How to be Undaunted when looking for funding - with Kara Goldin, Founder and CEO of Hint

Investor Podcast is for you, the female founder who has a product, a service, or a message that you believe in and need to get funded. Or for you, the investor who wants to learn more about the huge untapped investment opportunity that gives you a higher return— women entrepreneurs.

Here we go.

There she is.

Hi, I'm here.

I'm here. How are you?

Hi, everyone.

Great.

How are you doing?

I'm great. How are you guys?

We're great. They're all excited to have you here. There's loads— we've been warming up and sharing about funding experiences and all that good stuff.

Thank you so much. I'm dealing— I was dealing with some traffic this morning, so, uh, so thank you so much for waiting.

No problem. Listen, catch your breath, take a sip of water.

No, no, I'm good. I'm absolutely good.

You're good to go.

Awesome.

Okay, so while you were— while you were on your way in, um, I was already doing a shameless plug and explaining to everybody, like, I bought this out of passion myself. I was saying, you didn't say, Anne, here's my book and sell it. I'm like, no. What I wanted to say is I absolutely loved Undaunted. I love your story, Cara. It's like incredible. And for me, I read it like in a day and a half. Now, given COVID, and I don't— I just couldn't put it down. I was like, tell me more, because it's like you're so real. You're so real in the story, and I really related. You know, totally related to you.

Well, in many ways it was therapy to write this book, right? So, because I feel like, you know, the challenges, the things that didn't go exactly the way that we wanted, the failures, whatever you want to call them, that I've had over the years, I think it really more than anything, thinking back on those times, give you the learnings and the resilience to figure out a way to move forward. So I've shared, uh, on stage over the years many of these different stories, but I just think it's important for people to talk about these things but also hear these things, because being an entrepreneur so often is, you know, a pretty lonely job, right? It can be incredibly rewarding and But I think that the challenge is, is that when you're in it, right, it's hard to really talk about all these things. And even some of our investors who have been investors for a long time, including John Legend, when he read the book before it was published, he said, I kept turning the pages thinking, okay, this is where Kara shuts the company down. And he said, wait, I'm an investor. I would've known that by now if that would've happened. So, you know, it's stuff that you don't even talk to friends about every single day.

Yeah.

Right? And I'm sure there's so many people in the audience that can relate to that.

Totally. And so, okay, as we start, and let's frame our conversation today, Cara. So we're going to like want to hear from you about your experience building Hint, like, and we want to hear about what your definition of undaunted. But before we start, I like to start off with a kind of a fun question, which is, can you tell us one fun fact about yourself? Something that maybe isn't written in the book or that we don't know about you. Something, a fun fact.

Fun fact. Wow. Well, I wrote about the fact that I'm afraid of heights in the book. So that was, that was pretty interesting. One, one story actually that many people love that sadly got cut out of the book was my meeting with Jeff Bezos many, many years ago, which is, yeah, which is kind of a fun story that not a lot of people know, but, but pretty pretty interesting. And this was, this was actually before starting Hint. I was, uh, this is 19— I think it was 1996, and I was working at America Online. I had been with a little startup that was acquired by America Online, and I was responsible for the different partnerships, the retail partnerships.

Mm-hmm.

And we've been doing really well getting J.Crew and L.L.Bean and Nordstrom's and lots of great retailers, but we didn't have a book retailer. We had been turned down by 2 of kind of the giants at that time, Barnes& Noble and Borders Books. And I'd heard about this guy in Seattle, Jeff Bezos, who had started this book company. For those of you who are not familiar with this, Amazon started off as a book retailer. And so I reached out to Jeff and said, hey, I'm with America Online, I run the partnerships, can I come up and see you? And I'll never forget, he said, I can't see you during the day because I'm quite busy running my startup, but I could see you at 5 o'clock. And so I got on a plane when we set the appointment and flew to Seattle from where I live in San Francisco. And I rented a car and I'm driving around this parking lot and realizing that it's a bunch of warehouses. There's no numbers on any of the warehouses.

Oh dear.

So it's 5:15. I phoned him and said, hey, I, I can't find your warehouse. So he stood out in front of the warehouse and is waving— Jeff Bezos, right? Waving his arms. And I said, okay, I got it. And then when I walked up and there was a colleague with me, I said, did you know that there's no numbers on the warehouse? And, you know, there's no rhyme or reason for where— like, and he said, oh yeah. And he said, well, By the way, you're you're late. You're over fifteen minutes late, and I can't meet with you unless you can build bookshelves. And I thought he was kidding at first, and I said, "Uh, I can I can build bookshelves." I had never built a bookshelf before in my life, and he said, "Well, I've got these two bookshelves that I bought at Home Depot, and and you know I'm I'm putting them together. I'm very busy. I have to get them together because I have a bunch of books that are coming in, and I need to make sure to get them on the shelf." Does this sound like a startup entrepreneur right here?

Totally.

A little bit of everything. And anyway, so Jeff then, you know, handed me some tubes, and I started putting together the bookshelves. And during that time, that's when I looked at him and, you know, kind of trying to size him up, because here's this guy that's running this bookseller. But it was very clear to me that it was very much a mom-and-pop operation and not sort of what I expected. And it was sort of endearing in a bizarre way. Way, but also a little, you know, concerning. And so I said to him, so why do you believe that you can compete against Barnes& Noble and Borders, the big guys? And he said, do you read a lot of books? I said, yes, I do. And he said, so when you go to a bookstore and you ask for a recommendation, do you trust that that recommendation— does that person solve your problem for finding another book? I thought about it for a minute. And I said, you know, no, I mean, how could they? There's, you know, millions of books out there. And he said, the future of books is 2 things: search and recommendations. This is 1996.

Oh, so far ahead. And I—

and this is, remember, before Google.

Yep.

Yeah. And so this is Jeff Bezos. And I remember leaving still somewhat concerned whether or not he could actually build this thing and scale it and compete against Barnes& Noble and Borders. But I remember getting on my Southwest flight and I phoned my husband. And my husband had met him through his job as well. He was at Netscape. And I said, you know, the thing is, yes, he was a little rough. I mean, it wasn't my fault that I was late, all of those things. But he's really smart. And I said, he said something to me that sat with me. And but more than anything, I think that the thing that I think about when I think about that story a lot now is that this is 1996, right? So he— I mean, that's a lot of years. People always think, oh, I'm gonna go and start a company, I'm gonna go and do something. Search and Recommendations— Search came, you know, before Recommendations, but Recommendations arguably was maybe 5 years ago. I mean, it took a long time. It took 20 years to kind of get to a point where Jeff's— what his vision was able to become reality. And again, there were probably plenty of people saying they doubted him, they thought he was crazy, all of those things.

Yep.

I think about that story and I argued with my editor over that story. I said, you've got to keep that story in the book. It's like one of the best stories.

Yeah, yeah.

Right? So anyway, that's bullshit.

Well, we've got it here now and that's super cool.

We've got it here, great.

So I love it. And I really like the way you say that, you know, he wasn't an overnight success. Even though he was visionary and is super smart, it took 20 years because there's something also about timing, isn't there, Kara? Is that like, you know, the world has to be ready for your innovation as well. But I love the way you said it took him 20 years to get from his vision to reality, which is also about grit and perseverance, which is what you talk about as well when you share your story. So let's jump in because we've loads of questions from the audience and I want to make sure we do it. But let's start off with what does it mean to be undaunted and why is that your key message?

I think being undaunted is I think it starts with curiosity, but it also starts with trying and the ability to go out and take on, take on your fears. So often, look, it's— especially the older we get and the more experienced we get, we think that we're not going to be afraid of anything anymore, right? When we're young, we have fears. We have fears of taking on a new sport or going to school for the first time. Maybe you have a little bit of jitters when you're, I don't know, going to a new job. But when you, when you think about it, we try and avoid fear mostly versus actually putting ourselves into a somewhat fearful situation because we think we're, we're too old for this. We, we're too experienced for this. And I think being undaunted means putting yourself on a daily basis into a situation where you are going to learn. And I think that the hardest thing is figuring out what you're curious about. And for me, starting Hint, I had been in tech, considered an executive in tech, one of the youngest executives at America Online, one of the few females too. When I had this idea for Hint, my company, people looked at me like, Wait, why would you do that? I mean, you are now at the top of the mountain. I mean, why should you go down? And I mentioned this because I think I wanted to continue learning. I didn't really— I couldn't put that into words at the time. I knew I wanted to do something else. I probably said I was bored, or whatever you say when you're thinking about, I want to— I've got an itch to go and do something else. But That is, it has to be purposeful. You have to live undaunted, otherwise you won't continue to learn. And, you know, I'd say in terms of resilience, you— one of the things that I talk about in the book is, is that the more of these challenging times and, you know, scary times, failures that you have, those end up making you stronger, right?

Mm-hmm.

I mean, those are the people that you think about, okay, who am I gonna get to help me go do something that is a little bit out there or crazy, right? I'm always on somebody's shortlist because I've done so many crazy things that they're like, oh, let me call her and see if she'll, see if she'll have any ideas on how to do that. And again, I think that that is living undaunted.

I love it. And it's, it's interesting because Susan, um, she's in the edtech sector in, in the States. Oh, by the way, we have people who, who are here from all over the world, Cara. I wanted to say this is so exciting. So we have people from France, America, Ireland, Israel, Argentina, Sweden, Spain. And Susan had a particular question. So she said, being undaunted and being confident are 2 different characteristics. Can you marry them? Can you put them together, undaunted and confident?

Yeah, I think confidence is a perception, right? So often, because the more entrepreneurs that I've spoken with actually do have fears when they're going into something new. And again, I think that I like to use the word resilient. I wouldn't say that I'm confident. And yet I think that maybe I have a persona. I've definitely in my talks, especially the Q&A at the end, people will say, oh, you're You're confident, I'm not confident. And, and instead, I don't know if I'm confident. I'm very resilient, and I'm resilient because I've been through a lot of challenging times.

Mm-hmm.

There's probably people who have been through different types of challenging times, but those really are the people that are able to not just sit in the confidence, uh, lane or train or however you wanna view it. Instead, They're the people that are thinking, what's the worst that can happen? What can I do?

Hmm.

Those are the things that you have to be saying as a person that wants to live undaunted. And again, I cannot emphasize enough, I think it's a very purposeful place too, because so often I call myself an accidental entrepreneur, but I think that the more times you put yourself into situations where you could go do something else, it's always a choice. And maybe a lot of times you should go do something else, but when you don't really know what's gonna happen and you start traveling down a, a lane and, and trying to figure out whether or not it can happen, you start to think about, but it, but it might. I mean, that's what's so fun and crazy that you, the unexpected, the, the doubts that are going through your head, the doubters that are out there. Uh, my head always starts to think, What if it starts to, to become a reality and actually happen? And there always is that chance that I would fail. People say, do you just forget about failure? Do you just not acknowledge it? No, not at all. I always am hedging, saying there's a chance that I fail, but I don't choose to focus on that because if I'm focusing on failure, why am I even getting started?

I love it. That's something that Tony Robbins, the fantastic motivational speaker, says. It's like what you focus on, is what you get. So if you focus on fear, that's what you get. And if you focus on what if, why not, why not me, that's what you get. And I really like the way you framed your answers to this question about saying confidence is a perception. It's so true because people will perceive confident behavior in the way you say or do things. They just perceive those things to be confidence when maybe they're not. Maybe it's just like saying, well, I'm curious, why not? Why the hell not? Why not me? Why won't it work? And I'm not going to focus on What ifs if negative? I'm going to focus on the on the positive.

Absolutely, and I also will say too that when you think about people who maybe you perceive as being very confident, often those people are people that have accomplished things, and I'll bet when they're setting out to accomplish those things and you hear their story, which I love hearing all of these stories, they didn't start out thinking that it was. 100% going to work. They thought that there were some risks. Maybe they started in one direction and they had to pay close attention and go to another direction because they were very aware of something going on. But again, I think that they are willing to take those chances, and that is really the key thing. And frankly, what separates the entrepreneurs from the people that Never try is not trying.

Exactly. And so, so tell us more about being, you know, a fearless risk-taker, because you mentioned this a lot in Undaunted, like that you had to overcome a lot of your own doubts. That's what you're saying. So what's an example of a doubt or a doubter that you had to overcome that you just brushed yourself inside? Okay, I'm not gonna listen to that voice.

Give us an example of that.

You know, it's, it, it's interesting because I was just thinking about this yesterday. I almost, I need to do like a visual, how I, how, how I, uh, map it out in some sort of, uh, cartoon or something, how I really visualize it. Because for me, it was really, uh, there's always gonna be that voice in your head that's saying, well, maybe you shouldn't do this. I had been, uh, when I launched Hint, I had 4 kids under the age of 6. Mm-hmm. I was not the profile of someone who would be successful. In addition, I didn't have experience in the beverage industry. I had been a tech executive. But again, my curiosity, and I really credit being in the tech industry for many years as a place where I learned that the tech world is really about building the puzzle, right? And continuing to build the puzzle. There's— there are upgrades and, and 2.0 versions, and it's, it's unlike almost every other industry. So again, having grown up in that industry in many ways and then jumping into the beverage industry, I had heard so often from people that, you know, in order to be successful, I needed to have experience. And I needed to do things a certain way. And when I would try and actually talk to some of these very experienced people in order to figure out how to do things a certain way, they wouldn't talk to me because, you know, not that I wasn't a nice person, I guess, but because I didn't have the experience. Why should they waste their time? And so instead, what I realized is that taking these skills from the tech industry and just thinking, I'm gonna go and try. I'm gonna— it's gonna be challenging. It may take me longer, all of these things. But if I don't try, then it won't get out of my head. And, you know, I think it was— I definitely had the doubts. I mean, there's so many examples, everything from getting the product on the shelf to, uh, to actually, you know, when you're trying to do that. Then you don't even know whether it's going to happen. I mean, one of the stories that I share in the book is actually getting our first product on the shelf at a market that had just come into San Francisco called Whole Foods.

Hmm.

And Whole Foods, uh, beautiful market, you know, all organic and natural. And I mean, like no other market, especially when it came into the Bay Area. And so on the morning that I was having my planned C-section, For my 4th child.

As you do.

I wasn't— yeah. And I was not supposed to be at the hospital until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. And so my husband said, what do you want to do this morning? And thinking I'd say, let's go to brunch, let's go on a nice walk. I said, can we go to Whole Foods to try and get the product on the shelf at Whole Foods so that I can get some of the cases out of my garage? And he said, not exactly what I thought you were going to say, or what I thought was, you know, A very calming morning before you're going to have our 4th child. But okay, so he was kind enough to get the dolly and help me bring in the 10 cases into Whole Foods. I didn't even have a commitment from Whole Foods that they would put it on the shelf, but I thought it'd be really fun if they did. So I had this, I had this idea that maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't too. Maybe the guy wouldn't be there, right? I doubted. I was like, I don't know. But I wasn't going to tell my husband that I doubted because he'd think that this was a waste of time. So instead I said, oh, I had met this guy before. I'm sure he's going to do it. So I get to the— I get to Whole Foods. My husband's reeling, you know, wheeling in the, the cases of Hint. And I said, hi, do you remember me? I had talked to him a couple of months previously and asking him lots of questions about how do I get a product on the shelf of Whole Foods? And he said, the first thing out of his mouth, he said, you are really pregnant. I said, I am. And he said, are you gonna deliver the baby in the store? And I said, gosh, I hope not. I'm actually having a planned C-section at 2 o'clock this afternoon. And he said, a planned C-section? So what's the difference between a planned C-section and an emergency C-section? And I said, you're talking to the right girl. I've had both, so I can Talk to you about that. Here we are to sell beverages into Whole Foods, and I'm talking to this guy about where babies, how babies are delivered. And so my husband backed up into the fruit and vegetable island, horrified, you know, thinking, "Oh my gosh, she's going to go there." So I started to talk to this nice gentleman about emergency C-section versus planned C-section. Fifteen minutes later, he, my husband, finally came back. I wasn't sure if he left the store or where he was, and. He said, "Thank you so much for sharing that story with me," and he said, "Best of luck to you this afternoon. That's incredible." And I said, "So by the way, can you put the product on the shelf? Because it'd be so great to actually go and deliver my son and know that the product was on the shelf." He said, "I'll try. I have no idea whether or not I'm going to be able to do that." So I thought. That's the best I can do. I've tried. Who knows, I, you know, whether or not he'll do it or not. I'll worry about it in a few days. And he phoned us in the hospital the next day. Justin was, was born and he was terrific. And, and, uh, the first thing out of the gentleman at Whole Foods' mouth was he said, you need to come and deliver some more cases because the 10 cases are gone. And I said, who took them? I hadn't thought about. I just wanted them on the shelf. I hadn't thought about somebody would actually buy them overnight. And so we of course checked out of the hospital, and and we said we've we've got to go. I know we've got three days here for insurance. You know we'll pay for that, but I need to leave because my my cases are selling at Whole Foods. And true story. And so the moral of the story is. You never know how and what somebody will ask you in the store. Always be educating. You know, I think that just the fact that I was able to not be sitting there trying to sell this gentleman on cases of Hint, I was actually— he asked me a question and I just— if I knew something about it. And so I just started talking to him about it. And maybe I was kind of endearing to him and we built some kind of connection. Who knows? I'll never really know. But that's how we got our start. And, you know, it sounds like—

I mean, what it— what you're talking about, what I hear when you tell that story, Cara, is that it's like, um, I persevered. I was not— it's a— you were not taking no for an answer. And there's nothing more scary than a heavily pregnant woman standing in front of you, you know.

I mean, he didn't want me— he didn't want my water to burst right there. Yeah, right.

I mean, absolutely. But I really love the story about, like, you know, perseverance and not like you were like so single-minded about it, saying, I really want to see our cases of Hint in Whole Foods. And it's like, just stick to the plan. So kind of now segueing into the funding space, it's Amaka, one of our members of InvestHer community. She asked a question. This is linking back to confidence again. At what point did you feel confident enough in your company's journey to go out and start raising funds?

It's a great question. So we— so I really was very clear that I knew nothing about what I was doing in the, in the early days. I mean, there were so many challenges. Every time I felt like I was accomplishing something with the small number of stores that we were in in the Bay Area, then another request would come on. Like the Whole Foods would say, well, we can't have you delivering cases into our stores. And I'd say, why not? I mean, I like delivering cases. And they'd say, well, you know, we'd have every mom and pop who's making products delivering them into the stores. We can't do that. So we need you to have a distributor.

Mm-hmm.

And I thought, uh, okay, do you have a phone number? I mean, how would I find a distributor? That's on you. I mean, that's not for me to go and figure out. So all of these challenges, and they wanted a longer shelf life. I mean, every day I, I felt like I would take a step forward and then a few steps back. And so there was always this kind of, you know, yin and yang, this doubt in my head whether or not this was actually going to make it. I mean, I really did not know. And, and I certainly didn't want to take on investment, not really knowing for sure whether or not it was going to make it. Living in Silicon Valley, there were a lot of people who were angel investors who were sort of used to this concept of, you know, putting a little bit of money in, especially into tech companies. But it was, again, I wanted to still walk down the street and have dinner with some of these people and not have them say, hey, how's that beverage company going? And what's the technology behind all of these things? I was like, so we didn't take any money. We self-financed the company for the first 2 years.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, we were at that point over $1 million. And Still not a thousand percent positive whether or not it was it was going to fly or not, but it was at that point when we got a little more comfortable with taking investors and we started to think about meeting with different people. We had actually gotten a phone call. This was another story that was cut from the book. We had gotten a phone call from some tech investors that were on in Silicon Valley on Sand Hill Road, which is where the kind of A-list, or at least back then the A-list investors were. And they had known my name and my husband's name from tech, and they wanted to— they had tried our product and they wanted to potentially invest in it. And so I remember going down to Sand Hill Road, and again, we hadn't taken any investors yet, and they had done sort of a preview before, but I was really prepared and really, really ready for this meeting. drive up to the parking lot, and my husband lets me out of the car. I'm in my heels, and he's off parking the car. And the partner that we were meeting with sees me, and he said, hey, you know, nice to see you. Thanks, thanks for coming down. And, and, uh, again, my husband's still parking the car. And as we're walking into the office, he said, I, I understand you have 4 kids. Who's watching the kids?

I love it.

Wait, aren't I here for a business meeting? And so all of a sudden, I had no idea that I was going to be asked this question. I very, very quickly said, and he said, are you okay? And I said, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm totally fine. I just, I just remember. So there's this new thing called baby And they, they watch your children. And I just stopped at that point. And he, and he looked at me and he said, that was incredibly rude what I just asked you just now, wasn't it? And I, and my husband walked up at this point and he said, what, what happened? I said, oh, nothing. We're good. And then, you know, we had the meeting. It was fine. I mean, they didn't invest, by the way, but I don't think that they invested because of that situation. I'll never really know. They've never invested in a food or beverage company since I had that meeting. But it was interesting because I have seen that gentleman now 4 or 5 times. Every time I see him at some conferences, there's other people around. He shares his own story and the exact same story to people around him. And he says, can you imagine that I said this to her, the CEO of this company, that I had looked up the fact that she has 4 children and I actually— the first thing out of my mind was who was watching the children? And he, and he continues on to say, I never say that again after Kara set me straight. And I said, I never really set you straight. You asked me a question and I said, that's true, that I, you know, I thought it was rude and you owned it. And so I just, I just accepted it. But I guess the moral of the story there is that people will say really stupid things, right?

Oh yeah.

They don't necessarily intend to say them. Sometimes maybe they do, But it's by just reacting and not hiding that reaction. I wasn't yelling at him. I just told him I was shocked, right, that he, that he said that. He has never said that to another woman again, I guarantee you.

And that is a huge win, right? Because that's the thing. And you're, and you're bringing up a point that so many women entrepreneurs in particular get asked inappropriate questions or get inappropriate advances from male investors, which just ridiculous. And I just love the way you put him in his place, you know. And it's just ridiculous that we're still having to put up with that, but we're not going to focus on that here because I know that our audience are curious to hear about your funding journey because I know that you mentioned a few steps on it. Like you say that in the book, you say you started off with— so you've just said, okay, we wanted to wait till we were kind of the first We had a million in revenue. You do say in the book, well, we weren't positive in profit yet, but we had revenue. We could prove that this was moving, right? So that was a really— you wanted significant traction. So from there, where did you go to start looking? What were the sources of funding?

So basically, it was after— it was probably after a few of those meetings where we kept thinking venture was, was the way to go. And we weren't kind of hitting it with, with many people for a variety of reasons. Many of the people, especially in Silicon Valley where, you know, we knew some of these people were, were tech people. So we did start to hear from angel investors and people who were fans of the brand who had reached out to us and said, are you taking investment? And some of those people went away when they heard that there's not technology behind it.

Mm-hmm.

But there were many people that just thought, wow, this is a female-founded company. You're doing something around health that I care about. And so today we have over 200 investors in the company, many angel investors. We do not have any venture money. We have one of the first kind of big outside investors that invested in us, I guess almost 13 years ago now, is the Stella Beer family.

And their name is company called Virl Invest.

Yeah.

And they've been super supportive. And they had— they knew a lot about beverages, primarily because of what the family was. But on the beer side, they didn't know that much about non-alcoholic. And they also wanted to invest in a US company. They had invested in Vitaminwater and had seen sort of where Vitaminwater had been sold to Coca-Cola for $4.2 billion.

Yeah.

And so they thought, this was the next trend. So they also came in about 13 years ago. But again, I think when I think about the way that we built this company, it was— from an investment perspective, it was primarily because the venture community just didn't know what to do with us. They feared the big guys. They thought, oh, even if you get traction, then Coke or Pepsi is going to squash you and they're going to compete against you. By the way, Coca-Cola has rolled out a competitive product to Hint 9 times, and every time they do, we actually gain space because there's nothing wrong with having a little bit of competition in any category. Anyway, so I think that there are a lot of ways to actually get investment, and I think that Just finally, one last sentence on this is that you need—

I don't—

you want to raise enough money to be able to do what you need to do. And I think I would also add to it that one of the chapters I talk about in the book is the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

Yeah.

And certainly over the last year, we've also seen, you know, a really challenging time. And I think it really just depends on your category. But the first thing that we did when we knew that the financial— or excuse me, when we knew that COVID was hitting us in the last year was we didn't want to go back to some of the challenging times that we felt in 2008, 2009. So we wanted to have 2 years' worth of money in the bank, and we did. We raised money, but we did it because we were set up properly.

Yeah.

And, you know, so that stuff is always important. So I wouldn't raise too much money because We've continued to raise money in small tranches over the years, primarily because we've chosen to do it our way.

Right.

And we didn't want kind of heavy commitments from venture or private equity that tells us how to run the business. And I'm happy we have because we've been able to scale back when we've needed to, when maybe There's you know challenges with suppliers or retailers, or or we want to do things a little bit differently around how we actually sell, including over 50% of our business is direct to consumer, which is not normal for the beverage industry. So so again, I I think that only my opinion is raise enough money. to be able to get through the challenging times and maybe a little bit more, because otherwise you're leaving a lot of money on the table in terms of valuation.

And I think it's really, really important what you're, what you're sharing, because a few things there. One, that like, you know, you mentioned in the book you, you put in your personal savings. How many times did you mortgage your house, remortgage, or sell it? And then, you know, you really went full all in, both of you. You was with your husband, but you like, you got your friends and family, your angels, And then I really like what you're saying because you're saying even though the venture wolves came calling, they weren't the right fit for us. So they didn't really understand us. And we didn't— we wanted to remain, take, you know, keep control over how we did things. It's very important what you're saying because when you take angel investment, and this is just for the benefit of our audience, you do like, you choose your partners. They really are close to you, you know, because it's their personal money that they're putting on the table. With the family office, it's slightly different. But again, with the family office that you mentioned, with Verlinvest, they understood at least the drinks industry. So they had a really intimate understanding of the functionalities, the way it works. But they were in it with you. And they're like, yeah, we get this, we get what you're doing, and that you want to bring a healthy alternative.

So it's about finding the right investor at the right time and knowing when then, okay, I need to go out and get a bit more. Those are just some of the nuggets that I want to kind of distill from what you're saying. But it's important when you say, you know, raise enough to be able to get to— to be able to do what you need to do and a little bit more, a buffer. And I think that's, that's really, really important. So how did you become undaunted yourself when you were raising these funds? Like when you were going through the whole process, what did you do to get you going when you had those— some of those weird investor conversations coming up or whatever?

Yeah.

How were you undaunted?

I think it's the same way that I sort of tackle most everything, which is you can have a plan. You can have— you can say, okay, I'm going to go out and raise $20 million or whatever, the $5 million, $1 million, whatever the number is. But then think about, okay, what do I need to work on today in order to accomplish that? And Kind of stop worrying about the $20 million.

Yeah.

And that you're doing a big raise because that will psych me out. That'll still psych me out to this day, right? How am I going to go and get the— it is very daunting. It will stop so many people in their place. Instead, what I do is think about 1 or 2 steps to allow me to get closer to that goal and keep doing those steps. And after a while, those things start to add up to you getting closer to that goal. And then the other thing that I would say about that is that reminding yourself about maybe challenging times that you've been through before where it's not exactly the same situation, but maybe it's, you know, has similar sort of feelings about it. And I think that that's why doing a journal is, is so important too, that you— it allows you to go back to those times and learn from them versus actually being freaked out by them. I remember at the beginning of COVID I had other founders calling me and asking me, you know, different insights, including were we going to raise money or how are we feeling about things. And I think in general, I heard from more than More than a few, how calm I was. And I think that again it goes back to call it living undaunted, call it you know being used to living with you know this this I gotta just go figure it out and instead of allowing myself to be blocked by these things, I think that that is such an important important sort of mindset to have.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. And it's not easy, but it sounds like it's, it's a muscle. It's a muscle that you build. But I really like the way you're saying, like, you know, that you journal— you journaled it and you reminded yourself of how you overcame big challenges in the past. Because sometimes we don't realize it. We're like, okay, we, we deal with a big situation and then we just move on to the next thing and the next thing. But then sometimes it's good to take stock and say, what did we learn from that situation and how can we carry it with us forward? So what would you say would be your key tips now to female founders to become undaunted when they're raising money? If you had to give them some dos and don'ts, you've mentioned a few things here, but if you had to kind of say quickfire, some dos and some don'ts for women to be undaunted.

There are numerous ways to raise money and get educated about any and all. And even when you feel like you're headed down a path of thinking that you're going to, you know, raise money through angel investors, take the time to be educated and learn about these different ways, other ways, so that you have options.

Yeah.

So I think that the biggest challenge that, you know, I've had along the way too is when, you know, you're, you're almost there, you think that it's that it's happening, and then all of a sudden it doesn't happen for some reason.

The Starbucks story, I'm thinking.

Starbucks, or, you know, even working thinking that you're going to get funding from a certain, you know, company or, uh, or individual, and then whatever, something happens. The pandemic happens, the— they were— they can't do it anymore, whatever. Those things will happen more often than not. So until you actually have the wire in the bank, you need to always be keeping these other options. Number 2, an attorney, a really good attorney who understands that it is their job to have your back. And I cannot overemphasize that enough. And because I have seen over and over again where people hire an attorney, maybe the attorney's done lots of different deals, but they're not really thinking about it from the standpoint of you. And oftentimes when you take on investments, and particularly your first investment too, there might be things like different types of equity in the company where shareholders go ahead of founders, where where you've got a board, right? All of a sudden where maybe if you hit a certain level, then the lead investor might have the option to put a chairman of the board. I mean, all of these things come up, or maybe if you have a bad quarter, they can actually shut the company down. And I mean—

Or fire you as the CEO.

Or fire you, right? And that stuff happens.

Yeah.

And so I think that my husband joining us early on, he was an incredible intellectual property attorney in Silicon Valley and had dealt with a lot of different deals before. So it's nice having an attorney in-house, but we still had an outside counsel and still have an outside counsel to look at things. So it is It is worth your money to pay a very good attorney and that really, really can prove to you that they've done this stuff before and also tell you the bad stories and tell you that they know where the bad holes are. And it doesn't— and, and I think that that is, that is so, so critical. And then finally, just know that You know, it can be lonely. It's very depressing. I still, I, you know, share with every time we've raised money, I've said my, I hate raising money. To me personally, it's like begging, you know, for, for money. It's very, I just don't like it at all. And, but I know that it's, it's a fact of life, right? It's a fact that I have to, it's like changing diapers. There's certain times that you have to do it, right?

I love it.

Along the way, it's not my favorite thing to do, but it's, it's a time that you need— that, that there is a time that you need to do it.

Yeah.

But instead, I think that, again, being equipped, being educated, understanding and embracing all of this time to go and learn. Also under— also saying that you don't really understand things too. Not leaving it to other people to go and do your raise, but instead really engaging. And when you don't understand something, be authentic, be willing to say, what do you mean by that? Because I think being curious, just as you are as an entrepreneur, but also be— being willing and to ask the questions and being vulnerable, I think that's so critical. And so often, you know, women are afraid to do that. Maybe they're the only woman standing in the room and there's a bunch of guys. I, I mean, I'm not afraid to do that at all. I do it all the— I do it on a daily basis. I, I go out of my way to find something that I don't know and get educated about it. Or the other thing is, is I have mentors. If I don't understand something, and some of them are men, some of them are women, I'll send a quick email or text and I'll say, hey, do you have a half an hour? I want to talk to you about the situation that came about. What do you think I should be worried about? And I think that that's so— that's showing that I'm vulnerable, but it's also showing that I'm willing to learn about things and I don't know everything, even though I'm the CEO of a company.

And it's super important also, I think, from investor point of view, because they want to be able to work and partner with CEOs who are coachable. Like, they don't want a big ego sitting there who says— who will not take their advice. I mean, that's also a big part of why they want to be part of a journey as an angel investor is because they want to be able to give you that smart money, to give you the networks, the advice, the contacts, etc.

I agree. But I also, I think that that's another really key thing to having a great legal agreement because I've talked to entrepreneurs in the past, and maybe you've been through this as well, where You know, we've got 300 investors. I've had entrepreneurs say, oh my gosh, isn't it a nightmare? And the thing is, is understanding what their rights are, because we've had people say, oh, you're having a board meeting? May I come? May I come to your board meeting? No, no, you can't.

Right.

And understanding that stuff.

Yeah.

Right. And understanding what are the What are the pieces that you really need to know? And sometimes angel investors, they just think it'd be a lot of fun. They've never been in a board meeting.

Yes.

And so they're not necessarily as sophisticated. Sometimes they are, but sometimes they're not. So I think it's really, really key for you to, you know, definitely if they have introductions, but, you know, I've had times too where I've had to— I've had I've had investors say to me, would you mind talking to my 26-year-old son who has no idea what they want to do with their life? That is 1 hour of my time.

Yeah.

And I'll do that every once in a while.

Yeah.

But if I sat there and did it all day, I couldn't get any work done. You wouldn't get anywhere with the company.

Right.

And I wouldn't be— it's not fair to the shareholders. And so oftentimes I'll go back to those investors and I'll say, listen, I would love to do it, but this happens to me all the time and I'm really buried. And I have a choice, either talk to them or I need to go and talk to my shareholders and tell them that I'm spending this time. And sometimes you have to have those very hard conversations And they're important to have and know that.

And given the whole context, and we're kind of close to wrapping up now, so what needs to change, would you say, in the whole funding ecosystem, Kara, so that more women entrepreneurs can become undaunted when they're looking for funding? What needs to change in the environment?

Well, I think more people, more Women need to get out there and understand what the options are. I mean, when I hear, for example, there's a big conversation around private equity and venture and that there aren't as many, you know, females in those industries and they're not being funded, that often stops people from actually going and talking to those companies.

Fine.

But also know that there are a lot of other options. There are angels, there is debt, there is still, you know, credit cards. You know, if you really believe, there are other ways to do it. And I think that you just have to know, you have to know what the options are and know that because it is daunting. When I, you know, read an article about the numbers, the numbers of companies that are getting funded by venture and by, you know, private equity that are, you know, female-founded or other types of diversity too, it's tiny. And there's no denying it. I'm not arguing—

It's 19%.

Yeah, I mean, it's tiny. And I'm not arguing with the numbers. I'm just saying that, you know, you have to figure out, is that going to stop you?

Exactly.

It, it does. It stops a lot of people. And you may be that one person too that they go and fund. You have to figure out where you're going to spend your time and also whether or not you want those type of people on your cap table too.

Exactly, exactly. Because I think that's what a lot of maybe first-time founders who haven't raised any money don't realize, that when you're talking about VC— and that's why I love the way you say you've never taken on VC, because they're a different animal, if you will, or a different type of investor. They are the professional investors who are very hardcore and need to produce very big returns on their funds.

Yeah.

And so they're going to be much, much more demanding on you and, you know, in a very different way to handling those angel investors. And it's important— that's why I love the way you say it's so important to know the menu of options that's out there. And I'm glad you mentioned debt because I think a lot of women entrepreneurs are afraid of like, Ooh, I don't want to go into debt. But it's okay to have a certain level of debt, of course, without going into crazy debt.

But the one thing I'll say about— I mean, there's the options. The one other quick thing that I'll say too is that don't be enamored by the glossy entrepreneur, the A-list entrepreneur that maybe you would love to get on your cap table. Look at who they've invested in.

Yes.

Also look at whether or not they have invested in a direct competitor of yours.

Yep.

They may be just fishing and using your time, right? And, and I think that that is so important to remember too, and know that if they have never invested in your industry or any at all, it is very unlikely that they're going to invest in yours. Not to say that you shouldn't meet with them, but no, don't take it personally, right? And figure out where to spend your time. Because if it's a, if it's a long shot that whether or not they're going to do it, I think that you should really recognize that. And, and, you know, again, if you have time to do it, great. But if not, you know, just know that, well, I knew it was a long shot. They've never invested in other companies in this industry. So I just really wanted to go have a meeting with them, fine. But, but they have— investors have way more time than you do.

Yeah, exactly.

And that— and they will say the same thing. And so you figure out where are you going to spend your time. And that is, is so critical.

I love it. So how can we put more fun? We started with the fun fact at the beginning of this conversation. And we're going to kind of close the loop on this. So first First of all, how can we put more fun into this whole funding process, Kara?

What would be your words? I think, I think more than anything, go— entrepreneurism is the future, right? And go out and start companies all over the world, right? And I think it is so critical. Find your idea if you don't already have one and figure out how do I make it happen and how— and there are people and you have to you know, get the word out there about what you're doing too. I, I think there's so many ways on, on social media where people are, you know, talking about their companies. And I mean, the number of people who have reached out to me just through social media, not even through, you know, connections that I know that have heard my story, they, you know, love the product, is unbelievable. So I believe there's investors out there You don't have to say even that you're, you know, raising money. You can, but I think actually sharing your story.

Yep.

And letting people know what you're doing. What is your why?

Yeah.

You know, and, and, and again, sharing your story doesn't mean, oh my gosh, we're losing all this money. How are we doing? You don't have to say everything's perfect every day either, but you can also talk about your press that you've gotten or some of the You know, great momentum that you're getting to use social media. And, you know, there's different ways to use it, but start to understand how does LinkedIn work? How does Twitter work? I mean, I think for fundraising, probably LinkedIn is just— I mean, it's a free platform, right, that you can go and talk about what you do.

And you do it so beautifully. Sorry to cut you because you do it so beautifully, Kara. I mean, you're specialist across all the social media, but I particularly love your LinkedIn. And I loved, for example, the post you did recently with just the bus shelter or the bus stop ad, and you had your core message in there. And you have thought-provoking messages from your story, from your experience that, you know, grab attention and say, hey. And you're always like, you know, keeping top of mind. And I love that. I need to know, when is Hint coming to Europe? I mean, I'm crying because we can't buy it here. I know.

So like, well, hopefully soon. And, uh, and it was, uh, I'm really hopeful. We, we had planned prior to— we were sort of waiting on Brexit, um, prior to COVID, um, and my daughter was actually going to school in Ireland.

Wow.

And so we were thinking, you know, we were sort of looking around at some different, uh, co-packing plants. What The main thing is, is I'd really like to produce as locally as possible in each of the countries. I don't really believe in shipping water from one country to another country. And, uh, and so that was, that was really, um, you know, kind of the thinking. But again, we— the product, just really quickly, is an unsweetened flavored water. So we use fruit to actually flavor the water and just make water taste better. And I think that the key thing that we've seen is that, uh, all over the world, health has become top of mind for people. If one great thing came out of COVID it's that everyone all over the world wants to stay healthy.

Yeah.

And I think that understanding what they're putting into their body is absolutely critical. And if we can do something to really help consumers all over the world drink water. And we have lots of, you know, conversations and work that we're doing in, in Washington, in our country, around clean water. We also, you know, there's lots of different ways, but I won't get too much into that, uh, because I know we're short on time. But I hope you'll all get a chance to read the book. You can also hear the book on Audible. I read the book, uh, so you'll— You'll be graced with my voice if, if that seems okay to you. And, and yeah, I mean, we're, we're now the largest independent non-alcoholic beverage in the US. And hopefully you will see that in other countries soon.

I love, and I love the idea of Irish water being part of that journey. Just, just saying, just saying, if ever it were to happen, we do have very pure water in Ireland.

Yes. Yes, I love it.

I love it.

Thank you so much, Cara. Everybody, please say thanks here, you know, put it in the chat box, please, just as you— as she goes. I want you to be able to see. Love the book, says Pat. Amy is saying, where do you source the fruit for Hint?

So there we go.

Pat Lewis is saying she says hello to you, just so you know. But just please tell everybody how awesome she is. Everybody saying thanks, thanks, thanks. Thank you so much. Cara, we'll put a link to the book, uh, to the audio, and of course you catch Cara on all the social media @caragolden. Do #Undaunted and just, just listen to her podcast, get the book. I cannot recommend it more highly enough.

You just—

it speaks from the heart, and that's what grabbed my heartstrings. But thank you so much for spending this moment with us this morning, Cara, and good luck to you. I can't wait to I can't wait to see the next part of the journey as you take over the world. You go. Thank you.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. Thanks again.

Take care. See you.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye. Thank you for listening to InvestHer Podcast. Don't miss more great funding tips and insights by subscribing to the podcast on Apple or your favorite podcast host. And while you're there, I'd love you to rate and review the show.