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Cut the tie to anything holding you back from success. Welcome to the Cut the Tie podcast. Hi. I'm your host, Thomas Helfrich. And in each episode, we bring you real entrepreneurs that really overcame challenges on their journey to become successful. We look at the impact, the moment, how it affected everything in their lives. Follow us on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. Now let's meet our guest on Cut the Tie podcast.
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Welcome. Never been promoted. Hi. I'm your host, Thomas Helfrich. I appreciate everyone who's joining here in live to talk about some skin care. Farro. That's right. How to use large from a pig to make you look sexy as sexier than a pig, for sure. By the way, I don't use it, so, I need to. I got enough wrinkles on my forehead possibly to build you can wash things on this really effectively. Can't do it on my abs for sure, just round off, fall off. But this, I don't know. Just meandering here. Here's the thing. Charles Mayfield founded this, Farrow Life. We're gonna talk to him about his background and and how he, went through his journey of building this. He's got kids, and, and and it's gonna be a conversation around, the the business of skin care and and and Farrow, how it plays. But also, you know, if you're out there and you're thinking of making products, what you could do with a with a manufacturer or somebody who knows how to make stuff and how you get scale. And he'll talk about the challenges he's facing as well. So our mission, right, is to help you get these, you know, ties, cut this stuff holding you back so you can move forward in your entrepreneurial journey. Learn from the guests. I have one simple call to action and, you know, on Apple or Spotify or whatever your favorite player is, just hit the follow button. Just crush that little follow button because that way when we have new episodes come out, you're the first to know, and you're, well, more likely to listen to them. So follow button. That's it. It's beautiful. Alright. Charles on stage. How are you doing, mister Mayfield? I'm living the dream, Tom. It's great to be here. Yeah. Yeah. And we were talking off air. You're actually in Atlanta right now, and you've lived here a long time. So welcome back to Atlanta. I think I I haven't been outside much today. It was raining earlier. I have no idea. How was it today out in Atlanta here? Nasty.
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It's quite quite it's it could be worse. Right? It's not at least it's not freezing like, what is it, last week? Yes. It was cool. I always love the 20% increase in my blood pressure when I drive into town down here. So Oh, because of the traffic? Oh, man. It's just I I live the the the town I live in now is, population 11,000
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people. So That's a lot. That's quite a few. I mean, is there a stoplight?
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Like, seven. Oh, wow. That's big. That's a real metric. Where do you live right now? I live in, funny enough, Athens, Tennessee. So I spent twenty four years living in Atlanta explaining to people that I lived in Athens, Tennessee, not Georgia. And when I lived in Atlanta, I lived in Smyrna. Most of my years were in Smyrna. And so now I spend my time in Tennessee telling people that I used to live in Smyrna, and they're like, well, I thought you lived in Atlanta. Just stay There's a Smyrna, Tennessee. So yeah. Oh, yeah. Don't mess. Yeah. Athens,
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so you get a you get a voice date income tax. That's a smart move. That's nice. Yes. Yeah. We we like the politics and the taxes up there fairly
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business promoting state. And,
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yeah. I know. I just got our our we'd we'd you know, our mortgage bill and, right, we we saw the, the the property taxes, and I'm like, good god. It's more than my first mortgage. It's it's ridiculous. Like, it's like and and somehow, like, it goes a bit bigger, but I don't see any benefit ever. So anyway Yeah. I don't see any benefit. I see them redoing sidewalk after sidewalk after sidewalk after sidewalk. Yeah. I don't know if that's part of the strategy. It has nothing to do with what we're gonna talk about today, but thank you for letting me share that. Yeah. Well, the gold the golden age is apparently upon us, so we'll we'll see. Who is it? Who determined that? Breath.
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How did
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I'm not gonna go down that.
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Who determined that?
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I downloaded an app called Straight Arrow News. Not that I'm promoting anything for it, but it's interesting because it actually it it covers from left, right, center who covered what story or where. And so they actually they do a little data with it. And, I mean, right or wrong, it's just an interesting way to get news to see anyway, it's out there. It's like a straight arrow news. I think I feel like I wanna be an anchor for him just so I can see it over and over. Straight arrow news bringing it to you straight. Alright. Enough of that nonsense. Do you wanna do your small intro here or your big intro and then, just go big with it? Tell tell us who you are, what you're doing today, and then back up how the hell you got there.
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Yeah. So Charles Mayfield. I'm the founder and CEO of Farrow Skin Care. That is that's sort of by night, by day. I run a, I'm a agent in the risk mitigation, risk management insurance business. But, but, yeah, I founded Farrow in 2022. As I mentioned, spent about twenty four years. I came to Georgia Tech, graduated in '97, grew up in East Tennessee, and then migrated back home in 02/2016 to get into farming. I I, I guess, Farrowes, we're the we're the first lard based skin care brand. There's tallow out there. I know you and I were talking about that before we hit record, but, we're we're the first using pig fat. So there it is. It's we're we're using pig fat for our for our stuff. And it's really an amalgamation. I'm I'm sort of a self proclaimed jack of all trades, master of none. And so I grew up in an ag adjacent family. The Mayfield Dairy brand, that is that's my family's business. We sold it. What is ag adjacent? What is agricultural Ag adjacent. So I I I'm I'm a member of the Mayfield family. You've seen the yellow trucks driving around Atlanta. That's a dairy family. But by the time I was born, really, in in coming of age, when you get big enough as a dairy, you either milk cows or you bottle milk. And we we we grew to be a very, very well known regional dairy brand in the country. But by the time I came along, we weren't milking cows anymore. We were collecting all the all the the cow juice and putting it in bottles and pasteurizing and making ice cream. So ag adjacent I think the first guy that milked a cow.
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And what was he trying to do?
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That's a good question. And was it a cow that he milked? Probably, hopefully, it wasn't a bull. Different experience. Yeah. That's a reminds me of a funny scene from, a moo an Amish comedy movie. But, oh, no. It was, Kingpin.
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It's Kingpin. Yeah. Yeah. Randy Quaid. We have a bulldog.
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I know. That and and what is his name? But anyway. Woody Harrelson. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. One of my favorite movies. So, but yeah. So so Farah was born here here here's the short and, quick story. I got a nasty sunburn. It was 07/05/2019. I had this culinary background, so I've had well, let me back up. So I found CrossFit in 02/2007. CrossFit introduced me to the paleo diet in 02/2009. My ex wife and I coauthored a couple of cookbooks that were pretty early in the paleo space, if you're not familiar, sort of eat like our ancestors, a ancient ancestors. And so we sort of rose to paleo prominence, early on, and that seems real real growth. And paleo eventually introduced me to regenerative farming. I took a pilgrimage up to Polyface Farms in Virginia. If you don't know Polyface, it was Joel Salison is the farmer that was featured in Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, which is sort of a groundbreaking look at food and how we eat and things of that nature. But that really, again, sort of ag adjacent growing up, never really sort of looked at farming or I love the outdoors, place boards, scouting, all that fun stuff. But all of a sudden, I I visit this place in in Virginia and any any of your listeners can go there anytime. It's a remarkable spot. But that sort of planted the seed of interest in growing food, specifically meat, you know, pastured pork, beef, chicken, all those fun things. And so started a regenerative farm, micro farm. We moved to Tennessee in 02/2016, started the farm in '17. Had a bunch of clients, excuse me, in Atlanta. So I would do, like, monthly food drops, you know, order this, order that. And, fast forward 02/2019, I got an absurdly nasty sunburn. And I again, I got this culinary background. I was raising pigs, which, by the way, are my favorite farm animal. And so and I was cooking with I rendered their fat, the smart, and was cooking with it. And I come home with this, I mean, like, probably second degree burn, sunburn, like, lots of red. Yeah. It was on July 5. Did the problem start on July 4? It's kinda good to you. It did, but it's not the story you think. We, a bunch of us got pretty fast and furious. I don't know if you remember the hemp craze when the 02/2018 farm bill passed. They legalized hemp. And so a bunch of us were growing hemp, and so I'd I'd been in the field planting hemp for basically two straight days. And it was kids look at their shells on a beach, and all of a sudden they get up and they're like, I don't think I can move anymore the rest of the week. Yes. That's right. That's right. And so it's funny. Came home. I think Julie was out of town with the kids. We were again, we were going through our divorce. It was July 4, you know, so she traveled with the kids. And so I'm sitting in my living room barbecued, and I had sort of this moment of, I don't know, call it curiosity and desperation. My mom's from Mobile, Alabama. We used to go down there every summer for, like, ten days. And the first thing she would do is she'd take the jar of aloe vera and stick it in the fridge. So that when the inevitable happened, it was a nice cooling experience. And so I'm sitting there just suffering and I was like, wait. I've got a jar of lard that I've been cooking with in my fridge. It sort of looks like aloe vera. Let's try it. And I put this stuff on. Thomas, it soaked in my like like, I caked myself. You know? You you can imagine, like, Vaseline or anything else. Like, you just lather up Vaseline works great when you're like, I it get because it traps the moisture in. Right? It starts helping you. It traps the moisture in. This stuff was on my skin and then, like like that, it disappeared. Like, my skin ate it. And so that was kinda cool. Put it on, got it next morning, put it on again. So two two applications. Sunburn was gone in about two days, three days, but I never peeled.
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And so that was this yeah. Because you always peel, you know. If the sunburn's bad That's not like the thing you're looking forward to is to get, like, some I know. Like, you get the peel yeah. Like, you get on the carpet and you're like, this is gonna be gross, but it's gonna feel good. And, you know yeah. Exactly. And so that sort of planted the seed
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to, well, what's what's kinda possible here? And started tinkering around and so anyway, we we we launched the company after some trials and tribulations, but we launched the company in 2022. And, a % organic growth since then, it's really just been podcast and a couple of conferences a year, not doing any paid ads. But we say the lard works in mysterious ways, but it was it was that culinary background. And, you know, we could talk about sort of the state of affair with food in this country. You know, there's this big MAHA movement going on right now with the new administration and all these things. Well, the there there's so much correlation between the food industry and the skin care industry. Lots of toxic preservatives, lots of chemicals. And so sort of through trial and error, I took all of that stuff out of skin care. And what I like to tell people is I launched this company because it worked so well on a sunburn, which is, you know, arguably the most common acute skin care problem we deal with. But I'm still in business because I found out since then. I mean, you name a skin care condition. I've got testimonials left and right, eczema, psoriasis, chiggers, and my poor kids, they're they're 10 and 12 now. Lord, it's it's been like the Windex in, my big fat Greek wedding. You know, they put that stuff on everything. Like, I gotta buy it. You have ants. You spray Windex. They can't find their trail. Instantly kills them. So it's a little it's a little more humane. Really? I learned something today. Thank you. That is an excellent it's it's like find the Windex, know the blue stuff.
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Wow. You spray it, kills their trail, and it instantly gets rid of them. Well, if they're fire ants, I would do that. But some ants are good for us. They are. The ones inside my kitchen have crossed a boundary that you should have signed. Yep. Stay stay in your lane. I think I feel like my kitchen sounds dirty now. It doesn't. Just they get in. It doesn't matter how you do it. I don't know why they're here too. It's, like, 75 degrees below zero last week. Why why isn't ant even alive at this point? Sorry, tangents. This happens. I love it. So you've taken everything out, and you found that if you purified pig fat, it has how how do you take it from sorry, little piggy. We're gonna melt you down a little bit here to, like, different product types without it losing without it being like lard? Like, without it being like some you know, like, how do how do you do it? Like, how do you Perfect. Yeah. Great question. So everyone thinks my product's gonna smell like bacon grease because their most
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common exposure to render pig fat is bacon drippings. I mean, that does smell good, but but not good. Is amazing. Right? It's it it's it I call bacon the fantastic byproduct of my products. Right? So, how do we get there? So you you you have a pig. You raise a pig. Hopefully, outside healthy, happy pasture pork. That's the best way to raise an animal. In fact, my product doesn't exist without raising a healthy, happy, what I call one bad day pig. But that day does inevitably come. You take this animal's life. It's a it's a very, solemn moment. Right? There's a lot of emotion in in such things, but your pigs are pigs and humans share a ton of biology. So they're very good at converting excess caloric intake into subcutaneous fat. And so, you know, no one wants a two inch thick fat cap on their pork chop. So when you when you start eviscerating and butchering the animal, there's all this excess fat. You take that, you grind it, you render it. It it doesn't smell like bacon grease because you're not cooking bacon while you render it, but you render it out. They're they're they're curing on it yet. Yeah. None none of that stuff yet. And so, yeah, that's that's basically how we do it. And and, you know, fat's an amazing it it it's it's funny because it's a waste product, from the from the today, it's a waste product. You know, rewind the clock a hundred years, we made everything with animal fat. All the soap and tallow or all the soap and candles in this country in 1910 were made from beef tallow. I I I like to rewind the clock to nineteen ten because we didn't have any grocery stores. You went to the general store to get your nails and your turpentine and all the things. There's a 100% chance in 1910 if you walked out of the general store, you had a can of lard. We cooked with lard. We fried with lard. It was You got a bad rep because it's actually, I think, healthier for you to cook it because it's more there's there's no impurities. Oh, we can get we can unpack all that if you'd like to. But it's My wife being from Slovakia. Right? They still use Oh, yeah. Like Yeah. Like, that's not even that's what I'm looking for. Her mom uses lard in and, like, I gotta tell you,
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it tastes better. Like, it, like, you look at it, like, when we go to a heart attack, it's actually not true.
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Oh, oh, that's untrue. Yeah. The the the lipid hypothesis and this is funny too because this is where sort of my health and wellness background coalesces with my skin care back because it's all it's all metabolic health. Right? And so, yes, this is a this is a fat that is good for you. It's good to ingest. It's good to it's good to cook with. It's good to I mean, you know, most most butters but butter was a rarity, you know, a couple hundred years ago, but fat you know, lard was everywhere. So we lard spreads and all that fun stuff. It has a high smoke point, so you can fry without oxidizing. There's a million different benefits to lard. But here's the catch, you have to raise a healthy happy pig. Because just like humans, they will metabolize and store their environment, their diet, and their environment for better or for worse in their subcutaneous fat. So if it's not a healthy happy pig, which regrettably this is one of the sort of foundational tenants of our business. Like, we're highlighting that you need to raise a healthy happy pig. And, you know, again, regrettably, about 97, 90 eight percent of the pork raised in this country are raised in abhorrent conditions, you know, poor quality conditions, poor diet, and so their fat is not of high quality. I I source my fat from very, very high integrity farms. But, but yeah. So lard is lard was also the first fat, so I said 1910. Nineteen '11 is when Crisco launches, and they they Crisco is short for crystallized cottonseed oil, a former engine lubricant that they convinced us all was good for us to eat. And they dyed it white. If you've ever opened a, you know, a can of Crisco, it's white. Well, it's not naturally white, but in 1911, the preeminent cooking fat on every general store shelf in America was lard. And if you've ever opened a can of lard, it is white. And so I I don't remember what tangent we were pulling on, but that's sort of the Well, just the history of it, like, of how it got there because,
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I think there's a lot of stuff we've been missold over the last hundred years in the in the idea that it's good for us, but it it just it's profits. It's mass production of food to keep up with population, but also, you can make things for cheaper, like, you see, you know, if you could produce them for 7¢ and sell it for $20 instead of selling making it for a dollar, they're gonna do the 7¢ for those extra 93¢. And, like, it's something some it's just follow the money. Maybe intentions were good for some, but I I just think it's it's harder and harder to find pure things in general.
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Correct. And, also, we've externalized a lot of these costs. Right? So is lard more expensive than cottonseed oil? Yes. Is diabetes more expensive than being metabolically healthy? Yes. Right. So we've externalized, especially around, again, health and food. We've externalized some of these costs. What are the environmental impacts of raising pigs in a Well If you've ever seen one of these pig farms, you know, with these huge I've known them. Oh, yeah. They're terrible. And so, you know, excrement, poop, and pee is actually mother nature's most wonderful organic asset. But when you concentrate it and don't provide it enough carbon, it becomes toxic and leaches into our water streams and all that fun stuff. So we're we're trying to highlight the proper way to raise a pig and the benefits of doing so, and we're just doing that through the lens of the year. Does does the cortisol that a stressed animal
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have throughout its life make its way into fat, or is that is that just a more bloodstream,
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like, you know, like, the gaminess of stressing out an animal constantly? It doesn't necessarily make its way into the fat, but what it will do is change. It's a stress it's a stress hormone. Cortisol's the stress hormone. So if you're constantly running it high cortisol, then you're going to, preferentially store fat, in in a in a subcutaneous manner. And chances are, again, that environment that's causing that stress, it has some, you know, rather nefarious environmental hazards in it, whether that be poor food. You know, pigs metabolize vitamin d the same way we do from sun exposure, and those ninety seven percent that are raising the never see the sun. And so, you know, it it almost doesn't matter what you feed a pig if you're never allowing them to express their pigness, which is rooting around and getting sunshine and fresh air, fresh water. And so all of that external stress and and stimuli ultimately, manifests in poor fat quality. So a a a worse ratio of the lipids, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, saturated fats. It it can alter the pH somewhat, but, you know, again, if you raise a healthy happy, bacon's delicious one bad day pig, their fat and our skin is like a lock and a key. The, lard is the most similar exogenous substance on the planet to human sebum, which is the natural oil that our glands produce. And so lock and key and here I'll bring it modern day. I'm I'm working on a talk about this right now, but pig pigs are modern day heroes. So we train all of our surgeons on them because their organs and skin are so similar to ours. We we harvest hormones from pigs, have for years, and use those directly in humans. So the biology is a spot on match. Here here's the coup de grace. Right? We take the heart valve from a pig and use it to fix the heart valve of a human. So the biology is so similar. And if if you've ever known anyone that was in an organ transplant scenario, like, the one thing you don't want is the transplanted organ to disagree with the biology of the recipient. And so it's such a spot on match. And so when it comes to skin care, we'll just keep it there for a minute. Skin care is about three things. Biology, you you it's a fat based industry. Right? So you want you want the fat that is most aligned with human biology. I would argue that that's lard. Okay? You want, you want naturally occurring vitamins and minerals, not not these synthesized things. Right? Because that on a molecular level, we'll keep it skin care. Retinol. Retinol is a buzzword. You've mentioned your daughter. I'm sure she's she's checking into all these hyaluronic acid, retinol, and all these buzzwords. Well, retinol is vitamin a, but retinol manufactured in a lab on a molecular level, which our our bodies metabolize things at a molecular level, it's not going to metabolize it as well because it's this synthesized somehow different even though labeled the same ingredient. And so you want you want the proper fat. You want, naturally occurring vitamins and minerals. And then the third piece, which we can unpack if you'd like, is we don't need all these chemicals that the current state of skin care inject into the system. So just to give you one example, in in America, the FDA prohibits the use of eleven eleven chemicals in skin care. And by contrast, the EU has a list of over 1,300. And so what are these chemicals doing? Why are they there? Yeah. What are they doing to our hormones? A lot of these chemicals are estrogen signaling. And so there's those are the three things. And so, oh, I'll mention this too. PH is a huge deal with skin care. Of course, our pH Yeah. Has a lot to do with that. This gets into how how well does our skin, which is our largest organ, often called our second stomach, how well is it going to metabolize or agree with what we put on it? And so pH is a big, factor in that. And so if you're not injecting all these chemicals that mess mess with the pH, you what you want is a naturally occurring,
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automatically pH balanced fat to put on your skin. So I I think the original question we had we'd and thank you for that because I had I'm, like, learning, sucking this information up because I don't I don't know anything about the industry outside of, like, Sephora. Right? And Laneige. Like, my kids love it when I say that. Laneige. I don't know what it's made out of. I'm sure it's not great, but they like it. How does it go from that that that of which is, like, you know, the ground down from the butcher Yep. To store the something that's not not like feeling like I'm gonna have to, like,
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wash my hands off. Like, so how do you get it down to usable state? Yeah. Sure. We so you grind it and render it. We use a wet rendering process, which keeps, again that smell from cooking bacon. Well, you're you're cooking meat and so you you don't want that. I mean, I'm sure there's a handful of people out there who wanna smell like bacon. But, but yeah. We so we wet render it and then store it. Fat is any fat really, but certainly animal fat. Fat is an antibacterial, environment by nature. If you've ever heard of, like, confit cooking, which is a French version where, you know, like, confit duck. You cook the duck, it renders the fat, and that fat cap across the top seals hermetically seals what's underneath so that bacteria can't penetrate the dish. Of course, you can cook the confit and set it out on your counter, and it can sit there for a couple days and nothing's gonna it's in fact, it tastes better every day you let it sort of work. But, but yeah. So fat is a naturally antibacterial environment and so you can render it and then we store it in buckets. And then when it's time to make a recipe, we you know, I use three fats, predominantly in our creams. Yeah. So lard, leaf lard, which we can unpack a little bit if you'd like, and then tallow. And so tallow comes predominantly from cows, and then lard and leaf lard come from pigs. And so I use those three fats. We have a sort of a proprietary blend depending on our products that we utilize. Like, so, like, one of them, like, firmer or Yeah. That's right. That's right. Do you use it, like, do you make, like, a lip balm with one? And then, like, a or is it We're working on a lip balm. Yeah. We have a face food, which is, sort of our neck up product, and I what I tell people is it's a nice little one ounce jar. I have one in my car. And so for in terms of lips and just driving around, I just stick my finger in there and put a little on my lips and it works great. Now this is one of the preconditions to skin care. Like, they've told us they can use a specific product for a specific problem, you know, AM pick cream, PM cream, you know, x I'm not sure I ever bought that. I think you need that. I don't buy it at all. But but but most most consumers have bought that. Right? So we have a face specific product. It's formulated differently than our body product. But I tell people all the time, I travel with our face food because it's a smaller container. And at home, on my kitchen counter and bathroom counter, I have our skin food just just because it's a bigger jar.
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And and What what's how do you determine the mix? So is it based on a like, I mean, for example, like, part of it of someone buying something, right, is they don't feel like they go through it too fast as well. But it's it can't be so, like, rigid it doesn't loses its effect. So, like, is that part of it, or, like, how do you how do you determine the viscosity of it or what the Sure.
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Great question. So I mentioned, you know, the the the sort of the watershed moment was at 02/2019. And so we were hard and fast in this sort of hemp game. And so figured out the lard works in mysterious ways. This is really cool. Put it up on the shelf. I'm gonna come back and play with that. Right? And so fast forward 2020, I don't remember. There was really crazy stuff going on in 2020. So it was, like, all hands on deck not to, like, die. And then, so 2021, we started we I really started formulating and figuring out, okay. I know this stuff works, so let's let's make a let's make a product. And so it was it's probably a year and a half, two years of tinkering with formulas. The ratios of the fats, using essential oils. We put a little bit of honey in there. And so it was just trial and effort. I I I mentioned the, the farm and and my monthly food drops to Atlanta. So I just ordered some jars, you know, some little bitty sample jars, and I started making this stuff. And I'd bring it to people, hand it to them, and get their feedback. And so in in terms of how we got to our formulation now, I wanted to because we don't use any water. We don't use any preservatives. And I wanted to, at room temperature, sort of be as creamy as something you might walk into CVS and purchase. And so that it did take some tinkering around. But at the end of the day, I also I wanted to put product performance and quality at the very, very top. You know, if it's a little greasier than what you're used to, fine, but it works. Right? If it doesn't smell like the what what was the brand? Lineage. Yeah. Lineage. There's berry. There's blueberry. There's all these other versions. Pretty good stuff. So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna smell like Lineage, or I'm not gonna be on the shelf at Sephora. Right? But when you put this stuff on, it's gonna solve your problem. Right? So that was sort of the apex.
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So so the stuff you favor is it it could be potentially more like, hey. This is, like, put it on night because it might be a little greasier, but it works because you wake up with
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do you have to balance between what it does to a pillow as well or someone's shirt? It's a it's an application. So that it's probably the biggest trainer that we have to tell people is, I tell them, you know, put a little bit on your finger, rub it on your hands, and then put it on. When you've put our stuff on, you're gonna feel like you've hardly put any on. It's just it's just just a microscopic, layer. But, yes, give it ten minutes and your skin will eat it. So it's it's effectively gone at that point. We do encourage nightly use just because it's it's so different in terms of the experience. But while you sleep, I I've never had an issue with my pillowcases or anything like that. And and lord, this stuff's been everywhere. I put it in my hair all the places. But, but yeah. But, ultimately, and again, I I I come back to this and this is why I still am so passionate about this. Our stuff works. Right? And so even if it feels a little greasy when you put it on, does it work? Yes. Okay. People people by and large like results. They're they're willing to sort of come through the initial learning phase of, okay. I don't need to put as much of this on or maybe I only need to put it on every other day. I mean, our biggest complaint you meant you touched on this earlier. Like, how long does this product take? Because most people are like, I don't wanna use it too quickly. Our average subscription is, like, every three months. Now, you know, if you live in an arid climate or you're a skin care, like, daily user, then it might last you two months, but a little goes such it's actually on our jars. A little of this jar goes a long way. So
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be be gentle. Well, and I ask that too because maybe we kind of pivot to your business. Right? If of you know, I we were talking before with 10 year olds. My one 10 year old wants to, you know, make her own skin care and this and that. And we're like, we mix coconut oil, and we bought an aloe plant, and then I put it into, like, a a blender mixer. I'm like, well, I don't know what to do with it now. And it's too liquidy. I'm like, I have we so we're just making stuff up, and and she sells it. But I'm like, we wanna get away from the Vaseline petroleum base. And so could could Farrow be a base that you mix in coconut oil or coconut, you know, oils with? Or, like, is there stuff you don't mix with it because it doesn't work? So just from, like, a business standpoint of, like, you supply people, like, hey. Here's a here's your here's your stuff, your raw materials. You mix it however you want. Or how how do you guys in any of your your commercial side, but how do you how does your business work for, you know, just for more entrepreneurs who wanna get into this business? I like to learn from others. Yeah. We were talking before we hit record about co packers, and and I've ex so we're still handcrafting all of our stuff. Our one product that we outsource to a co packer is our epidermis product, which comes in a tube.
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And so I don't outsource the manufacturing. I outsource the filling. And so I'll ship up Do you send them the materials they send? Them a bulk buckets, two buckets. I go to Texas, and they'll spend me out, you know, a thousand units of our epidermis. And they send that back to you then? Correct. And then we we we're we're direct to consumer through our website only right now. And, I have zero plans to go on Amazon. Some some may gawk at that, but I every time I go on Amazon more of an Etsy shop. It's more like, you know, handmade stuff. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Just charge a premium for a premium product and leave it there. That's right. Or the TikTok shop that may go away in, you know, seventy five days. Right now. I mean No. That's no. That's we're I'm I love the meme that was floating around when the TikTok ban was, you know, was, like, comfortable with the TikTok ban having never signed up for TikTok. You know? Yeah. So,
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Actually, they they banned our, never been promoted account because they said we had content that was offensive. And I'm like, I cannot imagine what we possibly could have done that was offensive. They wouldn't let us advertise. So I was about the new car account anyway, and now I'm definitely gonna new car account and just maybe rebuild it. I don't know. But, you know, long here nor there. So you can so can a business or individual say, hey. I'd like to buy, you know, a gallon of this stuff so I can mix it in with my stuff. Do you guys do the whole stand holster?
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We're not there yet. We're not there yet. It's it's potentially what what I did do is trademark, SmartLard. If you buy our product, you'll see it's made for SmartLard. Not all lards are created equal sort of back to how the pig is raised. And so if you wanna use the smart lard, Mark, you know, I'm out here sort of making lard awesome again,
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then then we can talk about it. And I can, you know, I can license Well, that that's okay. So right now, you're on the retail side selling it to people through and you're you're doing word-of-mouth. You're doing, you know, podcasts. You're and what I'm what I'm I guess I'm getting at is you're starting small. You're starting with tangible ways based on what you can produce. Because if you start producing it, now you're into the skin care game of, like, well, I'm gonna lose quality. I'm gonna lose then that's the brand. And so so how how maybe from a businessman standpoint. Right? Like, how are you gonna bridge scale without losing, the brand's quality
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proposition? Great question. So I mentioned my day job insurance. And early before we even launched the company so I have a actually, they're right here in Atlanta. Georgia Grinders. I should get Jamie you would love Jamie their founder on their on your podcast. Best Nut Butter brand in the country. Okay? I do all of their insurance. And I was sitting at home one day, you know, we were formulating this. And I thought, I roast or I render, they roast. I they grind, I mix, and then we're just sort of squeezing stuff into a jar. And so I I before we even launched, I was hypothesizing and figuring out how scalable is this, you know. And so I went and spent I they were coming up for review anyway. So I called Jamie and I'm like, hey. I need you to come spend three days on your manufacturing floor. So I put the hair net on, all the things, and I went and made nut butter for three days. And so, again, seeing their process, how is it similar to my process? How big is their team? How much throughput in a day or two days or three days? You know? How many ounces of nut butter ended up in a jar? And so making all those comparisons, drawing some correlations between the way my business works and the way theirs works, and figured out very quickly that, you know, this this is extremely scalable, you know, as long as you've got can get the ingredients. Oh, you got fat coming in. That's right. You're good. That's right. And so, you know, so far that hasn't been a challenge. You know, I I sort of joke with people. I I long for the day when the raw ingredient acquisition from my side of the house becomes more difficult because that just means pastured, high integrity, you know, pork fat, beef fat are are more demanded by consumers. Because I I do think at the end of the day, when it comes to cooking, I think they're healthier fats. And, again, this sort of ties with that whole thing that's going on right now, which I'm thrilled to about. But, yes, there's a there's a balance with the co packing side. Again, how do you wanna launch? I mean, go to Etsy, you know, go to Etsy. There's a there's a new tallow brand every I feel like every month launching. You can make this stuff at home, you know, for your daughter. It starts small. That that I mean, that's what we did and we're still doing. But at some point, you you either outsource and then I I think this is the I think you start in your kitchen or you start, you know, I I rendered fat in my church's commercial kitchen for two years. Right? So there's there's a lot of avenues by which you can sort of outsource the spacing of this. Mhmm. Right? And so, you can start there. You you you build an audience. You build a a a following. You know? You you well, first and foremost, you make quality products. Do they work? Do you have high integrity, you know, with your labeling and all that fun stuff? I that that's very important to us. But at some point, you'll sort of wanna scale, and and it's it's interesting. There's a company out of, North Carolina. My my executive coach introduced me, Murphy's Naturals. You've probably seen them in a bunch of stores, but it's it's bug repellency, stuff. But Mhmm. K and B. For that brand for sure. Murphy's is awesome. And I've so I've been had the opportunity to visit with Philip Freeman as the as the founder. And he he he walked me through because they they've gotten big now, and he did exactly that. He started off in his in his garage, scaled to a co packer, and now he's actually repatriated all of his co packing because he can control the quality and everything else. And and he's actually his cogs came down when he brought it back in house. Sold for those listening? Cost of goods sold.
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Oh, thank you. Yes. Cost of goods sold. And so I'm happy I knew that one. And those so so those are all the decision points that you asked you about. Like, right, like, it there's this push, and you have this stuff. You know? Is the business in retail or is the business in I basically sell minimum 10,000 gallons of beautiful lard to you, company x, and to you. And so you're like, is your whole game Let's just build the let's build the amazing base ingredients because I have the contracts with these guys in Tennessee or Georgia, and they make this many pigs for me every year, and I own that supply line. I I feel like that's the better business because then you're just like you're focusing on just high quality, and what they do downstream from it
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is one thing. Yeah. I really love the consumer interaction. I I You're addicted to the to the to the Riz. I love it. I like well and and, again, this is something that Philip's done in Murphy's. I I use him as sort of a a goal based template is let's build the retail side so that then we can justify in housing the manufacturing side, and then that gives us the capacity. Because once you're once you're manufacturing, it's like you want that machinery running Yeah. You want me to push that on their down. And so now we can open that door to your daughter or somebody else that wants to sorta take their niche and spin it the way they want to, and then we have the capacity to, you know, on a on a b to b business, wholesale business,
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be there Well, it doesn't actually in game. You do have to buy the demand, and you have to have the brand to say, hey. This stuff's really good. You know, it's high level. It's great product. So somebody comes to you and says, oh, well, we use, you know you know, apparel skincare or apparel life, you know, products, supply. So our products are better, and we make natural maybe they do it differently. I mean, natural smells. What who who knows what their angle is on it? But you can't do that until you own the manufacturing path. I I You can't get to the manufacturing path so you don't have demand
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to make the capital investment to go do it. That's right. That's right. So it's it's, you know, it's stages, and there's break points. I mean, we're we had our best December ever, so which was great because we got to sort of pressure test our current fulfillment model and all that fun stuff, and and everything survived. And so it's like, okay. So we can we can take another step. And so, you know, in term this is our this is gonna be our first year of doing what I'm gonna call paid ads. We're not doing, like, meta ads. We're going directly to some sort of curated consumer basis and doing paid ads sort of through their Mhmm. You know, to to their audience. And so this this will be the first year that we're sort of doing something outside of organic conversations. You know what got along? This is you gotta unpack pig fat because everybody's doesn't know what it is anymore, and there's all this negative connotation around lard and this, that, and the other. I'm trying to see, like, it it I think tarot kind of ripped the way forward on that one. Well, fair.
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Like, you're you're on the tails of the cow.
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There you go. The the,
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maybe shift gears for me. Talk about being you said you're divorced. Do you have kids? How has it been building a business as you've done this? I mean, because I think there's a lot of guys that I know that listen to this, and there's a lot of people I've met that are and and women too that are just they're going through. They're about to. They're they're on the other side of it, yet you're you're succeeding. So you if you don't mind, like, talk about kind of the humanized side of building a business. Because what you're building is beautiful. There's you got a plan. No doubt about it. People need to go to the pharaoh.life to go check it out. But give some advice on the other side, you know, for those who are kind of where you are or where you're where you've been.
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Yeah. Well, I mean, divorce is hard. And starting a business is hard. You know, I launched part of Do it together at the same time. It's great. Yeah. Why why not stack it up? I I started the farm. One of one of the big tenants behind or motivations behind starting the farm was I had these young kids, of course, at the time. They were four and two and really wanted to expose them to sort of that daily grind, outdoors, animals, all that fun stuff. And at some point, we so we launched Farrow in 2022. And in 2023, so I was day job farming and Farrow. And it was like and and the kids were getting older. They post divorce, they they moved back to Atlanta. Their their mother lives here, and I'm two and a half hours away. And so had to sort of put the farming hat up, and that's when I sort of I I both kids have business cars. I I've kept them integrated in the business in some capacity. And so, you know, one one of I guess one advice I would give anybody that's sort of going through that is, you know, find creative ways to incorporate your children into the journey. Right? Because that just it just ties them a little bit closer to you, and it's it's sort of a shared experience. But, man, I would say be patient and, you know, find God. I I I I was baptized last year,
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probably long overdue. Thank you. But, So is that is it a newer faith journey?
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It's a it's a, I would call it a newer, you know, I've sort of my my my prayer group, leader would be laughing, if he ever hears this. But, yeah, I I sort of I needed to I had to let go. And I think during divorce, especially, you know, any challenging moment, but you wanna you wanna sort of try to take control, and you you've gotta let go. And so what that that for me and again, I've been divorced now five, four and a half years, you know, finally reaching a point where I I have to turn this over to my higher power. Like, I can't control this. I gotta work I gotta I gotta control what I can and all of these things that I'm worrying about and all of these, you know, what people think of me or what's Yeah. What my ex thinks of me or, you know, I'm I'm out here doing all all I can. And as long as I'm doing it for him, for my higher power, then everything's okay. And I'm gonna do my best and and and and to be able to to be able to give someone grace and understanding. And so that's that's what that's what it's meant to me is just be be able to That's a that's a beautiful thing.
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You know, I I I asked because of of, you know, I'm on a smaller journey or faith journey not too many years ago, and I'm not gonna be selling Bibles at the door anytime soon. So don't I'm gonna read into that. But without it, I don't think I start this podcast. Without it, I don't think I've launched this community or written a book that's coming out this year. I think I'm a worse person if we hadn't decided as a family to because we saw this direction. The kids, they needed something some community. We had no community. We've been living here in Atlanta for a few years. Like, just don't not that you get a ton from where we go at Northpointe because it's big. You get to get to the small groups to do it. But just the nature of looking at a book and and and the faith in business, in the faith in the world and and your family, how it all kinda ties together. Just some of the principles of it. I I think it's a beautiful thing, Ron. I I didn't mean to derail the conversation too much for it because I think it's core. I was I'm just figuring picking up with this. It doesn't happen for you without it.
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I I agree. And and like I said, I mean, all of these things, they're they're, quote, hard. And and and we want you know, the ego steps in. We wanna control this. We want we have these expectations of others, and you you you just you you really need to be able to let that go and just focus on becoming the best version, of you that you you know, I I I do feel like I have been called to this to this business Yeah. And to to what we're doing at Farrow. And so it was it was remarkable how sort of all that came together, and it was,
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It's it's interesting. You're like, you if you're like you look at it and you're like, man, if I had done this maybe ten years ago, what would my life be like? Right? Yeah. Well, those are the questions that absolutely sink into some of your struggle with me. Like, it the the idea it meets you where you are when you need it. That's right. And and, you you don't know what's in life. And I I I I applaud you for doing be able to talk about it because, you know, your call to nature is tied to that. This this, like, I need there's something missing in my life. Something bigger, and and it finds you through the things you find. I don't know. It's I I, you know, I you're so early on the journey. Right? You're, like, you have a full daytime job. You're, you know, still a full time dad, and you're, like, you may not, you know, that maybe you have interactions that are every other week or whatever, but it's in your mind, you're still a full time dad. It's like Oh, yeah. And now you now you have this full time business that's taking off. The question I have for you next is, what's the scenario when you cross over and you're like, insurance is it's what I've done, but it's no longer what I am. Man,
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I get that question a lot. How do you need to? I mean, if Well so I was at this conference, back in 02/2011. There's a guy named Dallas Hartwig. He's the cofounder of the Whole30. Okay? And if you don't know, you know, so you got Melissa. Dallas and Melissa, they founded Co30. And Dallas is a former, like, semi professional volleyball player, handsome devil, six three, chiseled, good looking guy. And I'm standing in that conversation. You ever hated me a bit of him. Yeah. Absolutely. And I'm standing there and a a a mutual friend of Dallas and I's walks up and she, you know, she goes, oh my god, Dallas, you know. And she's just sort of joking around. She's like, you are so hot. Blah blah blah blah blah. And she looks at me and she goes, oh, Charles, you're hot too. You're like truck stop hot. Okay? Which
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which I consider a compliment. I mean, if it's Buc ee's,
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that's really That's right. Super calm. And so when it comes to sort of this, like, where do you do you do you let that go? If Elon Musk,
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who who's obviously a very special part he's running, like, eight companies. Right? And Well, that was my thing. I don't think you have to if if it the nature of some businesses,
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you're in it. Sure. Well, I have a great team behind me in the insurance game. Right? I've got customer service reps in the office. I can get out and beat the streets. My passion on insurance, you know, the sort of the field of expertise that I like is manufacturing and food production, food service. So restaurants, food manufacturers, you know, George Grinders, great example. I I love those brands. I like to one of my favorite things growing up was going to do the manufacturing company tour. Right? And you get to see how all the How it works. Right? Features are made. I love all that stuff. And and, you know, candidly, I there there's a piece of the commercial insurance side that's also benefits, and I've got this health and wellness background. And so getting in and doing the employee benefits and sort of structuring incentive programs that I know work You know, I'm running a carnivore challenge for our office right now in the office. Right? And so little things like that. And so, is there a point where I I put one back on the shelf? I can't answer that definitively, but I've got a I've got a really good team built around me on the insurance side of the house. We're so young on the skin care. You know, part of my job and challenge as a as a leader is to build the team, and we're working on that, the team to to take that company and be able to grow it so that, you know, my exclusive role in that business at some point is having conversations like this sort of, you know, managing from the time of the that's right. That's right. Are you are you looking at, like, an entrepreneurial operating systems and things like that for the, implementations,
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some some EOS stuff? We should look into this. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're you're big enough so how you're describing it, there's a thing called EOS. It it is it's worth it's worth, reading the book. The book somewhat is promotional marketing for the guy to come do it, but it's called EOS. It's it's excellent when you're not a solopreneur. So your you you that book would be a good one for you to read right now, for sure. Yeah. It it's my company, my teams are all in Philippines. It's not gonna really apply anytime soon. Yeah. So, like Well, and I'll say
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to entrepreneurs that are listening. So I it's not just me. Like, I have a sort of a COO. I have a a fractional, CFO, so our books are tight, all that fun stuff. Everyone's virtual. And so one of the nice things about a young up and coming company, you know, as we are well, getting the books right was an expense I really did wasn't comfortable spending early, but I knew I had to. But as we've sort of crested above profitability, you're looking around. And so I I have a virtual assistant now, albeit, you know, ten hours a week, And she's in The Philippines. Right? And so we're we're we're adding pieces. Now the day to day, I've got one gal locally. So I'm I'm talking to you. I'm in Atlanta for three days. She's gonna go by, make sure the orders are packed up, ship those out. So I'm bringing somebody on there. Right? And so that's that's sort of right where we are. But but the point is the the and both businesses sort of feed each other. Again, I go to these conferences. I'm seeing other brands in the space. Insurance is a is a complicated industry, and so if I can assist other brands as sort of they go from little to big and all all of various decision points around, you know, general liability insurance, product liability, ensure all of that stuff. If I can be a resource, I'm happy to do that. And so there's there's a lot of correlation between day and night.
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But I don't I don't know, man. You know? Well, no. So so as you do it, like, right, the way that you know, not a lot of people are in the spot to do entrepreneur at EOS. But look at EOS as a book, and and look at it, and, they have implementers that can help you put it in. You're on that path for sure, and you you you might be something you're already doing. You're like, oh, that's perfect. Like, it's like reassuring yourself with it. I don't think you actually need to do it. I just always ask the question, would you leave what you're doing, which tells you you still like what you're doing on the insurance side. And and what happens with a lot of entrepreneurs, as you probably have met known, is they're running away from something else they don't like to do to go do something else. And that sometimes that's they get a false positive on traction, and they move too fast. Mhmm. And so No. I I have my note. I will I will take and thank you for the Yeah. Well, I mean, listen. That's one thing entrepreneurs are good at are giving unsolicited advice. That's, of course, so awesome. But but you have to take that away. And I'm just conscious of time. I know you have a kind of a hard stop here. There's so much more I'd ask you. I'll be able to do a follow-up interview if you'd like. Farro.life, you have a special cut the tie. You wanna do a little plug for whoever you'd like to contact you?
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For sure. Well, it so Farrow.life, if you forward slash cut the tie, it'll save you 15% on any of our products. And, you're looking at the guy that answered email. So if you got questions or comments or wanna know more, we're we're in the middle. I will say this. We're in the middle of a migration to Shopify. Don't worry. That won't affect you. The everything will point toward at the end. But if you've if you or anyone you know has a skin problem of any sort, I I will tell you that our stuff again, I started because it worked on sunburn, but I'm I'm still here because it works on everything else. And, Thomas, I just wanna say it's it's been a real pleasure to chat with you today. I appreciate you reminding me I gotta go pick my son up from school. Yeah. I know. I've been legit. Yeah. Thank you for that. But, you're in Atlanta. I've got here a lot. To anything. Yeah. Well, we we've agreed to have coffee,
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as well if you'd like. I know you gotta bail, so I'll find time with you. I'll just I'll shoot you an email here. I know you're gonna run off, but, thank you so much, for taking a few minutes with me today. I really do appreciate it. Thank you. Alright. Talk soon. Thank you for anyone who's made it here. Check it out. Charles Mayfield is the founder of, like I said, once again, a Farrow Farrow. I keep saying Farrow. It's Farrow.life, and slash cut the tie. You'll get you'll get a discount. So that's awesome. I'm gonna use it. Listen, guys. Get out there. Go unleash your entrepreneur. Just cut some ties to anything holding you back. Don't let don't let anything stop you. Just get going. Thanks for listening.
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Thank you for joining us on this episode of Cut the Tie. Let's stay connected. Please hit that follow button on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube. And if you're ready to advance your entrepreneurial journey even further, join our free community at facebook.com/groups/cutthetie. Cut the tie to everything holding you back from success.