What It's Really Like To Lead A Multi-Million Dollar Company For 17 Years

Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell. Let's have some fun today because we have Kara golden on and Cara is just a phenomena. I still remember, have great memories of the first time she joined us and was so happy she had the time to come back and talk again because gotta be busy doing a podcast and running a company. The number one has become, I don't think it was at the time, but the number one leading brand of unsweetened water in the country. But since our first podcast interview, I notice Hint and I see it at store. I think of you every time I go into stores and I see it, see it on the shelves. And airports, airports being able to buy flavored water for the plane flights, to me that's a must. Never get on a plane without your own water.

Absolutely.

You never know what's going to happen anyway. It's just been, I've been noticing your rise from a distance, but also on social media and everything. And your footprint is spreading. And I know there's a lot of lessons and challenges that go along with that and competitors, not everybody's happy that you're someone else is doing well. And so, you know, there's a lot of ideas, solutions you come up with that other people say, well, I can do that and you got to stay on your feet, you got to improve, you got to get better and you're doing that. So congratulations, Kara.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, and so there's a little bit of a change. So I am not actually running Hint right now. Ran it for 17 years. And so I'm still involved, I'm still on the board. But I think that it really goes back to kind of why I started this company, why the success is what it is today in that I really wanted to have a water that just tasted better. And so drinking the pineapple right now, wish I could send one over to you. Maybe that'll be that way in a few years. But more than anything, I think the last few years have allowed people to really appreciate good health. And the way that you stay healthy is to continue to put good things inside of you. Not just products like Hint, but also good food, et cetera. And so I think that as a product, it's really, there's a lot of things that have helped it to become what it is today. But more than anything, one of the Things that I like to do, in addition to mentoring and talking to other founders about how I did it was, is really to share my own story around some of the things that lots of people said was not possible. And so that's what I do.

Well, you really did do the impossible. But over the last few months, couple of years, this process, 17 years, there's a, you brutalize yourself really to build a business and you know, balance is really usually a joke. You do your best you can, but then you try and restore order to the chaos of the universe that you built for yourself. When you get a little time, you get a little money, you get a little staff help, but then if you go on and you, you move to where you actually sell the company, all of these have been experiences that have got to be eye opening for you. And, and what do people who have, you know, you can, you're in a unique position to be able to share with people what to look forward to on the road and the challenges. But also if you break through to the other side, how it can be worth it, how you don't have to say if you're in a certain terrorizing moment, business wise or business situation or financial thing, or your staffing problems or distribution nightmares, or government regulation coming in, crashing in, you're really not going to have to deal with that on a minute to minute, day by day basis the rest of your life if you just stay in what you know, stay in there and fight your way through. And there is another side to the journey and that's what you're just really starting. And so speak to that, if you don't mind.

Yeah, well, we didn't sell. So the company is still privately held. Yeah, so it is still privately held. So I think that, look, one of the things that I have realized over the years is you always think that if we get a little bit bigger, things are going to get easier.

Right.

But a little bit bigger brings new issues. Right. And so I think that the number one thing that every great entrepreneur has shown me over the years is that if that you're always going to continue to face these things and you've got to figure out how to tackle them. And that is such a key thing. So you don't walk into entrepreneurship thinking eventually this is all going to be in a nice neat bowl, right? You're what you do. If you want to grow your company and you want to get better, then you're going to face things that are new, that are challenging, whether that's a new competitor, whether That's a crazy economy, whatever that is. So I think that is such a key thing for people to hear, too, because the number of entrepreneurs that I've spoken to who have said to me, like, even at the million point, they're like, so at what point could you not worry? Right? Never. Right. And so, you know, I wrote this book Undaunted a few years ago. I think that's when you and I first talked, when I was first on. And I think that the thing that I've heard most about that company is it's probably the most real account of an entrepreneur's life. And coupled with if you're trying to raise a family and all of, all of these pieces, there's all of that, and there is no balance. That's another thing that I've talked about. I mean, when I used to hear that all the time, like, find your balance, I'm like, I don't have any. I mean, some days I do, but there's many days where it's just, there's a lot of chaos.

And I think the perfect golf shot, every now and then you'll hit one, but.

Right, right. But you don't walk into entrepreneurship, right, thinking that one day maybe you do. But the best entrepreneurs learn that you just, if you want something that you haven't achieved yet, you're going to face hurdles, you're going to face something new that you don't have experience hitting. And you've gotta, you've gotta go through the mud. And I think that's a real thing, the fluidity.

You know what? This is what I have against the people who, the fake experts who write the books with formulas, how you handle this and how you handle that, because they've interviewed a bunch of people, tellingly, they've never done anything themselves. They're writing a book for you. And it's easy to come up with a formula that'll work in a perfect environment. But the thing is, life is, I mean, like, even our families, with our kids, we could do everything we know, right, Perfect, and then it still goes to hell. Then you have to respond, you know, it's just like, now what? And so running a business is exactly the same. And that's if you're just running the normal business. But as you, as you come up through the ranks, you get systems in place, you get, you learn how the situations repeat and you develop ways of handling it. But it's funny how those don't always Translate. When you're 2 times bigger, 5 times bigger, 10 times bigger, you have to come up with new, go to solutions, and the complexity is just never ends. And so you're a smart person. I'm sure people told you that. I'm sure you knew that before you headed into it. Was it still a surprise for you, the level of that, as you know, went headlong into these growth issues and you were. You had these challenges coming at you.

Yeah. It's interesting. I often say if. If I would have known what I know today, I might not have done it. Right. I mean, it's a nut. It's a chapter that I talk about a lot in life that it's like, if you know too much about the end, you'll never get past the beginning. Right. Because you just. But you have to commit to diving in.

Yeah.

And if you dive in, if you go through the hard stuff, that is the space that I look back on and think about my own growth and about what I accomplished during that time when I thought that it was a very challenging time. I didn't know how I was going to be able to deal with it. It's easier to look back on, I mean, life, but also your business life and look at those times that were so challenging at the time. But the only way to get through it is to actually go through it. And so I think that's. You can be the smartest person in the world, but if you're not committed to weathering a storm, rolling up your sleeves and getting in there and doing what it takes. And I think for me, what the other piece that I've learned is that you can get all of this advice. I love talking to people, and especially people that have. I feel like maybe they've been through it. When I look back and think about a lot of that advice, first of all, it never will solve my problem. Exactly. Right. It's always a tiny bit different. There's something that's different about it.

Right. Right.

But I think that the other piece of it is that I'm not looking for people to solve my problem either. That's another thing. You wouldn't be an entrepreneur if you thought, I just call up Larry and he's going to just make a phone call and he's going to fix it. Right. You actually want to break new ground. You want to do something different. And I think that is such an important piece for people to remember. But sometimes people need that reminder. Right. I think that's what I try and do, especially as I talk to entrepreneurs, if I speak to a larger audience, is that if I can be that person that reminds them why they're here and what they've been able to weather, then I think I can give them back that energy to be able to.

Have so many things for us to keep in our head and everything. And so it's not that you don't know it, but if you talk with, have that conversation you're talking about and maybe you just help them get there, reorganize their priorities or reestablish their priorities or their sequences or help them get back on track. It's the way they'd ordinarily operate, but they maybe haven't realized. You know, we get knocked off track a lot of times. We're not aware of it or just kind of caught up in the confusion forest for the tree situation. But humor me for a minute. If you were going to write, you said the success of Undaunted was because you told the real world of really how it went. Can you think of giving an example of since you wrote the book and you know, has since taken the company even bigger and bigger and expansion and this. We won't even. I can't even begin to itemize all of the things that you've had to face and deal with and navigate. But one particular, a particular example of something big you ran into, an example that since you wrote the book, that and how you handle that, how you approached it, how you unpeel the thing.

So I wrote the book actually right before COVID And I think that Covid for any business leader was a. It was a big unknown, right? And for me, what I figured out in any challenging situation in my life is that I have to see it. I have to get in there and really understand what the problems are. I can listen to my team. I can see what's going on. So moving out of my place as a CEO and then actually getting into the stores and understanding the out of stock situations. The EDI electronic data transmission that was showing up at the register, but not really showing up at the register in many of these stores because they were just so backed up, especially in our category, water. So authorizing that trucks just get out there and go to stores, bypassing distributors, even so that we could get the stores filled. Things like that. I think it goes back to sometimes you have to throw the rules out.

Right? There you go.

And you have to be able to look at how do I service the consumer, not just the consumer that enjoys the product, but the consumer that's actually trying to fill their shelves. Because we really have both consumers in a product like Hint. And so being able to. Nobody wrote a manual for that when we were going through. And not just me, but for anybody who was dealing with that successfully. I think dealing with COVID successfully from a business perspective, I think that's like a. That's a time. And I think also being able to be an authentic leader, that is. I don't think you can ask your team to go and do things that you're not willing to do yourself. So here I was asking people to go into stores at a time I know nobody really wants to think about this time, but the stores were scary, especially in the Bay Area. People are wearing masks. So there were a few people that were like, wait, you're sitting in your office, sitting on a zoom call with us, and you're not actually going into stores? And I couldn't do that. I mean, it's the same. Like, I would not. I think that is the other thing that I've recognized about leadership. And I'm sure there's some books out there, to your point, that talk about this, but I really saw firsthand, how do you build trust with your team? You put yourself in the arena. Right. You have to. And especially when things are scary.

Yeah.

And I think that is a key situation that I saw. And we grew substantially because there were a lot of other leaders in our industry who weren't doing that, and they were not servicing the stores like we were, and they lost space, and it took them a long time to get it back. Back, if ever.

Yeah. I'm reminded of legendary coach Bear Bryant at Alabama. And over the years, he got more and more removed from his players and where at the time, at the end of his career, he went through the practice, not on the field, walking around with a whistle and talking to the players and moving them around, he. Or even the sideline, he was up in his tower, looking down. He thought, I could sit and look. And then he lost touch with the players, and the whole program kind of soured there a little bit towards the end. It just wasn't out. Same Alabama that did have the magic. But the thing is that, let's see if you'll agree with it. One thing to realize when people, you know, you're going to go through it, everybody listening, you're either gonna. You're gonna go through it on the way down or the way up, you're going to run into major issues. Right?

Yeah.

It's good if you get a game plan or an idea about how to handle it. Number one, you're not going to figure it out all at once. You're not going to go to the mountaintop with like Moses and come down with 10 commandments to solve your business, because even if you did, your people wouldn't listen to you because all of a sudden they're not involved in any of these solutions. And so it's not. You're not going to come at all at the genius. You're not going to be Leonardo coming up with this solution no one's ever thought of, and you're going to solve it. It's like you go through. It's like you're reading a book one page at a time. You get up, you go to work, Someone comes in, a phone call comes in, you respond, you look at a email here, you respond and you start working your way through it. And so you don't have to. So don't get overwhelmed with, what am I going to do? You don't need to know. You just need to know the next step. And the other thing is you're the smartest person on your company to make these kind of decisions. And so the smart way to look at it is to get yourself out there in front of the issue and let the answers come to you. If you're there and you see it with your own eyes, not filtered through somebody else telling you see with your own eyes, it's like all of a sudden your experience, your knowledge, your skill set will kick in. It's like, okay, now I know. Now I know what we need to do. Okay, I've seen it, I got it. Then you can move forward. So it's a process. That's another way. So I'm interested in your feedback on that.

It's interesting. I've thought a lot about the word smart, and I wouldn't say that I'm dumb, right? And I'm not trying to take myself down a few level. But I think that leadership is great. Leadership is empathy, right? And you see the empathy. And I think a lot of what you're talking about is that there's a lot of gut, there's a lot of trying to figure, there's problem solving, but there's also thinking about other people, right? Whether that's the consumer or that's your employees. And you're sitting there thinking about, is this the right thing to do? Right? And I think that, that there are a lot of smart people in the world who don't have that gut and don't have that skill. And I think that it really boils down to caring as well. Right? And I Think, I mean that's another thing that I often, if anyone listens to me, I say to my kids who are in their 20s, like, you gotta work on something that you care about. Whether you go start a company or you're walking into a business, it's great to get a big paycheck. And maybe you do that for a certain period of time. But if you don't really care about what you're doing, if you're not interested in and the people that you work with or the product or the service, I mean it's going to get old. You're not going to be coming up with the solves for when you're hitting these roadblocks. And again, this is not just as a CEO, this is also, I think just in day to day life. Like you have to be interested in what you're going to spend the majority of your day working on. And if you're not, then I think it's pretty tough to be, to really have that empathy.

Well, you won't get any enjoyment out of it if you don't care about it. You're not going to make the effort and when you do accomplish something, it's not going to mean anything to you. And so you're not going to get the satisfaction that somebody who really cared about the project is getting by seeing it actually happen and take place one step at a time. You're just not going to enjoy it and so you better go find something else.

Well, and I think that's going back to leadership too. I think it's. Look, there's a lot of founders that I've met and some of them very successful, some of them not or have had challenges or failures or whatever and along the way. But I think that the thing that most of them have that you can just see it in their soul is this, they care, right? They have this, they have this idea that they want to get out in the world because it's going to help people or it's going to solve a problem for people. And I think that the challenge for people who are not empathetic leaders is that when you don't have that, that founder caring about what the next step is and thinking about it, that's where you often see companies kind of hit the bumps in the road. Because there are leaders, very smart people who will come into to companies but those aren't typically the people that are going to turn things around or lead in the same with the same caring that a founder, entrepreneur. I mean look at Apple. Apple had go Back to the Steve Jobs analogy, right? I mean, they didn't care about the company in the same way as Steve did. Steve just like ate and breathed.

It's like, I've heard this phrase. I'm sure there's been books written on it too. I'm sure you have skin in the game. It's like, do they have this. Entrepreneurs have skin in the game. They lifeblood is in there.

And.

And so when you bring in these. Well, that's a lot of time. The problem with outside consultants and experts, you think you're in a problem and you got someone over there that they're telling you they're going to solve it. They've done this, they've done that, and you want to trust them. You know, you're looking for help and you bring them in, you find out they're just bringing, you know, it's kind of like a decorator. You've redecorated your house where you get a decorator and they have the same style, they just go and they use the same kind of tones, the same furniture and same look. And they just take that look and they put it down in a beach house or they take maybe a little modification. But this designer, pretty much you're going to do their thing. And it's kind of like you see that with a lot of consultants or a lot of experts, even bringing in a new CEO or a new person for whatever you like. Oh, I can't wait. Look what they did in the past. Well, they're just going to bring in and import everything they did in the past. But that's old. That's old information and maybe ill fitting, maybe your situation at all.

I think that's so true. And I think it's applicable not just to consumer products companies. I think it's also going back to your analogy of sports teams. I mean, I think that's true too, that if you don't have somebody who's coming in who really cares about the players and understanding of what's going on overall, or where the deficits are, even to some extent, who their families are, what they care about, all of those kind of things I think, bubble up into being an empathetic leader, I guess, and an authentic leader, because if you show that you have an understanding and get to know people along the way too, then you're going to have a lot better results out of your team. And again, whatever your team is.

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I can't get too much into it right now, but yeah, I mean I had run the company successfully for 17 years and again I'm still a major shareholder and, and still on on the board but unfortunately I can't get too much into that topic.

So other things came up where you needed your time. Seemed like.

Yeah. And frankly over the past couple of years since this happened, I've been also working on my podcast and really growing that the podcast is now in the top 1% of entrepreneur podcasts in the world where I'm interviewing founders and who who are really helping me think about even a lot of stuff that I talk about around empathetic leadership and being authentic and why do people follow other people. But I also think that I enjoy the puzzle, right. And the early days of the puzzle. I like getting puzzles where I don't have the picture right, where I'm like trying to figure out what is this. And that's another thing that I've noticed about entrepreneurs over the years too. And I didn't know this early on about myself, but I do now is that there are stages of entrepreneurship that some people are better at than others. There are some people that can't hit or I shouldn't say can't, but don't really enjoy the early days. Right. Once you hit 10 million, then put me in. But there's and I think that it's a rare breed that you can have an entrepreneur take it to hundreds of millions, which is what we did with hint that what Steve Jobs did with Apple as well. So I think that finding out what people are good at and what they enjoy I think is such a key piece for, you know, have you done the Entrepreneur and company?

I'm sure you've done projections on how big is this water market? I mean your annual revenue is up to what now?

I mean we're private still, but hundreds of millions of dollars, millions of dollars.

And how big? I mean, is it a market that you can go in other countries as it are? Maybe you already are.

Totally. And in fact, it's interesting that you mentioned that we have not done that. Hint has not gone into other countries. But one. One of the things that I remember talking to the guys at Vitamin Water early on, a friend introduced us and this guy, Mike Rapoli, who was the president of Vitamin Water, I remember him saying, really focus on the US like the rest of the countries. It's not saying that there's nothing going on in those countries, but from a consumer product standpoint, focus on the US and until you get how big. Certain. And I was. He was like, I don't know, like hundreds of millions of dollars before you do that. I think that the difference between a product like Hint and a product like Vitamin Water or some of these healthy perception products that are out there that are not really water at all, they're probably closer to a soda or a diet soda, is that there are. My purpose in developing Hint was to help people get healthy and stay healthy. And today, everything that has happened in the US around diabetes and obesity rates and all of these things, they're now happening throughout the world. And the US is a couple of years ahead. And so if we could get into those countries with a product like Hint, maybe we could actually change health in those countries before they're running into dealing with Ozempic and everything else that we're looking at today. So I think there's a big market for that.

Yeah, I said that. Focus on the main thing and the ripple effect, the flywheel type thing, the. The 80, 20 rule. But then it's like the 80% of the 20%, which is the 4%. You focus on the core and then it'll ripple out. Good.

Yeah. Because, I mean, in the US we were building as this health problem was happening. I mean, diet sweeteners. I believed early on in the early 2000s, that diet sweeteners were actually doing the reverse of what most consumers believed. And I saw it firsthand. I had gained a ton of weight by drinking diet soda. And once I stopped drinking diet soda, I had weight just falling off. And I was like, what? Like, this is bizarre. Why is this happening to me? And what I realized, though, is I was thirsty, right? So I wasn't drinking anything anymore because I lived on Diet Coke in particular. And so I started looking at drinking water. And I never really liked the taste of water. And I would do everything I carbonated. I just. I'm like, this is so boring. So I started slicing up fruit and throwing it in water and I thought, this is all I really need. I don't need sweeteners, I don't need anything else in the drink. And that's how Hint was developed.

Yeah.

Again, I didn't think I'm going to go take on Big soda or the diet sweetener industry as perhaps I'm known to some today. What I thought of it as is if I could just go out and give people what I've seen, then that would be like, that would hit my heart. Right. That would be generous. Right. That I would do that. But the difference between what I see today and sort of what I weathered as I'm growing Hint over the years is that we actually see what's coming to a lot of these parts of the world. And in the Middle east, for example, just like they've got shortages of water for sure, but then in addition they've got this massive problem with diabetes and obesity and they're addicted to diet sweeteners. And that's where we were. So if we could actually get there before knowing the information that we know from the US like I think that'd be really interesting.

Yes. And talk about your for a minute about the podcast and were you doing the podcast? Wonder if you had started the podcast when we had our other interview.

You know, it was, I had started it almost eight years ago, but it was really, I didn't even call it a podcast. I was interviewing people, creating video and somewhat using it for LinkedIn but wasn't really. They didn't have reels back then. They didn't have all these different platforms. And so when Covid, everybody went on Zoom Riverside, whatever, that's when I decided we could make this happen and it'll be a lot easier. I don't have to actually go into people's offices and because again, I was running a company and trying to actually do this podcast. But it goes back to kind of what keeps me going and what gives me energy, which is if I can actually create and help people through creations and through information, through stuff that I've seen firsthand myself that has worked, then that's an amazing life. Right. Like that to me feels that feels really good and makes me super happy. And I if I can interview people that are going to also bring people information that and experiences that maybe they haven't had, but maybe they can listen to and pick up their some pieces from these experiences that would be amazing.

Well, let's talk about your eight year journey into the podcast more or less project. And for most of us, the podcasting is not a big moneymaker. It's something we do to give back. And like you say, you get it energizes you. And if your audience is growing, you feel like you're. You're helping. It's a way of giving back. I think we all want to give back to some extent, so add value that those type of things. So as you've gone through this project of your podcast and taking it to the top 1%, what did tell us about that journey? What have you learned? How has that evolved Business evolution of the podcast?

Yeah. Well, I think first of all, I mostly focus on, I would say 90% of my guests are founders, and many of them are the CEOs of the companies. But. But I would say that the founder story and the founder drive and what makes them tick is really how the podcast has ended up to really what it's ended up evolving into. So I think when I first started eight years ago, it was like, okay, I know a bunch of actually, I know a bunch of cool women who are running companies. I'm going to focus on them. And I felt like the podcast was. I had no idea what I was doing. There was just no focus on.

I don't know if anybody's going to listen.

Right. And what I realized, what I mean, I would say that 95% of the time, this is when I know I'm doing an okay job of interviewing people. 95% of the time, people, my guests say to me, I've never been asked that question.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm like, bingo. Right at that point. And it's. The reason is going back to your point about people who are writing books who haven't been operators is I'm an operator.

Right?

Right. And I remember those days where, you know, and I think that when you have somebody like that interviewing another operator, it's like they know you've been in the trenches, you've been through the mud, you've had those hard days. Right. Where you've got to put your best smile on, but you're not sure you're going to make it.

Yeah.

Right. And I think that is kind of the key that I've seen that this podcast has evolved into, because a lot of people that I'm talking to do not have or haven't been asked the typical questions just because I'm curious. And that curiosity is coming out in these interviews. They end up saying things that they've.

Never talked about, you know, the thing about that car is what I found is, like, we go and we build things, build a company, and we're talking with people about building the company, and they're talking with us, and we're talking about problems and how we're going to solve this and how that they never really. Even the people around us, the people I find that are the most interested in. When you'll interview a founder or an entrepreneur, the people on their own team, because they say, I never heard. I never knew that. I never knew what the thinking was. Because you never get in the situation where you can talk about stuff like that because you're always so busy talking about survival and moving forward. And there's so many other things to talk about. You don't sit back with the cigars and the. The coffee or whatever and talk about how you look at things. So I think it's a real service.

Yeah, no, I remember. I mean, there's so many stories that are so memorable. But Chip Wilson, who's the founder of Lululemon, we're having this conversation on the podcast, and he said, women build boards differently than men. And I was like, okay, here we go. Right? Like, what's he gonna say?

Yeah.

And they don't edit the podcast. So I'm like, I hope he's gonna be careful. Cause this could be messy. But he said, when women are building boards, they put. They're very methodical about who they put on. They're like, okay, I need one person from finance. I need another person who's built. He's a brand person, marketing person. All these different people, men, they want to make sure that they've got people who are going to vote the same way. And he said. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. And he said, no one has ever asked me. And again, it's just his opinion, but I personally think he's pretty spot on.

Yeah.

And he said, and unfortunately, that's why women who are founding companies who are building out their boards end up losing. Which is really, like an interesting question or interesting statement.

They weren't building it to get the votes.

They were building to do what's right for shareholders. Right. And for the company.

Right.

And so it's fascinating. Another one, if you want to hear some of the more interesting. So another one, Eugene Rem, who. I don't know if you know Rumble Fitness.

Sure.

It's a boxing.

Right.

So Eugene came on, actually right at the beginning of COVID and we were supposed to meet live in New York. And then I was leaving New York. And I said, hey, if you're open to it, let's do it on Zoom. He said, sure. So the night before, he was the first gym to close down. Even before New York mandated that all gyms be shot, he was the first. And there were a lot of fitness studios in New York City that were just angry at him because he said, I don't know how to box virtually. Like, it just. It's a contact sport. It just doesn't make sense. And so anyway, with that, he laid off all his staff. Like before people were even thinking about this. I'm like, there's a lot of people. I have a few friends who own fitness businesses in New York City, and they think you jumped the gun. And he went on to talk about. He said, I can't remember his exact quote, but he said, if they had been through what I had been through, then they would understand. And I said, so I want. Unpack that. Like, I'm so curious about what you mean. And he said, 2008, 2009, he owned a bunch of nightclubs, and he figured that, oh, it's not going to last very long. Everything's going to be fine. So he continued to pay his employees, and the majority of his consumers were Wall street executives. They weren't coming. And he went bankrupt.

Wow.

And he said, I'm not going back there again. And he said, so every. He's a serial entrepreneur. Every great leader, if they have a situation that they can learn from, it's going to be very difficult for anyone to tell them, especially if it went in a direction that they couldn't change in some way. So he said, I was cutting my losses early because I don't want that pain anymore. And I was like, that is so. Wow. I mean, we got off. And I actually said to him, I'm like, are you sure that you want me to run this episode? I know there's a lot going on in the world right now. He's like, no. And you know why I want you to run it? Because I want to go back and see years later when we're out of this, if I was right. And I'm like, that is so powerful. Right. And again, maybe people haven't had that situation, but I think that plug some other situation. I'm sure you've got them. I've got them where you. You're gonna learn from something, and pretty much no one's gonna be able to tell you that you should do it differently because you have been in the trenches and you've Seen it.

Well, we're. You know, I think we're all obviously products of the experiences we've been through and the lessons we've learned from that. And some are happy lessons. A lot of them have left scars. I think a lot of times we forget about those things, though. You know what I'm saying? That they're in our DNA. They become. They burn us so hard, they become part of our DNA, and we instinctively steer around anything that would allow us to get in that situation again. Can you think back to anything you've gone through that maybe has had that effect on you and how you run your business, kept you out of going overboard in a certain direction or get talked? Because, you know, when you're in charge, everybody's trying to talk you into things. They're always trying to spend your money.

Well, I mean, I think that. Yeah, it's a. It's an interesting question. I think that. I remember the first few products that we launched at Hint. Consumers. We asked consumers, we said, so, what are the flavors that we should launch? And there were some crazy ones, right? Like peanut butter water, or. And what we realized, we actually thought that we. We took a lot of that consumer feedback and we thought, okay, let's. Let's launch a hibiscus water. Let's do. And we did that. But what we learned is the exact same. The top flavors are the exact same flavor or exact same fruits that are in the bestseller category in the fruits section in the grocery store. It's not brain surgery. Right. Consumers will tell you, I want different. But the reality is, and again, coin a Steve Jobs term, don't ask the consumer what they want. Show them. Tell them what they want and why they want it.

Well, I think vanilla is still the number one selling ice cream.

Exactly. And you know what? That's another point. Right? Like, I think this concept of different and unique. It sounds good.

Yeah.

But. But, like, don't take away the coral flavors. Don't take away vanilla. Right? You've got to have the staples there and continue to build from there. I mean, I have so many stories like that. Be willing to say no to grocers if you. If I remember hearing a story about. It was one of the. One of the new toothpaste brands. I can't. Might have been Tom's of Maine. Somebody had told me this story that they learned. And we learned the hard way because we didn't really listen exactly. Because we thought, well, it's toothpaste. It's not really water. But I think unless they have like eight SKUs going into a grocery store that they would say no. And you get so excited when somebody like a Walmart or Target or somebody says to somebody big that you've aspired to do business with forever. Like, well, I'm going to get one sku and then it'll get bigger from there. You're going to die on the shelf with one sku? Yeah, you won't have enough space and you'll have.

You won't be seen. Right. You won't be seen.

You won't be seen. And so the response back from a buyer will be, yeah, didn't work. Yeah, and it'll be harder for you to get back in than instead. I always say to entrepreneurs, focus on getting that example placed in some store and show velocity where it worked up against who they're going to put you next to. And don't go have it in your head that unless, whatever that number is, unless I get five SKUs on the shelf, I don't want you to kick me out. So I need to have at least five SKUs and if I don't have that much space, then this isn't going to work and you shouldn't give me a test. That sounds crazy to so many entrepreneurs because they're like, I'm going to get my shot in Walmart or I'm going to get my shot in Costco or Target. But if you don't have the right mix in the ice cream, if they don't have vanilla, but they have blueberry hibiscus and all these crazy flavors, it's not going to work. You got to have a mix of the core flavors and also enough space or it won't work. So don't be afraid to say no. Instead, know that you're going to get your shot if you can actually show in the data that it works the way that you're selling.

Great advice, Great advice. Tell me this. How did you react emotionally to not going into work every day and turning that over to someone else? How did it feel? Was it an adjustment or not?

I'm always such a busy person, and it's not like I've totally disconnected from the business. So there are. I mean, I've. That question I've talked to many founders about, and it can be hard. I think it's also interesting because so many, the last few years with COVID people were not really going into the office, so that was less of, I think, an issue. But yeah, I mean, look, I think that where my head is, as long as I can continue to add value and not just to the company and to the team, but also to consumers. So I'm constantly incubating ideas.

That's what I wanted to ask you. What I remember was being run ragged with so many things to do. The only time I could get any peace and quiet was, was on an airplane going somewhere. And if I was reading a magazine or whatever, all of a sudden, boom, kind of magical type ideas would come. And by the time you get off the plane, you're so excited. I can't wait to get back and pass these on. But you know, you need, you need the pressure off of you to be able to kind of think about things. And I just wondered and if you were experiencing that, that like you're able to make really the leadership contribution of direction and vision, maybe even better when you're not saddled with the day to day, minute to minute things.

Yeah. I think the hardest thing for somebody who's led a company for a long time is if people do things a little bit differently. Right. And so I think that as long as you can get the results, that then that takes some getting used to. Yeah, right. I think where the problem happens, and I'm thinking about a couple of entrepreneurs in particular, is when you see that there's no more empathy, there's no more connection, not only to employees or consumers, and that's, that's been cut and then the health of the company starts to be affected too. That's hard.

Right.

And I think that's the typical beef that I think people have with private equity overall. And not all private equity is like that, but I think it's like if you take the soul out, you better put another soul back in.

Yeah.

And I think that a founder can adjust as long as they know that the house is being handled right.

Right now. How much is it in really the water business, even the podcast? How much going to the top? I mean, you do have a clear idea about wanting it to move up, to grow, to develop, to be all it can be. How much is strategy and looking for competitive advantages? Is it just a matter of you're not going to come out with a new bottle of water next, next month or maybe a flavor, but you got a repetitive product, more or less. And so it's a matter of now, how are we going to grow our efficiencies in processing, distribution and getting into other outlets? How much is the strategy, thinking ahead, seeing what other companies do, how much does that role play in your running the company and decision making at the Top about where you're going to be next year, where you want to be? Or is it just terms in bigger. We just want bigger volume, doing more of what we're doing.

So you're talking about the podcast in particular?

Well, it's either. Both of them. The similar type thing.

Yeah. I mean, I. Look, I think for me, the podcast was always about fun. Right. And I didn't sit there and have a massive strategic plan. As I mentioned before, it started off as anybody who would talk to me. And then as it continued to grow, then I think you have to make some adjustments to it. But I think that's the key thing that I've seen. I do think they're really different from a company versus versus a podcast. But I think that the similarity and where it does cross is that you have to figure out if you're serving the listener or the consumer.

Yeah.

And be. Be willing to hone in on what is it that people are commenting on that the types of podcasts that they enjoy. Again, the consumer isn't necessarily saying, I want to hear from these guests.

Right.

But what they're saying is and what your role is to kind of look at what is the story that is building here. And I think that's very similar for a product like Hint, too. Where I just wanted a product that was helping people to get healthy. Never did I think that I would start hearing from doctors and patients who, you know, Hint has become over the years, water that many people who are going through chemotherapy drink. See, there you go. And. Yeah. And the metallic taste that people get when they're going through chemo, it's very hard to drink anything. And water just enhances that metallic taste. Sugar makes you nauseous. And I hear the same thing over and over again. Now, we're not considered. You didn't know that fact. Like, we're not considered the cancer water, but we're helping people. Right. Like, that's a powerful position. And yet when people get over chemo, get over cancer, they're still drinking Hint, which I think is fascinating. Right. Like, typically when you're. If you're sick, you've got a stomach issue and you're having Pedialyte or whatever, you're like, I'm never touching that stuff ever again. It's too. Like, I have this nasty memory. But you don't. And so you don't with him. So anyway, I think that it's. It's listening for clues from these consumers that. That I think that's where the crossover is with what we do with the podcast too. Like, what are they enjoying, what are they commenting on, what are they buying? And creating a story from that. Yeah, and I think that is sometimes the. Look, numbers don't lie for sure. But what is the story that you can craft from these, from any data. And I think that your ability to do that and really and ask for that is super key, whether you're running a podcast or you're running a company like Hint.

I'm glad you brought the thing up about cancer because I've got a cousin going through cancer chemo this month and there he's in South Georgia. And I'm sure Hint is not on the shelves in Sober to Georgia. So I'm going to.

Oh, oh, definitely Fresh market. But yeah, Instacart.

There's no fresh market in Sober in Georgia. But the thing is that there is Amazon. That's where.

And ordering, that's where I get. And this is. And that's the other thing too. I mean, ask any person who's going through any type of. Of cancer is sugar is, you know, you want to avoid sugar because sugar and cancer are buddies. Right. And you want to get rid of it. So HIN has no sweeteners, but that includes no sugar.

Yeah.

So it's a good product for people and it helps you to stay hydrated and. And then also gets this yucky metallic taste. And sometimes people I've talked to, I have a very good friend of mine who's going through cancer right now and his dose, he was. He's a doctor as well, so he knows quite a bit about this. But he. I guess these lower levels of chemo, sometimes you don't have this metallic taste. But anyway, it's definitely. I'm proud that we created a product that helps people not only drink water, but get through some really challenging times.

Well, what I was getting at before, I probably a little. Not too clear on the strategy and all. It's like this. Nobody goes to number one. No one does anything great without by accident. You don't fall out of bed, screw around, and hey, I'm number one. And so the deal is that there's a stage you go through where you have an idea, you, and then you prove it. Proof of concept. And then you get established, hey, I'm making money, I'm supporting myself. And now we're growing. And so those kind of, you know, your intent changes and goals follow intent. And so nobody goes to number one without at some point and stays there unless they say, like, let's just see how Big this thing can get. We've got a chance to do something beyond what I thought. And so your intent grows as your success grows. But if that intent is fuzzy, then you're open to not being as focused on your decision making as you could be, and you don't wind up making the progress you could be in your primary goals. And so that's why I was asking you about how much did your intent change? How do you refine your intent? Where did you get the idea that this could be something special? The podcast. Because it's the idea of getting as many people as possible exposed to the information. Much like the water, you want to get it out to as many places as possible.

Well, I think it goes back to actually very similar reason why I wrote my book was that people were reaching out to me to, to help them. Right. And to mentor them and, and get through challenging times, and I didn't have enough hours in the day. I'm not a coach. I'm not. That's not what I'm doing. But if I could do something that could help hundreds of thousands of people at a time just by having a one hour interview to help them think about things, that is a. That's a really powerful thing. And so that was the only reason I. You know, it's interesting because I think goals are great and I think they're important to have along the way, but the best entrepreneurs and the best leaders, I believe, are constantly moving that goal. Right. Which, I mean, that's a very frustrating thing when you think about it. If you have a boss that is like, you set a goal with your boss and they're constantly, they're saying, oh, you almost hit it, so we're going to move it down the line. That's not great. Right. But an entrepreneur, once they meet that goal, is constantly. They don't stop there. Right. One of the questions I frequently ask a lot of these founders on the podcast is what success do you. And most of them say that they haven't achieved it yet. These are people like the guy Lululemon hasn't achieved yet. He's done pretty well. That's fine. He's got nice things, but he hasn't really achieved it yet. And that's consistent because they keep moving the goal. Yeah, Right. And I think that is, I think that's really important that.

Well, the thing is, if you don't do that, here's the alternative. You get stale, you get bored, and you go in decline. You're either stretching, you don't live life On a level line, you live either you go sloping down or sloping up. And so you're not going to be, you know, people say, I just want to keep doing what I'm doing better. Get somebody else in the leadership position. Because you're going to go, you know, your employees are going to lose interest. You're going to lose interest. The product's going to decay, will set in unless you're continuing to challenge them. And it's so true for how it can be better. You really don't have a choice. I wish. It's kind of like golfers get criticized. Like, he's just never satisfied with this. He's a handicap. He's a 10. He wants to be. Get into single digits, and then he wants to shoot ball. He's never satisfied. Yeah. Otherwise, he stopped playing golf.

Yeah. And I think that's true. I mean, where you're constantly. Look, I think that's why golf is so interesting to people and frustrating. Right. The best golfers will sit there and also you can just see it, this angst in them.

It's never frustrating if you're not trying to improve. You know, you'll just hit the ball wherever it goes. You're happy, but you're probably not going to enjoy golf.

Yeah. And I think that's what's the puzzle of how do I get better? You're going to talk to other people that you aspire to be like, but it never ends. There's this constant search.

But we operate. The thing is, for people are listening everything. We operate in a world where people are not like us and people don't think like us, and people are going to tell us their opinion of us and the way we look at things. And most of the time, their opinion is going to be wrong. It's going to be coming from an employee vantage point. It's not from the vantage point where we are. And so you've got to be kind of sure of why you're doing things the way you're doing it and how it's going to pay off for the people that are looking to you for leadership. And so a lot of people look to you for leadership. You're doing a great job of delivering. Thank you so much. And I wish you the best. Continue to success in both of your activities. Looking forward to your next book, which you haven't even mentioned about writing, but I'm sure is coming. Hopefully we'll do this again down the road. And how about a last word? I always like to give, I guess, the last word what would you say for the people that have stayed with us and followed what we've covered so far? Any last comment? For people who want to do something.

Great with their life, I think get out there and try and nobody has it all figured out. And I think you just have to take those initial steps and see what happens in life. And I think that is. And reflect. I think that there's nothing wrong with looking back and reflecting. There's something wrong with looking back and getting stuck. Yeah, right. But. But that is different from using that information in order to move forward.

Hey, thanks so much, Carl. It's been tremendously fun, just like last time and so glad you took the time to cover. Great to see you continuing to grow and make a bigger and bigger impact.

Thank you.

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