How a Montana hobby became the Czech jerky brand Threemen

Czech entrepreneur Matěj Konečný left the advertising business to make dried meat using his own recipe — a hobby that began on an American ranch grew into a full-fledged brand called Threemen with its own online shop.

The story began unexpectedly: Konečný's daughter took up horseback riding, and he decided to learn to ride alongside her. During training sessions with an instructor in Miroslav, he was invited to go to America — to help drive cattle herds to summer pastures in Montana and Wyoming. A few weeks in the saddle changed his life: at remote gas stations he tried traditional cowboy jerky for the first time and was struck by its taste, simplicity, and how practical it was for long trips.

Back in Czechia, Konečný dug out an old mushroom dehydrator and started experimenting with beef. At first he dried meat just for himself, to take on hikes. Then he began bringing it to friends who keep horses, and they liked it so much they started buying the product at the price of the raw ingredients. Demand grew organically — through friends of friends — until it became clear it was time to go official.

The name Threemen references the western discipline Three Men to Gate, in which three riders complete cattle-handling tasks against the clock. But for Konečný it means more — it symbolizes family values and responsibility to future generations. “Native Americans have a principle: we borrow the land from our children. That's a huge obligation for me. I put the idea of the generations who come after us into the name and the brand,” the entrepreneur explains.

Before starting his own business, Konečný worked as a carpenter, as a caregiver at a children's home, and as an advertising producer — he started as a designer at the Kaspen agency, then built his own production studio. When the family moved from Prague to a house near Jílové during the pandemic, a new chapter of his life began, one that eventually led him to drying meat as a business.

The production process turned out to be physically harder than any job he'd had before: each strip of marinated beef has to be laid out by hand on a stainless-steel rack, making sure it doesn't fold over or overlap neighboring pieces. Drying takes 8–10 hours, and out of 100 kilograms of fresh Czech beef, no more than a third of the weight remains at the end. Despite how labor-intensive it is, Konečný is determined to run the business honestly — so that, as he puts it, his children could one day take over the brand's values with a clear conscience.