About Us
I love oatmeal.
I know, that’s a strange way to start a conversation.
There are two things I have always wanted to be in life - an athlete and an entrepreneur.
Which is how I came to create ZER0ats.
Let’s start with the story of my athletic career.
Growing up, all I wanted to do was play football. Most high school kids spend their evenings and weekends getting into shenanigans with friends.
Mine were spent watching game film and honing my craft as an athlete.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have what it took. At least that’s what they said.
After all the work I invested in making it to the collegiate level, I received a whopping total of ZERO scholarship offers.
Thankfully, I achieved high enough grades to get into the schools of my choice.
I fell in love with Wake Forest University, and decided to enroll there. Being such a small school, the football coaches welcomed me to join the football team as a walk-on (aka a practice dummy).
But I had other plans.
After nearly three years of toiling in obscurity, I got my chance. Due to player injuries and unforeseen circumstances, the coaches were forced to play me.
And I didn’t disappoint.
Shortly thereafter, I was elevated to a full scholarship athlete.
I would go on to be a team captain, and receive numerous national accolades - including being named one of the top 10 players in the country to start their career as a walk-on.
I tried my hand at the NFL, but it just wasn’t meant to be.
Now, here comes the entrepreneur part of the story.
After graduating from college, I had no idea what I wanted to do.
I have always harbored dreams of starting my own company. I just didn’t know what that would actually look like.
By chance, I found myself starting my own residential real estate brokerage business.
Four years later, I had scratched and clawed my way to becoming one of the top residential realtors in my local market.
Once again, I had begun as the underdog, and fought my way to the top.
But I still felt empty inside. I had been chasing money instead of my true passion.
I still had a burning desire to do something that married my passion for athletic performance with entrepreneurship.
Day after day, I would write down business ideas of things I thought the world needed, but none of them felt right.
Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.
I trudged on through my real estate work and tried to distract myself with clients and deals.
But my intuition was still screaming at me.
You have to do something else.
Then one day, I came across a podcast. It was called the Capitalism.com podcast.
I heard the stories of countless entrepreneurs that were starting companies on shoestring budgets. Of particular interest to me were the food entrepreneurs.
As an athlete, I have always been obsessed with nutrition.
In fact, I religiously read the ingredients and nutrition labels of everything I consume.
In my free time, I will grumble to anyone willing to listen about the lack of healthy options at the grocery store.
Then it hit me. Start a healthy food company!
I always complain about the products in the grocery store, now it was time to do something about it.
I only had two problems. What product do I create and how do I start a food company with ZERO knowledge of the industry?
The product part was easy.
Every day I eat oatmeal for breakfast. Oatmeal is a bland food. Like really bland.
That’s why there are so many flavored oatmeals.
The only problem - all of these flavored oatmeals are loaded with sugar.
Solution: Use a zero calorie, all-natural sweetener like monk fruit to recreate the most popular flavors of oatmeal without any of the added sugar or junk.
I began to experiment with flavors.
Thousands of iterations later, I finally developed the secret sauce.
And ZER0ats was born.
The only problem now? I actually had to figure out how to build a business around this product.
My real estate career helped me develop the marketing chops to build websites, acquire customers, etc.
But I had ZERO idea how to sell food.
So just as I did in my athletic career, I began training in obscurity.
I devoured podcasts, webinars, and YouTube videos about how to start a food company.
Real estate by day and ZEROats by night.
I didn’t know what I was doing but I kept pushing forward.
Through endless hours of research, cold outreach, and experimentation, I finally had what I needed.
It wasn’t easy but it was worth it.
At last, I finally had everything I needed to sell my product to people all across the United States.
Now, what’s next?
I like to use metaphors, so here is my best attempt to describe where we are going.
ZER0ats is my baby.
I spend every waking moment thinking about how I can improve the company to better serve the customers.
Just like a parent wants to improve the life of their child.
If ZER0ats was a person, he/she would be headed off to Kindergarten.
The groundwork is laid. Now it’s time to build.
I envision ZER0ats being in every grocery store in America.
On the shelf right next to the dirty dinosaur oatmeal brands.
When you type in “oatmeal” on Amazon, I see our product being recommended as a best seller on page 1.
I can’t tell you how fast that will happen.
What I can tell you is that I am all in.
As an early adopter of our product, you are the most important part of the process.
Your feedback, encouragement, and support will be what helps us get to the top.
And someday...
in the not-too-distant future...
when you walk into your nearest grocery store and see ZER0ats front and center in the cereal aisle...
know that you were the key to making that happen.
Sincerely,
Hunter Williams
I know, that’s a strange way to start a conversation.
There are two things I have always wanted to be in life - an athlete and an entrepreneur.
Which is how I came to create ZER0ats.
Let’s start with the story of my athletic career.
Growing up, all I wanted to do was play football. Most high school kids spend their evenings and weekends getting into shenanigans with friends.
Mine were spent watching game film and honing my craft as an athlete.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have what it took. At least that’s what they said.
After all the work I invested in making it to the collegiate level, I received a whopping total of ZERO scholarship offers.
Thankfully, I achieved high enough grades to get into the schools of my choice.
I fell in love with Wake Forest University, and decided to enroll there. Being such a small school, the football coaches welcomed me to join the football team as a walk-on (aka a practice dummy).
But I had other plans.
After nearly three years of toiling in obscurity, I got my chance. Due to player injuries and unforeseen circumstances, the coaches were forced to play me.
And I didn’t disappoint.
Shortly thereafter, I was elevated to a full scholarship athlete.
I would go on to be a team captain, and receive numerous national accolades - including being named one of the top 10 players in the country to start their career as a walk-on.
I tried my hand at the NFL, but it just wasn’t meant to be.
Now, here comes the entrepreneur part of the story.
After graduating from college, I had no idea what I wanted to do.
I have always harbored dreams of starting my own company. I just didn’t know what that would actually look like.
By chance, I found myself starting my own residential real estate brokerage business.
Four years later, I had scratched and clawed my way to becoming one of the top residential realtors in my local market.
Once again, I had begun as the underdog, and fought my way to the top.
But I still felt empty inside. I had been chasing money instead of my true passion.
I still had a burning desire to do something that married my passion for athletic performance with entrepreneurship.
Day after day, I would write down business ideas of things I thought the world needed, but none of them felt right.
Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.
I trudged on through my real estate work and tried to distract myself with clients and deals.
But my intuition was still screaming at me.
You have to do something else.
Then one day, I came across a podcast. It was called the Capitalism.com podcast.
I heard the stories of countless entrepreneurs that were starting companies on shoestring budgets. Of particular interest to me were the food entrepreneurs.
As an athlete, I have always been obsessed with nutrition.
In fact, I religiously read the ingredients and nutrition labels of everything I consume.
In my free time, I will grumble to anyone willing to listen about the lack of healthy options at the grocery store.
Then it hit me. Start a healthy food company!
I always complain about the products in the grocery store, now it was time to do something about it.
I only had two problems. What product do I create and how do I start a food company with ZERO knowledge of the industry?
The product part was easy.
Every day I eat oatmeal for breakfast. Oatmeal is a bland food. Like really bland.
That’s why there are so many flavored oatmeals.
The only problem - all of these flavored oatmeals are loaded with sugar.
Solution: Use a zero calorie, all-natural sweetener like monk fruit to recreate the most popular flavors of oatmeal without any of the added sugar or junk.
I began to experiment with flavors.
Thousands of iterations later, I finally developed the secret sauce.
And ZER0ats was born.
The only problem now? I actually had to figure out how to build a business around this product.
My real estate career helped me develop the marketing chops to build websites, acquire customers, etc.
But I had ZERO idea how to sell food.
So just as I did in my athletic career, I began training in obscurity.
I devoured podcasts, webinars, and YouTube videos about how to start a food company.
Real estate by day and ZEROats by night.
I didn’t know what I was doing but I kept pushing forward.
Through endless hours of research, cold outreach, and experimentation, I finally had what I needed.
It wasn’t easy but it was worth it.
At last, I finally had everything I needed to sell my product to people all across the United States.
Now, what’s next?
I like to use metaphors, so here is my best attempt to describe where we are going.
ZER0ats is my baby.
I spend every waking moment thinking about how I can improve the company to better serve the customers.
Just like a parent wants to improve the life of their child.
If ZER0ats was a person, he/she would be headed off to Kindergarten.
The groundwork is laid. Now it’s time to build.
I envision ZER0ats being in every grocery store in America.
On the shelf right next to the dirty dinosaur oatmeal brands.
When you type in “oatmeal” on Amazon, I see our product being recommended as a best seller on page 1.
I can’t tell you how fast that will happen.
What I can tell you is that I am all in.
As an early adopter of our product, you are the most important part of the process.
Your feedback, encouragement, and support will be what helps us get to the top.
And someday...
in the not-too-distant future...
when you walk into your nearest grocery store and see ZER0ats front and center in the cereal aisle...
know that you were the key to making that happen.
Sincerely,
Hunter Williams
