How did Michael Wystrach build Freshly from nothing to a $1.5 billion exit?

Michael Weistrach started the business at 35 with only $15 in his bank account, after an earlier company had gone bankrupt and he was carrying about a million dollars in debt that he had three years to pay off. He had already found some product-market fit, so he went ahead with the new business. The company shipped prepared meals directly to customers' homes and grew to $550 million in sales in a little over five years. He says it was built almost entirely on Meta ads, because his team was the best at Meta marketing. On sales, he emphasized asking questions and really listening to what customers need. He started with 100% ownership, took on a lot of investors, and when the business sold for $1.5 billion he owned about 10% of it. He noted that they spent close to $40 million building their own e-commerce platform and said that if he were starting today he would use Shopify.