Imagine betting the world will become a better place… and then seeing that bet become worth a billion dollars.

That’s what happened to Ethan Brown. He’s turned his idea of a meatless burger into a company, Beyond Meat, that’s about to IPO at a value of $1.2 billion this week.

A decade ago he got fired by his own Board in the Environment company he started. As he sat wondering what to do next, he looked at the burger he was eating in a fast food restaurant and asked himself “why do McDonald’s put animal protein in their burgers?"

He thought about it further, “McDonald’s does not serve filet mignon. They are selling highly processed burgers and chicken using ingredients that would probably make most customers recoil if they knew what they were eating. At that point, I thought there was no reason not to create a plant-based alternative for these products and open a competitor to McDonalds.”

Ethan looked at the numbers behind the meat industry: 

> 66 billion animals are slaughtered every year for food

> 51% of greenhouse gas emissions are from rearing livestock

> Eating meat increases cancer risk by 16% and heart disease risk by 21%

So he set up “Beyond Meat” to make meatless burgers. With no background in the food or restaurant business, he began by researching: “I would read about the subject a lot at night. I would spend my spare time thinking about it.”

He went looking for the best meat substitute he could find, and found it in Taiwan: "I was selling the best meat replica I had ever seen by importing the product from Asia and marketing it in the United States through Whole Foods. I demoed it at Whole Foods, learning a lot about what would be involved in convincing a consumer to eat a plant-based meat.”

Then he found a professor, Dr. Fu, who had worked out a new process: “I was passionate about this process that Dr. Fu Huang Shay of the University of Missouri had devised. Through his process, he realigned the protein structure of plants so that it mimicked the structure of muscle.”

Ethan licensed the process and got to work. Appealing to socially conscious investors to help fund him, he raised money from Bill Gates, Biz Stone, Obvious Corp and the Humane Society.

It then took four years of testing before he produced his first product, mock chicken in 2013. Bill Gates said "I couldn't tell the difference between Beyond Meat and real chicken”. That same year, PETA named Beyond Meat their company of the year.

The first beyond beef product followed in 2014. Then his Beast Burger launched in 2015 and Beyond Sausage launched in 2018.

In the last 2 years, after 8 years of foundation-building, growth has exploded. Ethan’s products are now in over 27,000 stores and restaurants in over 50 countries, and his burgers are served in A&W and Carl Jr. restaurants.

This week he announced the company’s IPO at a valuation expected at $1.2 billion.

Are you sitting on a big idea that could change the world? 

If so, be like Ethan. 

Take action!

Because today it’s easier than ever to do good and do well at the same time.

“Don’t chase success. Decide to make a difference and success will find you.” - Jon Gordon