I Built & Scaled A Digital Publication About Vegan & Sustainable Living

Rachael McCrary

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Published: April 11th, 2022

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Rachael McCrary

Founder, LIVEKINDLY

Founders

Employees

LIVEKINDLY

livekindly.co

from Los Angeles, CA, USA

started April 2017

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Discover what tools Rachael recommends to grow your business!

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Discover what books Rachael recommends to grow your business!

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business Whe... Ben Horowitz

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I am Jodi Monelle, and I am the Founder and CEO of LIVEKINDLY, the world’s leading sustainable lifestyle platform that informs, illuminates, and connects people to eco-conscious choices.

I created LIVEKINDLY to fill a void and it is authentic media that truly aims to capture the diversity, compassion, and innovation within the ever-growing eco-curious community.

What's your backstory and how did you get into entrepreneurship?

When I went plant-based and I wanted to live more sustainably, I did a lot of research, watched documentaries, a lot of Googling, etc. It was overwhelming just to go to the grocery store sometimes. I was living in New Zealand and there weren't a huge amount of plant-based alternatives available then (this was over half a decade ago). I found myself seeking a like-minded community, a space, or even a website that could give me a cheat sheet or information in a way that would keep me feeling positive and inspired to keep learning. But what I found was a lot of unfortunate content — videos of animal cruelty, fearmongering about climate change, etc., and while it did push me to continue, absorbing this content also made me feel pretty hopeless. A lot of content on the vegan/plant-based side was judgmental, if you weren’t doing certain things, you weren’t a true vegan, you were a bad person, and you were almost excluded from the community. It was elitist and not inclusive.

The biggest thing that holds people back is fear, there was a lot of risk in starting LIVEKINDLY, I put my entire savings into it, it was everything I had at the time. Weigh the risk and do it.

My activism was born out of not finding myself within that community, my skills in creating content, and understanding that we could impact a lot of people through social media with a solutions-focused, non-judgmental, positive approach. At the same time, it was (and still is) important to me not to gloss over the negative things that are happening, but to create dialogue around those topics and use them to empower people. To show people just like the new plant-based me, that their actions mattered and could be part of the change.

Take us through your entrepreneurial journey. How did you go from day 1 to today?

I have always worked within media and enjoy doing creative and outside-the-box things, anything to do with marketing is an art to me, but I wasn’t super passionate about the corporations I worked for. I’m someone who loves to do my own thing, come up with new ideas, and solve problems.

When it came to living more sustainably, I believed there was a need for better marketing and positioning for this kind of lifestyle. It wasn’t being spoken about most appealingly. It was restrictive — you had to sacrifice things. Settle for lesser quality, flavor, and fun. Who wants that? It took a while for the pieces to come together but eventually, while I held a position at a small boutique VC in Vancouver, I was inspired by seeing people in my age group that was doing what I felt I was born to do. They had an idea, they got money for it, and they built it. They had a type of freedom to work on their passion, that passion I had lacked in my previous jobs. I had the passion, the big idea, and the skills, and essentially I married my situation to my professional abilities.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

I am still full of energy, I still have the excitement that gets me up in the morning and keeps me going. I won't lie — things can get quite stressful working in a more corporate environment now we've been acquired — there are more strings attached, hoops to jump through and generally less space to be heard, but I continue to challenge that in order for us to remain authentic to our values, agile in our operations, and protective of our company culture. I’m still just as passionate as I was on day one. There’s never a boring moment. It’s been a weird four and a half years, and it feels like 10, but I mean that positively.

So much has happened, it’s bizarre thinking about how much we’ve grown and achieved in that short space of time. No day looks the same and there is a stark difference between how the company looked just a few months ago. We have some big plans coming in Q1 of 2022. We’re super excited to take things to the next level. I can't give away too much, but it's wild to me to see certain things finally turning into a reality. I have etchings of this day in my original business plan and it's exciting to see them come to fruition through some new partnerships.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

I learned the importance of balancing being heard and listening to others. I'm opinionated and have clarity in what LIVEKINDLY should be and sometimes I've been guilty of not listening to other people's interpretations. But the core of LIVEKINDLY is about others, not me. I also have experienced the flip-side of not being listened to as a young woman entrepreneur. My voice is often drowned out by men (regardless of their seniority or experience). So, on one hand, I am often fighting to have a voice, and on the other, I am in a position where I can give people a voice too. So I have to be intentional about creating space within my core team to receive feedback, ideas, critique, and collaboration. That's the key to growth and building a culture that people want to work in. And I love learning from others.

Navigating 'being heard' is something I still haven't figured out yet — that's a societal issue that I hope will be dismantled over time and I'll keep pushing for that so that more women can occupy space in leadership roles in the future. But it's not going to be easy. Even the most progressive sectors are being taken over by corporate heavyweights, which is great for scale and impact, but less so for gender and race equality so far. I'm hopeful that will change. It simply has to.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

We’ve always been a remote company, even before the pandemic, we were used to it. Slack has been super helpful in building our teams and spaces to work for projects, Airtable for content planning, scheduling, and mapping. We use Final Cut Pro, Adobe Creative Cloud, a whole mix of tools.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

I take inspiration not so much from textbooks about business, but just from listening to other people’s stories and experiences in life. I love a good read but I generally use books to disconnect or give my mind space to imagine and be creative/process ideas.

As for resources or tips on entrepreneurialism, I would say that the most valuable way to learn about your sector is to completely immerse yourself in it. This is what worked for me at least; living it, consuming the content, building your network within it. I think I can speak for much of our Editorial team too when I say this is how we all developed our expertise here — there's no better way.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

If you can do it and you believe in it, then do it, because if you don’t someone else will. If it’s a good idea, someone else is going to do it. The biggest thing that holds people back is fear, there was a lot of risk in starting LIVEKINDLY, I put my entire savings into it, it was everything I had at the time. Weigh the risk and do it. The first hurdle is the hardest for people. I’ve had countless conversations with people who have great ideas that never come to fruition. I’m a doer, not a talker. Some of the exciting things happening next year wouldn’t be happening without pushing for them. I feel like I’m in that situation again, making another leap. That feeling doesn’t go away when you have an idea and you do something to make it real, that’s the biggest jump you have to make.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

We’re not at the moment, but with everything happening early in the year we are going to have some openings. Watch the space at the end of Q1. There will be various roles from creative to sales, a whole mix because we’ll be expanding significantly.