Jimmy, Jake, and Jordan DeCicco - The Super Coffee Brothers on Brotherhood, Navigating Challenges, and The Entrepreneurial Journey

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am joined by not only some incredible entrepreneurs, but people that I consider some of my closest friends. We have the DeCicco brothers, Jordan, Jake and Jimmy. Thank you so much for being here, guys.

Casey, thank you so much for having us, brother. It's a pleasure.

Wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Let's go, man. We're grateful for it.

And of course, we're here at the Blue Wire Studios. First time you guys are out here. I mean, come on. This is going to be a fun conversation. I'm looking forward to it.

Epic. Epic. The place is incredible. You've been talking very highly about it, but now we see why you're so excited. So let's go.

Dude, this is special. I mean, this is. You and I have been homies for years and this is the first time we've ever met in person.

Yeah, I literally, I can't believe it. Like, Jordan and I were ripping runs all the time. Jake and I, we've, we've gone to dinner, we've had them on the podcast. And it's crazy that I a haven't met you in person and excited to have it, you know, have you on today as well. But for people that might not know what Super Coffee is and the brand that you guys created, I'm obviously drinking my super energy over here today. Jordan, like, let's give a high level about what super Coffee is and the origin story of the brothers and how this brand even came about.

Yeah.

So simply, Super Coffee is a better for you bottled coffee brand. Zero sugar, 10 grams of protein, tastes delicious. It's distributed in over 50,000 stores nationwide. And Jimmy, Jake, and myself started Super Coffee seven and a half years ago in my college dorm room. So I was actually a 19 year old at the time playing basketball and I was, I was a little curious, but I couldn't understand why there wasn't healthier options that tasted great. It was either Starbucks, Frappuccino or Red Bull or Monster if you wanted an energy drink. Nothing in between, nothing better for you, nothing that fit my needs. So I figured, hey, why don't I make my own?

Yeah. It's so crazy. And even too just for the context, for everyone watching or listening. I remember when I first picked up a bottle of super Coffee. I was back home in Virginia and I was at my local Wawa. I picked up the classic vanilla and it was the story on the side of the bottle that it talked about. Three brothers started in your college dorm room. I also have two older Brothers. And I come from a family of three brothers. And there was just such a alignment with just what was on the side of the bottle. And it just struck a chord with me from a entrepreneur perspective, a story perspective. And I just love this story. And I'd love to hear, like, Jake, Jimmy, we'll start with you. Jake, like, the brand itself, when you guys were starting it, like, what was your thought process? You know, three brothers starting a coffee business. You know, you guys all have different goals and dreams or guys are all athletes. Like, what was your initial thoughts when you guys were starting the brand?

Yeah, I mean, we were super naive starting, right. Like, we thought that we would, we could become, you know, this $200 million company in year one. Like, we really genuinely believe that. And I think we, we thought that so much because there was such a gap as we looked at what was available, what we wanted, like what our vision was. So we were super naive to what we could achieve. And I think, you know, we really, in the early days didn't talk about creating a brand which is unique. We always were super product focused and we just wanted to make a product that didn't exist and try and get it widely available. And that was a zero sugar coffee that was going to give you a better energy boost than your typical Starbucks. And that was the whole premise from day one. And it was you needed to be seen to be sold. So we were going to go into stores and make relationships with the people in the stores. And that was like, literally our goal.

Where do you think that, like, that naive mindset came from? Was it like, hey, you've seen other people start businesses around you. Like, where did that come from? Being an athlete, being confident?

I mean, it started because first and foremost, our mom worked at the ymca, our dad was a construction worker. So we literally had no clue what we were. The hell we were doing in food and beverage. Like, I had never been to a Whole Foods. I don't think any of us had ever been to a Whole Foods before. We sold our first bottle of Super Coffee into a Whole Foods.

Wow.

Uh, but we had read about, you know, startups there. There was a story of Honest Tea, which started in Bethesda, Maryland, which is right up the road from, from Georgetown University, where, where we started out. And, you know, at that point in time, we looked up to Under Armour was a big brand that had obviously come from the Georgetown area. And we work was a booming phenomena at that point in time. And we were like, we can be like these guys. Like, we can do this. So I think, like, our naiveness was a superpower in the early days and still today.

Right.

Like, if we knew seven and a half years ago what we were signing up for, we never would have done it. Right. But, like, we just tackled it because it was all we knew. So it was definitely a benefit to be incredibly naive and stupid.

No, absolutely. And so, Jimmy. So, Jordan, you were 19 when you guys were starting the brand. How old were you?

I was 22.

22. I'm 22 now. Just for context for everyone, you're an animal. So what were you doing at the time when, you know, the brand was being formulated? And I just. We haven't had a chance to really sit down and talk. I'd love to hear, like, your perspective on the. The origin story of Super Coffee. You know, what. What led for, you know, you guys coming together and, like, what were some of the early conversations that you guys were having as three brothers, coming from, you know, New York and just having these ambitions, like, where were you at in your life when you guys were starting the brand?

For sure, man. And. And you appreciate this coming from a family of three brothers, right? And. And everybody, there's roles in. In your family that you don't realize growing up. And for me, I was the oldest brother. You know, my. My parents put a lot of pressure on me before these two guys existed. And. And that leads to leadership. That leads to maybe some insecurities around perfectionism and all that. So I had graduated in May of 2015, and I. I got a job as a financial analyst on Wall street when these guys were working on a project in. In the Georgetown summer startup program. And I was like, that's awesome. It seems cool. Good luck, right? And I was. I have my path carved out. I wasn't passionate about finance. I just knew that it was a good career to be in.

Yeah.

Three months into my new job, Jordan called me and said, hey, man, I'm dropping out of school to sell coffee. And I mean, full scholarship basketball player. Like, this is a dude that would skip high school class to go shoot free throws at the ymca. And I'm like, dude, shut up and go to practice. Like, what are you talking about? Basketball is your life. Like, you don't know anything about coffee. And once I realized that his obsession had shifted from basketball to entrepreneurship, specifically coffee, I was like, damn, there's no convincing him otherwise. I got to. I got to come supervise this thing. I thought I'd be there for, like, six months, maybe help them raise some money, get it. Get it off the ground and then go find my next thing. And here we are seven and a half years later.

It's, that's so crazy because you're, you're on Wall street working full time and like you're just graduating. Making that step in just a unknown direction. Like what was it for you that you know, made you take the leap of faith and go full time with these guys and your brothers?

I think family, you know, I think Jordan was making a big decision in his life and, and for me, like, I wasn't. I quickly learned that I wasn't passionate about the real estate finance game. So I was like, look, let me help these guys get set up. And I think what we all realized is, wow, this is a big opportunity. It's way more work than what any one or two people could hand. Let's attack this thing full speed. And it really, it really settled in for me once we, we raised the first money from strangers. You know, like eight months after we joined or I joined these guys, we raised money from private investors and we're like, wow, this is real now.

Yeah, but, but just how chaotic it was, right? So Jordan and I were working on it that first summer in. Jordan it was, we were in Georgetown and Jordan was a full scholarship starting point guard two and a half hours north at Philadelphia University. Jordan and I kind of realized earlier that summer and credit Jordan that if he didn't drop out right. There was going to be no business. It's probably him knowing my weaknesses. He's like, I'm not leaving this up to your chance. Right. Like I gotta be here because you.

Were already out of school.

No, no, I was going back for my senior year, but it was like that was just a bad personal business decision to not finish Georgetown with two semesters left and play my senior football season that like my whole life was.

Yeah.

You know, culminating to that point totally. But anyway, so I'm going to practice and it was finally time for Jordan to tell my mom, our mother, that he was going to be dropping out. And he had the whole thing figured out. He knew he was doing it, but it was like, hey, talk to Jim first. Right? And he, he sent Jim this email.

And Jordan sent Jim an email.

Jim, Jordan sends Jim this incredibly professional email for who he was at the time as a 19 year old freshman. And I go to practice and I'm like, good luck, talk to Jimmy. Let me know how it goes with mom. So I leave.

By the way, I love that like the brotherly aspect of those like initial days like, that is so cool to me.

Yeah.

And I'm like, jimmy's your guy for this one. Like, I'm out. Mom's gonna. I'm biased anyway. Like, I need you to do this. And I leave practice and I have, like, 15 missed calls from my mom. I'm like, oh, shit, that didn't go well. And I call her back and she answers, and she is like, jordan's dropping out of school and Jimmy is quitting his job. And I was like, that second part, I swear to God, I didn't know. So Jordan actually convinced Jimmy when. And I think that's what he was saying is, like, he heard that that is how much passion that he had.

Right.

Free school. He was a bonafide college, like, star for his. His team and dropped out to start a coffee company. And Jimmy's like, like. And I. Jimmy was itching to get started with us anyway. Right. Like he said. He said, good luck. But before we had pitch competitions, before we were doing anything, like, he was in our ear, like, we were getting ready for a sporting event.

Yeah.

So he knew he wanted to join. I think Jordan's push and Jordan's conviction from day one, though, is what brought the whole thing together.

Yeah.

I mean, and Jordan, like, now looking back, right? Like, you guys have built this incredible brand of the last seven and a half years. You've raised hundreds of millions of dollars. You're in 50,000 stores. Like, the people watching and listening, it's easy to say, oh, yeah, making that decision was the right one. And making that decision that you've obviously built something so incredible, like, Jordan, take us back to when you were making that decision to drop out. Like, what ultimately led to that decision and what was your mindset back then to then, you know, get the band together and to really take this thing to the next level. To the point where you're dropping out of school on a full scholarship. I mean, for a lot of people, that's just so, like, that would never be in their cards of something that they didn't even think about. What led to that decision.

Yeah, I mean, 100%. And, you know, for what it's worth, too, I've made hundreds of wrong decisions and really bad decisions since then. So I do want to ground in that tough reality and look at the time. Look like human nature and just general conventional wisdom is going to tell you, obviously it's the wrong decision. Right. Like, any way you look at it logically, rationally, you can look at data across the board, like, very, very low probability of success. I was a freshman. Again, the guys already talked about it, but zero experience. I mean, like, they're. No reason why anybody should have believed in us. And I think that was part of it. Right. Obviously, I, I knew that, but at the same time, Jimmy nailed it. I, I fell in love with it. And I felt like, look, there clearly was a gap. I didn't have the data resources right. Or the wherewithal to, to do enough research and build out a full business plan. I just didn't have that, that experience or that, you know, that muscle yet. But it was clear you didn't, you didn't really need that to see that as a consumer, from a consumer's perspective, which is how we should think about problems and problem solving in general, that there was a need here for myself and then my teammates and then my classmates. Right. And then my teachers. And I was in school for business. But again, when you're a freshman taking a few business classes, you're not learning too much.

Yeah.

But you start to put some pieces together, try to connect the dots. But ultimately you can't connect to the dots. Right. You can't, you don't know what's going to happen in the future. So you have to take a risk and you have to make, make big decisions. You got to bet on yourself. And that's ultimately what it came down to. Betting on myself. I knew that my, my chances would be, would be better if I could get Jake and Jimmy involved, obviously. So those were two huge goals for me.

Yeah.

But ultimately I was going to go head down at this thing 100%, give it everything I had. And in my eyes, the worst case scenario was, you know, it didn't work out. I would know within the first year and I could go back to school on scholarship because my, my coaches and team, like, liked, you know, me on the court.

So, so that was it. Like in the back of your head, it's like, if this doesn't work out in a year, I could go back to school.

I didn't believe that it wouldn't work out, but I did have to tell my mom I had a backup plan.

Yeah.

So I didn't believe that. And I think that's important, too, because I wasn't going at it saying, oh, you know, I'm 50, 50 on this. I have a fallback plan. It was a realistic fallback plan, but in no world that I think it was going to happen, I thought, I'm giving 100% to this. Jake's got one year left at Georgetown we're going to get Jimmy involved and by the time Jake graduates, we'll raise some capital and we'll be ready to go. And again, a hundred decisions a day happen and 100, you know, things happen a day that actually need to go right. To make that come to life. But that's where you bet on yourself, right? Like in all of those moments, you need to be able to make obviously good decisions. But also just what it came down to in the early days was brute force and just working harder than everybody. I mean, we were putting in 20 hour days and that's the real reason why I dropped out. Not because it was a super successful product or we instantly had product market fit from day one, but we were literally doing our own manufacturing by hand, our own distribution, stocking the shelves, doing, pouring samples, literally willing this thing to success. But that's what I bet on, right? Like if we didn't do that, then it definitely wouldn't have worked out.

Yeah, that's crazy. And I gotta ask, when it in those early days, you know, you guys are all 20 hour days. Like what were the differences of roles and how are you guys thinking about that in the early days and how has that matured over time in terms of your three specific roles in the company from a leadership perspective and like, what have been the biggest takeaways if you were to just look back and we can start with you, Jimmy. What were the early days of leadership and how has it changed over time?

For sure, man. And I think we didn't understand what roles were required to run a beverage company back then. We just knew what jobs or tasks were we had to do every day. And it was making product.

Right?

You need a product to sell. So we were all in the factory brewing the stuff, putting the caps on, taking the heat gun and putting the shrink wrap labels on. We made the deliveries to Whole Foods after that. We made the product that was kind of like a rock, paper scissors because.

So real quick though, getting the Whole Foods, like let's dive into that a little bit. Like what was the first store that you guys were in and what, how did that process go?

Yeah, Jake, I think you should tell.

The story and then we'll get back to that.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, this is going back to naive. This is how naive we were. We, there was a Whole Foods that opened that was like a five minute walk off campus at Georgetown. And we would go there after we learned about the success of Honest Tea, this local ready to drink tea company that turned into a Coca Cola acquired company for a couple hundred million dollars. Jordan and I were like, that's. We're going to do that. We're going to do exactly what, like, literally we read the book that the founder put out. So we went up to that Whole Foods one day because that guy talked about, he launched at Whole Foods. So we went up to Whole Foods, we bought an Honest Tea. We took the Honesty back to the dorm room, we peeled the label off of the Honesty. Jordan brewed up a batch of Super Coffee. We had like a, a mock up FPO label at that point in time, like with nutrition facts that we downloaded from, from Google Images. I, I feel like that's literally truthful. Anyway, we go back, we go to the business school and we get sticky paper, we print on the fake label, put it on the Honest Tea bottle that now has Super Coffee in it. We go back to the Whole Foods and we say, hey, like we, we make coffee. You want to buy some? And the guy's like, what the hell is this? Like, no. And we're like, no, it's super coffee. You got nothing like it. And the guy wasn't really convinced, but we had a good sell. We were like, hey, I play football at Georgetown. And they just had started taking the Georgia Georgetown University dining dollars. So we're like, hey, we'll get some students up here, we'll do demos. Which he told us that we could pour samples and do demos. We're like, we'll do that music. All right, fine. Like, how many flavors do you have? We just said we had four. We had one, right? There was one recipe. He's like, I'll take two cases of each. So we got an eight case purchase order. And that's how we got into Whole Foods. And, and the way that that story just ends is we showed up like 12 weeks later because we didn't have a place to make it, right? So we show up 12 weeks later to drop off this purchase order that we had. And we're all excited at this point. Jimmy's now with us, right? A lot happened last 12 weeks. We show up to drop off the, the, the super coffee and the guy at the receiving dock, which is not a glamorous place, but we were so excited. We're in the back of the store and they're like, hey, like this purchase order is, is no longer valid. And we're like, no, no. Like he, he wrote it upstairs. The manager wrote the purchase order. And we go up and see him and what was his name? Mark?

Derek.

Derek. Derek. Derek's A great guy. And we're like, Derek. Like, we're.

Derek.

Derek. What's going on? He's like, guys, he's like, yeah. The reason why the purchase order isn't good is I write you a PO On Tuesday, and you delivered on Thursday. You've been gone for 12 weeks. Like, I thought you guys weren't coming back, so.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. We had no clue what we were doing. And I think that's exactly what Jim was saying.

Yeah.

No clue.

I'm so. No, I'm so glad you told that story. And I think it just. It speaks to what you said as being naive. Naive, but also just putting yourself out there and, like, back to what you were saying, Jimmy. So, like, let's dive into the. The leadership and how that changed over time.

For sure, man. And it's. It's funny, this morning, today, in 2023, we had a call with our board, and the theme of that call was, our business is simple. We sell coffee to grocery stores. That's what we do. And that was the mantra back then. And we knew to. To build a business, you needed to have a lot of sales. So that that guy Derek gave us an opportunity at that Whole Foods, and we delivered that product. We poured samples every day, we delivered product. The next day, we did the same thing. We broke that store's weekly sales record in the first four hours. And. And that was controlling what we could control. So in the early days, I mean, we. We would take turns because to.

We.

We went from that one store to. To the store down the street. We said, hey, we're breaking records up the street. Get us in here. That first year, we got into 20 stores, and we would take turns making product at the factory, uh, making deliveries. But the night before you made deliveries, you had to print out invoices on QuickBooks. And that was the worst part of the deliveries, if you ask me. Like, so the night before, you. You'd sort of rock, paper, scissors for who had deliveries the next day, make the pos and then. Then you do it. But we, back then, we were. It was all hands on deck, right? We were all doing everything. And then I think the. The roles got segmented once the business got to a point where, like, we needed to go raise money from investors. So, like, I was the oldest. I had a little bit. Bit of corporate experience from Wall Street. I had one suit, put that thing on, and I'd go go find do meetings. Jordan was the innovator and the tinkerer, and he loved the ingredients in the supply chain and the formulation. So he became the head of operations and the middle brother. I'm sure you know it in your family is, is the happy go lucky carefree life of the party. Jake was like, I'm going to go sell some of this stuff. And now today he's our chief revenue officer. So I think our personalities kind of lent us to different divisions within, within the company. Uh, and that scaled up from, from here and now we have over a hundred full time employees and, and we each oversee our own domains. Yeah.

And I think skill sets, skill sets are super important. Right. Like Jim is a phenomenal networker. Right. And, and it ties back even when he was in college, he started a newsletter for 250, 300 alum of his university.

Oh wow.

Just keeping them up to date on, you know, what was happening with the football team, which he was a captain of. But he, he knew that he was networking and trying to create a ecosystem around him. That skill set is really good for being that CEO who fundraises.

Absolutely.

Jordan's incredibly attention to detail driven. Right. And he loves that and he loves, you know, constantly making progress and if you can improve something, why wouldn't you? Right. So he, that's perfect for product development.

Yep.

And I guess we needed to sell stuff so I just had to come in and try and do my best.

A hundred percent. No, that's great. Jordan, talk about the business today. Right. We hear this story and I'm obviously very familiar with it after just knowing you guys over the years. Just talk to us about the business today. I mean, I know you guys raised an incredible round of funding back in 2020. 106 million if I'm not mistaken. And 2023, the world was shut down for a bit. Things changed like crazy. Let's talk about 2023. Super coffee. What are you guys excited about? Where do you guys spend your time on the business today and bring the, the viewers up to speed on just what the business itself.

Yeah. I think if you zoom out and look at our, our industry in general, food and beverage. You know what, we're what we like to call a scale business, meaning that you have to get scale before you can actually become a real business and start to have a chance at making money. So the first five to six years of our business, we're really getting as much scale as possible. There's a term called escape velocity where basically when you, when you enter a category, you want to basically grow as fast as you can because not only are you going to get Market share, start to get leverage as you scale, you're also going to prevent competitors from coming into the space because you're starting to carve out a niche and they don't want to spend the dollars to compete with an established brand. So you got to spend a lot of money and raise a lot of capital. Gross margins are super thin. To Jimmy's point. We're building teams, we're focusing on leadership, we're spending a lot on marketing and it's expensive. So the first five years we're investing in growth, the past two years have been more about transformation. Now that we have scale, how do you become a sustainable, enduring business that can become profitable and stand on its own for the next hundred years? Right? So that's how we're thinking about the business today. And it's really, really hard. And I mean, completely different skill sets required, right? So we brought in an incredible executive team, a senior leadership team, people with 20, 30 years of experience helping us understand the nuances in the thought and the process and the detail required to make better decisions at a higher level. And these are multimillion dollar decisions. And it's one thing to say that like, oh, you make multimillion dollar decisions, another thing to actually be in the moment, having to make 10, 20, 30 decisions a day, that each one has so many fundamental factors and things that can influence the business for years to come that you don't realize. So really taking our time, slowing down, that's hard for entrepreneurs to do. So it's been a muscle that we've been building. So the business today, to Jimmy's point, right around 100 full time people trying to get more efficient with the products we produce, improve gross margins, get on a path to profitability. Because even after seven years, food and beverage, it's tough to become a standalone, profitable business. So that's the path that we're on now. It's a lot of hard work, but we, we still love it, we're still passionate about it. We still have a great, amazing team. And serving our team and being, being leaders for our team is still our number one priority. Even though we're focused on again our, our individual, individual domains within the business.

I love that. I mean, just even you saying that too, like I know if you were to look back seven years ago, like listening to yourself talk about what you just said, just the amount of growth like professionally in a business, as brothers, it's so incredible to see. I gotta ask. And you got, whoever wants to go first can answer this, like what's the best part about working with your brothers in business and building something that is just like your legacy.

Yeah. I mean, I could start, I think, and I say it a lot, but I mean, just the unwavering amount of trust and true love in the relationship is undeniable and something that I never take for granted because it is so hard. Right. And I think a lot of times, you know, founders with co founders, whether it be one or two or more, which, you know, I feel bad for somebody with more than two or three co founders, but it takes a lot, man. It's an emotional relationship.

Right.

It's roller coasters every single day. You know, Elon Musk likes to say, you know, starting a startup is like staring into the abyss and chewing glass. Right. And that's kind of what it's like. So you need, you need some warriors alongside you. And that's what Jimmy and Jake are for me, they're, they're kind of my, my warriors that, that, you know, I love going to battle with every single day. We share the same value, share the same vision. We'll, we'll disagree a lot, we'll challenge each other a lot, we'll get into fights a lot still. Yeah, but that's the type of shit that, that's required really, to make good decisions. And it just happens when you're that passionate. Right. Like, if we weren't fighting and arguing about, about details, you know, around how to achieve a goal that we agree on is the right goal to set, then I would, I would actually be. Be more cautious if they're, if they're passionate, if they care enough, if they're not willing to challenge me on something.

Totally.

Yeah.

I would say the best part, and you, you talk about growth is the three of us, first and foremost, we're obviously siblings. We're, we're obviously best friends. I'm getting married this, this December and these guys are my best men, like without a doubt. Right, Absolutely.

That's exciting.

But before all that, or maybe not before in that process, we were teammates playing sports growing up. Right. So we did have to learn. It was little League, but then it was also varsity sports. So we, we literally had to learn how to be really good teammates to one another and have respect beyond sibling esque bickering. Not that we don't bicker like siblings, but I think the best part about being in a business or being in a sport with your siblings that you love and have the same values and trust is you can accelerate that personal growth lever because you get radical Feedback daily. Right. And if I do something wrong, I know that Jimmy's gonna fucking tell me about it.

Yeah, right.

Like right away. Right. And that you just don't get in most environments. Right. And a lot of times you have to make the same mistake a dozen or so times or like small mistakes or small fine tuning. Like a manager in a typical job probably isn't going to tell you that. Right. And co founders a lot of the time who are friends or roommates or like they have that clash where they might not give feedback to one another and they have. We've never had anything passive aggressive towards the three of us ever. Right. And for better or worse, sometimes it probably leads to fights that would have been better to take the high road. But I just. To your point about growth, I think that is a long winded way of saying us being siblings in providing real and it's not even kind candor, it's radical candor most of the time. It's allowed us to grow and keep up with a growing business.

Yeah. What about you, Jimmy?

For sure. And I think that there, the thing I'm most grateful for is the fact that I'm grateful for our challenges. Right. Because at the end of the day, whether super coffee exists or it doesn't, like I'm doing it with my brothers. You know, our problems are like, oh, we're only in 50, 000 stores. How do we get to 55, 000? Like that's not a problem. That's. That's a, a great situation to be in. So, yeah, it's stressful. It's difficult. It is. It is not for everybody. And, and I wouldn't want to do it with, with anybody else other than these two guys.

I love that. Let's talk about from a competitive perspective. Right? Like we all, we all run here. You got, what was it, three hours? Three hours and one second on the marathon. I saw that and I was like, no, no, no, it's not a low blow. I just wanted to. Let's talk about competition, like between your brothers. You guys are all athletes in your own right. What's your thoughts? And we'll start with you, Jimmy. Between the mentality of running something like a marathon or competing in sports and business and what have you learned about the, the commonalities between the two over your life?

Yeah, I think sports and training and fitness have taught me and us to get comfortable doing uncomfortable things. Right. It's why people go into cold tubs. It's why people do endurance races, you know, and it's so easy to avoid that stuff.

Right.

Like anybody can go to the equinox and lift weights. But like are you going to do a fifth set of squats when your legs are fire on fire? Right. Or are you going to go out for a 15 mile run and cut it short at 12?

Right.

Mile 12 is the hardest. Those next three miles is where the money's made.

Made.

Right.

And, and you don't have to do that. Nobody has to do that. Right. So that's a choice that you make. And you know the pain that you hit the wall on a marathon at mile 20 and then you have, you still have 40 minutes of running after that and just, it's, it's terrible. But if you get comfortable doing that, everything else in your life gets a lot easier. And, and I think there's only one way to do it and it's through sports.

Yeah. And I'd say here's the reality that, that I think has worked for me mentally is can really truly convincing and understanding that you're competing with yourself every day and in life, like long term. I think we are always taught growing up, which was the wrong notion, that you're competing with other people around you. Right. Like your friends in some cases, like. Right. Like parents always had that awkward relationship with other parents about kids being better than their kids. It was always really weird. And but in reality, if you just focus literally on competing with yourself, that's where you can really create some magic over the long term. Right. And that's the other thing is we got to be really patient about the results that we, that we want because I think a lot of us sort of overestimate what we can achieve in the short term and underestimate what we can achieve over time. And for me, the best thing that Super Coffee brought to my life as a 19 year old kid was realizing that I just focus on constantly getting better every day from a business, like on the business and then also personally, the rewards over, over time, which have proven to be successful in the first eight years will far outweigh anything I could ever imagine. Right. So just focus on yourself, focus on your areas of weakness, areas of opportunity every single day. To Jake's point, you need people around you. Obviously you can't do everything yourself. You have to build great teams, you have to get candid feedback, you have to be honest and objective with yourself. You have to measure results, you have to have accountability, responsibility. You got to push yourself, you got to have discipline, you got to have patience. All these things go into being an incredible human being. And it doesn't matter what you want to be, but I think you do know what you. What you want to be over time.

You need.

You need to know what direction you're heading in if you're going to keep getting better and making progress. But then again, there's a lot of people who maybe don't have big, ambitious goals. That's okay, too, right? Like, you don't all. We don't all need to be, you know, try to be a CEO or try to be an executive at a large company or. Or a professional athlete. Right? Like, that's for a very unique, you know, person, and that's totally fine, too. But for us, we were. We were born and raised by, you know, our parents loved us very much. They were very competitive out of the gate, but the one thing our mom always instilled in us was we are competing with ourselves. She was. She obviously wanted us to win and. And do well, but she always focused on us really focusing on how we can be better and push ourselves to be better human beings each day and love that.

That's super important, though, because competing with yourself is not a selfless endeavor. Right. And they say you are a direct reflection of your five closest friends. Right? And a lot of friends compete among friends, and that's good. It can be healthy, but it can also be unhealthy. What really good friends hold you accountable to is that competition of you versus yourself. And I think that's something that the three of us have had. Had such a benefit of is, like, we do a lot of the same things. We run a lot of the same races. We obviously run a business together, and we've never. I've never looked to Jimmy or to Jordan saying, like, am I keeping up with them? But I also know what they're pursuing and what they want to be as individuals, and that's motivating for me. One and two, There is an accountability mechanism, and we do hold up the mirror for one another, right? Like, hey, like, I know who you want to be. I know what you want to be. Like this moment or this week or this action that you had was not that.

Right.

So I do think that that is a super healthy thing is to have friends who hold you accountable to that competition that you laid out with your best self that you want to be.

Yeah, I love that all three of those answers are so unique, but so aligned. I love it. I want to start. I'll ask you this question, Jimmy. You know, in business, there's. There's always moments that you can reflect on as maybe a pivoting point. Whether that was dropping out of college or like hiring that executive or raising money. What was the mindset for the business? But also you as founders, when you guys closed that, you know, 100 million plus round back in 2021.

Yeah, that was, that was our arrival or sort of like crossing the chasm from this startup to that escape velocity that, that Jordan mentioned earlier.

Right.

That was supposed to Talk about that.

LinkedIn post though, because I think that is.

Yeah, I think so. I've, I've never cried other than when somebody I, I love passes away. Right. And, and when I got the call from our series C lead investor saying hey, here's we're giving you a term sheet, you know, congratulations, they're a very reputable investor. I, I called these two, I FaceTime these two right away and I just started crying. I said guys, we did it. You know, like we, we got the fuel we need to take this business to the level where it's going to be around long after we are or long after we're here working on it. Right. And I think since then the, there's been, we've been thrown a ton of curveballs and a ton of challenges, some of them self inflicted, some of them macroeconomic and we've grown through it all. And, and now what we're doing is building a sustainable business that's going to be around for the next five, 10, 15 years. It wasn't let's go raise this hundred and flip this thing in a year from now, right? It's, let's go raise this money and build something that is sustainable, that is enduring. I think we grew up in this venture capital environment where the faster you grew, the higher your valuation was. Right. And in burning cash wasn't even a consideration. Like you didn't, it was okay to lose money. And that's, that's not reality. Right? Like think about our, our parents generations or our grandparents generations. Like there was no venture capital, right? If your business wasn't profitable, you didn't have a business. And now today it is, we are required, required to make money. And I think that is a fundamental switch that a lot of startups aren't going to be able to pivot to.

Right?

There's no switch you can flip that says slow down growth and then start printing ebitda.

Yeah, right.

Like it's, it's a, a fundamental shift that we're in the mix of right now, the middle of it.

So we, we have A buddy who's out here with us right now in Vegas, and he was living on our couch, great kid. And he heard all of us talking and Jim talking to investors and he's like, hey, Jim, can I, can I, can I give you some advice? I've been listening to hear you talk to all these investors. And Jimmy's like, yeah, like, what do you got? And he's like, ebitda. He's like, it just seems like you got to go out and get some more of that and then you'll be in a good spot.

And he's like, yeah, can we sprinkle some EBITDA business? Tell me where that ferry lives.

Oh, my gosh, that's.

I mean, we're going to say now, now, go ahead.

No, just hearing that too. And so you call your brothers. You're crying. What led to you crying with, obviously there's the number component, obviously there's the, hey, our business can continue on in this large fashion. But I think over time, and I'd love to get your perspective on this, just your relationship with money from a company perspective is obviously different now than what it was when you were in the dorm room putting things together, slapping labels on the honest tea bottles. As an entrepreneur, what are some foundational elements of thinking about money and the business and how you're spending it as you've grown? And what would you all tell your younger self, you know, six, seven years ago, knowing where you are now?

Yeah, I think we were victims of this excess and these high valuations where you raise $100 million round, it's easy to say yes to a million dollar marketing program.

Right.

It's 1% of the raise. Right. And, and only it was 75 million of that was primary. We took, we took 30 million and we bought out our early shareholders, which was a cool moment, but still like 75 million, when you come from a household that makes 50 grand a year is like, you can't comprehend it.

Right.

So an invoice comes across to sponsor a race to sponsor an event, to sponsor the freaking Grammys brunch at Jay z's house in 2020, it's like, yeah, we're going to do that, you know, and, and I think what we didn't analyze back then was the efficiency of those investments. You know, for every dollar we're putting out, what back into it. And marketing's tough, you know, it's tough to measure what those, what those impacts make. So I think now, two years after that round and having burned through some of that Money, it's like, okay, this money, this money matters and it's not going to be there forever. So where, where do we get the most return for these dollars spent and most importantly, where can we stop spending money? And I think what we've learned is you could be a lot more efficient with a lot less resources.

Yeah, Yeah.

I would say, you know, if you are running a business, and this is advice to myself 18 months ago, let alone four, five, six years ago, is you need to be proficient in knowing your P L and in what levers can help drive more profit and what levers can help eliminate or you know, mitigate losses. Right. And from my speed, my seat, and I'll let these guys speak for themselves, but that was not something that I really cared about and didn't think was my duty as our Chief Revenue officer to worry about what was driving the P L. My goal was to go out and create more sales.

Yeah.

And that is not the way that you run a sustainable business or a long standing business. And you do need to know those things. And it's not meant to be like a nebulous. Know your piano. Like it's as simple as where are you spending money, where are you making money and where's the money going in between. Right. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of non working dollars in every business to Jimmy's point, that you can eliminate. And Bob Iger's got a great quote that's saying reducing costs should not be the most fun part of your job. And it's something that you should do early and often. Right. Because you can reduce cost and then you can go and try and grow and see where you land but then come back to reducing cost. And it's just something that I think the three of us have really embraced now. But personally it was, it was not ingrained in my behavior of being a founder. The P and L, we have a cfo, we have someone who manages that, but that should be everyone above entry level people worrying about how do you maximize your P and L. Yeah.

What about you, Jordan?

Yeah, I think Jake just summarized it well as you know, from our perspective too. And it was a little bit what I talked about earlier, about changing gears from the first five years of, you know, growth at all cost to now trying to create an enduring sustainable business. Right. Like it's just a different muscle. And you literally, when I say that, I mean it. And in the truest sense of every single day, every decision you make needs to be thought through a different lens than it was before. Before you were thinking through the lens of how can we grow more today. Now you're thinking through the lens of how can we make an extra penny today. Yeah. And all of those pennies add up. Right? And me on the operational side, there's a lot of components that go into that from logistics and freight. We can save pennies moving product from warehouses. Not even to customers, just from our warehouse, from our manufacturer to our warehouse. There's pennies there right now. So now we're spending time on those things. And to Jake's point, that was something that we never even considered. Right. It's like just get the fucking product from a.

That was fairy dust. I was literally not even a thought.

Right. But at the size again, back to scale. Business and scale having real network effects and impact on your business. Now that's millions of dollars. Those pennies are millions of dollars. Every penny we save on the operations side is we should think about as a million dollars for the, for the business over time. And that's something that's very real. Shows up on the P and L. I mean if we have, if we overproduce too much product and have to sell that product at a discount, that's millions of dollars. Right. Or if we create a new product with a GROSS MARGIN that's 10% better than our current product, that could be $10 million in the future added to the P and L. So that's how we're thinking, you know, through the lens of profitability now as the priority versus just growth at all costs. And to Jim's point, it, it took a lot of failure, it took a lot of hard lessons into Jake's Point, a lot of transformation to, to get here, but it's super important. And, and the macro environment has changed a lot. Right. You, I'm sure you've heard a lot about talks of recession fears and the bank failures, et cetera. And you know, a lot of, you know, imminent, imminent danger ahead. And, and you got to tighten up things. And, and when Jake says pnl, he just literally talking about profit and loss statement and knowing your numbers cold. We were on Shark Tank. We had the benefit of going on Shark Tank and they always talking about knowing your business cold, knowing your numbers cold. We always talked about top line sales matter most. But now we really understand what it means to know the bottom line and why it matters so much.

Yeah, speaking of like that Shark Tank moment, how did that come about and what was that experience like for all of you guys?

Jimmy can speak to that story Origin Story.

So we would be pouring samples at Whole Foods.

Right.

And like a mom and her, her kids would come up and be like, you guys got to go on Shark Tank. And this was in the first year. And we're like, oh, thank you so much. But like 45000 companies apply every year for a hundred spots. I'm like, I'm not wasting my time filling out a 90 page application or whatever.

It's a 90 page, something like that.

And, and you have to do three of them for everybody who's on the show.

So. Wow.

Yeah, it was, it was more, more work than Jake did his senior year and that said that. So it was April of 2017. So a year, just over a year into the business, like selling product. I saw on this guy's LinkedIn, he was like, hey, my friend's a producer at Shark Tank looking for entrepreneurs. It was like a second degree connection. And one of my buddies like liked it, which is why I saw it. So I DM this guy. The next day I'm on the phone with the Shark Tank producer. He was like, your story's awesome. Send me the application and I'll put it at the top of the list. I was like, okay, I like these odds a lot better than 1 in 40,000. And two months later where they flew us out to L. A and we were sitting in front of Barbara Cor and trying to get an investment.

Wow.

And. And we didn't get one.

I was going to say, I saw the pitch. So you guys didn't get one. Why, why do you think you didn't get it?

Well, first and foremost, we were very much as a business and a product still in our minimal viable product stage. Right. Like we were. The product wasn't good. Right. We were. Jordan mentioned brute force. Like we were willing this thing each and every day. And our target market at that point in time still was very much focused on like you had to be very better for you mind like focused on products used to alternative sweeteners.

Yeah.

And like you know, probably caring about what you put in your body. And no offense to the Sharks, they're all over 50 years old. Right. They haven't probably. And this is 2017. They probably hadn't had many non sugar sweetened products at that point in time. So they hated it. Like they did not like the flavor and they didn't like the category. Beverage is a very hard category.

Yeah.

Nonetheless, we had in what you could consider an epic failure on Shark Tank in front of America. Right. Like we didn't Get a deal. They didn't like the flavor. That was worst case scenario. Except we maximize the moment before Shark Tank on air. We told our story unapologetically ourselves. A lot like this, right? We brought our energy, we brought our passion. And then one Shark Tank aired and we found out you only get a two week lead time that they call you back and they're like, hey, the episode's airing on Sunday night.

Because not all of them do, right?

No, yeah, we, so we, we left there in June, June of 2017. We film after you walk off set, you hear nothing from anyone, right? And, and then we find out In February, like February 1st, we're like, hey, on February 14th, your. Your episode's going live. And we had a really great moment that, that did transform our business. We went to everybody, every single grocery store that we were in at that point in time, and we told them, we're going on Shark Tank. Let us print as seen on Shark Tank marketing materials and build big displays in your stores. And we did. And it worked. And that literally became our M.O. for growth was, holy cow. If we put super coffee on a big display, more people are going to buy it.

Right.

And that was never our mentality before that. And that became very repeatable. We could go out and hire, you know, hungry salespeople, give them a pitch. Which also was, we were on Shark Tank. So if we went and met with Casey, the store manager down the road, said, hey, Casey, do a display of super coffee. You know, it's been on Shark Tank. Yeah, it was a good reason to do it.

Absolutely.

So I think we just squeezed every drop out of that opportunity. But to most people, right, like, it was an epic failure. We went on Shark Tank and everyone heard that the Sharks didn't like the taste of super coffee.

Yeah. And what. So that was. You said 2018. 2018. Got it. So, Jordan, speaking of them not liking the flavor, like you were the person blending it up in your dorm room, making the, making the product now, you know, we're drinking the super energy here on set.

Yeah.

How has the product itself shifted over the years? And how have you thought about that evolution from super creamers to obviously super coffee to the now super energy? Like, how do you think about product skus and how has that transitioned over time?

Yeah, it's constantly evolving. You're constantly trying to make your core products better and then obviously looking for new opportunities to continue to grow the business. I think we got a little bit ahead of ourselves in product expansion when we were trying to hit growth Numbers, right. So that can get dangerous. We have a lot more process and system in place now. But in the early days, again, it was back to problem solving, right? It was like super Coffee, obviously is a, is a niche focused on healthier alternative to a Starbucks Frappuccino. But how can you make it better? How can you make it more mainstream? You're constantly getting feedback. So let's try to make it less, less bitter. Let's try to make the flavors more, more reminiscent of a Starbucks product, but without anything artificial, without sugar, under 100 calories, right? So you're checking the boxes for that core consumer and then you'll learn, you'll learn more things about them and you'll learn more things about what they want, what they need, what they're willing to pay for it, right? What you, what you're able to produce. And you know, there's a great quote from Satya Nadella at CEO of Microsoft right now that great innovation comes down to the, the three C's. You got to have great concepts, great capabilities, which a lot of people don't understand or realize. And then you got to have a great culture. And our culture loved innovation. And I mean the sales team loved it. Jimmy, Jake and I obviously loved it. And again, sometimes that can be dangerous too. But then you got to have capabilities. And I think the hardest part for any, any startup at any time is you don't have a lot of bandwidth, you don't have a lot of resources, capital, et cetera. So even if you have a great concept like super energy, we would have never been able to do that product early on. We just didn't have, we just didn't have the capabilities. Right. Didn't know what it took. But again, it was problem solving, trying to create the best possible product and then improving and evolving quickly. We know that we're never going to create a perfect product. We know if we're launching something new, as much work, time, energy and effort that we put into it, testing, studies, etc, now, there's still going to be a good chance that we miss something or that we can improve on something. So the mindset is one of a growth mindset at all times, a continuous improvement mindset at all times. And we, we believe, I think, I personally believe more so than, than anyone that as soon as you stop improving and stop evolving and getting better, you start dying. So you got to be really careful about that and you kind of got to stay on the forefront of continuous improvement, but not so much so right that you're spreading your Bandwidth and resources too. Too thin. Not so much so that you're driving your team crazy to the point of holy. We're changing a lot. Right. Because we've certainly teetered on that and probably went past the bottom brink of that.

In what way specifically?

Just moving too fast, launching too many things, too many flavors, too many SKUs, updating packaging too much because, you know, maybe we change color.

Yeah.

General change fatigue.

A lot of change management. And a lot of it's expensive too, you realize, is at scale. Oh, the cost of changing something could be a hundred thousand dollars because you had to throw out the old boxes that are no longer relevant or throw out the old labels that are no longer relevant or an ingredient that you're no longer using.

You.

You didn't realize that you had that your last person who was on the job over ordered that ingredient. You're sitting on it, so now you have to throw it out.

So that's Jimmy's favorite when we throw stuff out. So.

But you learn those things and it doesn't mean that just because you, you get hurt and burned doesn't mean that you can't continue to innovate. Just means that you need, as you scale, you need to build out a process system and mechanisms to protect you from all of the dangers that come with it. Because you need to innovate. But you have to also protect and balance on the downside because there is a lot of risk when you intimate.

But talk about that being a culture. Jordan told the Sharks on set when they said that they didn't like the flavor. He said flavor is easy to improve. Right. They didn't buy it.

Right.

But between the time that we were went on and filmed Shark Tank and six months later when it aired, we had redone all of our products and they were new flavors, new sweetener systems before the episode even went live. Right?

That is. Yeah, that is.

So that was always in our culture. And to Jordan's point, we've definitely burned ourselves.

Right.

Because you, you change that, but the labels are the same. Then you throw out a bunch of old labels and again, that's when these are probably.

You guys weren't even aware of obviously, or like what, like how do you, you know, what did you start to realize that and like, what's your advice to maybe early stage beverage founders where you didn't know that that's why you made those decisions?

Yeah, we started to realize it when you start adding amazing people around you, you that have experience and capabilities that you don't have. Right. Who have been there and done that. And that's the advice to the next generation of entrepreneurs is try to surround yourself not just with advisors and board members, but real operating partners, executives who can come in and help you run the business on a daily basis. Because they're going to help you see that they've been through that you would never even know existed. And that's really when they started to challenge us on guys. The reason why we're not making money, the reason why we're the P L looks the way it does is because of these things that you guys don't even know are happening. Right. And that's when you could start to make improvements. But you have to be able to measure those things. So we didn't start improving it until we started measuring those things. And once we started measuring those things, we could finally start to mitigate again. Doesn't mean you're going to eliminate those issues because you want. That's probably means that you're being too careful. But if you can go from, you know, 10 loss or 10 scrap on products to a 2% right again, that's 8%. Could be $8 million million dollars in any given year.

Yeah, I think, I think one thing that's, that's critical to, that is to, to anybody starting a product business grow your core. And growing your core is boring, it's monotonous, it is slower than you think. And it's so easy to Jake's point of why we like innovation, why we like culture, so easy to launch something new. You know, to only have one product and tell the guy you have four. It's easy to create four new things and put it on the shelf everywhere. That doesn't mean you deserve that shelf space. And that doesn't mean that that's going to, to turn as fast as your core is going to turn. But guess what? If you went from two products to four products, you're going to double your sales. You know, like distribution is linear. Like if you go, if you double your distribution in a year, you double your revenue. If you double your, your product portfolio, you double your revenue. But what we learned in 2022 with all this innovation, these exciting flavors like blueberry muffin and caramel waffle and, and cinnamon roll, it takes away from the core our horse, which is mocha and vanilla, which are making up 60% of our revenue. So for every 12 ounce bottle that you launch, that's not mocha and vanilla, that's one bottle of milk and vanilla that's not sold. So I say stick to the core. Until you. Until you prove that thing out, it's going to take longer than you want it to. But don't trust. Don't rely on innovation for growth.

No, that makes sense. And you were. You said earlier, Jimmy, like, 2022, macroeconomic climate. I would love to hear about some of the. The challenges that you guys have went through. Obviously, we're talking about things like packaging and scrapping products. But just what have been some of the, you know, the low points where you guys have learned the most and why. Not why, but how have you guys learned from these moments over the course of, you know, the last seven years, in the lowest of low moments where you have to really make changes.

Yeah. I think for us, like the. The one that hit me. And maybe you guys have different ones from 22 and 23, but in 21, 2020, when the pandemic hit. Right. We were. We had a huge growth year ahead of us. We were through March. We're on a great trend. April hits, everybody's locked down. You know, and we had 75 people. And. And they could no longer go to grocery stores. You know, we had. We had 12 people on a field marketing team that could no longer pour samples. Like, could you imagine drinking a sample in April of 2020? Like, it wasn't happening.

Yeah.

So we're like, what do we. What do we do? You know, And. And we didn't lay anybody off. We didn't furlough anybody. We turned the field marketing force and the sales force into merchandisers. And we said, look, we're going to go help the helpers. We're going to be in grocery stores, not just stocking the shelves with super coffee, but our distributors deliver water, they deliver soup, they deliver whatever. And we were there helping out because store managers were calling out sick all over the country. We launched in Publix that year in April of 2020. And we. The store called us and said, hey, we don't have the bandwidth to put your products on the shelves. So Jake, Jordan, and I got in a car and we reset 800 public stores by ourselves.

You're kidding.

In four weeks. Not by ourselves. Our team was doing it with us.

Yeah.

When you say reset, what does that mean for people that may not know?

Takes the product out of the back room of a grocery store and put it on the shelf where our space was.

Because they didn't have people to do that.

That's right. And that it wasn't a priority. The priority was getting the toilet paper and all those other things and it needed new bottled coffee. Back to your question, though. I think one thing that's the lowest of lows or tough learning moments is anytime that we do something with the team and truly let them down, put them in a direction or worse, go out and bring in a new vice president or a new C suite level person and tell the team to go out and believe in this person, believe in the strategy, and it doesn't work out Right. And I think that's a really hard thing. And it's balancing what Jordan said. Like you need to go out and attract people. The three of us have had to go out and bring people who are much smarter than us, far more subject matter experts in building a food and beverage company. But then you also have to balance that with like you have your core day one employees that have, have, are still with the company, have been here, been through the growth and they know all of the contextual information for the most part of, of why the data looks the way it does and, and why the business is doing what it is. So I think that that is, is the hardest part of growing a business is bringing in experts and getting them to gel well with your day ones. And as a founder, you know, Michelle Obama has a, has a great quote, great analogy. She says, make sure you take care of, of your kitchen table. Right. And that's just your core people that sit there with you and you know, sometimes they help you make really difficult decisions. And I think sometimes the three of us have fallen victim to not going back to the kitchen table enough and going back to those five or 10 original girls and guys who built super coffee. And we've gone to new people who were executives that we brought in or vice presidents that we brought in and almost had them tell our kitchen table what to do.

Yeah.

And sometimes those people are looking at us like Jimmy, Jake and Jordan like what the hell is going on here? Right. So you only get so many bets like that and I think that is those are the ones that weigh on you for sure.

Yeah. What about you, Jordan? Anything specific that wasn't maybe talked about?

I think just in the past 12 months specifically. Right. Like recency bias obviously weighs heavy going through current challenges and it's easier to chat through. But again, the path that we're on of transformation is really hard. And you learn new things every single day, new ways to think about the business, look at the business, think long term and try to find again the areas of improvement that you need to achieve, achieve those new goals. But now these guys summarized it well. And, and we have a new CFO on board is a great example of what Jake was just talking about. He's a phenomenal, phenomenal guy and great experience, awesome track record. And he's coming in and helping us immediately. And we're already learning so much from him and just ways to, to continuously change. And that's hard, right? Change in general is hard, even if it's great change. And I think that's like the tough part of like, even going back to me dropping out of school. Right. Like, that's just a scary thing to do. Right? So these are just scary things that you have to, to go through. But again, it's all mental, right? I think you got to overcome that and realize it's for the better. It's the right thing to do. Yes, change, uncertainty, ambiguity, etc. Is all tough to deal with as human beings. But again, that's what I think separates great, great human beings, great operators, great businesses from, from the average ones or the below average runs who aren't willing to make the hard decisions and do the hard things required to run a really good business.

Absolutely.

No.

Very well said. And I appreciate you guys all sharing that. Couple more questions before we wrap up here. I want to talk about culture. Right, like, right here behind us, we have super coffee, positive energy, and even outside of the brand itself, I've known all of you guys for years now and just, it's a true testament to what you guys stand for, for how you operate in races, how you operate from simple messages, is you guys live and breathe your brand. Not only are you guys all positive, but you are just so disciplined in each and every single, in your own way. And as knowing you through the years, it's just so evident to why that you guys are successful as individuals as well as a brand. So with all that said, Jimmy, I'll start with you. Like, when you think about the culture of super coffee, what is the important thing, slash, feeling you want people to feel when they think about the brand now, but also into the future for decades to come?

Optimism. I, I want people to feel, and that's what positive energy is for me. It's like you drink a super coffee, you're going to have more energy to go conquer your day, right? Or you interact with the brand, with the brothers, with our team, you're going to feel better about the outlook on that day, on that week, on that future. And, and I think the key about optimism is just not hoping that that's the, the future will be better, but it's willing to put in the work to create a better future. So for me, optimism is one of our core values. And it's something that we always look at the glass half full. Right. And I mean recently, I mean, really always, it's like not even a glass half full. We're just happy to have a glass, you know. So I think optimism is key for us.

Yeah. And I would just say, look, the brand is a reflection of the company and the company is a reflection of the people. Right. And it starts with us. So when you really get down and do it, it's the people, the individuals at the company and how you act, how you behave, how you treat each other. And it starts with the leadership level. Right. So our DNA, we were always optimistic, Right. We're entrepreneurs by nature, we're high energy, et cetera. We didn't. It wasn't the other way around, which I think a lot of people think like a traditional brand. If you're at a big company and you're in brand management, you're trying to create a brand to serve a consumer and the brand needs to have characteristics and a personality. So you create this thing and you put it out into the world. For us, we didn't know any of that. Right. We didn't know traditional brand management. So the brand was created through these things. And then three or four years into it, we realized, holy, like, positive energy is just who we are. Right.

It's just like, for sure, it's like.

Who we attract and it's how we want to treat people and it's how we actually behave. And when we talk about culture, again, it's really how you behave on a daily basis, the decisions that you make. And that's the example that we try to set as leaders in the organization of actually how we act. So we can talk about core values, which we have a great set of core values that we call coach, which is curious, optimistic, ambitious, compassionate and humble. Right. Like those five core values.

That's great.

Drive everything we do. But we can talk about this all day long. But they don't mean anything unless you're actually living up to those values. Right? Yeah. So we put mechanisms in place to keep those top of mind. But when we're hiring people, right, like if, if they're great, if they're great experience, great skill set, but they're assholes. They cannot work at super coffee.

Yeah.

Doesn't mean we're going to hire perfectly all the time. Right. We still have assholes.

Right.

Come up in the organization and things change and People change. Part of that, of keeping a great culture is also identifying the people who don't fit it and unfortunately having to get them out of the organization too, because that can become very toxic for culture if you let people linger who are opposing the culture or challenge in the culture, not living up to it. And not to say that from, from a toxic leadership perspective, like it's a cult. It's not a cult either. Right. It's just, this is how we want to live, this is how we want to behave, is how we want to treat each other. This is how we want to operate. And if you, if you can't follow simple guidelines and values and you don't, then you don't belong at Super Coffee. So we take it really seriously. But it all comes down to how you actually behave, how you actually act as leaders. Yeah.

And I think we, we take it super personally that we started this company with no grounds to do it. Right. Like, we did not have the, the success or any of the accreditations that you need to start a business. And I think that we really never wanted to be phonies. Right? And there's one bonafide way to not get exposed about being a phony is to do the shit you say you're going to do, right? And earn it every single day and be able to, to never ask someone to do something that you wouldn't be willing to do yourself. And you've done. Right? And you, and I think that is something, you know, you talk about like imposter syndrome. We've never really suffered from that. And I think these guys could speak to that differently. And we're super optimistic. But we also just always wanted to be able to back up what we said and what we're going to do. And even if we came up short, own it. Right. But also, like, we'll die on that hill of trying, right? And we won't die on the hill of wishing.

Right?

Wishing we did something. So that's been something that we've always taken super personally is like, hey, like, let me go out and put, put my money where my mouth is.

Yeah. And I think to just, I've seen that first, Dan, as a friend, but also just if you follow you guys on social, right, like you guys, as you said earlier, you're restocking the shelves, you're going out and still doing sampling. Like you guys are in the field and you don't have to be doing that, I'm sure. And you guys choose to show up and to be leaders that as you Said Jake, like do what you say you're going to do. And you wouldn't ask someone to go do that unless you would do it yourself. So that comes across, comes across very clear and transparent. So before we wrap up here, I want to go around and ask each and every single one of you, what are you most excited about moving into this year and the years ahead with Super Coffee? We'll start with you, Jordan.

I think the transformation we put a lot of hard work in over the past two years, we're on a great path right now. We got a great team, we got some great new products launching. So I am most excited about, about us continuing to fulfill our mission and vision of being on shelf everywhere there's a Starbucks Frappuccino and reaching and reaching as many people as we possibly can. Right here in the US There is a great international opportunity I'm excited about because Super Coffee and coffee in general is ubiquitous globally, which is the fun part about our, our category. But we have so much white space and opportunity. We truly want people in 7 11, in Walmart, in every gas station in the country to be able to pick up a Super Coffee instead of a Starbucks Frappuccino. And we are truly on the path to do that. There's a lot of hard work that's been going on behind the scenes. It's, it's still going to take a lot of time, but that's within reach. Like from a 19 year old kid's dorm room in a blender to, to being able to challenge Pepsi and Starbucks in every single store in the country is within reach. And I feel that way for the first. We've always believed it, but I feel we're closer than ever. And that's what I'm most excited about.

That is powerful.

It's epic. I, I, I'm most excited similar fashion but I'm most excited for what our team has in front of them now to go conquer. Because transformation is really, really hard. And chaving, changing behavior is really, really hard. And Jeff Weiner at LinkedIn has a great quote saying people don't start hearing you until you're tired of hearing yourself say it. Right. And the three of us have been preaching and talking about this transformation in new behaviors and how we're going to win. And I think that it's been a 18 month long process in our core team and the girls and guys that are at Super Coffee I think are really starting to have conviction and seeing the path that we're on. And I don't want to Say it was a pivot, but we. The brand grew up, right? The brand grew up in between probably year six, and we're halfway through year seven right now, coming up on year eight, and the team grew up with it, and that's when a lot of excitement happens. We have some new fun innovation coming out as well later this year that we're all really excited about. But I think our team is really well positioned to go on a pretty good stretch, good run here and super excited to do it with them.

Love to hear that. Last but not least, Jimmy, what are you excited about moving forward, man.

I'm excited. I feel like for the first time ever, there is no more pressure to grow, right? Because it was. It was a lot like chasing valuations. It's like you got to go from 50 million to 100 million in sales, and you're like, where's that going to come from? And that leads to bad decisions. Launching an account you probably shouldn't be in, launching products that you probably shouldn't launch, you know? So now it's like, if everybody's only focused on the bottom line, we could do that in a very sustainable way, in a very efficient way, in a way that's healthy. To grow from 60 to 80, 80 to 100, like, that is a lot more achievable, a lot more doable, and a lot more profitable. So for the first time ever, we're kind of thinking like a business rather than a startup. I love that.

I mean, all. It's so cool because all of those answers were so unique and is that you guys are owning it together, but also individually in your own path. So before we wrap up, I just want to say, and not only has this been so much fun, but I appreciate you guys so much for taking the time to be here. It's been so cool for me to have this unique discussion. Obviously, as friends, we've all known each other over the years, but in a setting where we can all have a conversation about it from all the different perspectives. So thank you guys so much for being here. This was so much fun.

Kasey, thank you, brother. This was amazing. And credit to you. I mean, you mentioned it. You're a 22 year old and you've done. I mean, seriously though, I would have never have thought that, you know, at the beginning of our friendship, but just getting to know you, seeing what you're doing personally on the health front, on the business front, how curious you are. I mean, you are a force, brother. So thank you so much, and congrats on everything you're doing. And. But Jake, Jake plugged in Jeff Weiner there. I don't know if you, if you know Jeff, but you should have him on the show because he's one of the best leaders but hidden gems in, in business in general. So you try to get him on the show.

I would love that. And before we go, though, where's the best place to stay up to date with everything you guys have coming out this year and all of you guys on social individually.

So our biggest platform is Instagram. Drink Super Coffee at Drink Super Coffee individually if you want to get in contact with us. We're all first name, last name on Instagram. LinkedIn is a great platform. Jim goes LinkedIn viral from time and time again. He's a big LinkedIn guy. But any of your listeners, we are very approachable. We're very normal.

I met all you guys on Instagram DMs. I just reached out after I picked up a product myself.

Yeah, yeah. So if you take a selfie buying one of our products, we're more likely to get back faster as well.

I love that. I love that. Well, again, thank you guys so much. And for everyone watching or listening, thank you so much for tuning in today. Make sure you check out Super Coffee if you haven't already. And if you're new it also, please, please subscribe. Lots more content coming soon. And thanks again for being here.