Goodtrepreneur

Can a little peanut butter company from the bottom of the world really change it? Pic's Peanut Butter says yes.
In this episode, Aimee McCammon, CEO of Pic's and stepdaughter of founder Bruce 'Pic' Picot, tells the story of how a semi-retired, legally blind "enthusiast" blew up his kitchen blender making peanut butter, sold it for $10 a jar at the Nelson market, built a distribution network out of his old hippie mates, and grew a global brand from a small town in New Zealand. 
From simple beginnings, Pic's is now the number one imported premium natural peanut butter in China, has the largest distribution in Australia, and is found in many more countries. Pic's is also a B Corp, gives to everything from guide dogs to children in need, and runs multiple environmental initiatives to do their best to do business better.

So what does it take to build a brand that is good, does good and makes good money? 

The Pic's Playbook
🎯 One goal. Don't be the biggest, be the most loved. Everything falls out of that.
🧐 Keep it simple. Simple beats clever, but simple is not easy.
❤️ Understand what motivates. Purchase motivators and justifiers are not the same and emotion is what motivates purchase every time. The rational stuff just justifies it.
It's a masterclass in building a brand people love and an honest look at the dark nights of the soul when purpose meets cash flow. Aimee kept every community and environmental initiative running through the hardest years, because a brand that drops its soul to save its margins loses both.
🌏 We also talk about...
- The poem inside every Pic's label (and how to peel it off)
- Why B Corp is a "plug-and-play sustainability strategy" with a scorecard
- Doing good without demanding a short term sales uplift and the value of long-term brand vs short-term ROI
- Surviving COVID: a new factory, broken supply chains, and running $30m turnover on Excel
- Finding a mission-aligned family investor instead of private equity
- "Smoochy". How what started as a gimmick became Pic's number three product
- Aimee's three rules: work hard, make money, have fun

We gave AI a listen and here's what it had to say:
A jar of peanut butter probably shouldn’t be able to change the world, yet that’s exactly the claim behind Pic's Peanut Butter and it’s not just talk. We chat with CEO Amy McCammon about how a contrarian founder in Nelson, New Zealand tasted sugar-filled “peanut butter”, got outraged, and built a premium natural peanut butter brand on one stubborn idea: make it properly, keep it simple, and earn love the hard way.

We trace the real growth story from kitchen experiments and local markets to major supermarket shelves across Australia, then out into Southeast Asia, the US and a genuinely surprising foothold in China. Amy shares what worked, what was luck, and what changed when local partners found a completely different angle for their audience. If you care about brand strategy, FMCG marketing, and international distribution, there are sharp lessons here about clarity, trust, and letting go of control when you need expertise on the ground.

Then we get into the stuff most “purpose-led” case studies skip: the cost of doing good, the value of B Corp as a measurement framework, and what happens when COVID squeezes margins, supply chains break, and a new factory suddenly makes cash flow terrifying. Amy talks through the hard calls, the leadership reset, and why profit and purpose are more symbiotic than most slogans admit.

If you’re building a mission-driven brand, dreaming of a startup, or just want a better model for business, press play, share it with a mate, and leave a review so more people find it. What’s one brand you’d love to see become “the most loved” for the right reasons?

Goodtrepreneur is the podcast about good people with good ideas for a better world. 

Please 👀 follow, 👂listen, 🌟 rate and share 📢 to help spread the word and deliver on our mission to inspire and enable more people to create more world changing ideas - and succeed - more often.

Learn more at goodtrepreneur.co

How do you make a movement that moves the world? David Gottfried knows. His 7 steps are built on co-founding the US and World Green Building Councils and they go like this: 
1. Know your passion, purpose and mission 🚀 It all starts with you. What’s something you truly love and care about? 
2. Set your vision 👁️  Think big. What’s the change you’re going to make that matches your passion and purpose? 
3. Build your blueprint 🗺️  You know where you’re going. Now how will you get there? This is your strategy.
4. Assemble your tribe 💪 Who do you need to join you to make your vision happen?
5. Create your scorecard 💯 How are you measuring success? How will you know you’re winning?
6. Find the funding 💰 How will you fund your movement? How will you fund yourself while you create it?
7. Look after yourself ☺️ Building something takes time and is hard work. How will you replenish your energy? 
With over 85 green building councils worldwide and over 30 billion square feet (10 billion square metres) of buildings built, the method must work. It's a movement that has changed buildings worldwide to be lighter, healthier, bring in nature and create less carbon in both build and operation. 
He's now on a mission to help others create a kinder, more regenerative world. You can learn more and pre-order his new book, Regen360 on his website: https://regen360.net/

We gave AI a listen and here's what it had to say:
The buildings we design today decide the air we breathe tomorrow, the energy we lock in for decades, and whether “sustainability” stays a slogan or becomes a standard. We sit down with David Gottfried, co-founder of the US Green Building Council and a key force behind the global Green Building Council network, to unpack how rating tools like LEED, Green Star and BREEAM made better buildings measurable, comparable and commercially attractive. We talk through what actually gets measured, why third-party verification matters, and how healthier light-filled workplaces, low-carbon materials and smarter transport choices moved from “nice idea” to mainstream expectation.

Then we shift from construction to culture. David shares his seven-step framework for building a movement: passion, purpose and mission; a huge vision; a blueprint that delivers results; a tribe to climb with; benchmarks with transparent measurement; economics that keep the work alive; and the sustainability to endure without burning out. If you’re trying to create change inside property, government, design, business or community, this is a practical map for turning belief into systems that scale.

Finally, we go bigger than green. David explains why “green” and even “sustainable” aren’t enough, arguing for regeneration and a “full equation” that includes the externalities we’ve trained ourselves to ignore. We explore fear-based survival wiring, the pull of endless “more”, and the idea of “soul worth” as an antidote: service, gratitude, enoughness and care for people and planet. If this conversation sparks something in you, subscribe, share it with a mate, and leave a review so more people can find it.
Goodtrepreneur is the podcast about good people with good ideas for a better world. 

Please 👀 follow, 👂listen, 🌟 rate and share 📢 to help spread the word and deliver on our mission to inspire and enable more people to create more world changing ideas - and succeed - more often.

Learn more at goodtrepreneur.co

I've often heard it said that we need more First Nations voices influencing the way we do business. But I must admit, I never really knew what that meant. Until now.

This episode changed my way of thinking about almost everything. 
🌳 I've always known making time for nature is good for my soul. They reframed for me: "Time in nature is time with your Mother." Mother Earth, that is. 
☺️ I've always felt that being good to people you're lucky enough to have working for you is important. Adam says about April: "We want her to excel in her career and as a young woman. It's our responsibility for her to support her in her path.'"

🐢 I feel like I've spent my career so focused on the urgent that there's rarely time for the important. They say: "To create great strategy you need to sit down and slow down, and that's culture. There's better ways to get the best out of ourselves, and it's hard to do that in a really fast world."

When you add it all up, it becomes very clear that the way of working so many of us want is pretty much exactly what indigenous culture says it should be. No text books, no frameworks, just 60,000+ years of learning to live in harmony with nature and each other. 

I hope you get as much out of this episode as I did and that it inspires more First Nations people to start a business, and more of the rest of us to learn from the wisdom the world's oldest living culture has to offer. 

We gave AI a listen. Here's what it had to say:

If food is culture, why do so many of us live on the oldest living culture on Earth and still don’t know the plants in our own backyards? We’re recording on Garigal Country and yarn with Adam and April from Bush To Bowl, an Indigenous-owned, Indigenous-run nursery working to bring First Nations bush foods from bush to bowl, and to help mob reconnect to Country through growing, sharing and learning.  

We talk about how the idea starts small, backyard growing, a landscaper sick of monocultures and “boring” gardens, then grows into school bush food gardens where kids taste native ingredients, ask better questions, and take that knowledge home. Along the way we face a confronting reality: bush foods can be trendy while Indigenous ownership in the supply chain stays tiny. Adam and April explain why that matters, not as a guilt story, but as an opportunity to build real Indigenous business, jobs, skills and pride.  

You’ll also hear what makes their model different: caring for people as a cultural responsibility, supporting young athletes and workers moving from community to city, and creating space for cultural days, walking Country and learning. We cover practical steps too, from growing Australian native plants at home to supporting Indigenous-owned nurseries, plus a huge milestone: Bush To Bowl plants reaching Bunnings shelves as an Aboriginal grower.  

If this yarn shifts how you think about Australian native food, social enterprise and sustainable business, share it with a mate, subscribe, and leave a review so more people find it.
 
Goodtrepreneur is the podcast about good people with good ideas for a better world. 

Please 👀 follow, 👂listen, 🌟 rate and share 📢 to help spread the word and deliver on our mission to inspire and enable more people to create more world changing ideas - and succeed - more often.

Learn more at goodtrepreneur.co

✂️ This is the 20 minute mini-cut of the full episode ✂️
Measuring impact is almost always a challenge 🤔.
It can be hard enough when you’re counting litres or kilowatts, but measuring your impact when you’re restoring the ocean is next level.
A coral reef is different to a kelp forest is different to a mangrove. So how do you standardise impact so it’s easy to package up and present to funders as valuable, measurable and verifiable?
That’s where the name Seatrees was born.
One Seatree is one unit of impact that can be applied to any marine ecosystem 🪸 🐟 🐠 🐡 🦀 🐋 🪸.
One planted mangrove seed is one Seatree 🌱.
One transplanted head of coral is one Seatree 🪸.
On square foot of kelp is (you guessed it) one Seatree 🥬.
Along with exceptional storytelling and a brand new real life ‘experiential home’ called the Sea House, being able to explain Seatrees' impact in simple, relatable terms has led the nonprofit to be one of the most successful of its size in the USA.
Co-founder Michael Stewart tells the story in S2E6 of the The Goodtrepreneur Podcast.
Tune in to learn:
💡 How the Seatrees idea began
🎙️ The importance of storytelling in the TikTok age
🌱 What it takes to restore an ecosystem from the ground up
🤨 Why Michael’s beanie is such a crazy bright shade of pink
Then go grow a Seatree at 👉 www.seatrees.org

We gave AI a listen and here's what it had to say. 
The ocean is the defining feature of our planet, yet we’ve explored only a sliver of it and we still struggle to explain why ocean restoration matters in day-to-day terms. We sit down with Michael Stewart, surfer, founder of Sustainable Surf and co-founder of Seatrees, to talk about a deceptively simple idea: if you want to regenerate marine ecosystems at scale, you need a unit of impact people can understand, trust and fund.

Michael breaks down the Seatrees model across kelp forests, mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass meadows, showing how a “Seatree” works as a measurable, countable outcome with monitoring and verification. We also dig into a hard case study from Northern California, where over 95% of bull kelp has disappeared since 2013–2014. You’ll hear how a multi-year marine heatwave set off a cascade, from disease wiping out the sunflower star to urchins booming and mowing down kelp, and why those ecological shifts translate into real economic pain for coastal communities.

From there, we get practical about what wins attention in a noisy world: storytelling that’s tangible, human and even fun, plus real-world spaces like the Sea House in Encinitas designed to turn curiosity into action. We finish with Michael’s advice for anyone wanting to do meaningful work, start with curiosity, volunteer, reach out, and become indispensable. If you care about marine conservation, ocean regeneration, blue carbon and climate resilience, hit play, then subscribe, share with a mate, and leave a review to help more people find the show.
Goodtrepreneur is the podcast about good people with good ideas for a better world. 

Please 👀 follow, 👂listen, 🌟 rate and share 📢 to help spread the word and deliver on our mission to inspire and enable more people to create more world changing ideas - and succeed - more often.

Learn more at goodtrepreneur.co

Impact has a measurement problem 😕.
It can be hard enough when you’re counting litres or kilowatts, but measuring your impact when you’re restoring the ocean is next level.
A coral reef is different to a kelp forest is different to a mangrove. So how do you standardise impact so it’s easy to package up and present to funders as valuable, measurable and verifiable?
That’s where the name Seatrees was born.
One Seatree is one unit of impact that can be applied to any marine ecosystem 🪸 🐟 🐠 🐡 🦀 🐋 🪸.
One planted mangrove seed is one Seatree 🌱.
One transplanted head of coral is one Seatree 🪸.
On square foot of kelp is (you guessed it) one Seatree 🥬.
Along with exceptional storytelling and a brand new real life ‘experiential home’ called the Sea House, being able to explain Seatree’s impact in simple, relatable terms has led the nonprofit to be one of the most successful of its size in the USA.
Co-founder Michael Stewart tells the story in S2E6 of The Goodtrepreneur Podcast. 
Tune in to learn:
📚 How the Seatrees idea began
🧭 The importance of storytelling in the TikTok age
👩‍💻 What it takes to restore an ecosystem from the ground up
🎭 Why Michael’s beanie is such a crazy bright shade of pink
Then go grow a Seatree at 👉 www.seatrees.org

We gave AI a listen and here's what it had to say:

Kelp forests don’t just sit there looking pretty. They build underwater cities that lock away carbon, shelter marine life, calm coastal waters, and quietly support jobs and communities. When they vanish, the loss ripples through everything, from sea lions and whales to dive shops, fisheries and weekend camping trips that depend on a healthy coast.

I’m joined by Michael Stewart, surfer, conservation entrepreneur, and co-founder of Seatrees, to unpack what’s happening beneath the surface and why it can change so fast. We dig into the Northern California bull kelp crash, the “warm blob” marine heatwave, starfish wasting disease, and the brutal simplicity of the cascade that followed: fewer predators, more purple sea urchins, then kelp eaten down to rock. Michael explains why this is a biodiversity crisis and a climate change story at the same time, and why “nature’s infrastructure” is a better frame than abstract ecology.

Then we get into solutions you can picture. Divers removing urchins. Kelp seeding to rebuild a living seed bank. The Sunflower Star Lab working to return a missing top predator without introducing new risks. We also talk about the Seatrees model: telling the stories well, raising serious funding, and using a clear unit of measurement, the Seatree, so impact can be counted, verified and trusted across kelp restoration, mangrove restoration, coral reef restoration and more. That leads into biodiversity credits, the challenge of moving capital at scale, and why Sea House in San Diego aims to bring ocean culture, science and community action together in real life.

If you care about ocean conservation, kelp forest restoration, biodiversity, and practical climate solutions, this one will leave you with a clearer map and a bit more hope. 

Goodtrepreneur is the podcast about good people with good ideas for a better world. 

Please 👀 follow, 👂listen, 🌟 rate and share 📢 to help spread the word and deliver on our mission to inspire and enable more people to create more world changing ideas - and succeed - more often.

Learn more at goodtrepreneur.co