This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Jason Rosenbaum and Hailey Swartz, co-founders, with Alex Swartz, of veggie burger brand Actual Veggies. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Actual Veggies. Hailey Swartz and Jason Rosenbaum.

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What was your day job or primary occupation when you started your side hustle?
Rosenbaum: I was working at a mattress company by day and flipping veggie burgers by night. I'd wake up at 5 a.m. to focus on Actual Veggies before clocking in, squeeze in calls during lunch breaks and stay up late tasting recipes and building our pitch deck. Nights and weekends were all about laying the foundation — testing concepts, researching packaging and learning everything I could about a brand-new industry. As things started getting more real, it naturally evolved into a side hustle, and then eventually, my full-time job.

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Swartz: I was working in product strategy for Alibaba. I was one of the initial employees who helped start the North American arm for Alibaba B2B. Our job was to work with our counterparts in China to build products and services to make it easier for companies to source from suppliers in China and also enable North American suppliers to sell on Alibaba.com. Every day, I was talking to entrepreneurs and SMBs to understand their unique problems and help them grow and create efficiencies within their business. I was inspired by the fun that these entrepreneurs had and had the itch to start my own company.

When did you start your side hustle, and where did you find the inspiration for it?
Rosenbaum: The idea for Actual Veggies started brewing in early 2020. I had stopped eating meat and was searching for a clean, restaurant-quality veggie burger that actually tasted like vegetables, not some ultra-processed meat alternative. One night, I literally woke up from a dream with the name "Actual Veggies" in my head. I immediately searched for the domain on GoDaddy, and it was available. I bought it on the spot and ran with the name.

A few weeks later, I teamed up with Hailey; we were connected through some college friends — she went to the University of Michigan, and I grew up in Michigan. In March, we learned about Big Idea Ventures at a healthy food expo and applied to join its next cohort. We got accepted into an accelerator later that year and raised our first round of funding — even though we were still just a concept (our first product samples arrived at our investors looking like soup). But they believed in us and our vision. We officially launched via QVC in early 2021, and by July, we were on shelves at Sprouts nationwide.

Swartz: In February 2020, Jason shared the idea for Actual Veggies and asked me if I would like to be part of it. While I eat meat, I love a good veggie burger and have a visceral reaction to products that are trying to taste like meat. The idea of making a delicious veggie-forward burger with whole,........

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