Overcoming Doubt and Succeeding In Life and Business: An Interview with Hint Water Founder Kara Goldin and Joe Polish - I Love Marketing Episode #467

At the end of the day, it's really just about me getting the right mindset in place, trying being okay with failure along the way and learning from those things and then just keep moving forward and, you know, to some extent celebrating those things that have happened in the past that are part of your journey that you, you know, if you pay attention, you can learn from. And I'm such a huge believer, even meeting you, Jo, that, you know, dots connect along the way, that they're all part of your journey and sometimes you can't figure it out right away exactly why those situations are placed in your path. But ultimately they can either make you stronger or they can, they can, you know, if you can't connect the dots of the time and you don't have the right mindset, I'm a huge believer that that's ultimately why we quit. And, and so I wanted to really share this message, share my story in hopes that other people will read this and say, if she can do it, I can do it, because I'm no different than anyone else. And again, there's no reason why I was supposed to be able to do what we've been able to do at Hint.

If you'd like to join world renowned entrepreneurs at the next Genius Network event or want to learn more about Genius network, go to www. Geniusnetwork.com. kara golden is the founder and CEO of Hint Inc. Best known for its award winning Hint Water. It's the leading unsweetened flavored water and she's the author of Overcoming Doubts and Doubters. She's an active speaker and writer and host the podcast the Kara golden show where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs and other disruptors across various industries. So how long you been out this entrepreneurship game?

So I started hint 15 years ago and I kind of call myself an accidental entrepreneur because I was not that kid growing up in Arizona thinking that I was gonna go and start a company, certainly not a beverage company. I had grown up in tech. I actually ran prior to founding Hint. I had started early for a. Well, let me even back up further. I left Arizona, which I talk about in the book, and moved to New York and ended up working in publishing, so working for Time magazine. Then went on to CNN when Ted Turner was still running around the room and launched this thing called the Airport Channel. If you're ever sitting in airports and different gates. I launched those first monitors into JFK and Logan and then ended up moving to Silicon Valley. And that's where I really got my first taste of entrepreneurism. I worked for an idea that was actually started inside of Apple by Steve Jobs and five guys who worked at Apple. I never worked at Apple, spun it out and they were doing CD ROM shopping. And so my role was actually to go out to all these E commerce companies in late 1994, early 1995, and try and get them to be educated about the Internet, this whole new world. AOL acquired us and they ended up asking me to come on and built that company within a large company for seven years. The whole E commerce partnerships, a billion dollars in revenue to aol. And that's when I realized that every United Airlines pilot knew my name. And finally I said, I've got to go back to San Francisco. I had had three kids at that point, was just totally spent, totally exhausted, and decided to take a couple of years off my sort of sabbatical was. But was being a parent and a mom. But that's when I really woke up. And as Joe and I were starting to discuss when we sat next to each other, kind of this realization that I had about what I was putting into my body. And that's really how hint came to be that it was really solving a problem for myself around health, around diet soda in particular, which I was massively addicted to. And I had no idea that that was actually causing some of the health problems that I was actually having, including weight loss, skin issues. I had developed terrible adult acne that I never even had as a teenager. And also just energy levels were dramatically different. And ultimately, when I stopped drinking diet sweeteners that were in my Diet Coke, I lost 24 pounds in two and a half weeks. My skin cleared up and my energy levels dramatically changed. And so that was really kind of this epiphany and really what I realized about big industry and the big soda industry and how they were ultimately not on my side. And as a consumer, I was just shocked at really what the FDA was not doing to actually keep me safe and get me healthy. And yeah, so I'll stop there. But that's really how it ultimately really kicked off.

I know you know this, but most people don't know this. Is that the, you know, in terms of substances that people consume that people die from that are addictive, the number one killer in America is sugar first, tobacco second, alcohol third, and opiates fourth. And I think most beverages are, you know, like sodas and whatnot in some of the, you know, like vitamin water and different things that are presented as healthy. If people really look at the amount of sugar in them and people look at the stuff in it. They're not healthy at all. And a lot of things are packaged to be healthy and they're frankly not. And I mean, most sodas are like liquid Satan. What were the biggest obstacles that you had early on that would be useful for people to hear about? Because you certainly have overcome. I mean, you went into an industry and dominated where you had so many forces that were not your friend at all?

Yeah, well, first of all, I mean, the thing that was so tricky for me and was really just this huge kind of education for me, but also what I realized, how much further I was ahead of so many people was that I wasn't drinking sugar. I was drinking diet sweeteners. So there was, you know, I mean, and I take you through this kind of in the book as well, where, you know, it started for. It really started for many people with saccharin and NutraSweet and aspartame and Splenda, and today it's stevia. And how so many people today are thinking that they're actually doing better for themselves versus actually really training their brain to be addicted to the substance. And so when I started hinting in 2005, that was really the epiphany. There were just as an example, 2% of the population had this thing called type 2 diabetes back in 2005. Today, 45% of the population has type 2 diabetes or pre diabetes. And most of those people claim to be drinking diet or being fooled to your point by this whole idea of vitamin or low fat or, you know, that. That world. So. So again, like, this is what I saw back, you know, then I had no business being in this industry because I was a, you know, media and a tech executive. And. And really what I had seen just by drinking water and getting. And in order to drink water, I was slicing up fruit and throwing it in the water. And what I realized just by doing that was that was all I needed to drink water and, and really change my health. And so when I went to my local Whole Foods and said, hey, is this product on the shelf? I saw that it wasn't there. But I thought, my initial thought was, oh, I'll just go and get a product on the shelf. How hard could it be to actually get a product on the shelf at Whole Foods? They had just opened in San Francisco. So I started talking to the guy that was stocking the shelves. What else do you do? And. And that's when I realized that there were all these other things that were like healthy perception versus healthy reality. And Once I actually got it on the shelf, that's when it's a story in and of itself. But the first overnight, I mean, literally 10 cases were sold overnight in San Francisco. I had no idea sort of what I was embarking on. I didn't know that there were 2,000 cases. Different beverage companies. Probably the most crowded industry in the world today is the beverage industry and really controlled by Coke, Pepsi or Dr. Pepper Snapple. And that's when it really set in that I was probably six months into getting it on the shelf. I was kind of getting it into stores in San Francisco, but I had no idea the uphill battle. And, and so that's really when the doubt started setting in around like, can I actually do this? I know I'm a smart person, but you know, can I actually not only, you know, take on this industry, but also the fact that I didn't have any experience, the fact that I, you know, had no idea how to produce a shelf stable product without adding preservatives to it. There's a story in there when, you know, I finally connected after a year with an executive at Coca Cola in hopes that maybe I could do a distribution deal with them. And that's when he said something that was really kind of eye opening to me and very dismissive, which was, sweetie, Americans love sweet. This thing isn't going anywhere. The million reasons why I should have at that point given up. But what I realized when, sometimes when people say something so strong and so alarming to you like that, you have a choice. You either quit or you say, wait a minute, the reason why I'm doing this is really to solve a problem. I'm on a mission and this person is not on my same mission. And so I have to really set my mind to it and just continue to move forward and, and try. And so that's really what I, the story that I wanted to share with people because when I've been out speaking over the last few years about building this company, which by the way, today is larger than $150 million, but is the largest non alcoholic beverage in the country that doesn't have a relationship with Coke, Pepsi or Dr. Pepper Snapple, which we're in 30,000 locations, over 50% of our business is direct to consumer, which is not really what people in the beverage industry do. But what I realized is that everybody would ask me like, how did you do it? Obviously you didn't have any doubts, you didn't have any fears, you didn't have any failures, you were just perfect. You just went and did it. And so I would share these stories about all these doubts about the Koch executive, sharing that there was no way I was going to do it, be really condescending along the way. And I thought, at the end of the day, it's really just about me getting the right mindset in place, trying being okay with failure along the way and learning from those things and then just keep moving forward and to some extent, celebrating those things that have happened in the past that are part of your journey, that, that you, if you pay attention, you can learn from. And I'm such a huge believer, even meeting you, Joe, that, you know, dots connect along the way, that they're all part of your journey and sometimes you can't figure it out right away exactly why those situations are placed in your path. But ultimately they can either make you stronger or they can, you know, if you can't connect the dots at the time and you don't have the right mindset, I'm a huge believer that that's ultimately why we quit. And so I wanted to really share this message, share my story in hopes that other people will read this and say, if she can do it, I can do it, because I'm no different than anyone else. And again, there's no reason why I was supposed to be able to do what we've been able to do at hint, you know, another story in the book. So I went to Arizona State University. I mean, I. I grew up last of five kids, super middle class, and my dad, as I used to joke, was an original settler. I think I shared this with you, Joe. And in, in kind of Phoenix, Scottsdale area, I was, when I went to asu, I really didn't think that there was anything wrong with my education. I went there, and when I landed in New York City and working for Time, part of what I really learned was that it was an environment that was filled with all Ivy League. And again, I faced this situation where I had a choice. I could either sit there and be having a pity party for myself around what my education had been like, or I could actually just do great things. And by the end of my first year at Time, everybody, all the executives at Time, were asking me if I had more friends that could come to time because my mindset, my work ethic and my attitude and all of those things were significantly different than other people around me. And, you know, and one of the things that I talk about in the book, too, is the importance of, you know, in that journey along the way and working At Time and CNN and AOL and even, you know, working in my first startup, I learned a lot about culture, and I learned a lot about mindset and importance of, you know, education or not having importance of education.

So, Kara, I've always had this funny thing where I think most people get up every day and just bumble their way through life, including myself. I've spent so much time with very successful people, and I've yet to find someone that really, there are some that are super OCD and very structured. But for the most part, most of the successful entrepreneurs I know, they still feel like they're in the middle of a startup. So how would you describe. I mean, what is, like, your typical day like?

So the one thing that I, like, have to do every single day is hike. So I live in. I live in Marin county, and that's what I do. Beyond that, I have one or two things. That's another thing that I talk a lot when I'm out speaking is that I think actually having too many things to do, actually, you set yourself up for failure. So I think that falls into what you're talking about, Joe, that it's like, have one or two things and celebrate that you actually got those things done, have a goal down the line. But that doesn't mean that you don't have small things and small things that you ultimately want to achieve so that you can actually really assess what you are accomplishing.

What did writing the book do for you? What did it do for your thinking?

So that's another thing. I didn't plan on being an author. It was never on that list that I wanted to eventually do. This was a journal for the last four years. So I was spending a ton of time on planes and in crappy hotels and, you know, faraway places. I mean, where we're, you know, launching, launching, hint. And so I started just journaling and sharing stories. And really that, you know, the key thing that I found along the way is that, you know, most successful people, most entrepreneurs, they don't. They may ask for the 1, 2, 3, how I do it. But I feel like what really gets people to think about their own situation is actually hearing other people's stories on how they ultimately did it. And so by telling my stories about, you know, how do you get out of the gate? How do you take on large companies? How do you get your mindset back when you fail? All of those types of things are stories that I really share in the book. And so when I, you know, ultimately went out and decided to Publish this book. I mean, I had over 600 pages. Frankly, I have another book already done because we had to whittle it down to like 200 pages. And, you know, this book will not, like I said, tell. Tell you the 1, 2, 3. If this is how you do it, what this book will do is actually share stories about different topics, including, you know, when you don't feel good enough, when you don't know exactly what you're doing. You know, I have a huge belief that actually being authentic and really just sharing with people, like, I don't know how to do that. Right? There's a little bit of fake it till you make it along the way. But then there's also the, you know, people think that I've got to, like, if I'm sitting there trying to actually launch a beverage at Whole Foods, of course I've got to pretend that I know what I'm doing. I actually got so much further by sharing with people. You know, I've done some really great things in my. In my previous life, but I don't know what the hell I'm doing right now at all. And there's some people that will view that as. As, like, I don't want to spend my time with her. There's other people that, you know, found it authentic, endearing, honest, whatever you want to, you know, however you want to think about it and. But I feel like that's a little bit different model than maybe people think that they have to do in order to be successful.

When I was Bill Phillips's marketing consultant, he created a sports supplement company. It was the largest in the world at its time. In the late 90s, he actually bought the company and then built it up. It was called EAS Experimental and Applied Science. And we used to sit around in rooms at the time. And this is, you know, going back, you know, 25 years ago is when I first met Bill. I met him in 1995 at a big bodybuilding event. And at the time, you know, the advertising world would talk about mind share. You know, how much of the mind can you. And this is before the, you know, Internet marketing and whatnot. And the big beverage companies were talking about stomach share. How much of a. Of a human's stomach can you own with your soda or the water or the energy drink or whatever? How do you think about. How do you think about the beverage business and consumption and how you position. Hint.

So from day one, we put stakes in the ground around health. And so that was, again, solving my problem. When I saw what this diet soda was doing. And pretty quickly I realized that the beverage industry was less concerned about actually getting me healthy and, you know, my family and my friends healthy. It was really about, you know, selling stuff to people to ultimately get them unhealthy and, you know, and that, that's really how I view the beverage industry. I compete with them for shelf space, I compete with them for consumer confusion. Right, that's, that's out there. But I think that when we finally ended up going into direct to consumer, and, you know, it's sort of ironic because here I'd been running the direct to consumer business for AOL for seven years and built a pretty significant business, I didn't actually think that consumers would buy online and that they would buy cases online. And there were all these, you know, industry experts out there saying that, you know, food and drinks, like, are not being bought online. And, and so I listened to that for a while and then finally I'm like, why? And so I'm a huge believer too, that if we're thinking differently about something, that doesn't mean that you're wrong. That means that you have to go and test these theories. And if you keep thinking about it over and over again, then it's your mission, it's your job to ultimately go out and test these theories. And so today, the beverage industry, you know, while they were saying she's crazy, she's like, launching a direct to consumer business, it's not going to, you know, no one's going to end up doing that or no one's going to end up buying it. I mean, now, especially during the pandemic when we had over a million consumers in our database that we could go out to and say, okay, you're not going to go into stores. We've got plenty of stuff in the warehouse and, you know, we'll send it right out to you. Seems simple, but to the beverage industry, that's just not the way they do business. Right. And so it's, it's like a huge model disruption that, that really ultimately wouldn't have happened if, if I wouldn't have, you know, really tested it and really gone out to see what else we could do. So, so that, you know, that's another piece of this too, that I think that, you know, disruption is, is, you know, there and so many different industries. That's another thing that, you know, I've learned that actually the people that are the industry experts and many, many different businesses are probably not the ones that are actually going to change industries and do things different. And so that. That's like a huge epiphany that I've had over the last 15 years as well.

Yeah, I've always loved the line, in order to have a breakthrough, you got to break something.

Yeah, totally. And, you know, and you and I talked about this whole concept of addiction. I mean, what I've seen so often, whether it's, you know, I've talked to so many people around, you know, whether it's alcohol or drugs or, you know, you name the addiction. So often, you know, the fallback is either cigarettes or it's diet sweeteners and. Or sugar. But typically today it's even diet sweeteners. And unfortunately, it's a really, really scary, unhealthy addiction that I think a lot of people just aren't really realizing is maybe even more dangerous than others.

Yeah, I guess what I would say, because I don't want to go. I have a tendency to go off on addiction topics if I start talking about it, because it's such an interesting thing. To me, addiction is really about the craving state. It's in a craving state.

And.

I often think of the line, it's even behind me up here. It says, addiction is looking for love in all the wrong places. And when something tastes good or it feels good, physically, mentally, it's like a fantasy when people start consuming something and it. And it fills that sort of void. And you're dealing with the craving state, like in 12 step groups. I mean, I wrote about this with Anna David and Hal Elrod in our book. The miracle morning for addiction recovery is there's four things that people need in order to get sober and stay sober that will give them the biggest benefit. First is community, because I've never met anyone that recovers in isolation. Second is it's biochemical. Serotonin, dopamine. It's what you consume. And 12 steps, as an example, does a great job with community. It's available, it's free, it's everywhere. But you see a lot of people at 12 step groups that will drink, guzzle coffee, sodas, eat donuts, smoke cigarettes, because they're in that craving state, and they're trying to look for a way to satiate the uncomfortable feelings. And it's biochemical. And so, so much of addiction recovery is literally what you put in your body. And if you're constantly consuming, you know, terrible foods, I mean, it's. It leads. I can look at almost any type of addict, behavior or substance addict, and they have, you know, multiple different forms of ways that they work on their addiction behavior. You know, the fourth is. I'm sorry, the third is the trauma work. The fourth is the environment. Those are the four areas. But so much of this has to do with what you consume and what you put in your body. And if you're so with. With hint, what is hint made out of?

So it's just fruit and water. So we're using the skins and oils of fruit. We don't use flavor houses. I mean, that was sort of another epiphany that I had. I was asking that question back in 2004 when I was thinking about this, and, you know, so many, like vitamin Water, just as an example, in addition to all the sweeteners and lots of other stuff that they have in the product, the. The actual flavor that they put in, where it might be, like dragon fruit, for example, where it says dragon fruit on there, it could have, like, cockroach wings or bone marrow in order to actually create these flavors. So I just wanted fruit. I just wanted, you know, something that was, like, vegan, not that I'm vegan, but, you know, something that was, like, actually descriptive to the actual fruit flavors that were in drinks. And I couldn't believe how. How far off so many of these products were. And so. So we don't use flavor houses. We create all of our own extracts. We use the skins and oils of the fruit, and they're in, you know, huge vats that we actually send into all of our production that is just like two to three drops per bottle. It ends up that there's no calories in the product, but that wasn't the purpose of it either. So it was really about creating something that was real, that just gave a little bit of flavor hint to the actual product. What's fascinating, a few years ago, we actually launched a sunscreen that some of you guys may have had. It's pretty amazing. It's got no oxybenzone in it. We use the essences from the water to actually scent the sunscreen. And it was funny when we launched that the people that were the most upset with us for launching it were the people in the beverage industry. Our consumers actually came back to us and said, oh, my gosh, I was waiting for you guys to launch these new categories. And two weeks after we launched the sunscreen, some major sunscreen companies started putting no oxybenzone on their labels. They actually started reformulating. And that's when I realized that just by doing good and doing better and innovating, we can not only help the consumer. But we can really force a lot of these industries to ultimately innovate and do better for the consumer around health. And so there's a lot of examples right now, not even just in the beverage industry, where some people will say, oh, you guys are getting knocked off. I mean, what we really believe is we're not only building a brand and really changing categories for the better, but we can show these large companies how to ultimately do that. So we've been approached over the years by not just the typical beverage companies, but many other companies, including the way that we ultimately do business and the way that we have that relationship with our community and with our customers, but also with the data around how do we ultimately help people get healthy. I've learned about entrepreneurism and frankly I learned a lot from the tech industry in terms of just kind of mindset too. And I know Joe, you've, you know, had had some time there as well, but I feel like it was a very different mindset that than like the food and beverage industry that felt like, and felt like it was. And this kind of goes to what Chris was talking about, that you have to have the certain resume in order to be successful. And so, you know, in the, in the beverage industry or the food industry or the beauty industry, it's about working at Procter and Gamble or Coke or Pepsi. And then you get this checkbox. In the tech industry it's really about how do we just bring really smart people into the room who can think about problem solving and let's just go solve problems and let's keep adding onto the puzzle versus thinking that that's the end and keep launching, and keep launching and keep launching. And that's like the mindset that we've taken with hint and growing it. And so it's I guess a 15 year old startup, overnight success just kind of on how we think about development but how we think about ultimately having that relationship with the consumer.

If you were a fruit, unlike a spirit animal, what fruit? If you had to come back in life as a fruit, what would be your favorite? What would you be? Like a pineapple or a peach or what would it be?

Maybe clementine. Yeah, so I, you know, I had, I grew up in Arcadia there and I had in an old orchard. So I miss my clementines actually. So that would probably, that would probably be it. But yeah, I mean, you know, I think more than anything this book for me is trying to get it out there to you know, really share that. And really what I hope is that people will figure Out. And I feel like talking to this group, honestly, Joe, too, is like, people are already one step ahead of so many people out there in the world. I've met so many people who aren't actually getting out of bed, getting out of the gate, or getting out of their own mindset because they believe that they can't for some reason. Right. You've all met them. But I feel like, yes, there's college students who believe that. They think that there's this world of people. They think that entrepreneurs or successful people are really the people that are. They've got superpowers. And while I believe that they may have superpowers, they're not the same superpowers that you might think that they have. The superpower is really that they actually try and they live undaunted and they, you know, go out and do great things because they have this mindset in place that really, you know, allows them to go and do, you know, Let.

Me ask you, what does undaunted mean? I mean, I know what it means from reading your book, but what, what, what. How would you define it for people?

Well, exactly that I think it's actually going and trying and not being afraid of. Of failure, not allowing fears to actually get in your way. And so one of the stories that I have in the book, too, is one around the Grand Canyon. So I have a huge fear of heights, and I've had it my whole life. And it's something that when people used to ask me to go do something that had a. Had a height situation in it, I would just say, no, no, no, I don't really feel like doing that. And then a few years ago, I decided to own the fact that I actually have this fear. And every single year, I tackle that fear. And I. And I, you know, don't allow it to control my life. And so that's, you know, that's a story that in particular, Jamie Dimon said to me. Like, it was one where I had it all figured out. I had this plan in place. I got to the Grand Canyon, and then some really bad stuff happened to me that I almost didn't make it out of the Grand Canyon. And finally I sat there. I had trained my mind so well to basically go back and say, gosh, you've accomplished some really big things in my work life, in my personal life, that this is not how it's all going to end. And that's where I got the strength and the energy to actually move forward. And, you know, for those of you who have followed Jamie A little bit over the years. I mean, he had throat cancer. And so he talks, you know, when he reached. He's kind of been a mentor to me over, you know, the last 10 years. And he said that chapter in particular really, really struck him because he had been sick and he didn't know exactly whether or not he was going to make it out. And then finally he said, wait, this is not going to get me. I've done some really amazing things in the world and in the world of business, and this is where I have to set myself right in order to move forward. So being undaunted is really not being afraid. And if you are afraid of things, figure out what those things are. Maybe even tell your community that you're afraid of these things. And you've got to figure out how to not live afraid, how not to live daunted, and then continue to stay undaunted.

Anything I didn't ask you or anything that you wanted to share that you did not that you'd like to leave everyone with.

I think that the key thing that I'm hearing off of this book, which makes me really happy, which, frankly, I've been hearing about, hint over the years, is the. Is the fact that this book is really helping people. And it's. I mean, you could see some of the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and some of the other places where people have put them out there, but I mean, just the idea of helping people, it's like, everybody wants to help people, right? But, I mean, you write a book, again, that wasn't necessarily my initial intent, you know, to be able to do that. But every single day to hear, like, you really helped me. And again, not just entrepreneurs, I mean, people that are really trying to get unstuck. There's plenty of opportunity for people to say, like, oh, my business isn't where I want it to be, or, you know, my life isn't exactly where I want it to be. Like, this is the time to just, like, you know, start, snap out of it, and just wake up and just try and move forward and really do what you can do. And then also celebrate those small wins along the way, too, because I think we all have them. We just discount them because they're not enough. And I think that is really the model and the story and really the message that I want to get out there for him.

I love it, too. Like my buddy Ken Glickman, he says every day you wake up, you either write a comedy, you write a tragedy, you write a love story, you write a drama. I mean, you're the CEO of your life. And the whole notion of books, even. One thing that's become abundantly clear to me is that everyone here in Genius Network has a book, a message, a story that will encourage and inspire people. And I don't want people just to do this for marketing. I mean, obviously, marketing is critically important when it comes to building and selling your company. I want it for what it does for you as a human. And when you put yourself in the position of sharing this, you start learning. I mean, look at all of the things that people are saying just for us, doing a short talk, right? And it's just, that's what's so great about carrying it on and taking it out of your head and putting it out into the world. Because when you put your ideas out into the wild, it's amazing how much that changes things. So awesome.

You can do a lot of big things if you actually, you know, just set your mind to it and just go try. Is that is the big message?

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