Speaker 1First time we did a Super Bowl, let me lay this down for you. We bought the Super Bowl five days before the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2Literally. Sam, you want to do like an intro real quick?
Speaker 3Yeah, so you and your husband are one of the founders of Poppy, which sold for $2 billion. And I would have to say you probably win the award for brand glow up because one of my favorite things to watch is this old Shark Tank video of you guys.
Speaker 4So good.
Speaker 3And the way that it started and where you are now, that gap is huge.
Speaker 4Yeah, what was it called originally? Mothers or something?
Speaker 1Oh, so embarrassing. You had to say it out loud. Mother Beverage. And yes, I think it was a Globe of this Century, the best of all time.
Speaker 3What was the story?
Speaker 1It was just one of those beautiful entrepreneurial American dream stories where you start in your kitchen because of a personal problem. I had like, tummy problems with drinking apple cider vinegar, you know, hated the taste. And I was like, I have an idea. I can make this taste better. Little did I know how intense beverage is. Looking back, I don't think if I knew what I knew now, I would have done it. And it's not knowing is just such a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3But you basically like we're selling something at a farmer's market that was kind of curing your own problem. And I think you did that for more than a couple of years. And then you hooked up with the guy who kind of like was like, hey, this is amazing. But why don't we tinker with the packaging a little bit? And then you raised a little bit of money. And it was like off to the races. It was like zero to like 20 million to like 60 million to like 120 or something like crazy like that. Was that
Speaker 1even crazier? I have to kind of ground you just to like in timeline. So we did do like two years farmer's market and then went on to Shark Tank, got a deal on Shark Tank and went through a whole rebrand. And then we decided to launch Poppy March 3rd, 2020, the first week of COVID. And it was like the first time everyone's thinking about their health and wellness. It's the first time people are looking at labels and wanting to understand what they're putting into your body. And how can I boost my immune system and all of these things of the conversation? And so that first year, I think we did about 3 million in revenue and then the next year is 2250. And then the big jump was from 50 to 200 million and then 500 plus to then be sold. So it's like four and a half years to almost 550 million dollars, which is crazy growth.
Speaker 3Did you ever feel imposter syndrome doing that? Because like, you know, whenever I have a little bit of success, I'm like, oh, man, is this real? Does this this is wild. But our success was a lot slower than yours.
Speaker 1We were just going so quick. It was hard to even sit back and even realize or fathom what was happening because it was so not normal. Like people don't understand, like what we had and what growth we had is not normal. It was. Truly lightning in a bottle. And so I don't know if there's imposter syndrome because, like, I'm very confident we're confident in what we were building, but it wasn't a guarantee. Right. And so it's this thing of, like, do I celebrate? Well, it's too soon to celebrate. So when we finally sold, it definitely was like, wait, what just happened? That was four and a half years, five years of this crazy growth. And I don't think I ever stopped and smelled the roses.
Speaker 4Did you you know, when when there's like a movie and they always have, like, act one of the movie is. Yeah. The main character, and they're just sort of stumbling and fumbling and they're they're they're struggling and then they finally start to figure something out. Act two is always the montage where things start happening sort of fast and furious, and that's kind of the growth phase that you're describing. But they usually, you know, they sort of figure some one or two things out, right? One or two things start to really work and then they lean in and double down into those. And it's like the things that makes all the other dominoes fall. So for you guys, you're saying timing was obviously beneficial, but what were you guys doing as entrepreneurs or founders? What were the key dominoes that started to fall?
Speaker 1Yes, we were one of the first founder led brands to really lean into TikTok. And back then it was the wild, wild west. And you were doing dances, you're doing recipe videos, you're just like, literally doing all these like fun transition videos. Just like almost making a fool of yourself to try to go viral because I had this like personal obsession with TikTok. And and it's funny, I know you guys have had Rohan on. And I remember him being like, Alison, that's for like young kids and dancers and don't don't try. He was like against it by any means, but like no one really got that platform. And so I was like, okay, I'll spend my nights and weekends and I'll play around on it until we finally went viral. And we had a lot of success on the platform. And I think it was a really big key driver in why we grew so fast. Because typically, if you're a better for you brand, you blow up in L.A., New York, Miami, these like major hubs, and then you kind of grow. So inwardly, but when you grow up with a digital first mindset within the business from core day one, we had people like I think at one point, one of our top targets was like Fargo, North Dakota, and all of these like Cincinnati, Ohio, Houston, Texas. And so when you're a true digital first brand, you can really break through and go to more places quicker. It's like a modern field day marketing type tactic, right? Do you want to stand in a Whole Foods and give away 30 samples? Or do you want to? Do something and educate and put paid behind it and push your ads out organically to the FYP page and get 300,000 people to see it. And so I think that was a really big thing that really just made us different than other brands. Now everyone's doing it, right? It's part of everyone's marketing mix. But I think another really big one is we were brand first. So our number one KPI was brand awareness. How do we truly build a long-lasting generational brand with every ounce of every decision? That we did down to if we were like, what should be our variety pack at Costco? And the data was saying, you know, it should be root beer, this cream, soda, and cola. And I'd be like, well, those colors don't look good together. And our buyers would be like, wait, what? And I'm like, no, no, no. It has to be vibrant on the shelf. It has to jump. And people have to write every decision that we had was brand first, digital first. And it's easier said than done. I say this like it's common sense, but a lot of people still don't do these things.
Speaker 3You sort of have... I have this energy that I've seen with a lot of my very successful friends, particularly the women, where they basically are like a bowl to China shop, which both men and women are. But you've like wrapped it in a much more like appealing package where like a lot of my friends who are bold in the China shops, they like I look at them. I'm like, you're a you're kind of a wreck, but like, you're probably going to figure it out. But when I watch your stuff on Instagram, you're very relatable, even though that even though you're crazy. You're successful. And yet you still have this like attribute where it's like, A is here, B is here, the straight line and just go and run as fast as you can.
Speaker 1Yeah, well, I think it's confidence. So people ask me all the time, like, Alison, how are you so confident? I'm confident because I failed and made a total fool of myself for so many years to kind of figure out what works and how how to be confident. Like, for example, everyone sees this $1.95 billion exit, but they don't see or remember me standing at a farmer's market. At a folding table saying, try this apple cider vinegar drink. Like, that's so embarrassing. And so it's this ability of like, I have lived the American dream. I was raised by a single mother, kids, myself, like, end of the day, even post exit. I still have soccer practice tonight. I have to go to and we're in Texas and it's 100 degree weather. Like, I'm just living life. And I think within it, it was relatable with people online because they saw themselves in me. And then that confidence piece is like. I wasn't always that confident, but I think that I've just allowed myself to share so openly and authentically the entire journey. And so people have kind of seen the journey of me becoming confident as well.
Speaker 4How'd you get on Shark Tank? What was the story?
Speaker 3I think the best way to become successful is to see how other people did it, whether you're going to copy them or just use it as inspiration, because then now you know what's possible. So starting at the age of 24, I did this relentlessly and I was very methodical about it. And I created a spreadsheet where I tracked roughly 50 people who were uber successful. And I looked at the year that they were born, the year that they started their apprenticeship, and then the year that they started the first thing that made them successful. Finally, the year that they broke through. And I aggregated all this data along with the stories of what they did to be an apprentice and what they did to finally break through. And I put it together in a database and HubSpot went and found this thing that I frankly even forgot about, but it did change my life and they resurfaced it. They made it even better and they put it into a thing that you can download for free right now. So if you click the link in the description or click the QR code right here, you can see this database that I made when I was 24 and it changed my life. And so if you're looking to become successful or you're already successful and just want some more inspiration, check it out.
Speaker 1Shartank. We love Shartank. It's just such a beautiful literally because I've also been on the show, but I've also been a judge on it and seen both sides of the show and they absolutely want people to get deals. They want people to be successful and they have such good intention and so the whole process of it is if you have a good idea and you actually have some kind of proof of concept, you will probably have quite a bit of success on the show. And so for us, it was one of those things that like we'd been doing it for a bit. Mother Beverage at the time, we had done about 500,000 in revenue and it was that point of like, if we don't get investment, we can't sustain this, right? We were working 80 hours a week. We had a kid, a kid on the way. Steven was working a second job just to pay our mortgage. And you can only be in that rat race for so long. And so Shartank was just this beautiful opportunity. So we stood in line, poured our hearts out. producers fell in love with us. And then going on, we were so blessed to have gotten a deal with someone that's so good in beverage, right? Like it's the things that have happened to us over the years, these doors that have opened, it's just kind of crazy. So we got to deal with Brojan Oza. He had a great history in beverage. And so working with him and building it, but Shark Tank, you know, I don't think any other shark would have given us a deal. What was the, you
Speaker 3know, Sean's in the e-commerce space. We've had a bunch of people in e-commerce. I've not been in it personally, but I've been able to like live voyeuristically through these folks. And what it seems is like the fastest you, the faster you grow, the more cashflow sucks in terms of, and inventory management. And there's like a lot of like issues where like the top line number is amazing, but some of the other stuff is kind of breaking. Were you cashflow positive the entire
Speaker 1time? And what was that like? I don't think we were profitable until like right before we sold, but it was intentional. I think we could have starved the business and really focused on conversion. And how do we really be profitable? But if you're a brain building, it's expensive. It's expensive to do a beverage. So every step of the way with the board, the senior leadership, the founders, we were intentionally reinvesting back in the brand and raising the entire time, right?
Speaker 3Was it 40 total?
Speaker 1I think it was closer to like in the seventies.
Speaker 3And you spent all of it?
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely. We bought multiple supermarkets. We bought multiple ads. We're running TV. We are marketing with creators. We are doing pop-ups with 50 cent, right? Like all of these big brain building activities are so different. We aren't a traditional DTC company. We're actually not a DTC company. We were a hundred percent on Amazon from day one, which was a decision we made as a board to do that. And it was such a good decision, but you don't make a lot of money on Amazon as a beverage. And so we saw it as a great marketing tactic for awareness because it's in so many households across the country. And it's a great marketing tactic for awareness because it's in so many households across the country. And it's a great So all of these decisions were intentional. And I think people don't get, if you want to be successful, you have to put your money where your mouth is.
Speaker 4You, um, you mentioned Rohan. He came on the pod. I was kind of blown away. I thought, I think that guy's awesome. I've heard about him from a few other people that he's invested with. And I think he's kind of a, like a bit of a savant with marketing or beverage. I don't know what, I don't know the way to describe it, but this is just me from the outside. I'm curious from the inside. What was something very, very different about him? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't very useful or, um, insightful that he did or taught you guys about or helped guide you guys
Speaker 1towards, you know, I think it's in different stages of the business in the early days, it was the money and the connections, right? I think that if you are taking on capital or any kind of investment and you can't get that network, that's actually meaningful network. It's pointless because now you have all this money and you spend it and you don't have, like, what am I doing here? So he helped us get our first like five hires within his, his network that were incredible and with us to help the exit, right? That was a huge impact on the business. On top of it, he has this, um, men's TV he's worked with for 15 years and he might've mentioned her on the podcast, but she is just brilliant and brand positioning and, and, uh, messaging. And she's the one that did all the rebrand with us from mother to poppy. So being able to bring that to life really early on allowed us to then focus on the brand. So what I mean is, we're in mother, we were so focused on putting caps on bottles. I couldn't even have thought about what the marketing strategy was, but when we got a deal on shark tank, we took nine months off. We went through, we did a rebrand and we asked ourselves, who is this product for? Who is our consumer? We stepped back. What are we doing here? Then we went out and started selling. So then when we were selling, we knew who we were. A lot of brands don't do that work. They're just constantly concerned with how do I get the next sale? How do I get the next account? Not, why am I here? Why am I doing this? What is my cam? Like you're not, they're not asking these questions. And so I think we allowed ourselves to have time with this. And then I think as the stage of the business grew, Rohan then started really trusting the team. We brought in incredible senior leadership. So it moved over to like more of a board like role. He was always heavily involved throughout great in the brainstorming conversations and all, but as the business grew, we hired in really smart people, people smarter than me to come in and like really advise.
Speaker 3Hey, what's the economics of a Superbowl commercial? You guys did, did you guys do two or one?
Speaker 1We've done a few too. Um, what people don't realize about a Superbowl commercial is sure there's the media buy, but then there's the production buy. And then there's the sustaining after the Superbowl. It depends on if you do a 30 or 60, they're anywhere from six to $11 million. It's the standard price for everybody. But what is the cost if you're going to hire a director, a film crew? And then how do you sustain that? So you hit people at the, at the Superbowl with a Superbowl ad, you got to hit them about seven more times with more linear ads, right? And so that you have to also invest in. So I think you also have to have distribution. It's pointless to do it. If you're in five stores at the time that we did our first Superbowl ad, we were finally in almost every grocery store in the nation. We were really focused on our awareness goals and how do we, you know, up the awareness while Superbowl. I remember we did it. And the day after we tripled our awareness overnight and no one had really seen us as a soda. They were like, Oh, there's sparkling water or better for you. This after the Superbowl, we said we were a soda 17 times in that Superbowl ad afterwards. Everyone calls us as a soda. So there was a lot of intentional motion behind why we did that.
Speaker 3And it was breakthrough for us. Well, do you remember the all-in costs? And then was there analytics live and like looking at your website traffic? What was that like?
Speaker 1First time we did a Superbowl, let me lay this down for you. We bought the Superbowl five days before the Superbowl. Literally, so that must have been stressful. So that's not normal. Most people buy it a year ahead of time. And so what happened is we've done a bunch of brain work. We put together a creative campaign on how we're the future of soda is now called Poppy. And we brought this creative to life and we saw it and it was just going to be an evergreen brain campaign that we're going to run across all of our linear media channels and streaming. And we saw this piece of content. It was very anthemic. It was beautiful. It just like told the story of soda and the evolution of it. And we're like, wait, this is a Superbowl ad. We would go buy one. You can't just like buy Superbowl ad right before. But it's what big companies do is they'll buy a bunch of Superbowl ads, say like for a bunch of their brands. And sometimes they end up not using them at the end. And they're like, oh, we're going to buy a Superbowl ad. And they'll go on the market for like secondary buy on the remnant market. And we found one. I was like at a dinner with someone at a TikTok event. And they're like, I think one of my friends has one. I was like, oh my gosh, can I get him on with our CMO? And our CMO at the time, Andy Judd, went back with them back and forth and we bought it. And we're like, okay, now how do we activate? Because we can't activate in store. So it's really hard to talk about the all in cost because typically there's store activation, there's creator activation, there's, you know, the media of it all, the website, there's production. We didn't get to do any of that, honestly, with our first Superbowl. And then the second time around, we did it with Charlie XCX. And it was one of these moments where we wanted to just have like a fun time with it. So it was like all about the vibes within it. It wasn't this like, it was just like vibes. She said that was like the tagline. There was this like poppy vibes. And so we're just different. Like we're not super concerned with all of those like little aspects that you're asking. And I honestly don't even know the full number. I'm sure if I asked our CMO, he would.
Speaker 3Sean, how does that make you feel? Because a bunch of our friends who are in e-commerce and probably many of the ones that are like significantly less successful than the greats are so like CAC driven and so metrics driven. And she's sort of saying the exact opposite.
Speaker 4Well, look, that's why that's why we do the podcast is because there's a thousand different ways to win. And so we like to invite people on to understand how did you win? What did you do? How does your brain work? That's part of the beauty of it. But also they're not in e-commerce, they're CPG, they're in retail. And so like I was just looking at the Super Bowl ad, the first one you were talking about, and it starts with like, you're a human on earth. And in all of human existence, things have been done a certain way. And soda has been done a certain way. This is poppy. Poppy looks like soda. It tastes like soda, but and then it has the differentiator at the end of it. And so like, I kind of dig that, like the, I think positioning, super underrated. I don't think most founders know how to do positioning at all. I think they jump straight into trying to go sell, sell, sell, but they haven't done the upfront work of figuring out, well, how is this going to live in someone's mind? And why would anybody want to buy this? Because they don't care about you. And you have to sort of fit into their worldview in some unique way to break through, to make all the selling more effective. And so what I really like is like the name, the brand, the packaging, the positioning, you know, you guys kind of did a masterclass on that. And I think that's a pretty, underrated founder skill. I don't think many people do that. Well, who do you, do you think people do that? Well, or do you think people screw that up? Like when you walk through the stores, are you just like, Oh God, that's wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Most people do it wrong.
Speaker 1Unfortunately, I teach like masterclasses and I go all over and I speak on brand and how you can break through on Tik TOK and all of these things that are inherently. So first experience for me, just like second nature and it's blowing their minds and then they'll go in and their mind is blown and they're still not doing it. And I just like actually don't get it. So when it comes to brand positioning, it is so core to what we've always done. that is actually always an ever-breathing document. So we knew we were revolutionizing soda for the next generation. We knew we were giving everyone the freedom to love soda at its best without all the baggage. Cool, North Star, that is never going to change. But what does change is how culture changes.
Speaker 4But can I pause you real quick? Because you're saying we knew we were going to revolutionize soda. But the Shark Tank thing is a really interesting thing because you were on there with a brand that was not that great, packaging that was not that great, not talking about soda. So something happened in that nine months after the Shark Tank deal where you guys had some sort of like, you know, rebirth and some conversation in a meeting room somewhere where somebody asked them good questions and somebody had some good answers. So can you describe what was happening in those meetings or like, what was the useful either question or exercise or consultant or whatever you did that helped you kind of get that level of clarity?
Speaker 1You know, and I think it's this ever-brazing document. So when we first launched, it was apple cider vinegar, prebiotics, like super simple gut health. We knew we were going after soda. No, it goes back to nobody believed us. We didn't even know, but hey, we're going to try this. This is a huge category. And kombucha was on the declines. Forkley Water wasn't giving everyone that full flavor, like soda filling that they wanted. So we knew all of those things are the facts that we know. And what we knew is once we launched, people were starting to have this use occasion where they were like, oh, I'm going to try this. And we were like, oh, I'm going to try this. And we were like, oh, I'm going to try this. And we were like, oh, I'm going to try this. And we were drinking poppy in the same occasion as soda. And so we got more data points along the way. So I sit here, I joke with like, we're brand forward. We're actually incredibly, you know, sophisticated in our platforms and our processes as well, which made us, I think, such a strong company. But I do think then we learned, oh, wait, this occasion. Okay, so on the front of our packaging, our tagline used to be, B got happy, B got healthy. We're like, wait, people don't really care about that that much. We changed it to sodas back there than ever. We were constantly tweaking and changing as the consumer was changing in the use occasion of what people were saying about us online, what we were listening to our consumers. So, and that's what I mean within building a good brand is focusing on what you know, what's your North Star, but then you can change, you can change. And it's really hard for entrepreneurs to change, by the way.
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Speaker 3What I've noticed is that like, have you read Peter Thiel's Zero to One? Okay, so he like has this whole chapter, chapters on like moats, and he's like, one moat is, I forget what he says, network effects, this or that. And then he gets to the last chapter, and he's like, there is one more moat, it's called brand. I know it's important, and I also know I don't know much about it, so I'm not going to write about it, but if you can figure it out, you're going to be amazing. And it's like, it's like kind of funny, because it's like kind of a stereotypical Silicon Valley thing, where it's like tech and product is number one, and like all the other stuff, like brand is number two. And Sean has talked, Sean loves comedians and like the creative process. And we talk about this idea of being sensitive, and how you have to be sensitive in order to find like good stories. You got to see like, you have to be sensitive when you see what resonates. And something that I've learned about branding, and I'm not good at it, I'm trying to learn, is that you do have to be very sensitive. And so like you're talking about these things, I've noticed, and you're making like very small observations, or they feel small. Like you're talking to like maybe, let's say 50 people over the course of a day at a farmer's market or whatever. And you're noticing like, actually people care about X, Y, and Z. And those small changes appear to have in some created this massive outcome, along with a bunch of other stuff. And I think that's what's interesting. Is there like an 80-20 rule where it's like, if you focus on these handful of things, it will make a meaningful difference?
Speaker 1I think it goes back to, I've said this before, but it's this ability, or this thing around embarrassment. I think embarrassment is the most underexplored emotion when it comes to being successful in life. I think a lot of people say to themselves like, oh, I want to go put this idea on a medium, but what if I sound stupid? Or I want to start a business, but what if no one cares? Well, I want to make a TikTok, but maybe I'll look ridiculous. And like, people will think rid of me. But I think with it to your point of like, all of these little moments, I hear like, what if I am successful? What if I am viral? What can I learn about my product? And then how, okay, you hate it. Tell me why you hate it. Okay, well, so like, for example, we had a flavor root beer that we launched and, packaging we'd never really loved 'cause we were a really bright company across, like basically the rainbow effect of like all these colors. And we had root beer and it was brown. And I was like, ugh, but such a core soda flavor. And so I was like, okay, we got to figure out how to do this. And our consumer was telling us it tasted horrible. And we were like, maybe we should listen to them. And we changed the packaging. We changed the entire flavor. And then we put out online all the bad comments and like confronted it. And we're like, hey, you guys made us do this. We listened. And I think a lot of people just aren't willing to do that or like put the out there or acknowledge when they were wrong. And it's hard 'cause entrepreneurs, like we have egos. Like you don't want to do those things.
Speaker 3- Was there any book or resource that you read that changed your perspective when it came to branding?
Speaker 1- No, so fun fact, help me. I'm like severely dyslexic. I'm, you could not like pay me to read a book. I'll listen to a book. I'll listen to a podcast. I'm obsessed with doing that. But I think it's so funny. I think there's this like theory that you have to like read all these like self-help books and you have to like be on this train of like meditation, all these things. Like, I think all that is bullshit. Like, that's not how I live my life. I like wake up, you know, as my child's like hitting me in the head, asking for his iPad code and me being like, you, I took iPads away, you know? And I'm like trying to get coffee and my kid's out the door. Like, I don't have time for that stuff. 'Cause what I do know is I listen to culture and I was saying, if you moved at the speed of culture, what is culturally relevant in society from social speak to not only social speak, but like what are people talking about meme culture to tent poles within society that are culturally relevant? So you look at the calendar, Coachella is a tent pole, Grammys, how do you break through Hamptons as a hotspot, right, the peoples that are out during the summer. So for me, it was like with brand, it's so tied to culture. And that was my obsession and my team's obsession. We hire people really young. We love to hire Gen Z smart people that are living the moment within culture and we trust them, which is also hard for, I think, some people to do.
Speaker 4- You sent us a list of ideas 'cause we, one thing we like to do is we like to brainstorm with other founders and how lucky are we that we get to sit with somebody who's built a multi-billion dollar CPG brand and be like, hey, what else is interesting? Maybe, you know, you guys are doing a new thing now, but something you won't do, something you don't plan to do, but you think, hey, there's an opportunity there. 'Cause once you start to win, you see all kinds of opportunities in adjacent spaces that you're never gonna have the time or energy to go do. What's on your mind? What do you see as opportunities, white spaces, things that you think, you know, somebody like you could go, you know, the younger version of you could go and attack.
Speaker 1- You know, I always love this type of question of like, what could you do? Or what do you wanna do next? Or like, what's the hottest thing? The beauty of Poppy is we figured it out before everybody else. So for example, protein is so hot right now. Everyone's trying to figure out how to put protein in from ice cream to drinks to, you know, you see what David is doing with the protein bar and all of this, and it is really hot. But for me, I'm like, okay, cool, if it's hot, I'm not gonna now go create it. Someone is already first to market on that. And usually winners are the first to second to market. It's really hard for like even a third to market to be successful unless you do it different. So you take like the AG1, the green craze, right? I don't know if you guys remember, maybe it was like six years ago, we were getting hit with like 300 AG1 ads. You know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 4- Yeah, podcasting was just one long, continuous AG1 ad for a while.
Speaker 3- Yeah, it started with MeUndies and then it went to Athletic Greens.
Speaker 1- Athletic, yeah. And you're just like, oh my gosh, it's everywhere. But I actually feel like they failed to like innovate. You know, then Gruins comes along and does it in a gummies and they exit. AG is still not exited. So I'm not here to say you can't be late to the game and still win. It's just way harder. And you almost have to do it better, smarter and different if you wanna be successful. So for me, I think protein's hot, good luck breaking through the market. It's very crowded right now. I think everyone is also trying to figure out the creatine craze, the gum, if you put in a powder to a gum, how do we get women on it, right? Everyone's talking about these things, but it's almost like you need to have been the first creatine gummy. So I'm not here to say like, I don't even know. What's next other than I am starting another company and I can't tell you guys what it is. And I do think it's what's next. So it's hard for me to like speak to it.
Speaker 4- Well, maybe a different question on that. Okay, we can keep it a mystery, but tell us your mindset on it. So are you like, I wanna run it back. I know so much, I'm gonna go kind of same, same genre of business or, you know, sometimes people are like, oh my God, so much scar tissue from that. Now I wanna go do real estate. I wanna go do something so different over here. How are you just thinking about it? 'Cause I think every entrepreneur on their second act, their third act, they get to decide.
Speaker 1So what's crazy is obviously we exited the company and then Pepsi gave everybody jobs that were Poppy employees, but you don't sell your company. Then they're like, hey, here's your employee badge. So me and Steven stayed on as advisors. But as an advisor, you have to take a step back from the day to day of the business. And I still like adore Poppy and I'm just so happy for everything that's happening there. But I have a lot more time on my hands and I'm just really intense. I'm really hyper. I love chaos. And we went like six months. I played golf and like we went on vacation. I like hung out with my kids. And it was just this whole thing where you're just like, oh, wait, I missed the team. I missed the build. So we always knew like we had something else in it. But I do think to your point, it's very important to like whatever we do next, I want it to be successful and to be something I do because I love it. It's a good idea, not just to do it again. So with it, we came up with like a really good idea. It was another like personal need where I think a lot of good ideas come from personal needs, right? That passion within versus I read the data and there's a gap in the market and the white space is this. And you're like, ugh, boring. So for me, it was very personal and it's also mass. So I think a lot of people with starting a company, they try to get a little bit too niche. And apple cider vinegar mother beverage was really niche. That's a great example. It was for people that, you know, my grandma told me I should. Drink that or like, yeah, that does help my tummy. But the second we switched basically this exact same liquid over which positioning and the and the need state and the occasion to soda, it blew up. And so I think that whatever we do will be mass and really catered to all demographics. Well, honing in on a particular creative demographic.
Speaker 3What's OK? So we asked you for some like we asked you about this topic in advance and you wrote down a word that I keep seeing. I don't entirely know what it means, but you said lymphatic massage. I follow a guy on Instagram and every morning at 430, he posts these videos of him doing lymphatic jumping.
Speaker 4You follow a guy. I'm doing this. I'm laying there with my legs on the wall. Yeah. I'm yeah. Tell me about lymphatic. I'm like, I don't know if this does anything. Somebody told me that is the word I keep seeing. They go, you might feel a little sick at first, but that's how you know it's working, which is the ultimate marketing sales pitch. It's like you are trying to get healthier. You might feel you might feel sick at first. That's how powerful this is.
Speaker 1You know, and I've never been sick from it, but is what happened is, you know, I worked for 10 years at Poppy. I think I went to the doctor like once, you know, you're just like on this build mode. But I was like, oh, wait, OK, I need to get my life together on like the wellness front. And I started doing all sorts of things, doing longevity doctors and, you know, getting all the function health and like under. And then you get all this data and you're like, well, what do I do with this? And so for me, I just recently had. I had a surgery with the whole mommy makeover. I had like a tummy tuck and I'm like living my best life. And the doctor's like the number one thing you can do is lymphatic massage. I started doing it after surgery three times a week. I still do it twice a week.
Speaker 3But what's like lymph? Is that a body? I don't even know.
Speaker 1It's the system that helps flush out all the toxins and get everything out of your system. And so the idea behind lymphatic massage is you are slowly working those fluids to your lymphatic system for detox and flush you. So you feel lighter, you feel, you know, not as bloated, more energy. You're just getting like all of that bad stuff out of your system.
Speaker 3But like on a scale, woo-woo to proven with woo-woo being totally fine. That's not an insult. Where does it rank? Like, where is it on that spectrum?
Speaker 1I don't think that it's something that there's like a lot of science behind it by any means. For me personally, I always think like personal recommendations are always better. It's like it's been life changing for me through. I mean. There's like you say you're like running a marathon like running the New York City Marathon and he's been having knee pain. I was like, oh, get lymphatic massage. And he was like for three weeks. He was like, oh, my gosh, like my pain is gone. And so it just helps the soreness. Just all that stuff built in your body. It gets it out. So I challenge you to go do it. And one of the best people in the space, it's it's really comes from Brazilian lymphatic massage. So this is really big in Brazil. Her name is Josie. And she lives here in Austin and she's like does all the stars from Miley Cyrus to Katy Perry to all these people. So like test is up. Might not work for you.
Speaker 4Sam, just go to the spa and ask for a Brazilian and see what happens. I think I think that'll work.
Speaker 3Yeah, I don't know about that.
Speaker 4So you talked about you can't announce your company, but can we guess? Can we just take five blind guesses in a year? We just come back and see if we had it right.
Speaker 1Sure. I mean, I won't say anything.
Speaker 4You don't have to confirm or deny. You can just say that's interesting. I'm just thinking. I'm thinking where you go into. Let me ask you one question. We had Eric Ryan come on. He created Ali gummies and method soap and a bunch of welly band-aids. And he had this great line where he goes, I walk through the aisles and I look at I look for a sea of sameness. So basically, I'm looking for these sleepy categories where everything looks the same in the aisle. And I want to come and be different. And he said, even with the gummy brand, he was like, all of the vitamins look the same. They were all round jars. He's like, so I just knew right away. First note. OK, we're doing it like a rectangular jar. He's like, is it better? No, but it's completely different. So like, it's better. Therefore, do you have a similar approach? Do you kind of walk looking for sort of sleepy aisles or a sea of sameness? Is that a heuristic for you? Or no, you think about other things?
Speaker 1No, for me, it's personal need. So it's like, I think there's this whole new wave of this like GLP-1 era that people are sleeping on and not catering to and thinking that it's going to go away. And so I lost 60 pounds. On GLP-1s, it's absolutely changed my life. And there was just like a personal need there. And I think that people, it's not that deep either. I think that we make the best brands and the best businesses are 10 to 15 percent better than the established norm. It's not the niche products, like I said.
Speaker 4Can you explain that? Because what I hear all the time in San Francisco is the you got to be 10 times better is the kind of like the thing. And who can argue with that? Hell, might as well say 100%. 100 times better, right? Like, you know, who doesn't want that? But you're saying something a little bit different. You're saying actually a small kind of angle difference, 10 to 15 percent can be enough. Can you explain that?
Speaker 1I think with like food and beverage in particular or beauty products, like hardcore CPG, I can only speak to that because that's what I know. And I think it's true for in that space in the way of you take soda, for example. Everyone grew up on soda. And usually when you say the word soda, you have a memory like movies, late night with family. Burger and a soda. It invokes emotion because there's that long ingrained nostalgia, something you grew up with. So every marketer's goal is how do you get to the consumer and you move the buying power from the head to the heart. They're emotionally connected with your brand. That's what you always want to do with brand building. How do you get someone who's obsessed? So you tap into emotion and you make something that they grew up with just a little bit better, right? That's what we did at Poppy. We have cola. We have. We have root beer. We have cream soda. We have all of these flavors that people grew up and we're just, we're better, right? And so instead of being like, Hey, we're Poppy. We also have ashwagandha and lion's mane, and we have 38 other ingredients that nobody actually cares about versus, Hey, we're going to make this 89% less sugar. You're going to get all the same flavors you grew up with. And we're really good. Yeah, sure. We have pre-box. We're not going to talk about it that much. And that's what I mean. That 10 to 15% better.
Speaker 3By the way, I started drinking Poppy so much more. When, uh, the prebiotic or pro probiotic messaging was a little bit different before when I used to see, I used to see at a Royal blue grocery store and I was like, is this supposed to be like a health, a health drink? I was like, what is this?
Speaker 1And there was an evolution of that. Be happy, but get healthy to soda. We found people didn't care. And you're like, that's a perfect example. And, uh, we've got that from the consumer. And so we just started to leaning into our consumer journey was we wanted someone to pick up the can and say, this is so cute. We wanted them to drink it and be like, Holy crap, this tastes amazing. And then to flip it over and be like, wait, this is so good for me too. And it was intentional and it's an easier journey in versus that niche health consumer.
Speaker 3What's this thing that you listed called Nello?
Speaker 1Oh, it was Nello. They're so good. So magnesium, anything I think all around sleep health is really important as well. I think I would say if you're stressed out or having a bad day, or you want to blow up on an employee or your friend or your coworker, and you're just like, oh, this is so good. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, oh, nothing. A good night's sleep can't cure.
Speaker 3But what is Nello?
Speaker 1Nello is a powder within the calming space. So it's magnesium. And there's a lot of studies around magnesium and helping you sleep. We're also, uh, I'm obsessed with like my Orion sleep system. I don't know if you've seen these, but like regular temperature at night. Um, and so like my side of the bed is different than Steven's side of the bed and you can sleep and then auto changes throughout the night and tracks your temperature so that, you know, like those nights where. You like wake up and you're like sweating or you're freezing, it tracks that before how it happens. So it keeps you in REM, it keeps you in your deep sleep state. And so it's all of these things that I feel like these calming powders, all of these things to bring you more sleep has been like a game changer for me personally. And they're blowing up there everywhere. They're killing it.
Speaker 3What are some other little gadgets or drinks like that, that you're playing around with, or you're like, you know, nerding out even as, as a health consumer or like a business woman who like. cares about seeing the latest and greatest.
Speaker 1I think another big movement that I purchased for my household is called Preston Lane cleaning products. And it's clean, like the ingredients are clean. So you're spraying it on your table where your kids are, and you have all these other ones with all these like harsh, harsh chemicals in it. Well, I switched my whole household over to Preston Lane. And not only does it smell amazing, the ingredients are safe, but they also make like candles and they make dish soaps. And so it all also looks really aesthetically pleasing in your house. And it matches versus you have that also like Clorox bottle, right? You're like, Oh, how do I hide all this or the Dawn soap? How do I hide all this under the cabinet? And they've done a really good job also with the spray. It's a scent so that like your house smells good at the same time versus that lemon pledge.
Speaker 3Doesn't that sort of go against one of the points you made about like how protein is played out? And so it's gonna be a lot more challenging because when I thought about like clean. Better for you. Like, yeah, like, better for you like soaps or Clorox or whatever. I would have thought that there's one called like blue, blue, I forget what it's called blue something. Yeah, like it's and then there's like, you know, we just about Eric Ryan, his whole thing was how do I create a bottle so like cool or pretty that you'd keep it on your countertop instead of hiding it away. But it seems like there's still like some pretty cool emerging brands that are popping up because of that.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think blue land is an incredible brand. It's more around like how do they reduce plastic and their receipts? oh got it so they're like taking on the oceans and they're killing it so that's a whole other use occasion where it's like i want clean ingredients that make my house smell good that look cute on my counter sure you could argue maybe like a method but i still don't think they're that cute they look they're not like high-end florence tom ford type look whereas i think presselina so and it's an affordable price and they're definitely not anymore like i remember
Speaker 3when it came out originally it was awesome now it's like it is definitely it's it's old now you
Speaker 1know it's probably like 20 years old it is and so i think that there's still innovation within categories and they're doing it just 10 to 15 percent better right and if you really look at it no one else is really doing it in this space right now and they're pretty new that's kind of
Speaker 3a good guess sean for what she's going to do next i think cleaning supplies is somewhat interesting
Speaker 4cleaning is one guess i think like something like toothpaste oral care stuff like that i mean she kind of said the glp one thing maybe she kind of gave us the hint there of like there's a whole like ecosystem of hey if 100 million americans are going to be taking glp ones and they go to the store and there's a product they can buy to like support boost or minimize downsides obviously that's like a mega mega market that's getting created that today like the incumbent products just don't speak to even if they could help they don't they're not like positioned to be that that assistant the wingman for you if you're on glp one so i've definitely i've thought about that it sounds like she's thinking about that i think that's a huge
Speaker 1category all these things are great and i can't wait for you guys to find out in the fall but you haven't guessed it yet so stay tuned okay the thrilling podcast where we just simply guess
Speaker 4things that the guest can't answer um well tell us about making money because one thing i like about you is um you're not one of these people who's just kind of like uh at least you don't come across this way where you like pretend that you didn't care about money when you became a successful entrepreneur you're not one of these people who's just kind of like uh at least you don't care about money when you became a successful entrepreneur you're not one of these people who's just kind of like uh at least you don't care about money when you became a successful entrepreneur and they want to be wealthy they want to be financially successful but then they kind of have to pretend they feel like they have to pretend that they're not and our podcast is called my first million we sort of we're pretty blunt about like hey look like one of the main reasons we got into entrepreneurship yeah we like the creativity we like the autonomy the independence but like the prize is also really fun and um you know you guys did fantastically well can you tell us like what it was like to be a successful entrepreneur and what it was like to be a
Speaker 1to get rich yeah and i think the number one thing with entrepreneurs if you can get to like that 20 million mark within your business you should be having this conversation maybe even at the 5 million of you probably need to start getting some financial advice you need to start thinking through your estate planning your gifting exemptions and having these conversations really earlier because the earlier you do it and you move your shares into trusts and all this it's just better in the long run for you so just putting that out there if you're anywhere between the 5 to 20 million range of revenue for your company you should be having these conversations and i think for us we were blessed to have really good advice early on and so when you're having these conversations years after years waiting for this one moment this exit that may never happen it's tough place to be so for me i'm like okay i'm great we're there but i can't think about that but to your point absolutely like we wanted to exit i i love that i can have generational wealth for me and my family and it was always the goal right and so i think that um uh we also like halfway and took some chips off the table where we like sold uh some of our shares so that we could upgrade our lifestyle a little bit before and also have a nest egg just in case we don't sell and i know a lot of founders that haven't done that and i i implore them to do it because i've also heard of people going out of business and they're left with nothing well would you say it
Speaker 4kind of works both ways right so there's one side is insurance in case in case it all fell over you know you have the safety net but the other side like maybe you experienced this i i did for sure which was you take a little bit off the table you sort of satisfy that first level and then you're almost free to swing bigger because you're not all or nothing now what did you feel that way
Speaker 1when you guys did it i did and our financial advisor at the time told us he's like you're i don't know make a number it's worth five million dollars and in five years it's gonna be worth 20 million you're never gonna regret having buying the nicer house going on the extra vacation with your kids getting the upgraded car having the nicer phone you're never gonna regret having those experiences and i agree and i wholeheartedly agree with that that allowed us to then sit back and like work harder for like wait i want more of this and like dig your heels in and like this is this upgrade and lifestyle is everything so i for us it was really important and then the day you actually get the money you realize your life is doesn't change overnight i think that's another thing that happens is the the money hits the bank account i'll never forget because you know steven has his shares i have mine and we're like refresh refresh one day of and then like my half hit at like 10 and it was still like two and his hadn't hit and i was like oh i'm richardson you and um if i finally like went to the account and then we were like hey let's go celebrate let's go to lunch or go to dinner i forgot what it was but we had calls and it was like this whole thing we ended up doing nothing i sat on zoom call rest of the day you know and the next day woke up we still have to be on zoom calls so it it was this thing of my life didn't change just overnight is where it does change it's where you're spending a year of like actually making real change within your life like how do i make my life easier how do i get more time with my kids you you know person usually do is like hire a housekeeper and have maybe a chef once or twice a week you're not cooking or you know how do you get help on executive level or a nanny like we never had a nanny before right before we sold so it was a lot of these things of like this upgraded lifestyle but knowing i don't want my kids to be spoiled kids so like it's a balance within the lifestyle and we're still kind of figuring it out it's still pretty new
Speaker 3yeah what type of conversations i how i think you said your oldest was 14 oh it's he's nine so sorry nine four eight nine yeah it's okay well nine is is just getting to the age where you can start having some observations um and like questioning certain things have you do you have regular conversations
Speaker 1with them the thing is they are still little but the difference is our exit was very public so we're at every headline every single one of his teachers friends our friend everybody knows that it was two billion and everyone obviously thinks we took all the two million which is not true our two billion excuse me so i remember like one time i think it was like two days after the school was over and i was like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god you're just living life and a little girl she was in kindergarten she walked out she's like are you a billionaire and i'm like oh we got to have some conversations with our kids um like i didn't realize like how big it went so we sat him down and we were basically like hey it's ours not yours um our lives aren't going to change we're going to continue to be good people we're going to continue to be kind and give back and and do all that and then not shy away from it so we got them all fidelity investment accounts and put a little bit of money in so that they can start learning how to invest so they have quarterly meetings with our financial advisors and we're continually having these conversations because we're not naive to think that they don't know what are they
Speaker 4investing in are they like micron stock right now what are they doing they're like tesla and like at
Speaker 1the time they're like we're gonna do tesla you know the open eye ai and like apple nike they even wanted pepsi because they wanted poppy like all this stuff those all sound like great buys they were great but we have five thousand dollars to invest you know and you come back and some were down some were up depending on what they were doing it's it's just more of a learning thing for them to like work through it versus like going really big which i love he's
Speaker 4gonna have like qsbs at his 15th birthday today's podcast is brought to you by my friends at mercury uh they make the world's best banking product i think you know this already i use mercury for all my businesses i think i have like maybe seven or eight businesses we use mercury as our business banking across all of them and now they actually just launched a personal banking account so i have my personal account there I moved off of Wells Fargo and Chase. I'm just all in on Mercury. Why? I like products that are easy to use. I like products that get me and the problems that I have. So like very easy to make a joint account with my wife. Very easy to spin up virtual cards. One click and I get savings yield. It just has all the stuff that I need in one place. So if you're looking for the best banking product on the market, it's definitely Mercury. I will fist fight anybody who disagrees with me on that. Go to mercury.com slash personal and learn more. Mercury is a fintech, not an FDIC insured bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group and Column NA, members FDIC. Okay, so you do all that. Tell us about the sale because I feel like the M&A process is one of the most important parts of any company. You, as a founder, you get, you might do many businesses. You might work on businesses for years, but you really only do M&A like 1% of your entrepreneurial journey. So you don't get a lot of reps at it, but it's super important. Like the value can swing 30%, 50% based on how you approach that, when you go to market, how you go to market, how you do all that. Was it a easy process? Was it a super stressful process? Was there any great moments in the high stakes negotiations going on? Like what can you tell us about the story?
Speaker 1So there's that fine line within, especially beverage, because once again, it's like my experience in it is you can get too big to be bought and then you're forced to go IPO. And within a beverage, that's not great because then you don't have a distribution partner. And so you're looking at who can be a great distributor. If you have a distribution partner, there's only three people that can buy you, which is Keurig, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, and Coke. And so you're, you're, you're, you're kind of like, okay, yeah, sure. You could do what Celsius did and they were able to go, um, public, but Pepsi distributes them and has a small stake in the company. So there are other ways around it, but traditionally that's how it works.
Speaker 4Can you explain the distributor part? It's you need the actual retail entry. You need a manufacturing plant. What do you mean by you need a distribution partner? Cause you're obviously doing so well, what is it that they bring at that point that you need?
Speaker 1Yeah. So for us, we were a direct distribution model where it was called DSD. Um, we had 180 different distributors pieced together across us, putting, basically putting us on our truck and putting us on the shelf. You know, so all of that would move over to one person doing it. So we call it the red or the blue truck, right. Or the purple truck. So you have purple, which is Keurig, Dr. Pepper, blue is Pepsi or red truck. And so our goal is like, oh, great. We can now be on this blue truck. It's wonderful. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck.
Speaker 3We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck. We can now be on this blue truck.
Speaker 1We can now be on this blue truck.
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Speaker 3about it a lot more but and also have you guys heard the phrase they refer to boxers when they get successful they say uh it's a lot harder to wake up at 4 a.m to go for a run when you're getting out of bed in silk sheets and uh it's basically like you know it's hard to like go and get punched in the face figuratively or physically uh when you don't particularly have to I've noticed post exit on one on one side you definitely do think grandly and you do have more resources to turn ideas into reality but it could go either way it could be like well because I have resources or because I have time I can be starting 10 different things at once with tip which typically does not end well that use that lack of focus doesn't do good or you just don't grind as hard and and I I always have that fear I'm like oh am I just soft now Alison do it
Speaker 4does any of what we just said resonate with you or are you like no I don't get that I'm the opposite
Speaker 1of that yeah I think it's I think the purpose-driven people are the ones that are the ones that are the ones that are the ones that are the ones that are the ones that are the ones that are the ones that are the ones that are the ones that are the ones that are the ones that are the ones that are you know you I think purpose is more important than money but I think if you have purpose money will come and for me I had a 10-year purpose and then overnight it was gone it was a lot of loss for me for sure like what you're speaking to but I think that that's normal you look at these like olympic athletes that retire and then they're like wait now what like I think a lot of people deal with it in different ways throughout their life and for me it's like I don't know I don't for for us it's just like whoa this is over and it was really hard but then once I worked through that and found out like wait there's more purpose to life than working and like this right I have a incredible you know friend group I'm my wellness is a huge piece of purpose for me now and it's like so it changed a little bit and I think that um that's been really nice for me and I feel like I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life personally with me because of that but I am excited to build again and I am excited I miss the chaos I miss the team I miss the drive so I think both
Speaker 3could probably be true but what about with kids um I sold my company before I had a kid now that I've got I've got two kids Sean's got kids uh you guys each have three I definitely like I want to be home by a certain time whereas before I didn't have that but you have an interesting perspective
Speaker 1your come up was with babies it's like all I know and it's something I want them to see us to continue to work hard I think through example of us doing it again even though we don't have to I love that they can see that but I agree with you this time I think it'll be easier and having more help they're older I can take them with me to New York if I'm doing a trip for a press tour or something like that then it just allows for more experiences hey can I ask you you probably get
Speaker 410 times more of this than we do but um you know you're at an event you're speaking somewhere people come up to you and they're like oh hey I have this idea or like I'd love to tell you about my thing and you want to be nice and you want to be helpful but also the reality of the the world is that 99 out of 100 of those people are not serious enough to actually do the thing and I often have this urge which is just like I feel like I wish I could just shake them and just give them some real talk and I don't even know if they would want it or they would like it or they would listen to it but there's this deep like sense in me that like I really there's some real talk I wish I could just give them some real talk and give to more people so that maybe that 99 out of 100 would change to 84 out of 100 only would would not actually you know make it happen but now 16 now 16 of the 100 would make it happen and so what I wonder what that is for for you like what do you think is the real talk that people need when you know when people come up to you after an event what do you wish they actually like if only you knew if only you understood what this is actually gonna what you actually need to do or what this is actually gonna take what would you say to that person
Speaker 1so my biggest piece of advice if you're lucky enough to be in a room with someone like you or me or anyone that can give actual advice listen most people come up to you and they want to tell you everything about their business and they never ask a question there's one validation I don't know what it is they're like I'm studying this and we've done this and we have this manufacturer and we launched a target and then this is positioning and this is what I'm thinking through and I'm like okay like I don't know what to I don't know what to tell you because you haven't asked a question and so I'm always willing to give advice I'm not willing to do the work for you and I think that's another thing that people get the line blurred hey you've done this before can I get 10 minutes of your time well what are you doing well I want to be an entrepreneur I think this space could be interesting do not come to me with that figure it out come to me with real questions that I can add value and give back and actually move the needle for your life and your business and that's I think my biggest asset I don't think a lot of people realize if you're lucky enough to run into a Mark Cuban or a Rohan or me ask real questions and I think like if people can actually hear that it would be actually
Speaker 4helpful to them yeah I feel that I feel that for sure I have this a slightly different take on it which is I think you're right that like you gotta ask a real question or most people just want to be validated like it's the end of the event and they have their parking uh ticket and they just want you to validate it for them so they get free parking get out of here it's like I have this idea that I just kind of want you to like say yes so that I feel good and it's like did you want to feel good or did you want to actually move the ball forward here um by like kind of maybe unblocking something that was blocked but I would say even more than that is most people just are decidedly unserious about the things that they're doing in life and it's uh the problem is not their strategy it's not their circumstances it's that they are just not serious enough to like make it happen and you know when you meet somebody who's serious because they don't they don't have it all figured out but you can feel in somebody when they're very serious about it and you know when you meet somebody who's very serious about like you just kind of know this person seems like they have this energy that they're going to make this happen even if they know nothing right now even if they're on the wrong actively on the wrong track and they've got mother's beverage and it's apple cider vinegar and they're selling it at farmer's market but you can tell well I don't care where you start the slope of that line is going to be crazy if the person is actually like what I call a serious person and I just think there's most people are not serious people about the things that they're even the things that they say they want to do yeah and I think that the
Speaker 1they also everyone asks for my time and my money they want investment or 10 to 15 minutes to jump on it I I just I don't have that time time is a luxury now and so to your point I want to spend more time with my kids I want to like be present with my friends and live my best life I can't be on zooms for 40 hours a week giving you guys advice with you to point you just want that affirmation versus really getting down and and and like understanding uh how I can help them so I choose who I invest in and who I spend my time with very wisely and I I hope that doesn't hurt people's feelings because people give me advice and time over the years and building poppy and mother but it's just it's just a reality that we're in as well but I think if I can't you can't the right moment the right thing you asked the right question like I will help you I'm not mean it's like you know I want to give back and do all these things but it's just it's a tough position that that that people are put in I have an embarrassing
Speaker 4story of myself doing it wrong uh I emailed the head of YC so YC is like kind of like our mecca it's our church here in Silicon Valley it's like okay they're the best at incubating companies the president of YC I got his email I emailed hey Michael uh it's Michael Seibel at the time um and I was like Michael I would love to you know you did this live streaming thing I'm doing this live streaming thing would love to just kind of oh no pick your brain I said it I love to pick your brain yeah I wanted to take him out to lunch as if he can't afford lunch and I'm asking him for his time and then he just replied and I'm like okay I'm gonna do it I'm gonna do it I'm gonna do it like five seconds later he goes what's the question like what you know okay just ask your question right here if you want the if you're asking me for advice or for uh help like just ask it right here and maybe I could do it even faster for you and I realized in that moment hey I didn't actually have a crisp question I think I just generally wanted like a good feeling and to feel like I wasn't like a loser who was off in the wrong direction secondly like I wanted his time more than I actually wanted the help because what he was saying was true he's like if you want it now or we could try to schedule something four weeks from now and so I remember realizing that and um I kind of never did that again like I took that whipping once and I was like cool if I'm ever gonna ask somebody for their time let me just ask them the question straight away let's see if that solves the problem because yeah I would love to feel like I met you and I'm associated with you but that's for me that's not gonna help my business nor is it gonna help that person on
Speaker 1the other side of it either oh my gosh the amount of times I've responded back being like okay what's the question and then they they never then there's nothing silence nothing I think I saw
Speaker 3did I I think I saw somewhere maybe it was Wall Street Journal you did uh did you say you do a million
Speaker 1vacation post-exit. Is that right? Yes, it was a long one. What was the vacation? So I took like 20 of my family members and, you know, for my mom and dad and my sister and their kids and my dad and Stephen's parents and sisters. So it was a lot of people. And we went to four different places over a period of over a month. And it was just like our one big like FU trip post-exit. And I think a lot of people are like, what items did you buy? Like, I still don't even have a Birkin. Like, they're like, what piece of this did you buy? You know, I'm like, I want experiences. I want memories. I want all these things. And so have we done that since? No.
Speaker 4Are we going to do that every year? No. Was it even fun or was that like planning a wedding? You know, yeah, 20 people. I don't think I would enjoy that. I have PTSD on it, but I don't want
Speaker 1to sound like ungrateful. But yes, because then we're on there and you don't have like it's so new within us. You're still a little uncomfortable spending money, too. And so you haven't worked through those emotions. And then you're like, hey, I'm going to the spa. And then seven people raise their hands and they want to go. Then I'm on the call making seven people's spa appointments. So yes, it was. And then you're like the reservations and the food and the travel of it all. So yeah, I would not recommend it, even though it was a once in a lifetime thing. And it was marvelous and very blessed. Where'd you go? We went to Tuscany, Lake Como, Montenegro in Scotland.
Speaker 3There you go. Well, you actually, this sounds almost a little like silly, but you're, you're a very, you and Steven are both very fun follows on Instagram. You guys have a lot of fun. Do you have, this is the silly part, but how do you think about like having fun? Like, do you have a framework for your fun? Well, let me explain why. Like my wife and I just started doing like a very simple date night, but it's like on the calendar. And I'm like, oh, we had to schedule this. I didn't think, I thought we could be impromptu, but we couldn't. We had to schedule this, but you've, you've amped it up. Like you guys look like you have a ton of fun. Tell me, it sounds like Sean was making fun of me, but you,
Speaker 1you actually might have that. So I think somewhere along the way, we were taught that being serious equals being successful. And then we've, we were kind of taught that like fun is a distraction and that if you're serious, you should look serious and act serious and all of these things. And I'm so here to like throw that theory out the window. And I think it isn't a distraction. I think it's fuel. I think it's fuel for like not burning out in life. I think it's the ability to like, you should be having fun at work. You should be having fun in your life. And it actually fuels that success. And so like, that's actually been something like me and Steven talk about all the time is like the second we're not having fun, whether you're working hard, you shouldn't be doing that. So it's like all these people talk about hating their jobs and stuff like, oh, that's such a toxic environment. And I think it's like how we operated even at Poppy was it was fun. You know, the, the ability to put myself out there fully awkwardly, authentically like online and crazy dances, like it was the culture within Poppy too. We were having fun. And so I think it's like, oh, that's such a toxic environment. I think it's like how we operated the other day. Someone was like, why do you talk like that? And your voice is annoying. And like, you are doing fit checks and like all stuff. And I was like, because I want to, and I'm a confident queen and I'm obsessed. And like, why does it bother you? Like, you're not having fun. And so I think it's this ability to live life, not take it so serious. That's like, I don't know. Don't
Speaker 3you guys feel that too? Preach. Yeah. Well, the part that I don't know if Sean struggles with this, but the part that I got sucked into was like, to be successful, you have to be serious. And so like, I just started doing Instagram as well. And I feel it's very uncomfortable. I'm not used to have I'm not this, this motion I don't love still. And it definitely is rooted in like, don't want to look too silly. But also in terms of non social media, it's running a business, there is like a be serious, be successful type of energy. And I think the bigger you get, the more like, if you look at what Sean and I used to say, like six years ago, when no one watched this thing, it was a little bit different than now. And I think that like there, you do fall in the trap of like, you have to be more serious as you get bigger. And you get more confident, the more you
Speaker 1do it, you know, you don't just become confident, the start you start and confident catches up later. And so I think that it's funny, I pushed Steven to be online when we were post exit, I think he had like 1000 followers. And I was like, you got to get out there, people need to hear from you. He is so smart. We did very different things at Poffier and our creative brand, like all the fun, stuff that you get to see. And yet he ran our entire innovation team and supply chain and all this stuff. And like the hardcore business side is why we make so many such a good partnership. And I was like, your stories are so different than mine, and entrepreneurs need to hear them. And I hired him a social team to run them and like help him get up and running and to take that lift off. So that all they do is sit down and talk to the camera. And at first he hated it. Now it's he's honestly, he's better at making the time for it than me, if anything. So you just got to start.
Speaker 3Well, we appreciate you doing this. You're awesome. Thanks for coming on story. We've, we've been buying your product for years. And it's nice to have you as a friend now.
Speaker 4We'll have you come back when you launch your new thing. And we'll see if our predictions were
Speaker 1we're close even blown away. You're like, Oh my goodness, why has no one done it done it like this?
Speaker 4Well, now I must know. Interesting. Yes. Well, now we appreciate you.
Speaker 3All right, that's it. That's the pod.
Speaker 2All right, let's take a quick break. I want to tell you about marketing school. It is a podcast
Speaker 4that is part of the HubSpot podcast network, and it is run by Neil Patel and Eric Su. And these guys are both marketers who are running businesses. And so if you want real world tactics from practitioners who are actually out there in the field doing it, this is the podcast for you. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts.
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