Building A 7 Figure Brand, Shopify Success, & Spirituality — An Interview With Fire Chocolates

Hey, my name is Ash. You've probably seen me guys from Twitter, and I'm with one of my amazing clients, Ronnie, who is the founder of an amazing, cool, new, cool brand called Fire Chocolates. And in this little episode that we got going today, we're just going to flow a little bit, but I'm going to ask you a few questions, Ronnie, so that people can understand a little bit about you, your brand, and also your amazing journey from basically starting out your brand only a few months ago to now on a runaway, on a run rate to basically hit, you know, 7 figures hopefully pretty soon. So yeah, so let's kick it off, man. Can you give us a little intro about yourself and, uh, and why you started Fire Chocolates?

Yeah, so glad to be here, so glad to have this conversation. Uh, so I've been a businessman for as long as I can remember, an entrepreneur. When I was 12, I started by, uh, cutting grass the neighbors. I would just walk around with my lawnmower and knock on their front doors. And so for $10, and it was, it took me about 6 hours of work. So, but I was, you know, I would buy and sell cars, used cars, starting in high school. And that actually put me through college and always had a business idea. And so in my professional, outside of college, outside of university, I've had a whole bunch of responsible brick-and-mortar businesses. So that's everything from an athletic club, a health club. I've owned an insurance agency for 20 years. And then my, my most recent endeavor, which I sold right before COVID was I had built a retirement home chain. So very low-tech, a lot of people. So how do you, how do you take care of, you know, 1,200 grandmas and grandpas, well, you, you hire a whole bunch of people to take care of them. And, uh, I have always dreamed— as an entrepreneur, I'm always thinking of a new idea. So for years, for probably over a decade, I've dreamed of having an e-com business. And so right before COVID I sold the assisted living chain, the retirement home chain, and I took 3.5 years, retired midlife. I went down to nothing. I coached my son's baseball team. I stayed, I cooked more and basically went damn near crazy just with the stillness of it. But in that stillness, I waited for the right opportunity to come about, the dream business where I could afford to actually start something that comes from my creative core, not just do something that's, just responsible. I've done that. I've, you know, a lot of— if you've seen a lot of people on Twitter, they talk about, you know, only buy boring businesses, only start boring businesses. Well, that's fair. And I've done that for decades now. But, you know, I only have a few more decades to live. So I saw this thing on Instagram that said, take risks and do some cool shit. So that's what I'm doing right now. So, and that brings me to Fire Chocolates. So I saw that a couple of other companies were having success probably in 2022, 2023 with an aphrodisiac chocolate brand. And one of the founders is young, he's pretty well known, but he's online on Twitter and on YouTube just sharing his entire playbook. God bless you, man. I've watched every bit of, every bit of content that he's put out. Brilliant guy. And basically it caused me to really dig deep on the business of starting an aphrodisiac chocolate company, which is interesting. I started at a place— the very first book that I read was Blue Ocean Strategy. It's a classic business book that basically says If you want to have a business, don't necessarily, you know, compete in red waters where there's blood in the water and it's all about price, but maybe to carve out a new blue ocean. There's the idea, it's called value innovation, comes from that book. Basically carve out your own, take an existing concept, carve it out, make it a little bit different and a new value proposition. Which is basically what I did. So I'm not exactly like any of the other aphrodisiac chocolate companies. I actually found an herbal euphoric called kanna. It's a South African plant that the tribes have been cultivating it for centuries. I've infused it into fire chocolates. And you have a fairly nice box and it's a romantic date night. It feels like a couple glasses of wine.

We can maybe, we can maybe bring up your story as well while you're saying this so that people can actually see. See the brand and see the— I'll share my screen here.

Absolutely.

See your beautiful product because you added some new photos in recently as well, didn't you? So here it is.

Well, there you go. Yes, Ash did design the site. Big kudos to you, which is just one of the best assets of the entire business. But in effect, yeah, it's the Kana where, you know, you drop. So there's a lot of macro trends going on here and I did price it to be in a different echelon as my competitors. So it's priced to be more of a premium experience. And therefore my client is maybe, you know, committed couples, millennials and above. They might have a house together. They might have, you know, a couple of kids. So having said that, this is about having a very highly intentional date night. And the other thing, macro trend that's going for it is We're all in, you know, the realm or the age of edibles. We're all now more accustomed to eating something and having an experience. So it's been awesome.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you for that intro on your brand because I mean, firstly, I just want to say that, you know, seeing you go through the whole process of creating this, I definitely was so thrilled when you were starting to get results so rapidly. Because I think you're one of the amazing cases where you've literally come up with the idea yourself. I know you've been ideating on this brand for a lot longer than before you met me, but the fact that when you basically— it's only taken you a few months to get to where you are right now, which I think is amazing. And you've come out with the images and the branding and the photos and everything, and now you're even starting to talk to me about, let's say, new products down the line that you're starting to bring out. It's really, really cool. And I would love to kind of just dive in a little bit to the strategy behind your brand and also give people some real tips on why you think basically your brand was able to succeed so rapidly compared to, let's say, other e-com stores out there. Because we see a lot of those, right? You see a lot of e-com stores that are really struggling to gain traction. So if you were to kind of, let's say, break it down and simplify everything for people and say, what would you say would be the top 3 things that you believe are attributes to a fast-growing, successful e-com brand?

Well, my number— let's see, we do top 3. Let's start with number 1: make sure that you know your margins and actually price your gross margin to be really healthy. What's so interesting is there's a reason why we— Alex Hormozi has a concept, he calls it the Virtuous Cycle of Premium Price. Definitely check that out. Because overall, you have people who choose to use your product. They value it more because they put more into it. They're more vested. You know, there's a whole thing there, but I would say definitely, definitely do your numbers and build a margin that's really healthy because it's not like you're going to get all that margin in the first year. That's so you can survive, man. And there's no question. I mean, I've seen some really great numbers in my first 6 months, but the fact that I have such a healthy margin, my gross margin, is a really big deal. The second, you know, they all have to do with numbers, all of these. The second one is before you actually get to launch, take your time and go through a focus group phase. You know, there was a time— so these chocolates are made in a chocolate factory. Luckily, serendipitously, is 10 minutes from my house. So I'm popping in there all the time. And they're great. Now, there was a good 4 or 5 months where I was making the chocolates in my kitchen and just giving them, and adding the kana, and actually, you know, eating and sampling on my own, but giving them to any friend who would really give it a shot. So, so much initial feedback comes from every little test that you have and every focus group person, because you hear how they talk about their experience. You get snippets of their language, right? All this goes into how you can pitch the product as a founder, but also how you can speak about it in your very, very first iteration as we put it out. So, and then the third one, this is another boring one. I'll tell you what, there are so many, I have 4 now, but the third one is, um, If you— there's so many tools that will do your books for you and do your financials for you. You know, everything APIs into your Shopify, into your bank account, into your credit cards. And it's great. They auto-generate reports and everything. And there are— this is a dream. The dream about e-com compared to all these brick-and-mortar businesses that I was part of. The dream about e-com is the numbers are nonstop and instant. It's incredible. Literally at the speed of light, you have all your business numbers. Having said all of that, the most valuable thing that I've remembered to do is every month you hand key your own P&L and then you hand key in— I'm talking make a spreadsheet, hand key in your next month's forecast. It's so basic. but it causes you to hunt for these specific numbers. And these are very basic P&Ls. But if you can, if you can hand key it in—

when you get awareness by doing it right, it forces you to sit down and actually look at the numbers and see what's going on.

Yes, it's awareness. That's the biggest thing. And there is, there's a reconciliation about doing it truthfully and hand keying it versus— I mean, on Shopify, you could look at your sales numbers in 6 different ways. You can choose to only look at this one number and that's the best number because, oh, it didn't like glean out all of the fees from all the credit cards. You know, when you hand key it, you get the most honest number, the one that actually landed in your bank account. And then you— it's like it's a massive come to Jesus, but at least you know. So, and the last one, and this is similar, this is my fourth bonus tip. Is similar to number 3 is, I made a mistake to want to hand things off to teams very soon. For example, you know, I'm, I'm most of my revenue at this point is still generated by ads, Meta, Google. And I hired an ad team really early on and it just after a couple months I realized that I needed to take it back over and do it on my own because they were great, but they work with companies that are at, you know, $5 million and above. This is literally, it's, and I have the bandwidth to do it. And I have, you know, every, the first year, keep it really close so you can really know the business. Ears to the ground.

Bootstrapping.

So, and I'll say this, that that was my old habits coming through because, you know, especially my last business with assisted living. I just, I had, I had 1,000 people, right? Everything was about getting systems and building teams. But this is this refreshing thing where I'm literally still fulfilling the product directly. I'm literally still running the ads and making them on Canva. It really is this amazing renaissance for me as a businessman, but stay close to it.

I love that. Well, I know that we, me and you, we had a call. I don't know, was it last week or a few weeks ago, but we talked about something that I think, um, not many— I've never heard many people talk about this, but soul. When it comes to your brand, like having soul, having belief in having— and you kind of mentioned that at the start, right? Like, you know, doing something that you find is fun. How do you think— how important do you actually think that is for someone who's going out there and setting up a new e-com brand or with their existing e-com brand? Is, for example, let's say there are people out there, and we know there is people out there because I see them on calls a lot, who don't have real love for their brand. They're just doing it for this cash-grabbing business. Is there a way for them to find ways to fall in love with it? Or what, like, what advice would you give for people in that situation and how important do you think it is to actually love what you do?

That's a great question. I mean, you, you see a lot of people on Twitter and I'll make the judgment that maybe they care almost nothing about their product and it's all about stacking digits and, you know, blowing it out there how much they've made. Sure. I used to be more that way. It used to be more about just making the dollars. And just as you grow older and then you look back, you migrate to a place where, you know, maybe you just want to have your experience, you know, this is my— so, you know, my Super Mario Brothers metaphor, because I am Generation X, Super Mario Brothers metaphor is like, look, you could be really into, you know, getting the points? There's actually a point queue on that game. Or what if it's about, you know, going to level 4 and climbing the beanstalk and enjoying jumping over and then beating boss on level 4-4? And just what is the experience that you want? Because just stacking digits— and this is, this is a, this is a real judgment— but at what point are you just a robot? Stacking digits. Is that all that you're about? So having said that, yes, it does mean a lot to me that my product is making a difference, to see those testimonials come through and to see people talk about how, you know, they haven't— this, let's see, my favorite one recently came through. It was a review that said, you know, my partner said he's been waiting for us to feel this way for 20 years. That's the kind of stuff I'm, I'm actually, my greatest aspiration for Fire Chocolates is for one couple to earnestly tell me that it was the beginning of what saved their relationship. So I've never shared that with anyone, but that's, I want to make a difference. I want to, I want to affect positive change.

So I love that. I love— and I also want to just touch on the reason why I wanted to bring that up is because that's something I really, really strongly believe in myself. Because I've had one of my, um, one of my amazing mentors who's helped me out a lot, and he's been a big influence of why I am where I'm at today. Um, whenever I meet him in public, he's always like, what are your goals, Ash? What are your goals? Like, do you want to get to this figure? Do you want to get to that figure? And I've always felt bad when he asked me that question because I had genuinely no there is no excitement when someone puts those figures in front of me, you know. Like, I— for me, always the figure that I had in my mind was $10K a month. And once I actually got to $10K a month, the, the next level up and the next level, they don't make— for me at least, they don't make any difference. There was no emotional real change. And so the only things that really excite me now is getting two dogs and being more in nature, going on hikes, maybe getting a motorbike. Having a little music studio. Those are the things that are getting me excited, you know, and I really do the work now that I'm doing with you and other brands like this because I enjoy doing it. You know, it's kind of the vehicle that allows me to have fun while I'm doing the work, but also, you know, get this lifestyle that I'm looking for.

But that's so human, that's so relatable. I mean, what are we stacking digits? Are we here to have an experience? And so it's great that you know that Ash, that you haven't forgotten that, that it comes down to the most simple, most present pleasures of just enjoying your dogs, getting out in nature.

Because I also think that, you know, it gives you a level of like, um, I was going to use the word invincibility, but maybe that's the wrong word, but it gives you a level of maybe calming because you know that, hey, I also know in the back of my mind that if I lost all of this, yeah, I'd probably be maybe sad for a week or something like that. But then I'd be fine again because I know that it doesn't really take much to make me happy. It's just going out in nature. It's like very few inputs. If you want to be rational, there's like maybe 3 inputs that make me happy instead of this long list of what some people have on Twitter, which is like Ferraris and I want a million-dollar house over here and I want to have a trip to Bali every 2 months and I want to have all of this long list.

So it can be an empty pursuit. But you know what occurred to me by what you just said is, you know, that's such an abundance mindset, especially you recognizing the simple things that if you lost it all on one turn of pitch and toss and you had to start again at your own beginnings, if you know that the things that are already there for you are all you need, it's like, whoa, man, you are invincible at that point.

But I don't, but I don't kind of, uh, want to neglect the fact that there is a figure that I think everyone kind of needs to hit before they can start to have— like, I, I wouldn't have had this revelation if I didn't hit, you know, the $10K a month. Because it's easier just to sit back and say, you know, we live in a society where money is important, you need to have a certain amount of money to live by. But, but it's true what they say, all of those clichés is really true, that money doesn't— this, there's a, like, it's like diminishing returns. You know, there's only so much you need. And that's why when I work with people like you who, you know, let's say you do have these financial goals, which are totally fine to have, but that's not one of your main things. One of the main things I can see with you that's driving you and your business is the passion for it, is the belief that what you're doing is truly, truly amazing. And then it's reflected with the customer reviews, the quality of your product, the fast success that you've been able to get. You know, I don't think that those, those things are separate. I think they're all tied together.

Yeah, that's absolutely. Yeah, you've got me thinking. Oh, here's the other thing I was going to say was, you know, because you can make an argument that now I'm doing this creative, dreamy business because I have made all of my money, because I have gone through what I've gone through. That's actually true. And similar to what you just said, which is Once you get to a certain point, it does make a difference to have that conversion where you're just— you understand what money is for and it's there so that you can live this life, so that you can play this game at the level of enjoyment.

Yeah, a lot of people don't get hooked on the wheel of trying to chase, keep going up, keep going up. Yeah, a lot.

Exactly. You went right there. A lot of people don't come off of that superhighway because it's just— there's a new bogey and there's a new level to chase because you can brag about it more and more. Who knows? It's, it's a pursuit of ego rather than a pursuit of just self-knowing and presence.

And I think that when you have that mindset that you have, which is loving your business, the path to get to those levels financially are so much more effortless because you're not going through every single day holding on to life like this and trying to strangle it. You know, and trying to force yourself to do the actions, you, you're naturally going to want to do them. You're naturally going to want to wake up every single day and feel excited about doing the work that you want to do. And that is just going to get you more results from all the other things that come with it, you know. So true.

It's just flow. There's a lot of trust in that paradigm of life. But I have to say, for the first time in this business, for the first time, I— so I sleep as long as I can. Which basically I sleep until I wake up naturally, which it's blowing my mind. I wake up naturally at 6:00 AM and then quickly starting to think about the business. I'm out and I'm in, I'm dialed in versus, and I'm enjoying it versus a mindset where I'm driven by fear, which I've experienced that for decades. And that's okay. Fear is good, but it's We're talking about alignment, right? Aligning with your true path, your true purpose, whatever that is. Making a difference.

Here's a question. Here's a question for you, Ronnie. Do you actually think that you'll be able to stay in alignment as your business grows and grows and grows and grows and grows? Like, do you think that, you know, because I'd imagine there's probably going to be challenges along that way, right? Imagine if, if you do want to bring Fire Chocolates down to the path where becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and you have a team now and you have different departments, maybe you're doing branching out to different countries and different products, there's a lot more complexity there. Do you still think you'll be able to find alignment?

I think I would expect it to be difficult to stay aligned just as it's difficult now. There's just new— this whole concept of alignment is really just It's balance. And so to expect to be thrown off kilter on a regular basis and to expect that to be part of the game, right, for ascension, for growth, for all of that. And this is a big thing for me. So I expect it. I expect obstacles as part of the design, by the way. That's what it's supposed to be. But this is a relatively new practice for me in the last few years that instead of being reactive, responsive, screaming, freaking out, you know, all caps, "What is going on?" to just, if an obstacle comes and they come regularly, to observe them, to observe them and to treat them with neutrality and also to accept them as good information and then you as a, uh, what's the right word, as, as an integrated self can make the quick or the right response. So, but to still flow, to not be in resistance, going with what you just said.

And can I, can I ask you as well, because this is something that I always also wanted to bring up on this call, is you are very different to a lot of the other founders that I speak to in terms of your very spiritual, you know what I mean? Like, I guess similar to me, at least in terms of that, yeah, that mindset. How do you think that that's affected your story, your journey, and how do you think that will affect things going forward?

Well, yeah, so I, I was actually born into a high-demand religion that went back, uh, many generations. I was Mormon, and, um, I did the religion like a, like a good follower would do, and had an awakening about 7 years ago that this doesn't align with who I am and who I'm becoming. So it's a big deal to leave something that is, is so lockstep. Me, my wife, and my whole family, we left at the same time. It's a big life change, a massive trajectory change, even on and like a future prosperity level. So having said that, I went through a whole bunch of spiritual transformations because, you know, in something like that, a high-demand religion, they tell you everything what to think and everything that is. Well, if you leave that, the entire structure slides off the mountain and you— I mean, you were starting at zero.

So basically your whole paradigm of reality is now blank, right?

Of reality. I like how you put it that way. And so, uh, as devastating as that is, you leave because you know that's not your truth. I left because I know— I knew this wasn't my truth. But then you're given an opportunity to build a new foundation that's completely true, completely, you know, sure. And then also to embrace the unknowing of it all. Again, it came from a religion that says this is what's true, this is everything that is, don't think of anything differently. Now the unknown is actually a part of the equation, a giant part. And so what's interesting is that actually was the beginning of a deconstruction of my entire life, including The business that I was in, this assisted living business, which was a very responsible, good business, but it didn't necessarily align with me anymore. It didn't inspire me. And it— I had built something that was worth a very good value. So I left the business. That, that business was, you know, just, just for a macro, from a macro perspective, the baby boomers, which is 68 million people, they are just barely starting to enter the assisted living business. It's going to be, uh, just the golden age for decades. This was a business that I was going to ride off into the sunset with many opportunities, uh, over and over again, but it just didn't align. So I sold it. And so where I'm going with this is getting to a place where I embrace the unknown I surrender to all that is and trust that I'm walking my highest path. Who would have thought I'd end up a few years later opening an aphrodisiac chocolate company that, that really inspires me and comes from my creative core? And sure, monetarily, I think it's promising. And there's, there are all kinds of opportunities as I continue to build this business. But my path from where I came from to really having the cajones to look within and find the answers within, and to now, it's a whole new world. And so, and, you know, I wake up every day, I'm a really big law of attraction person. So I really believe that the way this reality is set up is that I mean, if we really want to go there, we are infinite. Here's my favorite phrase. You asked for it. My favorite phrase is—

I want to do this. All right, let's do it.

So my favorite, my favorite phrase is, you are the universe experiencing itself from one specific perspective, and so am I. So at the top is oneness. You know, we are all the same. We are one. We are spirits, infinite spirits here, uh, learning to know ourselves in this reality, uh, in just the arc of consciousness and through all these challenges. So having said that, I think that, um, this is, you know, you can use different language. This is a simulation.

this is the game, I guess.

This is the game. Call it a game. And so how do you play the game? I think the most, the most telling, my opinion, most telling thing that this is a game is that our memory is wiped. We don't know where we came from. And it's, it's so, it's so, it's so strange also that we're— it's so designed that we bite down on this reality that we don't very often ponder on the fact that our memory is wiped. Isn't that strange?

We don't question it. No, we don't. We just don't question it. Yeah, we don't question anything.

I call that the veil of forgetfulness, not just a veil that you walk through from where we were before until we are now, but it's actually a living, breathing force that causes us to, again, it causes us to really take this seriously. So this is, this is a game.

Well, that's it. That's it, isn't it? That's the point that Alan Watts, one of the person I deeply admire, keeps on mentioning his seriousness and how, you know, and it's part— it's not that it's bad taking life seriously. It's just that you need to be able to have contrast. But if you take it too seriously, then you're really just crippling yourself. Like, that's what I used to do, and that's sometimes what I fall into, is that trap of getting too sucked into the game. That you forget it's a game and you forget that you should be playing the game to enjoy it and to have fun, you know. And even at the core, even if somebody's watching this and is not spiritual, let me put all of this in another way for you guys. Why would you live this life and not live your years? Because you have a finite amount of years. Maybe it's 1 year, maybe it's 50 years, who knows how long it's going to be. Why would you spend those years feeling stressed, feeling burned out, feeling sorrowful. Why wouldn't you want to spend those years with enjoyment? It doesn't mean you need to be snowboarding and jumping off mountains and doing crazy stuff. I think enjoyment can be found anywhere, but it's a choice. It's like you've got to put effort into it. And so even if you're spiritual or not spiritual, I feel like that is— my God, man, it's powerful stuff to even— I mean, we could, we could, we could talk for hours on that one little thing, I think.

Oh yeah, you You— so an iteration of what you just said is there's a concept of just, you know, life is about relationships with the people that we're closest with, relationships with ourselves, but also relationship with life, relationship with nature and all that is. And so there's a spectrum in relationships, which is this finesse between living your relationships your life, mainly choosing safety, making choices that are safety, making choices that are known, or discovery and exploration, right? And we tend to, depending on the thing, the theme, the person, the phase of life, we tend to go, you know, one versus another. But I love this Alan Watts idea, or the recognition that this is a game for our exploration and our expansion, to always remind ourselves to choose the adventure, choose the exploration.

100%. I love it. And just a final question before we wrap up, Ronnie, is because I know we want to bring it back a little bit to the e-com for some of the people who are starting out, because I think a lot of people, if they were sitting on this call right now, they'd be pretty much admiring your journey if they knew the, you know, what I knew of how rapid it was and how amazing your journey has been to build a beautiful brand that you're building and where it can go. So what would you say to like some advice to people who are starting out or even who are considering starting their own e-com business for the first time? What would you say are some good pointers to keep in mind for them?

I'll tell you what, that, uh, so I spent 9 months just on the pre-launch phase of this business. That was everything from touring chocolate factories to running numbers. I had, uh, unit metrics spreadsheet up on a tab every day. I still have it up and I'm just cultivating it, looking at it, staring at it, trying. So, you know, measure twice, cut once. So in your pre-launch phase, take your time. And then once you launch and you try to, you go through that quick phase of product to market fit, if you can, and you're in it, and the ship's starting to shake and I don't know, just ask yourself at the core, is this a good offer? Is this a viable product? And can, in your quietest moments, ask yourself, can I build this? The answer could easily quickly come back. No, that's a true answer. But if it comes back as a quiet yes, just keep going. Just show up every day. At the end of the day, even if you've been bloodied and knocked around, punched in the gut, know that you showed up for it and keep going because you know in your core that you have a winning product or winning idea. And the people, you know, for example, you know, March was rough. Valentine's Day ended and And it took us through the end of February and then just fell off of a cliff. And I saw financials go down, but the reviews kept coming in as this really amazing positive thing. And I knew in my gut, I have something. This is just seasonality. Just keep going.

I just wanna ask you one final question. If you were basically to leave this call with, and leave people with one, one message, it can be anything, it'd be maybe something you've already said or something else. What would that one important takeaway be if they can leave this call and that's the only thing that they take away from it? What would that message be?

Business of owning a business and the business— we really have touched upon this in a bunch of different ways already, but the business of owning a business and specifically e-com is, this is a huge reflection of you. And so that's why you aspire to do it. You aspire. This is that, you know, there's passion because when you put yourself out there with an e-com business, for example, that is a reflection of you. So just, just pay attention to what's happening internally and be able to know that the strength that you have to keep going will come from within. And so, and not to pay, give all the attention or all the credits or all the credence to what's coming in externally, but really, really, really understand your internal world. That's the real journey when we build a business like this and we stick with it and we grow. I mean, I mean, just looking back on, let's say you build a business and it's been 5 years and you have something that's relatively stable and growing. You look back and you, you look back on the things that you did and the decisions that you made. And that's why it's gratifying.