Justin Mares

Justin Mares is an entrepreneur from Fairfax, Virginia. He is best known for being the co-founder and CEO of Kettle & Fire.

College years

Justin studied finance at the University of Pittsburgh from 2008 to 2012. While there, he created his first startup, known as "RoommateFit", a company that matches potential roommates based on compatibility. In his senior year, the company was accepted into AlphaLab, a Pittsburgh-based startup accelerator.

Startups

In February 2012, Justin co-founded CloudFab, an online platform for manufacturing 3D printed products. CloudFab was acquired by Exceptional Cloud Services the same year, and Justin became the Director of Growth and Revenue until the company was acquired by Rackspace in 2013.

As a result of his experience as an entrepreneur, Justin observed that attracting customers was the determiner of startup success, as opposed to product development. He approached Gabriel Weinberg, founder of alternative search engine DuckDuckGo, and the two co-authored a book on customer acquisition titled Traction: The Startup's Guide to Getting Customers, which was published by Portfolio Penguin.

In 2013, Justin began looking for bone broth products online to care for his brother, Nick Mares, who was recovering from a torn ACL. Upon seeing that all available products were frozen, the brothers created Kettle & Fire, the first shelf-stable bone broth.

The product has been well-received, especially by proponents of the Paleolithic diet.