The $100M Mushroom Founder: You Can Do What You Love and Build a Billion Dollar Empire

So how big does this vision get?

I mean, tens of billions of dollars in annualized revenue, but that sounds nice.

Taro Isocopola is the founder of four Sigmatic, which is a nine figure brand that put mushrooms on the map.

When we four sigmatic credit the original mushroom coffee, ten years ago we were laughed at. Today it's a $2.6 billion industry.

In addition to being the CEO of a nine figure brand, Taro is now building a store startup. Why are you starting over at zero?

I don't know. Because I'm stupid.

He and his team have developed a mushroom blend that eats plastic. In this episode, Taro talks about his launch plan. He talks about funding the company. He talks about balancing a nine figure brand along with a startup while raising three kids. Do you think that you have the chance to do something really special?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's working by our standards. A mistake I've done over and over again that I would encourage you to avoid and be smarter than I am.

Is like Taro Isocopola. You already have $100 million business. Why are you starting over at zero?

I don't know. Because I'm stupid.

I guess. At this point you're unhirable and institutionalized or something like that.

I can relate to that.

No, but in more seriousness, it comes down to, you know, seeing a problem that was unsolved. And it's same with books. Like you shouldn't. It doesn't make any sense to write a book. It's so much work, very little to no money. And you should only write the book if you like. Can't sleep at night if you don't write the book.

Yeah.

And I think it's somewhat similar with companies. Obviously if you're in your 20s and like you don't know what you don't know, it's a really fun journey to learn about life and yourself. But if you've had success, like you shouldn't start the business unless you were called that. You had to.

And this hasn't been a short journey for you.

No.

For Sigmatic, you started when in 2012. So started in 2012. It's now a nine figure company. But now this new company has been sort of incubating in your brain and in the office for a few years. So it's not like you just needed some extra cash. So. So you started this thing on the side. You're CEO of a really successful brand called four Sigmatic that most of the country in the world is familiar with. And now you're Starting this new venture all the way at zero. So there has to be something bigger than money, something bigger than your board that is driving that. What is that for you?

Yeah. The company's called Hero, H I R O, pronounced like Hiro. And I started with, um, my co founder, Mickey Acreval. She had this vision when her son Hero was born that why aren't we harnessing baby poop? Like we use cow poop and dog poop and we use it as a fertilizer in, in certain cases, but we don't harness this. And is that really how it started?

Is that really. She's like, wait a minute. This poop, we should be using this.

Well, that is the story she told me and everyone else. Okay, I was not there yet.

That's a good marketing.

Yeah, I was not there. But she did refer to this book called Pacha's Pajamas that I also have. It's like a kid's book. And he mentions that how mushrooms can eat plastic. And she was changing a lot of diapers at that point. I was like, oh, there's a lot of plastic in diapers. And that was the aha moment. She worked on it for a couple years with other people, didn't go anywhere. And then she came to me as we were having our first child and I came to realize that diapers are the number one household plastic waste item. And once you start changing them 12 times a day, you realize what a, what a waste it is. But then also sparked the idea of like, hey, I knew mushrooms can eat plastic, but it could be used for a lot of product categories. So diapers is just the kind of the entry point in a way. And just seeing is like I kind of look at work. That work itself is for me. The salary, if I get any, is from my wife and the equity is for my kids. And I wanted to offer something for my kids and I think the world needed it. So that was the inspiration. Besides a great team, because I was working full time on four Sigmatic, but because of the previous success Mickey and I had had, we were able to raise money and hire a full time team to actually work on it.

The last time you and I sat down, I asked you about some of the big steps forward that took four Sigmatic to the brand that it is today. I'm curious, as you start a new venture over from zero, what lessons, relationships or practices do you bring over from one success into a brand new venture?

Man, I feel like at four Sigmatic, I've done every mistake and probably many times over so there's a lot there. But they're also very different businesses, very like non competitive, different industries and businesses. So some stuff doesn't transport, but what does is.

I think culture and people are at the core of it. And I could do offshoots around that. Like what kind of investors you bring in or decide to say no to. Like at Hero we've said no to investors is like oh, that's probably not a fit, you know and then same with people you hire. And what's the right fit between like you want someone who's scrappy but you want someone who has relevant work experience. And that was a balancing act that for, for Sigmatic I would hire really passionate, amazing humans but who were completely self taught, had no clue what they're doing. And then I hired seasoned executives from big companies. But they're used to having a team of 50 people and now you don't. So like that was, that was one of the main things. But yeah, culture and people are probably the main, main things I've learned.

So when you started hiring the team for Hero, what did you prioritize? The young scrappy people who figured it out on their own or the seasoned executives who were used to having 50 person?

Neither. You really want a balancing act of that, especially when something so mission centric as Hero is trying to solve the global plastic crisis type of thing. But we hired the Ocean's Eleven.

We hired the top PhD in this field and this person who had a 4.0 GPA at MIT in Chemistry and you had to go and get the together. Similarly, as in the movie Ocean's Eleven, you had to like get experts in different areas and then you know, like in that movie there's this, this little Asian guy who's in the circus, but he can get into tight little spots, right? So they transferred that skill into bank robbery or casino robbery so to say. And the same thing with us, we had to like, because nobody had done what we were trying to do, we had to kind of get creative on how do we leverage skills from other industries into our needs.

How did you pitch the opportunity to these team members in order to persuade them to leave whatever they were doing to come join some random startup?

It's really twofold. The interesting thing about mycology or mushrooms is there's a lot of really smart people and a lot of job opportunities just because it's, there's been this pretty small, quiet emerging field with cult like experts. Like people who are into it, are into it, like in their garage. They don't Have a gym, but they have a little mushroom farm that they're cultivating a new species. So. But there's not a lot of job opportunities for them. So some of those people just having a cool project is huge. Right. Versus maybe on the business side we have a guy from McKinsey and a guy who built Pampers pure diapers at P and G. It's a little bit more of a broader holistic picture of what to do. But in both cases it's a lot about the mission. You know, like you have a chance to do something disruptive and positive for the world. And that resonates with not everyone, but with the people who resonates. It resonates a lot.

So theoretically, from a visionary perspective, let's take the product out of it for a second. Theoretically we could develop a diaper that leverages the bacteria of the poop and then composts and then it goes into landfill and eats other plastics. Is that the idea?

It becomes soil and then those species can eat other plastics.

The mushroom in the compost.

Yeah, I mean the diapers are made out of the Most common like 70% of plastics are made out of the same plastics as the diaper is made out of. So polyethylene, polypropylene, pet. So in theory you could then break down the other plastics in the landfills. Now landfills are contained pieces of space. They're pretty complicated by itself how they're built. It's different than your backyard. But yeah, that's the idea. And the challenge we face is like think of Tesla saying that we want to do self driving like you. It can work 99% of the time, but if there's crash on 1% of the time, and then that's the news headline and that's also the one is like managing. And that's why we're not calling it biodegradable compostable on day one because we don't want that lawsuit hanging over our heads. Right, so.

So you've created a diaper that biodegrades and then eats other plastics.

Yeah, we're, we're, we're not allowed to call it biodegradable yet. We have to do more. Like our goal is that it's compost.

Endorsed by the fda, ftc, SEC or any other government agencies or MAHA or MEGA or whatever.

Yeah, we're hoping that by the end of the year we can call it compostable. There's very clear definitions of each. But like today the normal Diaper takes like 300 years to break down. And biodegradable is everything will break down in every condition in 12 months. Which we kind of. I believe we could do in certain conditions, but like if it ends up in a landfill in Michigan versus Florida, very different conditions. Right. So that's the challenge for us to validate the consistent.

Consistent performance of it in all conditions is kind of the challenge.

Do you think that you have the chance to do something really special?

Yeah, for sure.

How would you describe that?

Heroes focus on a problem that's insane. And I feel like everyone kind of knows that plastics are a problem, but they don't understand the scale. Like by 2050 we're expected to have more plastic in our oceans than fish. A couple years ago we passed a mound where on land. There's more volume and weight of plastics today than all animals, including human weight combined.

More plastic weight than plant and than animals and animals.

Yeah, about. Yeah, two years ago. Wow. So the problem is way bigger than we realize. And today there's no end of life solution for plastics.

And there's many kinds of plastics and it's a very complex problem. And I'm not saying hero can solve all of it or even most of it, but literally there's no solution today. So a like having a solution, especially for the number one household plastic waste item is huge. Two is we are planning to publish the paper on our research and findings, hopefully inspiring other people to innovate in fields we can get to. Right. So yeah, I think it totally can both change the world and also inspire a completely new category. Because when, when we forcing meta credit the original mushroom coffee 10 years ago, like we were laughed at. Today it's a $2.6 billion industry.

Globally. So like, you know, you can actually move the needle with some of these things pretty quickly.

So how big does this vision get? You start with diapers. Yeah, but where does it go from there?

I mean, tens of billions of dollars in annualized revenue.

But that sounds nice.

Yeah, I've never done that. You know, four sigmatic is big. Not that big.

You know, I, I mean you start with diapers. How do you follow that up? What, what is, what do you try to tackle next in order to solve the problem?

I mean we've had a lot of conversation about that. You could license the technology. There's so many other plastic items that get created. You could work with governments and municipalities on the downstream. So the landfills and the sites. But, but I feel like that's a common problem that venture back startup founders do is that in order to get the Funding in order to do the thing. They need funding in order to get the funding. They sell the dream, the 20 year dream. But then they start believing, drinking the Kool Aid and believing that 20 year dream. But you can't get to the 20 year dream before you do the one year dream.

Yeah, you got to sell some things before the 20 year dream can come to reality.

So like, oh, you people. Why do people always use these Elon musk examples but SpaceX like oh, you're like going to Mars. Cool.

I like how your brain just went to think of any other example. Well, space.

No, I actually have a good one. Colossal. You might have heard this company. Really cool company. I just met the co founder first time and. And they're bringing Woolly the mammoth back. Okay.

As you do.

As you do. And super smart people. Incredibly clever.

I do appreciate that you called him Woolly the mammoth.

Yeah.

Instead of the woolly mammoth. This is mammoth named Wooly.

I'm sorry, I am ESL English actually as a fourth language.

So.

But you get the point. The mammoth is coming.

They're bringing back Woolly.

They're bringing back the mammoth and the mammoth. I think last time I was on your show I also made a mistake. So this is a pattern. It's normal.

People are distracted by my good looks.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, I believe that. Yeah. You look great.

Thanks. We got lost in each other's gaze for a second.

For a moment. Yeah, I like that.

Mushrooms.

Yes. Could be. So they're bringing it back. But it's actually the hardest challenge because like, you know, they have to do like a surrogate with an elephant, but then nobody's ever done a surrogate on an elephant, in an elephant, let alone a mammoth in an elephant. And then like it's a very complicated process. But that's the big vision. But along the way, and I think these two are public knowledge, but they want to bring the Tasmanian tiger and the dodo and those are like the Tasmanian tigers, apparently like a lot easier problem to solve. So you know they're going to solve that first.

I mean there is a reason why the woolly mammoth died.

Yeah, yeah.

It would be harder for them to live and a warming climate than in a frozen climate.

Well, we'll see. Well, we'll see.

So I don't remember how we got to mating elephants to create extinct species, but I would like to ask you about the economics of here.

Point is, if you're a new founder listening to this or you're even an existing founder. A mistake. I've Done all over and over again that I would encourage you to avoid and be smarter than I am is like have the 10, 20 year vision. Sure. But really focus on the next year to two years. A startup life is very unpredictable and you're not going to get to even your three year vision unless you execute on the year one. So do what you do now and crush that and then everything is optional after that and you have different doors open up. But don't get lost in the sauce too much.

Hero's 10 or 20 year vision is quite compelling. You create products that replace our everyday products that are actually solving a bigger problem. In the first two to three years you gotta sell some stuff and you also gotta raise capital in order to fund the development of that. You didn't raise a ton of capital for Forcing Matic. In fact, I don't think you raised any at the beginning. It was a little bit later. Correct. So what was your approach for pursuing investors? Because both you and Mickey are successful in your own right. Somebody from the outside might say, why not fund it yourself? Why do you partner with people to throw money at it? How much did you need to raise? So this is a different approach than what you've taken in the past. What'd you do?

Well, we were able to raise money from really cool people that can be really helpful. So that makes raising money a lot easier because like they can add more value than just capital.

Now that's a champagne problem. Right. The other part is biotech on both the pharma, non pharma side, in both cases is a very binary outcome. It's like power law. You know, in the drug side it's even crazier. But like, yeah, it's very expensive to get to a point, realize that it's a cul de sac and you achieve nothing, you know, but if you win, you win big. Ours is not as extreme as that, but it's still a lot different than starting a supplement brand. Like you have to do, you have to spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars just to know if it works and like two, three years of your life. And in our case like it's, it's working by our standards.

My, my first supplement brand, I ordered 100 units at $6 a unit. So my startup costs were $600. Very different than going out and developing a new strain of something that you're hoping changes the world.

Yeah, just the equipment in the lab are like hundreds of thousands of dollars.

How did you approach those people to invest in the company?

Honestly, Mickey did almost all of it. So I'll take that.

She's actually commented on this on the show where she says one of the smartest things she did was, I don't think she was talking about hero in this case, but she was saying when she went to pitch investors she would be showing up as business Mickey and it just didn't work. It wasn't who she was. But when she started hosting dinner parties where she was showing up as herself and excitedly talking about vision, people would then ask her, how do I invest in this thing? Oh, and I found that so interesting and helpful because when you get into that heady mode of how am I going to accomplish this thing? We can overlook our greatest strengths and the that connection to our vision and passion that so welcomes in how other people can support it.

I hope she doesn't mind me telling this story, but there's another ripple to that same story of the dinner party. She was also an immigrant female raising money at a time where most I still today most venture funding would go to men. And she was like, well, I could only I could get angry of the game or I could play the game by its rules. And she got her friend who's a British male to explain pitch the business, her business. But he would tell the story at this dinner party with British accent and raised tons of money immediately. And you know, I, I find that pretty clever and creative and you know, playing the game as is versus trying to change the game.

She is, she is very smart and wizardry, wizardness. She has a lot of wizardry when it comes to that kind of stuff. Tarot, the last time we were here you talked about having three different modes that you tend to operate in and you talked about grind mode, rest mode and I think it was creative mode.

Yep.

And you made the argument that you can't be in more than one at the same time. And that was interesting to think about. Active rest, active creativity, choosing it, being thoughtful on it, allowing yourself to recover so that you can be creative so that you can grind in the right direction. Yeah. You've got three kids, you've got a really successful business that you're the CEO of now you have another startup that you're hoping inspires a new direction for the planet. What mode are you in right now?

I, I was just telling the, the guy behind the camera that I'm just finishing like an eight week weight loss period and a grind mode. And I'm, I'm heading to a family vacation after next week and I'm Gonna get fat and sassy. So right now I'm in like last week of grind mode, about to hit recovery, but active recovery. We're traveling with three kids, so it's not like I'm like sleeping 12 hours a day. We're doing stuff, hopefully seeing the northern lights, but you know, like, yeah, I'm finishing a grind period.

And how do you go into recovery rest mode when you have a business that's launching?

Yeah.

You don't go into rest mode at the beginning of launch. So you must have had to plan and be thoughtful about this way ahead of time. Help me understand how you manage these three modes.

First of all, we were supposed to launch two months ago and I was supposed to go on vacation after that, but that didn't work out. The product is made in Canada and there was some customs and tariff stuff. So long story short, that was not planned. But yeah, it's four years of prep. Makes it easy that a lot of the stuff is done ahead of time and planned and it's just, it's ready to go. Secondly is that hero has, you know, full time team management running it, you know, and.

At the end of the day, like you can't do it without the team. Like, and you're fortunate I'm in a fortune enough to position to have a team on both companies. And if you're starting out yourself, that is not the case. And in that case that would not be possible.

So the fact that you have the support of the team overseeing operations, that's what is allowing you to go into rest mode in this instance.

Yeah. And in both cases there's actually a lot of reasons why more hours, me putting more hours to four sigmatic doesn't actually help four sigmatic because the quality of four sigmatic, it heavily relies on the quality of the senior vice presidents and you know, those senior people and their level of people that they don't even want me like they're micromanaging and doing stuff. So from my job is more like customer meetings, business development opportunities, things like that. And those are easier to juggle on and off versus there's work tasks, let's say ops or social media. Like you're always on, like you're always, you can't go on a take two weeks easy because people are messaging and tagging you on Instagram. You got to be on it. Or if you have to produce product, you have to produce product. And that's just not like the job description of the CEO at certain scale.

I felt that at certain scale the job changes. And where I'm. So where I sort of think I am is that that is beginning to evolve for me. And I'm playing this interesting war slash dance of letting go of the old and pursuing the new. But also that by its nature requires a different level of prioritizing creative time, prioritizing rest time because the daily grind of it is not as efficient effective as it once was. It doesn't move the needle to the same percentage that going out and making a key relationship does at this point in my career. So I have had this voice of tarot in the back of my head once in a while. Say, are you in grind mode or are you in creative mode?

Can I give you another one?

Please do.

In the same realm, I like to look at it by this like four fields. But one is like what's the percentage of doing versus thinking and, and you know, when you're starting you're 90% doing and 10% thinking. And at some point you have to consciously push yourself to spend more of your days just thinking and not doing because every decision you make has such an outsized impact. It, it's, it's an Archimedes lever at that point when you have teams and resources and money and stuff. The other one is how internal or external you are. Are you working in the business or on the business and like customer facing versus internally facing. And there's no one right answer but like navigating throughout the year in and out of those boxes because there is a point when no matter how big the company is, you gotta go and work in the business with the team on something hyper specific. And then there's a time when you go outside and sell and you don't talk to the team internally that much, but you're just out and about in the world, right?

Yeah. At the beginning of a launch for something like Hero, I would think it would be more doing. So it's interesting that you are planning your own creative and recharge time right around the time of launch. What is the launch plan for the first product in Hero?

It's all earned media, so the diapers don't have a lot of margin. So that's another fun curveball.

But advertising is limited.

Yeah, little to no advertising and sure we have to do some education around the stuff we do, but some of that is a little too high proud. So at the end of the day it's word of mouth, PR community and getting the product in hands of people because it's a really soft, amazing diaper. So besides the mushroom Part it's an incredible diaper. So having parents try it out is like, that's the challenge. And for better, for worse, we actually have a little bit of a supply chain issue out of the gate. So we're not even able to blow it out of the waters in the first few months, which is a nice positive constraint so that we can make sure that we optimize everything before a big hyper scaling phase with limited inventory.

And limited margin, you've got to be very thoughtful about how you use that time and attention. Those customers. You kind of have to milk every opportunity that you get. So what do you do or how do you think about this entry process of how you treat the customers, what you're hoping to get out of them in terms of reviews or pieces of feedback campaigns that you run in order to hit the market that you want? What do you do to maximize that window of limited inventory and that window of free of earned media?

Two things that come to mind is like the amount of dialogue that you need to have two way, like both ways. Because we don't know what messaging works, we don't know what the reception is like. We've done tons of like test groups and focus groups. But like at the end of the day, once you are actually on the market, what the reaction is. So having active dialogue is, is pretty important. The other one to, to your point is it allows you to polish around the edges of retention, customer experience, customer support ops, which are usually stuff, is when brands launch, they put, rightfully so 90% of their time into acquisition because they have no customers, right?

Yeah.

So. And they think acquisition is the path to solve all problems. And then if you talk to brands who've been around for a little longer, they'll be like, retention is pretty important, you know? You know, so it allows us, obviously I'd rather have unlimited inventory. So not saying this is a good thing, but it allows us maybe to spend a little more time on optimizing the funnel and the customer experience before cranking it.

Yeah, I view those times as your opportunity to develop systems so that when you have unlimited inventory, you can scale a little bit faster. But it's also a really good opportunity for you to take the resources that you have on the team and be very thoughtful about how you interact with those customers and getting feedback from those customers and leveraging every piece of positive feedback into a piece of content that you brag about. So you make the customer the hero in the story, which generates more buzz and gets people ready for the next launch. If you can just milk that period in which you've got some limitations. It sets you up for that second launch or the official launch once you're, once you're clear.

And going back to one of your earlier questions, what I learned from for Sigmatic going into Hero one is having urgency in those times. Like it doesn't mean you have to grind 80 hours a week during that time period. But it's very easy when you have the constraint of inventory of customers to sit back. I hear a lot of new entrepreneurs say they don't have the money or they don't have the inventory or this. And that as almost as an excuse to not take action versus like no, you can't take action there right now beyond a certain point, but you can take action in these other areas. So having a sense of urgency is, is something I've learned over the years, is that even in those lulls, again, you don't need to grind 80 hours a week for that, but you need to have urgency on, on during those slow periods.

What is grind mode look for like for you right now? You said that you just went through a cut. You rent managing one company, you're launching another company. You don't seem stressed.

Mm, yeah. More tired. Right.

I give you some mushroom coffee.

Yeah, yeah. So it varies depending on how much travel is involved because that's a big X factor. I have some travel, but the last two months I haven't had to travel. So I've been being able to really focus. But that can change everything. Just if just as a disclaimer for me, it's helpful.

When I oscillate between caloric deficit, caloric surplus, hopefully gaining some muscle. Not much, but some along the way is like that puts your body naturally in a certain your nervous system in, you know, one or the other ways of, of like, do you have enough calories? Your body's telling you to, you know, pump more cortisol. And that helps me to marry those two seasons together with rest and activity. The other one is, do you mean.

That you will cut during a grind? During a grind, yeah.

Then you stimulate. So I get that it's counterintuitive because like if you're in caloric deficit and you're tight anyway and then you work hard and you're even tighter but for me is like it's almost easier to fast and have a clear mind and drink 2 cup extra cups of coffee that you normally wouldn't drink cup of coffee and just go crash the boards, you know? You know, and go hard at the Paint and that is easier for me personally. And then when I know I, I get to chill, I can slow down, sleep, rest, recover. It is a lot easier. Same with walking, like during the time of a cut, I pump up the steps a lot. I mean, it's a great time for me to take calls or to be active and get fresh air.

I'm smiling because I have experienced this just accidentally and it comes in waves. I will have times when I'm really focused on something and I'll forget to eat or it's really easy for me to have extra calorie burn and I can sustain that for a little bit. I can't sustain it all the time. Which means to me that during those times I might be under recovered. Now there's an interesting balance between just saying I'm under recovered, I just need to take a few days off or chill. There's something else about planning it and being strategic about it and saying, I'm going to grind for eight to 12 weeks and then I'm going to take a week or two and I'm going and I'm going to refuel and I'm going to rest and I'm going to sleep. I don't, I am very bad at that. I'm very good at just saying, grind mode, let's go. And then, you know, 24 7, right? And then eight weeks later be like, I'm sad. And I don't know why I'm so sad.

Two things, why it works for me and I'm just speaking for myself. It might not work for you, but there's like a level of FOMO or like, like this constant again, just for me is I am, I'm questioning like, you know, should I be doing something else? And there's this self doubt late at night that like, oh, am I doing the right thing?

That's just you. No entrepreneur.

No other entrepreneur, exactly. But having that intention helps alleviate a lot of that self doubt for me because I'm like, yeah, you might be doing something else, but right now this is the period, right? This is the period you're in.

The, the other part that is easier for me is when I'm in that mode and especially if I'm like eating less and pushing harder. There's something like almost spiritual about that. Like, like that tough period.

I can't remember what the Japanese word is, but they have this annual heart challenge, misogi or miso yogi or something like that. And they do like every year, one thing hard and you could do it twice. A year. I'm not saying that, but like, the point of that intensity I think helps a lot.

That is the single reason why I cold plunge.

Yeah.

People.

People say it's good for other reasons. Yeah.

I. I don't know. I don't care. The only reason why I do it is because it's hard.

Yeah.

And if I do that for three minutes, then the hard conversation that I have with an employee is a little bit easier because I have already taught my brain I can do something that I don't want to do.

Yes.

This is the reason why I wake up earlier than I want to. I hate the worst part of my day is when the alarm goes off as soon as I'm up, I'm good. But those either 10 seconds or 25 minutes that I delay getting out of bed are the most miserable time of my day. And as soon as I'm out of bed, I'm good. Yeah. And if I wake up earlier than I want to and I work through that voice of this is hard. I don't want to do it. And then I go either work out or jump in a cold bath. I'm great after that. Because everything else is easier at that point. And you're doing the same thing. But over a period of time. I'm choosing this eight week grind. I'm choosing this 12 week sprint. And maybe I will discover that I need to be doing something else. But for now, I actively choose this time. Is that a fair summary?

Totally. And I don't know if it's me getting older, having kids, but I've noticed that I don't recover the same way at all anymore. And what used to be that I was good with like a long weekend, but right now, sometimes we went to Mexico for 10 days and I feel like it took me like seven or eight days to get out of the mode. Even my wife was saying is like chill, like we don't have to have a schedule and a, like we're on a program here, we got to go there. You got to do this. And it's like no, like slow down. And it took. Took me a legit week just to get into the recovery phase.

I can relate. What is it like for you coming out of that mode and going back to running $100 million company and a startup and a family out of the.

Recovery into the work? It's pretty easy. Usually a good indicator that, that you've had a good vacation or a slow period is that you forgot at least one password and that you're itching to get back to work. Because that's the beauty of the, you know, recovery into creativity. Once you fully recover, you're starting to get ideas, ideas that you want to execute ideas or new ways of looking at the same old problem. Fresh perspective because you're not so tight and like locked in. And I'm just eager to get going. But yeah, that's usually I don't have that problem of motivation. If I have a motivation problem, that probably means that I'm still burned out or some level of exhaustion.

Do you feel any conflict between the company that exists and is successful versus spending your time on the project that is a new start? Do you feel any obligation to one versus the other? Or like you have two kids vying for your attention and one's not getting all of you? Do employees complain to you? I deal with that. And I'm, you know, I'm running seven figure businesses, not nine figure businesses. So do you feel any of that tension and how do you deal with it?

Well, the other business is a zero figure business. So technically it's kind of evens out there in the middle somewhere in the same boat.

I don't and I probably would have before having kids. So it's funny that you bring that up, but it's like, do you feel guilty you did not play with the other kid because you played with the other kid. But if you're trying to play with every kid all the time and it's not like love.

Or ability to bring results is limited in that way. It helps when they're non competitive, but they're synergies. Like a lot of the work I do with mushrooms or meeting people helps both companies or me having my YouTube channel, you know, can help both businesses.

So the other one, that's a really keen insight. Like I'm, I'm just, I'm marinating in that a little bit. Where sometimes I will get into this mode of if I am, even if I take a vacation, sometimes I feel like I'm letting the team down in some case. But in reality, me being at my best is good for all parties, it's good for all businesses, it's good for all team members and that, that's number one. And so the relationship that I meet is good for all companies. The investor connection that I make is good for everything that I touch.

Yes.

So I, I appreciate that.

And you never know what helps who. And again, as long as they're non competitive, like in this case, and there's a clear synergy with mushrooms, like I go and Speak. I have a speaking engagement in Troy and I'm speaking on stage. I don't know who I'm going to meet. You know what's going to happen. It's like you're talking about your journey. Right. And the other thing that I've helped me is thinking of it as a test. And for example, if I. And I've done this before I had kids and before Hero, I would consciously tell my team I'm two months off, even though in reality I'm not actually fully off, just to see what breaks. It's like a test. It's like, okay, I'm going to not be available. If it's true, emergency, text me. I will be available. Any point. Let's see what happens. And it's also, especially for the more senior people, they welcome it because it's like their opportunity to step up and show what that they can grow. And usually you find out something that did break and you're like, well, we didn't have a system or process for that and we should probably have it.

Because this happened when you started four Sigmatic. I don't mean to oversimplify or to read your mind, but this was.

Please do.

This was a business that set you up financially, gave you your career path, developed your relationships. It was not your first go in business, but it was your first big success. Correct. And.

You received a lot of edification relationships for that. With Kiro, you have a problem that you're solving. This isn't about what tarot gets. This is about what you can infuse into a product in a business that creates a big impact. Are those two different drivers for you? Does it feel different to approach a business in which you may lose all the capital that was raised, or it could be a big success. Is that stressful like a first startup is, or is there a different energy that you bring into it? I'm just genuinely curious.

I don't know if something is wrong with me, but in both, neither company, I've thought about that and I would actually argue that.

Come on, really?

No, hear me out. Why I think four Sigmatic was successful is not that me or the founding team was smart or experienced. Like, we were like true believers that mushrooms can heal. And if you'd have met me then, I had very extreme beliefs about herbalism and natural healing. And like we. I mean, I still believe in it, but like, at that point it was almost like religious, right? And the belief in mushrooms, which I still have, but in a different, holistic, more mature way. And I think that's why we were successful, not because we were seeking validation or whatever it is. It was like, we truly believed in it. And. And I think that fueled the success. And I would argue that the worst we've done as a company, not based on P and L, but, like, generally just the vibes, is when it became focused on trying to be the, you know, like, Kellogg, Nestle, whatever thing and lost and became, like, very vanilla wellness and. And I think authenticity in. In anything, especially that you eat, I guess, with diapers, too, because it's your baby. It's like people want to feel that you care for the right reasons, even if what you're saying is not the right thing to say because you had no clue. Like, in the beginning, we didn't even have the brand name on the packaging, just give you how bad we were. Like, nowhere in the packaging, it said the company name.

So it's really interesting. And, Tara, I don't mean to shit on any of your competitors.

Yeah.

But.

Well, here I go.

Laird Super Creamer is basically just a ripoff of four Sigmatic. And nowhere in that company is there this palpable feeling or belief that this blend of mushrooms is good for you. It's just like, this is cool. And they've got 40 different SKUs, and they just seem all over the place. And the only reason why this stands out to me is because they're a publicly traded company. And so watching that as a brand launch and do what they think is best for shareholders, but not have the same type of soul that a four Sigmatic has, I've watched what happens to that company, and they're down, like, 95% from their highs. And from the outside perspective, it just seems obvious to me, because they have 40 or 50 different SKUs. I don't really know what they stand for. That's not a company that has a clear thesis. To me, that's just a bunch of products. And the way that I'm hearing you describe it is that with four sigmatic, even if it had been a $5 million company at its peak, there was this belief in conviction behind what you were doing. And the more that you stayed in that zone, the more the company grew and the more that any time you deviated from that, that's where the company sort of struggled.

Correct.

I'm processing this correctly.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, very much like that. Obviously, there's a level of maturity that you have to develop, especially when you're into retail, which is more of like an oil tanker of an industry. But yeah, that was pretty much the story of four Sigmatic.

In brief, do you have an opinion on Laird?

I actually know Laird and Gavin.

I have a lot of opinions of course. But I'm not going to say anything bad about Laird because I feel like I have some friends in the surf industry and for some weird reason because he got towed into the wave versus paddling in the whole surf industry likes to make fun of Laird all the time. And the surf geeks like he's like the most common area of jokes so I always felt bad is like he actually kind of revolutionized surfing. But all the surfers hate him. Not all. That's unfair. Many, many.

All I know about the guy is that his name is on a public traded company.

Yeah, I think there's.

That's right. That's why he's famous.

He's actually on pretty impressive athlete, human. So I would say that of all the competitors we have, we could come up with some less impressive founders and brands.

The only reason why.

But they are, they're very spread very thin into a lot of things. They try to be a lot of things for a lot of people. And they're publicly traded and yes, the stock is down like over 90%.

This is, this is what is so hard to describe. And so I choose the word the soul of a brand or the soul of a company. You can't quite put your finger on it. But there is an intent to create for a specific group of people. And what you're describing is that four Sigmatic always had that. It always had this intent to create and serve for this group of people. And Hero is doing the same thing. And at some point a lot of entrepreneurs or business leaders lose it and do what is best for the numbers, which seems like the logical thing to do. And sometimes it works short term. I don't see it happen. I don't see it work long term very often. The example I'm thinking of is when we were building sheer strength the first time we grew 100%, sometimes 200% per year except for one year and it was the year in which we said our competitors are launching these products and they're starting to eat into market share a bit. Let's launch competitor products to them. They did not have anything to do with our core demographic or what we stood for. They were just opportunistic products. And that was the one year that we were flat. We did not grow. And we said, well back to the thesis, back to our core customer, our core messaging. And then the company started to grow again. And that's when we had the exit.

Yeah, I mean that is my experience in many ways with forcing Matic 2 is like is there's. When you're the band of pirates, there's a sheer energy that translates versus if you try to be the Navy, you're not going to have that energy.

It seems to me like Hero.

Has. Is almost forced to stay in that mode because you're so focused on a problem that if the. If the goal is to solve a problem. Yeah, you've got to align all of your energy.

We have really rich and powerful enemies, at least out of the gates. So if nothing else.

Oil companies.

Yeah, Oil, petrochemical companies. You know, I could name them, but you can also Google them. But. And then even the diaper industry is really owned by two companies. PNG with Pampers and Kimberly Clark with Huggies. So it's like, it's a very like. And landfills, by the way, one of the least regulated and stuffiest industries. You know.

I think a lot of people know reason why, but waste management is a. It's a fun underbelly too. What.

What does the world look like if Hero is hugely successful?

I actually don't think I know the answer to that. I've been thinking, thinking of the AI which is even bigger force multiplier. I don't think any of these AI people know how AI gets translated, even in like couple years. The cool thing is if you actually create something new, even with the mushroom coffee and mushrooms, I couldn't foresee certain changes in culture and trends. Like I have a theory, but I don't know if I'm even remotely close. So it'll be interesting to see and what that spawns out. When you change culture, you can instigate change, but you cannot control change. Then the culture takes over and it's like a force much, much greater than any single company or person. And we've seen a lot of powerful super celebrities fall down under the culture too. And I think that's just the case. You can influence culture, but you can't control culture.

What would you want it to look like if you could have your way? And Hero is hugely successful.

A thing that's been resonating a lot with me lately. Talking to the PhDs and scientists is inspiring a whole new field of change of this micro remediation or using nature to heal nature. And there's so many applications and opportunities well beyond what HERO can execute that other talented, great people could pursue. That's been a thought that's been really heartwarming and resonating with me lately.

One of the things you mentioned about the oil companies and petroleum companies is you don't realize how subsidized they are, how many incentives there are to keep that machine going.

And in some ways that's a headwind to you, but in other ways, if that's what the mushrooms eat.

Well, that's.

The cool thing, which I hope is the solution that brings everybody together is a lot of sustainability. Brands are very mission centric, but they are dying on the hill that you should never have plastics.

Right.

But for example, every car, like if we wouldn't have plastics on our cars, the cars would weigh five times more and we would use more either electricity or gas to drive them. Medicine, like, imagine having you're being sick and you go to the hospital and they don't have sterilized needles with the serum.

They're like, oh yeah, your aura is way off. I can see.

Yeah. And there's a lot of reasons why the world, we have a lot of silly single use plastics, but we also have like a lot of use cases for it that is just like hard to replace. Like, in a way, plastics were created because like, you know, like rhino horns and elephant tusks were replaced. And ivory, ivory was replaced.

Every innovation is the, is in response.

To a less efficient solution, otherwise it would not win. So, so the challenge changes the world.

And then it creates a new set of higher quality problems that people like you and me have opportunities to solve. That to me is capitalism. It evolves. So we don't get to this point in human evolution if we don't have fossil fuels and plastics. And now we have other problems that we need to solve.

Yes.

So you're seeing this as an opportunity.

To kind of bring everyone together. End of life solution to a problem we don't have. Instead of like, for example, there's been a big wave over the last couple of decades to come up with these like alternative plastics. So if you go to the grocery store and they give you the green bag instead of the actual plastic bag, the problem is those alternative, you know, biomaterials are still plastic essentially, but they break easier, they create more microplastics, and they have other issues that they create. Most importantly, the bag breaks and your groceries are dropped on the floor because the bag is so weak. But so.

So I think the solution I hope that we're offering is more of like bringing everybody on the same page is like we can use these plastic in certain areas of our life where they're truly value added and have an end of life solution that's more sustainable.

That to me is what I call collaborative capitalism. That is there is this problem and there is a solution to it. But you don't need to make an enemy in order to create a solution. You can just create the solution and it's good for everybody. Which means consumers prefer it. Which means that the other producers or contributors to the problem are glad that you exist, which means that they're likely to collaborate with you. And as a result, we take the next step forward in our development as a species and as an economy. What asks of the audience, what requests? What would you like to see happen in the next chapter of Hero? Where can people get in line to support the brand as investors, influencers, contributors, customers? What would you like to see happen?

If you have kits in diapers or you know, someone in kits and diapers.

Adults and diapers, let's not discriminate.

Actually, it's funny because adult diapers have now passed the baby diapers in volume month.

That's why I said it.

Yeah, you knew it. Yeah, you knew the stats.

That's where I was going with this.

Yeah, it's more and more adults need diapers, so aging population and leakage.

So if you know anybody in that has a baby in diapers and in the future an adult in diapers, check out Hero and hopefully you get to try it. Initially available just online on the company's website due to the limited capacity, we have a little Hero's Journey subscription you can get on and, and other than that, I don't know. Give mushrooms a chance.

Tara, it's great to see you. I'm really excited about what you're doing, very inspired by you as an entrepreneur. Looking forward to seeing how you inspire the world and tackle this problem. Thanks for being here, man.

Thanks for having me on.

Even if you're not an entrepreneur, we create change when we vote with our dollars. Where we spend money determines where there is new innovation. So I'm curious to hear from you. What brands do you follow? What brands do you support with your dollars that are out there making a difference? I want to shine a light on brands like Hero that are out there solving a problem and doing it in a for profit way that is good for their shareholders, good for their employees, good for, good for everyone who is involved. Do you have a brand that you support like that? If so, I think it would be really cool if we as a community in the comments of this video talked about the brands that we believe in that we want to support. And by you leaving a comment and looking at the other comments that people leave about the brands that they support, we as a community can support the businesses that are out there creating change. Because like Hero, some of these companies don't have the margin to be able to advertise as aggressively as some of the big companies. They don't have the tactics or they don't have the capital to be able to stand out in a noisy marketplace. So I consider it part of our job to shine a light on on the brands and businesses that are creating change in this world. I'd like to hear who you support. Please let me and the rest of the community know in the comments of this video what businesses you support because they're creating change and creating a better world for their shareholders, their stakeholders and the rest of the world. Thank you for watching. I'm Ryan Danny Moran with capitalism.com and I'll see you on the next episode. Take care.