Randy Hartnell is the Founder & CEO of Vital Choice Wild Seafood and Organics, a trusted source for the world’s finest wild seafood. Before starting Vital Choice, Randy owned and operated four commercial fishing vessels for harvesting wild salmon and herring in west coast fisheries from California to Alaska. After spending more than 20 years as a commercial fisherman, he founded the company with a mission to provide consumers with high-quality sustainable seafood while educating them about the impact of their food choices on their health and the environment.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Randy talks about working in commercial fishing while in college and how industrial salmon farming affected the industry
- How the collapse of commercial fishing led to something new for Randy
- The mentors and advice that have guided Randy through his career
- How Randy found the resources he needed to learn about his new business
- Rich and Randy talk about the salmon sold in Costco and other grocery stores
- Randy explains how his business has grown during COVID-19, building an email list, and the health benefits of wild seafood
- Selling seafood products online in 2001 and Randy’s advice on hiring the right people
- How Randy’s mindset has evolved over the years
- Where to learn more and get in touch with Randy Hartnell
In this episode…
Running a business is a hurdle race. For instance, demand for a high-selling product can diminish in a given market and lead to losses. Entrepreneurs then have to discover—or create— a solution to the challenges they face and sometimes, shift gears to a different product entirely.
An industry with its fair share of obstacles is commercial fishing, which has been negatively impacted by the growth of industrial seafood farming. Although wild seafood tends to be healthier, it can be pricey for some consumers. Not only that, but grocery stores often end up throwing out much of their product since it’s perishable and goes bad quickly. This leads to markets stocking farmed seafood, which they get fresh and at a cheaper price.
Rich Goldstein, host of the Innovations and Breakthroughs Podcast, is joined by Randy Hartnell, the Founder & CEO of Vital Choice Wild Seafood and Organics and a former commercial fisherman, to talk about how entrepreneurs can pivot when demand for their product goes down. Randy talks about his history in commercial farming, the benefits of wild seafood, how industrial seafood farming affected his fishing business, and what he’s done to continue providing households with healthy food.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Goldstein Patent Law
- Rich Goldstein’s book: The ABA Consumer Guide to Obtaining a Patent
- Vital Choice Wild Seafood and Organics
- Randy Hartnell on LinkedIn
- Randy Hartnell’s email: randy@vitalchoice.com
- Dan Sullivan on LinkedIn
- Strategic Coach
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by Goldstein Patent Law, a firm that helps protect inventors’ ideas and products. They have advised and obtained patents for thousands of companies over the past 25 years. So if you’re a company that has a software, product, or design you want protected, you can go to https://goldsteinpatentlaw.com/. They have amazing free resources for learning more about the patent process.
You can email their team at welcome@goldsteinpc.com to explore if it’s a match to work together. Rich Goldstein has also written a book for the American Bar Association that explains in plain English how patents work, which is called ‘The ABA Consumer Guide to Obtaining a Patent.’
