Michael Brandt - Founder of Ketone.com on Biohacking, Human Performance, and Breaking Marathon Barriers

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am joined by Michael Brandt, the CEO of HVMN or Ketone iq. Thank you so much for the show, Michael.

Casey, good to be here. It's going to be a fun conversation, I can tell.

Absolutely. So I've seen your brand HVMN around for, I feel like the past year in so many different places. It wasn't until about two weeks ago when I tried the product Ketone iq and I've loved it. And I'm not even just saying this because you're on the show. I've been recommending it to friends and I'm just a huge fan of the, not only the brand, but how you represent it online, who you are as a person. Insane marathon time which we'll get into. But for those that may not know what Ketone IQ is, hvmn, I would love for you to just give a high level overview before we dive in.

Yeah, thanks. I'm glad you're having a good time with it. Appreciate all the compliments on representing the brand, all that. It's very integrated. I feel like very tightly integrated across like work and life and everything. It's, it's just like one mode that I operate inside of. I got really passionate about human performance a decade ago. I studied computer science at Stanford and then got really into biohacking and seeing like all my smart friends were developing apps like the, like Evan Spiegel was a year after me made Snapchat. The Instagram guys are a couple years ahead of me. Everyone made all these like really cool apps for the smartphone.

So epic.

Yeah, it's super cool. And then my insight, you know, uber all that like coming out of Silicon Valley around that time. And my insight was that the human body was going to be the next platform for innovation like the smartphone. You know, at this point I'd say like most of the important apps that are going to exist on the smartphone have like exist. There's always going to be more innovation, but it's kind of plateaued. And I saw that the human body was the next platform for innovation because you have these like, whoop. Aura. Apple Watch, people are measuring and monitoring their biomarker. Continuous glucose monitors like levels. You have people measuring and monitoring their body and seeing what's going on inside of them. And it then follows that people are gonna get really mindful about what they're putting into their body. Like what's driving that? What's. How do I get a better sleep score? How do I get better blood glucose Control how do I better manage my system? And so this is like very nerdy for sure. Like I came in with like computer science lens on the human body as a system, seeing like API ification of the human body.

Yeah.

That like we're understanding the inputs and outputs of our body. Like tens of millions Americans are and people all over the world are getting smarter about their human body as a system and there's going to be a ton of innovation around it. Just like when the Internet took off, there was just like a ton of innovation. When the smartphone took off, a ton of innovation around that.

And then body you're saying.

Yeah, now it's the human body is, is one of, you know there's other platforms right. But like AI and space travel and stuff, a lot of cool stuff going on. But I see the human body like the gut microbiome, the new sensor technology, new different novel inputs as like this really robust, like, like hundreds of billions dollars of, of value to be created inside of that. And then I started thinking, okay, what's like the primitives of the system, like what's you know, electrolytes is already invented, proteins already invented, like what doesn't exist. And if you remember like five years ago or so like keto diet, bulletproof.

Coffee that really popping off about five years ago.

Yeah, like intermittent fasting. I did a week long fast. My co founder and a ton of.

People in our community, long fast. Yeah, yeah, we'll get into that, we'll get into that.

It's cool. Like when you fast you can see your blood ketones go up because whenever you're not eating, whenever your blood sugar drops, your body will start to make ketones. And the same is true in the ketogenic diet. You eat really low carb, your body makes ketones. When you're doing endurance exercise, you go on a 14 mile run. By the end of it you're body is running low on blood sugar. You start making a lot of ketones. So I saw that a lot of people were jumping through all these hoops, like going through a lot of friction to get their ketone levels up and then feeling really good, like oh wow, I feel really sharp when I fast. Oh wow. Like keto diet makes me feel really high energy but like there's all really hard things to do that also have, have like major drawbacks to them too. But realizing that like the, the ketone was the key driving factor on all the benefits that people were seeing. And then it was that kind of like dumb slash smart question of like hey if ketones are so good, why can't you walk into a sprouts grocery store? Why can't you go on Amazon, like, buy a shot of pure Ketones and drink it? And that was the kind of entrepreneur sp. Spark that went off. And then it was really expensive at the start. Is not. You know, no one was doing this and there's not really a supply chain for it. But I was able to with my co founder, like, we got investors together, we built a team. We got a big contract. We got a $6 million contract.

I want to talk about that because I know you've. I've heard you talk about this on another podcast. So prior to keto and IQ being a consumer product, you got a $6 million military contract. What did, like, how did that come about? And what were the. What was the roadmap prior to launching this? Because I think it's so rare to hear a story like that, especially like a CBG product that customers are loving and enjoying, that you've had all this research with people that are just peak. That are utilizing this. Just how did that contract come about in the early days of the company?

Yeah. That it was such a novel idea. This wasn't like a new flavor of popcorn or a new flavor of sparkling water where it's like kind of a one turn of innovation from what's on the market. It was like very different. Like, new supply chain.

New.

We had to like, go through a process with FDA to get it registered and like, safety tested. All that stuff. New. New. So much of it was new. And getting the initial customer on it, like, it was very expensive at the start. And I think it's an interesting entrepreneurial lesson. Like it was $30 a drink for.

One of the bottles.

Yeah.

Wow.

And so, like, we were selling on our website technically. But it, like, didn't make any sense for, like, normal people. I always, like, I could barely afford it with my, you know, employee discount.

Yeah.

And. But it was really interesting to, like, super elite performers. So, like special forces and like pro Tour Tour de France cyclists like Conor McGregor started using it. Like, we had like, some really pro athlete types using it for. For stamina and like, mental acuity. And the military contract honestly came out of the.

The.

The DOD was interested in super fuels for soldiers. It costs a million dollars to train a Navy seal. Wow. And it's just a major investment. And if you can somehow either increase the performance or extend the performance period of a given individual, that's a materially valuable return on the investment. If you Think about it that way. So the DoD is obviously interested in a lot of like advanced aircraft and ammo and all that stuff, but they also invest a lot in the human side of like, how do we have better performing individuals? You know, a lot of it starts with like special operators, tip of the spear and then. And then trickles into, you know, general infantry, all over the entire dod. So there's a lot of interest in like, okay, how do we, how do we have better performing soldiers? And so there's like this pocket of like basically innovation dollars for nutrition that we were able to tap into around Ketones.

That's right. That's incredible. Like true innovation. I love how you said that. It's, it wasn't just a small degree of change, it was this whole new category that you created. The first Ketone supplement in the market.

Yeah. Which has been really fun as an entrepreneur. Yeah, yeah.

So what were you say, you, you went to Stanford. You're, you know, the peers, Evan Spiegel, these people that are launching these massive corporations now for you, like, where did the entrepreneurial drive come from in your life? Like prior to, hmm, Ketone, what were you spending your time on and did you expect yourself or see a plan to be an entrepreneur long term when you were growing up or how did that fall into your life?

Yeah, I always had entrepreneur bone in me. I think my, My parents were entrepreneurs. Like a lot of, actually a lot of entrepreneurs I know as well. Like my parents were like smaller scale. Like they are both attorneys and they ran their own law practice where they help a lot of like just family law and like civil rights law. People who maybe get, you know, abused by the police. My, My mom will like represent them and, and help make right with the police system. So like just you know, two people or a couple people, like, like smaller, you know, it's like if your parents own a restaurant or something, it's not like it's venture scale thing, but like I saw the level of, you know, just attention to detail paranoia of like this is back in the day. I remember she would like photocopy everything three different times because she would like send it, send a copy to this person and they keep two backup copies in two different locations. Because like anything that, you know, as an entrepreneur, anything that can go wrong will go wrong and just like. And then so she would like send it, she would fax it, she would call them to make sure that they got it.

You know what I mean?

Just like that level of like. Because when you're the. When you're the entrepreneur. It's like the buck stops with you if the thing doesn't happen. There's no. Like, there's no.

You have no one to call above.

Right.

You are the guy. Right?

Right. So, like, just everything, like, oh, the office got broken into. Like, that's a new problem to solve today. Like, oh, this happened. That happened. And I just. Growing up around that, I think always seemed, like, interesting and doable and just the. What. What. What really clicked for me was, I think about business is, like, you have all these different languages that you need to be able to speak from. From, like, design to manufacturing to fundraising to legal regulatory to, like, there's all these different languages. And at some point I realized I was, like, pretty good at most of these languages. Like, at, like, B level, at, like, everything. And I had the opportunity to be a product manager at YouTube, which helped with that, because I think as a product manager in tech, you a lot of times are like, spinning a lot of different plates across, like, oh, we're doing this. I need to understand the tech, but then I also need to pitch the PR team on what the story is, but I also need to, like, understand the UX around it. So, like, that kind of multifacetedness and then. And then seeing that I can. I think a lot of the role of the entrepreneur is being able to, like, take a singular vision and, like, communicate it across all the different languages. Like, you got to be able to speech, like, speak, like, French and Arabic and Mandarin. Like, not the best, but, like, good enough. Like, you need, like, the lawyers need to know what you're doing and so do your designers and so do your salespeople, and, like, they're all speaking a little bit different language. So at some point I realized, like, oh, I. I can do that. Like, I ought to. I feel very much as, like, a servant leader. Like, I want to. I think it's a service I could provide to people I work with. Is being a good. Just someone who can see it clearly and help to, like, translate across different.

Yeah, absolutely. That's incredible. Appreciate the context there. Something that you've been doing this past year, which I've been following your journey on social more recently, is you've been putting out a lot of content. And, you know, and I mentioned this before, but the overlap of, like, who you are as a human and how you operate an incredible. What was it you were in the Chicago marathon recently? It was 2:48, your marathon time.

240 flat.

Yeah, 240 flat. Oh, my goodness. Insane. So when it comes to just operating as a peak performer, but then also building a company in that space, just how do you not only find time or how. Where do you place significance on being a marathoner? Running, training, and as someone that is living and breathing what their product is beneficial for?

Yeah, I think it's important to be out there as a founder. People don't like buying from brands these days at all. Like, people want to know who's behind their product. So I think about it, I'm very fortunate to be in this position where, like, for me, marathoning also is, like, it's almost like, part of my job where it's like, I'm not.

It's marketing.

Yeah. Like, I'm not a pro athlete, but I kind of am. Like, it, it certainly, like, helps the brand when it's like, hey, I'm actually putting our product to the test. I'm meeting a lot of other great athletes. I mean, I'm going on a run with, like, a pro iron man buddy on Thursday. It's like. And the fact I can, like, keep up with that. I mean, he's also good at others.

Yeah.

Other sports. And it's not a super serious run. I cannot keep up with him on the bike by any margin. But that, the, the point is that just being in the arena with, like, top performers, I think is an important part of the job. So, like, it's like, I have a friend who runs a coffee company, and, like, all he does is talk about coffee and think about coffee. And, like, you almost are like, dude, stop talking about coffee. But then you're also like, wait, can I invest in you? Because, like, you literally won't stop talking about coffee. Like, if you're that, like, that's kind of who you want to invest in.

Right.

Like, okay, this person, like, just won't stop. So I, I kind of have become that person. Like, I, I, I'm just constantly thinking about ketones, drinking ketones, running marathons on ketones. Just, like, constantly in it, like, pushing it all the way to the, the edge of what it can be. Because I, I think that people. I think as a, as an entrepreneur, you need to, like, walk, talk the lifestyle of what you're doing. Like, I think if you run an alcohol company, you end up, like, drinking a lot of booze, which.

Yeah. Doing parties, product sharing it around.

Exactly, exactly. So I feel very fortunate, again, to be doing something in, like, the health space where it's like, okay, my job requirement is, like, be really fit and, like, run around a lot and like live a healthy lifestyle. I actually think it could be kind of hard if you're running like, more like a sins sinful company, like that general. Like, if you're selling like cigarettes, you gotta, like, you gotta smoke a lot of cigarettes, like, show people that you the product's good. Um, if you're selling booze, you gotta drink a lot of booze. So I feel very fortunate there.

That's awesome. So when did you run your first marathon?

I ran my first marathon. Like, 2018 San Francisco Marathon. I lived in San Francisco at the time and I, I. It was really important to me to qualify for Boston because.

First time?

Yeah.

Wow. Beast.

I always, I don't know why. Like, I heard when I was like, really little that, like, that. Well, I heard that people ran marathons. I thought that was crazy. And then I heard that, like, there's a special marathon in Boston that like, like they don't even let you run it unless you are like, hit a certain time. And I don't know why I always, like, kind of fixated on that. I had like a friend's dad who is like, into marathoning, and that just seemed interesting to me. It's like, well, if you're gonna do something, be like, try to be like, really good at it.

Yeah.

Like I said to me, I was always. It was never about like, can I finish a marathon or not? It was like, can I do it in a like, like good time? And so San Francisco is like a hard place to do it, but whatever. Like, you gotta. Yeah, it's a hilly place. But like, I also, you know, had home field advantage of being able to like, train on the course and everything.

And did you. You qualified the first time?

Yeah. What.

What was your first marathon time?

255.

And it's sub three.

Yeah. You had to get sub three. It's all. Boston's always like three. Yeah. Three hours. And then sometimes they have to. They drop it down a little bit from there for like the official qualifying time, depending on how.

What is that? Isn't that. What is it like a 650 average mile time?

Yeah, right around there.

For people that may not know.

Yeah.

Incred. Incredible. I. For context, I ran my first marathon last December. I did the Honolulu Marathon and just that process. I learned so much about myself, and now I'm. I'm doing Palm beach this year and I tell myself, next year I want to try to go sub three. My first one, I was 3:36. The goal this year is 3:15 to 3:20. We'll see on that note, like, what is the best piece of advice for marathon training that you've received? Because I think as someone that was really getting into it the past year, you know, you follow the plan. I've talked to so many people. But for you, like, what is the single best piece of advice that you've received?

Oh man. I have questions for you too, Casey. I'm like, how it's changed. You have, like what? Like outside of just being a better runner, like what?

It's.

What it's changed. I can answer your question first.

I'm curious.

I'm curious. Yeah. Best piece of advice that once you break through this level of like 20 or 30 miles a week, that it gets a lot easier beyond there. Because what happens at like this 20, 30 miles a week, I think that's when you really become like a runner. I'm not trying to like gatekeep or whatever. Like everyone who runs is a runner. I'm not trying to gate here. But there's a certain level with like 20, 30 miles a week where like you just break it down. If you're doing, if you're doing 30 miles a week, you're either going on like six, five mile runs or five, six mile runs or like, or like a couple, you know, maybe some longer runs. Like you're running like most days and you're putting up some real miles. And then that's where I am right now.

Like 30, 40 miles a week.

Yeah. And that's, that's the point where like, if you have some like kink in your form, it's going to really show like the, the pressure is going to break. Like you're. Now you have a bridge and like, cool, you can bike over the bridge, but now you're driving like semi trucks over the bridge. Like if your form is weird, if you heel strike in a, in a weird way, if you have some asymmetry, if you like bend your knees too much or what, like if there's some weird thing, it's gonna really like come to the surface and, and it's, you're, you're gonna get injured and it's gonna knock you back out. But if you work on it and you're like paying attention a lot to your mechanics, doing like activations like make. Making sure your, this muscle, this glute muscle is firing to take some of the load off of your quads and like, if you do the right things, like move in the right patterns, watch enough YouTube videos basically and just like download all the information and, and you like, get past that, then like, the jump from like, 0 to 20 is like, a lot harder than the jump from 20 to 40 or 40 to 60 that it becomes, then it's just like a function of time. It's like, okay, do I have time? Do I care? Like, is this an interesting hobby? Do I, would I rather go play chess or whatever? Like, watch Netflix, whatever. But like that once you, if you can get through that 20, 30, and it's not about grinding, it's about like, truly working, working smart, paying attention to, listening to your body. If you can get through that point, then, like, you can become a really good runner because, like, your form will be at a point where you can like, double, triple your load from there.

Yeah, you, you do around what, 90 miles a week? I've heard you say it before.

Yeah. My last build up to Chicago peaked at 90. Wow. So average in like the 80s for.

Like, that is all that is, that's whole different game that I'm playing right now.

I, I, it's funny cause like, I used to, I used to see it the same way. Like, I, when I trained for Chicago or, sorry, when I trained for my first marathon, I, I did like 40 to 50 miles a week, which was like the craziest thing ever. I just felt like my body and mind were transforming. It was like I got, I kind of pushed through that wall, like, took a while and ramped to that point. I was like, wow, some of these pros are doing, like, I, I like, have this book and like, the back pages of the book are like, more advanced plans. I was like, yo, never. Not me, can't be me.

And you're dominating it.

Which is funny because it's like you get addicted. I, I think about it like you get addicted to something in life.

Yeah.

Like, straight up. Like, you get addicted to Netflix or to sugar or to smoking weed all the time. Like, you get addicted to something in life and like, okay, I'm addicted to like, feed me Miles. And like, they're like, for as far as I'm concerned, that's probably one of the best addictions like that or, I don't know, get into like, lifting, bodybuilding, or it's like something athletic. Like, that seems like a pretty good way to channel that fundamental itch that I think a lot of us have. Like, I certainly do. Like, there's, there's so many, like, the, the best, like marathoners, ultra marathoners, like, they literally are like, X drug addicts that are like, okay, this is not going to work for me. I knew, yeah. New addiction. It's like, well, I love that. It's very pragmatic.

Right.

So what is going on with you, Casey? So, like, for you, say, like, you know, you running, like, on your second marathon, you're, um, you feel like it's really like.

Yeah, it's, it was one of those things that, like, my running journey in a nutshell. Like, prior to mid-2020, I never ran more than three miles in my life. I, I, I grew up, I played sports. I played hockey, lacrosse, football, got injured. I have this, I don't know where it is. Somewhere. I have this neck brace trophy that I had this artist make because I, I was in a neck brace for six months when I was a sophomore in high school, almost paralyzed, could never play football again. And that was just what eventually led me down the path of entrepreneurship. And over the years, I've never really been pulled into running. I used to go to a run club that my buddy D. Murthy would host every Saturday, and I loved it. And I was running the most terrible running shoes. But then, slowly but surely, you know how it goes. It's, you do your first five miles. Then I did my first just right here in Santa Monica, like, 10 mile. And I remember the feeling after I ran 10, that's when the switch went off for me was like, okay, I'm, I want to do a half. And then I did my first half in Malibu. And then, you know, it's actually to take a step back. I wasn't training properly when I was going to go potentially do my first marathon. I injured my knee. So I didn't end up doing the LA Marathon in 2022. And then I ended up doing Honolulu last year. But I would say the biggest takeaway is just that ability to push through more than you're capable of. Right. Like, I remembered prior to doing the marathon, I interviewed this guy, you might know him. James Lawrence, the Iron Cowboy. Are you familiar with him?

I know of him.

It's like he did 101 Ironman triathlons over 101 days. And I remember talking to him and just, you know, it's, it blows your mind. He broke this world record initially. He did 50 Ironmans in 50 days in all 50 states. And I remember talking to him and, you know, we're talking about how he, you know, takes what he learns from that experience into life. And the one thing that just kept me going initially through the probably back half of the marathon was just one foot in front of the other. And I think it's it's so in line with business and entrepreneurship where like every day you're going to have challenges, you're going to have obstacles. I mean, that even goes for personal life, right? Where it's just, I think I've never felt better when I'm in a run and how I, when I finish it. That feeling is what I'm chasing. Like my buddy, my past business partner of my last company, Kieran, he did his first Ironman the other day and on Sunday and when he finished it, we were catching up on the phone. Tell him congrats all the self. And I'm just like, be grateful for this moment. This is the first one he did. Because this is the experience and the feeling that I'm now chasing. Like that feeling of, you know, pursuit of excellence and then accomplishment and then onto the next. Like that's how my brain works. And I think a lot of people, right, like, what's next? How can I get better? How can I increase or decrease my time and actually run faster? But overall, I think it's just that ability to put one step in front of another, keep moving forward, even through, even when you're in pain, even when you have no clue how you're going to get through. And it just, it's so in line with business and entrepreneurship, at least how I view it. And I remember I've heard you talk about this on another show you did, and I know that you believe in that. But for you, what has been the biggest indicator of the parallels between marathoning and business?

They always talk about how entrepreneurship is a marathon and not a sprint, right? That's like cliches and entrepreneurship. And so then that also is part of what piqued my interest of like, okay, like let's get good at marathons. And it's interesting how directly, physically the analogy is from marathoning into business, where in business, you know, you have to keep showing up every day. It's like you feel a lot of pain, but it's not really pain because you're just like staring at your spreadsheets and like email. It's like, oh, oh, that investor sent me like a rejection. It doesn't actually hurt the way that like go do a 12 mile lactate threshold run like that, that actually hurts. Like go do 20 by 400 meter repeats at the track and like jog on the rest. Like jog 200 meters on the, on the rest for your recovery and then do another, do another 400. Like that stuff actually hurts for sure.

I brought Diego's A bodybuilder and that. We've been going to do some training track days as well. And yeah, it's a whole different animal. Yeah, yeah, bring Casey in there as well.

Yeah, yes. Types of training. Yeah, yeah. It's. It's wild and like, so that visceral feeling of marathoning, pushing yourself to that like physical pain and then seeing what happens, seeing what you do with it, like, how do you, how's your self talk? How do you work through that? And it's just like it carries over so much into business because, like there's just so many. There's like, I could. There's like a book to be written. This is part of what's been inspiring to me to like post every day. And like I've. I've really quickly grown my following. I had like 2000 follow less than 2000 followers at the start of this year. I have 80k now. I feel like I'm just getting started. I just like tapped in. I think there's this infinity gold vein of like the overlap between running and business because there's all these little things where like, you're like, oh, that hurts. But then when you're really real with yourself, we're like, you're like, does it hurt or am I just like sad about. Is it like a 4 out of 10? But I'm. And it's like, oh, boohoo. Like, I'm only on mile 6 out of 15. It's like, like David Goggin says that when you feel like you're at your limit. This is one of my favorite David Goggins isms, which is that when you feel like you're at your limit, you're at 40% of your limit. He doesn't even say you're at like, oh, you have a little bit of left in the tank. He's like, no, you can basically like two and a half. Like you're like, what, you think you're done? Like, there's so much more. I don't know where he came up with that number, but what a great, great David Goggins ism. Where like you. When you feel like you're at. When you feel like something hurts, you can just kind of reality check yourself. Like, how bad is it really? Like, can I keep putting one foot in front of the other? Like, is there something actually stopping me from doing that? Am I gonna die? Am I gonna pee blood? Like, no. Like I actually can just keep going at this speed. It's a little uncomfortable. But then it's like you Your mind can kind of wrap around it where like, like how uncomfortable is it really? Like coming from Chicago, where I grew up, like, sometimes when it's cold, you're just cold and you don't do anything about it. You're just a little cold. And like my wife is from la, we always joke about it because it's like you can just be a little cold. It just like, it's not a bad thing. It's not like you're not getting pneumonia. Yeah. Not getting hypothermia. You can just like be cold and you can see it as like a terrible thing or you can see it as a, just a thing.

Yeah.

It's just like, hey, this, I'm running. This is what it feels like for my body to be in motion. It's not even pain. Pain, not pain. It's like every. I don't know, being in a sauna is that painful or is that just another feeling? Is spicy food, does that hurt? Or is it just another sensation to be thankful for and grateful for? So you get into like this very. I found it's forced, this like deep gratitude and appreciation of like, wow, I'm just thankful to be alive. Like when I'm on hospital bed at age whatever, 90, I'm gonna be like wishing I could be back here embracing the suck on this 12 mile lactate threshold run. Like this is like this is sucking the marrow out of life. Like, I'm very grateful for this feeling here. So there's a lot of like mind games that happen inside of that, like dealing with that very visceral pain that I think then carry over into entrepreneurship and just like these super, super like obvious ways because like the physicality of it, it's like you can't deny the pain. It's like, then when you get into a rough spot at work, it's like, well, just work, you know, just run more. Like just, just eat a little bit more pain and we can figure this out.

Yeah, I love that and appreciate the perspective as. And real quick before I kind of change the conversation to more the business side of it. So 2:40 marathon, that's your new record. What is, what's the average pace when you're doing that? I just want to, I want people to know the level that you do it. Because I, I feel like the last year, like understanding marathon times and seeing, seeing the world record being broken recently and seeing you're at 240, it's just, it's the definition of excellence in terms of how you need to train for that. To actually achieve that time. So like, what is the. What's the average mile time?

It's 6:08.

Wow.

And I have unfinished business with the marathon. I think I can go faster. So that was my first marathon since the pandemic. Like the last one I did was in 2019. And so I. Obviously the whole world was on kind of a freeze and so I was. I was running a little bit, but not like at that. Not at that volume of miles. And like, this is my first real build, so I bet I hit a pr. But I feel like what would be.

What would be the goal time that you. It's even like hearing it and talking about it is sort of daunting to you. What would that time be?

You keep chasing the dragon, right? Because it's like, I think I can definitely crack six minutes some miles. That would. I. If I. I'm at 608 average pace, I can definitely get into like the F. Like high like 550something. And then from there I didn't just keep cracking at it. I think, I think like, I think I can get for overall marathon time into the two twenties if I work on it a bunch sub of that, like, so you get to. If you're 218 for men is you get to. You get invited to try out for the Olympics. If you're sub 218, that's like pretty special. I think that like, you have to have a gift and. Or just an insane amount of dedication, I think. I don't know. I don't know how like inherently gifted I am or not at it, like where my limit is. But I definitely think that I can get faster without having to be like a, like genetically lucky, oh, high VO2 max, like big lung capacity person. I think literally just with like being smart and like caring about it for a long time. It's like anyone can get like pretty darn good at the violin if you just like play violin until your fingers bleed for like, yeah, five years, 10 years, 15, like, you should be able to get pretty good. So I feel like that I don't. I'm not gonna. I don't think set the world record. I don't think I'm gonna go to the Olympics. But I think there's like, I. I think I could like, win some significant gains beyond where I'm at. It's all just for fun, right? It's all just for like, personal mastery to me. I'm. I just want to be the best. It's like the. Be the Best I can be and hopefully inspire other people to be the best at what they do at their own thing. I think that's like the whole point of life is to let it like observe beautiful things in the universe, let them flow through you and then try to make them happen yourself. Whether you're a violinist or a cook or a marathon or just like try to do really masterful work. Like make yourself a master of whatever thing. Basketball, this, this, that, being a parent, like whatever. Like try to be really good at the thing and then like in doing that also inspire other people to then go do the same. And it's all like, yeah, absolutely. A virtuous cycle from there.

I love it. I want to talk about just this idea of the early stage of the company I recently had the episode actually went live today. I interviewed the founder of whoop. Well and you know, we were talking about the early days of whoop. They were. And I kind of drew a parallel here with what you guys did where they were focused on like peak. Peak athletes. Like testing the product on athletes at a high level before they went consumer focused and hearing the story of the military contract and then you know, dealing with the peak performers and seals to then creating a product that's consumer focused. In the early days of the company, what were some of the, the hardships or even today that you're dealing with with a product that's so uni, so different? Because again, I think it's something not only unique, but it's one of a kind. And I'm sure there's many challenges that people might not even, even have not even heard of before because it's just such a unique, differentiated product.

Yeah. I. One of the key paths, decisions that you make as an entrepreneur, going for super innovative blue skies where it's going to take a ton of work, but that the like reward could potentially be really interesting where like you invent something that's never been invented before. But like everything's going to be challenging. Supply chain is going to be hard, pricing is going to be hard. Communicating what it is to a customer, like creating a category around it. Like if you're creating the first computer, it's like, why do I need a computer? What am I gonna do? Put recipes on this, like what would one do with it? And right now a billion people have a computer in their pocket. What are you gonna do with this new thing? Like I don't. Or more maybe food related. It's like kombucha. Like no one knew what to do with kombucha.

For the first, like it's actually such an interesting. I interviewed GT Dave.

Nice.

And just hearing that like Kombucha was such an oddball product that no one liked. Everyone was like, oh, what's that? The flavor, like what is it? And I mean now he's built a multi billion dollar brand and it was super cool having that conversation with him because how it got passed down from his parents and how he was just making it when he was in school. Very unique product.

Yeah. So I think there's two categories of business, right. Because you can have these like very blue skies, innovative businesses or you can have ones that are more like, hey, this is the, this is a coffee brand but with like a twist to it. Like it's got a celebrity or it's got like a new functional or new flavor to it. But it's like it's mainly just like a next door innovation to something that exists. I, I don't think either is obvious like it is. There's great businesses that are built both ways. This like the, you know, making a new coffee or new popcorn. Jonas Brothers popcorn company. It's easy in the sense everyone knows what popcorn is, but it's hard to stand apart because there's already a lot of popcorn out there versus, okay, you created Kombucha or you created ketones like you, there's not a lot of competitors, but also no one knows what it is and you have to explain it to people. So I think that's one of the key early fundamental paths that you decide like when you're as an entrepreneur or like on a given concept is like, like which one, which do you want? Pick your poison. Do you want to be in like a crowded market where you're like elbowing people aside and like trying to differentiate? Or do you want to be in like an absolutely blue sky, not crowded market, but like no one knows what the market is. And then what's, what can be challenging inside of that is that, you know, you talk to investors or talk to the buyer at big grocery stores. Like they say, what is this? What's the tam? What's the total addressable market? Who's, how big is this? It's like, I don't know.

Whoop.

Started pretty small. Gatorade started as like a little science project with the Florida Gators in 1965. Now electrolytes is a $30 billion market. So like how big can this be? Like I, I, I'm spending my whole life on it. Like I think, I think ketones can be Massive and is like, I think even if I got hit by a bus, Ketones would be massive. Like, I think that Pandora's boxes opened on it. Like electrolytes was just a strictly better technology than straight water for hydrating you. That like even if Gatorade didn't exist, you still electrolyte innovation still would have happened that it might not have happened as quickly or Gatorade Inc. Wouldn't have like created and captured all that value. But like, like with the smartphone have happened without Apple? Like, yeah, probably still. It was still like there are other companies doing stuff. Like you would have had Android and other. It may not have been like created and captured by Apple in the same way. But I think what we're doing with Ketones, it's like the time has come for that idea and it's. I think one of the challenges is always like convincing people of like how big that opportunity can be. Because I think a lot of people want to hear, oh, you're making a new flavor of popcorn. I know exactly how much popcorn is sold in the world and if you got 1% of the popcorn market, you'd be very rich. It's like versus versus something more new and inventive.

Absolutely. What have been to whatever extent you can speak to it, like in terms of the life cycle of the business, fundraising. I was telling you before the show, but I raised just a pre seed round for my last company. Learned so much in that process. For you as CEO, what have you learned through fundraising? Raising capital for the business? Because I know that obviously there was the military contract, but more of like traditional venture capital. Whatever you can speak to, I'd love to just hear sort of where the business is and what that experience has been like for you as the CEO, talking to investors, sharing this unique idea and really what you learned from that process.

For my type of business that is very blue skies inventive, it's really important. Everyone who's invested has been ideologically aligned and like obsessed with the product. No one looks at it as just like, oh, I like your numbers. Oh, you have a good EBITDA margin and blah, blah, blah, like, let me invest. It's all. They have to be like a co conspirator on making ketones happen and fueling the world and we're gonna make 10 of global calorie supply come from ketones. Right. It's like very mission driven, which is exciting to me. I think it works for my, my personality. But a lot of investors or operators and entrepreneurs might. Everyone's different like, there's multiple routes to success. I want to be very careful not to be prescriptive. It's like, this works for me and my kind of personality. What's exciting to me, which is, yeah, you do. If you do something very blue skies and like, you're going to have to. Everyone who's going to get involved, everyone who's going to work at your company, everyone who's going to invest are all going to be like, they're all going to have to drink the Kool Aid with you on this, like, cult that you're creating until that becomes like, at some point there's a tipping point where it's like, oh, yeah, of course electrolytes, of course kombucha. Of course everyone's gonna wear a smart device that tells them their biomarkers with, you know, the whoops of the world. Like, it's gonna feel like this like, niche culty thing until one day it's like, oh, we're just. It isn't. And then you look really smart or not or, or you never get escape velocity. That's always the risk. But like, I think that's the, that's where you have to have some, like, vision.

Yeah, absolutely. And someone that I, I, I had Jake Paul on the podcast years ago. I think it was back in 2018. But I, I always see Jake rocking the ketone. He, he's an investor, right?

Correct. Yeah.

So how, what's it been like working with him as someone that's, you know, such an influence to the. I don't, I don't even want to say influencer, but just boxer, influencer, entrepreneur. What's it been like working with Jake?

He's one of the nicest people, honestly. Like it, the interactions I've had with him, like, super nice, like fun storyteller, curious about your stuff. Like, very down to listen and learn. I think his reputation on the Internet is really interesting. Obviously, I think is he's like one of the most popular, influential creators out there. So I guess he, like, he is getting plenty of credit. I don't think anyone needs to like, defend him on that. But I think a lot of people also do kind of like discount him or like, oh, he's just like idiot jackass guy. Like, oh, just it's like, I think people need to give more credit. I think I've learned to give people. I think it's hard, I think it's really hard to break through the noise on the attention economy. And anyone who's done so I think has something special Like, I don't. I'm not the biggest, like, Swifty Taylor Swift fan, but like, I freaking love what she's doing. Yeah, I like some of her stuff. Like, I like, I like. She's all good. It's like. But I think on like the culture level, she's a genius. Like, there's no doubting she's a number one song and the number one movie in the country right now. Like the movie of the Eras tour is the number one movie right now while she has the number one. It's insane. Like, she clearly has a touch for it. So I don't. It's like I don't have any time for the haters who are like, oh, but, but like, if you don't like her, like, you're clearly. You're the one that's out of alignment with like the universe. Like, she gets the universe and she knows the game. Jake Paul knows the game. Like, the people who know the game and are winning at it, like, they, okay, you get, you don't have to like the exact thing that they're doing. It's like someone could be the most famous sushi chef and you say, okay, I don't like sushi, that's fine. But you still got to respect the game. And there's still something inside of the way that they like make sushi or talk about sushi or make content around the fact that they make sushi. Like, that you can. There's so much to learn from and like, there's no. I just don't. No time to be a hater. It's like there. What are you gonna hate on this person? Like, like, I think when you hate on someone you put it, you end up putting up blinders to what Instead you could be like drawing inspiration from them.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's spot on to it and I'll even just speak from personal experience. I. I interviewed Jake in 2018 when he was still living in LA and even then he was doing more like crazier things on social back in the vlog days. But he was always in the limited interactions we've had just the most down to earth, nice guy. That and I've heard this time and time again from other people. Just sometimes if you don't know him or you haven't sat down with him, you would maybe think differently. But it's been so cool to see how he's evolved and obviously see involved with what you guys have going on.

A lot of people are doing like, it's like a performance art Too. Yeah, I think you realize too like Oprah Winfrey is not Oprah Winfrey or like, like no one is who they are. You have the performance version of yourself that every, that it's like a mask that you put on for the world and you're like, you maybe are more controversial or more this way or that way to like get the people going. But then a lot of times the per. Like the, the. There's like the wizard of Oz and then there's the guy behind the curtain. A lot of times like the person behind the curtain is more. They just even keeled or down to earth. Like they know that they're constructing.

Yeah.

Like, I'm sure if you talk to Taylor Swift, she's not like this on stage version. She's probably just like kind of smart and chill and just like thinking about how she's going to project a better like performance the next chance that she gets. But like there's a decoupling, right? There's like performance mode. Jake Paul and then there's like, hey, I'm like, I'm just a human with 24 hours in the day and like, what are we having for lunch? And like, let's talk about ideas person for sure.

That's awesome. What have been, or I should say, who have been to mentors in your life from a business perspective or even from a marathon perspective that have impacted you the most along your journey?

Yeah, I, I'm a big reader and like I dig through. I try to draw inspiration not just from like living people or people that I happen to have like, known or met. I feel like there's just like massive untapped wisdom from like, like Steve Jobs or like, who is Steve Jobs's mentor. Steve Jobs was really, he loved Edwin Land who was the founder of Polaroid, who's like long, long dead. Like, Polaroid was one of the most innovative companies of its time that then inspired Steve Jobs to be the most innovative person. So like reading up on, I mean, Steve Jobs just canon. I think that's like kind of cliche answer. But like I, I've just listened to every like podcast book, everything, all, all that stuff. I've been really getting into Jeff Bezos's stuff recently. Like, he's like all his letters to shareholders I think are really good. Have you read those?

Yeah, I've read one.

Yeah. Like, so he's like every year he's, he wrote, he's written a letter to shareholders and Amazon has been around at this point for like 20 something years. So like it's interesting. He literally like wrote, he made, he built the most impactful, one of the most impactful Internet businesses when there was no playbook to do so. And it's just so interesting how he thinks about it and like customer obsession and like when he's convincing his investors that like Amazon prime is a good idea or he's convincing that the Kindle is a good idea, it's like. And now those are like. Or aws. Like these are all like billion dollar businesses within side of Amazon. They were like a hundred billion dollar businesses but inside of Amazon. And the fact that he had to like convince people of it. The fact that he had to like marshal resources internally on it, get people to focus on it, be like customer obsessed around it. I think Jeff Bezos is super smart. Phil Knight, Nike. I think another one just like they. He made jogging a thing. I think the way that he like bent the culture like, like there was no like TAM for running shoes really. It was like a niche sport. And then he's like, well he like, what if everyone jogged? What if everyone had better shoes? Then maybe the TAM would be 10 times bigger than it is if people just had like affordable, comfortable running shoes. So shoe dogs.

Really good one around here. That's one of my favorites.

It's one of the funnest ones. He's not, he's not like a preachy person. He's not like, oh, here are my 10 principal. He's just like talk.

Yeah. His stories are insane. Insane.

Yeah.

I don't know the book where he talked about how he would fly to Japan, like round trip just to think. Like he would book a round trip from Seattle, Japan. I think it's like a 14 hour flight, fly right back. And that was just his think time. I remember him saying that in the book and it's always stuck with me just as like, hey, find your outlet of just time to think. Or when you have to address a problem, whether that's running or whatever it may be. That was a story that stuck out to me.

That's huge. Jeff Bezos talks a lot about puttering. That's his.

I haven't heard that concept from him that like he.

It's really important. His first meetings at 10:00am Yep, I've heard that. And he putters around and I just love. Just like. Because I puttered too. This is like she's kind of like, like I don't. There's all this like hustle pouring around. Like you gotta wake up, you gotta like blah, blah, blah, like have this Supplement, have this like workout. Do this, do your email. It's like there's also something to be said for like going on a walk with your toddler and like the sunshine as the sun is coming up and like smelling the. Stopping to smell the roses, like, and like doing the. Letting your mind go fallow is another way that I've heard it described. Like having some just like true downtime and not be in go, go, go mode. I think is, is one of the power moves that the most biggest minds make. Like Warren Buffett talks about the importance of making like two or three decisions a year. Yeah, a year. A year. And we're like doing all this shit all the time. He's like, you know what if I make two, three good decisions a year, I'm like the one of the wealthiest people on planet Earth. Like, obviously he's doing littler stuff along the way, but like this, that like the macro view. Yeah, yeah. And so like free yourself up like for that, that mode of thinking.

I love that. When it comes to the team behind. I know when we were talking prior to the show, you guys are all remote at hvmn. How has that looked in terms of the last couple of years with COVID and now you're here in the Los Angeles area. What does the team look like right now? Team? The culture. And really, how do you define the team behind the product?

It's been really interesting culture development as we've been remote all through Covid and, and since. And it's forced us to exercise what I consider to be a really valuable muscle around written communication where we don't have a ton of meetings, there's not a ton of like water cooler stop and chat time. So we're very memo driven. Like, everything starts with like, there's an owner on the project, on the initiative. And like, here's the plan and here's the decision space and here's the recommendation inside of it. And here's the different stakeholders. Like what? And like people read through the document and then they like add their comments in. And then there's like the owner kind of like collates that in and like you can just see, you can sit down and you can just. In 20 minutes, you can understand like weeks and weeks of work by multiple individuals just like, just download into your brain without even there needing to be a meeting necessarily. It's just like, here's the, here's. Here are all of the. You know, we're swapping to a new 3PL. It's like a third party logistics like a fulfillment center. Like I don't think I was in a single meeting about it, but the like the amount of work that was done in that by the person that owned that was, was massive. That was like a massive undertaking for, for months. But I could just read. It's like, okay, we talked to these different, all these different groups. Like here are the different rates, here's what like other companies had to say about different groups. And it's just like all inside of one document and I can just download it. So I, I think written communication forces a quality of thinking that's above and beyond verbal communication. And being remote forces you to be really good at written communications. I think that's super valuable. It's definitely led to like higher quality of thought, higher quality decision making in terms of. Yeah, we were talking about beforehand. It's like I feel like the ice is thawing around fully remote where like there are certain positions. Like we just hired an events lead and just hired a content lead. It was like important for those roles to be in Los Angeles because like I'm in la. Like we're going to be doing content like you should like if I, if you have to get on a flight every time we're going to do some like founder content. Like that's not the best or like, you know, LA has a massive health and wellness and fitness scene that's really good for our product. Like there's you know, 10 million people in the La Socal area. Like let's tap that out before we're like flying all around the world. So like that's, it's helpful that person's located here. So I would say we're, we're like we're still remote but then doing just like increasing the, the cadence of like like hey, let's get everyone in, in LA and just like workshop things out for like half a week and then. And we go back to like dispersed remote. But like getting that energy together on a regular basis.

Yeah, that's great. And I know I've seen you post that like the team all at the table and just creating those environments of togetherness even though it's remote. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah. When my last company Media kits, just for context for you, it was the easiest way for creators to aggregate all of their cross platform social data in one place. So we tap in all the APIs. We were a fully remote team at our peak prior to acquisition. Just 12 people fully remote. And I learned so much through that process just of not having obviously a Place to be together. We. And I do agree with, and I like the thinking behind like more written context where I think that over the death of the meeting and people are in so many meetings all the time, you just, it, it's a double edged sword and it can be very just demanding, especially for the engineers or whatever it may be. And I think just that was not only a lesson, but hearing you speak about that, just more intricate thought on the written context. I love that.

One thing that Amazon does is they have at the beginning of meetings that whoever's calling the meeting has to like put together a written brief. And then at the beginning of the meeting everyone reads the brief in like awkward silence for five minutes. And that's just like part of the culture there is. We're all gonna like read and download this. So I'm not gonna spend the first 20 minutes of the meeting like clicking through slides and like talking. It's like you can read a lot faster than I can speak. Like, just read this. Like download the knowledge into your brain. Like what's the fastest input into your brain? It's like through your eyes reading something on the page. Like how quickly can we get this information into your head, into everyone's head so that we can then like have a conversation from there. But let's not belabor the like transmission of inner information. And like, like how, like let's get that downloaded as quickly as possible. How you crushed it with media kids as far as like selling it in 18 months.

Yeah, from, from launch to sale, it was 18 months.

How did like, how did that go down? Like, were you looking for that? Like, did someone knock on your door.

And say kind of. So my, my co founder and I, Kieran, who did his iron man recently, the whole idea of media kits for the quick background and for people that may not know, including yourself, is back in 2018. We ended up launching the company officially late 2020 or to mid 2021 when the product went live. But we had the idea back in 2018 because one of our friends who was a big automotive creator, his name is JR Garage million subscribers, we're all from Virginia. He came to Kieran and I and he knew we were in the marketing, like business, social space. And he's like, hey guys, can you make a media kit for me? Like, here's my Canva account. Just like, here's my screenshots of my profiles. Make me a media kit and I'm gonna send it to this brand. We make it for him and he gets the deal. And two Weeks later, he comes back to us and was like, hey guys, Ferrari contacted me. They want to fly me down to Daytona Beach, Florida. Can you go update all my numbers and statistics? Because I had this viral video and they need it today. So can you update it right now? Sure. So we spent an hour or two. We make the media get for him, we update it, send it to him, he gets the deal. And that's when the idea was boring, right? So from start to exit was 18 months. But this ideation of what we were creating was years and years in the making. And I think that's always important to highlight because that's when we asked ourselves, you know, why isn't there a way for creators to aggregate all their data in one place that updates in real time forever and that they can easily share with a brand through a link Instead of these PDFs, drag and drop all the stuff. That's when we had the idea. But we were both at home. I was 17 at the time. I, Kieran was 18. I was still in high school then. We just sort of shelved the idea. Fast forward 2020, we're both living in Arizona. Uh, we moved out. I moved out there right after high school. And we just saw this more so resurgence of the Creator economy in mid-2020. You know, Covid's happening. Everyone's posting so much content where we just revisited it. The timing was much better. I've. I've now at that time, was doing a podcast for a little over three years and had all these relationships. And for me, the. The whole goal for the podcast has always been brand building, learning from people, but just that business development that you get within it, where we went out to go raise capital for the business. You know, we were initially trying to bootstrap it, but you know how that game goes. Engineers are expensive designers building a tech product. So we ended up raising just over a million dollars, like 1.4. And I always like to say this is, you know, a huge reason for the podcast for me is the relationships. Where about 90% of the 30, 37 investors we brought on were previous guests of the podcast. Just friends and people that I've built relationships with that I. I was able to present the opportunity with and get their thoughts on the product. And they were all not only extremely helpful, but strategic in the sense of industry experience, or they have their networks that they were able to get the product into. Then we, that long story short, launched the company. The product went live August 2021. We had this big launch party here in LA. Was Khalifa performed? He was a partner, and his. His manager was an investor. And to the acquisition, we are then six to eight months in after the product goes live. It's early 2022. We have just about 20,000 creators on the platform already from a couple of viral channels that we were optimizing for. And I always used to ask myself as a founder, like, how do acquisitions happen?

Right?

I interview founders, they've talked about acquisitions, some of them, and how's it going to happen for me one day? Who knows? And it was the CEO of the company Viral Nation that acquired us. They're based in Toronto. And it was just the DM'd me on LinkedIn, like, hey, Casey, love what you guys are doing in media kits. Let's hop on a call.

And he didn't say, like, we're looking to acquire in the space or anything. He just said, let's.

Yeah, he's like, I want to love to learn more about the product, but.

I'm sure you get a lot. Like, I get a lot of LinkedIn DMs.

Absolutely.

But you're like, okay, this guy is legitimate CEO of like, a company. Like, let's at least chat.

Yeah. And more so too. And they raised a lot. They raised a private equity round right before then, like $200 million, Todd Bolly, Eldridge, all that stuff. So right away I'm like, oh, maybe that could be an opportunity one day. But yeah, let's. Let's connect. And we were in this phase where we were actually closing a seed round. We had a lead investor, we were raising another $2 million. We had about 1.2 to 1.5 in commitments. And long story short, we just had to make it very, at the time, hard decision. Like, okay, this conversation acquisition, they expressed interest, like, we're about to close this round. What's the best decision here for the business? And after just not only thinking a lot about it, talking to investors, advisors, looking at the business, the employees, it just made complete sense to pursue acquisition. But it's risky, right? Because to call off a fundraise when you're burning capital, you're, you know, you could run out of Runway if an acquisition doesn't actually happen, which that happens a lot. Yeah, that could have been detrimental, but lo and behold, we got it done after, you know, six, eight months. And then September 2022, we officially closed and worked at the acquiring company for six months. And then really since April of this year, I've just been pursuing new ventures and doing the podcast, as always. And it was a roller coaster though. And I could go on and on about it by any means. I had no expectation or really would have wanted to necessarily been acquired that quickly. But it's just the way it happened and I'm very grateful for the experience and all the lessons learned.

It's super interesting because I think that ironically, selling a company is one of the last things that founders think about. A lot of founders get into the game because they're really good at. They have a product insight or they have a really good community or platform, or they have some like spark of ingenuity around what to go and make and then they get good at fundraising. Like all, like they get a building their product with engineering or supply chain. If it's a physical product, they get. And like it's almost like the afterthought for a lot of founders, I think. I think it's where a lot of times like second time entrepreneurs are really smart. Like once you've gone through the full life cycle and you've exited your company or like you weren't able to exit, then you start thinking from day zero, like, okay, what's the mind? Yeah, yeah, like, so it's really interesting for you that like you it played out that way. And I think it's an area where a lot of, a lot of founders are like, curious. You own at acquisition too, right?

Yeah. That's crazy. I have so many domains that I'm sitting on and it's actually funny because I have Casey, that's my Instagram handle, which that kind of started all of this because I remember I have, just for the quick Context, I had Acadams 1. That was my handle before. Awesome name. But I remember just like at Casey, I went to the account, there was this guy who was using it and I just messaged him and I was like, hey, I would love to own this username. And he would, he's like 50 grand, 25 grand. And I said all these crazy numbers. I'm like, oh, never going to have this domain. And I really just. And I think it speaks for entrepreneurship as a whole. I just would message him probably every three months for three years, just like, hey man, like, hope you're well. Like, let me know if there's any interest in selling the page or selling the domain, whatever it may be. And long story short, Covid hits and he ends up saying, hey, by the way, are you still interested? Got the handle. And then that kind of just created this interest of like, oh, like cool handles are out there. And more so, more Recently, I should say, is like, I have questions. And that's sort of spun off into a new podcast that I'm launching with a DJ friend of mine who's won a Grammy and Brandon Jenner who's an awesome musician. And just the domains sort of create these verticals of passion where I have at Jogger on Instagram and now we've been doing the Saturday run clubs at the track with a cool community and oh, hell yeah. I kind of look at them as like focal points of conversation.

Yeah.

So there's a couple that I have no idea what to do with, but they're fun.

It's super interesting. I feel like that's certain, like, personality type of like a lot of founders I know also have like a hundred, two hundred domains on like namecheap or whatever. Whatever, like God, whatever of just. Oh, like I have this random idea that could be interesting sometime. Well, what's interesting about domains too is like, they're like real estate where they keep their value.

You guys have a great domain.

Yeah, we have HVMN. We just bought ketone.com. oh, no way. Yeah. And wow. Yeah. And that's incredible. If someone out there owns at Ketone. If you own at Ketone on Instagram, message me. It might take. We might be in touch for three years here. But because it's interesting, right? Because like, I believe, I believe in ketones in general. So like, that to me is just a piece of real estate. It wasn't like we paid X dollars, but I don't see it as an X dollar expense. I see it like if you bought a house for X dollars, you'd expect in 10 years, unless you made a bad decision that like, the house is going to be worth X + appreciation. Like if you bought electrolyte.com or protein.com like, those are super valuable. So like, I'm bullish on the category because, like, we make Ketone IQ and like that is a very valuable for that. But even like larger than that, it's like I'm just bullish on the space to where like, whatever happens, like, that's a materially valuable asset that the company has to for us or to a potential acquirer. So that's one way I think that I rationalize my irrational obsession with you on you. I think you're. You're actually better at it. And it's like interesting handles and domains, but I think about it as like, it's not like say you spent 10k for a domain. It's not like it's not like spending 10k on Facebook ads where it's like, okay, you lit that on fire and it worked or it didn't. It's like, no, you spent. If you spend 10k on whatever like jogger.com or at jogger, it's like, well, jogging is here to stay. Like whatever you paid, market price is probably going to, you could probably sell that if you needed to in five years and like if that trend has gone up, it, you'll, it could even appreciate. Like I see it as like more of a real asset than a like expense, if that makes sense.

I'm glad you think that because I think, I think the same way.

Like that's what I tell my wife at least.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. How long, I'm just curious how long you guys trying to get ketone.com for?

I think it was pretty quick. I think the other, the, one of the things that worked for us too is like, I think that's an area where going through a broker is really helpful because like if I show up and it's like hi, I'm the CEO of a company that sells ketones. Like they, you'll get, you'll get fleeced. Yeah, right. Because it was like, oh well to you I think this is worth a million dollars versus like if it comes, this is like random. Jimmy the broker comes in and like hey, I don't know, you got you selling this. Like yeah. So I think that level of indirection or abstraction of having like a broke. I don't, I think some areas in life like a middleman is not helpful. But I would say if you're trying to acquire a domain, it's like it could be helpful if you're trying to buy your name.com or something. It's like cuz your company, you just sold your company, the first thing the seller is going to do is Google you and they're going to see that you just sold your company for $30 million or whatever and they're going to be like, oh, OK, okay, this person's breaded. They're like, let me charge them a boatload versus like a random broker person. Just like, hey, is this available? So I don't know, just free advice. Like I think, I think it's an area where having a trusted broker that like you or your friends have worked with before can be helpful.

Absolutely. Well, I'm glad you, you think that. And obviously hvmn.com, another awesome domain that.

Was crazy, the four letter domain. And then, and then getting four letters on the different platforms.

Yeah, you guys are really on top of it. It.

Because it was hard like a lot. I Twitter. I like you. It doesn't even allow you. If you go like you can do like whatever asdf, jk like if they just. It needs to be at least five characters.

Oh really?

Yeah, yeah. Wow. And then I think you get.

You guys have it on Twitter.

Yeah, we have it on Twitter.

So X now, right?

X? Yeah, yeah. Well, because my argument was like Nike bro. Like and I don't know, I guess it just worked.

That's incredible.

I knew, I don't know someone in there through the network, but that. Yeah, four, four letters is good. HVMN good, I think good to own. It's good to own, you know, noun like ketone or jogger. It's good to own like a noun that's just like dictionary word that's super valuable. It's also valuable to own like completely made up word Zillow or whatever. Like the like make up a word and then you can just load it with all. All the meaning. That's kind of what we did with HVMN stands for healthy modern nutrition. Like it's really valuable now because like HVMN is just. We made like millions of. Put millions of dollars into impressions and years of work and it all out there. And we own hvmn.com that's a whole other just can of worms around. Like. Yeah, like inventing words versus using dictionary words.

Absolutely. We go on a rather hole on that. One last question before we wrap up. Michael, I first want to say this conversation has been incredible. I've learned so much from you. Just regarding the company, what excites you the most? Looking into the future and what are you just most excited about? As you think about this year and the years to come, the most exciting.

Thing to me is honestly the team people that I get to work with every day and it's super thankful for. I basically get to hand pick the coolest people in the world. Not just me anymore. Like there's people. I'm not the exact hiring manager on everyone, but it's like people I hired are hiring people and like everyone is just like cool. If they're not cool, we don't hire them. Like it's just like a very simple setup where everyone's really smart, everyone's hard working, everyone's very bought into like doing dope shit with their life. It's like everyone wants to do something cool. It's like it's cool if you make the next Nike. It's cool if your team was the ones that built the Golden Gate Bridge. It's cool to leave a dent in the world. And everyone is really bought in on that. Everyone's really smart, everyone's really dynamic. Everyone wants to win. Everyone has equity in the company, so everyone has upside and all doing well together. So I think what's exciting to me is just continuing to grow that tribe of people. And I think about it a lot, like, okay, yeah, say that we like sold the company one day. You know what? I think I would instantly miss, like what we're at right now, which is like getting able to show up with cool people and build something interesting every single day. Like, I think if I sold the company, I would take like a couple months off and then I would get itchy like in and I'd just be like, I would just start calling like the five coolest people I know, ten smartest people I know. Like, hey, what, like you want to do something? Like, I think, I think the like putting money aside, I think what's actually fun is building interesting products, technology, shaping the culture, doing it with, with other cool people, making money along the way to like, like fuel the whole thing. And you know, people should generate wealth off of their hard work, but that just like making beautiful stuff in the world, like getting inspired by previous generations, previous creators, and then like paying like being a conduit for that into like the future. The next generation, I think is the. That's the good stuff.

Absolutely. Well, Michael, thank you again for coming on the show today. I'm very inspired by you. Looking forward to when I crack my 3 hour marathon goal one day I'll be sure to give you a call and say, look, remember that time when I thought it Was impossible?

You're 100 going to do it. If you literally just keep cracking it like you l. You'll do it for sure. Well, this is a lot of fun, Casey. Thanks for.

Absolutely. And last but not least, where's the best place everyone can follow you, learn more about the brand and just stay connecting with you overall?

Yeah, check me out on Instagram, Twitter, everywhere. I'm mainly on Instagram these days at Michael D. Brant. And then the brand is at hvmn. Stands for Health via Modern Nutrition. So check us out. Love hearing from people. Tag me. Say what's up. Love hearing what people are building, what you're training for. Interesting biohacking stuff that you're doing. Yeah, very, very active out there.

Well, thanks again for coming on and everyone tuning in. Thank you so much for listening or watching this long and I will talk to you guys soon.