What You’ll Learn:

• How a bootstrapped DTC company doubled their revenue in 6 months

• The pivotal decisions that unlocked manufacturing at scale

• How rolling 45-day financing terms fueled growth and confidence

Founding Story

Sylwia Tabor had struggled for years to find a diet that worked for her. After exhaustive trial and error, she finally landed on the carnivore diet - consisting of just meat and water - and found incredible success. She had more energy, her mind felt clearer, and she finally felt in control of her health.

The only problem? Between her long work commute and busy schedule, Sylwia struggled to find convenient, tasty snacks that fit her new carnivore lifestyle. So in 2019, she began experimenting with recipes using equipment at her aunt's pet food company. When Sylwia landed on a jerky-style meat snack that delivered on taste and ingredients, she knew she was onto something special. The positive feedback from friends kept pouring in.

Sylwia teamed up with Mark Ritz, an ecommerce entrepreneur, to co-found Carnivore Snax. Mark instantly saw the potential and signed on to handle the business infrastructure while Sylwia focused on product.

Validating Demand

In April 2020, just months after founding Carnivore Snax, Mark and Sylwia turned to Kickstarter to validate demand. Their pre-order campaign raised over $200,000 - confirmation they had struck a chord.

Despite supply constraints with Sylwia manually producing from home, the co-founders generated nearly $1 million in online revenue within 7 months of launching their website direct-to-consumer in Dec 2020.

Shoutouts from influential figures like Joe Rogan further fueled demand. Mark noted:

“Opening up Rogan's audience is just unreal, because one share is not just all of these people that come buying the product, it's all of these dms that come from other famous people that want to try the product. Then they get the product and it just flourishes out more from there. If you can get a shout out from someone like that, you better be ready to rock.”

The Problem

In mid 2021, overwhelming demand forced Mark and Sylwia to make a pivotal business decision:

1. Continue bootstrapping production and limit growth, or

2. Invest in large-scale manufacturing to fully capture the opportunity

They chose to go big. Carnivore shut down the business for 5 months to build out a custom 12,000 square ft production facility and reopen at scale in Jan 2022. The path to 3X growth was clear - invest in even more equipment. However, these machines carried hefty price tags that would strain cash reserves already pressured by ad spend.

During rapid expansion, volatile advertising budgets posed cash flow challenges. Massive weekly ad spend hitting their account only to be quickly wiped out again with each new billing cycle. Mark knew maintaining liquidity would be key to capturing the opportunity.

The Solution

After hearing about Parker’s 45 day rolling terms for advertising and inventory spend, Mark knew it would help them unlock more working capital for critical equipment purchases.

Parker provided two key benefits that helped Carnivore scale:

1. Freed up working capital

Mark and Sylwia began routing Facebook and Google ads through Parker.

Rather than massive weekly bills that immediately drained their checking account, charges now hit 45 days after the media ran. Parker’s terms freed up critical working capital to fortify Carnivore’s cash reserves and insulate from large purchases wiping out their bank balance overnight.

2. Gave them confidence to invest in growth

In late 2022, when facing a quarter million dollar decision on buying new manufacturing equipment, Parker’s impact was felt in full force. The additional liquidity and rolling 45 day buffer meant going all-in on scaling up production was a sure-footed leap of faith rather than a roll of the dice that kept Mark and Sylwia up at night.

This critical liquidity gave Mark and Sylwia the confidence to invest in new equipment that doubled throughput, and, as a result, sales. As Mark reflected: "It was a key lever that enabled us to double the business in just 6 months."

The Impact

Investing in manufacturing, and the partnership with Parker that supported them through that process, helped position Carnivore Snax to become a category leader.

The results spoke for themselves:

• Nearly 2X'd monthly revenue from $475K to $850K in 6 months

• Approaching $20M annual run rate within 3 years of founding

Just before installing their new manufacturing equipment in October 2022, Carnivore generated $475k in sales for that month. By April 2023, just 6 months after doubling capacity, they generated $850k in monthly revenue - nearing a $20 million run rate.

The Road Ahead

Since that first successful experiment cooking meat snacks on her Aunt’s equipment years ago, Sylwia and Mark have built Carnivore Snax into a thriving DTC community and brand - on track to hit well into the 8 figures in just their 3rd year of business.

And while Mark gives immense credit to Sylwia for developing the crave-worthy snacks and winning recipes that started it all, they both agree that unlocking the ability to scale up manufacturing and production capacity rapidly has also been a crucial growth catalyst.

With the continued help of Parker and of course the exceptional Carnivore Snax team, Mark and Sylwia feel they have all the tools needed to achieve their next ambitions and establish Carnivore Snax as the household name in high protein snacking.