“We always projected very conservatively. A lot of founders and early stage businesses project really aggressively, which is tough because when you don't hit it, your investors are upset. But even putting that aside, you don't plan out cash based on how much you're actually going to hit in revenue. So at the end of the year, let's say you hit 70% of that revenue or 50% of the revenue. Then your cash position is a lot worse than you thought it would be.”
The Startup CPG Podcast · Alternative Proteins · November 2026
Context
Asked what drove Mezcla hitting its numbers and raising round after round, the founder says the key was conservative projections, especially for cash planning.
Transcript
don't know if we're heavy. Yeah, maybe right in the middle. But yeah.
…the business? Obviously, it's not just capital. I'm sure it's capital enabled, but you were clearly growing before you got a ton of capital in the door too. So what was the way that you were approaching operating and managing that growth? And where do you think you guys were gaining success from?
I think the biggest thing for us was we always projected very conservatively. I think a lot of founders and early stage businesses project really aggressively, which is tough because when you don't hit it, your investors are upset. But even putting that aside, it's tough because you don't plan out cash based on how much you're actually going to hidden revenue. So at the end of the year, let's say you hit 70% of that revenue or 50% of the revenue, right? Like then your cash position is at a lot worse of a place than you thought it would be. So we always tried to be really conservative with how we projected out cash. And that's always been really helpful for us as a business. So I would say that has been one of the biggest things in terms of like how we're thinking about modeling out the future is like, let's make sure we're being conservative across the board, right? If it's velocities, I'm making this up, right? But let's say that you're expected to sell five units per scuba store per week, maybe put four there. And of course, like when it comes to demand and how much you need to produce, give the team the five number that you think. But when it comes to cash and how you're thinking about everything, salaries, right? Like maybe you…
Yeah, it's definitely you're clearly rooted in your operations, which is great. Not a lot of founders, or I would say there's different camps of founders and not all founders have like the operational diligence or know-how or kind of drive the business off of a budget or think about things like…
I mean, what I'll say is. This. We have incredible advisors. We've had advisors since the founding of the business. And my whole goal with who we surrounded ourselves with was: let's find people who are two, three, four, five steps ahead of us and let's build them around us so they can really help…
yeah, I think it takes a village. And the more people you gather around the table, I think helps lubricate all these processes too. It's not just that it's helpful advice, it is, but it's also signaling, it's network building. So, when you have a pool to hire from, there's so many positive…
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