Back to the Roots: Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2021

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2009, Berkeley seniors Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez started to geek out over something they'd heard in a lecture: you can grow a healthy crop of mushrooms on used coffee grounds. Intrigued by the business potential, the pair set aside jobs in finance and consulting and became urban farmers: salvaging leaky bags of coffee grounds, planting mushroom spawn in an Oakland warehouse, and selling their crop to local grocers. Over time, the partners realized they could help others grow food for themselves, so they stopped farming fungus and took the leap into selling tabletop grow kits, seeds, and potting soil. Since launch, Back to the Roots has become the fastest-growing organic gardening brand in the U.S., with its products sold in 10,000 stores across the country. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	When you leave home, can you ever really go back?
0:12.0	Made a version!
0:13.0	Soccer legend Leo Messi and I both left Argentina as kids.
0:17.0	You know you're that piece of a puzzle that doesn't fit anywhere.
0:20.0	To so many immigrants, football is a way to reconnect.
0:23.0	Listen to the last cop in the embedded podcast feed
0:26.0	to hear the latest collaboration from MPR and Fuduro Studios.
0:31.0	We got the contact info that day to Randy Decommon,
0:35.0	who was a produce coordinator for Whole Foods.
0:38.0	And we ended up getting a call scheduled with him.
0:41.0	It was like a two-minute phone call.
0:43.0	He's like, boys, what is this?
0:45.0	You guys are farming.
0:46.0	We said, Randy, we're growing mushrooms on copious.
0:49.0	He's like, what were you farming before?
0:51.0	Like, well, Randy, we're in college.
0:54.0	All right, you guys figure this out.
0:57.0	And he's kind of laughing how to grow mushrooms on copious.
1:00.0	He's like, this is the coolest shit I've ever seen in produce.
1:02.0	Boys, figure this out, call, text me if you need anything else.
	...

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