The Exchanges

Q mentioned, um, like, like, uh, roto-molding or rotational molding, because, and I think most people can, can picture what an igloo ice chest is like, but what made this different was the plastic was heavy duty. It's like, almost like industrial strength plastic that was So strong, you could stand on it, and you could sit on it, and it just, and it was heavier. Is that a fair description?

A Yeah, it, it was heavier. It's, rotomolding is a, is a manufacturing process where you take, um, polyethylene, which is a plastic pellet form resin, and you put it into a hollow mold, and you begin to coat the walls, and it really piles up in the corners and makes for a real durable part, and the overall wall thickness is quite a bit larger as well. You know, I remember in the early days, and when a customer called up and said, well, tell me about your product, what makes it durable, I'd say, It's roto molded. And I said, it's the same process used to make whitewater kayaks. And all of a sudden they get that imagery of a, you know, heavy duty, single piece plastic part.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, it, it was heavier. It's, rotomolding is a, is a manufacturing process”

Q this is still pretty early days on YouTube when people still thought of it as cats, you know, cats on skateboards, but you put out a YouTube. Do you, do you remember what the thinking was behind that? Because again, you know, you're still, you're growing, but you don't have a massive budget for advertising. And what did you think you were going to do with YouTube at that time?

A Well, I, you know, I felt like we could create some really short videos talking about the value proposition of, of Yeti. And I had a high school buddy that owned a camera and some audio equipment. And, uh, then we started getting into some, you know, funner videos of my friend, the same guy that owned the camera, found this bouncer down on, on sixth street here in Austin and hired him to come do this video where It's talking about the difference between an igloo cooler and a Yeti. Yeah. And it's this, you know, 500 pound man versus, you know, a Yeti. It shows him tearing up an igloo, right? Slamming it on the ground, stepping on it, hinges breaking, lid caving in, and then he tries to do the same thing to a Yeti tundra, and he's throwing it off cliffs, he's jumping up and down on it, and just, there's no better way to share a durability story than that kind of funny content.

AI assessment note: “I felt like we could create some really short videos talking about the value proposition”

Q Yeah, makes sense. And, and meanwhile, you guys are all obviously getting older. So tell me a little bit about your involvement as kids with, with his business. What would you guys do? Salma, what do you remember? Would you guys go there on the weekends and like pack boxes and help out?

A Yeah. I remember my first job in the summer was actually going into the factory and stickering bars because I didn't have packaging machines at that time to do it. So I remember me and my sister would be lining them up and we'd race as who can do the more, you know, who can sticker the most amount of, um, fruit and nut bars. So that was our, that was my first exposure into the, into the family business and on the factory floor. And we'd work right. Eight in the morning till four in the afternoon with one half an hour of lunch, but we'd be on our feet all day, and we'd get five dollars cash at the end of the day.

AI assessment note: “my first job in the summer was actually going into the factory and stickering bars”

Q And tell me how it works. Like I'm a senior citizen. How does it work?

A Super simple. So guy, you would pick that after breakfast, you want to check in with snug every day. Let's say at 8:30 in the morning, we'll send you a bunch of reminders. And if you don't open your snug app and hit just the basic check mark by eight 30, we will then send you a few more reminders. Then we will notify your emergency contacts. Hey, Guy did not check in this morning. Here is his last known location. Um, and that's on our free plan. If you are on our paid plan, we have a alarm service that will call you as well, call your emergency contacts, and then if still no one confirms you're okay, arrange a visit by emergency services.

AI assessment note: “you would pick that after breakfast, you want to check in with snug every day.”

Q life changing thing happens to you in the senior year of high school, and I think it happens, uh, during a visit to Penn. Um, tell me the story. You got, you're a senior in high school. It's 2009 and you are, you're in Philadelphia visiting Penn. Why are you there? Why are you visiting? You're visiting because you're presumably because you want to go there. Tell me the story.

A Yeah. So I was, uh, actually to step back, right? So a couple months before visiting Penn, um, I was starting to feel thirsty a lot. And so I got to the point where I couldn't go through a whole hour long class without having to leave, go get some water from the water fountain and come back. And then it got to the point that I couldn't drive from school back home without stopping at a convenience store to buy a gallon of water and drink it on the way back. And so I'm getting more and more thirsty. I don't know why I'm getting thirsty. And To me, drinking water is a good thing, so I wasn't too concerned about it, and then I got accepted into Penn, and so I went to Penn for this kind of new student day, um, and I got there with my family. We're staying in a hotel the night before this whole thing's scheduled to start. We walk around campus, um, and I, I pass out as we're, as we're walking around campus.

AI assessment note: “I pass out as we're, as we're walking around campus.”

Q And who, who were you thinking were your competitors? Did you think that, that Maybelline and Revlon and L'Oreal were your competitors, or not really, because they were, they were charging four or five times the amount that you guys would be charging?

A In terms of the space we were trying to get to, yes, very much. Maybelline, CoverGirl, There was some smaller brands, NYC and Wet n Wild. Those are more of our core, core competitors, because they were the value brands, even Rima London. But both Rima London and NYC were owned by Cody. Wet n Wild was a standalone. But that was the problem in the early days, that you had a few incumbents that owned a bunch of brands and controlled all the space at retail. So you had L'Oreal, which was L'Oreal and Maybelline. You had P and G, which owned cover girl at the time. So there was no room to you to like box your way in two feet of space because it was all controlled by four or five companies, even if it was 12 brands on shelf.

AI assessment note: “In terms of the space we were trying to get to, yes, very much.”

Q Okay. Seventy million dollars. So here's a question for you. At seventy million dollar valuation, why, why were you open to selling some or all of the business at that point?

A The first reason was we had an opportunity to do something for the family, which was perhaps not generational wealth, but wealth for definitely more money than I've made in my life. I was 29 years old. I was able to put money away, and if everything else fell apart, I would still have financial flexibility, and the second reason was I didn't know what I didn't know. Maybe L'Oreal and Revlon were working on the next thing to take me out in 30 seconds. I had no idea. Um, and then the third thing was really just, like, it's not what you know, it's who you know. So I think being connected with these guys who are in this private equity world that are selling companies every day, they know the steps, they know the game plan to make you sale ready for the future.

AI assessment note: “The first reason was we had an opportunity to do something for the family”

Q All right. So, on the strength of that, you, I guess, see the potential to really lean into restaurants, right? And You then open Budokan, also in Philadelphia, which, describe it for people, I've been there, but describe it for people who don't know what this restaurant is.

A Budokan, the original Budokan was a Pan-Asian restaurant, so it was sort of fusion. It's very theatrical in its design, and a centerpiece of it is a, like, you know, 12 foot golden Buddha. Again, I don't take credit for the culinary concept I did not create on my own. It started in, with Wolfgang Puck at a restaurant he had in California called Chinois on Main. Then, uh, another gentleman opened a place called China Grill in New York and in Miami, and I had gone to all these places, loved the energy, and I went and spoke with different designers to ask if they would design my restaurant, one of which was Philippe Stark, who turned me down, but said, there's ways of buying my furniture, call these people. So I ended up designing it myself with my friend Owen Kamahira,

AI assessment note: “the original Budokan was a Pan-Asian restaurant, so it was sort of fusion.”

Q And blueberry. Ok, cool. Ok, a lot of questions for you. How did this idea come about? I mean, you can put protein in almost anything, but sprinkles? Who knew?

A Well, my co-founder and I are both full-time working moms. We are very busy, and we only get about two hours a day with our children. And we don't want to spend those two hours fighting with them and negotiating with them on what to eat. And we just wanted to be happier with them in the little time that we had. So Nicole came up with this idea around sprinkles because she's Dutch. And in the Netherlands, they eat thirty million pounds of sprinkles a year. And they eat it on toast for breakfast. So we thought, well, why don't we use that as the Trojan horse and sneak in some function and protein and fill them up if they love eating sprinkles so much?

AI assessment note: “Nicole came up with this idea around sprinkles because she's Dutch.”

Q And now you had done a lot of the foundational work. You had gotten it on the legs of Pamela Anderson, and people were sort of becoming aware of it. But what did they do that turned this into a, an iconic global phenomenon? How did, how do you think they did that?

A After they did the acquisition, they immediately hired a guy Who had come out of a company called L.A. Gear, and he tried to turn the brand into a street cool product. He lasted less than a year, and then they brought in a young lady called Connie Rishwain, who had spent time in a lot of the New York high fashion footwear industry, and she's the one that started advertising in, you know, the, the really, really high-end women's fashion mags. That Teamed up with the fact that we'd sent boots to Oprah, and she ordered pairs for her staff and everything, and if we had announced that Oprah was, was wearing our shoes or boots, it would have killed the company when I owned the company, because I didn't have the capital to build the product to take on that demand. That, in conjunction with Connie Rishwain, who knew New York fashion, those two things coincided to make our, like, Break through the hundred million dollar barrier and the 200,000,500 million.

AI assessment note: “they brought in a young lady called Connie Rishwain, who had spent time”

Q While you were in college, um, were you also working at the store?

A I was, yes, yes. I, I, I went to University of Minnesota, and I actually, um, I don't have a degree. I rejected taking a lot of the required courses. I took business courses, design, uh, Art-related courses. I knew I was heading into the business, and, um, it was a combination of I was being groomed, and I think my dad had worked really hard his entire life. He had, uh, purchased a home in Florida. He'd fallen in love with golf, and basically for six months of the year, he was gone, and so as I started working First as a salesperson, then picking up different management roles. Um, in a fairly short period of time, I was running the business.

AI assessment note: “I was, yes, yes. I, I, I went to University of Minnesota”

Q All right, so you decide to give up on these other businesses, the, the kids furniture, and the, I guess the design studio, and, and really focus on room and board, and And I guess one of the things you do is move your store in Edina into a much bigger space, right?

A Absolutely. And it, the decision seemed pretty easy. We moved room and board into this much larger building, and part of what we did is we, we put room and board in, and then we created another department, if you will, which focused on Better quality. American made. At a considerably higher price. And I think the shock that hit us is our room and board customers, once they saw that, They bought it. They bought it readily and easily, and it just opened our eyes to the fact that this customer we were trying to appeal to, you know, out of college, not a lot of income, uh, they don't mind having the IKEA-like product. Well, now it's 10 years later, and they're established in their job, and they want more, not temporary furniture, they want permanent furniture, and they saw what we had, which was really Quite beautiful, American-made, and it sold way more than we expected.

AI assessment note: “Absolutely. And it, the decision seemed pretty easy. We moved room and board”

Q sort of build this business plan. She goes off, and we know what happens with the Honest Company. Um, I mean, you're going to get into cosmetics, into beauty products, but, but, but before we hear the story, how did it, how did the idea even start to come to you? When did you start to think about, um, Beauty products and makeup and cosmetics and then you making it.

A I had become impassioned with the environmental health movement, and as I made changes to my life, I found that there were opportunities in the marketplace. You know, I, it was really easy to switch my household cleaning products or just start washing my floors with water and vinegar. It was easy over time to switch from plastic to glass. It was easy to take my shoes off at the door. There were solutions out there in certain aspects of my life. But when it came to skincare and color cosmetic products at the time, there were some really great sort of all natural types of brands, but most of them Didn't really work very well, or they didn't smell very good, or they weren't presented in a way that was aesthetically pleasing to me. Then that was how I ultimately came to decide to enter into the beauty space. I had been introduced to Christy Coleman, who was a leading makeup artist during my tenure with Jessica, as I was exploring a whole bunch of different things, and I, she and I really clicked. She was the first leading makeup artist to Clean up her kit and start working with what was then called green products. She and I just started talking about what her dreams were in terms of, you know, creating safer makeup and my dreams about really taking on this, this industry. And we, we started having a lot of conversations.

AI assessment note: “that was how I ultimately came to decide to enter into the beauty space.”

Q So, you know, I think, I look at a necktie. I haven't worn a necktie. I can't remember the last time I wore a necktie. But, uh, it doesn't seem from the outside like a particularly complex product. Piece of, of apparel. Like, it's just a, you know, it's the shape, and am I wrong about that? Is it a lot more complex than people realize?

A It's not. I mean, it's a pretty basic item, but the components really matter. One thing that, uh, most guys will tell you is they like the way a tie ties, or they don't. And a lot of that has to do with what's inside it, the interfacing, which we cut apart all the ties that we had, what we liked, what we didn't like, and why. The other thing that you people notice is, um, how the silk feels, you know, what the finish is on there. Is it gummy? Is it not gummy? And as you pull the tie tighter, a lot of people would like a little bit of a contour, like a little curve to the surface of it. And we discovered that that had to do with the way in which you cut it and which way the, the weave was going. Um, and we found that a lot of the ties that didn't tie well We're all done one way and the more expensive ones were done the other. So we emulated what we liked and walked away from what we didn't.

AI assessment note: “It's not. I mean, it's a pretty basic item, but the components really matter.”

Q years, and he's like, he's maybe not impolite, but he's probably looking at you guys and thinking, what do they know about this business? And, and he might even have an, uh, an opinion About, about the designs, and he might even say, you know, this is really not, these are things that just aren't going to sell. Like, is, did you, do you remember coming across anyone like that?

A We did for sure. We had one guy who said, you know, we were very pedestrian. We have one, a lot of people say, you know, we're just not selling ties. And you're totally right. We had no experience in this industry. And, you know, a lot of brands were started by people who were in the industry, you know, and had an idea and they, they acted on it. So for us, what we had to do was to show them that we were eager to learn. And by spending time in their stores, like stocking their shelves, helping sell on the floor, just by hanging out and learning through osmosis, we earned their respect, and with that respect came their willingness to give us a chance.

AI assessment note: “We did for sure. We had one guy who said, you know, we were very pedestrian.”

Q I read, well, I'll get to this question in a sec, but I read that within three years, you guys are doing a million dollars in sales, which is kind of crazy. Before we, before I ask you about how you got there, just, can you just give me the breakdown, like roughly, of what the margins were? I mean, what did it cost you guys to make a tie?

A So the ties, I mean, just the cost of the tie itself, the physical tie and the components was probably somewhere around 12, 13 dollars, something like that. And we didn't realize it at the time, but it was a very high profit margin product. It also had quite a long runway in terms of apparel. It was less seasonal. Like we could make the same print. In fact, we still make the same print, some of the same prints we did 20 years ago. So they, the pro, the inventory lasted longer than typically for apparel. And it also took up a very small amount of retail space. You could hang, you know, a bunch of ties on a wall, and it didn't take up much space. Uh, and there's also no sizing.

AI assessment note: “physical tie and the components was probably somewhere around 12, 13 dollars”

Q Yeah. So, I mean, so given all of that, how, how were you actually going to become a real business? Like, how are you going to come up with a sustainable model?

A The breakthrough for us actually was a business model that we discovered. We would come up with a, a way of working together where I would work at cost. I would work at break even, but since I wasn't making any money, We would split the value that we ultimately created. For this big company, this is nearly free. They were getting MIT engineers working on a problem that they cared about at a third the price, and they only had to care about this value sharing thing if something good came out of it, and they would own the IP they brought to the party. We would own the IP that we brought to the party at any IP That was jointly developed, was jointly owned.

AI assessment note: “The breakthrough for us actually was a business model that we discovered.”

Q But a hundred, but, but was a hundred grand in 2009? Was that critical? Was that like life changing money at the time at that point?

A You know, it really wasn't. I had sold my house. I had some capital from that. I had sold my boat. I had a little bit of money from that. Um, I really, you know, financed this thing a hundred percent of myself. I had gotten owner financing on the farm itself. I really got the loan because I knew that what, what came along with that was even more support from Whole Foods. And I wanted them as a partner. And we signed, we never missed a payment, never laid on a payment. We paid it off exactly in time. And at the time, you know, they had 11 regions of Whole Foods. There's almost no national purchasing. Each region made their own decision. So you had five separate billion dollar company, I'm sorry, 11 separate one billion dollar companies in essence with their own presidents and their own buyers. So you had to do one region at a time.

AI assessment note: “You know, it really wasn't. I had sold my house.”

Q So you're, you're cleaning the dishes, right? You've already cleaned the furniture. I mean, I would Be thinking at this point, I should revisit this thing. This thing is actually, this is interesting. I mean, is that what you're thinking that night?

A I'm enjoying washing the dishes and seeing it rinse clean, and I look at it, and I'm like, oh my god, if it had a smile face on it, I could clean the silverware on both sides. And I grab a steak knife, and I, and I cut a smile in it, and I stick the spaghetti spoon in the mouth, and I squeeze it and pull. And both sides come clean at the same time. And when I tell you this, I honestly heard the angels start to sing. I like heard like, ah, I was like, oh my God, we missed it. This has nothing to do with you cleaning your dirty hands in a body shop. This is the greatest kitchen scrubbing tool in the world. I just need to market this differently. And that's when Scrub Day two point oh was born.

AI assessment note: “I was like, oh my God, we missed it. This has nothing to do with”

Q I, I'm curious. I mean, did you, I know that you sold your previous business to a part of three M that was not in household cleaning supplies or consumer products, but did three M at, at any point come and say, oof, We blew that one, or, or hey, should we, do you want to talk again, or anything like that?

A So in, uh, 2014, when I resigned, I said my goodbyes, and they said, Aaron, the, um, the home products division would like to talk to you. And I said, about what? And they said, oh, I'm sure you know about what. And I went and met with them, and they were all loving Scrub Daddy. And It looked like that was going to lead to another acquisition. And I was more than happy to entertain that. I felt like three M was my friends, like family. And unfortunately, one day the lead M and a person called me and said, we have to stop all of our discussions. The VP of the home products division who loves you and loves your product and sees the vision. They got promoted to another part of three M which happens all the time. And they brought in someone new who has no experience in the home products care. And their first directive was shut down every acquisition until I understand the business. And they stopped talking to us and gave back all our diligence information. And that was it.

AI assessment note: “the home products division would like to talk to you”

Q How was the nut business? I mean, we've, was it successful? Were you doing very well? Like, how, how did, you know, two, three years in, Did you find it to be challenging, or did you start to really see some results?

A Well, it was, um, yeah, I think by, let's call it maybe, you know, I had a little, nice little factory in Salem, uh, with a warehouse. I had a, a broker. I was buying all my peanuts through, and, um, he tipped me off that there was, um, gonna be a big crop failure that year because of drought, and so I went very bullish. I speculated, which was, Really crazy. And I contracted way, way more nuts than I actually was currently producing. And, um, sure enough, I was sitting on all these valuable contracts and the market for, uh, peanuts essentially tripled. So I ended up selling truckloads of, you know, 50,000 pounds of peanuts. And I was making like 25,000 dollars a truckload. And that, that effort capitalized my little business, which prior to that was extremely thin on working capital.

AI assessment note: “And that, that effort capitalized my little business”

Q you, because you were a young guy, when you started this, you were like 31, 32. How did you start to manage that side of the business? Because you were making this thing and writing a paper, explaining it, thinking deeply about it, but there's another whole other side to it, which is a business, which is the people that you bring in and then that you have to manage.

A Yeah, um, that was my MBA is essentially was pure software. Uh, and luckily the products were amazing because my management was not. I only really had one gear, which was work hard, and so whenever things got harder, you know, difficult or challenging, I would just work more, so I would, you know, be coding at night, um, and then, you know, trying to be CEO in the day, but I looked haggard, you know, I smelled, I hadn't showered, uh, you know, it was sort of not a very inspiring look. Typically, you know, your Salesforce and that kind of business is very important. Um, and unfortunately I had little grasp of who's the right type of person to run the Salesforce. And so I kept hiring the wrong people and then taking a year to figure that out. And so we had a new head of sales every year, five years in a row, which is chaos in enterprise software. And yet, despite that, um, we doubled sales every year in that time. So again, that was the strength of the products. Um, but to say it was unevenly managed would be generous.

AI assessment note: “I only really had one gear, which was work hard”

Q because, you know, I asked you earlier about your previous companies. You said sometimes, you know, when you're chopping wood, you can't sharpen the axe. In this case, clearly you took the time to sharpen the axe. So how did this, uh, sort of approach to building culture and building, uh, An environment, uh, around excellence, some people would say, um, mercenary culture. How, how, how did you develop that?

A Um, the core of it was if you had incredibly talented people, you didn't need a lot of process and rules. Netflix was anti-process and rules and pro-talent density. And then to get talent density, we modeled it on a championship sports team and they had to swap out players. And that was a normal part, uh, of the ethos. And so that contrasted with the notion of company as family, you know, you're all like my family, that kind of CEO talk. But then you go and lay someone off, which, you know, if you were on hard times, you wouldn't say, we're gonna lay off your sons, you know, your daughters get to eat, and you know, um, you know, our, our ethos in family is around undying loyalty. That's what we admire. And so I realized, oh, it's really that we want to organize as a professional sports team and not a family. And lots of people were operating their Silicon Valley business that way, but none of them admitted it or not many. And so the shock was this, the sort of resonated because it was the truth of the, what we aspired in much of the competitive ecosystem of team, not family, but no one had said it so directly.

AI assessment note: “we modeled it on a championship sports team and they had to swap out players”

Q So, how did the idea to make original content come about? Was that in response to where you saw the The, this sort of whole industry headed that if you didn't do that, you would just, and you were just a rental streaming rental service, then your business wouldn't survive.

A Well, every cable network, which is a subscription business, had started on other people's content, build some audience, and then start to add their own content. HBO was built on other people's content, and then got good at original programming. So Again, it was a very well-trod path. And when Ted Sarandos came in, which he joined us in 2000, um, he was the one who sort of articulated, you know, eventually we're going to want to do original content. And then we actually started in 2005 doing original content on DVD. And we didn't have a big enough subscriber base. And so after two years, we closed that down. That was red envelope entertainment. We closed that down in 2007, and then we reopened it essentially with House of Cards. Uh, I believe we commissioned that Ted did in 2010, um, and then it came out in 2013.

AI assessment note: “Again, it was a very well-trod path. And when Ted Sarandos came in”

Q own company. You called it Pure Software. And, and I'm wondering, I mean, did you feel ready to, to do that at that point? I mean, I mean, clearly you'd made connections at, at, you know, previous startups and, and maybe, you know, in your previous job and, and at Stanford. Um, but like, how did you start to build a team and, and to start to build a company?

A I was underprepared, um, for sure. But I would say one of the things about being around Stanford is, Is all these pretty normal people create companies and you meet them. And so it doesn't seem so impossible at all. Um, but I didn't know specifically how to do it. I didn't understand what incorporation was or how to get a lease or anything. The first year was trying to do a proof of concept. So I spent a year in a cold cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains in La Honda, uh, where we just had a wood fireplace. Um, and And had bought a Sun Microsystems computer, uh, and at the time that was like as expensive as a car.

AI assessment note: “I was underprepared, um, for sure.”

Q video rentals was, uh, was like a, a blue ocean? I mean, yeah, and Blockbuster, you know, I, I remember going to Blockbuster sucked. You know, you go to Blockbuster and there'd be like, you know, a hundred cassette, you know, a hundred, uh, boxes for a movie you don't want to see. And the movie you want to see, you couldn't get. And then you'd pay late fees, right?

A They had out of stock and various problems. One advantage is that relative to Amazon, the nice thing about rental is because you got to return the good. It's a very different logistic path than selling things. So then it makes less sense for Amazon to invest in because it's only one category that does this. You know, you don't rent computers or bicycles or other things where they get shipped and shipped back. And it was a large enough business to be interesting. Blockbuster was about five billion in revenue, but not so large as to attract Amazon, uh, you know, and others into it. So, you know, it was, uh, that, that, that crosshairs made it potentially interesting from an e-commerce standpoint.

AI assessment note: “that crosshairs made it potentially interesting from an e-commerce standpoint.”

Q So many generic drugs are made overseas. What, what's the biggest challenge in making them here? I mean, you, you have a facility now. It's taken you a couple years, but why is it so hard to do it in the U.S.?

A You know, that's a great question and a timely question. I'm glad you asked. Um, it's not hard for us to do because we're robotically driven. We can change the drug we're making in a four hour period, you know, so we can make a one month or one year supply of something, then roll it over to another drug. Our biggest inhibitor and why we haven't done it yet is all the fees that the FDA charges. So it's about 365,000 dollars to set up what's called an end on new drug application. And if you want to do it For a hundred drugs, that's 36 and a half million dollars. You want to do it for a thousand generics, you can do the math, right? And so because of that, that, that is what ruins the margins here in the United States. And so we can make generic pills here in the United States cheaper than what we can buy them for from India or China. We just have to deal with the associated costs of all the applications.

AI assessment note: “Our biggest inhibitor and why we haven't done it yet is all the fees”

Q Awesome. Welcome to the show, Kristen. So tell me about the origin story of the brand. How did it, how did it start?

A Yeah, so I ended up having, I had four kids in three and a half years. It was right before and at the start of COVID, and I learned firsthand how important it was to get outside for both my own sanity and for my kids' sanity, and so as winter came around, I went to get snow gear for them, and I really saw, um, a white space. I saw there's two categories of what was on the market. It was either super technical, Kept them warm and dry, but it was either just a black snowsuit or very rugged aesthetic. Or on the other bucket, you had these beautiful pieces, but they didn't actually work and wouldn't actually keep kids warm. So that's kind of when the idea sparked, and, um, I brought the two together.

AI assessment note: “So that's kind of when the idea sparked, and, um, I brought the two together.”

Q Alright, Cowboy Country Club, a made-up golf club, and, and you sell hats and apparel, and tell me the story about that, like, what, how did this happen?

A Absolutely. So, growing up, my parents were members of a golf club, uh, so I had a community to play with and talk about golf with, and then I went off to college, had a great community there to play with, then after graduation, I went and took a finance job in Atlanta, and being there, I didn't have anyone to play with, I felt excluded from the game, nowhere to call home, and I figured that I could solve my own problem of feeling excluded by creating my own country club and inviting people to join. It, it was a crazy idea, but we built a social media following where I told my story and talked about why this was something that I was so passionate about, and our first drop sold out in 12 seconds.

AI assessment note: “I figured that I could solve my own problem of feeling excluded by creating my own”

Q How did you find the restaurants? Um, how did you get into them? How did you, did you just kind of pound the pavement and start to call and, and.

A Well, I'll tell you about the first one. And then that started the, the whole kind of Process. So it was October 15th. We walked on the street. We went to the number one restaurant in the country at the time, Le Becfant. We went into the back of the kitchen. Someone stopped and asked us, what are you doing here? And we said, we're here to make coffee for chef. So they just assumed maybe that was an interview. So we went, we tore the grinder down, cleaned it, tore the espresso machine, cleaned that, put our coffee into it, made a beautiful, beautiful coffee, and I said, where's chef? We went upstairs. He was screaming as, you know, he was a screamer. It was the nineties, right? Wanted to know. And we said, we're here to make coffee for you. And we just put it in front of him and you just step back. And so that's how we got the Becfant that day.

AI assessment note: “We walked on the street. We went to the number one restaurant”