BUFFS: The future of meat snacks.
- KLS
- 8 minutes ago
- 15 min read
For the 200th feature of our "Together Talks" campaign, we collaborated with BUFFS and Co-Founder, George Zhou.
"Together Talks" feature # 200: BUFFS presented by KLS - Your Trusted Shipping Solutions In The USA
What were your concerns to transition to starting your own business? What have you learned since becoming an entrepreneur?
Story of how it was created?
Our company is Buffs, and we're really just trying to redefine meat snacks and redefine snacks in general, specifically salty snacks and puffs and chips.
We're bringing the first beef puff to market. Grass-fed beef, no seed oils, really clean ingredients, gluten-free, into a puffy Cheeto-esque shape, basically. It really started because me and my co-founder grew up together since grade school. As we got older, we really went into this health journey of trying to find the most clean ingredients, high protein, low carb, and just optimizing our life and our health and nutrition. We're going on this health journey and the only snacks that we would allow ourselves to eat was protein bars and jerky.
Those are the only things that really fit into the diet that we had. There's really nothing else out there. If you look at all the snacks, whether it's pea-based or soy-based or corn-based, they're all high in carbohydrates. They're all basically carb bombs that spike your blood sugar and leave you feeling low in energy after. They're not anything nutritious, nothing that's actually going to benefit your health. They're kind of just cravings. The only of protein bars and jerky, and naturally, we got really tired of those things.
Most of the protein bars out there are either candy bars with a little bit of protein, or they just don't taste great. They kind of taste like a chore to eat, and jerky did for a while as well. As we got into college, we started getting really busy with classes and running back and forth, and we didn't have time to make all the nutritious meals that we were making at home in high school. We thought what if we can make the best snack possible? What if we can put the best protein source, which is animal-based protein, into a snack form that actually tastes like a snack, actually feels like a snack?
We sought out to make the first beef chip. That was kind of our first idea. And eventually it formed into the beef puff, which is what we have today.
What separates you from your competition?
We're the first beef puff to market. We're the first animal-based puff that exists. Customers that have been eating meat snacks for a while, and it's really just beef jerky and beef sticks, finally get that airy, crunchy, addictive texture that snacks have always been. The ones that we've loved as a kid, Goldfish, Cheez-Its, pretzels, they're all the same kind of airy, crunchy texture, and it's never been in the meat-based form before.
For all the people that are starting to realize that those things are really weighing them down and degrading their life and are looking for healthier choices, we're the first product to use, the most clean ingredients, natural ingredients, Whole30, paleo-friendly. And it really does taste like the snacks that they loved as a kid. It's interesting because we're the first mover in the market, so it's easy to be differentiated, which is both a good and bad thing.
It's good because there's no need for us to say what small difference or benefit we have. I think that's very hard for drink companies for example because they're all kind of the same, with small, low tweaks. For us, it's a whole new category that we're creating. And it's difficult because for consumers, it's an option and kind of an education for them to understand what they're getting themselves into.
What have been the biggest challenges?
I think in the beginning, the biggest challenges was to convince ourselves of the risk we were taking. I'm still in college. I go to USC in LA, and my co-founder goes to TCU. The majority of our friends and peers have the expectation is to be recruited for high-paying jobs. For me, it was more of the product management and sales side. For tech startups, I was doing some internships here and there, and to tell your friends, your peers, your classmates, your parents, that you're going to start a beef company, which sounds like a joke, it's kind of crazy. Many asked what we were doing or thinking. Maybe it's just a side joke. Maybe it's a side hustle, whatever. But the expectation is for you to have a safe job coming out of college.
It's for you to have a six-figure salary and get your life started.
In the beginning, it does take a lot of courage to do this. The reason why we did start it was we kind of realized, if you ever had a shot at trying something, the best time is now. There's never a better time than now. And say we fail, we fail forward because we've learned so much from growing the company. What you'll realize is you actually learn more from growing your own company. If you actually are fully committed to it, then you are any company that you could work for ever.
I think it's a win-win because whether we succeed or fail, we set ourselves up in a better position for whatever we want to do in the future. Whether that's starting another company or whether that's going corporate or working for another person. We've learned the ins and outs of how to get things done, how to solve problems, and how to really take risks. I think that's super important.
But now I think the hardest part is trying to understand who our customer is. I think that's always the most difficult part for startups is product marketing to fit. Because we know a lot of people who look at this and what does that customer look like? We have some assumptions, but it's hard to get that answer without having actual product in the market yet because of the manufacturing side. Manufacturing is also difficult because nobody's ever made a beef puff before.
Goals for upcoming year + Next phase of the company?
The best beef puff possible. We know we have the right to exist. We've kind of validated what consumers want. And what it is, is just a very clean ingredient label, it's something that has good nutrients. But we really wanted to replicate the texture and the taste of the cheese puffs and the salty snacks that we loved. But how do we make that out of the best ingredients possible? That's the goal. Currently, what we're doing is just trying to make this at scale. We could have gone to market two or three months ago with a more expensive product and a product that just wasn't as good.
Right now we're working with how do we bring those cost of goods down. How do we bring them to a level where we can have a really good margin and really be able to grow this business? Because that's really important in CPG. You can have a great product. You can have a lot of customers. But if you have a bad margin, you're just not going to be profitable.
You're just not going to turn over. Starting it out right, I think, is important. Our plan is to launch in October, hopefully late September, and start D2C there. We'll do TikTok shop, Amazon, e-commerce, Shopify, and just really start to grow a customer base and understanding of who our customer is before planning to launch into smaller retailers in the beginning of 2026.
What were your concerns to transition to starting your own business?
The thing to consider first and foremost is think of who do you want to be in 10 years. I think that was the question. In 10 years, who do you want to be? Look at some person in the world and aspire to be like that person. And then look at the risks they took at your age and see if they line up. Whatever it is, I guarantee you they did one thing and they took a big risk on it and they dropped everything else just to be good at that one thing. It's just the way I think in my career and in this world, if you have big risk, you have big reward. If you take little risk, you have little reward. You have a cap on the reward you have. You cannot expect big reward with little risk.
For me, I thought about that. I come from a Chinese immigrant family. My parents moved over here in 2001. That was a big risk for them. They left their stable, high six-figure salary jobs in China and came to America not knowing the language, not knowing anyone, and just said, "we're going to come figure it out because we want a better life for our family that we want to grow." And in the same way, I think that kind of propelled me to be look at how they took that big of a risk. And I'm just not going to take the average track, which is great for a lot of people. The average track is a lot of people that can't handle the stress and risk it takes to be an entrepreneur. They can't handle just the pressure that it is. And that's fine.
But for me, I just couldn't live with myself to know that I didn't give myself at least one shot. I didn't give myself at least one try growing something and building something that I really loved and was proud of owning. If I fail within three months, within a month of doing it, I told myself I gave it a good shot. I gave it a good college try. At least at some point, I'm saying I gave it a shot and I knew it wasn't for me. I'm not second guessing myself on whether I should have tried. There's a ton of concerns. I could list a million of concerns. Well, I'm too young, and it's too expensive, and CPG is too hard to get into. There's too many companies. Nobody makes a meat-based puff. You're not going to find a manufacturer. It's too expensive of a product. Consumers won't want it. There's just a million reasons why it's not a good idea.
There's always going to be a reason not to do it. And the odds are always going to be stacked against you. But the matter of are you willing to take that risk? And are you willing to put yourself all into it? Just say there's no plan B. If that's the case, I think you will come out the other side better than you were before you started it, no matter what.
What have you learned since becoming an entrepreneur?
One thing that I've learned is to just just to do things now. If you wanted to make a text to someone, an intro, or you wanted to follow up on a conversation, or you needed to do some research on something, it's just do it now. I think it's do it now, but with a caveat. The caveat is you need to prioritize. You need to understand what requires attention. This is something I actually learned from, it was a podcast with Mr. Wonderful, and he was talking about Steve Jobs, and he was talking about the way that he would prioritize things. This sounds very cliche, but he did it really well to where he had three things he wanted to do that day.
As a founder, you need to put yourself in places where you are most important. When you are able to outline those three things, or maybe it's just one thing that you do that day, you will go to the ends of the earth to get that thing done that day, and you will just do it now. You won't put it off to later. You won't try to do some things first. I think that's the one thing that I've learned to force you to do that, because otherwise, you can't fail.
That never happens in a corporate world, because you're just a cog in a wheel. But a lot of times, you're a small piece of a very big engine that's already running self-sufficiently if you were there or if you weren't there. In a startup, it really is just you. It's me and my co-founder. And if you don't get things done with priority and with urgency and with efficiency, your company won't move. It won't move at all. That's one thing that I've learned that I think I wouldn't have. I didn't expect coming in. I thought it would kind of be a smooth sailing. You just get a good product and you start selling and customers love it and you make a ton of money. That's kind of what's the assumption going in. That's just not the case at all.
I'm still super early. It's only been a year and a half. I have so many lessons to learn after that, but that's definitely one. And then two which I'm realizing now is everyone will tell you, you have a good idea. They will at least put it to you nicely that this is good. There's just so much false positive in terms of building a company that you need to be really meticulous in what your feedback is and how to get people's real opinion on it. That's just something that I would have never learned if I didn't start growing this thing because it sounds like everyone loves it until they actually have to purchase.
What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most?
One is definitely the freedom to make your own schedule. Other jobs before it's people telling you when you will work and when you will not work. You work your schedule around that. For me, I get to choose. And granted, I probably do work more than I would if I worked at a regular job or anything else. But I do have the freedom to say, I'm not going to take this call or I'm going to take this day off because I want to.
The second thing, there's the capacity that you have when you build something of your own. I think there's a different type of just innate ferocity to grow. It's different. And I feel that when it's late nights and it's early mornings. This morning, like 6 a.m., and last night was 2 a.m., and would I do that for someone else's company? Maybe if there was money attached to it, but even then, I would kind of do it with some disdain, and when I'm going to this company, there's not a second thought for me.
It's just what I got to do, and it doesn't feel painful. I'm tired, sure, but it's almost, it's worth it.
It just feels worth it, even when I don't get payout, and I don't get dividends. There's an interesting level that I think has unlocked on myself of love for work. This doesn't feel like work, and I know that sounds super cliche again, but it's really true. I think when you grow something that you do really love, Fridays feel the same as Mondays for me, and that reason, because I'm not waiting for the weekend. It just feels like a weekend all the time, because every day is an opportunity. And that's exciting.
What is your why?
I think the biggest thing is it really is just a personal. I think it starts with the fact that it's a personal problem. We still aren't satisfied with the snacks. Until our product is in market, we look at the shelves and we look at what's available online and it still is just beef sticks, beef jerky, and very chewy and chalky protein bars. That is still the only thing we can have as a take-and-go-eat snack.
There's just nothing that you can find in the salty snack aisle that will satisfy our cravings of chips or Cheetos or whatever, but we can still really feel proud and good about what we're consuming in our body.
And so until that problem is solved for us and for all of the consumers, it's not just us anymore. It's not just the crazy dieters. It's starting to become mainstream consumers that they're starting to realize how bad and over-processed and industrialized our food has become. It's now swinging the pendulum back to overcompensate for all the commercialization of our food. Until we can solve that problem for so many people, I'm not, I don't feel satisfied because I think they deserve that.
I don't think they deserve to be flogged down by all the ingredients that most of these big corporations are putting into their products. It doesn't seem fair that they would have to live below their means in that way and below what humans should be eating. And so it sounds very kind of high, high in the sky, but as someone who grew up on the chubby side and someone who had to deal with an inability to lose weight, and I saw that transformation happen for myself because of my nutrition. I don't think anyone should have to lower their quality of living because that's the only options that are out there. If they choose it, that's fine. But if they didn't have the option to choose, I think that's something that needs to be changed. That's really important to me, and me and my co-founder.
Do you have a moment that brings you the most joy?
There's two. The first one was our first phone call from a customer that we've never met before. She got some product from a sample. But we're giving it out to investors and to people in the industry and we're sampling some consumers here and there. We go outside the gyms and we'll go to grocery stores. Anyways, this customer tried the product from a friend. She made a call that we didn't pick up, we missed the call, but it was a voicemail.
It was basically saying, "hey, this product is amazing." She was some 40-year-old living in New York with a family. She asked us, "Can I please get some more products? I can't find it where to buy it. But I saw your phone number on the website." I think that was the first kind of validation that like, whoa, someone really loves this product. And they made the effort to actually call and find out where we can get it. That was one of probably the best feelings so far of we're onto something good. And we're actually making a difference in people's lives.
I think the second thing, the first time an investor reached out to us, I think that was one of the biggest wins because typically a lot of companies will reach out to investors to get investment. But the first time someone started checking on us and was saying, "we'd love to invest in you" is quite the feeling. We actually turned them down, but it was a good feeling because it also felt validated that I think we're doing something right and we're piquing people's interests. Granted, those are all kind of vanity metrics, and nothing is really set in stone until you actually have the numbers to back it up, but it was definitely a good feeling in the time.
Piece of Advice
What I'm starting to learn is I think people put a lot of their purpose into career, even if it's starting a company. And that sounds like a good solution, right? Have purpose in your work. Okay, then start a company. That makes it a lot easier, right? You grow something, and it's yours, and you have ownership, and that's supposed to give you purpose.
But I think no matter what it is, I don't think you can have real purpose and fulfillment and satisfaction in anything this world has to offer. For me, it's always been in my faith, and it's being a Christian and knowing that outside of this world I have somewhere to be, and there's a home that's not here. I mean, my purpose is to make disciples and to let people know of who God is and what He has to offer.
That's my one piece of advice is that people are starting to wake up to that realization that even the most successful people in this world, Tom Brady, and Taylor Swift, and people will always say there has to be more. They're just not fulfilled. So people that are young, my age, they're looking to start companies, and even people that are older that are kind of burnt out, I would just look to have a solid foundation first in what you believe and in what your life purpose is. Allow your work, whether that's starting a company or working for someone or whatever, to just be a way to honor. For me, honor God and what He's given me and what I'm stewarding.
That's my one piece of advice is... Give Jesus a shot. I promise you, He'll change your life. He's changed mine. I think it's the greatest joy to work with that kind of passion because I know I'm not working for myself and I'm not working for anyone else, but God. I think that gives you a different type of energy and passion for work. It's not transactional because when it gets transactional, it's really easy to fail. It's really easy to feel like you're not working towards anything greater. That's where people, I think, give up because they start working for themselves rather than people and they're getting back what they expected.
But for me, I don't work for a transaction or a return and it's really easy.
Community Callout
They've been advisors and they've been just a great help for us since day one. They really have been the mentors for us because they're kind of like me and my co-founder, being best friends growing up. Same kind of story. We really feel like they're ahead of us by three years, but very similar in persona and just what they believe in.
They have like 220K on Instagram. They're pretty big. But they're another group of guys that have been doing really well. And they did some of the socials for Smackin' Seeds for a while. They've been killing it on social media. They are also some Christian guys that have been doing really well in the industry and have been a great role model for us in the way that they run their company and the way that they live out their lives.
In Closing
KLS wants to thank BUFFS and Co-Founder, George Zhou, for today's "Together Talks" feature. Follow along for their journey with their social handles below!