0:00 One of the issues with founders is they [ __ ] their own team by trying to stay involved in everything. I think it's absolute [ __ ] >> That's Dom, [music] the American CEO inside The Quality Group, a 10-figure brand house behind Raw Nutrition, [music] Bum Energy, and some of the fastest-growing CPG players in the game today. >> You're only as good as the last thing you launch, but once you get into those doors and you do well, they want more product. They're dying for innovation. If you can deliver on that over and over and over again, there's really no end in sight. >> Dom is behind 10 companies doing hundreds of millions of dollars. And in this episode, we walk through the operating system [music] powering them all. >> There's times where I quite literally wanted to quit, and I was sitting in my room by myself crying my eyes out. I'm not going to lie to you. I don't know this industry, but I'm going to figure it the [ __ ] out before next year. And then next year, when January 1st comes, I'm going to have this [ __ ] in every [ __ ] door in America. 0:53 >> All right, guys. So, by the end of this episode, you guys are going to see exactly how Dom operates as the American CEO of a $1.7 billion holding company, The Quality Group. And we're going to get into all of his other portfolio companies. Under The Quality Group is Bum Energy and Raw Nutrition. On the CPG side, we also have Cadence and 3D Energy. On the health and wellness side, we have Re-Liv, Re-Vive, and Eterna, and his new project Onside. If you guys stay till the end, you guys are going to get all of the pattern recognition and understand how Dom operates at such a high level. Let's get into it. So, let's talk about what is the difference between Dom before the deal and after the deal as an operator? >> That's actually a really good question. So, I kind of I I did an Instagram post on this a couple weeks ago. And before The Quality Group acquired Bum and Raw, I was a really good founder. I was I would argue that I was a pretty good CEO. But working with CVC and working with The Quality Group, and just so everyone understands, The Quality Group is the entity that acquired us through CVC, but it's also a brand house of ESN 1:55 and More. So, The Quality Group is ESN, More Nutrition, RAW, and BUM. So, we're all under that umbrella. And Heike is the European, I guess you could say, CEO of the Quality Group, and then I would be the US equivalent of Heike here. And Heike has a ton of experience in not CPG necessarily. He used to be the ex-CEO of Amer Sports. If you're familiar with Amer Sports, it's like Arc'teryx, Salomon, all those brands. >> Nice. >> And it's just a very, very different level of operation and execution and and strategic planning. You know, I think that as founders that are like movers and shakers and just like real true gritty entrepreneurs, you don't ever get into the the weeds of it planning. Like, we plan it We're planning for 2028 right now. So, imagine I never in my wildest dreams would think that I would be that far ahead in planning anything, but the granularity in which we plan and the way we forecast and the way we predict now, I've seen it directly correlate to the not only the profitability, but just the overall growth of our business. And it was daunting at first. These These were the tasks that I hated doing cuz as an 2:56 entrepreneur before, like I was kind of like running gun, you know, and it was so fun to do, but you you miss the little things. And the little things adding up make a big difference. So, having that acquisition and and having CVC behind us, you know, what I really loved about it more than anything was I tell everyone they gave me this backpack full of tools, right? So, when I go into a room or when I go into an organization, I have this ability to pull out whatever I need to be successful that I necessarily didn't have before. And it's not just capital. It's It's everything. It's relationships. It's introductions. It's If I need to hire somebody, being able to say that we're partnered with them has been, you know, the It's given us the ability to hire, you know, ex-P&G guys, ex-Unilever guys, where before I would have never been able to bring those people over. >> It's really operational excellence. So, before I feel like most entrepreneurs are like kind of like hustlers, the founders, and kind of like these junior CEOs. But when you start talking to people like this and PE, it's just operational excellence. >> Yeah, like I would argue that the last 3:50 year of my life has been one of the greatest learning experience in the world and the crazy part is is I didn't know what I didn't know. So what at the time I thought I was the best CEO, best founder I could be. And then when you get into these other rooms and quite literally the rooms we're in now where the small I'm the smallest person in these rooms. And it's like it's a reality check of one like chill out. Like you don't know everything you don't know, but two like there's so much more to come, right? Like I thought we were like the kings of sports nutrition and then when I look at it now I'm like holy smokes. Like I was thinking about this all wrong. Like I need to look at this as a true business, not just a sports nutrition business, but there's so much more white space here for us to get and if we execute and operationally do it very well there's really no end in sight. >> Those are the best rooms where you have the least experience for sure. If you could call out like a system or a ritual, like what's like one big thing that you've seen from these guys that you've brought across all of your kind of companies? >> I'll tell you right now. It's it's 4:45 So we would call it I call it a strategic growth model. It's an SGM. They call it a sustainable growth model, but it's basically the ability to to sit your business down and break it out into four key building blocks that you use to build the brand over the annual cycle. So for example, in January you sit down and you take the four most important things that you're going to lock in on as a team and you're going to identify those things and you're going to build a top-down bottom-up approach. So >> So it's just four key initiatives? >> Four key initiatives. So you know, for us, you know, I'm sure you've seen it. We have a massive push into creatine right now. We have a massive push into fixing our core business. There's a couple other key initiatives, one being Bomb Energy. And you know, what are the goals associated with those key building blocks to get us where we want to go financially and just overall KPI related. You know, some of those may be door counts, velocities, not necessarily always about top-line revenue, but getting to that top-line revenue. >> Quantifiable with an end date in mind. >> Correct. Yeah. Yep. And you do these annually. So your SGM for this year, 5:40 next year, the following year are all different and you're planning out two, three years ahead of of yourself and you're checking in on these goals throughout the time. But, the beautiful part about building out an SGM is you eliminate all the [ __ ] So, what I mean by that is there's no useless meetings. There's no meetings that don't attain directly to the SGM. You keep your team on the straight and narrow. So, there's these I would call them guardrails that you're staying within and saying, "Guys, look, there's a lot of opportunity for a lot of things and it's very easy to get distracted with all of these things, but we've identified the four things that we know we need to bring home at the end of this year. And if we don't identify those four things and do it, we're going to have a problem." Because between us, I I'm the same way. I see a new shiny object and I want to look at it, right? And then you go here and you're forgetting about what was important. And then but the next thing you know, you've been distracted for 2 months chasing nothing. And then you go back and you're 2 months behind. So, really about aligning a big organization on what are 6:30 we doing? What are the fundamentals of the year? How are we going to get there? And then that top-down, bottom-up approach is we give the goals from the top, but then the bottom-up approach is building it. Okay, well, what does it take? How many employees does it take? How much team? How much inventory? How many doors? How much velocity per door? And these goals seem large, but then when you break it down into quantifiable goals like that, it's very easy to get your team motivated because they know exactly what they need to do to get it done. >> And then what's the operating rhythm behind that? Is it like one weekly meeting from a C-level perspective in each of these core brands? Like how do you keep people on track to ladder up to this these four big goals for the year? >> That's a great question. So, you have the way that we do it and I'm I'll do it interop in one brand and then I'll break it off into how I do it for all my brands, right? Cuz I had the SGM kickoff with all of my brands last week. So, internally, we identify it on a C-suite level. We go over the goals. And then I I I give my C-suite, like I consider them intrapreneurs. Like these guys and 7:25 and I use that word in a in a positive way because they're very proactive. And I think that that's what makes people very unique in those roles in a C-suite is like you don't want people who are just taking orders because you need people who are problem solvers and who are very proactive. So, they're very similar to entrepreneurs. They're just doing it for a company versus their own company. >> And these are like GMs or mini CEOs on a per brand perspective under you. >> Yeah, these are And And also, you know, your brand managers for sure, even your COO, your CFO, you need people who are very, very, very willing to understand that I don't want anyone reactive in my company. Everyone needs to be proactive because the problem is when reactivity is the number one way you identify problems, that's too late every time. So, I want people to see stuff before it happens, to be proactive about it, and to get it done. And the idea is me as a CEO, I'm delivering the message to them, but they lead a team, and their team is they're the CEO of their team, right? So, they're kind of doing the same thing down to their team. And my goal is in every one of my organizations to be able 8:18 to walk all the way down to the bottom of that team, whether it be the warehouse, whether it be controller, whether it be a marketing kid, or a videographer, and they know exactly what that building block is that we're chasing. Because if they don't, it doesn't align. Everyone needs to be on the same page. Because if you're shooting the wrong content, for example, if we're, you know, fully focused on creatine at RAW, and our marketing department is fully focused on shooting protein cuz it's a cool flavor that's coming out. That's great, but where's our focus? And if no one's aligned, and we start veering off into this cool new protein category, it's not where I want to go. Not saying it's the wrong way to go, but it's not where we want to go. It's not what we decided to do. >> What's up, guys? Hope you guys are enjoying the episode. Dom is actively involved in 10 plus companies, so we put together a free PDF breaking down the systems and frameworks behind how he runs them all. Systems for marketing, branding, retail, financial management, product, and more. Link is down below in the description. Enjoy the rest of the episode. >> So, you at the top, 9:10 >> you're doing that top-down approach, and then this GM is probably working on the bottom-up approach, and then he is managing KPIs in the operating rhythm. >> Yep. >> And then what does that operating look like from the single CEOs and their team to then when do you get involved as the kind of macro American CEO? >> Yeah, so basically the way we do it the low on the lower level is I let them identify the rhythm of which they want to communicate to their team. So, what I do with my team is we have a Monday morning touch base on finance. >> Wow, so you're saying on a per company perspective, you let the CEO >> Absolutely. Yeah. >> very interesting. >> don't manage their team. I don't want to manage them. I don't want to tell them how to do their job because that's not what my job is. My job's not that. My job is to let them do their thing. And if I get involved in it, then 90% of the time when something goes wrong, what are they going to do? They're going to blame me. They're going to say, "Well, I wanted to do it this way." Or I And granted, if stuff goes wrong, I'm going to step in and say, "Hey, look, we need to realign here. This isn't working." 10:02 But you have to give them the freedom to be able to build and and lead the way they need to lead. >> Makes sense. So, you're meeting with them one time a week and they're just let all of those KPIs that ladder up to the one-year goal, you're just making sure that they stay on track, basically. >> Exactly. >> Interesting. Yeah, I'm a big EOS guy. I don't know I don't know if you've ever read the book Traction. It's It's pseudo similar. You have like these, you know, one-year goal, three-year goal, five-year goal, and then each of your quarters, you have something called rocks. Okay. And it's quantifiable and it ladders up to the one-year goals, and then every single week, you kind of flip on or off, are you pacing towards those goals? >> Yeah. I mean, very similar. We have So, we'll have our Monday morning finance touch base. So, Monday morning is the week prior is our our goal, right? CM1 is obviously a very important number and just top line revenue, right? What are we heading? Are we on track for the month? And weekly is great because in our business, especially on the raw bone side, like we have a very big shift from B2B to D2C and and energy versus powder. 10:57 So, our CM1 fluctuates. And we have a CM1 target every single month. >> What is a CM1? >> CM1 is just your profitability minus cost of goods and inbound freight. So, that basically, if you're selling a ton of stuff in the Sam's Club, that's a lower CM1 than, you know, direct to consumer. So, pacing and making sure that CM1 is For me, CM1 is the most important number on my P&L. It's basically just your top line revenue Well, it's net revenue. So, your trade spend's already taken out. So, it's your net revenue minus your cost of goods and inbound freight only. So, CM2 would be outbound freight, and then CM3 is is and all the up marketing and all the other things that gets lumped into that. >> Interesting. >> Yeah. >> I feel like that's something that not a lot of people look at their business like that. It's all lumped up into >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> a lot of people also don't ever identify gross to net, right? So, gross to net is the biggest place where you leak, right? That's your trade spend, that's your discounts, that's your rebates, that's all the stuff that comes out before it hits your P&L in general. And that's where most margin is lost. So, because 11:54 it doesn't hit a P&L, most people forget about it. And then when it comes time to actually look at the bottom line profitability, you're not looking up there to find more money. And that's where you can usually find the most money. >> So, in that weekly meeting, it's just really about if you have to see, you know, three numbers, it's CM1, 2, 3 on a per company perspective. >> going to see CM2 and CM3 weekly because obviously >> on that. >> There's a lag on that. So, it's really like we want to just focus on net revenue and CM1 and make sure we're aligned on those two things in those weeklies. And then at the end of the month, we true up the month and that's where I see all the rest of it. So, it'd be very my team would hate me if I made them try to do that. You can get an idea, obviously, cuz those numbers don't fluctuate percentage-wise much, but, you know, CM1 and net revenue are the most important for me on a weekly basis. >> So, weekly you're speaking to is it every single department head or finance only? >> No, I speak So, Mondays is is your finance. And then the rest of the week we have multiple other meetings. So, we have a ops meeting, an S&OP meeting. 12:46 It's literally right now, actually. And in that meeting >> see what he's doing here, guys? He's giving free game and missing his meetings. >> Yeah, no, you're good. You're good. So, in that meeting, it's basically a high-level overview of every single thing happening in the company. And I get to sit on that call most of the time and I just listen to it. Now, I'm not on it all the time. My GM of this business can can crank and run that call, no problem. My chief of staff also sits in on that call and runs that call. And then we also have like a stage gate innovation meeting. So, basically, what that meeting is is anything new that we want to bring in, we have to stage gate it. Does it make sense? Is it profitable? Do we have enough Do we have, you know, a big enough TAM for it? Is there a big enough audience that it warrants this product? >> So, finance, ops, and then the stage gate is basically product. >> New product innovation coming in. Yeah. So, basically, by the end of the week I have a full picture, high-level overview of everything that's happening within the company. >> Um you just ran through those really really fast. On the product side, the 13:33 the stage gate, what are those kind of key things you said? >> Yeah, so for stage gate, it's does it make sense, right? Does it Is Can we make a better product than somebody else? Because let's be honest, if there's no innovation or there's no reason for the product to be made, it's going to be pretty tough to compete with everyone else who already has the product. So it needs to be a product that we feel that we can innovate on. It needs to be margin accretive. So it needs to make money or else there's no point in making a product that doesn't make money. >> And you could win on bucket one based on the ability to make money potentially, right? Can you innovate based on on the unit economics? >> Of course, yeah, always, you know. And then the other one is is the product cost-effective, right? And this is funny because I have a partner Matt, and when we first started our business, one of the big things that we came out with was Matt is one of the most intelligent people in the world with formulations. But we were coming out with formulas that were way too expensive for the market. So there's a there's this give-and-take, you know, policy where it's like, "Okay, we can make the best 14:23 formula, but if no one can afford it or if it's priced out of the range of every other product in that category, no one's going to buy it, right? So you really need to pay attention to, you know, other competitors on shelf, you know, what are they What are they at? Because people are people. They're going to spend what they want to spend on a product. They're not going to spend more. >> In relation to the distribution point as well. We just spoke off camera. Like I had no idea the price fluctuation between like a Costco and then a convenience store. >> And we we [ __ ] ourselves pretty good like going into some of these stores because, you know, at the end of the day, a Walmart shopper is different than a Target shopper, a Costco shopper is different than a Sam's shopper, a Vitamin Shoppe shopper is different than a Walmart shopper. So that's where having, you know, a chief commercial strategy officer comes in to really build out that price pack architecture of knowing, you know, what are we putting where? How much is it going to cost? How many servings are in each one of these products? And we need to make sure that we don't cannibalize ourselves 15:14 on shelf. We don't want people leaving Vitamin Shoppe to go to Walmart. That doesn't do us any good, right? So >> full sell-through in each ICP and each distribution channel. >> Exactly. And you do that strategically. There's a lot of strategy that goes into doing that well. >> Any other big meetings we got? Finance, we got ops, we got product, anything else big? >> I have a weekly touch point with our German counterparts. So, you know, we deliver all of the financials to them on a on a weekly basis and just go through a lot of different collaboration between the two. So, our parent company is in Germany, it's in Hamburg. So, every one of my senior level executives has a touch point with their counterpart in Germany, as well, because we have a massive R&D facility over there. We have a massive finance team over there, a really good strategy team. So, we're always going back and forth to figure out, you know, what are we doing over here that could be great over there? What are they doing over there that could be great over here? And the cool part is is you know, Nico runs our R&D team over there and he's a brain, you know, the guy is way ahead of his time with 16:09 formulations cuz let's be honest, most of the time innovation comes from the US and then it trickles to Europe after the US. Where I feel like now that we're here, we can kind of push innovation to the European market way faster for them and they can go and and act on some things that we're seeing traction on where they're two, three years ahead of their counterparts in Germany. >> Are you guys international yet or not? >> We are international. We're not like we're not playing in where, you know, our counterpart is. ESN is like the equivalent of RAW in Europe. So, we don't want to cannibalize each other. ESN is a fantastic company over there. We do a lot of business in Mexico and Canada. So, you know, those are two big countries for us, but we don't do a massive amount of business in Europe. >> So, it's like trade secrets, economies of scale, shared resources. >> Yeah, man, we're it's like brothers. We're brothers. >> Love that. I want to get deeper into that, but I I want to talk about one more piece on that. Again, I'm used to doing these rocks, which are quarterly goals that ladder up to the yearly goals. How do you stay on track? And or I know you don't want shiny object 17:03 syndrome, but what happens if something really, really does change? Is that just something on the C-level where you're like, you know, you could be four months into this year goal and then maybe it doesn't make sense? Like how are you guys course correcting and is that just a constant communication? >> Yeah, so that's what those meetings are for. you know, one of the big examples is I'm a believer that finance sees everything first. So, for example, we have a great marketing strategy, we think it's going to be incredible, we do this whole rollout, everything goes the right way, and then the numbers start coming in and hey look, we're not hitting our CM1 target. Hey look, you know, we thought we were going to have this massive creatine push, but really pre-workout or you know, something else is pushing in that direction, and that's where you look at the numbers and say, "Okay, what did we do right? What did we do wrong? How did this happen?" And if it's a good if it's a good thing, does it make sense to keep chasing it, right? Like there's a there are points in time where like stuff just pops off. You could get a viral video where that viral video makes something go massive and 17:53 it's like you can't not let that happen. You want to go that route and and capitalize on it, but just understanding that you have goals and the hierarchy of goal is is it still going to be profitable? You know, can the team align on it and pivot and make it make sense? And also like does it still align with the end goal? And the end goal usually for a company is a financial goal, right? We need to hit a certain number, we need to hit a certain EBITDA, we need to hit a certain CM1, because you know, as much as EBITDA is important, CM1 is just as important to someone who's looking at buying your company. So, it's very important to keep that number high. >> Makes sense. I want to ladder down that we're talking all the way up in the clouds. I want to talk down with you and daily rituals, systems, cadence. >> Yeah. What else do you do every single week cuz most people are having trouble running one company and you're involved in like 15. Like last night on the phone, he just drops like another two companies. I'm just thinking in my head, I'm like, bro, I'm not doing any research on these companies. Maybe we'll have a part two, part three, part four, but yeah, you're doing a lot and we're 18:45 going to get further into those. I think the brilliance with you is just like I think about these many pockets and just your flywheel is disgusting. Like everything just plays off each other. You're just dominating in these three different pockets. Yeah. But let's talk about you like work-life balance, systems, cadence. Like what are the other things that you do to stay sane and sharp? >> Sure. Yeah, I'll I'll give it to you, man. I would say that I still struggle with the work-life balance thing. My wife will be the first one to tell you that. >> Yeah, so does everybody's wife is is that I'm dealing with that I'm dealing with that too right now. >> Yeah. >> I just told my wife that my prep time got cut in half, which allocates more time to her. She was very very excited last night. >> There you go. >> Thank you, bro. Thank you, Jake. >> Yeah, great job, bro. Brownie points right there. >> So, my day usually starts pretty similar. I wake up between 5:00 and 6:00. I wake up and I call that like my dad hours. Like that's before my son wakes up, so I get to get like some peace and quiet and get stuff done. Anyone who's a dad, I'm sure you understand that. But, that's where I I go out. 19:39 I get on I usually use a bike now. I used to run a lot more, but I'm on a Concept 2 bike now because I can actually crank out some emails while I'm on the bike. And I just try to get ahead of myself for the day. Like at least an hour of just cranking out emails, reading emails, getting stuff done. And then I train. And my training is is usually about an hour or less. I do a much different style of training than I used to. It's more functional. I do a lot of stretching in between, you know, compound movements, and really just managing the ability to stay nimble for my son. I want to be able to, you know, run with him and play football with him and do the things that, you know, let's be honest, some dads just can't do. >> Core KPI moving forward. >> Yeah, core KPI. And then from there, I'll usually do sauna. I'll cold plunge. I don't cold plunge for any other reason besides the fact that I have to stop sweating before I go to work. So, I'll jump in there to cool off, and then I'll go take a shower. And then I'm I'm off to the races. So, depending on what day it is will depend on what office I go to. Mondays I usually go to my my family office in the 20:30 morning, and I spend my morning at the family office. And then I'll go to my gym, and I'll actually work out of my coffee shop at the gym for the rest of the day. It's kind of been a trend that like my team does the same now. So, like some of my team in my family office will follow me to the gym, and we'll have coffee, and it's a nice thing, right? And then Tuesday through Thursday, I'm locked in on Raw Iron Bum. Those are the those are the that's the time of the week that I I go to my the corporate headquarters for Raw Iron Bum. And, you know, that's where I do 99% of my work for that company. Fridays are usually a work-from-home day. That's where I catch up on all the companies. So, I'll catch up with, you know, there's a ton, you know, we've talked about them, but all the the heads of all those companies I'll check in with. >> point. >> Yeah, hey, how's everything going? Are there any problems? And granted, right? Like I'm a firm believer that the job of a CEO is to really keep your schedule as light as possible because you just need to put out fires. And and there's fires every week from a different place. So, I have to have the ability to grab and go 21:20 and and get into those calls and fix those problems as they come about. But, I will be honest, you know, I have I would put my team against any team in the industry. I think I have the greatest team in the world, and I think that there's no world that I am me without them. So, I I mean that entirely. And everyone that the number one question I always get asked is, "Hey, I have a trouble running one company. How do you run this many companies?" And it's it's my team. And it took a long time to get it to where it is. >> I want to get deeper into hiring and how you get these people. We're going to get into that further in later in the conversation. What about like switching costs? Cuz like for me, I'm basically running a company, then running another company, and then hosting I think is like another job. Then I have to have my personal life as well. I mean, you have so much going on. Are you doing like obviously you said you're doing batching on Tuesday and Thursday? Are you just trying to isolate blocks on a per company perspective? >> No. I mean, I think really what it comes down to is just being available as much as possible for all of them. So, again, 22:10 like I don't take meetings I don't need to be at. Like for example, there's an S&O sales and operations meeting. I don't need to be in that meeting. If something's up that I need to jump in and, you know, course correct something, I'll jump in on it. But, I really let my team lead. And and it's been the reason why my team is so good. I think one of the issues with founders in general is they [ __ ] their own team by trying to stay involved in everything. And then everyone gets scared and everyone gets worried. Most people are are a little bit less creative or a little bit less opinionated when the founder's in the room. And I think when the founder's in the room is when people are yes-men. And I want people to have those opinions and fight and have a little bit of arguments because that's where stuff gets done. I fully believe that a healthy argument between a C-suite is a very valuable thing. If everyone's just not talking or following blindly, it's it's no good for anybody. >> I completely agree. For people out there listening that are on, you know, seven figures, they're smaller. If you had to pinpoint kind of one system as a CEO to lever down to all the 22:59 other things, what would it just be? Just one weekly meeting to find the vision and then just get out the way. Is that what you would recommend? >> Yeah, I mean, I think the goal of of any CEO is really to just define the mission of what the brand's there for, right? And I know that sounds crazy, but at the end of the day, it's it's giving them the tools they need to do all the jobs they need to do. But, yes, I believe that the the CEO being involved in anything is is very valuable until the point that it cripples everyone else's ability to to do tasks. And I think that you see in a lot of companies that the CEO tries to hold on to everything and they want to do everything all the time, and then everyone else just decides that they're not going to be they're not going to be leaders at all. They don't need to be because there's no point. There's there's no point in being creative. There's no point in being proactive because at the end of the day, they're not able to do anything they want to do anyways. So, let them do it. Let them make mistakes if they make mistakes. Obviously, like help them and if you see something coming that's not really great for the company, you can 23:51 jump in and try to guide them in the right way. But, I think the most valuable thing for your C-team or a leadership team in general is to make some small mistakes because you learn I mean, I'm sure you would agree. You learn way more from [ __ ] up than you do from, you know, not being able to do it at all. >> Elevate, delegate, get out the way, and just be there if they need you. And let them make small small not fatal mistakes once. >> Exactly. >> And you just keep moving along. >> 80/20 rule. I'm a firm believer in it. If they're doing the right things 80% of the time, I'm happy with it. 20% mistake, as long as they don't make the same mistake twice. >> I mean, like a 90/10 there. 80/20, that's >> I'm okay with that. >> You're okay with that 80/20? >> I'm okay with that. >> Uh you're doing something that I'm not doing, bro. So, may maybe I need to maybe I need to go down [laughter] to [ __ ] 80/20. I don't know, man. Back to this >> quality group deal. For people out there, founders that are listening, and they want to, you know, pre-plan and think 5 years out. They want to sell their company in 5 years. What should they be doing now to set themselves up 24:41 for something like what you did where you >> Yeah, I think there's a there's a few things. Number one is I think, you know, when you start a business, I think you have to have a real conversation with yourself to understand, you know, is this business being set up to sell, or is this business being set up to be like a cash flow king for me? And most people don't understand the difference with those two things. So, being able to set up a company where you're not taking all the profitability away from the company, you're not running personal expenses through the company, it's very valuable and very important because >> If you're going to sell. >> If you're going to sell. >> Correct. >> Right? Because at the end of the day, like I said, you know, EBITDA is a big deal, CM 1 is a big deal, and really just having messy financials is no good for anybody when it comes time to sell your company. So, doing, you know, I would recommend if you plan on selling within 2 to 3 years, having at least 2 years of audited financials, doing a quality of earnings, and then really setting yourself up to to understand that it's a process, and the more you do before the process starts, the easier 25:34 the process is. And And And I'm using the word process specifically because when you start to sell a company, it's called you're going to run a process. And when you run a process, it's usually you hire an investment bank. The investment bank will kind of do a mini process with you before you run your real process to say, "Okay, do we have all of our ducks in a row? Are the financials good?" And that's where most people they get worried because that's where the work starts. But if you do all these things first, when you start to run your process, you don't have to go back and do all that stuff. It's already done. >> I don't think like almost any first-time founder does that. And then you get, I mean, I've been in and around the situation, and then you're talking about like cash, P&L, accrual P&L, and it's pro forma. >> Yep. >> If you're living through the company, >> Yep. >> you're not going to get the full credit for all of the add-backs. >> No, that's Yeah. >> You can't. So, if you live through the company, guys, it's a tough sell, and you're not You're not going to get dollar-for-dollar what you're actually doing. >> And then the other piece that's even 26:25 more important, and this is something I learned the hard way, is when you're going to sell, you need to have a team in place so the company doesn't rely on you. Cuz that's a massive, massive red flag for someone coming to buy you. If you are the company, or if the company doesn't work without you, >> Key man risk. >> it's a way, way more material issue for them to buy you because they feel like if you step away from the company, then the company's going to turn to [ __ ] >> So, with that being said, on the former, if you're trying to set yourself up for an exit, don't live through the company. And then what about salary? What do you recommend for people out there if you're a founder? Just >> Yeah, I mean look, the salary thing's funny. I actually just did a YouTube video on this. You know, when I first started my company, I did we didn't take salaries. We took distributions, right? So, when the company had enough cash flow in the business to support itself and sustain for a few months at a time >> That's exactly what I did. >> we would take a little distribution. Yeah, you know, and and then those get bigger and they get bigger and you get excited and then it's like, okay, what 27:15 do I start doing with this money to you know, not be an idiot and start making other money or can I reinvest it back into the business to get the business a little bit bigger? But ultimately, you know, salaries and and all that [ __ ] really shouldn't come to fruition until I mean, we really didn't start taking salaries until we sold. We did the distribution model the whole way through our acquisition and then when we sold, we basically said, okay, we're going to get salaries cuz once we sold, we're not getting distributions anymore, right? It's a whole different game now. So, we put in the salary of what, you know, a typical CEO would make and now that's what I that's what I make and that's okay. I'm fine with that. >> You have to be very, very intentional early. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. First conversation to exit, how long did it take you? I get some laughs. Damn. Full year. >> Full year. And that's because we had to we had to do a lot of cleanup. So, you know, I learned a lot of things that I'm talking to you guys about from that process, you know, and I I I I would say that I'm in a 100 or 200% better after that because of that process and it was the most 28:10 difficult it was the most stressful time in my life to date, no doubt. >> Yeah, the worst is when you come up with a number and then there's that like due diligence and exposure from the outside world where it's signed, but it's not signed and you're in that little holding pattern. >> Yeah. >> I just had a conversation with Rahul from David Protis and he was telling me about that and I was like, that sounds absolutely >> Dude, it's it's brutal because what they do is you know, you run this process, you sit down with 15 or 20 different people, you do the same spiel to every one of them and then you get to the phase of, you know, this is where they have to send their LOIs, right? And you're you're waiting for the LOIs, the LOIs are coming in and you're interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you because unless you're selling the whole company, this is going to be a marriage, right? You're partnering with these people for quite some time. And that's exactly what we did. So, it wasn't always about who is going to give us the most money. It was about who is the right partner for the business. >> So, you can get a lot on the second bite. 28:57 >> The second bite of the apple is the most important bite of the apple, right? So, that's kind of the way we did it. And, you know, you go through this whole entire period, you're going through the financials, and then, you know, you say, "Okay, I pick you." And that's where you get this exclusivity, right? So, during exclusivity, they're diving in, digging in, pulling the the data room, trying to find any holes in anything. And that's where your your evaluation was up here, and then it's like slowly going like this. And then and then you're like, "Fuck, you know?" And it is what it is, but they it's true, you know? And look at these guys that are buying these companies, they're they're dogs. That's their job. They come in, they try to find holes, they try to find ways to get it for less and build it up later for more. And it's a business, and I accepted it, but it was stressful. >> You can't hide anything, either. That's like the huge thing I've learned. Everything comes out. To put a pin on that, you guys, again, you guys didn't sell in full. >> Correct. You rolled over equity. >> Correct. So, I'd love for you to just give advice for everybody out there 29:47 listening, cuz I actually think that that's a great play for someone to get take off some of the chips, get some liquidity, um but then also have some asymmetric upside in the future. So, what are the key things you've learned? And without telling us numbers, like what just dive into what that looked like. >> Yeah, look, I think there's very strategic ways that you can do a lot, right? And and in this process, the goal is to always sell your company when it's going like this, right? Everyone always says, "You know, I'm going to keep going, it's going to keep going, it's going to keep going." And, you know, great, you may think that, but there's a very good chance it doesn't. Yeah. So, the goal is before any type of plateau hits, you want to have some type of an acquisition, and then at that point, it's up to you to say, "Hey, do I want to stay along to ride this thing as high as we can and to grow it? Or am I selling it all the way?" So, in my position, I knew that we had a lot more white space. And our our team and my partners also knew that. So, our goal was, "How can we have a strategic exit where we can have, you know, our generational wealth for our families, 30:43 but also position ourselves to be ultra wildly successful in the future to get this big second bite. And that part right there is where you think of strategy, right? That's all I cared about. Well, who >> That's what they're selling you just as much as you're selling them. >> 100%. Yeah. Because most of the time the strategic partner is not going to pay the most because they know their value, too, right? So, you can have a PE group come in and just throw a ton of money at you and say, "Yeah, we'll do it." But they're not going to come with any type of strategy, any type of ability to help you keep going like this. And that for me was the biggest goal. I needed to find somebody who you know, I like I said, I didn't know what I didn't know. So, I only knew how to get a company so big, but they knew how to get a company to that next level. >> So, then So, the Germans weren't the highest bid? >> No. >> Wow. >> Yeah. Yeah, no. >> Love [snorts] it, baby. No risk, no reward there. Let's go, baby. I mean, you have true operators. Like the reality is is I've been talking a lot more PE people. I just had like a 5-hour dinner with PE people. And like I forgot 31:33 who said it. It might have been Ross on the Cadence episode, but it's just like the best investors are the operators. And these guys And these guys are operating companies and they've I mean, they brought company over a billion dollars. >> Correct. >> Those are the people that you want to go with. So, So, what are the key learnings in there? What are the things that you take away? It's just for you, you think that get enough probably the the minimum amount that you need on the front for generational wealth, whatever that number is, and then probably the best swing on the other side? >> Yeah, so the way we structured it was unique as we structured earn-outs, too. So, like you have the ability to say, "Okay, you know, I we're going to sell X percent of the company. We know we have these massive growth years coming sales, so we need to figure out some way to have an earn-out structure for those years because again, in in our industry, the work you do for the year before shows the the year of shows the year after. So, like the work we're doing in 2026 right now, all these retail meetings, everything we're doing, those don't load in until next year. So, it's 32:26 like I know what's coming, but like I'm not getting paid for it, right? Does that make sense? >> Yeah. So, retail and product is a lag. >> Yeah. Yeah, so for me it was like, "Look, like I I understand that, you know, this is the right time, but we have a lot of stuff happening in the in the future. So, they're like, "Okay, well, put together what we would call like your SGM or your forecast for the next 2 years, and then we'll put a we'll put an earnout on that. And then if you hit it, you get the earnout, and then you don't you don't delineate any of your equity in those earnouts. Those earnouts are based on what you told me you were going to hit. We're obviously not going to pay you up front for it, but if you hit them, we're going to pay you. And then you still have that second bite after that." So, we have a very sweet deal where it's it's amazing. I mean, >> So, so the initial bite of the apple you got, that percentage was probably based on trailing 12. >> Correct. >> An additional earnout based on you hitting the goals in the next what? >> 2 years. >> 12 to 20 24 months. >> And then you have two two individual earnouts. >> And then you have points in the holdco. 33:19 Your two companies, their two companies. >> Correct. >> And then you're on some sort of salary with them. >> Correct. >> And then if you win big, you win big on the four. And maybe even more. You guys can go acquire companies. You can do whatever you want. >> Exactly. >> He's smiling, guys. He's smiling. >> Yeah. >> Some shit's coming. >> Exactly. >> Some shit's coming there. Amazing. Yeah, I watched one of the videos with that guy. I don't know how to pronounce his name, Heikki. >> Yeah. >> He seems like a gangster. >> He's the best, man. >> Yeah. >> I told I tell everyone all the time that I don't even know if, you know, I would have stayed if it wasn't for Heikki or picked this company if it wasn't for Heikki. Heikki is, without a doubt, one of the most influential people in my life, and I've only known him for a year. You know, no [ __ ] guy, you know, all about his processes. I've watched YouTube videos of him from when he was at Amer Sports, and I've watched some of his like his quarterly meetings cuz it's a publicly traded company. So, all that stuff is public, and it's like he if if he's if he's anything, he's as consistent as they come. You know, the 34:10 same building blocks are and what shows it's a system. And if you build the system right, it can work anywhere. You just got to stick to the [ __ ] system. >> You would like Brian Garofalo, CEO of Skullcandy. We did an episode with him. He's a absolute gangster, disciplined, consistent systems for 20, 30 years. Seems like he's very, very similar. Guys, this episode is sponsored by KetoneIQ. I often sit [music] down in this chair for over 3 hours and stay super dialed with ketones. It's a completely different category of fuel for your brain, clean, sustained, and no crash. I take a shot before recording, before deep work, and any session that I need to be sharp. Head to ketone.com/openresidency [music] for 30% off your first subscription and a free gift with your second shipment. >> [music] >> That's k e t o n e.com/openresidency. Guys, this is something that I use every single day, non-negotiable. Give it a try. >> I want to dive into the companies now. >> Okay. >> Everyone knows all your companies. I guess let's just start with Let's start with like the marketing mix. 35:11 Pick a company. It could be Raw, it could be Cbum. I mean, just tell us like how you look at marketing holistically, whether it be paid, organic, influencer. What does that look like from the top? >> Yeah, so, you know, we can start at, you know, the first one, which would be Raw, and then we can go all the way to Onsite, cuz I think they're two different ways, and I can kind of work through both. >> I'm so curious on Onsite. >> Dude, Onsite sick. >> Guys, long story short, they just went zero to all doors target with a bunch of celebrities. We're going to get into that deep. >> Yeah. >> If that plays out how I think it is, and it's >> It's It's It's already playing out the way it's supposed to. >> It's already playing out. That's one of I don't That's never This has never happened before. >> No. >> Stay tuned for that. Let's Let's rewind. Let's go through the marketing mix first. >> with Raw and Cbum, you know, the way we started the company really is is the same way you used to see companies start, you know, 4 or 5 years ago, where it was just influencer backed, right? We We didn't have any cash. We We didn't know what we were doing, and we just figured 36:04 it out along the way. So, being fully transparent, at that time, Matt and myself owned a vitamin company called Revive, and we still own it, but we were trying to People were asking us to start a sports nutrition brand, and we were like, "We're not going to get into this world unless we have someone who can really like just We can own it immediately." Let's be honest, the sports nutrition world is very saturated. There's a thousand brands selling the same [ __ ] So, how can we get in front of all of it? And we knew the face of the the brand needed to be Chris. >> We're going to pop up this this beautiful human right here. >> so it was Chris, right? And we we flew Chris to Florida. We had a great conversation with Chris, and we were like, "Hey, look, this is what we want to do." And I think at the time we were the first company to do equity deals with an with an influencer, right? Like we No one was doing that. Everyone was doing the same [ __ ] 10,000 a month, 15,000 a month, you know, here's your commission. >> is this for context? >> 2021. >> Damn. >> So >> You know what's crazy with that, too? That's a monster deal. How much of leverage did you have in the marketplace 36:56 then? You weren't that big then, were you? >> No. No, not at all. Yeah, we were nobody. You know, we were nobody back then. >> People do business with people, man. That's That's amazing. And you gave him a great deal. >> Of course. Yeah, and we I think we actually started something cool because you see it a lot now, right? You see like a lot of the partnership start stuff happening. You have Seth Seth Feroce through Axe & Sledge. You know, there's another a lot of other brands doing it now in sports nutrition, but it worked out really well for us. So, we had the conversation, he agreed to it. We announced him like right before the Olympia, which was the great time to announce. That's when his videos on YouTube were getting a million views at a time. Um more than a million views at a time, and the brand exploded. It was like a a massive massive revenue number from like October to December of that year. That's what kind of spiked it Vitamin Shoppe's interest for us. And our goal with that was like, "We're not going to go chase retailers. We're just going to build this D2C machine until people come to us and ask for it because we don't want to play the price game. We 37:48 don't want to have to give them crazy margins on shelf. We want to win on velocity. So, they may not make 50 points on our product, but they're going to sell five times more of our product than the next. So, we're going to be able to make some real money here." >> So So, in the beginning, just so I have context, the YouTube evergreen machine is just absolutely insane. So, you just turned him on I imagine just across all social, just organically integrated in, and then he was proud to say that he was an owner of the company. So, that was starting in the beginning, no no ads, no nothing, just organic arbitrage. >> Correct. >> How big could it be with that? Was it over Was it seven figures? >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Damn. >> Yeah. Yeah, it was seven figures with that. And the the cool thing about that, and this is where people really really have a hard time understanding how important having like that face is for your brand, is if you have a good face for the brand, other influencers want to be a part of it for way less money. So, when we were trying to go get influencers before before Chris, they were asking for all kinds of crazy numbers. I want 6,000 a month. I want 38:39 7,000 a month. I want 10,000 a month. But then once Chris came on, >> He's Michael Jordan. >> He's Michael Jordan, and everyone wants to play with Michael Jordan. So, those same influencers are coming back saying, "I'll take three. I'll take 2,500. I you know, I I know this brand's going to be massive now, so I just want to be a part of it." And that's where you win. You're building out, you know, we always had this idea, and Chris from day one always said, you know, "I want to be the face of the brand for a little bit to get this thing going, but there's going to be a point in time where I want to step away from this, and I want this brand to be bigger than me when it comes to, you know, everything." >> Smart man. >> 100%. And again, key man risk, right? We wanted that, too, because we knew going into >> have a business background? I mean, I I'm I'm sure I'm sure at this point he's way more than >> He's He's very intelligent, and he's very like analytical in like anything he does. Chris is a you know, a mind. You know, he's always questioning everything. He's very curious. He wants to know what, where, how, when, why. And I think he relied on me a lot in the 39:27 beginning to help guide him, but then he kind of took it on his own and really started to be very, very successful in business himself. But that was the plan, and the plan was executed flawlessly. You know, if you look back now, Chris isn't even our number one athlete when it comes to sales. He kind of just It's >> It's the dream. >> Yeah. >> So, CAC arbitrage organically, I would imagine on the back of that per what you said, get >> Correct. >> And you're not even driving meta, and then I imagine at some point meta. What about now? What does now look like? >> Now is a totally different animal, man. >> What What does it look like right now? >> Yeah, so now is is TikTok, man. TikTok is the new [ __ ] paid media source. It's all influential seeding to product to TikTok. TikTok kind of has a spillover to Amazon. DTC is still in in play, but like I would argue that TikTok is absolutely the new DTC. DTC to Amazon to retail. I think if anyone's starting a brand today, that's the model you pick and that's the model you run with. >> So, if we got D2C, TikTok with the drip to Amazon, and then retail. Are you spending more on like Give me like >> Like if you have a pie chart, I spend 40:29 80% of our money on TikTok for ads. >> For ads or for giving free product to influencers and then went on affiliate. >> Or is it both? >> It's both. >> It's both. >> Yeah, it's literally 80% of our our ad spend right now is going to TikTok. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> Guys, this is so crazy. I mean, you could watch all of our episodes and everybody kind of has their own secret sauce. I mean, most people it's like 80% meta. Michael Brand from Ketone, they do 50 plus percent partnerships, podcasts, whitelisting they do. >> Our TikTok we launched TikTok two months not even two months ago. I would say a month ago. Our TikTok revenue is almost double of our entire athlete roster revenue right now. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> And how has TikTok affected Amazon and D2C? >> It only helps it. Because the problem is you have a you have a TikTok audience of younger kids, right? That they'll they're loyal to TikTok. They'll buy whatever they want on TikTok. But then you also have people like me. I don't trust that [ __ ] I'm going to look at it. I'm going to find it >> I'm not on that [ __ ] bro. >> I mean, I have like clippers that clip for me on TikTok, but I don't even go on 41:27 the app, right? I actually had a video my wife posted went viral and it's hilarious actually. It's like a going on vacation with a CEO. It has like four or five million views now. But I I I'm never on it. >> My best piece of content with my wife. >> Yeah. >> It's [ __ ] wild. >> It's funny. Yeah. >> It is wild. >> But yeah, no, and then it's we see it cuz we have a tool that tracks it. It's about a 40% spillover out of TikTok to Amazon. >> Yeah. We did a great episode with that hence from Nuro. They were the fastest growing brand on TikTok in 2024 and he actually turned down the spend on Amazon due to the spillover from TikTok and it was like you know, if he turned it all off, he saw like a 10% decrease from the top cuz it's just direct spillover. >> Yeah. I have this funny weird feeling that Amazon watches that and if you like pull it, they like punish you for it. So, like I still rock with Amazon pretty heavily with ads just cuz I don't want it like it's a great great great business for us and like I don't want to [ __ ] like you know it's like the saying if it don't if it's not broke, don't fix it. Like I'm not going to [ __ ] touch it. It's cranking. We do very well on 42:22 Amazon. Number one pre-workout on Amazon. So, like that badge alone is massive for us. >> Yeah, I feel like Amazon like you always see like the rankings and who's doing what on what. I feel like TikTok is still like it's still kind of like a little bit under the It's the wild west and like it's like no one is like really really talking about it. I don't see people flexing about TikTok. I know like a couple of brands. >> It's also a tough business to sell. You know, I would argue that if you're going to sell a company and it's like, oh, how do you do? Oh, I sell a two million 200 million a year on TikTok. Like PE groups are still questioning that. Like, okay, like what if it goes away? You know, what happens if this? So, I think the goal in any any in my opinion and I could be 100% wrong, but the goal for me if I had a really strong TikTok brand would be to get it off of TikTok and get it into retail or Amazon as fast as possible. >> Yeah. I mean, I just saw a stat. I think the name of the company was Avi. Don't quote me, but if especially if you have good margins, let's just say you have 80-point margins, you just flood free product >> Yeah. >> and then they're giving 30% commission 43:19 >> That's a lot A lot of companies do that. >> and the blended margin they're getting is like 40 points. And then they win there and then you're winning on the back end Amazon retail D2C. They don't even give a [ __ ] where it goes. >> Yeah, like you know, I think like the secret sauce right now is you run it you run TikTok at a break even and you let it all flood over everywhere else and let it do its thing. >> To put a bow on Cbum, what's your advice for people out there? I mean, obviously he's like a one of one. He's the top guy, but what are kind of the red flags or the green flags when people are signing? I would imagine Did you do some sort of vesting deal where he got X down investing around Wow, you went raw dog all in? >> Mhm. >> Damn. It's like that's a charismatic man with a lot of juice there, Cbum. You went all in. >> Yeah. Yeah, but here's the deal. I've got a I get asked every single day by all my friends in the industry, who's the next Cbum? Who can do the same thing Chris can do? And if I'm being honest, there isn't one. There's nobody that can do what he did in the industry. So, for me, it's like my my my key, you know, green flags to look at 44:17 when you're looking at someone like him is you have to be as authentic as all hell. I don't think there's anyone more authentic than Chris on social media. True to what he believes in. I've seen Chris turn down three, four, five million-dollar deals from companies because he doesn't believe in what it is. You know, and that's all that's a hard pill to swallow. You know, 300k cash a month Chris, "No, I'm good. I don't want to do it. It doesn't align with my branding or my audience." >> That's going to compound big with the way this world's going. Trust and distribution is everything. >> Yeah, but that's what builds trust, you know, and validity. These kids who jump from brand to brand to this to that, I would argue there's probably no one on influential on social media that hasn't gone through 12 companies anymore. It's hard, you know, it's it's too easy for these kids to make money, and then it's very, very difficult for brands to keep them once they realize they're not bringing the revenue they want, and they quickly flip, and they go to the next, and the next, and the next, and then you lose all validity and all trust in your audience, and then you're not worth 45:07 anything to a brand. So, you know, if I could tell, you know, the influential kids on social one thing is like you got to ride it out. You know, you got to stick to something and be and be there for quite some time because if you don't do that, you're not going to build the loyalty and the trust of your audience. >> I don't think it's You might think it's crazy. I don't think it's crazy for an influencer to ask for equity if they've put in their time for years on years. >> Yeah, you're like a pragmatic >> pragmatic engine. If they're driving the value over time and they are trustworthy, have good distribution, it's grown. >> And you're happy to pay it or give it. >> Yeah. >> Right? Like I'm I'm not sad at the equity I'm giving for the business I never would have had without that person. It's There's It's a value-based trade. >> Yeah. I mean, Bum Energy went from 400 to 45 mil in under 3 years. Obviously, it's done some of the stuff that we've done here. What about the uh it's almost like a sub-brand? Like it started as RAW, and then it was Bum Energy. Yeah. What was the strategy behind that? The the reason I got >> Super easy. So, the goal with that was 45:56 we didn't want to pigeonhole ourselves into like the fitness community, and we've done a very good job of pulling Bum out and making it a lifestyle beverage. So, this is for people who want to party. Like we do massive college campus tours with this. We do massive lifestyle events with it. We don't want you to think that you need to the only person who drinks this is people who go to the gym. >> And it's hemp. >> Yeah, and if you look at brands that have done it in the past, there's two reasons. That's That's reason number one. Reason number two is if you look at any brand in the past that has started an energy drink that also owned a sports nutrition brand, quite literally within the first year, they just totally forget about their powder business and they go all in on the energy drink business. And this business is what's paying the bills. Don't forget it. You start a new business. This business isn't going to start making money for a little bit, right? >> Yeah. >> But if you put all the effort here and you don't pay attention here, this goes away. And I'll give you an example. Two companies that we took a lot of brand space from at the time were 46:51 C4. When Nutrabolt came out with C4 Energy, they kind of let go of their business with C4. C4 was the number one pre-workout on Amazon for [ __ ] ever. And we stole that from them just because they weren't paying attention to it. It couldn't have been easier, right? We just laid down on what we knew we knew best and we we just took it because they weren't paying attention to it. >> was just you just being strategic in building two different systems, two different Yeah. >> You don't forget about it. You know, this is a big business. This business made a lot of money. Why would you let it go? Because this is the new shiny object on the street. Like you can't do that. It's not how you build brand. So, I would rather have both, you know, have a a team dedicated to this and a team dedicated to this. >> Is that the secret sauce? Is isolated separated teams? That's really what it is. >> Cuz I feel like that there's not as much >> I think it's a bandwidth thing. You know, I think that there's some people who can do a great job. Look at Greg. Greg's done a [ __ ] amazing job of building Bloom and it's very much quite literally could be the same team under one roof, but it's also about the 47:43 founder, you know, giving clear direction. You know, look guys, you know, yeah, one of our key building blocks is energy, but we still have these other three key building blocks over here. And if these aren't hitting, we're not winning. And that's how it's all about the leadership structure and all about cuz as a CEO, if I see this start taking off, and then I'm like, "Oh my god, look at the multipliers on energy are so much better. This is so much better. It's so much easier. It's one SKU with different flavors. I don't have to manage [ __ ] anything. It's just it's a easier business." It's so easy for me to take that road and just go to the right. So easy. But you can't. And you have to be very very very disciplined in understanding that that's not the right way to do it. And yes, you need to give this all the attention it needs, and you need to hire for this. Don't build your team too thin to where they can't focus on it. Build the right team for both, and and win. >> Love that. Guys, next episode is Greg from Bloom. That's going to bang. We're doing that in a couple days. Make sure you guys subscribe. Don't miss that one. So you just started another company, 48:35 separate team. Obviously, you give him sauce in both of them. And now this probably gives you probably more leverage and optionality where you're talking to anyone, maybe influencer, and they could do both deals. Maybe a retailer. You're talking to the same person, you can sell in both. >> Yeah, look, the strategy is always the best about about CPG is once you get to the Walmarts, the Targets, the Costcos, the Sam's Clubs, it's it's easy to shift vertically and say, "Hey, we have this. Hey, we have this." And granted, you're only as good as the last thing you launch, but once you get into those doors, and you do well, they want more product. They're they're dying for innovation. They're dying for awesome brands. So if you can deliver on that over and over and over again, the CPG game is a fun game. It's a really fun game to be in. >> It's so crazy, man, cuz obviously we're looking at like AI in the future, and we've like dissected like our business Iconic, and we're like looking back on like what truly is our moat. >> Mhm. >> And stuff keeps like evolving over time. Like, you know, our designs, our licenses, our brand, our following. But it's really coming back to now our 49:32 production supply chain, cuz we've done so much volume over 10 years that we have pricing power. And then it's the distribution. And like someone like you, like the fact that you could just go to Walmart and go to Target, and you have all this credibility across these brands, and you can start anything and do it and just pitch it in, like >> It's dope. >> That's the sauce, bro. >> So I I tell people this all the time. since we started messing around with AI, and I really do believe this, I think the most powerful thing that you can have in the next 10 years is relationships. >> I agree. >> Because AI is going to [ __ ] do everything. >> Offline relationships. >> Yeah. Cuz AI is going to do it all. If you can't You're not going to be able to outwork people. You're not going to be able to outsmart people. >> wild to think that the outwork thing is going to no longer be a thing? >> You're going to have a bot doing working 24/7, doing everything you want to do. So, it's >> to put you on some sauce after this, right now. >> We're We're We're in deep. I I feel the smile. >> I want it. >> I feel We just did an episode. We're about to do a lot more. Yeah, the agent 50:23 is what increased What cut my prepare time in half. >> Bro, I have We have the same [ __ ] going right now. I have like all the I call I named them all. I can text them. They have email addresses. >> We got Marty. Cuz we're this our whole our whole vibe is inspired by Marty Supreme. Like how we do like the movie covers. Yeah, yeah. So, Marty is our first agent. >> That's dope. >> We're We're deciding the subject of the agent. >> I sent out a group text yesterday. We're building them for all my my team like my C-team. Like each one's going to have one. And I'm like I you know, with my chief technology officer, like you I need you to meet with them this week. I need you to basically, you know, tell tell him everything you want it to do or, you know, what you want it to operate like and then put you obviously, you know, build the brain. And then once you build the brain, like executing on it, naming it, giving it a phone number, an email address, and all of them are going to have their own virtual >> You know what it looks like? Our guy we had We had a had to put him down to more like Gen Z. You got to ask him what he looks like. He's going to send you an 51:10 image of what he looks like. Yeah, we're we're restyling him right now. He looked like very like a Brooks Brothers >> I'm going to ask him. >> type guy. You ask him. Let [clears throat] him ride with it. Don't tell him the vibe. Let him figure it out, but then you can you can You have to be polite though when you ask him to adjust. >> Yeah. >> It's [ __ ] crazy, man. Yeah, I think for people out there, like obviously be slow and calculated by doing a deal with someone like a Cbum. I think that wins over time cuz it's trust and distribution. Maybe you got lucky there. Maybe do a vesting over time, but everything else sounds amazing. >> Yeah, if I went back, I probably should have done that. I think that was a little bit before my my business acumen was as high as it is now, but I also trusted Chris and I still trust Chris, so I'm glad I did it. >> Good man. Let's go a little bit deeper into into influencers. I saw on one of your videos, you have this full-time athlete education specialist named Isabel. Tell us about that. I know nothing except that exists, and I think it's brilliant. At the surface level, I wanted to know more. Tell me more. >> Yeah, so again, our German counterparts 52:07 do massive revenue on D2C. Massive, massive revenue. I can't say the numbers, but it's you wouldn't believe them if I told you. So, our goal was like >> Great complementary business. >> Yeah, again, and that was one of the reasons why they liked us cuz they saw so much white space in that category for us. So, it was like, okay, well, we're going to bring Isabel over, and Isabel is going to do this whole entire education series on our athletes. And I'll be honest with you, another person who does a fantastic job of this is CG, Christian Guzman. So, you know, bringing Christian on board was really a great way to show these new up-and-coming athletes and influencers how to do it right. You know, how not to sell your soul to the devil, how to, you know, don't post these corny You see it. You see it all the time. You the influencers that take a photo of the product and then put a code underneath, and it's like, that's not going to sell a [ __ ] thing. You know, you need to work through this. Why do you take it? When do you take it? What's the benefit of it? Why is it better than everything else, right? Answering those questions live, even like the time to post, how to do three 52:58 stories in a row to make it more exciting for the the person watching. But that's what Isabel does. So, she'll sit one-on-one with each of these athletes. >> Relationship manager optimizing. >> Relationship manager, but also helping them build their personal brands. Because let's be honest, like if they're not building their personal brand, they're not growing their following on social, it doesn't do us any good after 3 months. After 3 months, that person, we've seen their whole entire audience, and after we see their whole entire audience for those 3 months, unless they're growing 10, 20% month over month, >> mean net new to capture. >> we're not doing anything good for ourselves there. So, we help build their brand. >> Yeah, you hear so many times that people just like partnering, extracting from the audience, and moving on. But if you're if you're growing fast, >> And that's why you see a lot of brands nowadays, they don't do do partnerships anymore. They do a 3-month deal where they'll pay more for 3 months. So, let's say someone wanted 10K a month for a year contract, they'll pay them 20 for 3. See you later. Because in those first 3 months, you're getting 90% of what 53:50 you're going to ever get out of that person anyways, and then you can flip different, you know, demographics much faster, and you have a bigger audience, your TAM's bigger. >> What is one of the biggest things you've seen out of that from Isabelle? Is there like one big takeaway you could share with the audience on that outside of just be authentic? >> Well, no. I think what it comes down to is a lot of these people don't really know how to do it right, and they think that, you know, a lot of people when they're on social, they don't want to look corny, right? And that's the big thing with the these athletes or these influencers. They're like, I don't want to post this all the time because it's corny, and it's not going to make me any money. But when you really educate them on how to do it right, and you see that one, it doesn't come off corny at all, it comes off very real and authentic, but two, the level of difference it makes in their compensation, >> Yeah. >> they get excited about it, and then they kind of double down on it and want to do it more. So, I think it's it's a it's that. It's it's showing them that you can do this well, you can make a lot of 54:36 money, and you can do it in a way where you're not corny. >> It's a balance like we talked about with Ross, like premium at scale. >> Yeah. >> It's like, how do you How do you make a lot of money and not be corny? >> It's hard. >> And they just rolled out yesterday, I don't know when this is going to air, Instagram is doing baked-in affiliate, where you can bake in, yeah, that happened yesterday. >> Really? >> Yeah, baked-in affiliate on Instagram. So, they can be even less corny. You could just do some straight-up lifestyle stuff. >> That's cool. >> And embed it in. >> Very cool. >> That's going to That's going to slap. What about Gym Shark times Bum Energy? You've done some great like strategic partnerships. >> Yeah. >> Gym Shark is like the [ __ ] OG of all OGs. How did that come about, and what's kind of the big takeaway from that? >> Oh, it's funny. So, we did a deal, I helped Chris do Chris's deal with Gym Shark when he went back to Gym Shark. And one of the things we threw in the deal was we had to be that exclusive, you know, supplement/energy drink like collaboration with Gym Shark at all their events. And I've just become really tight with Noel over the years. 55:27 Noel's, you know, an incredible human being, Ben also an incredible human being. And we our our visions, I think, as to what we want out of, you know, brand and and people are very aligned. So, it made sense for us to really lean into Gym Shark and I think it made sense for them to lean into us and we just have a great relationship with them. We did a deal with them where we did an exclusive energy drink. You got you've probably seen it. It's like the most sought after I think they sell for like over $100 a piece on eBay. >> It was just as much as much as just as much a brand play as it was a a brand play. >> Yeah, and we we only have it at exclusive Gym Shark events. So, if you want one you got to come to the event you got to get it and that's kind of how we do it. >> And is it almost like an evergreen deal? You guys are going to be launching new products over time? >> I think we'll probably mess mess around with some powders and things of that nature, but you also have to remember a lot of Gym Shark athletes aren't Raw athletes and they have other sponsorships. So, we have to be very careful with how we do it cuz we don't want anyone to get in trouble either, 56:15 right? We don't want someone to grab our products and get in trouble and get thrown off of a sponsorship. It's it's supposed to be fun and we want to keep it that way. >> So, less like hard marketing deliverables and more like homie elevate brand, limited product, limited distribution. >> Exclusiveness, right? You want what you can't have. >> Can't have can't have enough of those. >> Yeah. We did a really cool one I don't know if you remember. We were the first one to do it in sports nutrition. We did a Ghost and Bavage collab. So, like >> Ghost and who? >> And our pre-workout. So, our pre-workout is Bavage which is Chris's lisp on Savage. >> Yeah. >> And we were the first company ever >> Chris's lisp on? >> Yeah. That's why it's called Bavage. >> That's interesting. >> Yeah. >> That's a nice authentic play. >> Yeah, and our protein is called Isolate with a th instead of an s and it's >> I did not know that. >> Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, it's it's funny, but yeah, so we were the first brand to do that and to this day we still get asked to do that again. Like, hey, when are you ever going to do a Ghost you know, Bavage collab again? It it like broke the internet at the time. 57:08 >> Ryan and Dan are the homies I've known for >> I love those guys. >> Dan told me about the concept while walking a trade show on his non-compete 10 years ago. My artist I was managing did his logo. He told me the most crisp vision. I thought he was a [ __ ] psycho. That was like 12 years ago. >> Dan helped us with Bom Energy. He was like one of the people who I have a very close relationship with Dan and you know, when we were wanting to launch the energy drink he gave us a really good idea of not chasing what everyone else was doing and doing it a little bit differently, and it was the best advice we could have taken. >> It's very, very rare to see, I feel like when I'm thinking of like apparel, I'm thinking of all the brands, I'm not going to name the brands here, guys. Just so [ __ ] cutthroat. No one wants to help anybody, and I it's wild for me to hear. I mean, even on like the Momentous episode, just calling out all these He's just calling out BPN. Like, you're just openly talking about Bloom, talking about Ghost. Is it just because just the TAM is is so massive and just the it's just >> No. >> No, I mean, look, I believe that there's a lot of Yeah, I guess you could say 58:05 that. I think there's enough people in the world that you don't have to compete, you know, like that. And I like good people. You know, I truly believe that. I There's a lot of people in the industry that I don't talk to because I don't think that they're the right people, and I don't think that they do good for the industry. But, you know, Andy and Sal Forcella at First Form, Sal was quite literally, besides Matt, was one of the only people that I looked at for father advice when I had my son. I had a call with Sal every Friday, and we would talk about everything I was going through as a new dad, and he was literally one of the most incredible human beings on Earth at the time. He didn't owe me anything. Fun fact, I used to be an influencer for First Form like 15 years ago. I never met him at the time. >> from the Midwest. >> I know. I know. I know. But, you know, we have a great relationship. Me and Greg have a great relationship. You know, we talk almost every day. Me and Ross obviously have a great relationship. [ __ ] I mean, there's so many brands that I talk to. Dan and Ryan, like, great guys. And then there's some that I I don't, but I I'm 59:00 I I don't think that there's any world where you shouldn't be collaborative at some point or another with the people in your industry and try to keep it good. I think the the more you do to keep the industry on the right path and do the right thing, that makes it better for everyone in the industry. >> Everything rises. >> Correct. >> Love that. >> be honest, with this whole GLP-1 craze that's coming out, there's more eyes on sports nutrition now than ever before. PE didn't even really play in sports nutrition until recently. And now look at all the numbers you're getting out of these crazy deals coming out of protein because protein is the new hot [ __ ] >> It's so wild. It's going to be harder to eat than not eat. >> It's just the whole entire thing is about to be back. >> It's going to be cheaper. It's going to be cheaper to eat filet mignon soon than get protein powder because protein powder prices are absolutely insane. >> They just came out with a report, too, that people's bones are getting weakened, too. >> Awesome. GLP-1s. Yes. I don't know I don't know what the fast follower is going to be on that to strengthen your bones. I don't know what that that micronutrient is. 59:55 >> Yeah. But that's going to be a big big seller. >> really, it's a it's a protein it's a lack of protein. They're not getting cuz the problem with GLP-1s is you're not craving protein. You're craving fat. You're craving sugar, right? So what you're seeing now is this whole new snackable category where they're just putting protein in anything, Pop-Tarts, [ __ ] potato chips, because that's what you crave when you're on them. And you're going to see those categories are going to blow up. >> Every category. The weirdest, most niche category you see. I remember when like protein chips came out. I was like, "Yo, this is absolutely crazy right now." And that's like Now that's like a given. Now it's like if you come out with a chip >> Yeah, you come with innovation at a meeting and you have a chip that we've seen that [ __ ] a million times. Give me something good. >> Insane. Um biggest waste of marketing dollars. You've been in the game for a while. You've seen a lot of different companies. What do you think is the biggest waste? >> I think the biggest waste of marketing dollars is just not knowing how to use the money the right way. So for example, if you use a ton of money in Facebook, 1:00:39 like make sure you know how to do Facebook ads before you spend it, right? If you want to do celebrity partnership, make sure you know what you're going to do with the celebrity before you buy the celebrity, right? So for example, if you're going to spend $2 million on somebody, you better have a really [ __ ] strong plan on how you're going to effectively use their name, image, and likeness for the next 12 months. Are you doing billboards? Are you doing banners? Are you doing cutouts? Are you doing everything you can to capitalize on it? Because I don't think there's a bad way to spend money in marketing as long as there's no plan attached to it. And that's what you see happen, right? When we started the Facebook in the beginning, we didn't know what the [ __ ] we were doing. We were wait but lighting money on fire, right? When you start Google Ads and you don't know how to manage them properly, lighting money on fire. If you pay $2 million for a celebrity and you don't have a plan of action on every granular detail of how you're going to use them for 12 months, I consider that lighting money on fire. >> If someone is starting a brand now and they had to spend their marketing 1:01:27 dollars in the first place. >> TikTok. >> TikTok. >> I think that there's no other place you can get the return on your investment than TikTok right now. >> And you're only two or three months in? >> Yeah. I mean granted we have massive brand legacy, but I've spoke to some of the most intelligent people in the world that have, you know, built TikTok. One of them being, you know, Jay from Mary Ruth, you know, Alan Carr from Base. That's that's the hot [ __ ] right now. That's where you put your money. >> You guys heard it here. Um if you had to pick one, product first or brand first? >> Oof. I'm going to go brand. >> Why? >> Because I think once you have a brand you can sell anything. And you can be more than one product. I think when you have a product it's tough to to integrate more into it. And granted there are some places or people who have built a product first, built the brand after, but I think it's a lot harder. I think branding is is ultimately the most important thing in the world. I think it's what gets people excited. I would argue that people buy into our brand for our brand more than our products. I mean, let's be honest, pre-workout's pre-workout. Why are you 1:02:23 buying Raw over any other company? >> It's the emotion and the association. >> And what we what we believe in, right? We're good people, we're family men, like we believe in, you know, good values, and I think people want to support that. >> How big has you been doing personal content helped shape this branding narrative? Cuz you I mean, you came I feel like you came out of nowhere. Like we were looking last night and like dude, we're like every two week we're about to really up the frequency, but bro, you are firing, bro. You're putting out so much content. How's the content change and shape the brand and help the brands? >> Yeah, you know what happened with me was when I was going through the process, one of my good friends it was actually Ross came to me and he was like, "Bro, you have to get your [ __ ] face like the [ __ ] you're doing that no one knows about is more than anyone's doing that's famous. Like you just need to get out in front of it." And my goal is I'll always do it now because I do believe that I'm helping entrepreneurs and I'm helping the next generation come up, but I'm a CEO and an operator first. So the second that this interferes with what my 1:03:15 day-to-day job is or my family, I'm done. Like I'll I'll miss an episode. I'll miss it. My My content my head of content, he's here. He's [ __ ] amazing. And you know, what you see is real and that's why I'm able to do it. I'm not sugarcoating anything I'm putting out. If it's a bad day, you're going to get a bad me. If it's a good day, you're going to get a good me. But ultimately, as long as I stay true to, you know, being authentic, I think that's what's made it kind of pop off so much because it's not like a highlight reel. You see all the bad [ __ ] too, and I'll be honest about it as much as I can be, right? I There's some things I can't talk about. But obviously, it's been a really cool last, you know, I would say year. >> Yeah, I did it like 17 or 18. It was called Behind the Hustle. I had someone follow me around for 18 months. Documentation is way easier than like preparing and filming cuz you just like live your life. And to this day, 10 years later, a lot of people that like come up to me and know me know me from that. And it's [ __ ] evergreen. >> Dude, you know what the crazy >> gangster And little Enzo the gangster, he's going to see this [ __ ] too. 1:04:08 >> That's it, man. And you know, I think the the cool part about it is it's it's so easy when it's authentic. Like I have people that message me all the time and they're like, "Oh, you need to change your thumbnail to this and you need to use this [ __ ] title." And I'm like, "I don't [ __ ] care." >> Yeah. >> You know, like this is what I'm going to post. It's real. If people find me, great. If people don't, that's okay. Eventually, one of these things is going to pop off and it'll do its thing. >> I think you're doing it well. >> Thanks, man. >> I don't agree with that guy. Biggest branding mistake you think new CPG founders are making in 2026? >> I think that If you had to boil it down to one Yeah, for sure. If I think of CPG, I think of a lot of times and we made this mistake when we were going into Walmart the first time, our buyer came to us and said, "This is what we want from RAW." Right? Like >> Nah, this is not how this works, bro. >> That's So that's what he did. And And you know, we're young. We're like so excited to get into Walmart. So we're like, "Whatever this guy says, we got to do." Like, right? We got to formulate these products. We got to come out with 1:04:59 this [ __ ] Biggest mistake in my life. By far. You know, we we basically came out with SKUs that weren't aligned with our vision because they wanted to hit specific price points on shelf. And they did terrible. >> This is reactive versus proactive. This is this is them 100,000 it was the worst thing and I learned the the most valuable lesson of my life that buyers don't know what they don't know. And you know, we were super lucky that the new that buyer ended up actually getting fired from Walmart. Guys, this is very rare you get a second crack. So that buyer ended up getting fired, the new buyer came in and we sat down with them and you know, we have this data in front of us and it's terrible data, right? Terrible data. And we're like All right, we're just going to be honest. Like this guy told us to make these skews, we made these skews, it's not aligned to our brand. Like give us one more shot, please. Like please give us one more shot. Yeah, let us put what we think is meant to be in here and now we hold the number one selling skew in Walmart. We're going to get deeper into how you accelerate the sales and make sure that 1:06:00 it works. We're talking a lot about branding. I want to dive into into 3D Energy sure and Guzman. Guzman is like a YouTube OG legend. You partnered there and it exploded. What happened? It went what? Zero to 10 million in 6 months? Yes, about 6 or 7 months, yeah. So it's a cool story. So Christian obviously you know had his relationship with Congo and Congo obviously you know owns a lot they owned Alani, they own Prime and 3D was the first energy drink they came out with and that was the relationship between Christian and them. So he was a 50% partner and Congo was the other 50% partner and about 2 years ago Christian came to me and he just wanted advice. He was like hey man, like I've seen what you've done I would love some advice and kind of how to operate through this. He's like I'm I think I'm going to shut it down and I said hey look, I said I think what you need to do is kind of figure out what you want to do and if you want to make this thing go, you know, I think I can help you get it back and kind of tweak it and he's like would you come in as my partner? And I said look, there's a lot of stuff that has to get done before that happens. There's a lot of cleanup, you 1:07:00 know, you have to have a conversation with Max which is the owner of Congo and he's a good friend of mine too and uh you know, you need to figure it out. So as soon as that happened, I reached out to Max. I said, "Max, look, you know, Christian reached out to me. This is what he's trying to do. You know, I think there were some underlying issues between them that they they had to get that get solved, but I think it's a good move. You don't give a [ __ ] about the brand. You haven't given a [ __ ] about the brand in a long time. Give it to Christian. And full transparency, asked me to help him. So, if you're cool with it, I may help him." And the whole time after that, my thought process was, "How am I going to be able to run two separate energy drink companies without competing with each other?" Because BUM was just now taking off, too. And I'm I have partners, right? Like, I'm loyal to my partners before anything else. So, I'm not going to take my focus, put it somewhere else, and then cannibalize it because I have a better opportunity somewhere else. This is not how I am. I would never do that. So, I had to figure out, "How can I do this without cannibalizing each other?" And 1:07:50 what we came up with, and what I had to pitch to Christian was, "If you do all of this, and if you get all this back, I would be willing to do it, but we would have to restructure the way that we sell this drink. And what I would recommend doing is first of pulling all the [ __ ] out of it, the artificial colors, all the [ __ ] that doesn't need to be in it. Let's make a really cost-effective, affordable energy drink, and target the market that no one's targeting, which is the Venoms, the NOS's, that market." >> NOS? That's still a thing? >> Bro, they do 150 million a year. >> Wow. >> No marketing. Right? But it's because of the price point. So, if I can come out with a beverage that's sub $2, that can compete in that category that hasn't been penetrated or disrupted in 10 or 20 years, I think it's a win. Cuz you'll have a a $1.50 per se energy drink over here, and you'll have your $3.50 energy drink over here. One is a fully built-out functional beverage. One is just a, you know, a blue-collar worker energy drink that you're going to grab at a 7-Eleven. And I pitched the idea to him. I said, "The margins are there. We can make it make sense. It's a great opportunity for 1:08:48 us." And he said, "Fuck it, let's do it." So, I said, "Okay." I said, "Yeah." And and that's what we did, man. We launched it. You know, I used I leveraged some of the relationships I had at Vitamin Shoppe. And to be honest, it's been really difficult to salvage some of the bad relationships that, you know, they left they were left with cuz 3D kind of really [ __ ] some people over, big retailers. So, coming in and having to massage that and say, "Look, it's new organization, new ownership." The Bum Energy guys and again, Bum Energy wasn't that big at the point. So, they were still trying to figure out if we were going to get special over here. So, they're like, "Ah, we're not going to make that many big bets here until we see this take off." And now, obviously, that the those conversations have changed. But, you know, in Dollar I think it's Dollar General or Dollar Tree where the number two energy drink in the store, HEB in Texas, number two energy drink in HEB. So, we're doing it right. We're nationwide in QuickTrip. So, kind of, you know, a year behind Bum is where where we're at and we're leveraging those same relationships and now we're using the same distribution 1:09:44 team to build 3D. >> You're saying a lot of stuff there. I think for a lot of people out there listening, especially young entrepreneurs, it was like a old quote I used to hear that was, "You can't cash cool." And so much money is in the bottom. Like you're talking about like Dollar Tree and Dollar General. And it's so funny cuz like I could tell, again, I haven't known you that long, but just like you now versus five years ago, I can imagine Christian now versus [ __ ] three years ago is a completely different person. Just being non-emotional and just like seeing very clearly that like, yeah, it might be in the bottom at Dollar Tree, Dollar General, but that's like massive businesses. And that's where the white space is cuz most of the people that are cool don't want to go there. >> Yeah, and like there's there's a there's a reason, right? Like if you look at energy right now, like let's compete where there's not a lot of competition. You have everyone chasing the same kind of energy drink, this functional $3.50, you know? Okay, if everyone's focused over here, no one's focused over here, where's the best place to win? It's here. And as long as you don't have to spend a lot on 1:10:38 marketing over here because, let's be honest, what's the number one thing that sells? >> Price. >> Yeah. Right? As long as it tastes good and it's priced well, >> name the name is good, it's clean, it's sleek, it's it's not enough yeah, it's enough. >> It's enough. It's exactly what it needs to be and the flavor profiles are [ __ ] incredible. I would argue that some of the best tasting energy we make is in 3D, but there's not a lot of marketing needed when it's $1.50 a can. You know, that sells it. And and that's true everywhere. If you look at any place, if you get low enough, you're going to sell. But the problem is is are you profitable when you're that low? And that's the game we played to get there, and we got there. >> Love that. What about Guzman? Guzman as an individual, I don't I don't know him that well. What's What's his superpower? >> Christian, I would argue that Christian >> Outside the bench press, for sure. >> I think that CG is anyone in the influencer space for the last 15 years that's still relevant has some type of a superpower because name another person who's been as relevant as I mean, I would argue that every fitness influencer over the last 10 years was 1:11:36 motivated by CG to start doing what they're doing. And he stayed true to himself. He's an honest person. He's quirky, but he he owns everything he does, and he's a he's a master of learning. You know, I think that the one thing about CG is if he doesn't know something, he doesn't [ __ ] himself to say that he does. He wants to be in rooms of people that know more, and I think he's one of the most successful entrepreneurs that I've ever met, you know, and I think his wife is the same way. >> Yeah, 15 years staying like relevant in the cultures, I guess, is [ __ ] rare. >> And being real. You know, he was never anyone he isn't. He was as honest as they came, you know, when he did something stupid, he talked about it. More so than most people. So, it's rare. You know, most people they the true colors come out over time, and they kind of lose that audience. And he's done a really good job of keeping his audience and building his content. As he got older, as he got mature, that same audience followed him through. >> Love that. What is everybody getting wrong about price? You You talked about it, like when they're pricing their product. >> Yeah. >> We talked a little bit off camera just 1:12:36 about understanding and knowing kind of like the distribution points. Why don't we actually just like zoom out? You're I don't even know. You're probably talking to more retail buyers than any more retail than like anyone. So, like what's your like thesis on just retail in general and pricing and such? I'd love to talk about that. >> Yeah, you know, so price back architecture is is definitely, I would say, it's a it's a literal position in my company. We have someone who sits in that seat. His name's Ant, and he all he does is handle anti-cannibalization from retail and price back architecture and serving sizes across all of our channels. >> That's a little That's a awesome ninja job. >> an ex-P&G guy. He manages all of our our glide path from gross to net. So, our our gross to net waterfall, which is where all of that trade spend comes out of. So, it's That's all he does. >> So, it's it's CM1, CM2, all of that. >> that. So, you got to remember. So, this is what I was saying earlier is your gross to net doesn't show up on your P&L because your P&L starts at the money that hits the bank account. So, all of those deductions from retailers, all of those rebates, all of 1:13:33 all of that comes in before you see it on the P&L. So, the money you see, all that shit's been taken out already. So, most people don't pay attention to it because it's like it's in la-la land, right? >> laddering up after the fact when everything comes in. >> Correct. So, he's going in there and he's saying, "Where can we claw back some of this? Or are we using it the best way we could?" Because let's be honest, trade spend is a lot of money. I would argue if you blend our trade spend across all of our categories, you're looking at above a 10% number. So, think think of 10% on hundreds of millions of dollars. >> And trade spend is end caps, uh tasting allowances. >> end caps, late delivery, like all that [ __ ] sits above. It's everything that they can deduct from your invoice before they pay you. Ultimately, every retailer. So, he can go in there and >> 10% of what like let's just say the MSRP is four and you sell it to them for two. You're saying 20 cents of that two? >> Yes. >> Damn. >> Just think of it Just think about it. Easy math. Say your your gross revenue for the year is I'm using numbers that aren't mine. Say it's a hundred million dollars. If you take 1:14:29 10% off of that, it's 10 million dollars. >> Damn. >> And think about that on a multiple. If you if you get a 10x or a 20x multiple on your company, what is that? That's straight It's hundreds of millions of dollars. So, how do you get to that point in figuring that out? >> an important job here, bro. He does. He's got a lot. >> He's He's amazing. But the goal is is if we're going to use the Trade Spend, right? Are we using it in the best way? And what we call it is like it's a new customer acquisition tool, right? That's what really Trade Spend is. New Year, New Me, Black Friday, those types of things where you're doing these massive discounts, are they driving new customer? Can you track it? Does it make sense? How often are you doing them? Because if you're doing them all the time, what do you have now? You have a discount brand. You don't have You don't have anything besides a discount brand. But, if you're doing them in strategic points of the year, so let's just say you're doing it at a New Year, New Me. Let's say you're doing it at Black Friday, and you're pushing a lot of Trade Spend into those months to get new customers, then you're doing it right. 1:15:20 >> And that's So, you're doing like a like a BOGO. You'll lose margin there under the assumption that in between these troughs, you're going to win on higher margins. >> 100%. And you don't have to have the the the beautiful part about it is that Trade Spend, that percentage doesn't need to be the same every month. It shouldn't be. That's bad. What you want is you want these big peaks and valleys cuz you want to gain the new customer, and then you want to cool off and let them just consistently buy. Then you want another big one to gain a new customer, and then cool off. And you do it with different deals. Public's The way Public's does it, the grocery store here, is they love their BOGO, right? They have to have a BOGO. So, that's what you do at Public's. What you do at Sam's Club is they have an ISB, what they call at the beginning of the year, where they'll give you the opportunity to go to the front of the club, get a pallet drop, do a discount for New Year, New Me. That's where you do it. But, the new customers you're getting, as long as you can quantify it, makes sense to do those as strategically throughout the year. >> And how are you understanding that 1:16:12 attribution? Because if it's it's a black I mean, it's Amazon's black box. It's retail. >> see it because you can see the uplift in sales. >> Yeah. So, you're saying on on a per you're you can't really do like the drip over, but on like a per retailer perspective, if you do the BOGO, like the whole store >> we build out a P&L by retailer and by channel. So, we see like if we see these big lumps, it's like, "Okay, we wouldn't have this traffic if it wasn't for this deal." So, let's say our average order or average basket value is, you know, $30 at Public's, then we know that we got that many new customers in that big in that big spike, right? And then what we do is we track it after. So, if we were doing, let's say 100 grand a month in in Publix before, we have this big sale, and then after that sale, it goes to 120,000 a month, we won. We did it. That's what we wanted, right? And then we >> and on a per retailer perspective, probably has like a a blended number at the end of the year and like the P&L that he wants to make that percent to hit that. >> Of course. >> Yeah. And you can look at like in apparel like you can look at past years and you understand and know seasonality 1:17:10 months. >> Little little e-com game here. >> It's it's very similar. I mean, that that that's how they stay in the game. That's how retailers stay in the game. Why are people going to them versus buying it online? They have to get it the same types of deals to get them to go in store. >> Is your game Is it like Do people give a [ __ ] about like Black Friday and stuff like that? >> Yeah, I mean, we still do a pretty big number on Black Friday. >> Interesting. >> I think Amazon uh what is it called? The Amazon days or whatever are are bigger than Black Friday. >> What about I think what we almost always hear, and we're going to get into it very very soon, this on-site deal. Like you always hear like you want to start kind of deep and narrow, maybe go boutique, and then kind of lever up to mass. What's your like overarching thesis on how you approach different retailers and what you should do outside of it's about the sell-through not the sell-in. If you guys don't know that yet, you need to watch more episodes. Yeah, it's about the sell-through not the sell-in, but more about like specific retailers. Like how does the sequencing go in your mind? Like how do you how do you think about 1:18:05 that? >> so the way that we, and I think most do it well, is you cannot Club is where you make a lot of money, but you can't jump to club cuz club isn't going to build a brand, right? And club is Sam's Club and Costco. So, when you think about it, you have to build up to those numbers. So, my perfect scenario for anything, and you know, I would say I'll give you the the road map we did for Raw and Bomb is is e-com and then from e-com and let's just say you use D2C as a bucket. D2C is going to be a TikTok and D2C, right? Both. >> So, TikTok, Amazon, D2C? >> TikTok, Amazon, and D2C. Yeah, so starting there, and then for me it was specialty. So specialty is Vitamin Shoppe and GNC. So we went into Vitamin Shoppe and GNC. This >> Elevated brand, keep it premium, higher price point. >> Exactly. Bigger serving sizes, all the above, right? And in there, your margins are great, your serving sizes are great, your pricing is great. But what you're doing there is your your first you're learning how to deal with a retailer, right? It's a very small in the big scheme of things retailer, but you're learning how to manage a retailer, you're learning how to manage relationships with retail. 1:19:05 >> Trade spend. >> you're managing how to forecast, and it's a great stepping stone before you go into FDM. Because if you don't get it there, you are going to get swallowed in FDM. You will get destroyed. >> And unless you're mafioso like you, you don't get second chance. And you don't >> Yeah, yeah, no second chances. >> a second chance. >> Correct. >> What's FDM? >> Food, drug, mass. >> Food, drug, mass. It's like a CVS. >> So that No, food, drug, mass is, you know, Publics, it's HEB, it's Hy-Vee, it's, you know, the biggest FDM is Walmart, but I would consider that like the next one, right? So FDM is that. So >> It's all sequencing based on probably lower and lower MSRP, correct? >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah, basically. >> And then at the bottom it's because they win on a membership, so that's why they can do lower MSRP and lower margins, right? >> Well, they Yeah, so Sam's Club and Costco, they live on way, way less margin. You know, I would say around 15%, which is, you know, a third of what other places want. So it's very, very accretive for us to do that because we can still kind of make the same profitability because they want less 1:20:06 margin. Does that make sense? >> Yeah, that makes sense. What about the sell-through? Is it just all trade, basically? >> Sell-through is not all trade. And the way I look at sell-through is I look at it as like this perfect situation. So you have to have a good product. Like I don't care who you are, I don't care how popular you are, I don't care what celebrity you are. If you don't have a good product, you're not going to sell. It has to be a good product. So the product has to be good. Product has to look good, right? When you do D2C, the one thing that people always forget about is people are buying because of the person or the brand. Once you go on shelf, the goal for me, not for the store. The store's goal is for me to drive incremental value, right? Which means me bringing my consumer into their store that wouldn't traditionally shop there. My goal is to steal the guy next to me's idea, right? I want them to switch from that product to my product. And the only way you can do that without having a brand, and granted that's the third thing, but it's product, it's what the product looks like looks like on shelf to get to Oh, well, that's cool. 1:20:59 Like, what is that? You know? And then the last thing is your brand. So, I don't know if it's that order. I wouldn't agree in that order at all. I think brand is obviously very, very important, but if you have all three of those things, that's how you win. And that's how you get the velocity in the sellout. >> Makes sense. We did an episode with Peter Rahal from David Protein. This guy, from a packaging and branding perspective, I don't know if you know the story with RXBAR, but they were Bro, they were like six or seven million dollars and we could pop up the old wrapper. It was absolute crap. And then he changed it cuz it's only four ingredients. And it was like four egg whites, almonds, cashews, whatever it is. >> kind of like the RX >> Oh, yeah, they're Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. >> You don't even know what it is. You just know that. Bro, this guy goes tactically into it. It's [ __ ] brilliant. It's like, think about egg whites. >> Yeah. >> Like, they don't have a lot of protein. But, what do you think about with egg whites? You think about protein. What about when you go to the diner? What do you think about that? You pay more for the egg whites. So, it seems more premium. 1:21:46 >> Yeah. >> Bro, this [ __ ] went on a rocket ship because of >> it. >> cuz of that. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, and it's raw stuff. That episode as well, too. He made tweaks on the cadence. >> Oh, dude. Oh my god. Tweaks is an understatement. I think we looked at 400 [ __ ] renders in like three days this time. >> Give us context on that. Like, how much was was the uplift based on that? >> massive and it was That was the exact example that I'm talking about. We were going from a D2C brand to going into retail. And we needed to be able to call things out differently, right? Because no one knew what race meant. No one knew what flavor anything was because it was it was just it was a lot, but like for the tried and true cadence shopper or, you know, follower, everyone knew what everything was. But, going into a retail environment, like the way we did the color across the top of the can to to call out the flavor, the way we moved the flavor name to the top of the can because when the can sits on shelf, when you have the the the holder here, you lose everything below my hand. So, if you're on shelf and you're you know, they're angle shelves, they have the blocker in the front, everything from 1:22:41 here down you can't see. So, if you look at this can now, what do you see? You see everything you need to see. You see the name of my company, you see the flavor, you see all the call outs of what's important on the can cuz this is what shows. >> That's a gang That's a gangster call right there. No one has done that. It's the blockage of how it's actually sitting. >> Everything under here is useless and that's why it's empty on this can because this is not seen. So, you got to use this real estate the whole time. >> Love that. I mean, for me it's really just about like I feel like when you move into retail, it has to be like direct response. It has to more be like >> get it twisted, bro. Like we didn't know this [ __ ] going into it. Like that is tried and true. This can change, too. >> That's why people are listening. That's why people follow you. >> Yeah. Put them put them on the game, right? >> Anything else big before we move on from from retail from an advice perspective? >> No, I think again, it's retail is about managing relationships and managing expectations and and being a good partner. I think so many times what you forget about is you know, you're going 1:23:30 into these places and and they're telling you, you know, you're telling them what you want. You're telling them how you want it. You're telling them where you want to be in the store. You're telling them what you deserve, but you know, I've never seen someone besides myself at the end of a meeting say, "What can we do for you? You know, what can I do better on my side of the table?" And you know, we have that conversation. I was at Walmart yesterday. I was at Walmart with Ross yesterday. I had all my brand meetings yesterday. And you know, at every one of these meetings, it's like, you know, "What what can we do better for you? You know, how can we show up for you in a better way?" And granted, what it's hard when you're doing a really good job, right? We're we're we're the fastest growing new energy drink in Walmart. We're doing everything right. We're doing everything we're supposed to be doing, but it's it's it's more of a relationship tool of saying, "I understand that you're in your seat and you're getting beat up by brand after brand after brand every single meeting, every single day, every single email." >> They love when Uncle Dom walks in. 1:24:16 >> "What can I do to help you? How can I make your life easier? You know, what what can we do to be more efficient? What can we do to sell more? How can we make these things happen? And that's exactly what we've done and we've become really good partners. We're not taking on more than we can chew. If I feel like two companies are coming at me at the same time that want us and we can't service both of them equally and and well, I'm going to hold off on launching in one because I want to make sure that that relationship stays great. >> Yeah, it's as simple as like in any partnership, just like what does success look like? You start with that and then just continuously saying that. It's so crazy, man. Like again, it's like I don't even know, simple but not obvious. I I I I don't just don't understand why more people don't do this. >> It's it's I Maybe you were you were you were raised right, bro. >> You know, yes, I was for sure. But I think the other thing is some people don't want to know it's that easy because it's hard. You know, like there's so many times where you talk to someone and you're like, "How'd you do this?" Well, I didn't quit. I I stepped through it. I 1:25:05 went through the hard [ __ ] and they're like, "That's it?" Yeah, that's it, but it's not as easy as you think. You know, there's times where I've quite literally you know, wanted to quit and I was sitting in my room by myself crying my eyes out. There were times where I went to Matt balling my eyes out saying like, "Fuck, we're [ __ ] I don't know what to do." But we just like we figured it out. But like those are the times that separate the people who get there and who don't. It's It is that simple. >> I agree. Most creators are just duct taping together a bunch of different tools to run their podcast and their newsletter. Your audience, the analytics, the attention, it's all split. Everything is fragmented. This is where Beehiiv changed everything for us. It's where Open Residency runs our newsletter and they just dropped a new native podcast tool. Upload your audio and immediately get distributed to Apple Podcast and Spotify. If you're hosting somewhere else, just paste your RSS feed and your entire back catalog, the metadata and the episodes all carry over. One platform, one login, everything talks to each other. Head to [music] beehiiv.com/openresidency 1:26:00 for 30% off your first 3 months. Just enter code mark30 at checkout. That's b e e h i i v.com/openresidency and code mark30 at checkout. Stop renting your audience, start owning it. >> Let's talk about the Bomb Energy going from direct to Walmart to a DSD network. Just giving like the nitty-gritty like granular advice on stuff like this. There's somebody out there listening that you're going to change their lives. So, just explain to us what that is and why that >> I hope Walmart doesn't hate me for this, but okay. So, we launched in we launched directly into Walmart with bum first because let's be let's be honest, it's really hard to build a DSD network. It's direct store distribution unless you have a partnership with them. >> fifth grade level here. >> Yeah, so basically if you look at companies like Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Keurig, Dr. Pepper, Anheuser-Busch, those guys own the trucks that deliver the goods, okay? And those are all independent distributors, but they fall into houses they call AB house, Molson Coors house, you know, Pepsi house, Coca-Cola house. >> So, so as opposed to wholesaling it in the in the DC of Walmart and then 1:27:01 >> Exactly. As opposed to selling directly to Walmart, then Walmart distributes directly to their stores, the Walmart employee fills the shelf. Okay, so that's those are the two ways. You go direct, which is the way I just said, or you go DSD, which is the route where we fill their shelves. Right, through distribution partners. >> The speed versus probably latency speed. >> It's a lot. It's a lot more than that. So, the the problem is Walmart Walmart employee is not incentivized the same way a a DSD is incentivized to fill those shelves. So, if you have a Walmart shopper or a Walmart employee, they're going to go to the back of the store, they're going to grab bum energy, they're going to put it on the shelf in the morning, and they're going to leave. And then Instacart's going to come in at 7:00 a.m. and they're going to rip the shelf of all the bum energy on the shelf, and then the shelf's going to sit empty for the rest of the day. And then no one's going to be able to get it because it's going to be >> stock. And it's going to look pooped. Like someone's not going to take care of it. They're not going to They're not going to rearrange the labels. 1:27:49 >> There's no incentive for a Walmart employee to go fill that shelf four times a day. >> Disclaimer here guys, we love Walmart. >> I love Walmart. >> Walmart. >> Love Walmart. >> It's the truth though. >> Look them Look them in the eyes. Tell them you love them. >> I love them. >> Love them. >> But they're they know it. They're fully aware of it. And the other thing, and this is the massive when you get when you when you distribute in a DSD is when you're working with Walmart, you get one spot to put your your on shelf. You have your pogged area on the shelf. >> What's pogged mean? >> It's I don't even know what it means. It's just the spot where you're allowed to put your stuff, right? It's your your three spots, right? And your 12 back underneath. So, we have this little spot where we have three products. Now, when you go to distributor, they can make those crazy displays you see when you walk in. So, I don't know if you've ever seen them in the past, but you walk in you'll see a bum energy display that's literally the size of this whole entire thing. There's a cold refrigerator in the middle of it. There's a banner hanging from the ceiling. >> Crazy [ __ ] yeah. 1:28:36 >> And that's what the distributors do. So, instead of putting it in one spot, they're going around the whole store finding empty end caps, putting placement everywhere in the cold coolers up front before you're checking out. So, the ability to be able to do all of that >> Maximization. >> is not you cannot do that going direct. You have nobody doing that. So, your velocities are going through the roof because you have five or six more spots in each individual store that your product is in. >> So, contextually like total units, you're talking about more spots and probably more velocity. You're talking about like probably like two, three, four, five hundred X. >> Yes. Yeah, it's a it's a massive difference. >> And you need like leveraging sauce to get it, right? Like obviously in the beginning you can't do this. You have to build up credibility. >> Yeah, so it's the chicken before the egg game, man. It's the hardest thing in the world cuz you want to go DSD first, but you have to build a brand for them to say, "Yeah, we'll take you." because they're going to have to fill their trucks with this product. And if this product doesn't move, they buy it. So, 1:29:24 they're buying the product and then they're selling it into Walmart. So, what we Our relationship is with the DSD. The DSD buys from us and the DSD goes and sells to Walmart. DSD gets paid by Walmart. >> Lower margin profile on the DSD. >> For sure. >> But velocities are through the roof. So, >> Then you want on volume. You want on volume all day, every day. Yes. >> So, the the point of the matter is is the DSD model is in my opinion is a great model to use and we love using it. Now, they're also incentivized to sell our product. So, what we're dealing with now is, you know, we switched to DSD, did just did our nationwide Target and Walmart roll out, and we're having these gaps of out of stocks. So, our velocities right now are absolutely amazing, but they're still not where they need to be because what happens is the DSD truck shows up and then it sells out and then it sits for a minute until it comes back again and then it comes back up and then it sells out again. So and we can see it. It's a chart. It's it just looks like this. Looks like a heartbeat. And the problem is is most most brands that start DSD don't sell out as quickly as we do. So now we're having to 1:30:22 >> What's the next level, baby? What's the next level? You got you buying trucks? >> No, no, no, no. The next level is just, you know, educating the DSD on look like, you know, you got to pay attention to us. So now it's building out our field team. So we have by the end of this year we'll have 100 people on the ground across the country and their job is to sit with these DSDs and educate them on how valuable the brand is going to these stores, taking the photos of the shelves being empty, and just holding them accountable. Because look, they have a lot of brands to service, too. Ideally, you want to go to the ones that have the least amount of NA non-alcoholic beverage because you want them to be loyal to your brand, but they probably have five or six different ones on their truck. And you know, why would they focus on us? And that's the relationship building, right? That's showing up, you know, taking them to dinner, showing them we we want to help support them, you know, fill these shelves, giving them incentives, doing crazy, you know, contests for the DSD of who sells the most gets a crazy trip or, you know, >> You can do any and all those things. I 1:31:12 mean, that's completely free game. Any type of incentive plan you can >> in non-alcoholic. In alcoholic, you cannot do any of this. So as long as it's an NA beverage, yes. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. There's probably a lot of creativity in that you can do you can >> Oh, for sure. >> Yeah. Do whatever you want. Tying up on retail, what is, you know, you mentioned that people don't like ask like, what does success look like or how can we help you? What are some other things, key things to say in there? there. Maybe even to ask the retailer so you set yourself up for success. I want there's someone that's walking into their first meeting in a big retailer. Any other things that you can point out to them that they need to do? You know, I would say don't rush it. I think rushing into retail is a mistake. I think you have to have a really big brand a lot of brand validity before you jump that ship and get in there because again, the sell out is harder than the sell in. You can get in almost anywhere on, you know, a great spiel and some good data, but unless it starts flying off the shelf, you're going to be in a world full of hurt. And that's where the 1:32:04 trade spend comes in, right? Because if it's not moving, what do they make you do? They make you make it cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and cheaper until it starts to move where it needs to because >> And that's literally on the like the retailers gun to head. >> Yeah, they and they don't care. Like they're not they're not going to take it out of their margin. So it's just going to come back in deductions and deductions and deductions and deductions. And then you look at the business and you know, maybe it's not the most profitable business to get to the point where it needs to move because they have what they call hurdle rates, right? A hurdle rate is how many of these things need to move on a daily, weekly, monthly basis for it to make sense for them to keep them on shelf. And if they don't hit that, that's when, you know, oh, we need to do a roll back or we need to do this or we need to do that. And that's where you become quickly having a very healthy CM1 to being not profitable at all. >> That's everything for them on their side of the hurdle rate. It's it's sell-through. >> That's how they make their money. I don't blame them. >> What's the playbook for you to your team 1:32:53 when you don't hit the CM1? What do you do? Is it just is it just trade I mean they're telling you what to do. >> Yeah, there's if there's if we don't hit our target CM1, we can't keep the product. It's not a profitable product. We have to get rid of the product. It's that simple. But we do a lot more in those stage gate meetings that we talked about now to where that usually doesn't happen anymore. We put enough profit in the product. We make sure the product makes sense. So that way when we get to that point and if we do have to do a discount of some sort to get it cranking, >> you still win. >> we have the ability to do it. >> it look like on the bottom? Like what's that like actual kind of EBITDA or gross after all things? Like what's a good target for >> CPG, a great target is anything north of 18% I would say. >> Damn, that low? That's not including the internal OPEX. That's including >> That's straight profit to the bottom, cash to the bottom. >> As a company? >> Yeah. >> As a company? >> Yeah. >> That's good, bro. >> Yeah. That's what PE wants to see. >> That's healthy. >> Yeah. And and that's how the multiplier gets announced, right? So if you have 1:33:45 under a certain amount, your multiplier is going to be a little little less than if you have over that. >> Diving deeper into the numbers on the kind of like financial management, what are those other things? You've so many like little booby traps and like little mistakes. He's given you guys so many gems. What are some of those other things that your CFO has found? Cuz now you're a part of this like massive conglomerate. What are those other kind of like sneaky things? We talked a lot We talked about it on the show on some of the old episodes is like people don't understand like 3PL costs. They don't understand actual shipping versus what you charge. It actually could be a profit center shipping. What are some of those other kind of leaky buckets that you've seen that I'm sure that you've solved a ton of them. >> So I would say that the the biggest leaky bucket that we have that any company has is that gross to net waterfall of trade spend. Number one always. Number two I would say is logistics. You know when as you start to grow, you know, if you look at the way that we're structured right now, like you don't think anything of it when you're growing like this, but our 1:34:37 facilities in South Florida. It's the worst place to have a warehouse in the [ __ ] country, right? Like >> Why? >> Because everything has to come into South Florida to deliver and then it has to leave South Florida to go everywhere else back in the country. >> Oh, you're saying cuz you're in the bottom corner. >> the bottom corner. So I have every semi truck from New York to California driving to me in Florida, unloading, and then quite literally reloading and going back to the other sides of the the country. So like You're talking to me about the Midwest. >> No, I'm not moving. But you know, looking at it now, you know, what we needed to do and what we did is we did a heat map of, you know, how our trucks are coming in and where most of our our stuff is going out and a centrally located spot is very very valuable for us. So our Bum Energy warehouse is now moving right next door to our manufacturer, which is great cuz it eliminates all inbound freight. We have no more inbound freight. >> Wow, that's that's a massive number. >> Seven figure win annually, right? And then if we move our warehouse out of Florida and centralize our warehouse, again, boom, another seven figure win. 1:35:35 So those things add up quickly, but again, percentage-wise, it may not like look like a lot on the P&L until you get to a big size, right? But that's how you start dragging a lot of percentages points to the bottom line. And let's be honest, on, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars a year, bringing 5% to the bottom, straight cash, is a massive multiplier on the back end, right? So, those are the things that we check all the time. SG&A is another one. You know, companies >> Just excite What are you bringing in? Are you bringing in like a logistics expert? Like some like some ninjas are coming >> No, so you can hire outside companies to come in and do like a heat map survey of the country and kind of figure out where you need to be and you know, where most of your people are. And it's it's a pretty simple exercise. And then once you figure that out, you just go tackle the warehouse space. The other thing is warehouse space in the Midwest and in Texas is a third of the price of warehouse space in South Florida, right? So, like there's wins everywhere there. Again, it wasn't on the top of my mind because that was the least of my worries. I was worried about building a 1:36:27 brand. I wasn't worried about a truck getting delivered or leaving. But now that I have someone who's paying attention to all those little details, there you go. They just drove that much more money to the bottom line of the company, which I'm super grateful for. >> Bringing in outside specialists, I mean, I even have like a gangster media buyer. Like I just brought in this guy Barry Hot. You know, you pay him a thousand dollars, he comes in, he wreaks havoc. And if you're if you're spending way, way more than that a day, it makes up for itself 10X. >> We we hired an expert to come in and analyze our gross to net, which was our trade spend. We had to do it because we don't I mean, we didn't know it. We didn't know how to bucket it from new customer acquisition, channel by strategy. He came in and he did a full audit in about two months, came back, delivered it, put our team to work to get it done. You know, sometimes why waste time not knowing what you don't know? Hire the guy to come in and crank it out. You know, SG&A is another huge bucket. People over hire all the time, especially in the back office. 4%. >> Holy >> Yeah. >> 4%? >> Yeah. >> I'm putting you on Mount Rushmore up 1:37:24 here. 4%? That keeps getting lower and lower, especially with AI. >> Yeah, so it it's so to be fair, we had a build-up period where it was like six to eight because we were building the team. >> to eight, that's still good. >> Yeah, but now it's it's right at four. >> So, when you look at it, you have like I look at COGS, OPEX, and marketing. When you look at your business from like a financial perspective. >> It's our CM3, pretty much. >> That's what it is. It's those. Wow. So, it's really and then you bake in Are you baking in on the cogs all of that that 10% the trades or is that on the marketing? >> The 10% >> bake in like the the buybacks and the >> No, no, that doesn't Again, that doesn't fall on our P&L. That's because it's gross to net. So, our P&L starts at net revenue. >> Yeah, so our our P&L starts at net revenue. So, our P&L, if you look at it from top to bottom, would be net revenue is number one. Underneath net revenue would be cost of goods and inbound freight, which would equate to CM1. And then underneath CM1 would be outbound freight. And then underneath that is SG&A, and all the other [ __ ] 1:38:25 >> Guys, we're going to put a lead magnet down below that's going to have all this free game in it. You guys are going to love it. A last question on finance. Would you rather a hundred mil in rev and 20 points at EBITDA or 50 mil in rev with 40 points in EBITDA? >> It's a tough question. >> It's a random one. >> It depends if what you're using the the money that you're not spending. It's a It's It's very like It's a loaded question, right? So, what I always like for my rule of thumb in everything that I do, I say if you're making over 20% EBITDA, you should be taking whatever's over that and reinvesting into the company to grow. >> That was going to be my next question, a better question. It's how much money how much EBITDA is too much EBITDA to reinvest and get economies of scale and drive through it. >> I like 20% EBITDA at the bottom line. And I think that if your if your company has 40 50% EBITDA and it's not growing, then you need to just keep reinvesting that back in to make it grow. And then obviously there will be a point where it plateaus where you can't get any more out of it and then just take the cash back. >> Love that. Let's talk about the new bets. Onside and Eterna. 1:39:23 >> Sure. >> I'm so interested in this Onside. So, I might be a little counterintuitive to what we talked about before on the retail. Cuz this man just said, "Fuck it." >> Yeah. >> We're just going to win all stores with Target. I don't even know where to start right now. I guess just for people out there that haven't heard of it, let's just start with just like what is Onside, why is it in Target? And I just want to pin down a million questions cuz this is like Was it like the biggest opening PO? I mean it had to be one of the biggest opening POs like ever. >> It was a big PO. >> Yeah. It was >> Tell us everything. Tell us everything. >> Yeah. So, Onsite is a men's care brand. So, it's the way it's described is it's basically body, face, and hair. So, that's kind of like how we target it. So, we have 22 SKUs with with the different fragrances and then we have a fragrance free. And it goes everything from under eye roll-on cream to face wash to face lotion to shampoo to a hybrid body spray to everything in between for guys. And the way we wanted to do this was our our brand partner is Jason Tatum, 1:40:23 who I'm sure a lot of you guys know who that is. He plays for the Celtics. He's one of the best NBA players of all time right now. And in the past, you know, what you've seen is you've seen these celebrities endorse Louis Vuitton or Tom Ford or you know, whatever it is that's expensive that cost a lot of money for fragrance. And the problem that I saw was most of the following of these people can't quite afford that fragrance. You know, the average person who's following them is buying at Walmart, Target, and all these other places. So, our goal was to come out with a product that literally was the same quality as a Tom Ford cologne or an Estee Lauder face face cream or one of those things, but at a price point that was sub $13. Right? >> I can't speak to the quality. I haven't tried it yet, but the aesthetic is beautiful. Yeah. That's nice. >> And the next piece was to make it look really [ __ ] cool, right? So, how do you do that in a sea of a ton of different things? Well, you you do custom packaging, custom molds, embossed print in the packaging, no labels, everything's direct print. So, we did a 1:41:24 lot of unique things for this packaging to make it look very very premium at a very affordable price. So, again, I I talk about it all the time, but you have to win on product, you have to win on packaging, and then you the third is obviously influence. Who's influencing the product? And I'm a firm believer and I've heard it a million times over from, you know, all the retail buyers is so many celebrities have launched brands now that have failed that they don't really even get that excited about a celebrity brand anymore. It's more like, "Okay, what else are you doing? Like, what's the TikTok model? What's your D2C revenue? What's all these things?" So, when we went to Target with this, it was more of a what else are you doing besides this? And then we need the products. We need to smell it. We need to see it. We need to hear it. And it worked out really well where Target said, "Look, we think this is a phenomenal brand and we would love to have an exclusivity on this product for a year. And for that exclusivity, we would be willing to give you the probably the most insane launch ever, which is full end caps for almost the whole entire year." >> All doors? 1:42:22 >> Yeah. We have full end caps everywhere. Yeah. So, you know, it was a a massive lean in from Target, but you know, it definitely paid off for them. And we just launched the brand about 3 and 1/2 weeks ago. So, the brand has been launched. We did a really cool collab with Jason Tatum to launch the brand. We're utilizing TikTok to drive traffic without TikTok Shop, which is working pretty well for us. >> So, you're not transacting there. It's a driving to >> there. It's driving to online and in store. So, they their online business is pretty strong, too. >> So, it's target.com, in-store Target. Is it also on like an on-site website or not >> No D2C. >> Ah, that's interesting. >> Yeah. So, everything directs back. So, like if you go on on-site and you click it, it takes you to target.com. And the uniqueness is the first 3 weeks we didn't market at all. And I wanted to do that on purpose because I wanted to see the organicness of what it would do on its own. And it almost hit direct hurdle rates without doing one thing. And that is strictly because of the packaging and the product and I firmly believe that. Granted, I posted and stuff like that, but I don't think I'm 1:43:18 driving the sales that it was getting, right? >> I'm driving all door sales in Target. >> I would love to take credit for that, but it's definitely not what happened. >> selling in New York City for the next I don't know I don't know about that. >> He definitely did a lot of damage in Boston, though. So, that helps. So, we did like a a walk-through the launch day. Tatum was in the store. He signed packages, left them in the in the stand, so like people could go and get them afterwards. It was pretty cool. He's very actively engaged in the He's a great guy, man. He's His mom's involved. Brandy's the best. Yeah, she's she loved the product. I think she likes it more than him, if I'm being honest, but he's actually We were just in Boston a few weeks ago, and he's coming out with a signature scent towards the end of the year, and it's like a coconut noir. It's like a It's a really awesome like bergamot, coconuts. It's amazing. But, that comes out towards the end of the year. But, anyways, you know, we just started turning the marketing on for TikTok this past week, and we saw a 20% increase in in the sales in store, which was what I wanted to do, because I really wanted to 1:44:15 see the impact of turning it on in the trade spend, and then seeing what I needed to plug in monetarily to that to see it go to the next level. So, we're really doing a strategic approach to see where we spend our money, and what money is best spent where for the specific brand. Cuz this is my first time in body, ever. I've never I've never had a brand in this space. Granted, I've been in CPG for quite some time, but this is a whole new world for me. We've gotten very, very lucky because my partnership with CVC actually allowed me to meet a woman named Georgia, who used to be very, very high up at Estée Lauder, and she sits on our board now for Onsite, and she gave us a lot of strategic guidelines on how we should launch, what we should lean into, >> How did Germans let you tap into that? >> Yeah, CVC, yeah. So, CVC owns a big chain of stores in in Europe, and she advises them on that chain. So, you know, I'm very close with the CVC guys now, and they basically were like, "Hey, I want to introduce you to somebody. She could help you a lot." And I talked to her They They didn't make her do it. They introduced her, and she loved it. You know, she was like very, 1:45:16 very interested in the brand. She loved how we were going to market with it, and we have a weekly call with her, where we kind of give her updates on how everything's going. She steers us in the right direction. She kind of tells us what our margins need to be on certain SKUs, and she's setting us up to really win, you know, especially on the exit. >> And like hurdle rate perspective, I would just imagine there's not like the frequency like you can have two bumps a day. This is like >> hurdle rate is not it. It's It's They They They base it on weekly sales. So, their their hurdle rate is 200 to 300,000 a week. >> to the real world, Dom. Come back to the real world. People buy stuff like once a month. >> Yeah. No, these guys So, like certain things fragrance is like once every 6 months. >> Yeah. >> You know, and then obviously deodorant and things like that are less. Body lotion is usually once a month. Yeah, definitely these numbers are better numbers for sure. >> I can make a really good joke about my art company, but it would just be It would hurt me internally. >> Yeah. >> I mean, how How often do you buy art? It's on your [ __ ] [laughter] wall. >> That's true. 1:46:07 >> I know. I feel it in your right hand. It's not We don't want to talk about it. This sounds like a great I'm not going to say simple business by any means. >> Yeah, to be honest, it's much simpler than, you know, the world I live in, you know. So, it's it's it's unique. I'll tell you right now the multipliers in this space are absolutely insane. Like unreal. >> Like a natural buyer. We're not saying anything here, but like a natural buyer could be like a Target. >> I don't know if that would be it. I think like an Estee Lauder, Unilever, P&G, someone like that would come in and buy it. >> Because you have so much meat on the bone where you're winning in one retail, and they could just deploy >> Yeah. >> and dominate everywhere. >> Yeah, you know, the goal is to give exclusivity to Target and let them really win year one, and then, you know, as you know, I have a lot of other channels I can put this in. So, year two is going to be the breakout year. This is for me to really If I'm being honest, like I'm learning, you know, I'm I'm doing this right. I'm Like I said, I'm leveraging into one relationship. I'm making sure they're really happy. I'm 1:46:57 making sure I'm delivering on my end of the bargain, and I'm learning. I'm not going to lie to you. I don't know this industry, but I'm I'm going to figure it the [ __ ] out before next year. And then next year, when January 1st comes, I'm going to have this [ __ ] in every [ __ ] door in America. >> Hey. How that first meeting go with Tatum? >> It was super cool. Yeah, he's pretty reserved guy, but he loves the product. So, you know, the first time I met him, our team was kind of going back and forth with them for like on Zooms and things like that. He actually jumped on the Target call, which was pretty cool. But we were in Boston. >> way to go by the way, too, to get the POs. >> Yeah, it helps. >> Well, that is a marketing lever, but I know it was pre-deal, but >> Yeah, it helps. >> It's a good one, yeah. >> But no, it was cool. And then he's very reserved, very quiet. He doesn't get super excited about much, but he's you can tell he was raised very well. Yeah. Super polite. He's an overall great human. You know, I've met celebrities in the past that we were going to work with, and it's a very different relationship. So, he's a great guy. 1:47:47 >> Yeah, I think you pointed it out, and I just want to really, really put an accent on it is all these guys I'm just thinking of like Shay Shay Gilgeous-Alexander is like everyone is doing these top-end brands. And if you really want to appease, you know, your fans, give them the ability to transact. >> Yep. >> It's like we're I don't know how much NBA jerseys are now, but they're probably like 100 bucks. >> Yep. >> It's like even like a T-shirt is probably like 35 bucks now. >> Yep. >> So, allowing them to transact >> it's more than $100 for a jersey now, to be honest with you. It's crazy. >> It's a smart move. High low. I like that. Yeah, the fact that you guys have this much velocity early, I mean, you could keep bringing on people in later and later stages and later and later strike prices, and you could just keep >> Yeah, so I think like every two times a year we find the right face and bring it in. And like let's be honest, the TikTok business will once we can open that up and do TikTok shop, and you know, that e-com side of it, I think we'll be a massive win, too, cuz a lot of people do rely on Amazon to and TikTok to buy these things now. Look at Beis. I mean, 1:48:38 those guys Alan Carr, I think he's doing 200 million a year between TikTok and Amazon. >> Damn. >> Crushes. >> Some guy was just kind of It's two young guys, right? >> Alan Carr, he's I mean, I met the kid two weeks ago, and I'm overly impressed with him. >> I just got connected to He's like He looks like He's like a young like young like Persian Persian looking dude, right? >> he's here. He just got here for this weekend. >> Dope. >> Yep. >> Good to know. >> Yeah. >> What should everybody look out for in the future? Is there anything else that we didn't talk about? You're going to bring on more athletes? You're going to go into other other stores? Anything else big that people should know? >> No, I think with that brand, it's really about just lining up the fragrance, right? I think it smells sells, and I think, you know, one thing that Georgia told me is, you know, sense really like the reason why sense works so well is they drive people back to some a place or an experience in the past. So like something reminds them of something and I'm sure you have like a relative that passed away that you know their smell, right? Or something along those lines. 1:49:27 So really playing into like the emotion of scent is something that most people don't do when they're building out a brand. It's really they're thinking about packaging, they're thinking about the way it looks or who's holding it, but there's a very big emotional connection to the actual way it smells and really being very very meticulous on not only the scent, but the way you announce the scent in the wording on the package, you know? So if you look at our package, everything is scent all leather, eucalyptus mint, you know, coconut noir. They're not stupid names. They're not basic names because we're trying to drive people to like an experience. >> Love that. Definitely got some good consulting from that from that woman on that. That's like I don't know that [ __ ] I don't know how someone would >> Well, you have to think, right? Like in her world when you're selling a fragrance, most true fragrance, like a bottle of cologne, you're buying once every year, maybe a little bit after. So like you got to really win on packaging design and and emotion to get someone to buy something like that. That's why when you look at every cologne commercial you've ever seen, what is it? 1:50:24 >> Sexy time. >> It's an emotion, right? It's someone jumping in the ocean in Italy. It's someone like sitting on a yacht. Like you're not >> Someone jumping >> It's that's what it is, dude. And it's cuz it's trying to drive you to a place. It's not trying to sell you a smell. >> Yeah. I mean what's really good though is I feel like again, it's it's not as the frequency isn't there, but I feel like if you find a cologne, like you're you're staying on that cologne for a while. >> Oh, dude, yeah. I'm >> I'm on Parfums de Marly. You know that one? >> No, I don't. >> one. It's really >> I just actually just got the new Bottega like oud scent scent they have and it's [ __ ] unbelievable. I love it. And no one has it yet. So I'm like don't don't buy it, please, whoever's listening. >> Uh people are definitely listening. They are definitely going to buy it, bro. >> It's it's a good scent. >> that if you need to. >> I will No, no, you don't have to cut it out, but if you're going to buy it, I'm going to give you a tip. Like you need like a half a spray. If you go over a full spray on that, like you don't want to want to be anywhere near you. >> Yeah, you don't want to be around this guy. 1:51:14 >> Yeah. Eterna, let's talk about this one as well. Let's talk about this kind of frontier life. For people out there watching, what is it? Cuz I had no idea. Even when I was reading about it, I still had no idea what the hell I was reading. >> So, Dr. Adil Khan is the founder of Eterna, and Eterna is his his medical facility. He has a location in Cabo, and he has a location in Dubai. Both of those facilities are the places that have and have basically trademarked and use a a form of stem cell called the Muse stem cell. And Muse stem cells are the best of the best when it comes to regenerative medicine. There's a ton of different stem cells out there, but the Muse cell is is very receptive to the the human body. So, what that means is it doesn't die when it comes in when it goes in you. Most cells can die instantly when they go in you. It can pass the blood-brain barrier, which is very unique, and it also is a cell that doesn't cause cancer. So, there's a lot of positives to it. >> Is it proprietary? >> It's yeah, for sure. Yeah, so it's a trademarked IP. And then there's another cell called a Pax cell, which is a form of a Muse cell that actually is was was 1:52:16 formulated with with the collaboration of UCLA, which we just took over the the patent on. So, now we have the patent on the Pax cell, and we have a Muse cell. And the goal is to basically have and offer patients in America these cells. And if you don't know, Florida just passed a law that allows these types of cells to be used only in Florida. That's the only state in the country that is allowing the use of these cells. So, when that >> These cells are like anti-aging and >> Oh, yeah. I mean, so there's a cool test that you can do when you're going through the process, where we can actually take your blood before the procedure. We can actually rate your organ health by age, so we can tell you your you know, your liver's aging faster than your spleen is faster than your kidney, your heart. And then, 6 to 8 months after you actually do the cells, we can actually retest that and show you the work that the cells have done internally. But anyways, back to Dr. Khan, you know, when he decided that he wanted to obviously open an office in Palm Beach, he knew about my business which is Re-Live Health, which is the franchise that I own of the medical offices. So, Chris actually 1:53:15 introduced him to me and he said, "Hey look, you know, this is coming. I would love to partner with you in the US. I know you know what you're doing there." And this is C-Bum from Bum Energy. >> He probably was doing this cuz he's obviously an >> Correct. So, he's been doing this with Dr. Khan for probably the last 3 or 4 years out of the country. So, that in that interaction happened. He introduced me to our other partner in this, her name is Morena, and we started this process about a year ago. We finalized our lease. Our lease is going to be in the Nora District in downtown West Palm Beach. It's one of the most beautiful up-and-coming areas in downtown Palm Beach. And this facility will be the most state-of-the-art facility that you will ever see. We're going to have our stem cell lab in the facility. So, we're actually going to culture the cells live and deliver them to the patient live. So, like literally wheeling the cell from the from the actual lab directly to the patient. So, most most stem cells, just so you know, are flash frozen and or lyophilized, and then they're reconstituted and then given to the patient. This is a live cell culture, which is the the best of 1:54:11 the best. Like none none are dead. They're going right into the patient. But, we're going to offer a lot of other really cool regenerative therapies as well. Plasmapheresis, for example, which is the blood cleaning. >> Oh, I saw >> Did Rogan just post about that? >> Yeah, everyone's been doing it now, but it's a really cool procedure where it basically takes the plasma out of your body. It takes all the inflammation. It takes all of, you know, you know, you can have I had I just did it yesterday or 2 days ago, and I had a parasite in mine. >> Everyone has parasites, bro. >> So, yeah. >> So, you know, and then that goes to the point of, okay, there's a parasite, how do you take care of the parasite? You know, there's a million ways you can do it. You can do you know, you can do chelation. You can do, you know, what is it? Methylene blue. You can do NAD. Not really necessarily for parasites, but you can also do Ivermectin with activated charcoal. You can go down a whole rabbit hole, but we're going to have all of the best services you can possibly have. So, the goal would be you come down for basically a week, and then before you come down, you're going to be 1:55:01 on a peptide protocol to get your body ready for these stem cells, and you're really going to just build out if you're there for, you know, specific reasons for a joint, a back, spine. We're going to have a C-arm for direct injections into the spine. The The physician who's going to be running the office, his name is Dr. Raza, Dr. Dia Raza. He's a neurologist. He's one of the most intelligent people I've ever met in my entire life. So, he's going to be the one doing these procedures. He's been working with Dr. Khan for the last 6 months in Japan, in Cabo, everywhere learning about these cells, how to use them, how to treat them. So, this facility is going to be very special. >> This is a Is this a premium jacked-up version of what I see? Like I see like UFC fighters >> 20% >> Yeah, like they like go to like Mexico or some [ __ ] like that. >> Much, much more elevated version of that. I mean, I Dr. Khan, if you look at his social media, you know, he He got He really exploded over the last couple months or a couple years. Not couple years, couple months because he just treated Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Tony Robbins, Zac Efron, you know, all of And those 1:55:55 are the names that I can name just because he he posted them, but there's quite more that, you know, are wanting to not be known. >> You mentioned ReLive, which is these clinics that you franchise out. Are you going to do the same thing with Eternal? Like start in Palm Beach, and obviously it seems as though you have like the US rights or something like that, and then maybe build out more. >> know because I think this is a much, much more like destination, boutique. Like I think the more there are, the less personal and the less premium it will be. I think this is more about the people doing it, where it is, the services we offer, the like >> This is >> This is massive ticket. These are six-figure treatments. >> Damn. >> Yeah. >> And a huge corner And as far as time, too, you're saying it's a week? >> Absolutely. Yeah. >> Dope. >> Yeah, I mean, the world's >> changing in a in a weird way here. >> Yeah, from start to finish, like prepping for it and ending it, I would say it's it's probably a 4-month process to do it right. You know, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, pre, post, like there's a lot of things that go into it to do it, to make it the most effective it can be. 1:56:49 >> So, under the notion that you're dropping bags on your body here, what have you done with your body that What's that one biggest thing you've done? That one biggest breakthrough? And let's give us a price point one and let's give us a premium option here. What's been the biggest breakthrough? You can't say like go to the gym. That's a freebie. >> No, no, no. I think, you know, taking my my whole entire health and my journey of health and dialing it down to, you know, my VO2 max and really like my grip strength and understanding that those are the two markers for longevity. You know, I think a lot of my life I relied on looks, right? I want to look the best. And granted like I've also found that when you do both or when you really focus on those things, you end up tending to look the best anyways. But I would say that and then I really do a lot of stem cell. You know, I've probably done starting since last year, if I was paying full retail price, probably close to a half a million dollars in stem cell therapy. >> Damn. >> Yeah. >> On the former, we were talking off camera about the Norwegian 4 by 4 for VO2 and just obviously mix of high intensity and low intensity. Bro, I was 1:57:45 mind-blown. I saw like on Twitter, do you know the average person? I only I barely cleared it. Like grip strength like hanging, like you're supposed to be able to hang for like a minute 30 or 2 minutes. >> 2 minutes. >> Yeah. That's crazy, dude. How long can you hang for? Can you hang >> I can hang for 2 minutes, but just barely. Like just barely. Now my workouts I mean Matt me and Matt train almost all the time and if we're not training together, we're doing the same workouts. We follow the GBRS guys. Vernon Griffin is their trainer and he's very big on all of this stuff. So like hypermobility, grip strength, functional movement. So it's a [clears throat] lot more of like stretching and and body weight in between functional movement and compound movement, but almost all of the workouts are ending in some type of a grip strength training. So taking like the bumper plates, the 45s and grabbing them like this and doing farmer's carries and my body has never looked as good as it has since I started training this way. So I'm super grateful for them, but also I've never been internally as healthy as I've been, you know, and granted I understand that I'm spending a lot of 1:58:40 money on that, but after you have a kid, I think, you know, your whole entire life changes. For me, I don't care about anything besides spending an extra day with my son. >> And this just fuels the energy >> 100%. Granted, >> I think it helps with work, too, cuz I don't think I could operate the way I do without feeling really good. Like if I have a cold coming, I will do anything to not get to not get sick. I'll start slamming Ivermectin. I'll do whatever it takes to not get sick cuz I just can't afford to be sick. >> I had a cold recently, like sniffles for a couple days. Terrible. I I I don't do that. >> It's I I that was like the first time in like 3 years. I was like, "What the [ __ ] is this?" >> Terrible, bro. And my wife will tell you if I get sick, I am a child. I turn into a baby. I don't want to leave the bed. Like I feel like I'm dying and then she just makes fun of me, so. >> Last little portion before we get into the quick strike and we're just going to fire off a ton of questions. I just want to touch on this Re-Liv just because quote-unquote you said that it could be even bigger than RAW. >> Oh, yeah. >> Potentially. >> I want you to give context, I guess, 1:59:35 first what it is and then I have just some pointed questions at that to help help the audience there. >> Yeah, so Re-Liv is basically it's a concierge hormone optimization, stem cell not the mu cells, just normal stem cell IV therapy. We do a EBOO, which is similar to a plasmapheresis in those offices. Just anything to do with longevity, you know, at a affordable level, right? So basically I started my first office in 2017. It was 2017. That was my first business. Yeah, my first business was that. So I started in 2017. I opened in a 600 square foot little shoebox of an office. And I bet everything on it. I bet my whole life on that working. So I made it work. I was in early. This was kind of like when Facebook marketing kind of just took off and no one was doing it for medicine. Everyone was kind of dabbling in the CPG and all that, but no one was doing it for medicine. So I I kind of got a little bit of an early start there. Kind of blew up the name and this was in Stuart. My first one was in Stuart, Florida, where I live. And I and I thought to myself, I said, "If I can make this work here, I can make this work anywhere." Because this 2:00:35 town is, you know, super small. It's not like on paper it would be the worst place to open a Re-Liv, right? So I made it work. I got wildly successful. I opened a second location in Palm Beach. That one became pretty successful. And then I decided that I was going to reach out to a couple buddies I went to school with. And I was going to license it to them out of state because if they can make it work out of state, then I feel like I got something going, right? So, I licensed it to both of them. I was they were I charged them 1,500 bucks a month just to use the name. And then >> So, no royalty, no nothing? >> Nothing. 1,500 cuz I didn't have It wasn't a franchise at that point. It was just me. So, I didn't want to get into the legalities of having a franchise without having a full franchise setup cuz there's a lot of legality in that. >> been loaning you 1,500 bucks. [laughter] >> Basically, yeah. You know, and I think honestly, I think he actually was selling me the money. I'm not even kidding. So, that went through, and then those two took off, and then I said, "Okay, there's something here. I got some legs on this." So, what I decided to do from there is I went and I hired a 2:01:29 franchise attorney. I got it to be a a legitimate franchise, and I worked it up to 12 locations by myself. So, I got it to 12 locations. I don't even remember what those locations were at this point, but there were 12 of them. I owned three. So, I owned three myself, and then nine of them were other people. So, at that point, it was just sheer luck, the founder of Orangetheory went into my location in Palm Beach, and he kind of liked the concept, and a a girl a mutual friend of ours dragged him into my Stuart office cuz that's where my office was was in Stuart. And he asked me to look at the financials. And I showed him the financials, and he was like, "There's no [ __ ] way this place makes this much money." So, imagine I'm in a 1,000 sq ft space. I had moved now. I went from the 600 sq ft space to a 1,000 sq ft space. Yeah, big jump. And you know, these places were doing at the time I thought it was a ton of money. They do more now, but it was doing about 200K a month, and it was doing about 25% EBITDA. So, great investment on really no buildout, right? To to stand one of these things up was sub 100 grand at the time. So, it was like, "This is a great 2:02:30 model." You know, an Orangetheory for for context is millions over a million dollars to start, and you know, they're making net at the end of the year maybe 200K. So, he was like, "Holy shit." So, then he didn't necessarily believe me, so he flew in his finance team, and his finance team started ripping apart all my stuff. And then they came back and they said, "Yeah, this is the real deal." So, after that, he came to me and he said, "I want to partner with you. I want 30%." And he gave like a a small investment in cash. It wasn't a ton of cash, but he guaranteed me that he would sell me 100 licenses within a year. And we've sold, I think, about 250 licenses since that. And we have about 40 locations open, and we have about, you know, I think we have six locations opening in the next 4 weeks. So, the it's on a ripper. And now, you know, our average velocity in each unit is much higher than that, and we're we're we're doing a lot more. And that's, if you understand franchising, like these numbers are insane. You know, they're they're insane numbers, and the multiplier on franchises massive as 2:03:31 well. >> What is it? >> It's a 30X. >> Jesus. >> Yeah. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> For people out there listening, we just did an episode a couple days ago in Miami with with Georgios of Oakberry. >> Yeah. >> We went in probably an hour on franchising, so if you guys are interested, you guys should definitely check out that. Who's running this? >> My mom. >> Yeah, tell us about that. What is it like working with your mom? >> Don't get emotional on me, man. >> Yeah. >> So, you know, a lot of people have like someone they look up to in their life. And for me, it was cool because I got I was privileged enough for that to be my mom. So, my mom started working as a cashier at BJ's Wholesale Club, and then she worked at McDonald's. And she works her way up from being the cashier at BJ's to being the SVP of operations at BJ's over her career. And you know, as you can imagine, when you're a cashier at BJ's, the quality of life you have isn't that great. So, my life consistently changed based off of me visually seeing how hard my mom worked on a daily basis. So, when I was 5 to 10, from 10 to 15, from 15 to 17, I saw my life get better from the amount 2:04:32 of hard work my mom put in. And you know, I don't think that you can teach that by saying. I think like what I learned is by her doing and me watching. You know, I grew up in BJ's. When we had you when she used to have to do inventory audits, we couldn't afford babysitters or maybe I just wanted to be there. I don't know. I was really young, but I remember growing up riding bikes around BJ's at 2:00 in the morning when my mom was doing inventory. So, I I saw what it took for her to to get from where she was to where she is. And I don't think that I would be an eighth of the person I am if it wasn't for her. And to this day, I look at her for all my advice. I look at her for all of guidance and everything I do because I believe that, you know, being a good operator is the most important thing in a business. I think you can be a visionary. I think you can be, you know, a great influencer, but I think if you don't know how to operate and you don't know how to have operational excellence, you lose every time. And my mom is an incredible operator. And watching and seeing the way that her employees, you know, stuck by her side the whole time she was at BJ's and and 2:05:34 moved with her and and quite literally, I have people that work for me at Reliv that worked for her at BJ's now. They came over and worked at BJ at Reliv because of the leader that she is. So, you know, I don't have a great relationship with my dad, but I will say that my mom did everything in her power to make sure that I never went without anything. You know, I remember growing up and there were times where, you know, we didn't have a lot, but I never knew it. You know, and and she gave she she went without God knows how much to make sure that I lived a great childhood. So, my whole life's goal from the day I started making money was always to to take care of my mom, to retire my mom, to get her out of it, to make her have the best life possible. And I'm I'm super proud to say that I've been able to do that. >> He's running the show. That's amazing. >> Yeah. >> What's the hardest part with working with your family, though? >> I I don't have any I don't have a hard part. You know, maybe sometimes I feel like I'm not hard enough on my mom because there's certain things that I would want to move quicker. And she's my mom, but I I respect my mom and I know 2:06:31 that she's doing the right thing for the business, and I don't think it doesn't matter how big or how, you know, successful I get, I think she's always smarter than me. So, I think whatever she's doing, she's doing it for the right reasons. >> And that P&L is like a fat. Yeah. So, she's doing something. >> She runs a tight ship, man. She One thing that she taught me from a very early age, and this is a unique situation, is when we started RAW, we didn't start it with with a loan. Like, we started that [ __ ] we bootstrapped it, you know, all the way up to over 100 almost 200 million dollars a year, we had no no debt. >> Yeah. >> So, she taught me from a very early age. I remember me and Matt sitting in the the break room of our office at the time, and she she still does it to this day. She handwrites out weekly sales, and she has this crazy handwriting that you can't [ __ ] read to save your life. But, you know, she taught me how to run a lean business, how to run a super lean business to make real money. And that to me is the most important thing that I would say on this podcast is you got a lot of people watching me and Georgios and the lifestyles we live, 2:07:28 and they think that we live these lifestyles because of these startup brands, and you know, in the beginning, it's nothing like this. It's it's a grind. It's If you saw the way we lived or the way that we operated back then, you know, don't compare yourself then to what we are now, because you should be trying to save every [ __ ] penny you can to be as successful as you can be. >> Love that. That's great advice. Yeah, people definitely see a lot of crazy [ __ ] they follow your page. >> of it's not true on some of these social medias. You know, mine is, and I'm proud of it. >> out there isn't true. Be very careful who you guys take advice from and listen to. A lot of people would not swap places in even one element of their life. >> 100%. >> Even a single topic. >> 1,000%. >> their whole entire existence. >> Yes. >> I want to get quick one questions each on you have so many [ __ ] companies, bro. It's absolutely incredible. But, I want to get big kind of learning lessons out of each. >> Sure. >> For everybody out here listening, it seems as though everything is a W. But, it seems as though you had like a a semi L at one point. This Revive MD. You've 2:08:24 been quoted saying it's the one you almost lost. What happened and what'd did >> So, Revive MD was it's a tough one because it's always been like the red-headed stepchild. Like it's the one that didn't take off and I don't want to say it's a loss at all. We actually are very successful. So, last year, you know, this year we're going to do 30 million in revenue. >> I stand corrected, guys. I stand corrected, guys. >> by any means. It's not a loss by any means. We're launching nationwide in Walmart this year. But what I will say and what I mean by that is like look, when you have all these brands taking off at the same time, you know, it's very natural to to to put your focus on the one that is is more important, right? And unfortunately, as RAW exploded and Re-Live exploded and all these things happened, Revive just ended up going on a back burner. You know, but I think Revive has a ton of potential. I think people Let's be honest, how many people take vitamins and how many people take supplements? >> Yeah. >> Way more people take vitamins than people take supplements. And now, what I'm very proud of this year is I put a [ __ ] dream team together, in my 2:09:14 opinion, for Revive because when we were acquired by The Quality Group, I had to peel off Revive and move it because I had the same team running everything, which is why it got neglected. But now that we've been able to peel it off and put it over here and build this team, now we're seeing the monumental growth. You know, we're up 30% in in the first quarter of this year and that's without our Walmart launch coming right now. We launch in Walmart, I think this week or next week. So, we have a lot of momentum coming and then now I'm using all of the stuff that I've learned from The Quality Group and implementing it into this business. So, it's a beautiful scenario to be in and I think that it's going to be a massive win for us long-term. I think it could also be very, very large. >> This is crazy, just the flywheels that you have. Like hypothetically, you can drive this on the Eterna and the Re-Live. Hypothetically, you can >> I'll do I I'm not going to sell a Revive to anybody except the person who buys Re-Live because they go so hand in hand. We sell these vitamins in all of our locations and and there's a really cool understanding of of this that you may 2:10:11 not connect is what we're doing with the Revive is we're building brand validity and trust. So, that way when people do turn 35 and they they HRT and they need all these other things that we offer, where are they going to go? They're going to go to relive because they see them together. They understand that we own both, that we collaborate with both, that we're building up a trust and validity with the consumer from the age of 18 to 35. That way when they hit 35, they don't even question where they're going to get these services. They already know they're going to come to us because we've been such loyal people to them and delivered such quality vitamins that they know we're only going to deliver the same thing on the the brick and mortar. >> This is a sicko flywheel. Are these all separate codes outside of >> Every single one. >> Every single one is a separate co. This is crazy. Let's get into the rapid fire. I got tons and tons of questions. A couple people from IG as well, too. You have a a loyal base. >> I do. >> We were going to shoot a bit back and I put that on the story and people fired off. And then people came back after the fact and like yo, where's the episode with Dom? 2:11:07 >> I believe it. >> It happened. >> Yeah, I believe it. >> Something we don't know about Chris Bumstead. >> He's He's a teddy bear. He's a huge teddy bear. He's a family man through and through. He's just got a heart of gold, and I would say that his conviction for his family is the strongest conviction I've ever seen in my life. >> One metric you check first thing every morning. >> For me, you're going to not believe it, but I I it's family first every morning. So, for me it's it's family, and then when I get into work, I jump on email and I check financials for sure. But it's you know, I I wait every day 8:00 in the morning. I do my workout first. I see my son, I see my wife, and then I go to work and I start work. Like my family's number one. >> I believe it because this morning you told me that you were seeing your son and I was >> I wouldn't leave my house before 8:00 because I want to see >> Guys, this happened here. Most underrated customer service move a CPG brand can make. >> Uh just owning everything as as the customer is always right. You know, I've seen I've seen even my own customer service complain and say this is wrong, they should have done 2:12:06 this. Yep, sorry, here's your new order. I apologize. >> We went deep on the raw episode on that one. Yeah, I just think yet give away a freebie. You win every time, baby. It's absolutely >> that people wouldn't do that, in my opinion. From a time perspective, either. Just give it. >> 100%. Best supply chain advice? >> Oh, I think that supply chain is, you know, you need to have the strongest demand planner you can pay. I think demand planning is one of the most important things in the world, and without it, listen, the worst thing that can happen to you is you have a successful product and you can't sell it cuz you don't have inventory. So, in managing supply chain and managing that is the most critical part of a business. >> What is the DNA of that human? >> It's someone who's really good with [ __ ] numbers and Excel sheets. >> Love that. The moment you knew RAW was going to be big, was it a number, a meeting, a gut feeling? >> You know, >> Flex on them, bro. Flex on them. >> I can't. I'm not going to use numbers. It was when we hit a numerical number in an annual point. And so, the way I look at things is I look at things as, again, it's velocities and doors, right? So, a 2:13:07 lot of companies have a lot of doors, but they have low velocity. So, the number is is small in a big door count. I realized that we were going to be something very special when we were in a very small amount of doors doing the same revenue that brands were doing in a lot more doors than us. And then, you know, what clicked in my head was doors, doors, doors, doors, doors. And that's the same thing that's clicking in my head right now with this. I just need [ __ ] doors. >> Love that. Uh first question you ask in an interview? >> Where do you want to be in 5 years? Practical. Uh best The only reason I ask that is because I don't want to train somebody for them to leave because it's a job that they're holding a place to go somewhere else. It's the biggest waste of time in the world. >> Setting expectations. Love that. Best $10,000 you ever spent on your business? >> Probably an AI bot. >> Tons of AI episodes coming, guys. We're going nuts on that. Uh Matt Jansen in one word? >> It's not one word, but I think overall, he's the most, the greatest human I've ever met as a professional and as a person. >> Bold. Most overrated leadership advice of the 2:14:08 last 5 years? >> The most overrated leadership advice in the last 5 years. I would say something along the lines of you need to know everything that's going on in your company at all times cuz I think it's absolute [ __ ] >> Wow, that is a very counterintuitive bar. You don't hear that. >> Yeah. I don't think I think again like I want my team to lead and I want my team to run how they run. Granted, we have a common goal, we have building blocks, but I don't want to know what's happening in marketing. I want to know what it's delivering. And I want it to be done. >> I mean, the fact that we've talked about 28 companies today and they're doing well. I think the proof is in the pudding there. Is you're you're definitely >> You you have to enable your team to make their own decisions again because if you don't, they're just going to turn into to workers. They're going to turn into people waiting for guidance. And I think that that cripples every company. I think that when you put so much effort into every little detail and you want to manage and manipulate everything as a CEO and a founder, you totally starve everyone's creativity and ability to lead and task manage and then 2:15:09 everything just relies on you and then you have you don't have anything. You have a full-time job. >> Or you got to go for one. Hire for scale or hire for hunger. Got to pick one. >> Okay, hire for Could it be at different points in the company or is it just a blanket? So in the beginning, I would hire for hunger and now I would hire for scale. >> What's that number? What 0 to 20 hunger, 20 and up? >> I would say hunger is good under a 100 mil. >> It's a lot of you guys out there. Love it. If someone dropped a 10th company or let's just say 20th company on your lap tomorrow, what's the first question you'd ask before saying yes to getting it done? Ross Mac in one word. >> He is the the most in innovative marketer, creative person I've ever met. I don't have one word, but as far as creativity goes, the kid is he just gets it. He is a marketer and a creator. >> Yeah. Getting to know him, I I actually said this to him the last time I was with him. It was just like he is a good ideas guy. >> His vision and like the way he can put things together is second to none. >> Shout out Uncle Ross. Um one thing you did $10 million that you miss now at 150, 200, 300, 500 million. 2:16:12 >> We flew under the radar at $10 million. >> Now he's on open residency, he's just spitting game here. Let's go. Best advice to a brand owner on discounting. >> Don't do it. I would only do it for new customer acquisition. The only time you do it. I think people with a new brand and discounting, they in the early stages you see when you you put a discount in place, you see how much revenue it brings in, so it's very easy to want to do it over and over and over to get that chunky revenue to come in and hit those numbers, but you turn yourself into a discount brand. So I think like what I like to do is if we're going to do a discount, I like to do it in product instead of monetary, so like a bogo of some sort. And then I also only like to do it for new customers. So to get a new customer involved in the brand that they haven't tried or to get a customer to try a new product that they have that we haven't come out with. So we have on all innovation, we try to do a deal to get you to buy it and usually it's a bogo. So for example with Revive, what we'll do is if we have a new vitamin that comes out, we believe that it takes about 60 days for you to feel the effects of a vitamin and we 2:17:10 believe that you're going to come back after you buy it, so we're going to give you a bottle for free. And then that's how you get hooked on a new product, right? We want you to fall in love with the brand and I believe that the best way that you can sell something is when they stop taking it and they realize how well it works for them and then they come back and buy it. >> Keeping it offsite, so collecting emails and probably funneling it offsite. You want to keep big banner 30, 40% off. >> can do it through ad advertising, right? Landing pages for new customers only. Like you know, they don't even have to get to your website. >> Love that. The best deal you ever made. >> The best deal I ever made was marrying my wife. >> Look at that, guys. The worst week of your life as an operator. >> The the the week of the process of selling the company. >> [clears throat] >> That's first world problems, but I've heard that many, many a time. >> Yeah. >> The one category trend every CPG founder should be paying attention to you right now. >> The number one category trend. I don't like I don't like building on trends. I'm not a trend guy. I think that you got to build legacy and my 2:18:11 product that's going to be around for longer than 6 to 8 months. So, don't know if I'm the right person to ask that question to. >> Next. Number one thing that a personal brand has done for you and your businesses. >> I think it's added a lot of validity to the brands, for sure. I think it's put a lot more, you know, in my in my sense, a lot more of like the the PE, you know, strategic eyes on me now, you know, whether it is the not not put me in, you know, where they are or however it is, but I think it's helped the brands have a lot more validity. >> I completely agree. It only takes one person to go down the rabbit hole and watch this interview. >> Yeah. >> To see and know that you know what the [ __ ] you're talking about. >> I appreciate that. >> You know what I'm saying, dude? Like, are you going to be an investor or are you more just like a builder at your core? >> No, so I I would love to be an investor. I have a really strict non-compete in my agreement with, you know, Quality Group. So, there will be a time and place for that, and there I am investing in companies outside of that already. So, yes, I have a family office called Lunatic Capital, and I do do outside 2:19:10 investments from there. >> Hey, love it. Last couple questions that I ask everybody. It's been [ __ ] amazing, bro. Uh favorite book or podcast and why? >> My favorite book is The Motive. >> Never heard of it. What is it? >> It's a very simple book. It's an It's a book for operators, and it's really about how to lead people and do it effectively without like sugarcoating anything and making it very simple. It's a book that's basically bringing you through a real-life situation of two two different people who lead very differently, and then showing the simplicity of being successful in leadership. It's a It's literally a one-page It's a one-day read. You can read it in a day. >> We're going to pop that book up and put it down in the description. How else are you getting smarter? Obviously, in the doing and talking to people. Are you a big consumer of information and content? >> No, I'm not. I'm being honest. Like, I I talked about about the other day. I probably buy like 150 bucks a year and I would say I read like an eighth or a third of them. Just between a third and an eighth. I don't know the number exactly, but it's because like if it doesn't attract me and I don't get like 2:20:06 validation out of it pretty quickly, I'm I'm onto the next thing. So for me, I seek out people who are doing it and I just want to learn from them on how they did it. So like one of the things for me when we did this PE deal with CVC was like throw me in. Like whatever it is I can learn. Like if I can come shadow, like I want to [ __ ] learn everything I can. You know, cuz I see myself doing that type of stuff in the future. Like I I love it. You know, it's the art of the deal. Like that's my [ __ ] >> I feel like so many operators, and again, for me, one of my good friends is in that world and then I've been having a lot of conversations with PE lately. I was so intrigued. That's when I It was a 5-hour dinner in Vegas and I'm just like I was just so intrigued by everything they were doing. It made so much sense. I feel like it's so foreign. That's actually a good person to have on is like a gangster PE person. Cuz I feel like you know, especially founders, hustlers, kind of V1 of you, have no idea what's going on there. >> No. >> And these dudes are just like behind the stress and they're full of it. >> problem. If everyone knew what they were doing, they would have a hard time 2:21:00 getting deals, right? So >> Yeah. >> It's an art. It's an art and it's They're They're They're animals, you know, those guys are are absolute animals at what they do, but it's a hell of a business to be in. >> Those dudes were animals. An entrepreneur or brand that you want to give flowers to and why? >> An entrepreneur or brand that I would love to give flowers to, and this is not blowing smoke, I really really respect what Greg's done, Greg Labs done with Bloom. I think it takes a very unique person to do what he did in a very short period of time. I think franchising is a really tough world. So Georgio's also. Like I think the ability to scale at the way he scaled in different countries, cuz like unless you understand franchising, I don't think anyone understands how hard it is and difficult it is. Cuz with franchising, you have people who pay you to open a concept and then they think that they can do it better than you all the time. Every one of them thinks that they're better at it. So being able to reel that in and operate that on a multi >> continent >> hundreds Yeah, I mean it's 45 Yeah. >> That's insane. >> Yeah. >> That's absolutely insane. So the kudos 2:21:58 to him for doing that. I was overly impressed with that. And then George, you know, is doing a great job. Like all my boys, I'm super proud of all of them. You know, in their respective fields, they just crank. >> Yeah, is George episode out? George As Loom next. All good names. Got good taste there. Last question, man. How big can the Quality Group be? >> It'll be the biggest. The biggest in the space. I know that for a fact. So, you know, like you know, you The question I always get is like who do you compare yourselves to? And we always compare yourselves to number one. I don't compare myself to anyone else besides number one. And we're going to we're going to be number one. >> I won't say their name, but who is number one? Like Unilever or something? >> No, that's more of like a >> Food conglomerate? >> Yeah. Honestly, number one right now, I'm not even really sure cuz it's going back and forth cuz they're public. So like it literally changes every day. But >> What's their market cap is number one? >> Probably right around 10 billion. >> Nice. I love it, man. Had an amazing time. Guys, we're going to put so many links down below. Where do I Where's the best place for them to 2:22:56 to follow you on the internet? >> YouTube and Instagram are probably the two best. >> Completely agree. Bro, amazing time. Appreciate you. >> Thanks, bro. Appreciate you. >> What's up, guys? If you guys got this far in the episode, I would assume that you enjoyed it. If you got any value, it would mean the world if you hit the subscribe button, give it a like, post a comment, tell a friend. We can keep going bigger, bigger guests, bigger locations, more [music] value. See you in the next episode.
