How POPCO Went From Market Stalls to Major Retailers - Didi Deane, POPCO

(upbeat music) - Welcome to Bonesa Build, conversations with the builders, founders, and pioneers, starting change from the ground up, giving you the tools to build and grow your business. Today, I'm joined by Dai Di Dean. Dai Di is a co-founder of Popco, the South African Frozen Treat brand, built around real fruit, bald flavors and a fresh take on the humble ice pop. Together with her husband Tim, she's grown Popco from early kitchen experiments into a brand stocked across the country. Dai Di, it's so great to have you on the show. Welcome. - Awesome to have. Thanks so much. And thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. - You first encountered real fruit ice pops while traveling in South America. Tell us that story and what stuck out for you with that product. - Yeah, so, yeah, this was early 2018 and Tim and I had kind of quick corporate jobs and we're traveling. We just recently got married and we had this idea of starting a business together 'cause how hard can it be, right? We wanted a big adventure and. - Payments, most words. - Exactly, we've certainly got that. And we were exploring also to business ideas across the range of, you know, from tech-related or more technical businesses to consumer products, to lifestyle products, all sorts. And in South America, we came across guys or people, families, young, old, in joy, beautiful, handcrafted, freak-based ice creams in the streets, like in an open area, kind of retail area. And it was just so beautiful and so fresh and joyful, I guess, as the word. And we just couldn't, we were just like, how is this not in South Africa? How we've got beautiful climate, outdoor living, incredible fruit. Why, no, it's don't. We have a really good equivalent offering in South Africa. So that's kind of where the seed started, basically. - Right, well, so take us back to that beginning, then that seed was planted. What did you intend to see in the South African market then ultimately, if you may believe, okay, this is actually gonna work, you know, where did you start, and then actually then, you know, get going with it? - Well, I mean, I think it's, so it really started with just testing and iterating. We were in, we were in, we were back in Cape Town and we found a guy who had a freezing unit that we could use. And it just so happened that he was selling the basketball market and was looking to kind of get out of that. So we bought this little machine or film. It's actually still in operation in our production kitchen at South River, which is really cool. We kind of have this little hero experience around this, around this unit. But yeah, we found this guy, he was selling this machine. He was selling at the basketball market and we just started testing and iterating and experimenting with racepies. And that was really the start was at the basketball market. We flew to Brazil and learned about recipe development. So that was kind of the one big thing that we did, which a big investment that we did was really, really understanding and some of the food science behind ice cream production. And then, and we obviously built our brand, like got a really awesome designer to help us build the actual logo and the brand concept. And then it was just experimenting a whole lot of different flavors making in our kitchen at home. I'm actually sitting, I'm working from home today and I'm actually sitting in the space where our unit was set up and our unmolding machine and our prep station and our bag station was right here. And just behind me is the dining table and the dining table was covered in sheets and all the food prep was down there and the blending and the kitchen going. And yeah, it was a very, very kind of home industry kind of experience in the early days. - Yeah, well, what did those first versions look like? Like, were they quite different to what it was? - Actually, quite similar. I mean, we quite liked from the get-go, we were like, we liked the kind of square design of the product, rather than, you know, the normal old school fluted pops. It was kind of a big part of it. We didn't obviously have at that time a branded stick, so we had to get that designed and sticks imported from the East. But, you know, the, for example, the story cream pup, which is a creamy strawberry pup with a slice of real strawberry on the side, that exact pup was in the market at the basketball markets eight years ago now, yeah. And the mango strawberry as well, which is one of our colleagues at Fruit Sorbet Flavors with a mango and strawberry swirl, that was also one of the original ideas right back then. - Yeah, brilliant. And you mentioned, like, you got the branding down quite early, like, was that quite intentional? Like, is branding sounds like it's super important to you guys with that first? - Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, that's what we're doing, right, is we're building a brand and people need to resonate with an incredible quality product but also resonate with a fun and bold brand. And you know, Tim and I are quite quickly realized we were nowhere near a cool enough to do that part of the way. - No. - So, I like, Tim's a chem-ench by training. So he's kind of technical and he's like measuring out all the details and all the specifics and getting the recipes totally right. And I'm all kind of commercial in the marketing side. So I would like sign up what the product looked like and, you know, and he would be signing all the texture and the balance and all of that. But yeah, the actual brand development, we figured was a really, really key part of the process. And we've been working with an awesome Tim since the beginning which has been really, really great in building that brand, aren't you? - Yeah, and I love it. It's a really, obviously, it's a fun, obviously product. So it's got the brandings that reflect that, obviously, as well as going to be, you know, a fun branding as well. So you don't really want that, you know. - Thank you, thank you. - So, just back to the flavors. See, you went through all kinds of iterations, obviously, and different versions of the flavors. What point do you decide, okay, this is not good enough to go to market when you just try it out for a little while in the market, what's your process there? - Sure, yeah. So, I mean, the product development process is quite intense. It's almost every flavor goes through about 20 plus iterations. And we are, with each iteration, we're saying, okay, cool, can we push the fruit contents a little bit higher? Can we pull back sugar a little bit more, and can we, 'cause you need the right, in every, for example, in the fruit pops, you need the fruit, obviously, and a really high, good, strong fruit content is key. You need sugars and sugar for sweetness, but actually, also, for the right freezing point in the right texture. - Okay. - And then you need to, like, we use a tiny bit of stabilizer, it's a palm-based stabilizer that helps keep the structure of the ice cream right. And every one of those variables, you need to get exactly the right solids content and the right fiber content. So that this thing doesn't taste icy, like you would in a home freezer. It tastes like really fine, beautiful fine crystals in the right texture, but also just really bold with flavor. That's kind of, like, I think what we stand for is just a really country flavor. And then with low added sugar, right? So, again, as an example in our orange is lemon's pop. It's like, it's essentially in a normal 110-mal stick ice cream, you've got essentially the orange juice of one full orange is in our, you know, in our orange ice cream, or, yeah, in the mango strawberries, like two or three strawberries in a third of a mango. And that's actually what you are enjoying, right? It's not like a flavoring, it's actually real fruit. And that's kind of a big part of it. But, sorry, go back to your question. So, 20 odd iterations, we would, each one, we would make five or six with small variances of each of the ingredients. Do that testing, then iterate from there and then kind of hone it down. And then once we felt like we were kind of on track, we then do things like melt tests to make sure it holds its balance, right? So that, you know, because the last thing you want was this ice cream to just totally collapse, right? Let's taste delicious, but it's also kind of these structurally ripe. And then, yeah, the markets were really great. We were in the biscuit mall market, the nutter market, blarkip and market, that carange market, and at all of these, and mojo market, as well as your point, and at all of these markets, for the first year, basically, me and Tim were selling ice cream behind the freezes. And getting experience and feedback from people on every flavor, I guess, we're just seeing the expression on their face was the best of like just this, wow, a bit of surprise, right? Like this is actually just a really good quality product. And yeah, but I also have this belief that no product ever, we do recipe luck, but we always are revisiting to try and improve further or increase the quality [BLANK_AUDIO] variance further, et cetera. We're always pushing the quality as much as we possibly can. Yeah. I mean, talking about that surprise factor, that certainly was my experience as well, trying to pull first time. You almost have a bit of a low expectation because like, yeah, it's kind of, you know, it's a water, water eyes, you know. So like, you have very low expectations in my mind, at least, and then suddenly like hit with like flavor and like, oh my word, this is way better than I expected. So yeah, that's beautiful. And in a way that, I guess, works in your favor as well in a way that people might not have, I don't know, might not be expecting it. So that that wonderful surprise is great. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, my experience. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, I at the end of the day, for us, it's just about getting as many people as possible to taste the product because we know we've got a really epic quality product and an amazing team that's really focused on building that out. But 100% right, that's, you know, the expectation is low in terms of what potentially you could be enjoying when you see a stick ice cream up there. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about the business itself. You obviously, you built it with your husband, Tim. How did you divide the roles and how is that, you know, that working relationship has that evolved over time? Yeah, so, as I say, Tim's, Tim's much more technical than I am. And he gave you a small example at the beginning, right at the beginning, he spent a hell of a lot of time measuring exact dimensions of what our cardboard outer box of our pops should be in. And I was like, how, how, how, how complicated can this be, right? Like, can you just get a box done, right? But it turns out that it's actually really, really important, right? Because if you get the volumetric of that right, then that has a major impact long term in terms of your efficiency of distribution. And so he does that work, right? Like all of the detailed planning, the complex problem solving, the make the organization run efficiently side of the business, as well as the technical side in terms of our systems setup, etc. I'm passionate about people, I'm passionate about growth entrepreneurship, I'm passionate about marketing and brand building. And so that's kind of where I naturally swing, too, is one of the relationships with our, our key, our key cards, our key buyers, and managing the sales team and the, and the marketing side of the business, mostly. But we, we, it's interesting, we kind of dovetail in and out of each other's areas as well. It's very fluid. We argue a lot about it. The other day, the other day, someone, one of the founders said, oh, we never really argued. I was like, how is that possible? We argue a lot, all constructive argument, right? I feel like we always get to the right solution at the end of the day, but it's, it's, yeah, it's, we have robust debate, but the right direction is for it on various things. But I think team, you know, we're team really well. Great. And if you like it's actually an advantage that you, I guess the downside could be that you you, you know, business flows into, into day-to-day life, home life, possibly. And how do you balance that? Or do you feel like, hey, maybe that's actually an advantage somehow? How do you guys see that? Yeah, I think it's, I actually think it's part of our superpower because I think you almost couldn't get too more aligned co-founders than Dana has been in wife team, right? Like we're, to say it's like a marriage. So yeah, I mean, you took that box, right? No, I mean, we're, we're super, super aligned. And, and in sync and working on like the same mission. And I feel like that's a really, really key part of any co-founder relationship is, is getting that kind of partnership really, really good. Yes, it has trebles. It does, does lead into our day-to-day life. But I think we, I think we're doing better at juggling that more. As we, as we've scaled, we've had that we've been able to build a little bit more of a supportive team structure that can handle more of the managerial day-to-day execution on things. So Tim and I are able to be, you know, to step out of, out of the, you know, the detailed stuff of actually getting an audit to a customer. Whereas in the, in the first three years, to be honest, most of the orders were being delivered by, by Tim's, Tim's car, you know, it's like we were very deep in proper early day startup mode and it's harder to separate at that point. But you're as you scale, you kind of get a little bit more balance coming through. Now talking about that, like what, what, when did it feel like there was a shift from feeling, you know, experimenting, you know, on your, in your dining room, um, to, it feeling like this is not properly scaling and it's a serious business. Yeah. Um, I think when, when I think about that is, um, we never really started this business with the idea of, you know, I make flipping comments about kind of starting it as an adventure, but that we were always at the, like from the very beginning, we've been pretty ambitious about what we wanted to do with the business and where we wanted to go. Um, we obviously weren't sure it was going to work necessarily. So we were in testing, testing mode and really kind of it's rating on the, on the product. Um, but we were pretty ambitious from the get-go when, at, when, you know, when we started. Um, but I think one of the big turning points was, um, I was actually eight months pregnant with our, with our first child and we were still making it out of the house and, um, it was, um, we were at one point deciding whether we wrote a small, a very small earth. And when we were at one point deciding whether we were going to, um, drive all our house into and, uh, to allow me to still, uh, have a newborn in our house. And thankfully, someone, someone who, who has, it was a, was a much wiser parent before us. It basically advised us very strongly that nothing wouldn't work. And at that point, we secured our first production space. And that was a big movement for us. As soon as we got the space, it sold further and moved into our production space and it moved out of our home. Um, and now you're committing to staff and rental and, uh, that just felt a lot more real at that point. Um, COVID hit about three months later, so that was a vibe. But, but, but at that point, that was like the starting point of, okay, cool. Now we're, now we're in this thing. We're, we're, we're at, we're starting to release and we're, we're going guns blazing. So, yeah, big step. I've seen massive change. Did you guys bootstrap completely? Or did you have to raise, raise some funding as well? Um, we've, we, we bootstrap for the first five years. We took some minority funding about three years ago, but, um, it has been very much, a bootstrap, uh, journey. Um, yeah, it's, I mean, comes with some, some, uh, serious strain. I, it hasn't been, it hasn't been all smooth sailing. Um, obviously it's like started to start up so hard, right? Um, it has been, it has been a challenge, but yeah, we've been bootstrapping pretty much the whole, the whole time. I, um, I was working, um, for two, three years on another project while, uh, while Tim was kind of fully running all of the markets and all of the sales and all of that. And then we got some minority funding and I was able to join full time three years ago. Okay. Yeah. Now you mentioned COVID, um, you, you know, you lost a lot of your revenue almost overnight at the time. Uh, tell us a little bit more about that. How did you guys respond to that? Yeah, what did you learn? Well, it was, it was, it was, it was off a tiny base, right? It was, it was a small, small operation at the time, but yes, all the markets closed. And so we were, we were, we were kind of scrambling a little bit. Um, we, obviously, we, we actually were lucky, we were at one point. I think we were going to be a retail business. We're going to start stores. Um, and just before COVID had been looking at a, at a, at a, at a retail, uh, footprints and we were about to sign and thankfully, we decided not to add the encover to it. So we said, we dodged that one. Um, so, but, uh, no, we, we basically pushed into, I mean, we got our essential services certificate and we were delivering ice cream. We had just previously launched our website and we were delivering ice cream to anyone who wants to ice cream, uh, anyone who could, um, we launched, uh, um, into, that's when we snorched into all our retail outlets basically. So our early stockers were, uh, places like Folk Cafe. They've been an incredible stocker. So they're still a really, really great partner stocker. So I was up in Musinburg. Um, Spear was also a really early stocker to come on board, which was wonderful, um, places like, um, the West of its bar, um, you know, quite a lot of the independent spars came on, um, and we were working through, yeah, independent stockers and spars, um, in the West and Cape. And then we launched Joeburg, also a remotely during COVID, uh, and we launched with the Holland stockers in Joeburg and then KZDN as well, also during COVID and remote. Um, but we were just building our relationships basically with partner stockers, um, deploying branded freezes into those stores and, and, and building things that way. And did you get the truth? that yourself? So did you have like distribution relationships with? No, we, we, we, we actually do even to this day, we, we do all our own distribution all to stores. So we've got, and kind of a small fleet of vehicles and driver merchandising teams. And they are delivering to stores, merchandising the freezes, and handling all their kind of into distribution, which has been quite a challenge. That feels like almost another, another operation in itself is the distribution of frozen goods along the country. We actually deliver to any main centre in the country, as a wear border in two to three business days around the country in frozen countries, which is quite a, quite a vibe. So we've built up a bit of a network. But, but you know, it's definitely an interesting, interesting logistics challenge to get stuck into. Yeah, what's the, like, hardest part about that? I mean, that's obviously the manufacturing itself, but the distribution storage, all kinds of stuff, frozen food, like what, like, what was the hardest challenge? How did you reckon? I mean, the complexity has been honest, because it's not just frozen, right? Like, obviously it's frozen, but the seasonality is, is, is off the charts. Our, our December volume is five X, our June, June volume, right? So you, so you're ramping up massively, and you're trying to forecast now, this time of year, we should really forecast locked in for, for what season looks like, and building out storage capacity for that, for those peak, for those peak months, as well as vehicle capacity, training drivers, hiring drivers, onboarding them. So it's a proper scale operation, but you can't scale too high, because, you know, you didn't go down and do anything. So you've got to kind of keep this, keep this scaled fixed base structure with a variable base structure that can take the seasonal curves. But we're also doubling every year. So it's like, it's like, double every year plus the seasonal curve. And it's just, it's, it's a really, really interesting challenge. It's a, it's, ultimately, it's a scale challenge. It's a volume, volume and scale, volume of orders coming through, but then also scaling through that is, is the interesting, interesting challenge we've got. So you mentioned, kind of growth, doubling every, every year. Do you feel like there was like a key, like turning point, like a key decision that you guys made, a while, this now really caused that scale to happen? Not, not really. I mean, since the beginning, you know, if you're in a, if you're in a consumer product business, scale, scale solves a lot of problems, right? As you, as you, as you scale, your average order value of your, of your basket goes up. So your cost of each of those, just, you know, the cost of distribution relative to that order becomes more manageable, you get more orders onto routes. And so that also becomes more manageable. So suddenly your economics of your distribution side becomes much more manageable. And that's just the distribution on the sale side. You've got, you can't manage it as they're going into stores, they're getting orders. Suddenly, now you've got a bigger basket, you've got a bigger volume of orders, but you've also got a bigger pull through of those orders. So each of those visits becomes more meaningful. And that's, that happens across every layer of your organization. So you're fighting for scale as quickly as you can so that you can have, so that the economics of the business stops stacking better, basically. And I think that's, yeah, there wasn't any specific point other than just knowing, okay, cool, we've got to keep on scaling as fast as we can so that the economics really, really, you know, get to the right, the right place, basically. And in terms of, so you started obviously with the small stockest, but also then, you know, bigger retailers, you find like there was quite a difference in dealing and working with the bigger retailers and whatever you learn through that process as well. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's definitely again, you're, you're operating with, um, with organizations that have a lot more structure and systems in place. So you need to kind of get in place into, into their structures and their systems. And that has teething issues or some complexity that comes into the organization. Um, but it's, it's funny. Many people are nervous about bigger retailers. And I'm just, I'm just an or of it. I, I think that's that I've just had incredible working relationships with you to the retailers who've been partnering with. And I'm incredibly grateful for that support. Um, and the partnership has has gone really well so far. So I'm, I'm super, super grateful for, uh, for that we're, we're working with checkers, we're working with pick and pay and we're working with each of the spa DCs as well. Um, and, um, so sorry, what that means is each of the regional spa groups basically. Um, and those, those retailers are awesome. They, they are able to open up, uh, open up scale, open up more stores for you, uh, which ultimately all is of art in the, in the effort of building the brand so that there's more accessibility to your brand for the business doing their average, you know, they, they're weekly shop and that pub go gets into that weekly shop. Yeah, brilliant. And like any, any tips for someone in, like, yeah, building a business and, and, and food and they want to get into possibly the big retail as well. That journey for you and any, any lessons learned along the way that you can pass on to others. Sure. Um, don't do it. No, I'm kidding. No, I, I, I think my key lesson is that like there's just no shortcuts, right? Like take building a brand takes time. Um, people need to get exposure to it. You need to build out, um, competency in your cells and distribution network, et cetera. We'd gone straight into a big retailer from the get-go before really building out the relationships with the independent stockists and making sure that they were seeing the pull through from those stores. Then we would have put a whole lot of stock into stores and it would have sat and we would have been on the hook for it, right? So the commercial risk you take on when you're going to bigger retailers is bigger. And, and you're committing to seeing that that stock pulls through. Like the winner's not the product on shelf, the winner's when the product's moving off the shelf. Um, and that's, that's what you're celebrating and working towards. Um, so yeah, I think, I think in terms of any advice, um, definitely having lots of conversations with people who've been down that road, I think that's been really key. Um, the minority partners that we've had on board, it's just been absolutely wonderful. They've got great expertise in the space and they've been able to share a lot of, uh, learnings. Um, I'm also part of a foodies group, uh, which has also been really helpful when we're sharing tips and advice with other, other small business, uh, owners of within the food space. Um, so just learning lots from other people, I think is really, really key. Um, and, uh, and reaching out to people because people so, so keen to help all the time. I feel like we're all trying to do do something cool in building cool South African businesses. So it's amazing. People are willing to help and support. Um, but you know, building a brand requires, like, people getting familiar and tasting your product and getting experience of your product and there, there's no short gap to that. Um, it's kind of the hard, the hard truth, um, yeah, it's, uh, it's, you know, I've just seen so many examples, um, sadly of, of brands kind of pushing stock right into big retail groups, um, and then, and then it kind of, uh, uh, backfiring a little bit because it hasn't been, uh, they haven't built the brand off just. Yeah. And, and what you mentioned, the, uh, extravagant question for me, like, and totally coming from, from a new kind of space in this, in this industry. Um, so if you are, you know, displaying a retailer, is that on consignment that, or do they, so you're renting a space on the shelves or they actually, no, it's not on, it's not on, yeah, it's not on consignment, but a lot of, a lot of, uh, retailers, um, operates on terms where, for various different technical terms, you're essentially responsible for any stock that expires on shelf. Um, so if, if stock doesn't move through ultimately, it comes back to you. Um, there's all sorts of ways that you can support with investment in moving that product through, so working with them to drive promotions, et cetera, to help clear and move stock through the system. Um, but ultimately, I mean, when you, when you're dealing with product that has a year-long lifestyle, their lifespan, like you, you really shouldn't be anywhere near to getting product expiring on shelf, right? Like it should be turning way more frequently than there. Um, and, and really the, the, the key thing you're obsessing about is what the velocity is looking like on shelf. How frequently people are picking up your product, what does that look like? Um, and, uh, and which products are moving. So, you know, a lot of people don't think of ice cream as something that's highly analytical or data-oriented, but you spend a hell of a lot of time in our data and in our numbers, um, um, analyzing our dashboards of what's, what's moving and what's, what's working and, and where, where our challenge might be. Yeah, that's brilliant. Now, a little bit about your team. You mentioned growth, you've grown, you've been able to outsource a few things that you were doing yourselves earlier. Um, so how have you navigated that, uh, changing, you know, handing over things maybe, be reluctantly trusting others to do their work well. How have you navigated that? Yeah, I think it's always one of the biggest challenges. As a founder, you're so passionate about all the parts of your business. Which parts do you transition over? I think whatever key challenges for us is, where do we place the next tire? Which is the next investment of the next tire that you take on? Up until very recently, for example, we didn't have a finance manager. Tim was our finance manager and I was handling our management accounts, right? Everything was in good condition, but the point I'm trying to make is, at that point, we were about seven or eight months ago, we were like, "Okay, cool. Now we've grown up, we can have a finance manager internal accountant to drive our accounts and manage our finances, which is just incredible and being amazing." We've got a distribution head who's exceptional and coordinates all of our distribution. We've got a sales operations head and she manages all the sales team and handles that. We've got a production head who obviously heads up our production team in the kitchen. We've got a, I think it's a 25-person production team now, which is awesome and they're all operating in the kitchen and really heads that up. And then we've also got a procurement and food safety and planning head. That's kind of our current structure. And it's always a challenge. It's like, "Well, where do we go next and how do we build that out?" So we are increasingly letting go of certain responsibilities into the team. But I think one of the key responsibilities of a final entrepreneur is to be able to be up here, driving the vision, looking at the longer-term growth in build and the scaling, and then dive right into the detail and be okay in understanding what's happening at ground level and be able to handle that. Because you never really let go of the details of your business. I think it's absolutely imperative to own the customer experience of the brand and that means never being or off the details basically. And I guess you need those early days very hands-on to be able to still do that later as well. Like you said, the short cuts really. Exactly. Looking ahead a little bit. What do you think is the next-chapter, Apple Popper, and where do you think it's going? It's all in the extension of brand building really. So it's more of the same. I mean, we only launched into checkers in December or November, Black Friday was when we actually rolled out our first checker store launchers, which is quite a vibe. But it's early days. We haven't actually had a full season in checkers. So that's very, very exciting for us is continuing to roll through that. We're also rolling out through pick and pay as well, which is very, very exciting. And we've got a really big season ahead of us, which we are very, very much focused on. Yeah, the next phase for me is just a deeper level into that, into that continued brand story. It's not like we're doing anything fundamentally different. It's just about continuing to build on our customer experience and our quality of our product and continue to go the brand. Yeah, exciting. Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing you guys develop the brand further and grow at such a cool business. A few rapid fire questions to end us off. Before we get there, I just also recently saw on your LinkedIn. Tim, just completed, was it the freedom challenge? Is that cool? Yes, it is. There's a little bit about that. I mean, that looks insane. I don't know much about it, but it looks incredible. Yeah, it's very, very cool. He did a, he did a, it's like, I think it's 2100 kilometers, mountain bike challenge from Peter Merritt's big to Cape Town, all off road and not just, like not just trail riding in a lot of evidence, Huckabarking, self navigation through the, through the night, kind of a bit racing style. Yeah, it's very cool, very, very cool experience. Yeah. So I mean, actually, did he, did he win it? Yeah, he won, yeah, he won the race. It's really cool. It was quite classic as well, because the, the training for that was quite a vibe, because you know, it'd be nine o'clock at night. I'd be like, about ready to go to bed. We'd need, we'd be putting the kids down, handling all of that, and then he'd get on the bike, on a stationary train, and the, in front of his laptop, working like dude, at the same time, it's training and he'd do two, three hours at work. It's quite a vibe. It's cool. Oh, wow. It's pretty disciplined. Lots of respect. Yeah, let's, let's end it off with a few rapid fire questions. You get to choose either or of the options early mornings or late nights. This is a, this is a tricky one. I'm early mornings, Tim's late nights. Of course, there's some tension. Yeah. Same, same on myself and my wife. I'm the morning person. She's the, she's the late night person. So you make it works, I'm up. Exactly. Visionary chaos on methodical planning. I'm visionary chaos to the methodical planning. All right. Works out well. Product first or brand first? Product first. Okay. That surprised me. Could you, could you start it out? I know, but I think, and sort of about that. Actually, the brand is nothing if the product is not exceptional. Tree. There you are. Sweet or sour? Sweet. Great. Well, thanks, Daddy so much. Love you guys business. Congratulations. I'm building something beautiful and incredible. We've been great chatting. Thank you so much for chatting. Very, very cool. [MUSIC]