In the summer of 2011, after graduating from Harvard Business School and finishing active duty with the Marine Corps, Nick Taranto got a job at Goldman Sachs.
"I was miserable working>On the brink of bankruptcy with soggy basil
The early days getting Plated off the ground required pushing through a lot of uncertainty>The "Shark Tank" bump
In May 2014, Plated appeared>No "woulda, coulda, shoulda" moments
The day after the sale was announced, and five years after starting from his couch on 14th Street with a $9.99 domain, Taranto says he is indeed living the American Dream. "My dad is an immigrant from Turkey and my mom's family still runs a farm in South Dakota, and it has been a hell of a ride the last five years," he says to CNBC.
Plated's hyper-growth story is a function of, in part, Taranto's willingness to set out-sized — what some might even call unrealistic — goals for himself.
When he was 19, he "came up with this newfangled scheme that I wanted to be the youngest person ever to ski to the North Pole," he says. One spring break from school, Taranto went to northern Canada to train with an arctic explorer. (He lied to his mom about where he was going.) He almost died when he fell in the cold water in the course of the training and ended up calling off the mission. But that Taranto would chase the dream as far as he did is illustrative of his ability to step outside the boundaries of what others expect.
Whether for some personal goal or when starting a business, Taranto says there are just some itches you have to scratch.
"If you don't scratch that itch, you will always regret it and there will be one of those 'woulda, coulda, shouldas' for the rest of your life," he says. "So my advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is if you really feel that itch and you feel compelled by an idea so strongly that you just have to go out and do it, then you should go do it."
