Q How did you, I mean, I think at the beginning you actually kind of dipped into your own savings, right? I mean, you had left AOL and so maybe you had a little bit of money there and you self-financed at the beginning, right?
A Yeah. I, I remember saying to one person, they said, hey, let me invest in what you're doing. It sounds really interesting. I said, don't do that. Actually, I want to still have dinner with you. I have no idea what I'm doing right now. And so I talk about the first two years as getting my MBA and beverages and really trying to understand exactly how to do what I wanted to do. In addition to launching a product that didn't have sweeteners in it, I also wanted to launch a product that didn't have Preservatives in it. And again, I kept asking people, so why do you need preservatives? And the go-to for so many people was, you just do. And I thought, ok, but why? I came from the tech industry. Just tell me. Why, why do you need preservatives? And they said, well, if you're using real fruit, then you need preservatives in order to get a shelf life. And I said, ok, but why is that? 95% of the people that were bottling beverages said, listen, lady, you have no idea what you're talking about. You're asking questions that I don't know the answers to. I just do. And I said, Okay. But then a few of them said, I don't know the answer. I'm really curious too. If you ever find that answer out, come back and, and let me know. And so we were the first beverage using real stuff to actually produce a product that didn't have preservatives in it as well.
AI assessment note: “Yeah. I, I remember saying to one person, they said, hey, let me invest”