Snaktak's first steps

It's been a crazy first year of Snaktak.

Really it's been a crazy 9 months. I officially created the business in March.

The amount of work, learning, pushing myself, failing, running out of money, spreadsheets, burnt Dirtballs and new obstacles has been wild.

For a little context, my name is Jeremy Cummings. I'm the founder, CEO, and sole employee of Snaktak.

I started this business after graduating journalism school with the knowledge that I did not want to be a journalist.

So it's not surprising that this first 9 months has been pure learning.

I never took a single business class, so all of my learning has been in the trenches -- figuring out basic accounting principles, getting my first sales, building a brand.

Building a startup company is hard enough with a team, and my biggest takeaway from 2018 is that doing it alone is basically impossible.

But it's also a huge reality that a lot of people will be working all alone for the first year of their startup.

If I had to pick one skill that's most important for entrepreneurs it would be prioritization.

Learning to prioritize what's necessary over what seems fun is really hard. The hard stuff is most the important but its also... well it's really hard.

If it were up to me I would do nothing but social media marketing. No matter how hard I wish for it, though, I can't build this business off Instagram presence alone.

There are many sales, manufacturing, and financial things I need to figure out that will be much more difficult and draining. Doing anything ambitious requires a lot of hard work.

I made a handy graph recently that illustrates what I'm getting at:

In other words, the higher you want to climb, the harder it is to get there.

There are just a lot of hurdles you need to get over to build a business. Taking the entrepreneur route rather than working for an established one requires a lot more sacrifice.

Once I figure all this stuff out it will be worth it. It's already worth it from how much I've learned.

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Every dollar I've made off Dirtballs has gone back into Dirtballs. It hasn't been enough to build up real momentum, but we'll get there.

I wanted to do this whole thing the scrappy way, one pack at a time. It's pretty clear now that's not a realistic strategy, though.

Investment money would help me fly out of the gates next year. I'm confident now that I would be able to spend it wisely.

At the beginning of the year I was still afraid of that responsibility. I still have a lot to learn about managing money, but I'm no longer scared of it. Money is a tool, and once we learn how to use it we can do some really cool stuff.

I've realized that this is the only chance I have to go big or go home with Dirtballs. It's better to try hard and fail big than half-ass it and fail small.

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At this point I'm still trying to figure out the best strategy to get Dirtballs in more bellies.

There are more costs to cut, more sales channels to explore, and more work to be done.

2019 will be the year where I do the work to figure out whether or not this can be a successful business. This year my goal was "make Dirtballs work" and I think that kept me from being as creative and fearless as I need to be.

Framing 2019 as a year of exploration and discovery will yield better results.

I can't wait to share the new year with all of you.

So follow @snaktakfood on Instagram. Reach out and ask me to send you a pack. Post stuff with #eatdirt to help grow the exposure.