Crafting Authentic Brands with Jake Karls

It's okay to have a little bit of fear. It's okay to be scared of things, but to be scared to be yourself is a disadvantage for yourself. So the moment you start to unlock that ability to be yourself, you will start to feel a superpower or an energy or a momentum that you've never felt before.

Welcome everybody. I am Jeff Duden and we are on the home front. As always, this podcast is brought to you by Homefront Brands. Simply building the world's most responsible franchise platform, encouraging entrepreneurs to take action to transform their lives, impact communities and enhance the lives of those they care the most about. All the while delivering enterprise level solutions to local business owners out there on the home front. So if this sounds like you, check us out@homefrontbrands.com today and start your next chapter of greatness, building your dynasty on the home front. I will be looking for you here. And today we have a powerhouse of marketing and rainmaking. Jake Carls. Welcome, Jake.

Jeff, thank you for having me on the show today. I'm super fired up. I think we're going to get really deep and, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun. So I appreciate you having me.

Yeah. Outstanding. Glad you're here. So Jake Carls is the co founder and chief rainmaker at Midday Square, is currently building the next chocolate snacking empire. As the rainmaker, Jake focuses on achieving growth through the art of building genuine relationships with investors, buyers, retailers, journalists and building out the internal team. In Jake's better known role as Midday Square's resident social personality, he passionately inspires others to get comfortable with the uncomfortable and be unapologetically themselves. Though he was recognized as an EY Entrepreneur of the year finalist and named in the Forbes 30 under 30 class of 23. The self proclaimed greatest accomplishment was learning how to be confident in himself. Jake, welcome to the home front.

Oh, I love hearing that. Good bio. Fired up and. Yeah, no, I think forget about all the accomplishments. I think, I think the most important thing that I learned in a decade of entrepreneurship was truly believing yourself. So I'm excited to get deeper into that, that topic.

Specifically, Jake, on the home front, we care a great deal about entrepreneurial journey. Would you care to just go back and give us a brief overview of kind of your background, where you grew up, kind of what you were into and bring us into the present?

Yeah, dude, so 100% so. I, I was always an athlete. I was also al. Also always the class clown and, and you know, in high school I didn't do well from a grade perspective. And one thing I was really good at at the time was, was having fun. And having fun was authentically who I was. You know, fast forward to trying to graduate high school. I was the only kid in the grade that wasn't going to graduate because my grades were so poor. My parents were called into the principal's office and I. I'll never forget. They're like, your son's the only one not going to move forward. And in that moment, I kind of said to myself, shoot, I should change my perspective and behavior and start to follow the herd more and, you know, be more of a. Like everybody else in quotations. And I decided that moment that I'll take my grade seriously, study hard, work hard, and forget about the class clown of who I actually was. And I, I did that for many years, went to college, studied to be an actuary, tried to be an investment banker. After that, failed miserably, and that did horrible in school. And I finally watched Shark Tank one day. And as I was watching Shark Tank, I was watching an individual pitch his dream. And he looked so free and happy, yet he had so much to lose and so much responsibility and depth on his life that I had nothing. I had no responsibility. And yet I was sulking like a baby. And in that moment, I said, you know what? I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I'm going to try what he is, because what he has is freedom. This idea of freedom of you doing whatever you want to do in life. And that was the moment I finally chose to be myself.

And.

And from that day on, I'll never forget, I have simply made decisions that are true to who I am. And it has led me to more decisions that are right than wrong. And I've built three businesses. 2 of 1 failed completely and went bankrupt. The. This. One of the. The first one actually was very successful financially. And the third one is currently hopefully going to be my home run, and that's Midday Squares.

Adventure is something that I encourage my kids, young entrepreneurs, the people I coached over 30 teams of youth sports. Man, everybody needs an adventure in life. And you have to recognize the opportunity when it presents itself to you. And then you just got to have the courage to say yes, and yeah, there's always going to be a risk of loss. I've. We sounds like we were in the same class in terms of grades in, in high school. And, you know, so many entrepreneurs are screwed into existence or they just decide like they don't fit inside of a mold. And because of that it's just one adventure after another and you get hooked on it. And so I really appreciate what you did there. And you know, you've developed principles around being true to yourself and you've moved that into your discernment of how you make decisions in your life. And that's very impressive what you've done, especially at this stage of your career. So congrats on that. To fail businesses. I heard you on another show. One of them was making a lot of money and the other one wasn't. But yet you moved on from both of them. How did you make those decisions?

Yeah, so the first one was fitness. I was running like an outdoor boot camp. That was, it actually got so big to the point where I had to like, I almost thought about building franchise, a franchise outdoor boot camp model here in Canada because it's very cold during the winter so everyone wants to be outside in the summer. So I had this crazy model. I was going to get containers and, and build them in parks anyways. I was doing this whole thing and I realized that my passion after like two and a half years of doing it was gone. I didn't enjoy the fitness anymore. I didn't enjoy helping people in that, in that, in that aspect. And that was the moment I said to myself, no matter how much how well I'm doing financially from it, I need to move on because I can't wake up feeling like I'm doing a chore every day. And that was the moment I switched to a business which is the opposite, which is throwing parties on college campuses across Canada and selling clothing as a pop up shop experience. The problem with that business was the parties were epic, the community was strong, the storytelling was incredible, but the actual operations was devastating. And the reason why it was devastating is because I am not a good operator. And that's what I learned from that. Two and a half years on. The next business was I'm a very good storyteller, brand builder and community builder. But my weakness is actually operating and managing a business. So what I learned was that I can't be a CEO. It's not for me. I don't want to be a coo, I don't want to be anything of those of management position positions. I want to be able to do what I'm very good at and that's get people excited, build community and tell a story. And that's when the third business came. When my sister, my brother in law approached me like, yo, we need you to do exactly what you're good at. And be our third partner. You don't have to worry about any ops. All you got to do is be yourself, be Jake. And that was the job. And I'm so grateful to have joined. But it took me almost five years in entrepreneurship to learn my strength and to understand my weaknesses. I think it's important to know both.

Teams need diversity and whatever your particular strength is, there's a part for it on, on every team. I've heard you mention that your is it your sister and your brother in law are your business partners. Yep. And they're strong, strong operators, probably operationally have operational excellence. Also good financial acumen and stuff. They're not going to be the ones that are sticking the camera in their face 24 hours a day, having ideas, being innovative, thinking outside the box and bringing stuff to the brand. So you know, once you recognize what your particular area of brilliance is, now you have to go out and find a team to where you can bring that and it be and it be of value. So it sounds like as you moved into midday squares, tell us about the idea real quickly about, about what midday squares set out to accomplish and then how you guys thought about the team and oh by the way, family businesses, partnerships, tough, tough to do well. So love to hear a little bit about how you guys thought about it.

So the idea of midday squares is simple. We wanted to build the best afternoon chocolate snack in the game and build it as like chocolate conglomerate. So you know, think what would like Hershey's Mars or Mondelez look like if they started in 2023 or 2024. That's what we're trying to accomplish is we're trying to build something of that size but in the better for you emerging types of products. And I think that that's super important, you know, so think of us like a new age chocolate conglomerate, snacking conglomerate. But the idea of how we built the business is very different. So we had this grand vision of building that large style company but the way we did it was unique. We are self manufacturers, we own our manufacturing. And that's a very different strategy in food and beverage to take most companies actually co manufacture their product, they third party it. So we decided we actually out of necessity had to build our own factory because we want to keep the product true to what we wanted. We didn't want it to be like everyone else's, the chocolate and robe. Because at the end of the day, if we're going to build something that big, a company of that size, we want innovation. You need innovation. And you need something different, right? So that was number one. The second thing was when we came together, we each had different skill sets. We didn't partner because we're family. So my sister, my brother in law are my partners. But if you look at each one of our skill sets, we're super different. So we complement each other. We brother in law is a software engineer, he's a great data guy. My sister is our CEO and she loves manufacturing and she loves building and like actually product development. And me, I love brand building and actually community building. So when you put it together, you're putting a tripod that's very foundationally strong. And one thing we did, day one, that we do till this day and every week, basically is go to a therapist together as partners, but also as family members. And what that means is, is to protect that partnership because it gets very, very high pressure. Just like athletes go through, just like other entrepreneurs go through, just like people that have stress go through. And it could create a very dangerous relationship if you don't deal with certain hard conversations when they happen, when they have to happen. So we have a therapist to guide that and, and, and, and again build towards a stronger and stronger partnership and family friendship. But the idea was build a media company that sells chocolate. And what I mean by that is it's, we have an entire company inside our company that's dedicated to creating immense amount of content. So we share the good, the bad, the ugly of building this business. It's as if you're watching a reality show on entrepreneurship as we scale this business because that's our marketing strategy. Our marketing strategy isn't to tell you about the chocolate bar. We want to get you into the company by falling in love with the brand and falling in love with the story. That way we have you as a fan rather than a customer. And that was a strategy that we took early, early on was to just put out cameras 24 7, filming everything and then just sharing it raw. That authenticity was starting to relate deeply to the consumer which then sells the chocolate because they're a fan of the brand. That's what we've been building over the last five years.

Fantastic partnerships and inside of a family have ruined more holidays than probably divorce or anything else. And going to a therapist early is a pretty forward thinking move to do that. What advice do you have for people that, you know, we, we have so many partners, spouses, brothers, all kinds of things. We, we have like a lot of people do these franchises that we put people in through partnerships. And so if it doesn't go well. Like, man, we end up in the middle of that mediating one of them buying the other one out or something like that. This is a high stress thing. You've gone through capital raises. You're in a. In a very competitive marketplace. Would you have made it had you not had the awareness to put yourselves in that counseling? You probably did all kinds of personality, you know, realizing strength, you know, strength finders and all of that kind of stuff to really understand who the other people were. How important has that been for you?

It's the most important thing. If we didn't do the counseling day one and understand that we're committed to each other as partners, bigger than just Midday Squares, but to us as friends and family, and that we want that no matter what, more than actually business. Becoming a billion dollar business was the number one reason why our partnership today is so strong. And we're. We're going farther and f. Sorry, further and further and growing. And I'd say to anybody out there, if you're going to get into partnership with somebody, don't choose them because it's the easiest and most comfortable choice. Meaning that. Don't choose a because it's your family or your friends, because you love them and you're friends with them. No, choose a partner based on what you need and what that person can benefit from and what you can benefit from. And as a growth of a company, if you don't, you shouldn't be one plus one equals two. You should be one plus one equals three. And if you could build that, then you understand that we didn't partner because we're family. We partner because when you add with one plus one plus one, we equal five. And that was the big difference. I think that that is important to know. And again, if you have somebody that is a relationship that's close to you, see, counseling. Counseling is not for the weak. It's not. It's not something that means you're depressed or unhappy. It's a way to learn communication, to understand each other, empathy. Work on bigger things that might arise because you're going through a pressure cooker when you're building a business, whether it's a franchise or whether it's a CPG company like Midday Squares. It's hard. That's why there's not. There's a reason why not. That many small businesses actually scale is because the odds are stacked against us. And I think that once you understand that you want the best people around you throughout the journey and the most the people that you actually want to spend the time with as well.

Yeah. Because little things, little details can cause big problems if they're not paid attention to or overlooked. So everybody's got to be on point. Man. I'd love to talk a little bit about your area of brilliance and this is self serving because, you know, I'm, I've been asked by our organization to do kind of what you're doing is to get out front, do a podcast. I do a lot of speaking, I'm doing a lot of traveling. It's an area that I wasn't comfortable with 15 years ago, but now as I've grown into my career, I've become a lot more comfortable with it. So from. You had a different take on it and you basically said, hey, we're going to create fans, we're going to publish everything that we do, we're going to be authentic and real and everything that I've seen, man, you just. There is no media training going on your thing. Right. Because now today it's like people can sniff it out. Like faked. Authenticity is still fake. So what have you learned and what's been your biggest lift maybe that you didn't expect? Is it on TikTok or know where, where have you really made some, some big gains?

So my position is very unique. My goal is to simply build friends for the company and build the brand's noise, make sure the noise is out there. So that's two different things. So the friends of the business basically means make friends with investors, retailers, journalists, media professionals, new team members potentially, and actually focus on friendship first rather than doing any business with them. That way there's an actual genuine friendship there before four, which means when you have a genuine friendship, you're likely going to win with each other. And that's super important. You want each other to win, so you'll do a favor, you'll help, you know, like that's number one. Number two, my other focus is to make as much noise as possible for Midday Squares is to make the noise, meaning that I want to get people to feel excited about Midday Squares, be part of the brand, be part of the journey. But for me personally, as I build the brand and I tell the story, I use LinkedIn as this platform that I think is impeccable. As long as you're creating content that is different, that is not the same as everybody else. You know, for me, I'll dance my shirt off sometimes and I'll talk about how celebrating is, is important. And you know, if you start to relate it to corporate world, but in a different way. You have a chance of really blowing up and going viral organically. As for our business, TikTok has been a huge player for Midday Squares that has, you know, garnered 45 plus million views last year, maybe this year, hopefully about 80. We're trying to go maybe even more potentially. But I think down the line where you'll see most of our content in terms of Midday scores at the winning, from a winning perspective of content, I think will be YouTube because we actually want to put together some long format content. We're not there yet, we haven't started on it, but I think that that's something that we'll see in the Future. But again, LinkedIn for personal branding and TikTok is definitely for business. If you really want to get that organic virality, are you able to convert.

Those directly to sales or do you have to look at it and say this is a proxy based on the activity we're getting, the noise that we're looking for, we know that's turning into sales, but we can't exactly track it back to it. Or do you have some direct response stuff where people are buying and shipping product directly to their homes?

Yeah. So I think there's two things here. So we definitely, when we have a TikTok video that goes viral, and I'm talking like millions of views, even hundreds of thousands, let's call it, we see an uptick over the next two weeks with our retail sales, let's say Target, we sell at Target. Right. You know, we do very well there. And sometimes because it's a national account for us, where it's across all of the United States for us, it's within like, you know, five miles of most, mostly everybody, we see a big win when the viral video goes up because people want to try it. And the unique part is our videos don't promote the squares, they don't promote the chocolate bar. Again, they bring you in to want to learn more about the company. Like, who are these weird people? They're so different. They're entrepreneurs. But during, you know, crying, huge successes, failures, and then you go down a rabbit hole and then eventually you go to Target or you go to Whole Foods or wherever you are and you buy the product. You're like, oh, I love that brand. I know them, I just watch them. So that's number one we see from viral, viral content. The second thing we see is we have a D2C side of our company, which is our website, and we see the traffic increase and then that either goes to store locator page which again to find a retailer or they buy it on our website. And we actually see the sales know drive upwards. But it's not always revenue that we care about. We actually care about how we're making our consumers feel and how deeply we're getting engaged them. The reason why I say that, because there's a difference between a transactional customer and a fan. A fan will not just buy your product, but they will shout about it. They will acquire new customers for you, they will build new fans for you. And they're an army out on the ground. A transactional customer is great, but they're just buying the product to eat the product. So I focus most of my time on how do we get fandom, how do we build those fans. And again, content that makes people feel something is an easy way to do it. We also do a tremendous ground game. And I like to say, like, I like to compare it to politics. You know, if you look at politics and the way that, you know, you're. You have an election coming up, the way that campaign's done is, is, is. Is very fascinating. And I mean by that is they have to rally their vote. They have to rally their base to vote right? For us, we have to rally new customers and fans to get excited about our brand. So we actually go on tour, similar to like doing rallies, but not doing about politics, doing it about business. Right. And what it is, is basically we'll go to colleges, we'll go to conferences, and we'll give this like these crazy talks that are high energy. And the idea is to convert people into fans of the brand. And we don't really promote the bar again, we talk about something that's really human relatability factors and that builds a fan. And again, I'm on the road like once a week for this stuff. Hopefully long. I'll. Hopefully I'll be doing two, three times a week down the line. But right now we're seeing the ground game and the online game put together is very powerful for both revenue growth and fandom growth.

You don't have a podcast, correct? Or do you know?

We do, but we stopped recording about a year ago. And the reason why is we actually had 37 episodes and they were phenomenal for our industry. So it was really good for our retailers, people in the industry, food and beverage. But the problem was, is we just, we don't have the capacity, the time. It's a lot of time effort. And we were editing it internally and we were doing it, in course, everything, it was actually really a lot of work. So we hope to restart in 2024.

Yeah, and, and well to do it. You know, it's interesting. So many podcasts that are in an industry end up just being echo chambers and everybody goes on everybody else's podcast, but you already know each other. And for, for this, I mean, we're in the franchise industry, but we only have really select franchise industry guests on it that maybe like really have a great entrepreneurial story as well. And then most of our guests are people like, you know, who have some incredible entrepreneurial story. And, and it's, you know, it was a little slower to start, but man, it is really kicking up, like really, really kicking up in terms of downloads and people paying attention to it and, and all of that. So yeah, it's an interesting thing. It is a big, it is a big commitment in terms of time and energy and money to be able to do it. But I think combined with a strong ground game, we do, I'm doing, I'm traveling also maybe two or three times a month doing speaking engagements. A lot of that's in the franchise space, but I'm trying to get outside of the franchise space at all as well and get directly into people that want to engage and want to know more about who Homefront Brands is. So, man, I really appreciate, appreciate that strategy.

The key is to cross pollinate, you know, you should not just stay true just to your industry. I think the key is to continue to meet people outside because you never know the collaborations or the serendipity that can happen. And I, I used to just be solely for my industry and now I enter into many different types of, of universes which again, they end up coming all together in the end. So it's like, you know, be very open minded. I think that that really helps for any entrepreneur out there or anyone starting a business or working for somebody. You know, you need to go meet and do different things that aren't just your focus of your industry.

You've talked about the power of storytelling. You, you said you're a storyteller. How do you, how intentionally do you kind of weave these universes together? You're out speaking and there's, there's kind of a through line of a story of your brand that, you know, it's an incredible story and, and it always, you know, comes through. How intentional are you about, you know, going to these different places and saying, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna connect part of my story to this group or this group of consumers, this group of students, whatever it is, or, you know, are you like, we're going to go and we're going to, we're going to build audience and we're going to build fans, and it really doesn't matter where they are because everybody's going to resonate with the fundamentals of, of who I am, who we are, what we've done, and, and the impact statements that you're trying to make in the world. You know, how do you, how do you think about that in choosing where you go and how you invest your, your precious time?

Yeah, no, I don't have a specific group. I think that it's important to meet different styles of people and different, different groups because if you don't, you never know. And something I learned is the more I enter into uncomfortable zones or places I don't know, are not familiar with, the more I feel like I win. And I think that that applies to anybody. Put yourself in zones that you've never been to or uncomfortable stuff and you're going to see slowly greatness is just going to come or loss will come. But loss is actually not a bad thing. Failure is not a bad thing. It's actually better than being average. So I think that that's my mentality and it's paid off pretty well, both financially and personal, growth wise.

Yeah. So we have a set of family values and I got three kids. Fail fast and move forward is one of the goals. Always do more than is expected. Trust yourself, take chances. Like it's all basically, you would think I want them to leave. Now that I think about it, yeah, I'm kicking them out of the house, so. But you know, like, go out and have an adventure. Trust yourself to take chances. Be humble, respect others, you know, be assert, servant. Like these types of things, man. And I tell you, those values have served us exceptionally well in going out and do that. And, and you know, as they've, as they've chosen their different paths in life, at least to this point. I built a business over 25 years. I sold it. There was probably a dozen times during that where I really had to look in the mirror and look at my team and say, is it worth it? Is it worth the personal risk? Is it worth the financial risk? You guys have had some really big challenges in over a couple of years. I mean, you had a barcoding issue that I heard that was a fantastic story because by the way, every business faces these types of things. And then you also, I think caught, got into a little Bit of a dust up with Hershey's when you think about like, I mean, so I got sued one time by a huge multi billion billion dollar national company because they went out and got a trademark that was like this common phrase in, in like in the English language and somehow they got a trademark on it. And we added 127 different places on our website. Not in the headers, just in the text, in the body of the text. Didn't call, didn't do anything. The first calls I got were from, you know, we were getting blown up with attorneys asking if they we needed representation. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm like well I don't know what's going on but everybody knows before I do. And then you know, it's a bit of a gut check when you get, you get sued by a, you know, a billion dollar company and, and you're like, man, what, what am I going to do? How does your team react to adversity and how does have you set up your culture and your openness contribute to your ability to overcome those things and communicate?

So I think our community, our company, at least from a cultural standpoint is we've, we've instilled as leaders that we're not afraid of things, different things that could happen. Adversity is not something that we're afraid of and that we combat it by going straight into it and not avoiding it. And I think that that's been a huge, huge win for our culture because they've seen us go full throttle in scenarios that might have been a little bit crazy and bold to do, but we did it. And I think that that creates an inspiration or an environment where people will act similarly in terms of not recklessly, you know, strategically bold I call it. And I think that, that we've instilled that. And again that's through example, that's through going through things, experiencing different things that you know, have, have adverse the company. You know, we've been through so much crazy stuff that you know, we're a five year old business but we've been through things that know companies that are 40 years old go through. Right. I think as a leader it's important for you to set the example of what, what you want in that environment. You can't just tell somebody how to behave or do you want them to unapologetically do it the way that they truly believe, but if they experience and watch and see, they can then understand and feel what you felt and why you did what you did. And again, strong core values also comes back to our founding principles of the company, to how you want the culture to be.

All right, Jake, I want to kind of step back a little bit and be a little extrospective with you. You've accomplished so much in such a short time. What have you learned about yourself and about people during this? You have an accelerated rate of opportunities as you've built this company so fast. And you're probably starting to put some strong beliefs held loosely in place about people and about business building that you're going to take forward. I mean, with how this thing's going, I can't wait to see what you do next. But what have you. What have you learned, man, if you were to sit back and look at it and say, man, this. These were some. These were some lessons that. That people should really think about as they're building the business, I think you.

Really got to believe in yourself. It's cheesy, but, you know, at the beginning, when we started this business, I didn't fully understand the power of that. I didn't understand the full power of just being yourself every single day. And as time went on, I started to realize the more I was myself, the more I started to win, the more I start to feel that freedom that I felt that first day when I went on to. When I watched Shark Tank, I saw that guy, and I was like, that guy has something that I really want. It's the same thing. And today, you know, 10 years after, you know, 10 years into entrepreneurship, I realized being unapologetically yourself is your superpower. So the moment I stop being myself is the moment I believe I failed. And, you know, I think that every single individual, it's okay to have a little bit of fear. It's okay to be scared of things. It's normal, actually. But to be scared to be yourself is just. Is a disadvantage for yourself. So the moment you start to unlock that ability to be yourself, you will start to feel a superpower or an energy or a momentum that you've never felt before, and you will almost become unstoppable. Because what makes you different is not the product that you created or the building you built. It's how you make people feel. And it's you as an individual who is completely unique to another individual. So that's what I've learned over the last 10 years, is understand yourself, embrace yourself, and continue every day to be unapologetically yourself. If you do that, you're guaranteed the best chance of success. I don't mean it's going to be fully successful, doesn't mean it's going to win, but you're at least guaranteed the best chance of getting there. And the reason why I say that is because it's your superpower. No one could do what you do.

People believing in you keeps people in the game. People knowing that you will rush to conflict. And step two, when there's a problem and you'll do it fearlessly they want ever when something comes up in the business, everybody's watching how you react to it. And if you step to the challenge, because you know what I coach people is nothing's fatal. Like it's not a lawsuit's not going to kill you. You know, it's a learning opportunity if you can get yourself to that place to look at it in that way. And then, I mean, most people just want to know where they stand. And that begins with leadership. Like who's running the ship, how do they react to things, how. And, and then what is our role in reacting to similar situations in the same way at our level, in our world, as, as we, as we execute this business, I always start building with leadership. Like leadership matters so much because business is too hard. It's full contact. Everybody at every level gets punched in the face about something every day, whether it's a purchase order or a missing shipment or a lawsuit, you know, or you know, an employment issue, whatever it is. So I think it's incumbent upon the leadership to make sure that you spend enough time communicating that. It's because sometimes now you've get, you get new people and they show up and they've got to have the same indoctrination to what matters to you as the people that have been started with you from the beginning and you know, were the ones that were moving the machines into the manufacturing and all of that. So it's a full time job. But man, if you skip those steps, I tell you, you can get a misaligned organization. Bad culture, areas that go bad culture is tough because man, you got to cut those out and you got to get clean margins. Once it goes bad, it's really hard to get it back into the place where it needs to be. So intentionality around that and that leadership is, is critical. So where's the tipping point for midday? You know, nothing's too big to fail. But there's a point in your industry where manufacturing, distribution, brand loyalty, those types of things create this momentum that takes you from 100 million to 500 million. Have you identified the tipping point and what that looks like for you?

We believe we're about two years away from that tipping point. Two and a half years. And I think it's just right now it's simply raising our ability to the capacity, ability in our factory with the margin profile we want. The second thing is the sales execution, so merchandising at the distribution level, making sure the product is in stock all the time and visible in the store in the proper locations. And the third thing is to continue to go viral on, on social media. And if we do those three things, which we plan to, there'll be a tipping point that will just accelerate the brand to a new level. And I think that that's what we're doing, trying to accomplish.

So from a product composition, stability, it's a natural product. You've got that all sorted. It's got a pretty good shelf life. So the product's good, right? I mean like you've got the product where you want it.

Yeah, it's a chocolate bar that's refrigerated. It's got about five, five months shelf life almost in the refrigerator. Where, where, where we want to be. We want to launch maybe two more flavors and then redo a little bit of our first two, like make them a little better in terms of the way that the taste profile is. But yeah, that, that's the game plan right now.

Ten years from now, there's going to be a Wall Street Journal article. You, your family, Midday is going to be on it and it's going to talk about this wildly successful brand story that accomplished all of that. That's what's possible here. You know, I love this exercise. What's possible and then you figure out what's missing and then you figure out what's next. And the possible always starts with, you know, just the, the, you know, the wildest success that you can imagine. And, and I, I believe that, that you're going to get there. However you define it. What would be in that Wall Street Journal article that you would like them to say about you and the company.

The three entrepreneurs that did it their way?

That's it.

Because at the end of the day, if we will, if we build this unicorn business to billions of dollars and we stay true to who we are, then we have created a new path, a new path that could be followed or inspired people could be inspired by. Because right now the standard playbook needs to be changed in our space. So we hoping to be those people that could change it. But to change it, you need to make massive impact. I Believe. And we're, we're taking the pain to get there.

Fantastic. Awesome. Jake, how can people reach you? They want to get on board with this train. Where can they follow you and how can they reach out to you? Where would you send people?

So follow me on LinkedIn, Jake, Carl's on LinkedIn or add us on social media. Midday Squares on TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, you'll see a lot of fun content. If you want to find the product www.middaysquares.com you check out our store locator page which shows you all the retailers that have it or you can buy it on our website direct to consumer. So we're always located in the fridge if you do go to retailers. So that's where it is. But yeah, I appreciate you, Jeff, having me, man, it was, yeah, it was a blast.

Good stuff. One sentence to make an impact in somebody else's life that might be thinking about being an entrepreneur. Best advice to that person right now.

As cheesy as it sounds, surround yourself with, with good people. And not everyone that you love is good people for you to surround yourself in business. And I think that's super important. You know, some of my best friends are my best friends, but having them in my business around me is actually not. It's more negative than positive and it brings me down. So again, choose your people wisely and be very careful about who enters that circle because your business circle doesn't have anything to do with your friendship circles.

The older I get in business, the more important I realize who it is you go through life with and that we spend our entire life searching for that small handful of people that we can truly trust and we want in the battle with us. So I agree with you. Great words, Jake. It'd been amazing to have you on today. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Jeff.

Appreciate you.

Yeah, man. Yeah. As always, thanks listeners. This podcast has been brought to you by Homefront Brands. Simply building the world's most responsible franchise platform. Delivering enterprise level solutions to local business owners to enable them out there on the Homefront where accounts. This sounds like you. Check us out today@homefrontbrands.com and start your next chapter of greatness, building your dynasty on the Homefront. We will be looking for you here.