Meet Jared Frost | Chief Chef and Scout’s Assistant

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jared Frost and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jared, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Cooking has always been important to me. When I was a pre-teen and first starting being left alone at home in charge of my younger sister, I would get scared, and my parents found that giving me a project would keep me from just sitting on the couch listening for noises and just waiting for them to come home. So, they gave me simple cooking projects, and they were perfect for keeping me focused on something other than being alone. Cooking & baking continued to be catharses for me as I grew older and it’s often I’ll spend multiple nights a week trying out new recipes, techniques, or experiments ranging from fresh pasta to smoked brisket to cheesecakes.

Although I had known she was coming home during summer 2020 for about a year, Scout’s arrival during the pandemic was a blessing. I was single and an entrepreneur who spent the several years prior building another business, so I didn’t do a lot of socializing during 2020/2021; Scout and I spent A LOT of time together (and we still do)! She is a chewer and very treat motivated, so I went through a lot of treats while training her through puppy skills. She’s was also a 6-month-old German shorthaired pointer puppy with never-ending energy, and I went through an insane amount of bully sticks just to get a few minutes of peace and quiet for myself.

Spending all of my money on bully sticks along with my natural inclination to cook, led me to experiment with trying to make my own bully sticks or jerky sticks in an attempt to save me some cash. One day, I came up with a caseless sausage that was the opposite of a bully stick — it was soft and Scout inhaled them — so I just kept going! Scout’s Snaxx was born and our “Sausage” is our first product!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’m an odd duck with it comes to my career. I’ve never really done things “the way it’s supposed to be done” and having to forge my own path has given me a unique perspective on entrepreneurship and business opportunities.

I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan with a degree in aerospace engineering and decided not to pursue that field because the work wasn’t dynamic enough. My masters is in financial engineering and I spent the first seven years of my career trading derivatives on Wall Street from 2007-2014 (and I had a front-row seat for the whole crisis). I never really wanted to stay in that lifestyle long-term, and I had an opportunity to move to Colorado with my then fiancee and started a career in real estate private equity. Within two years, neither my marriage nor the job transfer worked out, and I found myself launched into entrepreneurship without much notice.

I spent the next several years building a small real estate brokerage team (Blue Pebble Homes) and a great network of friends & investors was the best result of all of that work. From there, I’ve launched an investment company, Oakvine Partners, that has already returned a profit to investors on its first fund and we’re working on our next investment thesis.

Scout’s Snaxx started because I love cooking for my puppy, Scout, and I wanted to find a better snack alternative than what is available in retail stores and most farmers markets. Most treats are made with a lot of filler ingredients and nutritious for your dog. Additionally, when treats are baked, they tend to lose any vitamin or nutritional value that might have been in the treat anyway. The treats we make use grocery-store-quality proteins & produce with a combination of natural vitamins & ingredients that produce a super-healthy, no-guilt treat for your dog. We air dry our treats in a dehydrator to ensure that all the nutritional value in our recipe doesn’t get lost before it hits your fur friend’s belly, too! It’s just a lot of fun making treats for dogs and seeing them get so excited… This business is all about having fun.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Oh, wow, for a week? There would be so much to do, haha. Scout would definitely require a daily dose of Cherry Creek or Chatfield State Parks Off-Leash Dog Parks or a solid off-leash hike somewhere in the mountains. I’ve found a couple cool camping spots near Gross Reservoir and Nederland that provided some awesome views and enough space for Scout to run around while I get dinner ready at the campsite.

For food and entertainment, there are a bunch of different places we’d have to check out. Happy Camper, Nocturne, Meow Wolf, the Avs/Nuggets/Broncos, Red Rocks, Mission Ballroom…

We’d probably also spend a couple of nights cooking and staying in because thinking about all of the above is making me tired already.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
This is great! I’d like to give a shout out to Scout, my dog, who allows me to spend hours in the kitchen making treats instead of playing with her. Also, I’d like to thank my parents and sister for being super encouraging as I was kicking around the idea of pursuing this business. Lastly, I want to thank all of my friends who volunteered their fur friends as taste testers and who have also initially supported with me a ton of orders when we launched! Everyone’s support is amazing.

Website: https://www.scoutssnaxx.com/

Instagram: @scoutssnaxx

Image Credits
Whitney Parkhill