Brent Facchinello is using lessons he learned at Daniels to help grow Boulder’s Miraflora Wagyu
What do selling CBD and wagyu beef have in common? Well, frankly, not much.
But Brent Facchinello is using the lessons he learned from the former to guide his new venture selling the latter.
Facchinello developed the idea for Miraflora Naturals during his Professional MBA program at the Daniels College of Business. A career at Molson Coors in procurement was abruptly ended with a layoff and he transitioned into the CBD space, buying a 160-acre farm in Boulder to grow hemp and house his business. Miraflora Naturals developed and sold CBD tinctures, soft gels, sports recovery balm, sparkling sports recovery drinks and dog chews.
Professional MBA Brent Facchinello
“At the peak of it, we were distributing in Colorado, New York and California, with 300-500 stores in each location,” he said.
Facchinello said headwinds from COVID-19 and the challenge of growing in a competitive industry made it difficult to see a path forward in CBD. So, he did what he had already done once in his career—he pivoted. He did so with confidence and a trove of skills picked up in his classes and from mentors on campus.
Facchinello had the acreage and the business structure from Miraflora Naturals but was looking for something a little more well established than CBD.
“CBD was an emerging business, and a lot of people didn’t know a lot about it. There were a lot of unknowns in the industry from lack of regulation, marketing, banking, all those types of things,” he said. “[We thought], let’s look at something that’s a little bit more traditional, like beef.”
Facchinello and his co-founder and cousin, Chris Wynne, began researching the market, exploring competition and looking at substitute items. They determined they wanted to offer a premium product, specifically wagyu beef. Wagyu is a Japanese cattle breed, lauded for its taste and marbled tenderness.
What was once a business plan for a class project, quickly turned into a CBD business. Although the product has now changed to beef, the structure of the business remained similar to the one Facchinello developed years prior at Daniels.
“You have to be able to adapt and stay open to new market signals and consumer behavior, and be able to problem solve,” he said. “That allowed us to pivot.”
Now, Miraflora has 60 cows on its farm with plans to get to 200 in the future. In total, it takes about 30 months to raise wagyu cattle from birth to market. Facchinello has quickly become an expert on raising cattle, ensuring they have a high quality of life as they graze on the 160-acre farm.
“I’m checking on them daily. There’s no ranch team and there’s no other cowboys running around. It’s a very small operation and we do all of our processing here locally,” he said.
He’s thankful for the skills, mentors and conviction he gained at the College.
“The Daniels experience gave me that confidence to go the entrepreneurial route,” he said. “Daniels also gave me a great network of people to talk to and mentors I’ve used along the way.”
That is just one example of the most important quality he said he gained from his MBA: adaptability.
Miraflora Wagyu, as the company is now named, began selling its products in late 2023. It offers a variety of premium cuts of beef, from steaks to burgers, all with the vaunted wagyu label.
“We took the learnings we had from CBD—of being at a high quality, premium price point—and transitioned them to beef, but followed the same principles,” he said.
The company has sold its products at farmer’s markets, on its website and has recently entered into wholesale. While CBD and beef are vastly different products, Facchinello’s understanding of distribution channels have benefited him in both businesses.
He’s leaned on the lessons learned at Daniels and ridden the wave of a pivot, embracing each challenge as it presents itself. Five years after his MBA, he couldn’t have fathomed the twists and turns his entrepreneurial journey has taken.
“I thought the hemp and CBD market was going to be this high-growth industry. I thought we were going to nail this and be super successful. And I think that’s the plan of every entrepreneur,” he said. “But there’s a lot of entrepreneurs out there, even businesses who identify, hey, something’s not working. How do we pivot?”