https://www.georgenachtrieb.com/cultivating-creative daily 0.75 2026-10-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/a7e936d4-c62a-4577-89f6-a4abcfa4870c/Gulfish_0009.jpg How Creative Built a Brand, and a Business Man wearing orange gloves and cap cleaning raw shrimp in a container inside a workshop. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/10d1e586-c63b-4593-a940-7f1d85731adc/SalmonSkinArticle.jpg How Creative Built a Brand, and a Business Salmon fillets with intact skin on a baking tray https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/80ee27c8-c709-4e4a-86e9-e51470311699/Midwest+Lakes+Cover_10x11V_Print.jpg How Creative Built a Brand, and a Business Summer picnic setup featuring a hot dog with toppings on parchment paper, pasta salad in a container, grilled corn, watermelon slices, a cooler with drinks, canned beverages in cozies, a life preserver, sunglasses, playing cards, and a drink in a jar, all on a rustic wooden table. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/e684d8f4-2bf8-41cc-bcc7-f62e4bb1c08f/Minh+Tsai_Hodo+Soy.jpg How Creative Built a Brand, and a Business Person holding soaking soybeans in a tofu factory. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/1637180479212-XJBTXK4XJYFEG3HGI8LT/Smoothie.jpg How Creative Built a Brand, and a Business https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/90fde361-4793-43e9-8117-7cc69ac44685/SummerCover.jpg How Creative Built a Brand, and a Business https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/7da85161-de79-4109-8794-9f5ac08ea7a2/Minestrone+recipe+card.jpg How Creative Built a Brand, and a Business https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/1637180071973-TQWURHQWFIQD8TEPIMN6/IslandVibesCover.jpg How Creative Built a Brand, and a Business https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/1637180479212-XJBTXK4XJYFEG3HGI8LT/Smoothie.jpg How Creative Built a Brand, and a Business https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/fb0f16ae-72da-4e16-95b6-ae11f25e2edf/TacosPage.jpg How Creative Built a Brand, and a Business https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/75725457-a5dc-4126-9a0c-cd9349741a9e/FieldPhotoVideo.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/53669af3-1082-4736-a6ea-603af02f06a7/SBolderrecipecard.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/516b8a16-a494-48a7-ad48-83a77e6fab8f/SBboxcards.jpeg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/0e3d1c04-44f3-46e4-85c7-ea5bac3373e3/SBmagazingcovers.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/87387c28-592c-4eaa-a041-80ad6b6a6fe8/JustineNicolePhoto.jpg How Creative Built a Brand, and a Business https://www.georgenachtrieb.com/about daily 0.75 2026-10-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/12fc5973-7e04-4f19-b9df-e6b8c3c62061/George_colors.jpg https://www.georgenachtrieb.com/teambuilding daily 0.75 2026-10-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/31952f32-b1bc-4429-8ae5-2dea002d880e/UpstairsGroup.jpg Teaching Brainstorming Through Parody Group of people in a room sitting around tables, raising their arms in a celebratory gesture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/6c0d2e88-20b7-4982-b4e2-0d9939acae1a/Musselman.jpg Teaching Brainstorming Through Parody Portrait of a person named Steve Musselman with professional and personal details listed. He has worked at YDI for 9 years as SVP of Marketing & Prototype Deployment. Holds an MBA & MMA from New Planton Technical Institute. Family includes 1 wife and 4 kids. Hobbies include investing, karate, meat smoking, supporting Cincinnati Bengals, and speed golfing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/3de2cddd-06e2-4992-bbf9-15377aac090d/YDGroupsession.jpg Teaching Brainstorming Through Parody Group of people collaborating on writing ideas on blue paper, wearing casual clothes indoors, in a workshop setting. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/2b1fe8e1-1d70-4f87-b90d-d4a176a44838/YD+Presenting.jpg Teaching Brainstorming Through Parody A group of people attending a workshop or meeting where presenters are discussing ideas displayed on large blue sheets of paper taped to a wall. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/82008e8f-0fa3-49ab-b011-9ab8ec1a2c82/YDBigGroup2.jpg Teaching Brainstorming Through Parody Group of people posing indoors, laughing and cheering, some with name tags, in front of a black wall with blue papers taped on it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/56887499-83a7-4000-aa36-05fd537f589f/YDShield.jpg Teaching Brainstorming Through Parody Two sheets of paper with handwritten notes. Left sheet has a list titled "DUCKS" with tasks like "LAP SIT," "NOMINATE FOREMAN," "ARGUE (BITTERLY)." Right sheet shows a hand-drawn shield with quadrants including a duck, text "THERE IS ONLY TRY," and other symbols. Both papers are taped to a surface with pink tape. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/7e06f31a-c45f-4033-858a-ce6fe84135d5/IVO.jpg Teaching Brainstorming Through Parody Child with glasses holding a program for "YD Industries: How to Fail" event, dated February 24, 2014, in San Francisco, CA, Group 3. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/1bce8320-3fa6-4701-8b0e-eb6f8eab0547/TrustSit.jpg Teaching Brainstorming Through Parody Person performing a trust sit exercise near a metal chair, demonstrating support and balance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/c3e5ce08-f3f9-427c-90f5-e8c80c50c37f/YDInnoCulture.jpg Teaching Brainstorming Through Parody Promotional poster for YD Industries with the slogan "A Culture of Innovation," listing various benefits and activities. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/e07449d1-f7d0-4d26-8c75-1c1c1ab8b1ed/YDBiggroup.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/42e90126-c482-42c4-91a2-8fc9724f859f/Prototype.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/251651f3-7f2c-499f-869a-a20e135ecebd/Prototype2.jpg https://www.georgenachtrieb.com/scaling-sun-basket daily 0.75 2026-10-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/6e4debbf-a588-4b30-98d8-ef37ba3acc11/FirstPallet.jpg Build, Hand Off, Scale: A Co-Founder’s Playbook - Phase 1: Establishing Foundations (From $0 to $100M) Handing off a team. The first handoff was the most concrete: a function George built by hand, passed to a leader who could grow it far beyond its founder-run size. Build: In the early days, George took on whatever the business needed: brokering a culinary partnership with chef Tyler Florence, building the first creative team for recipes, photography, video, and customer communications, and standing up Sun Basket's first customer service team, about 10 people running a Monday-to-Friday operation. Hand off: George hired an experienced customer service leader to take the function forward, and stayed involved where he added the most: making sure every customer interaction sounded like Sun Basket and reflected its values. Scale: Under that leader, the team grew to more than 100 people, with integrated support systems and offshore coverage, and became an award-winning customer service organization. Image: George celebrates the packing and shipping of the first pallet of boxes with his chilly colleagues Amy, Justine, and Daniel. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/80080323-5a9c-4bec-8f5f-4fad4ffcf24c/GeorgeNJspeech.JPG Build, Hand Off, Scale: A Co-Founder’s Playbook - Phase 2: Scaling (Growing to $200M) Handing off a way of working. As the company grew, the bottleneck wasn't any single function. It was the founder-driven habits connecting them. This phase replaced heroics with processes the whole organization could run. Build: As growth accelerated, George led the company's corporate real estate expansion, overseeing five headquarters and test kitchen moves, and recruited the executives who would lead marketing, food manufacturing, and print publishing. He also hired senior editorial talent, including James Beard nominees and Food & Wine veterans. Hand off: In this phase, the handoff was from heroics to systems. The "just get it done" approach that worked at the start couldn't continue to carry a company this size. George facilitated the connections between functions, such as recipe development and manufacturing as Sun Basket integrated its first Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, and built the processes that enabled teams to work together without a founder brokering every exchange. Scale: With repeatable processes in place, Sun Basket grew to a production footprint of roughly 250,000 square feet across three facilities in California, Illinois, and New Jersey. Image: George shares a silly joke at the opening of Sun Basket’s production facility in New Jersey. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/617c468fe853b7729528f162/46167893-6e7a-472f-8204-1665d88d6b28/Box+In+Kitchen.jpg Build, Hand Off, Scale: A Co-Founder’s Playbook - Phase 3: Brand and Communication (From $200M to $300M) Handing off a creative engine. The final handoff turned creative work, which had depended on a few people's instincts, into a studio with the structure and leaders to keep producing at scale for marketing, brand, and product. Build: George built Sun Basket Studios, an in-house creative agency, to make materials for paid online marketing faster and more effective. He also led the creation of The Sun Times, a weekly magazine that replaced individual recipe cards, and conducted in-home consumer interviews that shaped product and UX decisions. Hand off: The Studios gave creative work a structure and a project management process that didn't depend on one person to move each piece forward. Team members grew into leaders of their own disciplines, from photography to recipe writing to video production. Scale: The Studios produced 1,800+ recipes, 600+ articles, and a weekly Sun Times magazine with millions of issues a year that also cut collateral packing errors to near zero. (See the Studios case study.) 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