Determine Your Financial Approach

When starting a business, most businesses set out a budget and work within their budget. Not Amy’s Kitchen, who has grown from a home-based operation to multi million dollar business. Instead of working within the limitations of their budget, they focused on what they need to create quality products.

Andy Berliner is the Cofounder and CEO of the nation’s leading natural frozen food brand Amy’s Kitchen, which provides convenient and tasty natural vegetarian meals for people who appreciated good food, but were often too busy to cook “from scratch.” The business started on on Berliner’s kitchen table on a shoestring budget of $20,000 scraped from selling his gold watch, his wife taking out a loan using her car as collateral and borrowing from a relative. Today, Amy’s Kitchen generates more than $270 million revenues employing 1,500 people.

Photo: Amy's Kitchen

In an interview that was published in the book “The Risk Takers: 16 Women and Men Who Built Great Businesses Share Their Entrepreneurial Strategies For Success,” Berliner explained the financial approach to starting Amy’s Kitchen:

“We never analyzed it from the point of view of how much do we need to make, and then how much can we spend on the product, but rather took it from the point of view of how much does it cost to make a good product, and then how can we still do it and make a little money.

While the approach kept their profit margin paper thin at 3%, but it helped generate loyal customers and positive word of mounth.

Learn more about Amy’s Kitchen and their success story.

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1. Know Your Financial Risk

Tags: Business Strategy, Cashflow Management, Managing Finances, Startup Financing

Category: Financing