Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
TBPN is a live tech talk show hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays, streaming weekdays from 11–2 PT on X and YouTube, with full episodes posted to Spotify immediately after airing.
Described by The New York Times as “Silicon Valley’s newest obsession,” TBPN has interviewed Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Mark Cuban, and Satya Nadella. Diet TBPN delivers the best moments from each episode in under 30 minutes.
Introduce yourself for those who are not familiar since it is your first time.
Speaker 2:My name is Nima Jalali. I'm the founder of Salt and Stone. Okay. And founder and CEO.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Take us take us back. And and I'll I'll give some context. So I met Nima recently moved into into my area and I think we met within like a week of of you moving in and so I haven't I haven't even gotten like the full story even though we've been hanging out the last couple weeks. Cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Full story. Was Yeah. Pro I was a pro snowboarder. I heard you're from Pasadena.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. So I'm from La Canada. No way.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's awesome. And so grew up there. I was obsessed with skateboarding Yeah. Then got into snowboarding and started going to those local mountains
Speaker 3:high, Big Bear.
Speaker 2:No. Like Mount Waterman and Yeah. It used to be called Craca Ridge.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Have you heard of that?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And so back in the day, you know, when I was in high school, we had, you know, El Nino winters.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's like a ton of snow and they would actually operate. They don't operate anymore. Yeah. And so I just I would just get out of school at twelve every day and go up there
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Five days a week.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I got good and went off and turned into a pro snowboarder. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What does that mean? Does that mean like speed competitions, trick competitions? What are you doing? Because there are there are multiple there are multiple ways to become a professional snowboarder. Correct?
Speaker 2:More more like freestyle.
Speaker 3:Yeah. There's there's there's basically like two paths. There's like think like a lifestyle guy
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Just like going around making movies all the time. Okay. Then And there's like the competition track Yeah. And there's some crossover. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Generally, there's like you're you have sponsors in both departments Yes. But one one person is focused on like winning contests, going to the Olympics Yes. Going to the X Games Yes. Doing things like that. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then there's then there's the more like guys that might do backcountry or Sure. Street or park, but they're focused on producing Yeah. Like parts, basically.
Speaker 1:Got
Speaker 2:it. I didn't know you knew so much about it.
Speaker 3:I know a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I wasn't the contest guy. Okay. I was more in movies and in magazines Oh, and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 2:So, I went off and did that.
Speaker 1:How long were you doing that?
Speaker 2:Pro for about ten years. From about from about twenty to thirty. Ten years. That's awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. It was amazing. Mean, that was like my college really.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That must be so much fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Was fun.
Speaker 3:What is the what I feel like entrepreneurs can probably resonate with what like a pro snowboarder is doing where your job is to basically produce, right? Like a banger part Yeah. A season potentially multiple and there's like this prep where you're basically like What is part? Like that's like a five minute video Okay. That might be released independently or as part of an entire movie.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:And so your job is to do enough tricks
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Stomp them Yeah. As Nemo would probably stomp
Speaker 2:It's a lot. Yeah. It's a there's a lot. I mean, there's there's, like, you pick out a song, you you know, that you wanna have in your part. There's first part and
Speaker 1:then Yeah.
Speaker 2:The most prestigious is being in the the last part, you know, in the in video. Like, everyone So it's like got this video and everyone's supposed to be on the same like kinda like team to make this best video. There's like probably like 10 snowboarders going after and doing it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But there's a little competition within that, because everybody wants to get last part.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean? Yeah. And so, it's Cool. It's not a team sport.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know? You're really out for yourself. That's right. And like, there there are a lot of lessons that you learn, especially growing up skateboarding, you know, where it's like fail fail fail fail. Like trying like to learning how to kick flip takes you six months of just failing, and then and then you figure it out.
Speaker 2:And so
Speaker 3:Yeah. Then the other the other thing is these parts come together. It might be like four or five minutes. Right? It's just one trick after another.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. But you're missing sometimes they'll include it, but they're missing like the blooper reel, which is like sometimes you have to fall really really hard 20 times in a row Yeah. To land the one that you make it look easy Sure. And that gets cut out. So I feel like there's so many there's so many lessons out of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know, a lot of successful entrepreneurs would have would have
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, miserably for years and then they have that breakthrough Yeah. Kind of like product or feature whatever it is. And snowboarding, it's happening on like a day to day basis Yeah. Where you have like one season Yeah. Right, to put together your part and you're kind of like racing against Yeah.
Speaker 3:Mother nature in some sense.
Speaker 1:Can you chase the winter into the Southern Hemisphere effectively?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you would be how many days would you actually be snowboarding over a year?
Speaker 2:I mean, five days a week. Like, I I ended up I would live I lived in Tahoe, Mammoth, Utah, and all that, but I I ended up landing in Big Bear just because it was like, the weather's always good Yeah. For if you wanna just snowboard every day and and train. Yeah. The weather is always, you know, sunny and nice Sure.
Speaker 2:And it's not like icy or cold.
Speaker 3:Cool.
Speaker 2:So I would just go there
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And snowboard every day and then fly out of LAX to wherever I needed to go. Okay.
Speaker 3:Big Bear Big Bear is like basically one lift that you're just going around and around and there's Just practice like
Speaker 2:The best snowboard
Speaker 3:part. 50 Yeah. 50 features
Speaker 1:Oh, really?
Speaker 3:You can hit on one. So you like go. You might be hiking like a little bit on one feature. Yeah. But but you're basically lapping it.
Speaker 3:So people that like don't like park go there and they're like, this is the worst mountain ever. Like Sure. You're used to skiing in Mammoth Yeah. Yeah. Tahoe or Colorado.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But if you just wanna ride park Got it. Big Bear is incredible.
Speaker 2:Jordy, we're gonna have to go, man.
Speaker 3:I know. Yeah. I know. No. I went I went through I I did I did almost like fifty days, I think my junior year of college a lot at Big I would just go up and lap lap the park.
Speaker 3:Nice. Nice. Lot of good memories. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's a project. It's a project that you're What's that?
Speaker 1:Where do you ski in the Southern Hemisphere? If it's if it's summer here
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I imagine that even Big Bear, there's no snow, so you have to go to the Southern Hemisphere.
Speaker 2:If the only time I snowboarded in the summer was going to Mount Hood, where it was like there's a glacier.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Do you know about that?
Speaker 1:It's still snow. I don't.
Speaker 2:There's still snow. So it's it's in Mount Hood and and they have like the summer camp.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And so all these kids go and a lot of pros go and stuff. But honestly, during the summer, would just skate. I would skateboard. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 3:Okay. So the reason you're here
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Is because you built Salt and Stone over the last eight years, exit partially exited this week. I don't know I don't know which I know the numbers. I don't know what numbers you're you're disclosing. But, but yeah, take us through what what was the transition like? I'm assuming you didn't just like retire and immediately start Salt and Stone or was it effectively instantly?
Speaker 2:So I I had a couple ventures within that industry, like the the surf, skate, snow world. Mhmm. And then, you know, Salt and Stone was this idea that I've that I had had and
Speaker 3:Which is like I don't know if you can give any context Yeah. On that, but like brutal industry because every single pro and everybody adjacent also wants to start ventures Yeah. Within the industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. That's true. And but I mean, there's just such a ceiling in that world, you know, unless you're like end up being a Burton or a Quicksilver or something like that. Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. And even those brands have struggled.
Speaker 2:Totally. So I knew I I knew I wanted to do Salt and Stone and, you know, I wanted to do something on my own, to be honest with you. I had, you know, just had business partners and everything and and I wanted to just see how far I could go if I just went, like, all in 100%, like, have to, you know, worry about waking up at two in the morning and doing, you know, emails and just just going so hard and and just I could justify that if it's just like all me and I'm just like going for it. And so, yeah. And so transitioned over to that full time and it's been just the rocket ship, man.
Speaker 2:It's been such a great such a great Yeah.
Speaker 3:You guys did a 165,000,000 last year Yeah. Scaling still. What was the first product?
Speaker 2:The first product was sunscreen, actually. Okay. Yeah. So sunscreen again,
Speaker 3:it's like a brute is I I would say like from my perspective, sunscreen's like a brutal category because like a lot of people use it throughout the year Yeah. But like much fewer people actually are using it enough to like need to even be on a subscription. And then oftentimes you're buying it like just in a random hotel like, you know, retail store because you're on vacation. Anyways, but Yeah.
Speaker 2:I always wanted to do deodorant and and sunscreen was the it just it just happened faster as far as searching for the perfect, you know, chemist, contract manufacturer and and all that stuff to bring it to life. And so sunscreen came out. The the brand was profitable from day one. And then when we launched deodorant
Speaker 3:How did you sell were you just selling it? Do you see or
Speaker 2:So we had some retail on day one. So I had retailers lined up. We had, I think, about 40 to 50 of them. And so as soon as we were shipping orders, we were collecting payment. And so, you know, I funded it out of my own pocket to start Yeah.
Speaker 2:But but was able to pay myself back pretty quickly and and, you know, the business
Speaker 1:Were those 40 or 50 stores? Were those individual stores or chains?
Speaker 2:Or They were individual stores. Individual stores. Part. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then it was when we launched deodorant was really when it, you know, stores started coming to us. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What's the what what are the economics of, like, getting one sunscreen product? It sounds like one SKU into one of those stores. Are they buying, like, a $100 box or
Speaker 2:Oh, there was a minute. There's a minimum, you know. Like, and I from my memory, I think it was like a case pack of 12 sunscreens that came out to like $300
Speaker 1:or something. Yeah. Yeah. And then you can sell it at a markup and then Yeah. SRP.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Okay. That's right.
Speaker 3:How how quickly did you realize that like, my my experience having invested in CPG over the years is the number one the number one factor that leads to success is not like operational excellence. It's not always just the team. It's just like how good is the product. And I've seen a lot of like exceptional teams that have like all the operational chops, that have all the experience come out with a product that might be fine or pretty good, but they just don't go anywhere. They can never reach escape velocity because the product fundamentally, like, doesn't really sell itself.
Speaker 3:Like, you can sell it. It might cost a lot to acquire customers. The sell through is not that great. Retailers don't really love it. And when I first tried your deodorant after trying probably, like, 20 different, like, better for you deodorants, I was like, wow.
Speaker 3:This product is, like, incredible. And I've, like, retained across years even though I I don't even know that I've I maybe bought it on the website once, maybe bought it on different stores online or I just buy it in the grocery store. But I'm like permanently retained because I tried everything else and this is just the best. It like goes on well, it smells good. And so I was just like sold off of that and you didn't need to be like the best at like email marketing to me or like Yeah.
Speaker 3:Have the best like retention flows because I was just like, it's a good product. I've tried everything else. And so I'm I'm wondering like how you how how quickly you realize that from like a product development standpoint? How much of like what is your ethos around product development? When is a product ready to actually go to market versus just still on that kind of testing phase?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's why we launched sunscreen before deodorant because we were just trying to get everything perfect. Right? And so we did something in deodorant that hadn't been done before, especially in clean deodorant, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Deodorants before didn't smell the way I wanted to. Right? Like, they they weren't didn't have the sophisticated scents and clean deodorants didn't work or they weren't really like a pleasurable experience to use and they Yeah. Certainly didn't look good, like, countertop.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They'd be like mint.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, why shouldn't it smell as good as your your perfume or cologne. Right? And so, just hitting it on all cylinders and making sure it's, you know, perfect.
Speaker 2:And for me, I was really making it for myself. Right? Like, what do I want? And it turns out what I wanted was what everybody else wanted. So
Speaker 3:Yeah. Did the company ever almost die? No. The story It's
Speaker 2:it's been a dream come true right now.
Speaker 3:It's been fun. It's so funny because because like the the classic philosophy and
Speaker 1:and We died 20
Speaker 3:about it's like, yeah, we almost here's this time, we almost died and and in talking to you, like like getting to know you just just recently, it just kinda seemed like it was just like permanently up up into the right and you you you told me one story that was like not like kind of annoying around on on the on the capital side but nothing that was like I didn't feel like you experienced that much hardship. You kinda just kinda just one shotted entrepreneurship. That's amazing. And it's so crazy because I know I know so many you started the company at like the peak of the d to c boom. Like this was a time this was 2017.
Speaker 1:2017.
Speaker 3:Right? And so this was a time that like everyone was like Red Antler. Like Red Antler, Gin Lane Red pumping out brands. Yep. So much capital flowing You've you've competitors.
Speaker 3:There was like a
Speaker 1:You see backward.
Speaker 3:Yeah. There was a school on the East Coast. I forgot I forgot the name of it, but they had like an MBA program that was like every Harvard. Not Harvard. It it was one
Speaker 1:No. There were a lot of there were a lot of MBAs. There
Speaker 3:were Yeah. There was like just an MBA program would be like, I'm building a d to c brand. And they were just picking
Speaker 1:And there were some really good outcomes that people were tracking against, like Dollar Shave Club and Harry's. And there were a number of companies where it was like, oh, they did Warby Parker. They raised money. They did the VC playbook, and it sort of penciled out for everyone. But then later, people realized, like, oh, those were more, like, one off exceptions to the rule where you get a Unilever who gets excited and buys a Dollar Shave Club for a billion dollars and maybe doesn't wind up realizing a billion dollars of value because it's just a young company.
Speaker 1:So
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's for me. I mean, honestly, it's I I feel like it's just the power of of a founder who's just gonna be relentless and Mhmm. And go up against the big guys. Right?
Speaker 2:Because I interview people from the big guys all the And I'm shocked at like how sleepy some organizations are. Right? And so, if you even have a team of three people that are just relentless, and you guys know from, like, what you guys do. Yeah. Totally.
Speaker 2:It's like you can't compete with that. I don't care how much money you have or
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What incubator you're in or
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What VC's, you know, starting you. It it's if you have a founder who's just gonna be relentless and and
Speaker 3:How did how did the approach to funding evolve? Like, because you you said you were like profitable from day one. You did raise at at a couple different points a little bit of money, but did you did you care about maintaining profitability or did you ever go to go through periods of growth where you thought, okay, we can we can burn a little bit here to get
Speaker 1:to
Speaker 2:the We've next always been profitable. That's always been important. Right? I just wanna make sure the bank balance is growing. The the raises were sec were secondary.
Speaker 2:Right? It was me sort of taking chips off the table. The business has just been so profitable that we didn't really need to inject it with with with money, you know. And so it's it's a healthy business, man. I'm blessed and
Speaker 1:and Rich capital? Not really my cup of tea.
Speaker 3:It's just so it's so crazy. I mean, it just goes back to you guys nailed so many different elements of of the product and yet I know I know people that started deodorant brands during that same period that just didn't they just didn't didn't go anywhere.
Speaker 1:Team like?
Speaker 2:The early team?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well Yeah. So so you have the idea, solo founder, but and you mentioned co packer. Do you work with a formulator? Did you hire a salesperson first, operations manager, somebody just to help you, personal assistant?
Speaker 1:Like, what was the stack?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So first two first three years was myself. Just Okay. Just myself. Right?
Speaker 2:And and then for for that, it was really working with contract manufacturers chemists, but also, you know, bouncing off my internal, like, network on like, hey, I got this deodorant sample. Like, people I trusted, their taste and what, you know. Yeah. Here's the goal. This is what I'm trying to achieve here.
Speaker 2:Like, let's let's test it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So so that, myself, you know, my wife, constantly were smelling each other's underarms, you know.
Speaker 1:Is it working?
Speaker 2:Yeah. In the lab. Yeah. You know, it was just relentless, man. It was like, we we know what we want in a product.
Speaker 2:We see what else is out there. We have all the other products on our shelf. Right? Like to just see what what they're like.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's make something better.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right? And so, and then three years in, I hired, I hired somebody who really took on all the ops. Mhmm. All that stuff off my plate. That's not where I excel ops and like finance and like all that.
Speaker 2:I'm more brand product. Anything the customer sees, that's what what I love. And so when she took all that and she really excels at that stuff and it was me and her for like three years, four years after that Wow. Or like like two, three years after that. Couple of people.
Speaker 3:This is just the two.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you're still two people?
Speaker 2:No. 2019. No. It was like yeah. Sorry.
Speaker 2:Four years are
Speaker 1:yeah. Three years with two people and six years
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Then we yesterday.
Speaker 2:Then we started hiring. So she came on board and and it really I saw how how it would really excel the business and I got to focus on what I like to do. Totally. She came in and crushed it way better than I could do on the other stuff Yep. Three p l logistics, all that stuff.
Speaker 2:And then I saw power of team. And then from there Yeah. We just started hiring people, hiring people. And then and then just got the confidence to keep hiring as as, you know, because the more we hired Yeah. You know, we hired the right people, then the business kept growing and growing and growing and then all of a sudden it's Sure.
Speaker 2:$106.06 and we're the best selling dealer on Amazon.
Speaker 1:How big is the team now?
Speaker 2:$50.55. It's still really tight. It's really tight. It's really good. We have a high bar
Speaker 3:from what
Speaker 2:we bring in. Yeah. Like it's, you know, we'll interview people and I'll know within five minutes like
Speaker 1:Are you in the office or remote?
Speaker 2:No. No office. All remote.
Speaker 1:All remote.
Speaker 3:This is like the most insane the most insane story. It's it's it's like most most of the time you get to this moment and just like the most battle scarred founder.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you, man, we're blessed. It's it's been a fun run.
Speaker 1:Okay. So walk me through the product portfolio expansion, how that happens. And then are you subdividing sales reps by region or vertical or channel?
Speaker 2:We don't have sales reps.
Speaker 1:You don't have sales?
Speaker 2:No. No.
Speaker 1:Sales reps never
Speaker 2:So here's here's thing. Like, you gotta create a brand that the retailer wants. Yeah. Right?
Speaker 1:Like, all
Speaker 2:you You don't wanna go and just, push something down a retailer's throat and have your sales guy knocking on the door and Yeah. That stuff. And so that was it. Like, really focusing. Like, this wasn't all just, like, oh, it's just happening.
Speaker 2:It's happening. It's like an obsession. Right? Yeah. Like, I got I turned into an advertising expert
Speaker 3:for Okay.
Speaker 2:Six months. All I did was want us to have the best ads, the best digital presence
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Right? And I create a brand that
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The retailers needed to have. Yeah. Right? And then from there, then those retailers need to have you
Speaker 1:What was
Speaker 2:that knocking on the door.
Speaker 1:What was that advertising process like? Were you looking? Were you reading Ogilvy? Looking at the greats?
Speaker 2:It's just looking at all the competitors
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Seeing how they do. Okay. Right? And and really, it's like not looking at the other indie brands, like looking at the big brands.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Like, I've always wanna take inspiration from the brands like Yep. Like the Nikes of the world that are gonna be here in a hundred years. Because that's what I want this brand to be. Right? I don't want this isn't some like influencer brand.
Speaker 2:I'm not an influencer. Right? I'm not in front of the camera. Like Yep. This is something that I I want to be a legacy brand that's here long after I'm gone.
Speaker 2:Yep. And so those are those are the brands I look at for inspiration. And
Speaker 1:then how are you actually instantiating your learnings? Like, are you directing photo shoots? Casting models? Are you
Speaker 2:Right now?
Speaker 1:Writing copy? No. No. Once you go through that that six month Yeah. Brand exercise, you become the expert.
Speaker 1:Are you are you, like, you know, taking a project, a brand project from start to finish, or are
Speaker 2:you picking an agency or hiring people? It was it was start to finish. So there was a time where I was picking out models, picking out photographers Yeah. Videographers Yeah. Helping with the edit Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like all that stuff. Yeah. Edit's here. Yep. And then go in
Speaker 1:Give it feedback.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And if Yeah. There's static, like still photos, I would go in Figma, drop text overlay Wow. Figure out what to say, like all that stuff. And, yeah, mean, I just threw everything at you.
Speaker 2:And all I did, I gave up all, like everything. All my hobbies Yeah. Like snowboarding Yeah. Skateboarding, like all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I got into golf for a second, all of it ended. Yeah. Was just like, I'm gonna go in on this. But like when you get a signal that the thing is working then you want to
Speaker 1:because the bank balance is going up.
Speaker 2:Bank balance is going up. You're having fun. Yep. It's like really your purpose. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It's just like nothing else I want. Like Mhmm. I wanna build I wanna build it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What do you think about international expansion?
Speaker 2:What do I think about it?
Speaker 1:Yeah. How has your thinking evolved? What's the strategy? Is that something that a lot of companies go through this moment where they're like, maybe it's so operationally complex, it'll change the business. So let's put it off.
Speaker 1:Let's maybe wait until we're at a point where we can team up with a bigger company and through a merger acquisition and let them bring their operational force so that you don't need, you know, a person in every locality because they will bring that to bear and you're set up for success.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. So we've already expanded internationally and and As I you know. Sephora Canada, UK, Space and K in The UK, Sephora Europe we just launched Yeah. Middle East, Southeast Asia, so on and so on.
Speaker 2:That being said, there's a lot of a lot more opportunity. Mhmm. And that's one of the reasons I chose Advent to be to be the partner It's because they have a strong expertise in international. And I feel really great about them. Mean, look, my my goal Yeah.
Speaker 2:Was never to just exit out Yeah. Fully and just put it in somebody's hands and let it go to shit. That's not what I want.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I want the brand to I want I want my grandkids to look at this thing and be like, oh, yeah. That's what my grandfather built. You know? I want it to be around. I want it to be, you know, what it was always meant to be and not turn into some, you know, discount brand.
Speaker 3:So Yeah. What what was the how how many did you have a bunch of opportunities to sell prior prior to this moment? I'm assuming people were just like kind of seeing public metrics and sell through and all these things and hounding you at different points. What was the process of like knowing when the time was was right?
Speaker 2:We had a lot of private equity reaching out. A lot of people reaching out in general. And so I I worked with Raymond James who who I love, and I would just forward it to them and they told me when it was time and it was like, let's go let's go explore. Let's go That's explore the market. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. So this was not a story where you met your acquirer like years and years ago?
Speaker 2:We we've been talking for about, you know, for several months Mhmm. Six plus months, you know. And I I really really like them, you know. And for me it's when I did the deal with Humble Growth two years ago
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I, you know, we had like 15 private equity funds to choose from. And I I like them because of of who they of who No. We had a lot. We had we had a lot of bidders, you know.
Speaker 3:No. No.
Speaker 2:I just I just think this is You know you know how
Speaker 3:If you were looking for, you know, the the hero's journey of founder stories, this isn't it.
Speaker 1:You turn it off.
Speaker 3:I mean, it is it is it is in a way. It's missing some plot points.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's a lot more to it. Yeah. Of course. But, yeah.
Speaker 2:Mean, it's it's just I choosing good people to work with.
Speaker 1:Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. People who can do it with integrity and and that I want to work with and that, are aligned vision wise on, like, what the brand is going to
Speaker 1:be Yeah.
Speaker 2:In the future, and and let's go build that together.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:What, what advice have you been giving to people that wanna follow in your footsteps that this is like kind of what I feel like every CPG founder imagines. It's just like, yeah, I'm gonna be building for like eight years and then I'm gonna sell for, you know, half 1,000,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 to a strategic. And yet, you know, the hit rate is obviously, you know, something probably like, you know, 11%. Right? And over the last year, there's feel like there's actually been a dip in new new brand formation.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. At least that's what Sean Frank was was I think mentioning Yeah. On a on a I think at the end of last year. And his point of view, he's a founder, or the CEO of Ridge and he's like, okay. In two years, are people gonna want new brands to choose from?
Speaker 3:And his point of view is like a 100%. Right? Mhmm. Like there's constantly a desire for newness and that kind of founder led product development approach that made Salt and Stone what it is today. So, yeah.
Speaker 3:What what advice are you giving?
Speaker 2:I mean, honestly, like I didn't read any entrepreneurial books or really listen to any like entrepreneurial podcast or anything of it until recently. I just went off instinct. Like, you gotta fight. We're fighting for our life. My advice would be would be to go all in.
Speaker 2:Like, you can't you can't go and be, like, work life balance
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, like, I wanna, you know, check out at five. Because, like, there's gonna be someone right behind you that's gonna come and take take your place and be that brand that comes in and does what you wanna do if you're gonna just chill. Yeah. So it's like you gotta you gotta make sure you love it. You love it, because that's the way you're gonna be able to do it, you know, basically around the clock from the moment you go to sleep to wake up, you know.
Speaker 2:It's it's something you gotta love to do and it's gotta be your passion. Right? And so you gotta just just go relentlessly and know I would say, like, forget the work life balance stuff. You just gotta go Mhmm. Hard.
Speaker 2:You gotta go all in and just use your instincts, you know. You just gotta you gotta be competitive and go after the big guys and don't be afraid and just go you gotta go for it. Go all in.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. I like to focus on on the actual incumbents. Like a lot of people will focus too much on like, okay, who are the other new brands in my category and just actually studying like, okay, what what makes the big players actually successful? It's like, okay, massive retail distribution
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Like actual like IP on the product side, all all these things.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, for for us, it feels like in beauty there was such a playbook. Like every brand looked the same. All the content was the same. It was like, pay the influencer, have the influencer talk about the product, post it on your social, like, over and over again, and that's the playbook.
Speaker 2:And I I didn't want it. I didn't even know anything about beauty, really. Like, I'm not I don't come a skateboarder, you know. I don't come from beauty. I I like I like fashion brands.
Speaker 2:I like lifestyle brands. And so coming in and just being inspired by, you know, the Nikes of the world, the the big brands, instead of looking at beauty, I think played in our favor. Because we came out and it was like, oh, this is different, you know.
Speaker 3:Did you do any, like, community marketing? That. Because sometimes there's a brand that I love. Let's maybe it's like, I would say like if a deodorant brand was putting together an event, I don't think I'd be like, I wanna I gotta be there. But did you did you do anything that like worked, that broke through, that like was material to the business?
Speaker 3:Because I feel like sometimes it's very distracting for brands to like do IRL marketing early on because I'm like, I usually will ask a founder like, okay, how many units have you sold in the last month? And they're like thousand. A thousand. I'm like, okay, then don't spend $30,000 on like some activation. Like, you should just like make a product that actually sells well and then you'll have opportunities to do things.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, early on that was my philosophy too. It's like, why are you gonna go waste money on something that you don't know is is gonna move the needle. So it's like, spend it, like, if our ads are going well, like, let's just pour more money into that versus like doing some pop up somewhere. But now we're at the point where those IRL pop ups it's I think it it's good.
Speaker 2:It's good brand building, you know. And so we we do that now. We do pop ups
Speaker 3:pop ups are, I would say, different than like a lifestyle event that is just like a bunch of people hanging out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. What about owned retail, like flagship store? Have you looked into that?
Speaker 2:We're looking into it. So, yeah, yeah. So so we're looking at we're looking right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So
Speaker 1:I I would mean, it says a lot that you didn't jump into that in year two, for example.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it it would be tough to do that and maintain profitability. Right? Totally. And so it's like you're fighting for your life.
Speaker 2:You wanna make sure it's profitable.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's a balancing act. Like you need enough awareness that you're actually gonna get upside, but then if you have complete awareness, it's probably like you're already stocked everywhere. So it needs to be in the sweet spot.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Makes sense. Interesting.
Speaker 3:Such an amazing story. Honestly, it's like it's like a very unique it's it's amazing because it's like it's exactly what people set out to do and yet it's so uncommon to just like go up into the up into the right every month.
Speaker 1:It's like,
Speaker 3:it's very refreshing.
Speaker 1:It's like, work hard and don't get caught up in a bunch of,
Speaker 3:you know Stuff that doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Stuff that doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Do the things that matter. Right?
Speaker 3:Do the things You're gonna be relieved. He's now a David Senra enjoyer.
Speaker 1:Oh, really?
Speaker 2:Love his podcast. He's fantastic. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So he's he's getting to enjoy David Senra after climbing the mountain.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:That's funny. I hear that. It's like I hear the hustle stuff and like you gotta do this and gotta go all in and I'm like, like I naturally kinda do that, you know, it makes me
Speaker 3:It works. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's cool. But but even yeah. I mean, David talks about this a lot where like even like a lot of his audience members are not listening to it and saying, oh, I never considered working hard. They're saying, like, it's a reminder. It's a it's a meditation on their current philosophy, and then it's a bunch of other examples and just confidence to continue being different because there's a lot of people as simple as, like, as like focus is, there's a lot of people that feel pressure to continue their
Speaker 3:to have this super complicated seven part strategy.
Speaker 1:That that and then also just like the work life balance thing, like there's a lot of pressure to not be that person who's not who's who's turning down invites to the golf trip. Right. And that's and and so the Founders Podcast definitely, like, reinvigorates you to, like, add more confident that you're not crazy. You're not the only person doing
Speaker 3:this on Earth.
Speaker 2:A 100%. Yeah. I love I love his passion.
Speaker 1:It's great.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna I'm gonna introduce you guys. You guys are gonna have a lot of Yeah. A lot
Speaker 1:of fun. This would
Speaker 2:be great. Brand wise though, we're just getting started. Honestly, feels like that, you know, and so this partnership's exciting and can't wait to to keep building this thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Amazing, dude.
Speaker 1:Congratulations. Dude, you're so Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much for taking the time to come
Speaker 3:See you back at the ranch.