Kevin Pasco has an informed point of view when it comes to scaling your business. After all, the company he co-founded, Nested Naturals, has grown to $10 million in sales in a scant four years.







Kevin Pasco, Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Nested Naturals







Kevin has been lucky. However, luck favors the prepared, and Kevin and his business partner, Jeremy Sherk, prepared for growth. For starters, they chose to compete in the dietary supplements market that, according to Statista, is a $35.9 billion industry in the U.S. alone and is growing at 8% per year. That's more than twice the growth rate of the overall economy. Furthermore, they sell their product online to a global market.







Visit Nested Naturals







On the other hand, they chose a strategy that may well have inhibited their growth in the short-term. They've gone high when the rest of the supplements industry tends to go low. Nested Naturals promises evidence-based efficacy, transparent labeling, and certified-natural ingredients. When competitors offer magical results for less, the "good guy" approach can feel like a real competitive disadvantage.







Keeping It Real







My conversation with Kevin got me thinking about integrity, trust, and the hallmark of a "real" business. Sure, with eight-figure sales, Nested Naturals is a real business. But does that preclude small companies from being real? I don't think so. For me, a real business is one where commercial activity leads to an accumulation of value.







Acting with integrity builds a trusted brand over time. That can accelerate growth and add resiliency to a business. Even small companies can be real to the extent they are a platform for valuable accumulations such as know-how and personal and organizational capacity. In contrast, some of Kevin's competitors—even large ones—aren't "real" in the sense they risk a loss of trust in order to maximize short-term profits. They are all flow and no stock.







Kevin's orientation toward building valuable accumulations over time goes beyond his company's brand. He speaks of earning the recurring business from hundreds of thousands of customers. Kevin also speaks proudly of Nested Naturals ability to attract, retain, and help develop productive employees.







Taking the long view isn't easy, though. Kevin admits to periods of doubt, anxiety, and stress. So far though, he's been able to keep it real.















Read the TranscriptThe following has been edited to make it easier to read:



Dave Bayless: Kevin, what's the short version of the Nested Naturals story? How did you go from two guys and their laptops to become an eight-figure sales company?



Kevin Pasco: Yeah, it's funny. It's like one, two, skip a few...10 million. When you look back on it, there are a couple key things. We started this business because we knew there was a problem because we went through it ourselves. The problem was that, when you buy supplements, you really don't know what you're getting. It's also really confusing because your doctor recommends something; your friend recommends something; you see ads all over the place. They seem to all be conflicting with each other. So my business partner, Jeremy, and I had personal experiences of just taking the wrong stuff for the wrong use. We would take a supplement thinking it would solve a problem, and it would create another problem. So we were like, "Okay, there's something here because, obviously, people need supplements. They need to supplement some vitamins and minerals in their diet. But it can take some real hardcore research to figure ou...