Description:
In this episode of The Builders Podcast, Matt Levenhagen sits down with Allan Glanfield, founder of Chuck, a Canadian meat snack brand built from a very real family problem: finding better, travel-friendly snacks that kids would actually eat.
Allan’s path to building a snack brand has been anything but linear. From screen printing and fashion design to photography, e-commerce, marketing, and product development, his story is a reminder that the messy parts of a builder’s journey often become the exact experience needed for the next thing. Chuck grew out of that layered background, combining product thinking, brand storytelling, family travel, and a practical need for better food on the go.
This conversation explores what it means to build from lived experience, how founders can turn small frustrations into meaningful products, and why focus becomes essential when your mind sees problems everywhere.
Key Takeaways:
- The best product ideas often come from small, repeated problems in everyday life.
- Building something new does not always mean inventing from scratch. Sometimes it means improving what already exists.
- A winding career path can become an advantage when each chapter teaches a different part of the business.
- Founder-led brands work best when the story is real, not manufactured.
- Focus is one of the hardest parts of building, especially for people who naturally see opportunities everywhere.
- There is no perfect path. Builders often have to choose which kind of uncomfortable they are willing to live with.
Allan Glanfield
I’m a Canadian entrepreneur and dad of two (ages 5 and 8) who, approaching 40, asked myself a simple question: if the good old days are right now, what’s our plan to make them count?
The answer was to rent out our house, pack up our lives, and travel full-time with our kids while building a bootstrapped snack brand. No team, no investors, just a product I believe in and the willingness to figure it out on the road.
Chuck came out of a real need. Traveling with kids means you’re constantly hunting for food that’s convenient, clean, and that they’ll actually eat.
THE MEAT OF IT!
- Building From a Real-Life Problem
- How family travel exposed a gap in better snack options
- Why kids needed something easier, softer, and more practical than jerky
- Turning everyday friction into a product idea
- The Messy Path to Becoming a Builder
- Allan’s early work in screen printing, fashion, photography, and e-commerce
- Learning that past experiences stack, even when they seem unrelated
- Why adaptability may be one of the most important entrepreneurial skills
- Building Chuck as a Founder-Led Brand
- Why authentic lifestyle fit makes the product easier to explain
- Using family, travel, and daily life as the foundation for brand storytelling
- The challenge of documenting the journey while still running the business
- Focus, Tradeoffs, and Choosing Your Uncomfortable
- The tension between chasing ideas and committing to one path
- Why every life and business choice comes with its own version of hard
- Building around time, family, and freedom instead of money alone
Check out these related Episodes:
- Episode 283: Malcolm Reid Sr. – From the Streets to Prison to Purpose: Building a Life That Changes Others
- Episode 275: William Holsten – Turning Product & Business Blunders into Hard-Won Lessons
- Episode 266: Jill Heinze – How a Research-Driven Librarian Became an AI Governance Architect
