#90: From Startup to Grown-Up: Jeff Byers, Co-founder and CEO of Momentous — Transitioning from N...

just because it was the right decision a year ago doesn't make it the right decision today is like one of the big things that I learned. The expectation of our business is to deliver results and results on top of results on top of results. Like we're growth equity backed, we were VC backed, like there are expectations and if you do it the same way that you've always done it, you're gonna get similar results.

Welcome back. This is From Startup to Grownup. My name is Alisa Cohn, and today I'm thrilled to welcome Jeff Byers to the podcast. Jeff is the co-founder and CEO of Memento. Momentumus, a supplement company on a mission to help people optimize their health and performance. Now, before he was an entrepreneur, Jeff was an NFL player. That experience gave him access to elite tools, technologies, and recovery systems that most of us will never see. When he left football, he realized there was a huge opportunity to bring these same tools to the rest of us, and that became the seed of Momentumus. We had a great conversation. We talked about what it takes to go from a high-performance athlete to a high-performance CEO, how he dealt with culture clashes during a messy merger, and why effort and attitude are the two things he writes down when he's having a tough day. Jeff also talked about the challenges of merging two companies with very different values and operating styles and what it took to rebuild the team when that integration did not go as planned. Jeff shared how he made the difficult call to bring the company back to in-person work, knowing that it would cost him great people, and also why he thinks speed and cultural clarity matter more than consensus. Jeff also opened up about the pressures of navigating a tense board situation, raising capital in the midst of conflict, and the leadership habits that helped him stay centered. And then we also talked about stress, not only as a negative force, but as a sign that the stakes are high and that the work matters. This is a fantastic conversation with some great nuggets of practical wisdom. So please enjoy my fantastic conversation with Jeff Byers, co-founder and CEO of Momentous. Jeff, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you.

Yeah, likewise, Alisa Cohn.

I'm super excited that we're together. You know, I'm, I'm so intrigued by your background because you were an NFL player and that you had access as a professional sports player to all these like tools and optimization factors. And then you left and you realized, hey, civilians don't get to take supplements. They don't get all this recovery tools. And so you started, I think first AMP Human, which ultimately became Momentous. So I wanna definitely get into that, but I'm just so curious. You seem to have like a personal mission about optimization and health and, you know, recovery and, and sort of just like optimizing your health? Is there a personal mission there for you? Why is it so important people have access to it? Yeah.

Ultimately, I believe people who are healthy are generally more happy, and happy people lead to better people. And when we think about how do we create a better world, it starts with happy, healthy people, to be, to be really frank. And if you kinda like boil it back, like I'm at my best when I'm healthy.

Yeah.

Performing. And you know, not to say that you can't be happy without being healthy, but it is a big component of that. And so I, I fundamentally believe that there can be more positivity and more positivity and just like gen— generally speaking, that we can all have a greater impact on this world if we are living healthier, happier lives.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I mean, I'm of course a fitness fanatic and health nut myself, so I'm probably also gonna get some free advice from you about how to optimize my own health. But you know, I also just wanna ask you, most people don't ever get to talk to an NFL football player. So when you were back in those days, can you just tell us a little bit what that's like? Like what's the schedule like and what is the best part of that and what's the worst part of being a pro football player?

Oh man, there's, there's a lot of great, things about being a pro athlete. I would say the worst, the worst thing is you just feel like crap a lot, right? Yeah. As a, as a professional player, you just always beat up and that's just, you just learn to, learn to live to be in pain at, at some point. But there is just so many incredible things about being a professional athlete. First off, like, you know, most kids, me included, dream to be a pro at something., right? Whether it's a musician, an actor, an athlete. And I was incredibly lucky to be a pro athlete. You know, it was my childhood dream and like, it's just not all of us get those opportunities. And so first off, that was incredible. But like the, the, for me, I'm a very team camaraderie, like the moments in the locker room with a team is very special. And you know, when you have a, a common goal, you basically live together, you play together, and you work together. Yeah. It's very tribal from that sense. I, I would say scheduling, right? It's a long schedule, but not like as an entrepreneur, it's nothing crazy, right? It's actually a way better schedule to be quite frank. Is it? Oh yeah, for sure. As an NFL player, you have 8 road games a year, so you on the road 8 times a year.

Mm-hmm.

You know, as an entrepreneur, I feel like I'm on the road 8 times a month. Yeah.

That makes sense. But I mean, you're, but you're practicing. I mean, your season is short, but you're practicing so much. And then to your point, you're kind of playing hurt most of the time, right? Yeah.

Right. Yeah. But the schedule's also very predictable.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Like, I know what Monday looks like. I could, I mean, I could go through and pretty much probably on a, on like hourly calendar, like map out every team I was at because it's just like Tuesdays are the same, Wednesdays are the same, Thursdays are the same. And it's like this, right? It's very rhythmic on how a schedule goes and it's just like, that's what you do. You know what Friday's gonna be, you know Saturday, you know how you travel, you know what you eat, you know what you, you know how you sleep and all those things. So, yeah, that is very much, I loved the, I love that you always knew what the scoreboard was, right? What, like, not from like a game perspective, but like, you know what winning is, right? And you can, like, you know what winning is for the person next to you and the other person next to you. And that, that clarity is really, really impactful as well.

Yeah, I love that. I think that's in, in business, we all don't always know. We, you sometimes know what winning is, but especially when you're building a startup, you don't know. And so the clarity of the scoreboard and the clarity of like what you have to do must be very, and then the structure you're talking about must be very comforting. Were you ever nervous when you got on the field?

Oh yeah. I think what, uh, one of the things that I translate most over to, right, entrepreneurship and running a growth stage business is, is this like, you learn to love to be uncomfortable and have a lot of stress, right? Because as an elite athlete, like, there's a lot riding on everything and there's a lot of people watching and a lot of people depend upon that. And I think that's very similar to A, being an entrepreneur, right? But then as a CEO of a business, like, there is a lot of pressure and every single day because you have lots of constituents, like you have your employees, you have your board, you have your investors, right? You have your customers that all have expectations. And what I love is it, it, like walking onto the field for practice or a game feels a lot like walking into the, in the office for me, right? There's just like this high amount of like, it's important. That I show up and I show up the best I can, not just for me, but for everybody else. And a high amount of stress, like the stakes are high, right? Different, but they're still high. And that, like learning to love to be uncomfortable and not knowing what's gonna happen necessarily. And like you're gonna make mistakes and get beat and all of that is like something I really, really love. And I've taken like I've taken from, from sport and found like, that is one of the things I loved about sport that I found in business.

Totally get that. And I think it's so important to realize like, yep, we have pressure and we have stress. And by the way, some stress is good for you and it helps you with high performance. Now, too much stress over time, especially chronic, is not good for you. But like, did you develop rituals or routines or tactics? And, and do you have rituals, routines, and tactics to help you manage your stress and make sure it's at the right level when you walk into now your office or the boardroom?

Yeah. I mean, I probably use stress differently than others do in it. Like, to me, like, stress isn't pulling my hair out. Stress is importance and pressure, right? Combined on that. And for me, like, I love that feeling, right? And like, I call it stress. It might not be like, I'm not losing sleep over it. Like, I know what I'm doing is important and that is really crucial to what I do. So like, For me, it's always like having a very short memory is something that makes you really, really effective as an athlete, but also as a business leader. Right? Because you're gonna lose and you're gonna make mistakes. And what you have to do is you have to very quickly learn from that and move on. Right? Dwelling on the past only creates more problems. And it's no different than, than what I learned in sports of like, as an offensive lineman, which I played, you get beat and you give up a sack, in like 30 seconds, you have to play another down, right? And you have to learn really quick what happened, what was my mistake? That's not gonna happen again. And you have to have that mindset of that's not gonna happen again. I would also say what I've learned is like, like you have to have like, like the mindset of like, I'm gonna win and I'm gonna get it done and I'm gonna fight until it's not. And that goes the same way as well. Like, If you have doubt, right? Like we all have fears, but like if you truly don't believe that you can do it, you're gonna have a really hard time doing it. And I would say that's another big ritual of like, like what and who I am. I do some breathing before like things to like reset, but the biggest thing that I do is like, I've been taught like two things have gotten really ingrained in me from my childhood. It was like, there's two things you can control in your life and two things that are really important, right? There's a lot of things you can control and a lot of things that are important, but that Venn diagram of overlap, there's not that many things. And two of those things are attitude and effort, right? You get to choose how you show up every single day and how you react to problems. I mean, those two words are something I think a lot about, and it's a ritual of me when like times are tough. What can I control? How am I going into— how am I approaching the problem? And am I giving it everything I can to actually fix it, right? And if I take a step back and say yes, then I'm fine with it, man. I think that's, that to me, those two words sit with me a lot and like I write 'em down when I'm having a bad day.

You know, you write down effort and attitude.

Yep. Just sticky note. It's just like something I remember and it's something that I used to do as an athlete. Like I used to tape my wrists and I used to write like, hey, if I'm dragging or I needed to, like had a bad day the other day, it wasn't what I needed to Right? It wasn't the plays that I needed to remember. It was what can I control, right? I can control how hard I work. So I'd write attitude on one wrist, effort on the other wrist as like a reminder of like, I get to choose how I show up and I get to choose how I work. And the rest is the rest. Because if I do that, cards will generally fall in my favor.

Yeah. I, yeah, it's so powerful. I think people really dismiss the idea of self-talk. And, you know, sort of how you talk to yourself and, and what, how you approach problems. But it sounds like you really understood and understood the power of that from an early age. Is that right?

Yeah. 100%. And I'd say the other, the other ritual that I, that I have is like always knowing what the end goal is, right? Like I think a lot about my why, my purpose, right? Why am I doing what I'm doing? And that purpose is really, really powerful 'cause it helps guide good decisions.. And it also helps guide you in really hard discussions because if you're right, if you know your purpose, it makes it really actually easy to do really hard things or make hard decisions or have hard conversations on that. And it like, it, that's been like my purpose and my why has, has been really important to me.

That's so great. Is there an example that you could share about something that you did or decision you made, which was a hard decision to make, which was for you, I won't say easy necessarily, but made easier because you were focused on your purpose. Is there like an example?

I think there's like people, I, I always go back to people 'cause people are the hardest conversations to have, right? Whether somebody's having, right, is not performing or you're having to let them go. I go back to like, one of my purposes is like, I believe people who are healthy are happy, right? And happy people make the world a better place. And, and always go back to like, every decision around people you do not love, right? And it's not that they're bad people, right? And if, if it's not, if you're feeling not a fit, they're probably not feeling not a fit. And so, like, my purpose is to make sure that I have a happy, healthy, thriving workforce, right? Because my ultimate vision is how do we create a bigger impact in this world? And people who are not happy, healthy, thriving, right? Meaning they're not performing in this job or they don't have the right tools, or et cetera. Like, that's the exact opposite. And so going into hard conversations, remembering like, what is the purpose? Like, why did I start Momentus? Was it to be a miserable employer? No, right? Was to create a company, a high-performance company. And that means creating, right, happy, healthy, thriving people. And so that's a really good one for me is like, Having the hard conversations with people is the hardest thing and one of the worst parts of being a manager or a leader. But when you can go back to why, your why, your why, it actually makes it a lot easier versus not.

Yeah, I think that's such an important point because you and everybody, and certainly all founders and CEOs and just like leaders have so much trouble with those conversations because they're hard because you're letting someone down because they, you know, people are, you're about to get, you know, you're about to fire fire someone or even just give them difficult feedback. And of course they're not gonna be happy about it. And so you have to find the ways to do that cuz that's part of the job. And so I really appreciate what you just said. You know, I, I had Scott Velsky, the founder of a company that got bought by Adobe, uh, Behance, and one of, you know, very well-known entrepreneur. And one of the things that he said was that when he had to go approach difficult things, he said to himself, do your job. He said, do your freaking job. Yeah. He said, so like, It's this notion of your job is not to make everyone feel good or to shy away from sort of having difficult conversations. Your job really is at times to tell the truth to somebody even when it's gonna hurt. And I love how you feel like your purpose really animates your, even your ability to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Super important. Before we leave your NFL history, I guess I would just like to know, 'cause you, you had your, the coach Pete Carroll, very famous, very famous leader and coach. What kinds of things did you learn from Pete Carroll about leading that you now take with you in leading your company?

Yeah, one of the, like, been lucky to see really great coaches and a couple bad coaches. And, and, you know, I, I often use football and my experience in football as a great analogy to some of the things we're building. But Pete, Pete is an, an incredible leader. Right. And he's a visionary in how he leads and somebody that I've been very lucky to spend a lot of time with in formative years. I was a two-time captain for him at USC, and I also played for him for a real hot second in the pros, and he cut me and let me go and all of those things. So it was all like, but watching Pete, and one of the things that I, that I take, take the most from Pete is he showed up almost the same every day. You never questioned what and how he was gonna show up. And I think that's really, really powerful to lead when, when people know what to expect from you, it's very easy to have, it's easier to follow when they don't know, are they gonna get asshole Jeff or fun Jeff or high energy Jeff? That's hard. It's actually really, really hard. And so the consistency that Pete brought was, was something I noticed and respected immensely. And he always, the other thing from Pete, he always went back up to like, what is our purpose? Right? It wasn't to win, right? It wasn't to win right now, but that helps, right? It's how does everything ladder up, right, to this? And it's like, here's what we're trying to do. It's the top that we can be. Now to get there, we can't worry about 3 weeks from now. We gotta win today, right? And how do you win today, right? And treat every day like it's a little micro competition. And you gotta win more days. You gotta win more plays than you lose, right? You gotta win more days and practices than you lose. You gotta win more weeks than you lose. And like, you just keep stacking those on. And the, like, the other thing is like, when you, like, Pete has a visionary and passion comes through. Right? People who are dull and dry are very hard to do special things for. And, you know, I, I absolutely love the energy that Pete brought and what Pete was able to do is get more out of people because of the energy that he brought and how he was able to galvanize, galvanize around, right? The, the boring tasks that have to get done to have the awesome time, which is Right. Playing on Saturdays or Sundays.

Yeah.

That was really powerful of like bringing that level of energy all the time. You didn't know if Pete was having a bad day. You just knew Pete was excited to be there and excited to have everybody else there with him.

Yeah. I love that consistency. And then also that level of passion and energy. And I would just even say like leading from the front. Yeah. So that people wanted to follow him because, you know, it's hard. Like, it's like going into battle. I mean, football is such a hard sport and obviously just painful. And I think the same is true for an entrepreneur because there's a lot of things like swirling around you. And so you really need to be kind of showing people we're going over there with a level of enthusiasm and excitement and passion.

Yes.

Yeah. I love that. Now, Jeff, you started your journey. Tell us about like how you left football and started your journey as an entrepreneur and also when you got to Momentus.

Yeah. If we back up a, a bit in college, I was an incredibly highly recruited athlete. Very fortunate, played on a national championship team as a freshman. And then I had hip surgery, 2 hip surgeries followed by 2 back surgeries. So I missed 2 consecutive seasons, my second and third season. And in that process I had a, like a pretty big inflection point in my life. And after my second hip surgery, it was, hey, football's gonna be very different for you and you might not ever play again conversation. And it, and it made me really reevaluate life after football and like what that meant.

Was that hard? That must have been really hard to hear.

Every athlete goes through it, right? I was just like, every athlete has a game taken away at some point.

That's true. Yeah.

I was just really lucky to realize that really young, right? It got taken away when I was 19 years old, right? In my mind, right? Like I had to process football as something very different than what it was, right? It was like, hey, what I know and what I think is different. And it made me plan for life and realize. So the big epiphany for me was football doesn't define me. I define me. Football's a part of me. And when you're great at things, right, as an entrepreneur or anything, you let that define you versus you define you. And they, they intertwine, but at the end of the day, momentous can get taken away. Football can get taken away. Lots of things can., but I get to define me and how I go forward. So that, that looking back was a massive inflection point of what matters to me and like also made me realize what I loved about the game, right? And, you know, did I love winning? Yes. Do I like, but I loved, right? I love the challenge. I love, right, the team aspect. I love this feeling in your gut that there's a lot of pressure and that what you do matters. Right. So anyways, so I had that and I got on track to graduate undergrad in 3 years. So I got my undergrad at USC in 3 years and I got accepted into the Marshall School of Business. And so while I was still under scholarship plan at USC, I, I got my MBA as well, which—

Oh, wow.

Was unique.

I'm sure.

But it made it really unique. Like my, my, a lot of my friends were the professionals within the organization. So, right. I got close with like the PTs and the strength coaches and all those people, like those people I spent time with, right? When you're going to grad school, it's very different than hanging out with 18-year-olds who just came outta high school who are going to the NFL. And so I just was super curious and learned a lot about performance and passionate about that category anyways. So I had a, yeah, go ahead.

I was just gonna say, that's fascinating. So like, first of all, you had such a different experience as a normal college football player because there you are like undergoing these surgeries and realizing that one way or the other, this game is not forever in a way that most like 19-year-olds, 20-year-olds are not thinking about. And then the second thing is that it sounds like you just had a curiosity about the world, like getting your MBA and, you know, talking to the PTs and sort of understanding a bigger picture, which does sound unusual. I could be wrong, but like it sounds unusual for someone heading to pro sports or high, high, let's say high-level sports.

It is very unusual for the most part. There are a few of us. But it's all of us have had some, like, some sort of inflection point or, right, you came in as not the best, right? You came in like, and like you evolved into being something special, but like you always knew there was something other, like you, anyway, so I think that's pretty, it is a pretty unique spot, but the curiosity angle I think is something that, right, has suited me very well of like, there's always something more to learn and you're never done, right? Like this entrepreneur, like when there's 3 of us is very different than it is today, which is gonna be very different than it is gonna be in 3 years.

Yeah.

And those who fail to be curious and learn and opti— and like change, like every 3 months I have to be a different CEO because the company demands it. Right. And at some point the company will demand something that I don't want to be or that I can't be. I know that will happen. It could be in 10 years, it could be in 3 years, it could be in 20 years, but there is a point in time that that will likely happen. But that's when I lose my curiosity about doing things different. Like right now, I see.

Anyway, so yes, I, I have more to ask you about, but, but I'm happy to, I'd like you to trace us to get from that, these moments in playing football to, to Momentus.

Yeah. So anyways, when the NFL had a long-standing job offer, when I left the NFL, in 2013.

You had a longstanding job offer because you were in business school and people knew about you.

Yeah. And I basically, you know, in finance and anyways, I realized as soon as I retired really quickly that I did not want to be in finance and portfolio management and any of that. Right. It was not who I was. And I could have a, like, it was intellectually stimulating, but it wasn't, it wasn't growth mindset. And it wasn't team-oriented. And there also wasn't like, Pete had this quote, do it, do it better than it's ever been done before. Awesome. And I just also was like, I have a different calling and I have a calling to create impact in this world, whatever that means. You know, like, so anyways, I ended up, you know, sitting at the wrong side of the table of a lot of investment conversations. And I had kind of a mentor that was like, you're at the wrong side of the table. Like you're a doer, you're a builder, right? Bet on yourself. Like that's what you like you are so energized by entrepreneurs talking about and what they're building and building teams, et cetera. Like anyway, so I joined early stage biotech. I was employee 4, and that was ultimately what Amp HP, which you mentioned first, we spun that technology out for use in the consumer space in, in the middle of 2018.

And what was the technology?

It's a transdermal drug delivery system, and we use it to create a product called PR Lotion. PR Lotion helps buffer acid in the muscle. Incredibly niche, niche product, but it was doing something really cool that we were getting traction within US Special Forces, elite pro cyclists, elite runners.

Was there— it's a recovery tool.

It actually helps reduce the acid while you train. And so it allows you to train a little harder for a little longer or perform a little harder for a little longer. So it pulls the hydrogen ions acid off the muscle. But unless you're going really, really hard or really, really long, it has, it doesn't have implications for the consumer. Anyways, we saw this as an opportunity to create a high-performance company. As we spin this out of the biotech was going into phase 2 clinical trials, et cetera. Like they were on this very different trajectory than commercializing the technology. They were in prove it for medical and pharmaceutical, which is awesome. And they're still ripping and it's exciting to see their progress. But for me, that was very slow, slow business.

Yeah.

Learned a ton, right? As you go into phase 2 clinical trials with FDA, it's like, hurry up and let's wait for about 3 years. And then it's like, hurry up, then wait for another 3 years.

And so you're, the speed wasn't quite your liking.

And it kind of like, I helped them raise some capital and like get this commercial idea off the ground.. And outside of, if there wasn't a, this commercial idea or raising capital, my skillset was not very good either. Like, my science background, I took oceanography in college, right? Like, I'm, I'm not built to like work at a, you know, pre-revenue pharmaceutical company, right?

You, they weren't asking for an oceanography expert, unfortunately. Otherwise you would've been the right guy.

Oh, I'm sorry. Anyways, we spun this business out. With this idea that we could create a company around it, not necessarily around the product, but we always, we always knew we had to put more. But what we had was really unique access into places very few businesses were, and this vision to create a high-performance company around it. And, you know, I think like a lot of entrepreneurs, like we said, we're gonna build the next great high-performance company. It sounded really cool. How we were gonna do it, I had no idea at the time, right? And, and not where, like, not where we are today. Like I would've in a million years never said I would be a supplement company CEO.

Yeah. So how did that happen?

So, right, 2018, we start growing the business, win, win a $1.8 million government contract to further clinically validate and develop this product, you know, raise some capital. And it was, hey, we need to figure out how do we leverage our unique ecosystem further and further. And one of the things that was really core to me that I believed in was like, We are at the forefront of high performance. Stay at the forefront of high performance, right? Do things that keep us there, 'cause that's what makes us special. 'Cause I'm not a marketing expert, right? Like, how do you do Facebook ads and things like that? That's not me. And that wasn't my co-founders either. So anyways, as we, as we progress, we were looking at different technologies to buy, different companies, et cetera. And we like, we looked at a hardware company, software company, food company, like we just looked at all sorts of things. We looked at innovating within, we looked at innovating, you know, from universities and it just, nothing actually worked out. And, and we had a board that, you know, hey, you guys should look at dietary supplements and nutrition. And it's like, you know, it would be a natural fit. And I fought it, my co-founder and I fought it. And it was, you know, one of those things. I had a friend mentor that said, hey, like you've used more nutritional supplements than most humans, right? As a professional athlete. Right. If you don't have a, like, If you don't believe there's a brand that speaks to you, or if you don't believe there's brands that have the quality and you like, there's an opportunity here.

Hmm.

And that was kind of the, man, let's consider it. And we started thinking about building it ourselves. And what we found out was it's really easy to build a supplement company, like scary easy. Like you and me could do it tomorrow, essentially. And it was just a marketing play, like, like most companies in our category are marketing companies, not high-performance companies, not truly health-conscious companies. And it just felt so disingenuous to build it ourselves. And then there was this brand Momentus that I got to know one of the board members and they were born in pro and college sports, pretty similar to what we were at Amp Human. You know, we were close to the same size, but they were looking to make a shift. Like they had built a really successful portfolio., but their portfolio was designed with the top dietitians in these pro and college sports teams. And so they had a pretty small portfolio and I had this vision to how do you take this really best-in-class product in really large total addressable market, combine it with this, you know, consumer biotech, really innovative, invest in clinical, do it better than it's ever been done, and then like smash 'em together because I had this really crazy ecosystem. We just didn't have a big enough market opportunity to leverage it all the time.

Yeah.

Let's just have this incredible product with this really unique ecosystem, but they didn't have necessarily all the voices to make the gas go. So it was like this beautiful combo business. Anyways, we bought that, I bought that business, acquired and merged the business together in the middle of 2021 and That was like a year of just getting punched in the face hard.

I can imagine. I definitely wanna hear all about the integration and, you know, let's say mis— I'm sure mistakes were made, but like, just to clarify, so you guys had this, this sort of lotion that was like not real, like it was a, it was a good pro— good product and it gave you access to a whole bunch of like different people, places, and things. Yeah. But it didn't have a strong market. And Momentous had what, a few supplements, a couple of supplements?

Yep. A couple sports nutrition supplements.

A couple good supplements, but not, yeah, no real, not a great job with sort of delivery system with the channel. And so that's what the kind of the marriage was. And did you, you personally bought? No, like the comp— your company bought it, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Investor-based, we did an equity deal, et cetera. I, I wish I had capital. Like one of my learnings is don't do an equity deal of companies that are pretty close to equals. It creates a lot of, a lot of opinions. Whereas like if you just pay somebody cash for their business, they tend to like it tends to be way smoother because when you merge two businesses together, my biggest learning is one wins, one loses, right? And if you try to straddle the fence, nobody wins.

So true. Merger of equals, it doesn't really work. Yeah. Did you not know that going in? You probably said, oh, we'll be a merger of equals, we'll be equal partners, it'll be beautiful.

Yeah-ish. I mean, everybody kind of tells you, but like, guess what? The best way to learn is get hit in the face a few times, which I definitely did. And my co-founder as well, like she comes from McKinsey and Company and You know, like we looking back, she's like, of course this shit didn't work. Of course it was hard.

She should have known.

I mean, you knew, but like you, you take, you know, like we were small businesses, like you take chances when you need to. And that was just how, how the business was done. And hey, we did like, this is the middle of COVID We didn't have liquidity, right? To like go buy. And it's like, that was what we needed to do to grow the business. And that's what they needed to do. Yeah.

That makes total sense.

Yeah. Like once we figured out, like, once I figured out like, hey, I can't please two sides and the best path forward is probably not the best path that either brand was on before. It's a different path, right? And we're creating something new. That was, that was the unlock, right? Of like, hey, I, here are my values. Here are Erica and my values, like my co-founder's Erica. Here's what we believe and here's where we're going. Here's our culture that we're establishing. It's not for everybody, right? But that's super hard when you like get married to another company and another board and you're like trying to make sure everybody's happy. Like, making people happy is not what happens in mergers and acquisitions, point blank. There are winners and losers, stop. And it's hard. And like, I learned that, we learned that, and it created, right, some ripple effects where Right? We are super— I believe we are super fortunate to be where we're at. And it was because my co-founder and I were pretty steadfast and like, here's our moral compass, here's our values, here's what we wanna do, and we will not lose.

Yeah. So there's a lot there. What, what other mistakes would you call out? Like specific tangible mistakes would you say you, they, the group, the team made in this merger process and You know, and what is the advice you have for others to help them avoid these mistakes?

Ultimately, as the CEO, you have to make the decisions right in there. And it's one of those things that I learned through this process is there's always noise and chatter and all of that, but ultimately somebody will give you advice. Your head is up in the guillotine and you better make those decisions that you want to make based upon other people's feedback. And if you try to please everybody, you please no one in there. But also like, I don't like, I'm very passionate about doing it how I want to do it in my way. Like not in that egotistical way, but like I, it's really hard to do what we do as an entrepreneur in transition and to just be, to do it somebody else's way because they want you to is super hard and it's not rewarding or fun. And for me, what I love most about this is like every day is fun, right? Is because we're able to build the culture and the team that I want to show up and work for and I wanna be a part of.

Yeah. What was, what was not true when you first merged? Like what was a way that they wanted to do it that you didn't wanna do it? Or what would like the, what was the mismatch in values? 'Cause that's kind of normal, but what was the specifics?

I think more broadly, right? What we tried to do was blend two cultures together, right? And that blending of cultures, you know, like they were very methodical on how they made decisions. Speed is a core value of me, bias towards action. Move, move, get off the X, get off the X, right? Where they were very methodical and had a lot of discussions around everything that was happening.. And I was like, like the fa— like, get off the X as fast as you can, right? It's a military term. Like, on the X you die. And that was just like, like complete polar opposites of, of how you operate as a business. And it makes people really uncomfortable who is used to having a lot of conversations and discussions and like, you know, to me, which was just like, this wall, let us run through this wall together immediately. And I think both, I mean, both things work, but they can't work together at the same time. And for me, like, it was where do they fit? And so what we tried to do was kind of do both. And what you, what it turns out is that doesn't work across that. And I also like, yeah, I mean, so anyways, that, that was a big one, a big, big one for me. That, I would say, the biggest challenge.

Yeah, I, I think that's so powerful, like to have an understanding of where you're coming from. So like your thing is speed and their thing is like, let's say being methodical. And as you just said, both of them can work, but they actually can't work for you. And I think that is so important to have that self-awareness as a CEO and as a founder to recognize like, honestly, what is gonna work for me in a, in a company that I have to go into every day and lead and be joyful and love and think is fun. And, you know, when it starts veering off the culture or the values of the founder or the CEO, it just, it sort of is no longer tenable.

Yeah.

Yeah. So what did you do? You know, you sort of had this realization like, you know, this isn't gonna work. What did you ultimately do to decide, like, to, to make a decisive, you know, point about where we're going and how we're gonna kind of coalesce as a company?

Part of the challenge, right, is like you have two cultures previously, right? Both companies needed to come together. Right, to have, right, a real chance of being successful. But they were two very different companies than the company we are today, right? People in both those companies were very different than what we needed to go forward. The investors had different beliefs and views than what we needed to go forward. And so I think the, like, the, the biggest thing that happened is like we had to reset the culture and that meant it was like a really painful 6 months. So, call it, took us like 6 months to get to, right? Like, oh shit, this is what we have to do. Then another 6 to 9 months to like reset the business.

Yeah. What was that process like? Like what was the step-by-step process to reset?

Yeah. I mean, looking back, like, you know, we lost a lot of people, right? A, we let people go that probably maybe like that I regret sometimes letting go 'cause they're talented or people left because it wasn't a fit anymore. And so like, I would say we tr— we tried to hold onto people 'cause we felt like we had to, or we were rash with people rather than saying, what do we need and building forward. So like that 6 to 9 months, like post the first 6 months, we learned a lot, right? And we kind of, you know, like, what do we need as a bus— business and how do we go accept through that? And it wasn't, like we didn't know what we needed, right? We were, you know, combined businesses, call it $5.5, $6 million, right? We were pretty small, mostly D2C and pro and pro and college sports teams. So it was like really trying to figure out actually what we needed to be successful was actually a lot harder than I thought. And we just, we had to rebuild the entire team over that period. And, you know, realistically, like we're always rebuilding the team, but in a different way. Like we went from, you know, call it 20 people right after merger, like to where today, po— like pre-merger, there's my co-founder and I and 2 other people left.

Hmm. Wow. From that time.

4 people that made that time. And it was a hard ask. Actually, I take that back. We just rehired one back. She's our SVP of marketing. She runs the marketing for us now. And she was pre-merger and she didn't, it didn't work out. Burn it. It is what it is, but incredibly talented. And we found a way to bring her back, which is—

And now she's back.

Yeah.

That's amazing. I think people have to really understand that, like, when you go through something that's hard and you say, you know, you say kind of, I think nicely, maybe even euphemistically, reset the culture, that's like a normal experience. And what that always means is you lose people. You lose people because they don't wanna be there anymore because of this cultural reset. And then also you have to unfortunately part ways with people because they're probably not the right people for this new phase. But I also wonder what role did communication have in that reset?

Yeah, a lot. I would all like, I don't know, there's a lot of things like we were in the midst of COVID right? Like if you think about like full moment, the Momentous brand was a fully remote business.

Mm-hmm.

And Amp Human was mostly based in Utah. And so just had this like fully remote versus in-person. And then COVID happened and everybody kind of dispersed. And it, and it's really hard to build trust initially over Zoom, build rapport and trust, especially bringing two teams together. And I would say that really, really was a struggle of how do you build culture, right? In a fully remote when there's no basis, right? There's no framework. You know, it's like companies that were really big, that had very well-established culture, cultures. When you go into a remote workforce, you can maintain those cultures because there's already systems and processes and unspoken truths that happen, right? When it's like we're blowing shit up, it's hard. And that was a really hard, hard thing was like this lack of in-person time to like build trust and rapport. That is so crucial. In a lot of, right, culture. Like, we're, we're people, we're beings. Like, we're, we do a lot better and there's a lot of things that happen in person that don't happen over a Zoom call.

Totally. So how did you do it? Well, how did you approach it, I should ask?

Yeah, it's hard. I like, this is, this is where it's like, timing was not our friend with the global pandemic and like, back to work, all of that. So what we did was in Jan of 2024, we said, hey, we're back to in-person, right? 3 days a week hybrid schedule. We still are 3 days a week hybrid, but right, it's gonna create pain. And we lost good people, like talented people because of it. But what we did was that culture matters and you build culture in person.

Yeah.

And you don't build culture in person every 6 months when you come together, you build culture right in the, you know, product and marketing go to lunch and you build, right? You build it, right? Whiteboarding and you build it, right? Like understanding that sometimes people are having a bad day, right? But that's hard to catch over Zoom or Slack. And so we really invested in being together and that was, it took us a while to get there, but we also invested in, in in the EO, it's called EOS, Entrepreneur Operating System, right? Which I'm sure you're aware of, which is basically just like, what is, what is an operating system for our business that helps install, like, how do you run meetings? How do you have quarterly conversations with your people? What's your scorecard, right? And how do you talk about your scorecard, right? They call it the Vision Traction Organizer. It's fantastic, right? Like, we talked about all that stuff, but it wasn't on a front and back piece of paper. And now it is. So it's like those super things, like all combined, it's like, we're all on the same page. We know what we have to do this year. We talk about it often. It goes up every Tuesday when we have our team meeting, right? And it's on every screen, right? If not, somebody's not taking the meeting, like what's important and why. So anyways, that was a, a big, a big deal for us as a business to get people and adopt the EOS system.

I love that. I mean, by the way, everyone has this experience with remote work, either it's working for them or not working for them. Apparently for you it was not working. And, you know, it sounds like you, you had to bring everybody— did people have to move when you brought people back to the office? People had to move to, to Utah?

We opened, so about a third of our team was based in Utah, a third was in LA, and a third was remote. And so what we did, right, very few roles got to stay remote, but like some of our sales team did. Right? Because—

Makes sense.

They called on different channels and it didn't, they didn't need to. But what we had was a third base in LA. And so we opened an LA office Jan 1st of last year.

Got it.

And we closed the LA office Jan 1st of this year.

Oh, wow.

It was two cultures being formed, right? And it was actually creating more drag on the organization as a whole because what we had hoped to like brought everybody together and they had an awesome culture, awesome team, but the collaboration between the two offices created more drag. It's like, oh, I need to get a meeting set. Let's go set it in two weeks. And it's like, just pick up the, like if you were in the office, you would just walk down and say, hey, can you help me with this? And so it was creating more drag in the organization than it was good, right? And it created a really hard management of a pretty small business. I'd like to have, you know, 25 people there and 25 people here. Like, it just wasn't, it wasn't long-term sustainable and didn't, didn't help us achieve our mission better. At the time, it seemed like the right move, but looking, like, for me as a leader, I had to change, like, change what my belief was. And it was really hard. It was so, we have, like, so a year ago, call it a year and a half ago, we gave everybody the option. Right? You can be one of two hubs, right? And then in the LA hub, when we closed it down, we said, we'd love to welcome you to Utah. And we're in that phase right now where like some people are, you know, they come every other week to Utah and they're trying to figure out if this is right for them. And we are really committed to those who continue to perform and like, how do we incentivize them to be based here in Utah? Or how does their role, like, does their role have to be here? Or not. So.

So honest, Jeff. So honest. Like, yep, we tried this. It didn't work. We tried remote. It didn't work. We opened 2 offices. We thought that would work, that would like accommodate everybody. It didn't work. And now we're kind of like, I would say like surrendering to the fact that we believe that our company needs to be in person. And so then people have to find, you know, it sounds like you're also being like very thoughtful and mindful about it. Like we understand people's lives and like, let's see if we can work it out. And it's not like a tomorrow thing, but that's kind of where you're headed. And I just so appreciate how honest you're being about how, let's be honest, you just make decisions and you think they're gonna work, obviously, and they might even work for a period, but then ultimately you sometimes have to change your mind.

Yeah.

Or just change course. And that is also, it's hard. It's just really hard. And I think it's hard for people to look in the mirror and be like, ugh, I can't believe I did that. Oh, I can't. But you know, you have to kind of, I, I think back to your point about football and professional sports, you've gotta recognize That one didn't work. And now I got 30 seconds to restart.

Make a different decision, right? Like, just because it was the right decision a year ago doesn't make it the right decision today is like one of the big things that I learned. The expectation of our business is to deliver results and results on top of results on top of results. Like, we're growth equity backed. We were VC backed. Like, there are expectations, and if you do it the same way, that you've always done it, you're gonna get similar results. But also, right, as a leader, like what I've learned is the decisions that this company needs today are different than it needed 6 months ago because ultimately, like, we're a very different business, you know, from like, you know, I look at like, call it 3 years ago, we're a $6 million business, right? Now we're looking north of $100 million. Like, it's not even the same Like how I have to approach my day is like completely different. Like not e— like not even similar. And I was like, I have an EA now that does a lot of things that took time back then. Right? And I focus on, right, things that I get to have the largest outside impact on, but also I get to lead and think about the vision of the business much, much more.

Yeah. So powerful and so important. I just wanna also touch on what you said about EOS, which is a framework, just to let everybody know, and you can look it up. What, what's the book? The book is like Traction, I think, right?

Traction. Yeah.

Yeah. And people can look it up, but, but by the way, it's not like, oh, what a magic structure, but like any structure for your meetings is helpful. Where you start with vision and you understand results and what everyone does and what we're all driving for and communicating that and then talking about it on a, on a, like a weekly basis is just a powerful tool.

Yeah, that, that's exactly right. Like whatever, like there's 100 different operating systems out there, right? We just adopted EOS. One of the reasons why is 'cause it had a bunch of tech behind it, right? Where you can, like, there's a software that can help you run these things, et cetera, which makes it easier. But it's the process of following a process, right? And a lot of like giant organizations have built this themselves.. And it's like, you don't need to rebuild it, right? It takes so long and so much effort. What you need to do is tailor it to what matters in your business and important and follow it and follow and have the whole organization follow it because that's how you get on the same page. And that's what EOS did for us. It like gets everybody on the same page, right? Because when you're on the same page, rowing the same direction, you're dangerous.

Totally dangerous. Love it.

You can also change direction really fast. If you need to, right? When it's like, everybody's like, hey, this is what we said. This is why it doesn't matter anymore. And we're shifting to the next one. And people are like, oh, got it. Cool. Boom. You know, no hard feelings. 'Cause it's like, we do X because of Y, right? And Y's most important. And we just found out X doesn't matter. So we gotta do something different.

So, totally. I love it. Now, supplements and optimization and all that stuff, it's actually a very, like you said, we could start up supplement company, like tomorrow, and, and maybe we should, but like supplements and optimization is a busy space. How do you guys distinguish yourself? How do you differentiate yourself?

I would say what, what I've kept really core at, at me is to be at the forefront of high performance. Don't think of myself as a supplement company. I never wanted to be a supplement company CEO. I think I said that, like, how do I be a high performance company? Right? Human performance. How do I drive, right? Performance for life. Like, how do, So that is the, the mindset and therefore what has been done in the supplement space. Don't, I don't really care. I don't have that background, right? From sourcing transparency, all of it. So it's kind of a, for me, every day is a new day to say I want to be the anti-supplement supplement company, right? How do we do it differently? Because if you look at the size of this market, in the tens, hundreds of billions of dollars, you would think our society is as healthy as it's ever been. The fact of the matter is, as spending in my category has gone up, health has gone down, right? And I think that's a function of, right, the noise in the category, the marketing, all of those things. Like, we are supplemental to everything else that you do. Right? My category doesn't fix anything. It supplements everything. And I think that approach is very different than a lot, right? We, we didn't start as a marketing company. We started in pro and college sports in the, in elite special forces, right? That's where we started and we built a brand around it with this idea that we could do better and that we could be the next great high-performance company.

Yeah.

And therefore, what products we choose to pick, how we market those products, how we think about COGS, partnerships is very different than others.

Yeah.

Now we do some of the same tactics, et cetera, but ultimately at my core, right, it is to uplift this category with other great brands. 'Cause there are some awesome brands in our category doing awesome things, but we need to have more, right? We need to create more and we need to like really help cut through the noise. And so for me, us being at the forefront of high performance has connected us to really unique people. And we've de-risked the category that is pretty messy to most, right? Which has allowed a lot of these really big tastemakers to get behind Momentus because we've done it.

Yeah.

And because, oh, 32 of 32 NFL teams buy Momentus products, they're doing something unique, right? And maybe I should put my name behind it because if these multi-billion dollar NFL teams are buying, it's probably, it's probably different than what you can find on some shelf that an 18-year-old is telling you should buy. And I also just like, I fundamentally believe that there's this 80/20 rule in, in our category. Like 20% of what you do drives 80% of the value. And it's not, there's no magic pill, there's no magic anything. It's bone-crushing consistency drives results. It's like that in every aspect, aspect of life of like, if you show up one day and expect something to change because you changed it for a day, it's not gonna happen. So anyways, that's a little bit of my perspective on the category.

I love your passion and your missionary. Again, as a fellow health person myself, I, I love it. And I, I was gonna ask you about partnerships, which you just mentioned, because I know that you have partnerships with Andrew Huberman, Stacy Sims, Dr. Kelly Starrett, Dr. Andy Galpin, and probably others. And so how do those come about? How do you approach those kinds of partnerships and why are they sort of significant to you and your business?

I mean, the 4 people that you just listed are massive tastemakers in the category. Yeah, that's right. And like, like they've, you know, in the last 4 or 5 years, they've created this big wave of, you know, doctor PhD-led thoughts on health and wellness in a very unique way. So, from my perspective, I actually knew a lot of these people previous to buying the Momentus brand from, from that merger.

How did you know them?

We were working in pro and college sports, right? PR Lotion was doing something really unique. Like we had just assembled this really unique ecosystem of people, right? That, that, that we, we had gotten to know. And it was, I mean, that was part of this, like we had this access to people., right? And there was an opportunity to leverage that access because we were doing something with PR Lotion that had never been done before. We were funding clinical research, right? We were working with the DOD and these elite sports teams that allowed us, right, access. And that access was super special that I would've never have gotten if I started as a protein company, right? To be just frank, right? It was because we were a consumer biotech, a science-led business that's really unique. Anyway, so That's, that's how it started. And for me, partnership is not a transaction. Partnerships take a long time to develop and they should always deepen and morph and change. And when I think about partnerships, it is, you know, first and foremost, do we have a same shared vision? We have a lot of partnerships and we have a lot, lot of transactional relationships. Two very different things, right? Partnerships align with your mission and vision., right? Have bought into that mission and vision, right? That can help you spread the differentiators in a unique, credible way that you want to build with and alongside. Transactional relationship, you want them to generate revenue. You're in it X plus Y equals Z, right? Like you're not necessarily like some of those people you build a lot around, but they're not like you build a lot of revenue around, but you're not integrating them into your mission and vision. They might part, they might choose to have a transactional relationship because of your mission and vision, but there's a very different thing of like, how do you incorporate people from a partnership perspective and incorporate them into your brand?

Yeah.

All that. And I just believe they take time. I believe, right, like both parties have to have a win and it can't just be monetary. I really believe a partnership is beyond monetary. Like monetary always comes, like it has to make business sense from that. And then you have to understand what's important to them.. And you have to find a way to what's important to them. How does it relate back to what you're trying to, what you're trying to accomplish? And so I just always believe relationships are really important and partnerships are one of those. And, and being genuine to who you are is the most important thing. Like for us, I just wanna be at the forefront of human performance, high performance. And that meant investing in clinical research. That meant me not act, acting like I knew everything. And like having like genuine curiosity around these people and what they do and, and build, you know, a relationship that turns into a partnership.

Yeah, I love that. And I think it's so important, you know, to realize that real, like relationships like you're talking about take time. And another key relationship you have is with your co-founder, Erica. And I'm curious, how do you maintain the health of that relationship and how the two of you divide up your roles at this point?

Yeah, it, we kind of stole it from EOS, the EOS system. So there's this visionary integrator relationship, and it's a pretty common, like, it's a pretty common relationship in business, not as common in founders, right? But like the visionary is thinking 6, 12, 24 months out, right? Is really setting the vision, the tempo, the passion of the org, and typically doesn't have as much of the traditional org rolling into it. Right? They are not as much process, right, traction-focused on the day-to-day from that. So like, my background suits me very well to be a visionary leader, and Erika's background from McKinsey and Company suits her very well to be an integrator, right? How do we think about management of people and leading people and setting, right, quarterly rocks, right, and aligning the business and the org to those quarterly rocks, but also just like, running ops, running HR, and all of those things. Like, that's— I'm not good at process. I'm actually really bad at process. Like, I think in, like, think in a lot of places. Anyway, so we call ourselves a visionary integrator. We're co-founders, CEO and president, right, are our two respective titles across. And it's been, it's been very, very good. And like, we've been— so we were both in the biotech together, and it's been about a decade of us working together. Which is a really long time for co-founders typically.

Yeah, it really is.

But Eric and I didn't f— found the company 'cause we were friends, right? We actually don't spend very much time outside of work with each other at all. What we found at the biotech is we had a very similar set of principles and values, right? And we were really passionate about performance and health, just kind of broadly. But our two personalities aren't, aren't friends typically on that end. So, but what we bonded over was a shared passion, the shared vision, right? And understanding that the two of us together as very different people are really, really strong. And one of the things that we have is like, we really believe in conflict. Right? AKA, like some people call it candor, but like we openly, right, go in and we butt heads, right? And have conversations. But we, our values and our principles are so aligned, right? And we are so aligned of what this business can and should be that we approach things differently, right? And we kind of like figure it out and we always end up at a better answer together than we did alone. Right? And we also, also check each other and that's super important. So we've been able to build a really unique relationship of trust, right? Where like our partnership together is what we believe has made us super strong and really, really hard to beat in this business because it allows me to go do the things that I need to do to be special and it allows her to leverage her zone of genius to make this business. 'Cause if it was me, this business would be falling apart, right? And that's just like, that's who, like, I can go galvanize and set this tempo and be a, and lead and be a visionary and think about product innovation and partnerships. But when it comes down to like putting in structure in place for S&OP, get me the hell out of there, right? Because I, like, my instincts, are not the right instincts many of times in there. And I also just, anyway, so it's for us to understand where, where we're good and where we're bad and having those conversations. And I think when you start avoiding, like when you avoid conflict as peers and partners, that's when the rift begins and that's when it ends, right? To be quite frank. And it's hard. It's really hard to have conflict in in any type of relationship, especially when you're equals and you both have, there's a lot of money at stake for both of us here and there's pride and ego, right? But when we sit down together in a meeting, pride and ego don't matter, right? We get to check that at the door and we learned that really early on and we learned that in our shared principles and values.

Yeah. Did you actually go through your shared principles and values like a, as a process, the two of you together?

Before we ever start the company out of the biotech, we sat down, she had a, anyway, she was based in San Francisco, I was based in LA, and we sat down at her little San Francisco, like apartment house thing. And we like went through what those principles were and they've morphed, right? Like into our company values, but they're still all have those ties back to passion.

Yeah.

Grit, equality. So like, it's, it's all very deep.

Yeah, I love that. You talk about them even now.

I mean, we start every Tuesday meeting with our values.

That's great. I have a tool in my book, From Startup to Grownup, called the Co-Founder Prenup. And, and one of them is to really go through your values and understanding what's important to you and kind of your perspective so that you can get that on the table with your most important business relationship, your co-founder.

Yeah, 100%. And I mean, like also like We're entering a stage of our business where, right, there is, there can be no misalignment because if there's misalignment, cracks form within the ranks too of the business. And, you know, for her and I, like, we disagree a lot, right? And that's really good. Most people don't see that. Most people see her and I very aligned. It's because we go disagree in a room together and we align on what's right. And we march forward. I think that's really, really important. Like, our leadership team sees us have conflict and they love it, right? Like, they're like, I can't believe you guys just like work through things so fast. It was like, because we, we know what we need to do. And if we're having conflict, then I'm like, oh shit, like, I'm wrong here, right? Like, going back of like what's important, it's just easy. But that's what the— that, that's what, that's what EOS has done for the business is we've always been aligned because we're, we have such a shared vision and future, but the rest of the org wasn't, was never as close to that as her and I. And so what the Entrepreneur Operating System did was it pulled it all out of us, right? So that the rest of the org can align to it.

Yeah. Super helpful. Jeff, you seem so confident. Have you ever experienced imposter syndrome or severe self-doubt?

Oh yeah. For sure. I think it's, I've been very lucky to be very good at a lot of things that I do in my life, but I do, sometimes I feel like I don't deserve what I get, right? And it's like, it happens, right? Because I've had a lot of things go my way in there. And I remind myself that like, I also have a lot of adversity. That has come up, like, you know, I had a board that wanted to remove me from leadership. You know, I was told I was never gonna play football again. And those things come up and, you know, it's like, can we keep riding this wave, right? That we've built is one of the biggest questions I have. And I think about that a lot. I also, I also, you know, like have 3 boys and an incredible wife. And being really great puts a lot of stress on those people. And like my biggest imposter syndrome, I think, is sometimes with me at home around it is, is you choose, you have to make choices, right? And sometimes I don't always make the best choice for my significant other. And that, that is my biggest regret is like, I, right. And I think the last, honestly, like 9 to 16 months, like I've really, really thought about that of like, how do I make the best choices for everybody here? And I show up fully because that's my choice. Anyway, so yeah, I definitely like have a lot of, like a lot of self-doubt. But I also, like, I believe my self-talk gets me through self-doubt a lot. Like, like, what do I care about? You know, like, if not me, then who? Might as well be me, right? Like, like, like, I do talk to myself a lot, weirdly. So, and I also, I don't know, like, one of the other things to me is like, self-doubt is kind of curiosity. It's like, how do I get better? If I'm not good enough, then I should get better. I should learn, right? And that's one of the biggest things when I do think about, like, when I, am I the right person? Well, let's figure it out. Maybe I should ask, maybe I should get on the phone with somebody who's done it before to learn so that I am the right person.

That's very powerful. What was your self-talk when your board wanted to remove you as the leader?

It was, there's nobody else better suited for this organization than me right now. I'm not. There will be some time when I'm not, and I would, and I will figure that out. But the time is not right. And it was, I will find a way to make this right. Like nobody has more value in this business than me. And if it means replacing me to put somebody that can create more value, totally down. Like I'm more incentivized than anybody else to do that. And so is my co-founder, but that wasn't the time., right? Because ultimately that period of time, that 9 months was the suckiest time in my life of like fighting a board and ultimately like raising capital to be able to align the board with my vision was very hard. But to me, that suck was worth it because I knew it was right, right? If I didn't believe, I would've just said, hey, let's hire a great new CEO and let them run the business because I'm economically aligned for that and I'll go do something else that's fun.

Totally. Very powerful. Just a couple more questions, Jeff. What do you wish you had known earlier on your journey?

Oh man, people are hard. I mean, honestly, like it, like people say it, I don't know. It's the people stuff is hard because if you are a decent human, like, it's like dealing with people is incredibly challenging because they are humans and you, like, doesn't feel good to fire somebody ever, but you gotta do it, right? I'd also say the, the other big thing is making decisions on people faster, right? Everybody talks about like, go fast, go fast, go fast, man. It feels, it's really hard. And I still, it's like when I look back on last year, what do I wish I did? Make decisions faster on people. When I know, when Erica and I know, we don't. We've just been doing it long enough and we know what this business needs. Like if they don't feel like they're a right fit culturally, or if we have a question on a value, that's typically unfixable, right? So, so it all kind of centers around people, but also there's this fear of like, oh, I have a, I'm going to have a whole horrid gap. If you have the wrong person in the seat, whether it's a values match, whether it's a capacity match, whether it's a talent match, it's always better to have the hole because if you don't have the hole, you don't have enough pain and therefore you don't move fast enough on a person and your business doesn't go far enough. If you have a hole and you're working an extra 20 hours a week and the finance person is working an extra 20 hours a week to fill that hole, you sure as hell are gonna find somebody or you're gonna find efficiencies a lot faster than it's like, oh man, we're moving a little slow. Like, it's true. So anyways, it's just a—

you're gonna feel the fire. I love that. It's so true. Jeff, last question. What advice do you have for other founders as they embark on their journey to grow into leaders?

Curiosity, right? If you're not willing to grow, you're not gonna like, A, your business isn't gonna go where you want it to go. Or you're gonna fail, right? Because if you give, like, I guess, I guess it depends upon what you want your business to be, right? If you're happy with your business being exactly like it is today in 3 years, then don't be curious, right? But if you want your business to grow and be more impactful, if you're not curious about how to become a better leader, manager, CEO, founder, it will not happen without curiosity because you have to reinvent yourself over and over and over and over.

Perfect. I love it, Jeff. So great to talk to you. Thank you so much for your wisdom and for your passion and for your tactics you shared this podcast. A lot of people are really gonna benefit, so I really appreciate it.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to From Startup to Grownup. If you like what you heard, give it a review on Apple Podcasts so other people can find it. And if you know of a founder or someone else who is meant to be on this podcast, drop me a line through my website, alisacohn.com.