The NatureBox headquarters, a splash from downtown Redwood Town, is in an ethereal construction with herbal gentle streaming via floor-to-ceiling home windows bordering the road. This is able to be a really perfect atmosphere for an automotive showroom (traditionally, it was once) however now it’s coated with status desks, couches, whiteboards, a big exterior air-con unit and masses of kilos of snacks.
Those aren’t your mom’s carrot sticks; the snack corporate’s catalog runs wealthy and deep with the likes of dried chile mangos, turmeric black pepper popcorn, sriracha cashews and chocolate chip cookies that received’t provide you with a stomachache—it’s a cornucopia of reimagined snack favorites made with a wholesome focal point.
“Munch away on no matter you’re yearning and be ok with what you’re consuming” reads the label at the again of the path combine. In an intriguing twist a couple of months in the past, NatureBox took that feel-good eats idea one step additional by means of growing a line of hemp-based cannabidiol snacks, a somewhat radical shift made by means of the corporate’s CEO after finding the immensely certain well being results CBD had on his personal daughter.
Despite the fact that person rooms exist throughout the headquarters, this CEO’s table is in undeniable view off within the nook surrounded by means of workers.
It’s no longer a busy place of business house and the murmur of telephone calls and chatter doesn’t intervene with John Occhipinti’s focus as he stoically sits at his table with a couple of noise-canceling headphones on. Eyes closed, he’s meditating. As he’ll do right through the day.
“I’m being attentive to a smattering of YouTube-guided meditations,” he later explains. “My thoughts will run in a large number of other instructions and this may occasionally get me grounded in additional ingenious power, then productiveness comes again. You concentrate for your center to peer if it’s beating.”
He’s extra blue denims than Brooks Brothers, dressed in a light- blue Winery Vines blouse, which turns out to make stronger his already radiant blue eyes. Susceptible to smiling and unafraid to make use of a whiteboard to assist illustrate some degree, John (or “John O,” a occasionally nickname impressed by means of an outdated e-mail he had whilst running at Netscape within the 1990s) leads NatureBox with a at ease and centered route.
“My youngsters gave me a bracelet that claims Be Provide,” he says, gesturing to his wrist. “That’s what I’d pontificate to them once I used to drop them off in class.”
The truth that John is that this easygoing whilst overseeing a multi-million- buck corporate with over two million consumers is an characteristic of an individual who believes deeply within the challenge of his paintings. Now not best do NatureBox’s merchandise permit other people to snack with out the end result of an bad nutrition, however the brand new line of CBD chews is at the forefront of constructing merchandise that soothe people who continuously undergo anxiousness, migraines or tension.
A serving of six chews incorporates 25mg of CBD with 0 THC. They’re in 3 flavors—pineapple, passion-berry, and watermelon- lemonade—with a bag promoting for roughly $20 when you have a club with the corporate. NatureBox offered their CBD chews previous this yr and the snacks have been an immediate good fortune, racking up 1,000 other people on a waitlist after which sell-ing out of their first week.
Developing a brand new style of wellness merchandise weren’t John’s preliminary plan when his company, Wheelhouse Companions, assumed regulate of NatureBox in 2017. However the father of 3 won motivation after witnessing first-hand how CBD soothed the serious migraines plaguing his heart kid. He detailed the private adventure on a weblog put up in Would possibly 2019 titled, “Why CBD is what’s subsequent for NatureBox.”
John describes how his daughter Gabby was once affected by a week-long headache, an extension of the power migraines she’s persevered since youth. They attempted a number of answers—visiting more than one clinical experts, converting nutrition, hiring a masseuse—but the ache would no longer subside. One morning, after learn- ing from a chum about CBD, John, and Gabby determined to provide the experiment a shot.
“I went down and purchased a tincture of non-THC CBD at a dispensary. She needed to wait within the automobile since she was once below 21 and I got here out with a brown bag. I appeared into the bag and joked that we simply scored,” John laughs whilst retelling the tale. “We didn’t know the way a lot she will have to take so I put two drops below her tongue. In an hour, her headache was once long past. It was once like, ‘Woah, that is one thing.’”
Raised in Woodside off Cañada Highway, John was once predisposed to the entrepreneurial spirit sooner than he may just force a automobile. “We funny story that we didn’t promote lemonade at the nook; we bought zucchini as a result of that’s what we have been rising within the back- backyard,” John says. His father was once a tech entrepreneur who labored with the likes of Don Valentine, continuously known as “the grandfather of Silicon Valley mission capital.”
“My dad’s option to keep up a correspondence was once to speak about what he beloved: struggle solution and other people talents,” John says. “He mentioned board conferences and the way he handled struggle. I used to be within the board-room at an excessively younger age. When I used to be requested, ‘What do you wish to have to be whilst you’re older?’ I used to be the child who stated ‘a bond salesman.’”
A Woodside Prime grad, John’s adventure led him to a gross sales task at Oracle. He considers promoting one in all his innate talents and whilst pursuing a trade stage at Cal, he was once introduced a place with a fledgling corporate known as Netscape, turning into one of the crucial first 30 workers on the early-days Web massive.
Following the sale of Netscape, John transitioned into his father’s business to develop into a mission capitalist for the circle of relatives company, the Woodside Fund. He’d later develop into a spouse within the corporate Relay Ventures, the place the highbrow stimuli from passionate marketers despatched him on a brand new trail.
Impressed by means of the innovation swirling round him, John co-founded Wheelhouse Companions in 2017 the usage of a singular method to personal fairness — the company unearths corporations with earlier primary investments getting ready to cave in. Whilst speaking during the trade type, John jumps as much as a close-by whiteboard the place he sketches out a graph chart as an instance his level.
“Numerous corporations get overfunded after which burn out. We discover those corporations that experience run into hassle however with right kind control talents, they might be triumphant,” he explains.
In 2017, John was once tipped off about an leading edge snack corporate that had nice attainable however had begun to idle—and that’s how NatureBox got here into the image. An immediate-to-consumer disrupter (“The following Frito-Lay,” John compares.), the corporate were located by means of the founders as a better-for-you snack trade. Wheelhouse took over and after first serving as its government chairman, John assumed the function of CEO to assist streamline control.
It was once a primary for the longtime board member, mission capitalist, and pa. It got here like a shot within the arm. “It felt like I used to be residing for the primary time in a very long time,” he says. “To lift the finances to take over Na- tureBox, that took sheer private will. It was once worrying however invigorating. I by no means felt extra excited.”
It was once obviously a wholesome pivot, which might result in different daring steps. Such enthusiasm is continuously tangible — like when NatureBox closed a contemporary giant deal and in a have compatibility of enjoyment, John discovered himself on best of an place of business espresso desk meting out dance strikes no longer observed in a long time.
“I did the sprinkler and a complete pop from the 1980s,” he recollects, with an exuberant grin.
ARTICLE FIRST PUBLISHED IN PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM
Photographs: courtesy of NatureBox and PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM
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