#054: $7 Million Raised, 30 Years of Stigma Broken: How Create’s Dan McCormick is Rebranding Creatine

when I was like finding our first 1,000 customers, I could find those 1,000 customers on Twitter by being transparent about the business. It turns out at scale, like your average customer in middle of America doesn't give a shit about like your subscription take rate and strategy. They just want like a really good product. So I think a lot of founders are designing the brand with like, it's not just what's the coolest t-shirt I can make, like Everlane perhaps, and more like, all right, what are the business fundamentals that my brand needs to kind of have built into its physics from day one to be successful. Many more brands just jump directly into retail, but don't have that feedback loop of D2C, don't have that speed that D2C allows. And so you're making a really big bet from like basically day one on, all right, this brand we know will only work in retail. And if it doesn't, like the brand doesn't exist.

Dan McCormick, founder and CEO of Create, is transforming the creatine market by rebranding the supplement for a broader audience. Originally stigmatized as a steroid, creatine is now being positioned by Create as a safe, everyday nutrient beneficial for all ages. Dan shares how the company overcame early challenges, refining its product to become a leader in the space. In this episode, Dan discusses working closely with his fiancée, the strategic decisions behind Create's growth, and the importance of maintaining focus in the e-commerce space. He also offers insights into the current landscape for D2C brands and the challenges of raising capital while scaling a business. Welcome back to Season 2, Episode 17 of the Turning Pro Podcast. Today we have the founder and CEO of Create, Dan McCormick, joining us. Thanks for joining today, Dan.

Boys, thanks for having me.

I love your product. It's that— I'm just going to start with that. I, I take it every single day. I want you to maybe just start by telling everyone what you're building.

Yeah, I know both of you are products— or both of you are customers and have been customers since the beginning and have kind of been with us through the different iterations of the product. Adrian's been, you know, honest with the feedback from day one. I think we're getting to the point where we have the top-selling creatine gummy on the internet across D2C, Amazon, first, uh, creatine gummy in, in GNC. But the idea here is to build the modern creatine brand. Creatine is a compound that's been around for commercially over 30 years and for whatever reason has gotten a really bad shake of it reputationally, stigma. I think like a lot of it actually dates back to like since we're— the Olympics are about to start— to like the Olympics in the '90s. It came out, a lot of sprinters were taking creatine. Then in the late '90s, early 2000s, creatine got conflated with steroids. Through the 2000s, you know, a lot of like High school football players took creatine that scared their mothers. And so in the hearts and minds of the American consumer, creatine was this like quasi-steroid. Turns out creatine is nothing like a steroid. It's safe, it's efficacious, it does a lot of beneficial things for the people that take it. Um, and so the idea here is let's kind of reposition creatine as this daily nutrient, this widely beneficial compound that really a lot of different groups of people can benefit from taking. And let's do it in a way that increases the total addressable market, not just male bodybuilders and serious athletes, but young, old, male, female, living active lifestyles, living less active lifestyles. So yeah, that's our product where we started with creatine monohydrate gummies, but you'll see us kind of match with other active ingredients and other form factors soon.

I'll be the first to admit that I associated creatine with steroids. I was a Division 1 athlete my whole life. I was like, I can't take that. That's really bad for your body. Don't go near that. This was the first time that I'd ever taken it, and I was just thinking back, like, I don't actually remember why that was the sentiment other than the person next to me said it. So I was like, oh, then yeah, it's not good for you.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is like literally Mark McGuire when he got nabbed. There's this famous photo in like the Baltimore Sun or whatever where it's a photo of Mark McGuire's locker room, and he has this banned substance that, uh, right in his locker, like literally visible in his locker, and right next to it is a jug of creatine monohydrate. And so in the hearts and minds of the consumer, creatine got basically mixed in with steroids and baseball. And then like, is that—

did you know that?

No, I had no idea.

Yeah. I mean, early adopters of the product also tended to be people like Mark McGuire. He obviously wasn't a bodybuilder, but bodybuilders were early adapters. Gym rats were early adapters. Like, think like, like jacked up 2000s people in gyms. That's who the the early adopter of creatine was, and like, it just never shed that reputation, partially because the creatine brands that existed served that customer. So, right, so you'd see like XXX Creatine, NO Explode was like a big compound, a big supplement back in the day, and like, it was mixed with a bunch of other stuff. And so you take it, you'd itch your skin off, uh, and people would be like, that's what creatine is like. Creatine doesn't do that, it's non-stimulant. You're really not going to feel anything, uh, you're not going to see results really for like at least 2 weeks. But people just basically conflated that experience with, um, the experience of creatine.

At its core, can you explain what creatine actually does for you from a benefits perspective?

Yeah, so benefits— and we can maybe get into a little bit of the science— but benefits: you're going to build strength, you're going to increase muscle mass, you're going to improve recovery. There's a growing body of research on creatine and cognitive performance. So brain health. But essentially what it does is help— it facilitates the production of ATP. If you think back to like biology class in high school, ATP is the energy currency of the cells. So essentially your muscles, your cells are able to produce energy at a higher level. And basically when you go to the gym, let's say how that manifests is you're able to do an extra rep or two in a set, you're able to lift 5 pounds heavier. But over time that compounds And so you just get stronger.

I have a question around broader, like, protein and supplements as well, because I feel like almost every guy that goes to the gym, you know, you're probably taking— you have whey protein or plant protein or something. And all of my friends that work out are taking all these supplements and taking all these protein powders. Or what's the version of casein? Yeah, like later in the day. I think it's like a pre-night or something like that. Different type of protein. And Every single one of them. Over time you have the same feeling of like you're going into GNC or looking on Amazon and it's like these huge tubs with jacked dudes on it. Yeah, you're like, I don't want this. And then I remember when you came out with your first branding, it wasn't specifically speaking necessarily to like a guy working out.

It was—

it had like a mass appeal. Like you could— a mom could be using it, a young woman could be using it. My dad's 65 and now he's using it. And now it makes a ton of sense that I'm like, oh, there's all these other use cases. But I remember when you first started, I was like, why isn't this just a little bit more like male branded for kind of people like us, early 20s, that have disposable income?

Yeah, so taking a step back, I think there's like a few supplements that really can move the needle for people when it comes to performance in the gym or just general overall health and wellness. So protein is one of those. Like, if you're taking a whey protein, for example, that's great. Like, you should be having, call it, 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight if you're trying to build muscle and improve performance over time. You can also get that protein from your diet. Um, I think obviously hydration is really important, making sure you're getting your electrolytes. Creatine is probably like somewhere between the second or third or fourth, like I would say, most essential, at least, um, like dietary supplement or fitness, uh, sports nutrition compound. Um, and Yeah. So going back to like, given its position as like one of those essential compounds, the fact that no one had really built a brand that was accessible beyond, call it, the 5% of people that identify as like a gym rat or a bodybuilder, I thought presented a huge opportunity. Frankly, the, you know, call it mid-20s guy was already very well served on the market in terms of at least the brands and how they spoke to them. Maybe not the form factor. But like, people have been selling creatine to dudes for 30 years now. Like, there didn't need to be another brand selling creatine to dudes. That's, you know, 5 to 10% of the population, like that specific stereotype of person. And so I just thought it was a much larger market and thus like could have a larger impact by selling to the 95% of the population that wasn't already being sold to.

In the early days, I know you started sharing kind of your— all your growth metrics and revenue metrics, if I remember correctly.

Yeah.

On Twitter, on LinkedIn, very open about it. And I feel like from day one until now, every single thing that you've done on the surface, it's like, oh my God, he's crushing it. Just execution every single day.

Yeah.

In the right hands of the influencers with the right subscription, launching the new product SKUs. Everything seems to be, you know, at least executed like clockwork. But I'm sure on the inside sometimes it doesn't feel that way. And so walk us through— maybe not misses, but kind of just early ups and downs that you've went through? Because again, on the surface, it seems like you guys have just been making all the right decisions.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think you're— you've been pretty transparent about me or transparent with me about the fact that the product, when it first launched, it launched was like a great idea and like pretty bad, right? Like it could melt. It didn't taste great. Like it just was, I would say, average execution when it came to a product from a product perspective. So that was a big one. We've dialled in the product over the last like 18 months to the point that I'm no longer like, ah, like having to quasi-apologize to people about like the, the state of the product when it showed up to them. Um, and so that was definitely a learning curve, and product's hard, and like we're selling to tens of thousands of people a month, like things are going to go wrong. But, um, that was definitely a big learning curve. Um, I, I think like when it comes to, to sharing, the reason I started was because I was like kind of bored. And like, I always treated myself as an analyst of these e-commerce brands. It's a weird niche to actually care about, but like, it's where I spent my career. And like, I cared a lot about the ecosystem and the business model and like figuring out how it works or how it doesn't work. So I was like sharing because I was interested from an analyst perspective, like, how do these businesses work? What makes them successful? Um, trying to also avoid a lot of the mistakes of the brands that I had worked on worked at previously. Um, and so yeah, it was just like I was interested in the results of my own business, and at the time the stakes were super low for me, so there was only upside in sharing, right? Like, if someone knows if I did like $100,000 versus $112,000, it doesn't matter in, in the early stages. So just share it away.

Why'd you stop?

Uh, why'd I stop? I stopped because one, I thought it was becoming a little bit cringe of just like the numbers were large enough to the point where it's like a little cringe. I felt kind of awkward sharing the revenue numbers. Two, there was just more, frankly, stakeholders involved that had voice kind of like, hey, maybe don't do this. And after telling them 10 times, like, ah, there's actually tons of benefits, it just came up enough where I was just like, ah, not worth it. And three— at the scale we're at, it doesn't move the needle anymore. When I was like finding our first 1,000 customers, I could find those 1,000 customers on Twitter by being transparent about the business. It turns out at scale, like your average customer in middle of America doesn't give a shit about like your subscription take rate and strategy. They just want like a really good product. And so getting like an incremental 100 customers from sharing in public for a D2C brand just didn't move the needle anymore relative to the potential downsides of like attracting competition and not living up to the hype and all of those things.

So you have one, unless it's changed since we last spoke, but last time we spoke you had one other full-time employee in the business. Is that still correct?

Yeah. So I work with my fiancée. She joined the business, I guess, about 7 or 8 months ago full-time.

Which is so badass, by the way.

Yeah, she's— so she like had a whole career and traditional finance. And I think my philosophy prior to hiring her was like, no full-time employees. I'm going to go at this alone, outsource everything, focus on being a killer operator, and not focus on building a company and a team. And that has transitioned over time. And as I thought about, all right, I have this beautiful thing going. Who's the one person that I can bring on that's not going to mess that up? Who do I trust 100%? And it was her. And she also had the background that I needed from like a finance and operations perspective. So yeah, we've been working together as a two-man, two-person team now for like 7 or 8 months.

Can you speak a little bit about how that has affected your relationship? Like, is there ever a moment that you guys can sit down for a meal and not talk about business or what? What I guess— let me rephrase that. What are the pros and cons of building a company with your significant other?

Yeah, I mean, it's like the ultimate upside, ultimate downside decision. Like, we got when we first decided to do it and I was talking to people about it, like, people recognize both the upside and the downside. They're like, oh my God, man, that's awesome. You get to build this thing with your partner, something special, something you both care about. Like, if this goes well, it's the best thing in the world, right? Like, you build a business with the person you love, hopefully working on something you love. And if it goes wrong, it's like the worst thing ever, right? It can ruin— like, it can ruin your relationship. It can ruin the business. It has like pretty terrible downsides if it doesn't go well. So the main thing is you have to be really intentional about how you approach everything. So like going back to the dinner table example, which is kind of the canonical example of like how do you not talk about work 24/7, you have to be really intentional and be like, all right, we are no longer talking about work because if we don't say that, we're going to talk about some like random CX issue for like just during dessert. And that's not good for the relationship and like it's not good for the business ultimately. And so you just have to be intentional about it and you can't go in eyes wide— like you can't go in with the assumption that it's not going to have an impact on either your professional relationship or your personal relationship. Like it truly is an integration. And going in with the, like, uh, I would say the belief that like it's not going to have some impact, positive or negative at all, on the relationship is it's just not realistic.

When you— I think when you posted that picture of like our new employee or something like that, it made me so happy specifically because I feel like in any relationship, not, not even talking about working together, one of the biggest or most important things that come into play is respect for each other. Maybe like not just professional respect, but personal respect, respect for their hobbies, respect for their work. And if that's not there, you don't have a relationship. And making the jump to not only have her like freelance with you, but literally come into the business with you is the ultimate kind of sign of respect.

Yeah, right.

It's not just a favor. You guys are a serious company growing incredibly quickly. That is like the ultimate sign of respect of like, I respect your intellect and your work ethic and not only from a romantic lens, but like, I want you to be a partner in this.

Yeah. I mean, frankly, like, it's one of the things that attracted me to her in the first place is like, she's intellectually very impressive and I respect her deeply beyond just like how she looks, obviously. Like, that's one of the things that has attracted me to her forever. One thing I would say is like, I was like probably pretty concerned about the public reaction. By public, I mean like the stakeholders in the business and generally, generally people that I would talk to about it, like, oh, cool, man. Like, you're— we invest in your company and now you're going out and like hiring your girlfriend at the time, not even fiancée. But basically reaction beyond like a few maybe like schlubs that had an immature reaction, I would say, or maybe not immature, but not a reaction that I thought was merited, was that's a huge sign of like, that's a bullish sign, right? Like our family is now going 150% in on creatine gummies. Like, um, if this doesn't work, we're like, we're burning the boats, right?

I'm all in on that. I agree 100%.

Yeah, there's, there's no hedge. It's it's 100% in. And I think most people viewed that as like a positive signal, actually, that she was going to leave her job at Goldman that she spent like the last year to make like half as much money to sell creatine gum.

I hate the person who had a negative reaction.

Yeah, not my favorite person either.

So you also have a history of going into business with close friends and/or brothers. And so was part of it also, I guess, was part of it I guess kickstarted by the fact that you had maybe a good experience working like with your brother and with your family in the past?

Yeah. So the context here is prior to starting Create, worked with my brother who writes a newsletter and has an investment fund. And I still actually work with him today. And we have an amazing working relationship. Like we probably talk, ah, somewhere below 100 words a week and just bang it out. Bang out newsletters together. Like, we just have a very well-oiled machine and we, we get along and kind of talk in the same shorthand and all of that. Um, and so that was a really good experience. I also, like, my— prior to hiring Sienna, who's my fiancée, probably the closest thing we had to a full-time employee was my sister-in-law who was working 40 hours a week. This is crazy.

I did not know.

Yeah, yeah, for Create.

Yeah, so my brother's wife was like our ran basically our supply chain for a while. And, um, so it was all already in the family, and I've just kind of gotten used to blending business, personal, family.

Um, is she still involved or not anymore?

Yes, I— like, loosely. Um, she's taking on other projects. We kind of got to the point where, like, she'd done what she needed to do and has other clients now. Um, but yeah, there was a point where she was working for me, Sienna was working for me, I was working for my brother, uh, and so it was all very very, uh, incestuous in that sense.

But a big part of that is also trust. Like, when I think about the team or your team that you've built, the closest people to me on the team, especially at the executive and leadership level, I just trust them intimately. And that's the most important thing for me. It's not communication, it's not their work ethic, it's do I trust them to get things done. And I feel like family is— or fiancée is quite literally the embodiment of trust.

It's trust. And honestly, like, enjoying spending the time with the person. Uh, there's like even competent employees that— or people that I don't love spending time with. It doesn't make me jazzed up to like go sit on a 30-minute Zoom with them, um, or work on a project with them. And so, you know, trust, enjoying spending time with people, those are like the two— two of the main ingredients for me.

Yeah. All right, I want to pivot to state of e-commerce today. Oh, are there a handful of brands that have launched, I don't know, in the past like 5 to 10 years that you really look up to in terms of their growth trajectory and how— and their execution or operational excellence? That maybe, maybe some that are a little off the beaten path.

Yeah. Uh, is Element off the beaten path?

You could say Element.

Yeah, I, I think maybe a year ago was off the beaten path, and now it's like everyone takes Element. Um, yeah, I think Element's a brand that we look up to a lot because Honestly, for a bunch of different reasons. One of the things is they took this stigmatized product and rebranded it. Their focus, right? Like Element could have done a million things over the last 2 years. They're not in retail yet intentionally. They don't sell non-salt products. Like they've stayed almost 100% focused on the thing that they do really, really well. So we take that from them. Um, I think Vital Proteins is like another one we look up to a lot as a strong comp for our business. And they took this, again, misunderstood compound, brought it mass market, focus on brand distribution, um, and really like focusing on their core customer. And again, not lose it— like today Vital Proteins has a million different products and like sells a bunch of different things, but for a while it was just collagen. And that's something that we really take away is like People ask us all the time, when are you launching protein? When are you going to do magnesium? When— like, all these different things. We're like, that is very tempting, and like, sure, we can maybe sell incremental revenue in the short term, but when you look at all the, the brands that have scaled from like, call it $25 million to a few hundred million, they all are ruthless when it comes to focus, like, um, knowing where basically their bread is buttered, um, And so yeah, those are two that I, I look up to.

AG1 is my favorite example for the point you just made.

Yeah. AG1's another, like, canonical example of focus. Like, people hit their heads against the wall. Why is AG1 not on Amazon? Why is AG1 not in any retail partners? Why is AG1 not, like, expanding their product assortment beyond the vitamin D packs, essentially? Um, and yeah, they, like, it's because they don't need to because they nailed this one thing and they're going to do that one thing better than really any other. Like it, it's a commodity. The Greens product is largely a commodity, but they just outdo everyone on execution, brand partnerships, all of that.

Yeah, almost every day or every week people come to Verbatim and ask us for social and for SEO and PR. And I'm sure the same thing happens at Platter, especially. I mean, you guys are literally consolidating features. And so every time that happens, I think of you and I think of ElementLabs. And I'm like, I know that's in a different industry, but just stay focused on the main thing and try not to launch other things. Maybe a few years down the line we will. But every time it's, it's so tempting to— it's like, okay, you can see the revenue there. People are asking for it. Like, why won't I do that?

Yeah.

And so in those, in those moments is— I'm sure you get carried away sometimes or tempted. You're like, well, this actually may make sense financially. Do you just remind yourself like, stay focused?

Yeah, I mean, we've gotten as far as like, we've spun up so many R&D samples and gotten like very, very close to launching products that I would say are secondary to our main thing, multiple times in just like the last 6 months, but have kind of held back because going back to that, like looking at these brands that haven't done that, they made that decision to not do this and it's worked out for them. And that's not to say we won't, like we in fact will launch secondary products over time, but it's just, um, uh, that ability to stay focused is something I think is super important today.

As the D2C analyst nerd himself, what are you seeing as the biggest mistakes a lot of other brands are making out there?

I think everyone's getting a lot smarter, um, from the beginning. Like brands are now, I think largely many brands are being created with some of the basic heuristics of what makes an e-commerce brand successful. And so like a great example today, we were talking about the fact that like Michael Praesman from Everlane just launched his magnesium hydration brand. And like the reason he's doing that is because that's a great potential business. Like it's high margin. He's repackaging magnesium with a little bit of salt and potassium. That's a really high margin product. Magnesium is something that you're supposed to be taking every day. It's a natural subscription product. Magnesium is like, um, yes, it's a commodity, but it's a misunderstood commodity where probably like, I don't know, at a high range, 15% of the population consistently takes magnesium. But there's a world in which like, you know, 50% of the population should be taking magnesium, if not more. So I think a lot of founders are designing the brand with like, it's not just what's the coolest t-shirt I can make, like Everlane perhaps, and more like, all right, what are the business fundamentals that my brand needs to kind of have built into its physics from day one to be successful. Um, what was the original question? What are they not do— what are they—

yeah, like brands you're like, the biggest mistakes you're seeing amongst like the cohort of brands that you spend your time researching.

Yeah.

Um, I guess it's the— another way to pose the question is like, if you can go back and start Create again, like what would you do differently?

Oh yeah. Um, hmm, that's a really good question. I think There's always this seesaw of like how quickly do you go and become an omnichannel brand? And I think perhaps we would've gone omnichannel a little bit earlier or at least made that a bigger focus for the brand. And I think like some other brands may be even jumping into retail a little bit too early today. Like that pendulum has swung back to the point where, you know, 5 years ago, like retail was a dirty word. And like if you weren't a D2C brand, you didn't know how to focus on the customer. Like false dichotomy painted. Today it's like everyone kind of jumps directly. Many more brands just jump directly into retail, but don't have that feedback loop of D2C, don't have that speed that D2C allows. And so you're making a really big bet from like basically day one on, all right, this brand we know will only work in retail. And if it doesn't, like the brand doesn't exist. So I think going back to that point, like if I were to do it again, I think having the flexibility of having 3 channels across D2C, Amazon, brick-and-mortar retail allows you to kind of play the trends a little bit easier.

When we met up 4 or 5 months ago or something, I remember we were walking around downtown and I was like, New York feels such a, like a great place to build an e-commerce brand. There's all these operators around here. And I was like, are you going to the event circuit and podcasts and dinners? And you were like, Dude, I'm at home all day with my golden retriever and he's there and I'm there and I'm on my computer all day. And so walk me through what an actual day in the life looks like, because I feel like a lot of people on Twitter have a very different experience.

Yeah, it's that I now have like a shoebox of an office in the Amex Tower, which is a block away from my apartment. So essentially, you know, sitting at home, but no, get up, go to the gym at 6 a.m. in the office by about 8. I'm doing all this again with my partner now because my, uh, my fiancée is my business partner. Gym at 6 AM, take the dog to the dog park, office at 8, come back at around noon or 1 to take the dog out again, go back to the office for a few hours, maybe get a run in at the end of the day, dog again, dinner, work, hang out. Uh, but yeah, um, it's a very flexible lifestyle, which is part of the reason why we haven't built a big team. And that's going to change. Not something I'm— or it's something I'm excited about doing, but it's going to be kind of a big change to our day-to-day. We are kind of the masters of our day-to-day universe when it comes to scheduling and planning. Yeah, I would say Ben kind of knows this. I think I had to say no to a dope omakase dinner to Ben either tomorrow or one of these days. Because I like to think about it like the 2 hours that I could be going to that dinner, I could be like weirdly obsessed with subscription data in my computer and like that could have a huge impact on our business.

And so that I'm frankly not a great networker when it comes to that, but I would be like, I, I kind of almost know that he's not going to come, but I'd be, but I'd be like remiss to not invite him. It's like, oh, it's like a nice Omakase dinner. Like, I enjoy him. I enjoy him being around. Like, I'm not going to not ask him. Like, I already knew he wasn't going to come. Come. Like, I was surprised when he agreed to do this.

No, I, I, I love people. I'm— I actually—

no, but it's not a knock on you. It's like, there's a lot of people who will show up who frankly shouldn't be there. It's kind of the moral of the story.

Yeah.

Um, I think a lot of successful businesses— like, it's a pretty boring, monotonous lifestyle when you do it really, really well.

Yeah. And that's— I like have said this before— is like, my one advantage is that I'm willing to basically treat selling creatine gummies like a full-time, very, very serious job. And like, one, I think broadly a lot of people that start brands don't treat it like a very, very serious job. They treat it like, I have this cool brand, we sell stuff online. But then if you even niche down further, I think about how many people in this world are willing to like basically spend 10 to 15 hours a day selling this very niche product. And there's maybe like 3 to 4 of us that are willing to dedicate their life to that. And so that helps kind of focus in the energies and like at least justifies in my mind not doing all of like the network.

Dude, how many people are going to listen to this episode and be like, that guy's not going to make it? Like, no shit, he is. Like, we—

this—

like, we need to like take that last 2 minutes and clip that and be like, if you're a founder and you're like struggling in your business, like, fucking listen to this.

And I don't want to make it like hustle porn, right?

No, no, it's simplification.

I think it's just the reality of like what needs to get done and how serious you need to take it.

You don't make it sound like I, you know, I don't sleep, I don't eat healthy. It's like you wake up, you go to the gym. If you could find time to go to the dog park, like, you clearly aren't like this crazy hustle mentality culture person where it's like everything else in your life should suffer. Yeah, it's really just you're simplifying things. And I think oftentimes people will go to these dinners and do these other things. Look, I don't want to knock them that they're not beneficial because I think there's some people who don't have access the way you do. And don't have exposure the way you do. So I do think there is a ton of value there. But I do think there's a lot of instances of people who want to avoid the reality of like not wanting to solve a hard problem by like pushing it off, by going and doing other things, whereas you're kind of just like, there's really nothing else in my life more important than solving this thing right now. Like, my fiancée is sitting next to me, my dog is right here. Like, we're all in on this business. I'm going to solve this problem because no one else is going to solve it for me. And you're just honest with yourself about that.

Yeah. And I think I'm also probably lazy sometimes too when it comes to like, ah, it's Wednesday night. I'm going to, you know, if I'm going to have a little bit of time, I'm going to like spend it with the, like, the people I love versus the people that I consider like professional relationships.

Yeah, I think that I'm— I can't wait to have a dog in part for that reason of being able to turn down things. I got to go back and hang out. Yeah, but it's very—

What do you mean? You're so good about that already.

I'm better than you at it.

You're the best. You're better than anyone I know at it.

I'm—

we're like at the thing this week. You're like, oh, I got to go back, see my girlfriend. I was like, of course you do. I knew you were going to say that.

It— oh, I have learned about drawing boundaries mainly from you because I feel like I used to be a big people pleaser and Ben has helped me be like, what are you talking about, man? He'll get in my face, be like, you're being an idiot. Just tell them this. And I'm like, that's a very simple way of doing it.

So you've changed in that sense?

Yeah, 100%. I think that If I had to think, if I was journaling about the benefit of this podcast, it was I just hang out with him a lot and he has very strict boundaries.

I think the problem for him is that his business is largely driven by his relationships, right? Because like he's the top of funnel, and so because of that he's constantly having to try to keep a million people happy. And I'm like, dude, you gotta cut it at some point. Like, this is not productive or conducive for your mental health. Like, your business is not going to go under if you tell this one person on Tuesday night that you can't go see them.

Right.

Um, and I think there's like a fear of failure, which like I feel like I also have in my own subconscious in ways that I've done the same thing. So maybe in some ways it's easier to project onto someone else, like, stop doing this, because I'm by no means the best at it. But I definitely would say that I am very unfiltered with everyone.

I mean, to be fair, there are certain people that, um, get their— they derive their energy from going to that Tuesday night thing, right? Like it's not draining. It's actually like where they recharge and like they, they can flex that social muscle. I think there's just some people that are forced— not forced, but like they do that and they don't get the same level of energy. And that's where it becomes kind of a detriment. Agreed.

I want to talk about your journey over the past. When did you start it?

2 years ago? Yeah, I started working on it about 2 years ago.

So for a quick backstory, one of the most impactful relationships that I've had so far aside from Ben over here, building verbatim, has been Andrew from Noon Brew. Yeah, they're renaming as Moon Brew because we just so happened to meet randomly at a coffee shop like 3 years ago. And then over the past 3 years, we lived near each other in Williamsburg. We worked out like clockwork, I think every week for like 2 and a half years. And seeing someone at— he's a completely different industry. We have like no overlap. I have no potential impact on his business. He has no potential impact on my business. But just someone going through it literally. I think we followed the exact same growth rate and the same problems at the same exact time. Has there been anyone like that for you? Obviously, aside from your fiancée now, that has kind of come up at a similar rate that you can kind of just share everything to?

I definitely enjoy following you guys and getting to know you more. And I think, you know, similar trajectories. I think For me, what's been really important is like a few building relationships with a few people that are actually, call it, a few years ahead of me that have pushed me. So like the guys at Element and Jeff at Owen and a few guys like that, that like I can kind of see what life looks like and like what the business should look like in a few years. So they've been They've been really helpful. Honestly, Andrew, like I see him a fair amount. We have an office maybe a block away from each other, run into each other at lunch and like run very similar businesses, honestly. So like it's tactically, those conversations are always fruitful. And two other guys I gotta mention, Seth from Masa, who's my boy. He's probably the answer to the original question. I just had to get there. Yeah, those guys from Masa, they've come up on a very similar trajectory. I think Seth and I look at business in very similar ways. And yeah, but you find—

I think I actually think I talk to Seth more than most founders.

You do?

Yeah.

But your businesses, are they customer platter?

Yeah, but it's— we rarely talk about that. I just— I agree with what you just said. I love his perspective on business and it'll keep you honest. Yeah, I don't know. I think he's just— he gave me a breath of fresh air as like, uh, the way that he just like approaches it. Like, I think he understands opportunity and understands how to capitalize on opportunity.

Yeah.

And I actually think the thing that he's done better than any founder I've ever seen in my whole life is raise money. It's, it's like comedy to me.

Really?

Well, yeah. Like, I was like, dude, why are you raising at this valuation? Like, you pre-revenue. Or he's like, you have fiduciary responsibility. If you want to allocate capital into my business, like, that's on you. That's not on me. I was like, damn, that— you're not wrong. You know, because I think there's some founders early on are like, oh, I don't know if like having a high valuation is going to hurt me or if I'm being a scumbag or whatever. Like, people have all this self-talk and just like watching him being so like capitalistic with his black and white like ways that he approaches it, I just think has been so admirable to watch.

What have you gotten more ruthless about? Because like when we had— because Seth was on the podcast, like a few months ago.

Yeah.

And the thing that struck me immediately, I was like, this guy is ruthless about everything in a very, like, kind— he's super laid back, but you could just tell beneath the surface, like, absolutely ruthless. I'm curious, as KRETA scaled, what have you become more ruthless about?

Hmm.

I can tell you the one, actually. I'll give you the one major highlight that he gave to us because I remember is like, he's really hard to get a hold of before. Like, I think— I don't know what he said, like 12:00 or something. Because he's like, has PTSD from the PE days where like the mornings are his and he doesn't give a shit.

Yeah, those guys like, they work their asses off but don't go to work until like 10:30 in the morning. So I guess that's what he's trying to replicate. Um, ruthlessness. I don't know, I'm not like a ruthless, uh, operator in that sense. Like I'm actually, uh, I would say pretty understanding. Don't have like super exact— I'm not a perfectionist by any means. Like if I would never have been a good investment banker, investment banking analyst. My attention to detail is actually quite shit. And so I'm not like ruthless in like the traditional sense. I would say how I spend my time, who I spend my time with. You know, if I'm like deciding between, you know, guys that I've known for 15 years from high school versus like going to an e-commerce dinner, like I'm probably going to choose like my, my, my best friends. Is one thing I think probably where I'm most ruthless. Yeah.

As you think about kind of managing and keeping relationships going from buddies from growing up, buddies from high school, buddies from college, I'm sure even kind of those first few years out of college, as I think any entrepreneur has experienced this, where now when you hang out with Andrew or if we're hanging out right now, we can talk about— we have similar language. You can talk about things that you can't with others.

Yeah.

And we've both definitely kind of gone through this experience of, on one hand, those like new relationships are beautiful because like it's someone you just met and you can immediately talk about the exact same things that you're going through.

Totally.

And on the other hand, I love my high school friends to death. They're going to be at my wedding. They know my parents. People that know your family from way back or keep them around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at the same time, sometimes we hang out and I'm like, you know, we're all big Arsenal fans. But outside of that, we just don't have as much life overlap now.

Yeah.

And so you kind of have to— you just need to put more effort into it to kind of ensure those keep going. Have you experienced— has that been difficult? Because I'm sure you meet a lot of cool people.

Yeah, no, I mean, what I will say about my friends, like, Create would not exist were it for like 5 or 6 friends from high school that didn't have $10,000 to invest in the company, like, right in the beginning. I think— I think 5 or 6 of them within the first text were like, yeah, here's $10,000. And I'm not like, I don't— they're not rich. They don't have $10,000 to like just kind of throw away. And so that was a huge vote of confidence and has made them invested in the business in a way that like kind of keeps everyone in the circle. But to your point, like, yeah, my friends don't really want to talk about like e-commerce in the same way that I do all the time or entrepreneurship in the same way that I do all the time. Um, and so yeah, like, I think some of the best relationships I have are the newer relationships of people in the— in this industry. And there's a shorthand that you mentioned where like you unders— you know the same people, you understand the same acronyms, you care about the same stuff. Um, but yeah, it's definitely been a little bit of a learning curve. I haven't thankfully had to been like— I haven't had to like shut people out by any means. Like, my friends are still my friends.

But I think Kevin from IMI had— he tweeted this or told me this at some point— that running a company, starting a company, is the best personal growth accelerant that exists in the world.

Yeah.

Because everything changes so quickly, and you just kind of have to grow up in ways that you didn't have to before. Have there been any kind of personal impacts— could be discipline, it could be focus, it could be patience— that you just got better as a person? Even if Create burned down tomorrow, you just have changed fundamentally.

Yeah, I think I could still be a pretty disgusting human being sometimes, to be honest.

You need to clarify that.

Yeah. No, no, I think I like, um, meaning like there's obviously like I'm a, I'm a pretty disciplined person, I would think, in my general life. But there's— everyone has their moments where like they're not as disciplined. Um, yeah, I would say like, uh, I don't know what I'd say to that question. I don't know, like I'm trying to think how I've changed a lot. I think I've always cared deeply about the things that I've that I've done. I've always cared a lot about business before I even had a company of my own. Um, yeah, I don't know. I'll have to get back to you.

Circle back.

Yeah, circle back.

What about hobbies away from work? Yeah, I'm still trying to figure you out. What do you do for fun?

Gym does not count, man.

Yeah, gym doesn't count. Give me like, give me something like really random and obscure. It's not even that random and obscure, but like my girlfriend and I, we play board games all the time.

Yeah. Uh, so every Thursday, you mentioned that I still work with my, my brother I, I bang out like a newsletter read by 200,000 people on like technology and science and things that have nothing to do with creatine gummies. Um, and that allows me to flex a muscle that I don't get to flex at work, where these are things that I'm personally really interested in. Like, I, I love creatine, I love e-commerce, but like intellectually I'm like, all right, what are some other things outside of this that I can like care about for a few hours a week? And so that's a really nice outlet for me. I'm also just like, have very basic dude interests as well. Like, I like sports a lot. I used to like sports gamble a lot. Like, I have very, uh, basic dude interests as well.

So yeah, gambling counts. I didn't expect that was going to be the answer to hobbies, but yeah, sports.

He had the dude— he had the dude interest of like the target persona that Creatine Once was for. He was like one of the consumers, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take this thing that me and all my bros used to do together and make it cool for everyone else.

Yeah, like, I like sports, I like hanging out with the guys I like. Yeah. So fair.

I was talking to my girlfriend's dad this weekend and he was like, do you sports bet? And I was like, I actually have never sport— I've never bet before.

Yeah.

And he goes, well, it's, it's a huge problem. Yeah, everyone's doing it. I'm like, I know every single one of my friends is texting me that they're betting on the game and what they're betting on.

Dude, my girlfriend has placed more sports bets than me.

No.

And she's really good at it.

Wow.

But she always, like, bets against my teams when I'm watching something. Yeah. She's made more money against the Bills, I think, than anything else, and I hate it. It pisses me off.

No, she doesn't have like betting apps on your phone. No, I don't.

I don't sports bet.

How do they even— is it like you can bet on any specific part of the game? Is it only—

you can like—

they make it pretty easy.

Yeah, they make it just about as accessible as you want, like whether you're betting on the coin toss or like the next play or—

yeah, you can bet on like live plays.

Yeah, yeah, you can live bet. Yeah. Wow.

You're—

I didn't like—

I'm fully out of like—

I'm all for people being like, I don't sports bet, but for you to sound shocked that you could live bet in 2024 is actually crazy.

Were you guys aware of like the Caesars arbitrage maybe 2 to 3 years with the delay on the lines? So it was during like peak SERP when all the sports bets or gambling became legal, sports betting became legal in New York. So all the sportsbooks that were sanctioned like rushed into the market and were giving out these crazy basically sign-up bonuses. And so there was a point in time where you could basically arb signing up for those apps and make like $3,000, no risk, because they were just giving it— you get free bets, you get sign-up bonuses. So yeah, the Great Caesars arb of like 2021. Is this like early Gettier and like all those around that time where like sign-up bonuses were how all these apps were growing?

Do you remember Fast AF?

Oh yeah.

$100 free stuff.

Yeah.

Like every single day there was some new discount code.

But I worked at Gopuff. I know all about the race to the bottom on giving people free dollars to download your fat boy.

Yeah, they're still around.

Yeah, because they decided to try to get to profitability after the billion-dollar convertible note to go public off of a lot of losses didn't work.

Are they the only ones still around? I think GetTier shut down.

So GetTier is a Turkish company, I believe.

Yeah, I think they pulled out of the US.

Yeah.

Uh, Gopuff might be the only, if not one of very few, left in the US.

Interesting. The only one, really?

One of—

I know they're one of the only in New York.

I'm sure there's a couple others, um, but definitely not when I was there. When I was there, the competitive landscape map was crazy. Yeah, there's so many. It was so competitive. But that's why you saw the things you're talking about of like people were— they were just paying you free dollars to use theirs with the hope that like your experience would be good enough that you'd stay instead of go to the other. And then they very quickly realized that everyone just had the affinity to free money, not like the best customer experience.

Remember that Flip app, the phone thing?

Yeah, that was like 6 months ago.

A few months ago. Yeah, my girlfriend made thousands of dollars on that.

Was that the thing where everyone was sending code? Like, I feel like I got 25 referrals. It might be on my phone, honestly.

There were some like retention chart of people that use the sign-up free code or whatever, and then like second purchase, and it was literally one like this, like straight to zero.

That's just like a fundamental business problem at that point.

Yeah.

Question on the investment front, because you've raised multiple rounds of angel investment and you guys have continued to grow and obviously maybe you're not sharing revenue metrics publicly on Twitter.

I mean, I think we can also cut this, but by the time this episode's live, you're— I think your latest round— this is not going live for months.

Oh, cool. Yeah.

So no, by the time this is live, I'm pretty sure your announcement will be Fair. Old news, honestly, by the time it's live.

Yeah. Assuming, you know, things go right over the next, I don't know, 72 hours or so, we will raise Series A from Unilever Ventures, $5 million round. The idea there is build out a small team, continue to invest in growth, and become like a true omnichannel brand. Really make like a big swing at building the creatine brand. Um, so yeah, that's closing summer 2024, irregardless, hopefully, of when this comes out.

Let's go. Well, when it comes to investing or when it comes to raising capital as like an early stage brand right now, every one of my founder friends that are running brands say, hey, it took way more time. Like metrics have to be much more impressive, much more diligence upfront.

Yeah.

But at the same time, I feel like the broader, like all my B2B SaaS friends that raised capital say, like, in their mind, they just don't know much about the current state of D2C, and they say, oh, like, investing's over in brands. And I'm like, well, all the founders I know have at least managed to raise like $5 to $10 million rounds. I don't know about the rounds after that, but walk me through kind of like the state of the D2C investing market.

Yeah. So what I'll say is I think you need a lot more traction today to get to kind of a Series A round versus obviously 3 to 4 years ago. Um, I would say a lot of brands are being built from day one. Well, one, like, investing in D2C is not categorically a bad investment, right? It all kind of depends on entry point and what the exit market looks like. So I think like what we've discovered about D2C is that there's not a huge kind of market for liquidity events. Like very few companies IPO. Of the companies that have IPO'd, they've had a really tough time in the public markets. There's not this like, you know, super robust kind of M&A market for D2C companies. And that's like, you kind of have to know that going in, and that's going to cap a little bit of valuation and like how much money is rushing into this just because upside is relatively limited. Like, the biggest D2C company of the last 10 years is maybe worth, I don't know, $10 billion, and that's like on running, right?

Um, is that the biggest D2C brand in the last 10 years?

They may have been around longer than 10 years. Like, Lulu, that's a brand that's, you know, $40 billion maybe.

Interesting.

Um, but then you look at like all of the software companies that are worth $10 billion, there's like hundreds, right? And so, um, upside is relatively capped, which means for an investor to come in and let's say they're underwriting to like a great outcome being $500 million to, you know, have a 10, 20, 30x return, they need to get in at a very reasonable, um, a reasonable entry point. So if you're going out and you have like very little traction, very little proof points, you may even be pre-revenue or pre-distribution as Adidas CBRAND back in 2021, you could go raise around a $2 million round to prove out a concept and you could do that at like a $25 million valuation. Today, one, you likely can't do anything without proof points and traction. And if you are, it's just been properly underwritten to the point where your valuation is going to be lower because in order to get the 10 to 30x return, the entry point needs to be lower. All that to say is like pendulums swing. D2C got way too hot. People lost their minds and then it swung the other way where it's like no longer D2C is an investable asset class. You get in at the right entry point and the right ideas with, with like the right founders. There are many investment opportunities.

I mean, we're seeing the same thing with SaaS, which I think is— I don't know if we're on the upswing yet, We're still in the trough. I don't think we're at the bottom of the trough anymore, but similarly, market got way too crazy. And I remember running an agency that sells into B2B SaaS for a span of like 8 to 12 months. Just no one was getting funded.

Yeah.

And like, we had to completely change our model, like build out some new offerings in there, completely rethink retention. And now we're slowly— I don't know if it's coming back, fingers crossed, but slowly getting to the point where a lot more bigger seeds getting done. Some more A's coming back and now willingness to spend is a lot higher. And so hopefully that pendulum will continue to go up, but I'm assuming it'll never get as hot in D2C as it was at that point.

Yeah. One other comment on kind of at least within D2C is just like there are, there is still capital and there are still investors, but like that messy middle of like kind of like Series A, somewhere between like early stage and growth VC, like true Series A investors, I would say are hard to come by. You have a ton of firms that are cutting like $15 to $20 million checks, which for a CPG business is like pretty much all you would need.

So that's VMGs of the world, those like, yeah, they're quasi—

they're private equity, quasi like growth equity firms. Those still exist. They're very active. And there's like the angels and operators that are willing to cut the $10,000 to $100,000 checks. It's in between there where it gets really messy.

I think the comparison from my lens on the software side relative to like on D2C, it was you could just take money to experiment and like it either worked or it didn't and you're raising money pre-product, pre-revenue. The big difference now on the software side is services being part of tech companies is like a very normal thing today. Like tech-enabled services is way more of a thing today than it was a couple years ago where it was like you need to be pure-play software. Like it's you know, 30x return or nothing, raising ridiculous valuations. I now have like several, several software founder friends that you also know who haven't been making any money on the services side, who've raised crazy Series A. They're like, yo, Ben, can you like walk me through how you guys have a 25-person team and you've raised less than $1 million and you're profitable? I was like, yeah, like we just decided that our time horizon was gonna be like a little bit slower and we were gonna let revenue come in the door a lot earlier on. And so I think that has been the forcing function to stay alive as a software company is getting revenue.

Is services— is that an acquisition? Uh, are you using services for acquisition or retention? Meaning like, is the services an extra thing that a new customer needs to see to get over the edge on, on implementing the software? Or is it like, once you implement the software, the way we're going to get you to keep being a customer is by providing this like very managed service on top of it?

That's a really interesting question. I actually think it's a little bit of like, I hate this cop-out answer, but I actually think it's both. I find that services up front in a lot of instances actually helps better for retention because you're setting someone up for success earlier on in the journey. But at the same time, I think there are people who want someone more hands-on. So they're more inclined to let you acquire them as a customer.

Yep.

Uh, so I actually don't think it's black or white in terms of what the answer is. I think from our perspective, what we value about it more than acquisition or retention is customer feedback. Like, the services piece has largely been the thing that drives our product roadmap. So we believe that our moat down the line is that we know our customers better than anyone because we power the base of their storefront. So we know, we know more about what their bespoke requirements are in terms of what they want us to build into the future version of our product.

I think it really depends on the— it completely depends on the business model because there are some companies like a factored quality where that's just a part of the product, right?

Yeah, ours is, I would say, more acquisition today, but I would say in the future it's actually agnostic. It depends on the business that's coming to us.

Yeah, there's also a lot of bigger software companies. Like, I know Triple Whale launched like a consulting service or like professional services. And even growth stage companies now, like I'm getting slammed by my ClickUp. Apparently I have a representative, which I didn't know, and we use it for our team and like love the PM software. And they've been pinging me to like hop on a call. I'm like, guys, I'm using the software and we're paying a lot of money for it. And they want to talk about like, oh, we can do custom builds for you. And so I assume it's going into like later stage markets as well.

I don't think— I think the sentiment now is why are we leaving revenue on the table that could be available to us when we don't actually know the next time funding could be available to us? Because I think, I think the trade-off in the, like, you know, the 2020, 2021 days was why would I go scrape by to get like another $500K of top line in the form of services when I can just go get like another $200K of true recurring revenue that trades at a much higher multiple? Like, it's a distraction for my team and my resources to be spending doing that. But for us, it's like, if you don't know the predictability of the funding market, why not build a model that can live on by itself? And then you have more optionality if and when those opportunities arise.

Per, curse on your lens. What do you get stressed about right now? Because every time I see you, you're laid back.

Yeah, he's like the golden retriever dog, but he's the operator.

Same with, uh, when Seth was—

dude, that is—

that is—

I asked him the same question.

That is such a good point about him. He's always like happy and smiling.

Huh.

You're also calm.

Yes.

Which Seth was sitting right here, hoodie on, was just chopping it up, and I'm like, dude, I know there's stuff in your business that's stressing you out, but Is there anything right now that like genuinely stresses you out?

Like a very, um, acute example. Today is January 16th. July 16th. There we go.

I'm like, damn, this guy's like playing years ahead of me.

July 16th.

He's in 2025 already.

Which is Amazon Prime Day. Very important day for our brand and many other brands. There's this thing where like you need to basically front load a boatload of inventory to Amazon weeks in advance such that it's checked in properly and available for sale. For context here, like, sales can be anywhere from 3 to 10x more than it is on an average day. So for us, like, a very important day.

How are we doing? It's 3:30.

We're doing good, I think. We're doing good. Uh, but like, last weekend I'm at the beach with my fiancée and her family. It's Saturday, and like, I just realized that we didn't ship the inventory on time, and I was like, we Got to leave the beach right now, go back to the office and figure this out. Because this is like, as much as I love spending time with family and being at the beach, this is like a multi-hundred thousand dollar thing that we need to go figure out right now. So there's like a lot of little operational things that still— we fly super low to the ground in terms of like in the weeds. We do that like we, we very much manage the business still.

Yeah.

And so I would say over time that's, that's very acutely stressful. But over time you build up a little bit of callus towards it where it's like, yeah, this happened yesterday and turns out we're still around today and like we'll be around tomorrow. And so I think that's probably where some of it comes from.

What does the team look like in the not so near or I guess in the near future with this, this growth piece, which I know part of you is like, fuck, I have to give up this amazing, like, habitual life that me and my fiancée have. But I also have to like build a massive business. So now I got to bring in some people.

Yeah, so hiring like a head of growth, a head of brand, someone that knows what they're doing in retail because I don't. Like, I'm an internet cat.

Yeah, he tripped and fell into GNC just by mistake.

Just happens.

And so I think like we still— we don't want to completely give up the DNA of like— I think e-commerce teams, D2C teams don't need to be that big today. Like, I'm not just going to, because we raised money, totally change my mind on that. Like, I still think you can— build a big business with a small company, at least within our specific business model. And so we'll hire like maybe 3 to 5 people over the next 6 to 12 months. And hopefully they're, you know, experts at what they do. They're, you know, can— they're willing to obsess over the business as much as I am for like a 2 to 3 year period. Beyond that, I don't think it's healthy if they continue to do that. And then, you know, as I said, like much like my fiancée, who I decided to work with, like someone I trust and enjoy working with.

But is your, is your philosophy like pay the absolute top dollar for the best person in the business for the role? Like, where do you, where do you sit on that spectrum of— I think a lot of people feel differently, so I'm curious what your take is.

I love like a grindy person early in their career, which generally doesn't mean top dollar, um, but like for the right person, pay up. Yeah.

Your fiancée who's at Goldman. I just love a grinder early in their career.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's like, I'm sorry, honey, this is the— this is your salary this year. Like, there's nothing I can do about it. I'll talk to the board and see if I can get you a raise next year.

Exactly, exactly.

Are you guys gonna do in person?

We're trying to figure that out. Um, we're trying to figure that out. We, we live down in like downtown Manhattan, and where we live specifically, there's not a lot of office space, and like we're kind of spoiled by the fact that our current office is a block away and all of that. So we're trying to figure it out. We're trying to figure out—

do you— but do you value like the— like, are you pretty hard-nosed about like, I want the team to be in person? Are you cool?

I prefer for the person to be in like the team to be in person a couple of days a week. Yeah.

Yeah. I looking back now, I wish I had made that decision earlier.

You guys are both hybrid or we're remote? Fully remote.

Same.

Remote.

Yeah. You can't go back on it now. And I think we've been able to get talent from around the country. Like our VP of content just went back to Phoenix to be closer to family. And there's things like that that it's like if we had in-person, that would make it really hard for people. But looking back, I kind of wish I did.

But I have a reason for why we are. I've never spent a day in my life in an office mandate job. And like, I graduated in 2020. Right. So it's like kind of all I know.

And I know what I know about you. You seem to get energy from moving around and doing a bunch of different things. And yes, you can be like very, very focused and like dialed in, but it seems like you weren't meant to just sit in an office.

So tell him the truth about me.

What, that you—

I'm—

I don't leave.

I'm actually like in here.

Surprisingly, I literally don't leave.

Huh.

From the outside looking in, if you look on the internet, I'm like the most extroverted person ever.

Yeah.

I'm an extroverted introvert. I like— my girlfriend has to drag me out of the apartment. You go out to like go on runs and stuff and I'll like—

you do your own workout.

I need to like exercise. I think like if you eliminate the concept of like exercising as a means to like socialize and like I'll do business deals when I'm like running or at the gym or whatever, but outside of that I actually hate going places. Like just so you know, this like Omakase dinner we were talking about, I didn't plan that.

Like I'll go, I'll be there.

I wanted to get you.

No, no, like I'll go, but like that was not my idea and I actually am very much like a an introverted type person in terms of like where I spend my time and how I spend my time. I just think that I have a strong presence in terms of what people portray me as on the internet.

Interesting. So you're an introvert playing an extrovert, and I'm an ex—

I'm an extroverted— I'm an extroverted introvert where if I'm around people I get energy, but if I'm by myself I want to like be by myself even more.

Yep. And so why you think— because you're never in an office Why, given that it seems like perhaps you could excel in an office environment, why would you not have an office?

Uh, I think it's twofold. I think one, it would actually be distracting for me because I get more energy from being around people. Like, I think I'd struggle to like actually just like go in my box and do the things I need to do if I was like around people all the time.

Yeah.

Um, I think the other thing is I wouldn't be opposed to it in the future, but I think the nature of how this business unfolded, it was kind of an inevitability. Where like one of my co-founders is in Boston, the other one's in Buffalo. We bootstrapped this, so by no means could we support 3 of us living in New York City like where we were at. And so I think we had to deal with the fact that like it was just going to be a remote company. And then we started hiring people offshore. So then it was like, okay, we know for sure we'll never be 100% in person in the same office. Um, we just made our 4th New York City hire who starts tomorrow, actually.

Oh, hell yeah.

Uh, I don't know, maybe we'll go in office once every 2 weeks just so like it's fun and you can be around each other, but I'm not opposed to it. I just think it transpired the way that it did and it wasn't necessarily intentional or not. It was just the hand we were dealt and we had to make the most of it.

Hmm. How about you?

In terms of like in-person versus like working habits?

Yeah. Well, actually just going back to the question, are Ben is a introvert that plays extrovert. What, what are you?

I play extrovert. I'm very much an introvert. My sister was making fun of me. I was with her like last week and she was— she's dating a guy who's very similar, like can be extroverted but really just likes to be alone. She was like, I understand you so much more since dating my boyfriend because sometimes when we're at home, I know you have a long day of calls and you'll just go in your room for 3 hours and I'm just like on— just on my computer. I'm usually working or something. Yeah, but I am so content, just like going for a walk, being by myself for a while. Yeah, I don't think I used to be that way, but I think a large part of what my job has evolved into is sales and BD and hiring, which is so much extroversion. Yeah, like if you look at my— depends on the season of the business, but a calendar, it's like 3 interviews, 4 sales calls, networking.

Dude, you've never seen a calendar like his in your life. And that's coming from someone who has a lot of calls. I think you would fall over if you had to do what he does every day, knowing what I know about you.

It—

he's from like 9 to 5 with maybe 10 minutes without a call, like in that full calendar day.

Dude, that's rough. But it, it's what's necessary for the business, right? But it takes a— it just, it's like a mental toll. Like my brain is scrambled at like 6. And so I think something that has been really helpful is, um, because my girlfriend and I are living together now and we're moving in together next year, and making sure that Sometimes the first person that I see after my call, just like back to back to back to back, isn't her because I'm not going to be my best self. So making sure, even if it's like a 10-minute walk, just to like, no headphones and no podcast, just like, I'm going to get a little treat from the bodega and like go for a little walk and then I come back and we can hang out. Having that separation is great because sometimes you just come off like bad news back to back to back and you're like, I don't want the first person.

You don't want to be like smiley and like The empathetic person that you want to be with your partner.

Exactly.

Yes.

I'm actually curious based on, I mean, now you kind of know the answer, but had I not told you the hypothetical, what would you have envisioned my like ideal Friday night being like after?

No, I don't. I don't care.

Just out of curiosity.

Hmm. I think ideal Friday night for Ben, uh, Friday night.

This is a great prompt, by the way. We should do this more.

I, well, I appreciate that he asks us questions back because he's genuinely curious. Not a lot of guests do that.

So I, I know that you, at least the last time I checked, like, you're not going out to bars and drinking necessarily, so that's not part of a weekend routine. So perhaps it's dinner with friends. You have a girlfriend, I believe. Hang out with your girlfriend. Uh, my, my view of you was that you perhaps hung out with um, you would hang out with your friends on a Friday night. That, that seems pretty down the middle.

Yeah, I mean, it's— I would say the extent, like, oh, this Friday is a perfect example. Like, I'm going to dinner with my best friend and his wife, and we'll probably go to dinner at like 7 or 7:30, and like, I'll come home after that and like maybe smoke a joint and like watch TV for a little bit, or like play a board game and go to bed. Yeah, be asleep probably before 11 o'clock.

Sounds lovely.

Yeah, that Like this last weekend, we were at this founder retreat. There were like 20 founders. And on Saturday night they got a table at a club and a bunch of them went out, which is like, fine. Yeah, I went to bed. I didn't go. I like, I woke up at 10:00.

I woke up.

I woke up at 9:00 in the morning. There was actually— so you'll appreciate this. There was 10:00 AM yoga on the agenda from like going into the weekend on Friday. And I woke up Sunday morning at 9:00 in my workout clothes, ready for yoga. I found out they canceled it because everyone else was too hungover. I was like, damn, they discriminated against a sober guy who decided to go to bed because he didn't want to go to a club till 4 in the morning.

Most of those retreats are now intentionally designed as sober retreats for that exact reason.

It was called a wellness retreat.

It was a wellness retreat with a couple boys who like were like, all right, I'm going to, you know, get after it a little bit. Yeah, Griff was there. Griff was— he, he got after it. But I mean, look, I think it's my envision of it, despite it being a wellness retreat, it's more an area for you to do like whatever you want to do and not be judged. Like, so some chose to hang out and do nothing and others chose to get after it. But I think the, the point of it was just like funny. I woke up and I was like, I guess there's no yoga today.

And he started texting me immediately, Adrian, I got some ideas.

One thing I will say, going back to like how have I changed, uh, if I don't meditate, I may way worse person to be around.

How long do you meditate for? When do you do it?

10 minutes in the morning. It's not about like, I don't think I'm redoing the, like, the neurons in my brain by any means, but like the intentionality of like, all right, you're going to take 10 minutes by not just looking at your phone first thing you wake up and then jumping into work. That's like the main determinant of how good of a person I am that day is like, do I get that in?

And do you go to a separate room? Um, from your bedroom, or do you—

uh, I usually do it right when I get into the office, actually. Oh yeah, so it's not actually first thing, but like before I start my work day.

I love that. So do you do Calm or Headspace or something?

Very simple. Calm. Don't have like some built-out practice. It's like, again, I don't think it's like even true meditation. It's just like, all right, are you a— can you be a real enough human just to like stay calm for 10 minutes and like not look at your phone or refresh a dashboard or like check email.

I really resonate with that because easing into my day— I, I don't meditate every day, but easing into my day has been one of the biggest game changers for me. So like, I used to wake up, go to the gym, get home like 10 minutes before my first call, run in the shower, like try to make a coffee, be like a minute late to the call, and like I'm all disheveled for the next 5 hours.

Yeah.

Now I'll like wake up, give myself ample time to like have a coffee, sit on the roof, and kind of just like ease into my day.

One other thing— yeah, I love that— is, and this is cliché, but you said you're thinking about getting a dog.

I definitely want a golden. My girlfriend wants a Sammy.

So big puffy ones. Being in New York, you get a whole different experience of living in New York if you have a dog and go to a dog park. Like, I have friends ranging from my age to 75 years old that I talk to 3 times a day now at the dog park. Like, my best friend is a 75-year-old Texan that, like, I'm not even kidding, I talked to him twice a day now. He's— he played football at Oklahoma back in the day, and like, no way, uh, he's a Texan, he's, you know, was a Wildcatter for a while, and he's like, has all these stories. He's just like, I would never interact with that guy if I wasn't going to the dog park every day. And there's like probably 3 or 4 of those examples where Going back to like, I'm not as unsocial as a being as I'm making myself be. I just get it in in different ways.

Yeah. Is there a dog around right near your place?

We moved to an apartment that's on a dog park for that reason.

That's a game changer, dude.

I think that was my favorite thing you said in this entire episode. Yeah, that's awesome.

How old is he?

He's 2. Yeah.

Has he outgrown the, like, velociraptor phase?

Oh my God. Like, it's funny you say that. Within the past month or so, he's like toned it down a ton. But he was like a wild, wild beast for a while.

Do you see that meme of like between 2 months to like 2 years? It's just a picture of a dinosaur.

Yeah, exactly. He's terrible.

But when I was— when I lived in San Francisco right out of college and there were all these— very wholesome place, everyone's biking and running. This is not in the homeless areas. This is like Outer Sunset near the beach. And everyone is obsessed with golden retrievers. And so in the Presidio, walking around near the beach, and it just seems like the most wholesome lifestyle. I grew up with a golden, too, and so I really want one. I think probably in a couple of years when we come back from London and settle, immediately going to get a dog. It's the next step. What about you?

I like it.

I don't know when I'm going to get a dog. My parents have a couple. My sister has one. I love dogs. I— it's not a now thing.

You cat guy?

Hell no, dude. I have like— everyone in my company knows that too.

Do you actively dislike them?

Yeah.

No pets?

No cats.

Oh, cats.

No, I love dogs aggressively. I just, I'm not a cat guy at all.

I like that about you.

Yeah. Again, my opinions are like very sometimes polarizing, but I don't waver for that.

Very polarizing.

I don't think that's an unpopular opinion to not like cats.

No.

That's not unpopular at all.

The minute you've lived with a cat, you're like, I have lived with a cat. Was it like a mean cat?

I lived with two cats. No, it wasn't mean at all. I lived with two cats in Western Canada when I lived there for a year and played hockey. I feel like when you had a cat named Bauer, he was kind of a homie, but like, I was like, you're just not my guy. I just don't want one of you when I'm older.

I don't know.

It's not personal.

Do you guys talk outside the podcast or is this the main social— is this the main format?

And I text all day.

All day? Yeah. Business stuff or just like anything?

A lot of business, but like we've hung out. Like with our girlfriends outside of business. And I just think it's more so that by nature of who we are, because business is what's fun to us. Yeah, they're like, it's maybe not in the serious tone of voice of like, yo, I have this one problem, it's 2 PM, can you help me solve it? It's more like if you put Adrian and I in a room at like 7 PM on a Friday, that's the thing we would both want to talk about anyways, right?

Yeah.

So I just think it's kind of natural.

I've been trying— if I lived two blocks away, I'd be here 24/7.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Uh, one more question for you because we've gone way over, which is usually a sign of us having a very good conversation. Uh, turning pro moment in your life, looking back, was there— was there a moment in time where you're like, damn, things are getting real now? And what was that?

Hmm. Um, I'd imagine this is the question that you asked everybody. Um, yeah, uh, turning pro moment, um Hmm, I think pretty early on in my career, like, I went to a good school. A lot of my friends had like really cool jobs right out of school and I didn't. And basically, like, went home after college, didn't move out of the house, was like slinging software for some like random company that I didn't care about, uh, and like wasn't enjoying life. And then like basically the turning pro moment was, um, I knew I wanted to get into e-commerce. Away at the time was like 2017, um, was hiring, really hot company, company I admired, was like doing something interesting at D2C at the time. And I took like the lowest job at the totem. I managed our— the operations behind the monogramming studio at Away for the first year. Made what was criminally low amounts of money. Like, I, I one day slacked our general counsel and was like, hey, can we talk for a little bit? And I was like, he like pulled me out in the hall. I was like, yeah. So I did some research and it turns out like you're paying me below what's allowed in New York State right now.

That's fucking crazy.

And like living in New York, I have no idea. And wow, which was at the time $40,000. Um, and Despite that, like, lowest man on the totem pole, making criminally low amounts of money, like, worked my fucking— worked my ass off for, like, to run the best monogramming studio possible for this company, or for this company that wasn't mine. Um, and so I think that was like the turning pro point where I was like, I moved out of the house, took this job, but I had like a vision that I'm gonna do this because this is an industry I'm really interested in. I know if I can just get my foot in the door in New York City, like, I'll make it. And that, that was kind of the moment.

Dude, how did you live on that?

The first, the first people I lived with, I moved up—

PTSD moment—

I moved up to New York. We lived in Murray Hills, like a 2-bedroom, very small 2-bedroom apartment. The other room was occupied by— well, cannot— they could not have been older than a 19-year-old couple that went to, um, —what's the university in Murray Hill? It's, it's a Jewish university. Yeshiva. Yeshiva. A couple and a young couple, which is a weird dynamic to live with. They were like, could not have been 20 years old. And me, I lived on a blow-up mattress in their apartment for 3 months, found it on Facebook Marketplace, and then eventually moved out.

But yeah. Wow. It's a great origin story right there.

Yeah.

Hell yeah. All right. Can you talk to the camera on the left?

Yes.

Tell people where they can find you and the brand.

Yeah, so you can find me on Twitter @damccormick13. You can find the brand at trycreate.co, um, or Amazon or GNC.

Go try it. The sour apple gummies are really good. Yes.