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In this week's episode, we dig into the story of Kara Goldin, an entrepreneur and founder of HINT water, an American beverage company producing healthy substitutes for soda, juices, and energy drinks. All their products are sugar-free and meet smart snack requirements.
The conversation starts with Goldin talking through what led her to write her book, Undaunted. Her new book outlines her journey in entrepreneurialism and the qualities that people need to have in order to succeed. The discussion uncovers many insightful learnings Goldin gained through her experience.
Conquer the Noise is a podcast dedicated to telling stories of outstanding ideas and people who have found their way amongst the chatter.
Series: Cultivating Purpose & Passion in Business
In an environment of cultural change and demanding consumer expectations, engage with fellow marketing leaders and hear how they navigate brand relevance, impact and authenticity. In this series, we will explore how to create a greater impact on your business and community by cultivating purpose and passion into actionable items. During this session we’ll discuss ways brands and businesses can better connect with the environment and their community. Learn from 1% leaders on how they bring values in sustainability through all aspects of their brand and business.
Unconquered presents this series in partnership with 1% For The Planet's Be 1% Better Campaign. Unconquered is an independent creative agency challenging brand perspective through redefined content. We founded the agency to create work with a sense of purpose beyond itself, using commerce to change the world. We believe the unconquered spirit is at the heart of every great brand.
Credits:
Thank you to all of our guests, without you this wouldn't exist.
Art - Mike McNeive, Partner @ Drexler https://drxlr.com/
Audio - Harry Glaser
Speaker 1: Conquer the noise is a podcast produced by Unconquered, an independent agency. This podcast is dedicated to telling stories of outstanding ideas and people who have found their way amongst the chatter. We are excited to have Kara Golden, the CEO and founder of hint water. Kara started the company with a simple idea to make water that tastes great. We're gonna talk about her new book undaunted and some of the lessons she's learned as a successful entrepreneur. [00:00:30]
Kara, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate you making the time.
Speaker 2: Of course. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I received your, uh, little box of goodies, which I appreciate the book that my favorite actually was the book in the dog toy, cuz I obviously love my dog. Um, and I really am gonna start, I think, incorporating I wanna steal that and make our, our own dog toy swag for, for our clients. Um, you know, I read through the book and I, it's funny [00:01:00] the UN daunted title of it reminds me so much of our name on Concord. Um, and I think it's a lot of overlap. And as I was reading your story, I found a lot of just personal, uh, connection to it and, and a lot of the reasons or motivations that, that inspired us to start an agency and inspired us to name it, what it was. Um, so I would, would love to hear how you arrived at the name on daunted and, and what that means for you.
Speaker 2: Well, I thank [00:01:30] you, uh, you know, more than anything. So a little bit of backstory when I decided to write a book, it was based out of the fact that I had a journal that was about 600 pages. And as I was, uh, doing a ton of public speaking and then also just touring the country, building out, uh, my brand hint and meeting with customers along the way, I felt like the way that I could [00:02:00] actually get my message out, not only for what it as hint mm-hmm , but also why I was thinking the way that I was thinking or doing whatever I was doing was because of a story mm-hmm . And I felt like just by sharing my story mm-hmm that that really helped people to sort of catch up to where I was at mm-hmm and, and again like this, this journal really stemmed from, [00:02:30] I, I sort of was prompted by these, the questions that I was asked by mm-hmm buyers or, or, you know, questions at the end of it, a talk that I was doing.
Speaker 2: And I would think about those questions, you, even after I left the room mm-hmm and I'd say I wasn't questioning sort of how I had answered it, but I thought, oh, there's another great story that mm-hmm , you know, would also be relevant that would really help that person. And [00:03:00] as I started to write these stories out, I thought, gosh, there's a lot of people that are not sitting in the room that could actually benefit from these stories. Mm-hmm . And I started actually to tell some of these stories, even on my social, um, mm-hmm on LinkedIn primarily. And, and then I thought, you know, I should figure out a way to bind my journal. And so I reached out to a friend of mine who is an author, and I said, so what do you think is the best way to bind my journal and kind of [00:03:30] get it out there?
Speaker 2: And she said, you mean, write a book? And I said, no, I'm a CEO of a company. I have no time to write a book. And so when I told what I had, she said, you've already written the book, let me see it. And so I shared it with her and she said, you have at least one, maybe two books in there. Mm-hmm with all of your stories. And that was, you know, that was really kind of the, the sort of the ethos for writing this book. But in terms of naming it over the year [00:04:00] was people had called me relentless. Um, mm-hmm , you know, just so, so many of the stories that I would share with them, or they would really put a stake in the ground and say, you're undented, you're fearless. You're this mm-hmm you're this mm-hmm . And so it really came very naturally, frankly, just like the product hint.
Speaker 2: I mean, a lot of people have asked me if I used a naming agency. Nope. I just, you know, we just sort of applied for the [00:04:30] trademarks on hint and mm-hmm and were able to get it, but it wasn't, I, I think sometimes if you make things too hard or you overthink things and they don't really come naturally to you mm-hmm then it, it doesn't come naturally to others either. Mm-hmm . And I think that there's when people are reading this, this book and they look at the title undented, um, you know, well, many of them see that it is getting over fears. [00:05:00] And some of the things that I went through were really scary. I mean, there were other stories that, you know, people have shared with me. I cannot believe that you went through that with whole foods or whatever, and they laugh at it. And I said, it's, it's always funny when you're not actually in the room when you're in the room, it's really scary. Right. , there's a lot of those stories you're horrified. Right? Yeah. And, um, and so again, I, I really did this more as a learning for, um, for other people, [00:05:30] but I have to tell you too, that I think in many ways, writing a book is, is therapeutic right. To sort of like get through all
Speaker 1: Those. Well, it is
Speaker 2: Challenging times
Speaker 1: For sure. And I, I mean, I, it, it breed is like a journal. So it's funny you say that can, I can totally connect that now it does feel like a personal exploration almost of, of what happened or a detailing of it. Um, it's funny, like some people, I think journal for like the story side of it, and then I think others sort of story journal for maybe it [00:06:00] was a combination of both but others for the, um, the, um, I guess therapeutic aspect of it, of getting it out, venting having a safe place to let it out. Um, and you know, there's, and there's a little bit of both, and I think that's what I appreciate. And I think there's some, some interesting, really personal learning that you reveal. Um, I think you could have hung onto 'em. I think some were so deep. I was like, wow, I wish I would, I wanna, can we to explore these in conversation? You know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no. And, and we can definitely do that, but I [00:06:30] also just think that one thing that I always share with people is mm-hmm that when you go through challenging times, all often, you just wanna forget about them. Mm-hmm and you just don't want, you wanna move forward. And while I think that that is, it has its place, I also think that we should learn from our experiences and sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's really uncomfortable to go back and think about, is there something I could have done? And sometimes there is sometimes [00:07:00] it isn't, sometimes it comes to you right away. Mm-hmm um, in the case of, you know, one of the stories with Starbucks, when we got into Starbucks, it was a huge high. And then when we were removed from the cases of all the Starbucks, I mean, that was a big, low mm-hmm .
Speaker 2: And I think for me, instead of feeling so angry about what had happened and ripped off and something, you know, terrible happened, what I took the time to go back and think about what could I [00:07:30] have done differently in that situation that would've helped me to not be in the situation that I was in, where I had a ton of inventory that was sitting in my warehouse. I had to go back to my investors and share that I was, uh, you know, had this inventory that I probably was gonna have to destroy. It was not an UN, it was a very uncomfortable situation. Mm-hmm . But I thought if I wouldn't have put all my eggs in that basket, right. If I wouldn't have relied on [00:08:00] that revenue from that, that much revenue, it was 40% of my overall business was coming from Starbucks or planned to be coming from Starbucks.
Speaker 2: And when they decided to end the partnership with two weeks notice, I had no options. And that's what was, so to me, mm-hmm . And so, you know, the lesson I learned from that, and, and one that I still hold to this day, and mm-hmm, , my team has to hold to this [00:08:30] day too, because I it's, it's part of my journey is that when you, when you don't have options, mm-hmm, when you don't look at, uh, you know, different possibilities, especially when things are going, right. Figure out what, when things, if things were to go wrong, are you prepared? Mm-hmm and I think that, that was the big story that I got out of, out of that. And, and I just relived it, even, uh, writing this book and, and sort of thinking more [00:09:00] and more, and it just became that much more clear
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm . And so I, I'm curious when you options are, I think are always having options, I think is one of those things that is, um, provides empowerment, provides the ability to, to, to write, to, to get yourself totally bad situations. And I'm curious, you know, that's obviously connected to prepare being prepared. Um, so, so I'm curious to like how you, how you're preparing yourself in other ways, like, so that, so for example, in this situation, hindsight's 2020, [00:09:30] right. But like going into, going into it and having, you know, Starbucks having be such a huge part of your revenue, how else would you have prepared now, looking back, I'm just trying to connect those dots to see how you would've maybe done things a little bit differently. Would you have maybe had other options as far as like store partners or would there have been for
Speaker 2: Sure? I mean, I, I think anybody who builds a plan that, that has 40% of their revenue coming from from one source is, uh, foolish. [00:10:00] Right. And, you know, in the agency world, if you've got 40% of your overall business sitting with one client, I mean, you know, hindsight 20, 20, you're like, well, that was foolish. Right. I shouldn't have done that, but it's, uh, when you're in it and you everything's great. And, and that's the challenge you never really know. Right? Mm-hmm , I mean, look over the, over the years, I mean, we've seen suppliers, for example, that have gone out of business. We thought everything was fine. [00:10:30] We were getting all of the supply that we needed out of them, but then they ran outta cash and mm-hmm, , they weren't sitting there ex you know, that information with us. So I think at, at all levels of your company, you need to figure out how, if, if this great thing that is sitting in front of me, the shiny apple goes away tomorrow, how can I protect myself?
Speaker 2: And I think that that is, think about every aspect of your business, us mm-hmm , and, and, you know, [00:11:00] not only, uh, revenue streams or, uh, suppliers, but also people mm-hmm , as I, you know, say to my teams, look, if you have somebody who is incredible and so important, look, it's a free world. They can go, they can go and look for another job can go somewhere else. Mm-hmm . Um, and if you don't really understand, you don't have somebody who can step into those roles and really maybe they might not be immediately [00:11:30] as good as that person, but you have to be able to protect yourself or else you cause strain mm-hmm on your company and you get this. I mean, it's just, it it's reality. And it's something that I think is an important lesson and, and a lesson that we've learned over time.
Speaker 2: But now from that Starbucks relationship, I didn't do it right that time. But I also believe that when bad things are happening, that they don't last forever [00:12:00] mm-hmm and best that you can hope for is that it gets better sooner mm-hmm . And so for us, that sooner came when Amazon reached out to us and they said, Hey, Hey, we're, we're starting this grocery thing and we're gonna sell grocery products online. Now, Amazon actually used to be a client of mine back way back when, when I was at America online, running the commerce and shopping partnership. Mm-hmm . So I know that [00:12:30] Amazon started as a book seller and they can, you need to grow their businesses. They've may surprise some people, but they've had some failures along the way. And when I heard, well,
Speaker 1: Failures never get talked about. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And, and so I I've sort of followed them over the years and I thought, oh, wow, they're getting into grocery. How, like, what's your strategy. I was just really curious about it. And, and again, like, I, this gentleman that I was talking to said, look, we're, we're not doing perishable. We're gonna go, and we're gonna start [00:13:00] with some, you know, real essential products. And, and mm-hmm, , yours is one that I go to. He actually said, I, uh, go to Starbucks every morning and I get my latte and I buy a bottle of hints. And I thought, you know, do I tell him that we're getting kicked out of, out of mm-hmm Starbucks? Or do I just, uh, tell him that we can deliver right away, because I've got two truckloads of products sitting in the warehouse mm-hmm . And so I chose the ladder mm-hmm , uh, and he wired [00:13:30] me money to, uh, bring in hint.
Speaker 2: And, and it was at that moment when I realized, first of all, I might not have been part of this kind of beta that he was doing. If I wouldn't have had the product ready right away, mm-hmm , um, which I did because of, of Starbucks and that situation. But in addition to that, mm-hmm, over the next few months, I learned from our relationship with the Amazon, that many of the people who were buying hint were also [00:14:00] buying things like health related products. So mm-hmm , they were describing this consumer that was shopping and buying hint on Amazon as a consumer that was significantly different than one that was buying other beverage products on Amazon, Amazon. Very interesting. Yeah. And so I was fascinated by this and I, and I said, okay, so they're buying diabetes monitors and, um, and [00:14:30] you know, different, different types of exercise gear that really said that they're engaged and they're focused on staying healthy or getting healthy.
Speaker 2: And I said to the buyer, I would love to reach out to a few of these customers and talk to them. And he said, Jeff, Bezo, isn't gonna give you the emails for mm-hmm , you know, this for our Amazon sales. And it was at that moment when I realized something really interesting here, I had been [00:15:00] building hint for seven years. Mm-hmm doing it the way that beverage companies do it, which, uh, you know, to date was essentially, you know, selling in stores. Mm-hmm whether they're big box stores or club or specialty stores, like whole foods, I was doing it their way. Mm-hmm . And suddenly I branched out I had another revenue stream coming from Amazon, but I didn't have a direct relationship with the customer. And so that was the moment when [00:15:30] I said, I should launch my own store. If nothing else, maybe I'll get, I won't get as many of those customers that Amazon has, but I'll get some customers that are gonna come into our store for whatever reason that maybe they don't have the, the flavors that they want on the Amazon site, they're gonna come in and then I can have a conversation with them and build a relationship with them.
Speaker 2: And it was, it was really at that moment, [00:16:00] when we launched our site, it was super barebone site that I realized that it, it wasn't giant initially, but there were things that Amazon wasn't able to do that we were able to do. We had over 20 flavors, for example of water mm-hmm mm-hmm , and they weren't gonna launch all 20 flavors on this site. Mm-hmm . And by the way, whole foods and Costco and Kroger, and everybody else wasn't gonna carry all 20. And so I thought [00:16:30] as long as my site has meaning and has purpose, there will be customers that are gonna search. And as long as I can be really diligent on SEO and everything else in order to, and, and ads and, and all of that stuff, I can gain an audience. I didn't know how big of an audience I could gain, but I thought it'll be something mm-hmm .
Speaker 2: And in addition to the, that I will now have three revenue streams. Mm-hmm , I will have stores [00:17:00] Amazon, and also my own, but with my own, I'm able to act as the retailer, I'm able to build an email list that I can go out and talk to my consumer and sell them more product. And at the time too, the other piece that was a competitive advantage for my site was that, um, Amazon wasn't doing, they hadn't launched Amazon prime yet. Mm-hmm . And so that was essentially their subscription program. Mm-hmm . And so we launched [00:17:30] a subscription program pretty quickly that really differentiated us. People would ask me even early on, should I buy at Amazon? Or should I buy from you guys? Cause they wanted us to stay alive and like be able to, and support us in, in many ways and still to this day.
Speaker 2: And we have consumers who ask us, should we buy your product at Costco? Or should we buy it directly from you? And you know, the answer is really simple. We want it, it's your decision. You're the customer mm-hmm [00:18:00] , you can buy it wherever you want. We want all of our channels to be successful. Mm-hmm mm-hmm . But again, it goes back to, I, I think in many ways, thank Starbucks for that opportunity where, you know, it sort of just, it created this journey and I paid attention and I learned a lot along the way from Starbucks, from Amazon. Um, and then from launching our own site, but mm-hmm, again, so many of those things when people will to me and they'll [00:18:30] say, should I launch my own site? I'm like, you know, where do I start? Mm-hmm right. Because for me it really is about the journey and like, why did I do it? I didn't do it because I was sitting there thinking, should I launch my own site? It, it, so much of the building of he's been a natural progression, really servicing the consumer
Speaker 1: yeah. I mean, I love how that Starbucks story, instead of being this dooms day event turned into the, I think foundation or growth of a brand [00:19:00] strategy or, or, or, or growing the brand strategy. Um, and one of the things that I experience a lot, at least from, you know, I do mentorship with, uh, other young creatives mm-hmm or other young people interested in business. Um, and I think a lot of times people see like challenges as barriers mm-hmm and not as like opportunity or as, um, something that is becomes [00:19:30] no longer viewed as possible, but is viewed as impossible. Um, and I think it's one of those great stories that shows that it's how you react to it. Not necessarily what happens to you. And I would love to hear, like, do you think that, is that just an attitude? Or is that just a, is that just a choice? We just, you just decide to, to choose, to look at it from a different perspective. How can we help other people, I think, harness this idea of, of challenges [00:20:00] this opportunity.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think, well, first of all, I'm not gonna lie. I mean, when, when bad things happen in challenging days are look, a client like drops you. And of course you're like, ah,
Speaker 1: It's hard.
Speaker 2: It hurts. Right. It hard. It, it hurts. But I think it's, it's really taking time to go back and look at those. And sometimes things don't make sense and you just sit there and you're pissed, right? Mm-hmm and, and you don't really, maybe you have a bad boss [00:20:30] who told you something that you're like, they're, you know, mm-hmm, , they're a loser, you know, they, they don't know anything, but you know, it, it really is. I, I feel like when I go back in time and I look at those challenging times, there's always something to be learned from, you know, even those hard conversations or those challenging times. Look, one of the stories in the book is the 2008, 2009 financial crisis. Mm-hmm I like [00:21:00] many other people would've liked to have forgotten about that and, and moved on. It was a super challenging time for me as an entrepreneur, as somebody who was running outta cash, that nobody was writing checks.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was just, it was a terrible, terrible, terrible time mm-hmm . And when I would share that story with new entrepreneurs of, you know, I would be thinking always have a couple years worth of cash in the bank, because [00:21:30] you just never know what would happen. Mm-hmm people would say, why do, why do you say that? I mean, it sounds right, but why do you say that? And I would go back and I would think about that time and they'd say, oh, but 2008, 2000, that'll never happen again. I mean, that, that's just that's that just won't happen again. Never say that maybe that won't happen, then you have a pandemic. Yeah. Right. Which is right. It's just, it, it it's different in some ways, but in some ways the same. And when I look back on 2008 and 2009 [00:22:00] and things that I didn't do, right.
Speaker 2: Things that scared me at the time mm-hmm I felt so at the beginning of this pandemic to go and figure out, how do I move forward? Mm-hmm . And I kept saying, I can't stay. We can't stay as a company complacent. We have to figure out how to move forward. We can, we can go slowly. Mm-hmm we can, but we have to really look at how do we service of the consumer [00:22:30] and still have enough capital in the bank. So while everybody is being told shelter in place and stay home, don't go into the office. I was saying to my CFO and our team, we need to go raise money right now. Mm-hmm we're we only have a years worth of capital in the bank. And we need two years worth of Olympic. He's like you, you're not gonna raise money on zoom, forget it.
Speaker 2: And I said, we have to figure out a way, zoom is a tool. It is not a reason why we can't raise money, but [00:23:00] remember, 2020 in March, I mean, people were like, what, you know, you have to, it was, it was foreign. Right. And, and we ended up raising during a time when one else was raising mm-hmm and it was actually, there was capital out there. And we got it done in like 90 days, because we had a great plan. And there was, you know, we had a huge growth coming and we were an essential product. So there were a lot of, you know, factors to it. But again, when I, when I looked back on that challenging [00:23:30] time that I could never figure out why in the heck did I go through that? Why did I start a company? You know, essentially a couple years before that, I thought, you know, this is, this is the worst time.
Speaker 2: That challenging time helped me to be better for the next challenging time. Mm-hmm mm-hmm . And I, and I think that that is one, look, nobody wants to put themself into a position of discomfort. Mm-hmm and it's just, especially when times are great. [00:24:00] Mm-hmm and I think that it's a such an important, um, it thing to, for everyone to do. And especially, uh, when things look like they're looking good, everything's fine. Mm-hmm, what could happen. Mm-hmm well, have, have like a dooms day day where you just sit there and you say, how could things really fall apart? How could, you know? And, and again, you don't have to focus your entire business on that and always be thinking that way, but it's not a bad [00:24:30] strategy to know that, you know, if, if something does happen, if something, you know, challenging happens, um, look, no one thought that supply chain, for example, when you've got a physical product that is so many companies, and so many industries were relying on Asia mm-hmm and I mean, no one ever thought that it would become what it is today. I mean, every smart CEO who relied on [00:25:00] Asia to have goods today is figuring out how to diverse, figuring out how not to put their eggs in one basket for a variety of reasons. But, you know, again, like what, what can we learn from that challenging time? And maybe you didn't do it right. Um, mm-hmm this time, but figure out how do you do it better next time. Mm-hmm
Speaker 1: And I think, I think like circling this all back to, to challenging times and, and [00:25:30] creating out of it, um, that's essentially how the brand was started. Right? You were mm-hmm you were going through health, um, health issues weren't necessarily like drinking a lot of water or, and I hated water came. Yeah. Came a solution. Right. I would love to hear how you just navigated that. So you, I mean, navigating from, okay, I need to change, make a change in my life, um, to tinkering in your kitchen and, and developing flavors and how you're gonna create this. [00:26:00] Um, and then coming up with the idea to get it and help all the people who are going through the same thing. I would love to hear that part of that story. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Well, I, you know, I think sometimes taking a break and, you know, maybe it's a break on a weekend or in my case, it was a break from working. I had, uh, you know, a great opportunity to take a little bit of a break. I didn't take a total break. I was, uh, mother to, uh, young kids had four young on kids when I started [00:26:30] hint, but I, I really wanted, I really felt like I was listening to my elders saying like, you know, those years go fast, you know, it mm-hmm , you, you can't replace 'em mm-hmm there was like little bugs in my ears, sort of saying, like, don't, you know, don't let it pass by. And so I really wanted to take that opportunity to, you know, kind of take a break and do that. And it was during that time when I really also started looking at myself and I thought I'm not, I definitely wanna [00:27:00] go back to work.
Speaker 2: I thought that work would be back in tech again, mm-hmm . But, uh, for me, I, I was like looking for kind of a newer opportunity that wasn't doing exactly what I had been doing at America online mm-hmm . And it was during that time that I also said, I wanna get in shape. I wanna start feeling better. I wanna wanna start looking better. I had gained a bunch of weight. I, my, I had a terrible stomach that [00:27:30] I just assumed was just like life mm-hmm . I don't know. I just, like, people would say like, you know, do you have like, are you gluten and Toler? Like all these things. I tried everything and nothing fixed my stuff. And then in addition to that, my skin had developed terrible acne. And I think that that was sort of where I said, I gotta figure this stuff out because I don't wanna walk around with acne in my thirties.
Speaker 2: Like, it was just weird. Mm-hmm . And [00:28:00] when I really started looking at myself, that's when I started really digging into the food that I was eating, because I thought it has to be here somewhere. I'd been exercising, doing everything else. Right. And I never looked at my drinks. When you think about it, everybody always talks about food. When they're talking about diets, at least absolutely, certainly 17 years ago, but I it's even true today. And I didn't look at ingredients in, in drinks [00:28:30] until it happened by accident. And I looked at my diet soda and my diet Coke in particular. And I looked at the ingredient label and I thought there's a lot of stuff in here that if it was food, I would discontinue using it. Mm-hmm . But because it's a drink, why am I making an exception? Well, mm-hmm, , I'm making an exception because it's called diet mm-hmm .
Speaker 2: And for me, the word diet, men health, and it had men health for [00:29:00] many, many years. I started drinking diet Coke when I was 13 years old I was an early adopter, um, to diet Coke. I mean, truly like diet Coke was that's when it came out, my mom was a tab drinker. Of course I wasn't gonna drink what my mom was drinking. Mm-hmm and for me, diet Coke, like I got used to it. I got addicted to it, but I never thought that there was anything wrong with it. When I decide based on the ingredients that I was reading, that I would discontinue [00:29:30] it temporarily for a couple of weeks. That's when I realized that I was really thirsty, that I had not been drinking water for years. Um, because I didn't like the taste of water. And so in order to keep hydrated, cuz I was parched, I started throwing fruit in water.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm thinking that maybe even I was cheating a little bit just by throwing some fruit in the water, but I had to like drink something mm-hmm and two and a half weeks later I lost over 20 [00:30:00] pounds. I, my skin cleared up and I didn't anticipate that it would happen that fast or that it was, um, or like I was shocked mm-hmm that this had occurred. I didn't make any other change in my food. And, and so that for me, I think was just really, really surprising. And what did I do next? I, I called Coke and I wanted to know like, if anybody else had experienced this, [00:30:30] I mean, here I was a marketer mm-hmm and I just thought, why am I the only one who thinks that diet means health mm-hmm . I mean really like I think that there are a lot of people, it think it, oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And I, I certainly did. And so that was like the process that I was going through. But then after kind of living this way for the next few months, I started going into grocery stores and I thought, I don't wanna cut up fruit every single day. It's a hassle. I wanna grab a drink and [00:31:00] everything that was in the market had some sort of sweetener. It wasn't just about sugar mm-hmm it was about sweet. And so for me, diet sweeteners, they were sweet, but they had less calories than regular sugar. And I bought into that, but it wasn't actually getting me where I wanted to be. And so I, I, when I couldn't find this product, this ready to drink product that just had fruit and water in it, [00:31:30] I thought I should just go develop this product. I know exactly what I want.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm why don't I just go do it? And I think more than anything too, and I share the story with a lot of entrepreneurs for, for me, it was never about, let me just go and build the next vitamin water, build the next diet Coke and make, you know, billions of dollars for me. It, it was a purpose. It, there was a purpose behind it and mm-hmm, a purpose in [00:32:00] helping people. Mm-hmm that I believed that I had this side to year that I could fairly easily get it to market and I could see whether or not it could get traction and if it got traction, then maybe somebody would buy it and I could go back to being in tech. I never, I, I, I didn't think about just, I didn't think about, you know, I couldn't be on the shelf if [00:32:30] I didn't have a longer shelf life, how was I gonna get there?
Speaker 2: And so that was another thing that you'll read in this book too, is, is, you know, going through the process of, you know, you think you're, you think you've got it made when you go and get it into the store mm-hmm and then all of a sudden they're like, oh, well the finish line, isn't really there. It's actually over there. And then you get to that finish line and they're they're like, oh, well that was good. Mm-hmm but then it's, it's a little [00:33:00] bit further down the road too. And that mm-hmm, , that's been the last 16 years. And so it's kind of, I equate being an entrepreneur to, uh, to being in a game of, of puzzle, right. That you have to, right. You, you just keep building and then the puzzle just keeps getting bigger. You didn't have the picture for the puzzle in the first place you thought you did, but you didn't really, and then people take pieces away and then you're [00:33:30] like, you gotta still stay in it and keep working at it. Mm-hmm and, uh, it's, you know, it's, it's fun. You learn a ton, but it's hard.
Speaker 1: It's so hard.
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: It's so hard. And, and I was saying this before, like, you know, we, um, have it had a little client, little like a little slowing period of client work. So, you know, we took the opportunity to focus in, on our own brand and start breaking it down and [00:34:00] a process you realize, we realize, oh wow, we could be doing this better. We could be doing this better. We could be doing this better smart. And suddenly my, my, my slow September turned into a very busy September because you realize that there's a lot of like little things that need to be done tightened up. We could think through this a little bit further, um, which all, you know, I think all it's a larger brand strategy, which is really over my head's been at the last couple, couple weeks or a couple months, I should say, um, just for our own brand. Um, cause we do so much it for other people, [00:34:30] that's, it's really easy to ignore your own sometimes. Um, at least on for our, in, in our line of business, it is right. Um, yeah,
Speaker 2: No, and I think that's true and you, it it's it's, you have to make time to come back to, you know, that and, and, you know, that's another thing. I mean, I, I share with people, I think that the thing that people don't really realize about entrepreneurs and, and in particular entrepreneurs don't realize this is that time is your most valuable [00:35:00] thing. Yes. Right. Percent. And it's like attention when people say, you know, should I go and like meet with whatever Costco just cuz they, you know, wanna meet with me and I'm like, do you, are you ready? Like could you actually fulfill an order for yeah. Uh, for Costco? No. And I, and I thought, well, why don't you just tell them that you're actually not, you, you have some supply chain issues to figure out first, [00:35:30] but you're really excited about an opportunity and we'll see you in six months or whatever that is. Because if you could actually get a lot more done with your time by not doing these meetings, these extra meetings, then mm-hmm I mean, right. Like,
Speaker 1: Well only that, but I think there's a lot of power and honesty and transparency. And when you are upfront with a, with a person like that, who's totally, it, it adds a lot of, I think, credit and, uh, authenticity to you. And I think they're gonna take you a lot more serious than [00:36:00] if you say yes and then you come in and you're completely unprepared. Um, and it just makes you look like amateur hour. Uh, and it, it does more, more harm than good.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny. I, we, we met over the years with Walmart. Mm-hmm um, I think seven times over the years, over the last 16 years and mm-hmm, the buyer joked, I think on round five or something, uh, you know, he was, he was like, [00:36:30] I think you're the only merchant that we've ever allowed to come in this many times. And I think part of, part of it was we were ready or we thought we were ready, but then we started really asking, you know, kind of the hard questions and almost talking them out of working with us and in some ways, you know, and it was, it was just interesting. I mean it, the, the, the number one concern [00:37:00] I had was were we a big enough brand to actually go into a big market like Walmart? Like I, and I was really struggling to come up with a brand that had actually built their brand inside of Walmart versus actually becoming a brand and then going into Walmart.
Speaker 2: And, and so it, and I think sometimes those meetings can be helpful if you've got the ability to be honest and authentic [00:37:30] about what your concerns are and mm-hmm . And so, you know, finally 16, well actually at the time, 14 year us later, we went into Walmart and now we do really well in Walmart and we're a big enough brand to be able to go in there. But I think again, like so many lessons that I've learned along along the way, and, and I think meetings need to have purpose meetings need to, they, they, shouldn't just, you shouldn't just go into Amazon on, because [00:38:00] you hear everybody's going into Amazon, right. Mm-hmm , you need to really understand why you would wanna do that.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm and I think one of the, one of the things that I, when I speak with early founders or, or people are early in their business or brand is they haven't yet taken the time to like come up with a, I guess, a brand book core, a set of values or a north star to help guide them. Mm-hmm I think, and I'm curious, it sounds like you did earlier when you were speaking to as far as like finding purpose [00:38:30] in helping other people, um, you know, have better choices to make when it comes to having, um, you know, the, the things that they consume in, in their diet. Um, so I'm curious to what that was like for you. Did you, did you sort of map out like a, a larger brand purpose idea, um, things that you were adamant about? So I know there's, there are some interesting stories within the book that challenged those things. Like you can't, you can't use these ingredients because they won't be shelf stable or, or last very long. You can, you can't do this. [00:39:00] Um, so I'm, I'm curious to how and those take, and I think making those decisions take, um, an understanding of the why, and, and of why you're doing this. Um, so I'm curious like how that manifested itself,
Speaker 2: How we thought about it. Yeah. Well, I think we've had a few iterations of our brand book, but Uhhuh , it goes back to, and, and that's happened, I think as we, as we've expanded the product line, even beyond water. Um, but I think it really goes back to satisfying [00:39:30] the consumer mm-hmm and, and which is different than asking the consumer, but I think actually solving problems for the consumer. And so mm-hmm, , you know, at the core of the, of the brand, the over 90% of our revenue is water mm-hmm and that's what we do. And so it's, you know, it really is helping people water that tastes better. Mm-hmm , but what is [00:40:00] the brand halo beyond that? Mm-hmm, , it's helping people to stay healthy, get healthy mm-hmm . And so we can actually do other products that, that go beyond that.
Speaker 2: Now I think that when you dig into some of the things you talked about, the ingredients, I think that, that the challenge with a lot of ingredients is a, they're not that great for you mm-hmm , but I think [00:40:30] consumers also, what I've learned is the simpler, your product is the better mm-hmm it has to taste or, or feel great or work if, I guess if it's a sunscreen or deodorant or whatever that is. But it, it really, I, I think less is more I've learned that. I mean, one of the stories in the book is my first job was working in a toy store mm-hmm . And I learned, you know, at age, as I, you know, [00:41:00] became sort of the unofficial toy buyer at, in inside of the toy store, helping the owner of the small toy store is that you don't have to have lots of toys in a toy store.
Speaker 2: In fact, that actually, uh, limits the consumer's ability to figure out what they actually want mm-hmm . And instead, what you need is you need good staff, right? Mm-hmm , mm-hmm and you need a selection of, of things that people really want. And so I think that, that, [00:41:30] that really goes back to the brand book and, and to the ethos as well, is that I people have said, are you guys gonna build, you know, have 2000 products? I, I doubt it. I mean, never say never, but for, for me, it's, it's really solving problems for the consumer that we see as holes mm-hmm . And I think it goes back to too, this isn't necessarily part of the brand book, but the type of entrepreneur that I am, there's a lot of, there's [00:42:00] a handful of different ways that, um, entrepreneurs operate, I guess, or mm-hmm or sort of start companies.
Speaker 2: And I think for, for me, I, this was the first company that I had started. It was really finding holes in the market. Mm-hmm that didn't exist. I not only launched a new product and a new company, but also a new category. Mm-hmm, , that's insane to launch a new category and it takes a long time when you're mm-hmm because you, you have to wait for the consumer to [00:42:30] catch up mm-hmm to, so when you think, oh, I gotta be really quiet. I can't tell anybody about my idea when there's no other products in a category that's out there. Mm-hmm, , it's very, very difficult because you're not only waiting for the consumer, but maybe also the buyers that in our case that are kind of the gatekeepers to getting your product on the shelf. And so, uh, that you want competition, um, to come in and all of that, there's another type of [00:43:00] entrepreneur that's out there who is, uh, who maybe comes in and sees a few companies in a category and then thinks that they could do it better. Or I don't know, mm-hmm, , they have more capital to go. And, and mm-hmm, that those are all possibilities for entrepreneurs. Um, but I think that what we've done at hint is created this new category in the name of health to really be [00:43:30] an advocate for the consumer to find that health. And if we can do that through creating additional products that are not out there mm-hmm um, then, then that really is, is what's meant to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's great advice or great, great insight in that first sort of bucket of entrepreneurship you talked about as far as, um, there's not always necessarily the market there yet, if it's something totally new, um, and having to wait and catch up having the market, or at least people wait and catch up, [00:44:00] it does take some patience. I think that was a really good call out. I think some people might get discouraged during that phase. Um, you know, it's sort of like before the, before you, it's sort of like the early days of testing it in some ways. Um, and I think that's, I think that's, we, I personally fell more on the second, second bucket of that, where, um, I've been working in the business for a long time, decided I thought there was different ways, more optimal ways of doing it being either more purpose, led, creating less waste within the agency, [00:44:30] client relationship, both financially and then on the environmental side. Um, and you know, and energy for talent. That was just always one of my big, um, issues within the, the ad world was the culture of working people to death crazy hours. It was due two days ago. Why isn't it done when they just told you about it? You know, things like that. It is just, I felt there was tons of room for improvement. So that was sort of how I entered, uh, my business world or my business life.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I, I think [00:45:00] that most entrepreneurs, especially brand new entrepreneurs also think, and I think this is probably true in your industry as well. You tell me, but it's like you about the big guys, right? Mm-hmm you worry about like, well, if we do this really right, they're gonna mm-hmm um, come and, you know, in my case, they're, you're, if you're such a great product, then you know, Pepsi's gonna go knock you off. Mm-hmm actually another story that I learned [00:45:30] is when, you know, the big guy comes and, and knocks you off, I mean, the most important thing is for you to be able to stay alive and diversify mm-hmm and not have all your eggs in one basket, cuz there's room for competition and what ends up happening. And in our case, when we, uh, we're knocked off and they had relation that, um, you know, eliminated us from the store temporarily, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2: It was disruptive. But [00:46:00] then mm-hmm they decided not to focus on it anymore because what we felt was a lot of revenue and a big share was not for them. And so then they discontinued, they got dis and they moved on and then we were still there and we went back and so sometimes they can actually really solidify that you're, that, you're what you're doing. Your category is relevant. Mm-hmm and um, and we gained space just by [00:46:30] having competition, but again, counter to it, kind of what you thought mm-hmm was, you know, you go and develop a process and a big agency goes and, and rips that off. And, and then all of a sudden it becomes like standard mm-hmm for the industry mm-hmm and then you become almost known for that mm-hmm and then people wanna come back to you for being known for that. Just one kind of little example there. I don't know if that speaks to you at, at all, but I, I think it really [00:47:00] is, um, something that I've learned, you know, just through, through the, the journey mm-hmm
Speaker 1: and, but we are, we're getting up on time. I know you have to, you have another appointment after this. Um, so just in this last part of the show, I would love to hear, um, as the last ending question, something that I think you would, uh, give advice to yourself, your younger self, whether it's like when you were first starting or back when you were at time or even [00:47:30] AOL, you know, these early days. Um, I would love just to hear some, some advice you'd give your, your younger self, maybe your kids. I mean, you got a bunch of kids now, so maybe to say, right, you know,
Speaker 2: I think in many ways I was doing it, but I wasn't being so purposeful about, about mm-hmm saying this, but you know, kinda what's the worst that can happen. I, I mm-hmm I think, I probably say that on a daily basis now mm-hmm and just go out there and try it. If nothing else, [00:48:00] the, the ability to laugh at myself, if I thought, oh gosh, I thought that was gonna work. I always find that there's little learnings totally in it along the way too. And so, you know, call it risk or call, call it, take a chance, or just go out mm-hmm , you know, make that phone call, find that email. And it just, it often doesn't turn out exactly how I wanted it to turn out. But it's rare that there isn't something that, that doesn't [00:48:30] happen. That's good. Yeah. Right. And that moves it forward.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the, the question of asking yourself what's the worst that could happen is of one of those great questions, because that helps you actually talk through the lot, the logic, because I think when we think about it, some of the stuff, some of the fears may be irrational, or they're not necessarily like even remotely a possibility, but that the fear factor really kicks in and suddenly it looks like you're looking down a big cliff when you're really, it's just a step [00:49:00] down or whatever, you know? Totally. Um, so I think that was, um, a great piece of advice and that's something I took away from the book and, you know, it's something I, I think I had that, um, mentality, I won't say before. I won't say I won't say mentality, but maybe I, I would ask myself that a lot earlier in my career where I said, what's the worst could happen. Just try it. Um, and I think as a creative, that's something I should be embracing more now. Um, because you know, there's lots of creative experimentation, um, that [00:49:30] needs to happen. You gotta get past that cliff. So I think that's, that's great advice. So Karen, thank. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on today. We really, I really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate it. And definitely, uh, for anybody interested, the, the book is Ted and, uh, it's also on audible too, and I'm all over social media at Cara gold Lynn with an eye and hopefully you'll reach out and say hi.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thanks Kara.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank
Speaker 1: You so much for spending [00:50:00] the last hour with us. I hope we are feeling inspired and having learned something new, please head on over to the apple podcast app and leave a review. See you next week,
Speaker 3: Everybody.