Aimee is the founder and CEO of Better Brand. She’s on a mission to design a future where we can indulge in the foods we love, completely guilt free, through cutting-edge food tech.
Aimee sat down with The Proof to riff on the disciplined practices and deeply personal connection to the Better mission that made it possible.
On her morning routine.
I have a pretty preset regimen on weekdays.
When I follow it, I’m just so much calmer, more focused, and more even-keeled in decision making throughout the day.
Fun fact — I have a strange habit where I can only wake up at times ending in 2 or 8, so I’ll wake up at 6:42 AM every morning.
I drink lots of hot water with lemon, check my emails, and then attend a 7:45 yoga class at a studio a couple blocks from my house. I get back around 8:45 to start the day.
On mindsets for destressing.
I don’t have a very specific process for dealing with stressful roadblocks when they happen, aside from just being able to redirect from that exact moment and pan out towards the larger vision.
Business school did a lot in helping me move away from that granularity. I used to ruminate over every little thing, and had this tendency to spiral when things went wrong. B-school forces you to make so many decisions at every given moment and teaches you that ruminating just isn’t productive.
Nowadays, instead of harping on something when it goes wrong I’ll ask, “What is the best way to productively deal with this to bring us closer to our end goal of making Better the Beyond Meat of carbs?” Then execute accordingly. It's much less emotionally taxing.
I also understand that I’m giving everything I have and doing the best I can — and that doesn’t mean I can control every outcome.
You do have to practice self-love and be patient with yourself!
On better relationships to food.
I definitely have had a complex relationship with food as someone who runs a food startup — in fact, food has always been a huge pain point of mine.
I’ve been on practically every diet known to man and have always struggled with weight fluctuations, wanting to be fitter, wondering if something was actually healthy or good for me, the list goes on.
And you learn so much contradictory info, like when keto preaches one thing while low-fat diets preach another.
I found all of it paralyzing and overwhelming. The concept of diets or limiting yourself was just awful to me. But that 100% funnels into the mission for Better.
We’re working on completely overhauling the consumer experience with food and creating a world where you can eat the foods you crave without having to worry about weight gain or negative health consequences! Imagine experiencing only the pleasure but none of the guilt from all your favorite foods.
Better has really changed my life, cleared my headspace, and transformed my relationship with food for the Better… (I can’t help the pun.)
What’s even more special is that we receive so many DMs and emails from people across so many different demos letting us know that Better has changed their life, and that they feel so lucky to be a part of this journey.
It’s such a special emotional connection and gives us so much energy. People both need and deserve Better! We’re driving real impact, and it’s incredibly gratifying.
On guilt-free love of your work.
To be honest, I’m not the best at work-life balance — but, I mean, what does that even mean? I get so much energy from building Better — I just love it. It’s also a huge part of who I am and brings me so much joy, and I wouldn’t ever want to turn that off.
I’m a big proponent of trusting my gut. And my gut is telling me to give my all to this!
It’s interesting — there have definitely been times where I’ve been out or at dinner, and I really just wished I was working instead. I’ve never really felt the opposite.
There have been times when I’ve felt laggy or more tired — I recognize it and I’ll just elect for some quiet and a change of scenery. Those days are far and few between, though, and then I start to crave building again within a day or two.
On her evening routine.
I head to bed around 11:30 PM. Usually I’ll drink warm water and tea beforehand.
For that last hour, I’m typically writing emails or structuring out the start of the next day. I’ve heard that working before bed has a bad connotation, but I do vibe with that saying — if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life!
You can be really unhappy on holiday, or so fulfilled working 100 hours at your dream job. I’m personally sitting in the latter.
