. Now, I have been doing Young and Profiting Podcast for eight years, and my listeners are successful. We are real entrepreneurs with real businesses, and a lot of you guys are crushing it behind the scenes. You may not be super famous, you may not be a billionaire yet, but you've got a business that you've learned how to scale, and we want to hear from you. One of the best ways to learn as an entrepreneur is from your peers, and I found it super helpful to be in these peer entrepreneurship groups and learn from other entrepreneurs who are at my level, but just in a different industry. So that's what I want to bring to this podcast. I want this to be our own peer group, but on the podcast. So I'm going to be interviewing people who are making anywhere from $500,000 to $10 million a year. They're not super famous. They're not the typical billionaires that are on my show. These are real entrepreneurs who are crushing it behind the scenes. And we're going to uncover what they do to sell, how they get their customers, what their profit margin looks like, how they market and so much more. If this sounds like you and you want to be featured on Young and Profiting Podcast for our How We Profit series, just head to youngandprofiting.com/apply and share your story. Let me know why you think you should be featured on the show. Again, that's youngandprofiting.com/apply. And who knows, maybe you'll be our next guest on Young and Profiting Podcast.

**Kirsten Maitland** (2:27)
We've built a $20 million company from $750K. We've doubled our growth year over year the last couple years. Our valuation now is actually $40 million.

**Hala Taha** (2:37)
I love that. Today's guest is Kirsten Maitland, co-founder and CEO of Rebel Cheese, a premium plant-based cheese brand with e-commerce, wholesale, and retail revenue streams that saw explosive growth after a Shark Tank appearance.

**Kirsten Maitland** (2:54)
We actually started as a restaurant in Austin. That was 100 percent of our revenue. A few months later, Covid hit. Today, 90 percent of our revenue is some e-commerce.

**Hala Taha** (3:05)
You go on Shark Tank and Mark Cuban invested right away. You didn't even finish your pitch.

**Kirsten Maitland** (3:11)
Yeah. It was his fastest deal ever.

**Hala Taha** (3:13)
How much profit are you making every month?

**Kirsten Maitland** (3:15)
Right now, we're hovering around 61 percent profit margin.

**Hala Taha** (3:18)
That's really high. Traditionally, this industry has very low profit margins with the shipping. What are you doing differently?

**Kirsten Maitland** (3:24)
I honestly believe it's because.

**Hala Taha** (3:27)
So talk to me about how you compensate yourself as a business owner.

**Kirsten Maitland** (3:30)
We didn't pay ourselves for years.

**Hala Taha** (3:32)
Really? What would you say is the reason for doubling?

**Kirsten Maitland** (3:35)
Well.

**Hala Taha** (3:37)
What are the most important KPIs for you?

**Kirsten Maitland** (3:39)
We're looking at our customer.

**Hala Taha** (3:41)
You are raising another $20 million.

**Kirsten Maitland** (3:44)
Not $20 million. Okay.

**Hala Taha** (3:46)
How much are you raising?

**Kirsten Maitland** (3:47)
We're raising.

**Hala Taha** (3:50)
Welcome to the How We Profit series. Real YAP listeners, real numbers, and real businesses. In every episode of this series, an entrepreneur you've never heard of breaks down exactly how they profit. Real revenue, real margins, employee count, marketing strategy, sales strategy, you name it. No highlight reel, no motivational fluff, just how the business actually works so you can steal what's relevant for yours. Young and Profiting isn't just about learning from billionaires and millionaires. It's about becoming one. Most business podcasts interview people after they've made it. I mean, I've been doing that with YAP for the last eight years. But by then, the story is polished, the numbers can be vague, and the advice is sometimes just follow your passion. But that's not useful to somebody trying to figure out pricing or wondering if they should hire their first employee or deciding whether they can quit their job. How we profit is the opposite. We're going to be sitting down with the real entrepreneurs.