Jennifer Garner’s Once Upon a Farm went public at $18 per share, giving the organic children’s food company a valuation of $724 million, according to Forbes, context that sheds new light on Garner’s remarks this week about the value of entering business as a self-described beginner.
Speaking on Tuesday’s episode of Forbes Talks, the actor said joining the business world later in her career had made it easier to admit the limits of her knowledge. ‘I’m learning. This is all new to me. I’d never taken an econ class, a business class. I didn’t know how to read a spreadsheet. They still really overwhelm me, but I sure as heck love the process of being the student in the room, always,’ she said.
Jennifer Garner Once Upon a Farm: From Beginner to Co-Founder
Garner joined Once Upon a Farm in 2017, two years after its founding, and is now described by the company as a co-founder. Forbes reported that she was given that co-founder title alongside what is today a 7% stake in the business, worth $64 million as of the end of the first day of trading. The company raised nearly $198 million through the initial public offering, according to Forbes Middle East English. Once Upon a Farm is now sold in more than 22,000 stores nationwide, per the company’s own account of its history.
The scale of that outcome makes Garner’s candour about her early inexperience all the more pointed. She had no economics or business training when she came on board, and she said on Forbes Talks that spreadsheets still overwhelm her. What she described as a strength, however, was the freedom from ego that she believes comes with arriving later.
‘I’m so grateful to be a grown-up in that room and not a kid because I think that I’d need to prove myself. I’d need to say, “This is how we should do this, or this is how this should run.” And I’m blissfully not motivated by needing to be in charge,’ Garner said.
She also addressed the question of how to stay engaged with a business without becoming consumed by short-term metrics. Garner said she tries not to check the company’s day-to-day stock price, describing that discipline as essential to her focus. ‘I would not do well under that kind of pressure or scrutiny,’ she said, drawing an explicit parallel to reading tabloid coverage about herself. Instead, she said she is ‘wholly focused’ on doing the job and trusts that ‘if we do that, the stock will follow.’
A Pattern Among Celebrity Founders Who Embraced the Learning Curve
Garner’s reflections echo those of other figures who have spoken publicly about stepping into unfamiliar industries without a conventional business background. When Ina Garten bought the Barefoot Contessa store in 1978 with no food-business experience, she recalled a first month of serious doubt. ‘Honestly, the first month I was there I thought, “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life,”‘ Garten said in a 2020 interview. Her husband Jeffrey, she recounted, reframed the discomfort: ‘If you could do it in the first week, you’d be bored in the second week.’
Gwyneth Paltrow offered a similar account of her early days at Goop, saying in 2024 that she was so unfamiliar with business jargon that she would Google acronyms under the table during meetings. ‘I decided I was going to be really brave around asking questions and that there’s a difference between intelligence and just not having learned something yet,’ Paltrow said.
For Garner, the appetite has not faded with experience. ‘It’s great to still feel hungry,’ she said on Forbes Talks. ‘I’m still really hungry.’ With Jennifer Garner’s Once Upon a Farm now a publicly traded company carrying a nine-figure valuation, the beginner’s mindset she describes has had a tangible commercial proving ground.