How First Day Built a 9-Figure Kids Vitamins Brand From One SKU

All right, Alice, welcome.

Thank you.

We are going to have you start at a very simple place. What the hell is First Day? Explain it for the audience, because I think I want to start here because I think that our audience is mostly 25-year-old men in commerce. That's what I thought, to be honest. And they may not know what First Day is. So let's start with what is First Day? What do you do? What do you sell?

Great.

Let's go there.

We're a 9-figure Mostly e-commerce family wellness brand. So, we make products for kids, teens, mom and dad, toddlers across multivitamins, tribiotics, and all sorts of amazing products that are really oriented around how do we bring this incredible perspective on what's the root cause of health issues today and making it a delightful, joyful experience and then making it for the whole family.

And so, like, one of the things Maybe I'll just go here next. Why so many? Is it harder to make so many products in wellness versus being a single SKU version? I'm thinking of Groen's as an example. It's like, there's like, I make the green gummy. Although I guess they have others. You have a lot of product. Did it start with a lot of product? Did it start with one?

It started in 2019 with just one SKU. So it was our kids' multivitamin. I wanted to start with the most difficult member of the family to, to start with, actually, because there's such a trust barrier with parents. Yeah, you can experiment on yourself, but you're never going to do that with your kids. But the goal was to build a family brand. And so growing from kids, and then we naturally got a lot of pull from moms saying, but like, I, I'm stealing it out of my kid's bottle in the morning and I would love it for myself. And then going from there. And yeah.

Why did you, why did you want to start with the hardest one? That sounds counterintuitive.

I think it was great for brand building.

Okay.

And so, you know, as I think about the business, it was all about how do you build something that lasts in the long term, especially in my space, supplements. There's so many fads and flashes like up and down of what consumers want. And I think deliberately we chose all the most boring, most steady categories within vitamins, supplements, and minerals to really establish the brand and to make sure that there was longevity to the business.

Where—

go ahead.

And it's— it seems like a super crowded market, so it's just so impressive that you're able to stand out from the crowd.

Thank you.

Yeah, I guess this is it. It's like, where— why pick health and wellness? Like, why pick this in the first place? Because like, I look at it, I'm with him, man. Like, this is a really crowded category.

Yeah, categories. I'll talk about it from a business perspective first, since I think that's the orientation of the question, but I love red oceans that are highly fragmented because what it means is, number one, there's a ton of consumer need for it, right? There's a huge market of people who desperately need something, and that's why that exists. And the fragmentation is amazing because it means no one's won, and it means that actually consumers are not happy with what they're getting from companies. And so, it's an incredible opportunity to win.

Do you think you can win in consumer in that sense? Like, uh, like in tech where you have like one player who owns a large amount of share of something?

Across a couple different categories in this market in particular, I actually do think certain brands become synonymous with like ingredients. Like if you think greens powder, you probably think AG1, right? And so we want to be that for clinical family wellness. Like we want every parent in America To think of First Day when they need something for their family and to check us first. And we're actually not going to produce every product because there's a pretty high efficacy threshold that we look at. And frankly, supplements, while they're an incredible category and they can do a lot for your health, it's not medicine, right? It's not a pharmaceutical. And so a lot of things that people want to solve with supplements, it's impossible.

So you answered it from the business side. What's the personal side? Why do you— why First Day?

Yeah. So I'm Chinese American. I was born in China and then moved to California when I was very young. But through that, I saw through my extended family, through my parents, frankly, what it was like to not get what you needed from a health perspective at a really critical time. So my grandparents lived through the Great Chinese Famine in the 1950s. 40 million people passed away. It's the largest famine in human history, actually, and no one talks about it.

I didn't even know that was a thing.

Yeah.

Vaguely have heard of it, but— Yeah.

And it was because of, I think, the politics around it. It's not really discussed that often. And then even in my parents' generation, my mom has these stories of when she was young and you had to use vouchers to buy food then. I think it was similar in other countries that were testing out communism in some ways. And she tells me about how, you know, she could only eat meat once a year during Chinese New Year's because that's when the voucher was available. And at every other time of year, you couldn't get it. And it's interesting because seeing my family age, right?

Mm-hmm.

Because my parents live in the US. China hasn't been like this for 30-plus years. It's changed so dramatically. But when your body misses something really critical at an important time, it fundamentally doesn't make it up. Like, it impacts chronic illness, it impacts how you age, it impacts your quality of life, and ultimately that's what matters. And so when I started the business, I wanted to try and find the root cause of certain things.

Okay.

And that became basically the product philosophy behind the brand where, yes, we make multivitamins and there's frankly a million multivitamins out there, even a brand like Groon's, right? It's effectively a multivitamin.

Yeah.

If you look at the ingredient makeup, but we approach it from a really different perspective. So, for example, if you look at the clinical studies behind the food system over the last 60 years and you compare what was measured in the nutrient quality in a single orange in 1950 versus today, you would have to eat 8 oranges today to match it.

Yeah.

And it's because of industrialization, factory farming, soil depletion. And so orienting the, the development of these products around actual potential root causes behind potential symptoms and side effects and things that people are feeling on a daily basis, we're trying to really improve how people feel every day. So that's a philosophy.

Did you start— when you were starting the business, did you go into it knowing that all of these were problems in the system? I think I've heard you actually criticize the supplement wellness space from a product efficacy perspective. Is that where you started or did it come when you were in the business and actually looking around and building products where then you realized, Oh God, this is a lot weirder than I thought it was.

Tactically speaking, I went into it knowing that product was really critical and I wanted to find scientific defensibility for the business, especially in a category where it doesn't exist. And so how do you tell a really compelling story to the consumer? And then how do you build products that ideally help them truly feel better? Because then that drives LTV, retention, all sorts of things that are great for business. But starting out, I didn't really know what it would evolve into or frankly know that it would have the scale that it does today.

When you start with kids, I'm still stuck on this because the kid isn't really the customer, right? It's the mom.

So they're the user, but the purchaser is the mom.

The mom.

Yeah, exactly.

So you start with kids and then how do you get over the trust barrier with the mom when you're selling something for their child?

So the thing that I feel like people forget is consumers are actually really smart nowadays.

Oh yeah.

And they're really skeptical. And I think in this space in particular, brands often treat buyers as if they're dumb. You know, they promise things that sound impossible. Lose 50 pounds in 60 days. You know, take this and you don't need ADHD medication. Sure.

You know what?

what have you. And so I think there's actually a huge amount of trust that you garner by just being honest with them about how you made the product, what it can do, and also what it can't do. And I think actually that is just as important as having a strong claim or a strong hook or some sort of strong psychological impact on them. And in particular, I think it's about how do you communicate things that are frankly inherently really boring to a consumer with a very short attention span? Because the way we build our products, the scientific structure of them, no consumer wants to know that. We've run ads and tested it. It doesn't work. No one cares. No one wants to watch a minute-long video about how you went through clinical studies and the chemical form and why it matters. So you have to figure out how do I tell this in a credible, compelling way that's also entertaining, that also helps them understand frankly why it matters for their life.

How do you do that then? I'm so curious. How do you think of taking something that nobody wants to watch, but in order to get the trust, you got to get them to watch something like this. So how do you do that?

We focus a lot on what actually matters to parents.

So for example, I'm actually not I think that's also one of the more fun things about your brand is you're not a parent, but you're taught by parents and kids.

Yes, yes. But I think my connection, which is interesting, is I'm almost like a kid who made it for my family. It's almost the inverse for me. But from a content perspective and from a communication perspective, I think there's huge value in understanding, okay, how do you parents actually talk about this day to day, right? If you interview a parent or if you go onto even Reddit and you hear about their complaints and what really worries them about their children and what's impacting their life. Like for example, a parent who is taking their kid to the grocery store and your kid starts screaming bloody murder because that happens.

Mm-hmm.

And it's incredibly embarrassing. because you're like, I promise I'm not abusing this child. And also it's my child, I'm not stealing him from anywhere. And there's so much emotion that you can capture in that and helping the parents understand, well, actually you're right, your kid is trying his or her best, but there may be something fundamental that's missing in their health that's making it harder for them to manage their mood, that's making it harder for them to live life and to develop in the way that you want them to.

Yeah.

And I think there's, Like this poignancy that you can really tap into.

Yeah, I think that the reason I ask is like certain categories lend themselves very well to like just storytelling with the product.

Yes.

Like this, this guy here has got the best category in the world. It's food, you know? So like when you go to make ads, it's like, just cook, man. And like everybody loves to watch people cook and they love food. Whereas I'm thinking of you and I'm like, God, that's a really boring, not very visually stimulating category.

Yes.

And yet you've got this—

You can't demonstrate it.

No, there's no demo. It's like, and there's a crazy amount of distrust in the customer. So it's like, how do you actually like break through that? Did you guys ever hear, I don't know if you've, uh, if you're old enough to even know this, uh, but do you remember the company Woot?

Yeah.

From like the mid-2000s. They, I think they got acquired by Amazon, but their claim to fame— Okay.

I was in middle school then, so I don't know.

Okay. So yeah, see, this is what I mean. Thanks for making us both feel really old.

Uh, You're young at heart.

So the way that this business worked, and you'll love this, you go look at how they did this, but what they would do is they would basically launch and sell a product and there would be all the typical sales copy. This is how this product is awesome, whatever. And on the other side it would be like, here's how this product sucks. And they would just be brutally honest about everything that was crappy and it can't do this and it won't do this. And if you try to vacuum up water, it's a big problem. And they were kind of funny about it. But the consumer, your point on the consumer is really smart now. I think they were the first to figure that out, one of the first to say, why don't we just stop treating the customer like they're an idiot and let's just sell the thing like you would sell it to Jason? As a friend, it's like, hey, look, here's what it's good for. And I'm like, honestly, I don't like this part, but you're going to buy it anyway because it's great.

Yeah.

So it sounds like you kind of went after that in just the truth-telling side of supplement.

Exactly. And I think it's a rare approach because Frankly, you can get any consumer to try something once with an exaggerated claim.

Okay.

And it's really easy to make a lot of money that way.

Yeah.

But it's actually very hard to build a brand for the long term because after they've tried it once and it doesn't work, they're not going to try it again. And actually, you know, there's a lot of people in the US, but you do end up sometimes running out of people to sell to if you get big enough.

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Fool me once, shame, shame. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the supplement world, it's always seemed to me to be kind of like the wild, wild west. It is, right?

Skincare too.

Yeah. I remember when I was in college, like guys— and I graduated in 1993— guys were like going launching supplement brands in Arizona in the '90s. I'm like, where is this stuff? Who are you to do something? But you noticed that, right? You saw, oh wow, it's kind of the wild, wild west. And yes, you can convince anyone to try something once, but hey, we can bring a really high level of trust to it. Like, we can really convince people, like, uh, regarding the efficacy and, and just like the quality.

That's great.

And, and that's, that's huge. I think that's what you said makes so much sense. It seems so easy now, like, in hindsight, it's 20/20, right? But seeing that opportunity and, and that's That's huge.

Where did you learn this? Like, you're, you're young enough to making us feel very old, but like, uh, I'm probably gonna remind you that a few times, by the way, cuz it's not fair. Uh, it feels not fair. So where did you learn this? Like, what did you do prior to starting First Day? Like, and did you, what did somebody teach you this? Like, where'd you pick it up?

So I think there's 2 questions in that. One is, what did I do before First Day?

Yeah.

Which I'll answer after. And then how do we start out by thinking about this trust issue? So, you know, the term snake oil literally came from supplements, right?

Oh, really?

Yes. It was actually from someone selling something called snake oil, and it got a really bad reputation, which is why we now call everything, you know, that's effectively suspicious and ineffective snake oil. And so, this is something that has been true within supplements since effectively the creation of the industry in the 1900s. Which is when we as a society had the scientific advances to actually understand vitamins and other things. And so when I started talking to actual buyers of supplements and, you know, over 90% of the US population uses supplements, so it's a, it's a huge market. But the really fascinating thing is when you ask people, well, why did you buy this? Their most common answer is, I don't know. Which is crazy for literally an industry that's $30 billion.

Yeah, right.

It's actually insane.

Nobody knows why they're spending $30 billion.

Yes, yes, exactly. So they're saying things like, oh yeah, I just went to Costco or the grocery store or whatever. I went to the vitamin aisle. Everything looked exactly the same. There's just a wall of product. And, you know, I might have a budget, so I look there and then there's, you know, you know, some big companies I recognize. And I picked it up and I'm hoping that something good happens, but honestly, I don't know if it works and I don't really know the difference between any of these products. And I think that's also the power of e-com because unlike a retail-first brand, you can actually tell that story because in retail it's really a 5-second instinct that you have to drive with the consumer to even pick you up, but online you can tell a really in-depth story over your site, over advertising. You can talk to them multiple times. You can have a really long engagement with them. And I think that's part of what was needed in order to create that sort of brand that we wanted was actually this channel to grow.

And then what did you do prior to starting First Day?

It's really, really boring, but I was a management consultant.

Oh God, you get a lawyer and a banker and a management consultant. There's a joke here. I'm not gonna even try. Well, it's kind of—

we all walk into a bar. So good lawyers, good bankers, and good management consultants become operators.

That's true.

We leave.

Yeah, we leave.

Yeah.

What was the most useful thing you learned being a management consultant?

Have you heard the abbreviation SWAG?

No. Like, all I know is swag is just like you buy rent. It's like that you get at a conference.

Strategic wild-ass guess? Yes.

Come on. Writing that down as the guy who does bullshit You're going to—

that's— I mean, that is right up your alley.

You're definitely a pro despite not knowing the terms.

Crushing in the swag.

Oh, yeah, go for it.

That was probably the number one skill I learned is how do you understand and quickly get direction in areas where you probably have no idea what you're doing as a 22-year-old advising Fortune 100 companies?

Yeah.

And what's the most useless thing you you learned being a management consultant? He's probably got a good answer for this too, but—

I want to hear yours.

No, no, you're the interviewee.

Yeah, yeah, you tell me. What's the most useless thing you learned at, uh, being a management consultant?

Doing what I'm told. I'm not, I'm not very good at it.

That's awesome. Jason, give me yours. What, as a— let's go lawyer. You, most useless thing that you picked up being a lawyer, like, why, why do we do this?

Well, I don't know, useless?

Yeah.

I would say I did a lot of mundane tasks as a lawyer.

Okay.

Like proofreading was very, very important as a lawyer, where every comma and every period went. And there was a level of attention to detail that I learned that was really good with that, but it was incredibly boring. That's why I'm not a lawyer anymore.

It sounds excruciating, actually. How did you pick what So you started with kids.

Yes.

Which product did you start with?

The multivitamin.

And what was the form factor?

Gummies.

Gummies?

Yeah.

Were you early on the gummy thing?

I—

so I think gummies have grown a lot over the last 3 years.

Yeah, I feel like we're at peak gummy.

Yes. And the crazy thing is it's still growing. So I'm not sure it's actually at the peak. I think it's still on the up.

Maybe as a marketer, I'm like, good God, another gummy.

But yes, but it really works. And I think there was a whole set of products that came out probably 10 to 20 years before mine that were also gummy format. But the approach we took to ingredient form, to the combination, to how we thought about rigor in the format was very different. So it was really like gummy vitamin 2.0, like how do you now create effectively a delicious way to start or end your day, which is important for habit building, right? As you think about consumer usage and consumption, but actually help it work better. And it's really limiting actually, because that format is really hard to manufacture in. So if you think—

Tell us why. I've heard this from multiple people.

Why?

Why is it so difficult?

There's a couple of big reasons. So one is there's a gummy matrix of water, sugar, and a gelling agent. And you can only really add up to 5% of other stuff into it until it no longer forms a gummy. And 5— if you imagine like a gummy, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

5% of that as an active ingredient is nothing. It's a tiny, tiny part of the gummy.

It almost sounds like the gummy's a terrible form factor to put things in.

It is actually, which is why when people move out of that form factor, they often get very excited because it's much easier to manufacture and to scale. And then the second thing is it's heated to extremely high temperatures. And so that actually destroys a lot of actives as well. So if you want to effectively protect the consumer and be able to have things like efficacy and do all of those things, you're basically trying to solve an equation where only 1% of what you would like to do is possible. So, that's a big part of it.

Then, why start with gummies? I guess, and then give me the most extreme end of the other side of that. So, if gummies are a hard place to get Yeah. A large amount of active ingredients into somebody.

Yes.

What is the best form factor to get actives into somebody?

So, from my perspective, because we really wanted people to actually take the product and feel better, if you don't want to take it, then there's no point.

Right.

Buying and making the product. And so, that was really the number one thing that we were trying to solve for is I guarantee you every one of us knows more or less what it takes to be healthy, right? You eat more salads, you exercise a little bit more. All of us know that, and yet none of us do it.

Yeah.

And that's because it's really hard. It's unpleasant. No one enjoys it. And so how do you make being healthy something that you actually look forward to and that's fun and joyful? And that's through things like the form factor and the experience. And on the flip side of what you asked, it's probably a powder. Right.

Yeah.

Powder is like the thing that you can do.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like I would, yeah, it would be so much easier for my life if—

I'm still waiting for somebody to make it.

But then people won't do it.

No, that's just it.

It's messy.

Yeah. It's disgusting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It clumps up. There's like a textural and taste issue. So.

Yeah. It's really just like, yeah, I'm, I'm so happy you said that. I, I don't know a whole lot about the space.

Yeah.

But I'm very curious and like how all of it works. The science of it's super fascinating. Um, When you started with gummies, like how quickly did you realize like we're going to— do you just do gummies or do you do like a whole bunch of form factors?

As of today, we just do gummies, but we're launching actually a new form factor that I'm excited about.

Okay.

Yeah.

Do you want to talk about it or do you want to save it?

Ask me in 9 months.

Oh, well, okay, we'll save it then.

It'll be a little bit sooner than that. But yeah, the main thing is actually the scientific limitations I just talked about. We wanted to find another form factor that let us tackle problems that moms and parents were already telling us about, but that were fundamentally impossible in a gummy format. And we also had to find a format that was still fun because that's a big part of the brand. The number one thing when you talk to a First Aid customer that they say about us is it's fun. Yeah.

And so your colors are fun. Like everything about it is like the packaging is great.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so that was really important and we had to find the right intersection of those 2 things.

Okay.

Did you bootstrap the company at the beginning? Like what? Tell us the sort of like how you financed this thing.

So we launched in 2019 with our very first SKU, the kids multi, grew pretty quickly. So grew to multimillion run rate within a couple of months, which was grueling and horrible. I thought about quitting every day, which you guys probably also relate with.

Still do.

Yep.

Yep.

Is that on your own website?

Yes.

D2C. And then I raised a very small amount of capital. So less than $1 million. And I think in the years since, we've generated so far 180 times that return on capital.

Wow.

And so, I've always wanted to build a business that could stand on its own and a brand that could live beyond me. And so, having the company be profitable and be able to scale quickly, even though it's, you know, 9 figures now, was really important to how I wanted to run it.

So you raised a little bit of capital and then that was the only capital you ever raised?

Yes.

And then you've been building it. I mean, that's basically bootstrapping. Like under a million bucks is not a lot of capital at the scale that you're at. It really isn't.

Yeah.

Okay. So, and then how do you think, like, do you think you'll get to a size where like another level of investor or another way to capitalize the business has to come along? Like, I'm really just asking the question from like every category is different. Like some companies like HexCloud, you guys went a long way with like zero outside capital.

Right?

Um, but then there's certain categories where I've heard like they're actually just really expensive to build in.

Yeah.

At certain scales. Like when you look at like multi and supplements, like this whole space, where do you think what, what's possible from a scale perspective on, on just like profit?

Is unlimited a possible answer?

Yeah, yeah, it can be.

It can be totally.

I'm asking because like I just don't know enough about the category.

I'm very curious.

Yeah.

So margins in supplements are are so high and it can be really profitable. And so I think one, that attracts a lot of bad actors, like people who just want to make a quick buck. But it also means that if you're structured and thoughtful around how you want to build a company, you can build it this way. We've had a lot of interest, but I never felt like it was the right time.

Yeah.

Because it never felt like I could really like it opened something that I couldn't do already.

Yep.

And so, that's kind of what I was asking.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's like, you know, is there an unlock that comes with capital in your space? But it doesn't sound like it.

It sounds like, sounds like what you have is just like the typical founder of a great business.

Yes.

It's like if you're growing and you're profitable and you're enjoying yourself, uh, like that's the way to build the business.

Yeah.

As opposed to saying, oh, I'm building this thing for like 50% of the people you meet are just thinking about how to build a business for exit.

Yes.

And that's okay. That's just what they want. But yeah, you know, you're building a business that, it was nice to hear you say that, that'll outlast me. You know, it does. And if someone else owns it, that's great. Yeah. But more importantly, it's, um, it's a sustainable business that gives you the option to hang out as long as you want. That, 'cause that's the way we look at our business. It's like, well, we don't have to do anything.

Yes.

And those are the, those are great. That's a great place to be.

Yeah.

Hell yeah. What, what you said that it was really hard, like, so when you launched, you got, you scaled up really quickly, but you hate, like, it was awful.

It was.

What about, what about it was awful? Like, that sounds great. Like, if I'm launching a brand, I get to millions of dollars in a few months. Like, that's great.

Well, I was 25 spending thousands of dollars a day on Facebook ads, not seeing a great return. at the time and wondering if I had quit my nice cushy corporate job for no reason and made a huge mistake and was just pumping what felt to me like at the time, like, you know, my life savings and all of those things into the business without knowing if it was going to work. And I actually set myself a goal at around 6 months post-launch where I told myself, okay, I'm going to give myself 6 months to build the underlying unit economics. So, like, can I get cost of customer acquisition to be something that makes sense and also prove some level of scale so that I can tell myself I'm not wasting my time and torturing myself for no reason?

Mm-hmm.

I still remember the first $200,000 purchase order we made for inventory because we were on the verge of going out of stock. And I slept like 2 hours that night.

Like, I just, you know, So is this, uh, are the cash cycles in supplements hard? Like when you have to buy it, like you have to prepay or buy a lot long before you get it?

Yes.

It's gotten a lot better over the years as actually private equity has entered an industry and created more supply on the manufacturing side. But at the time, gummy vitamins were so hot. There was so little capacity. 6 out of every 10 manufacturers I talked to just straight turned me away because they weren't accepting new clients.

Oh my God.

Yeah, and so it was a really unusual environment because usually suppliers don't have that much leverage over brands, but at the time it was 100% prepay, and on top of that, it would take 8 to 16 weeks depending on—

Whoa.

Yeah, so it was not ideal from a cash conversion cycle standpoint.

Tell me about the cost to customer acquisition thing. So, You gave yourself time to figure out unit economics. Like, what did you do to drive CAC down where you were like, 6 months later, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna keep going?

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It was really understanding what spoke to the mom.

Okay.

So at that point, I had never done media buying. I'd never done video editing. You know, I didn't, learn any of that in consulting.

No kidding.

No, I—

But you learned how to swag.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

You learned how to swag.

Yeah, so I could do some basic, but probably somewhat wrong contribution math and—

It's just so not confidence-inspiring. I'm never hiring a management consultant.

If your company is run well, you probably don't need one.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So I had to teach myself all those things and how to do copywriting. And as I said, I wasn't a parent and to really understand the mentality of the sort of person that was actually watching our ads. And the better I became at actually fine-tuning that and grabbing their attention and talking them through the product and helping explain why this mattered, which wasn't, you know, all the things that you would think from a scientific standpoint. It was more, how does it matter to their life? Similar to what I was talking about. Then it started to work. And I'm also very lucky because the vast majority of our D2C business is subscription.

Yeah.

So 85% of it is recurring. And so it's, that really helps with investing for the future and actually being able to run it in a really capital-efficient way.

Did you realize that you needed to go subscription early on? Like, were you like, this is the only way the model works?

I think I was more lucky than smart, which is actually better to be. Uh, but the very first product page I built already had subscription as a, as a, as an option.

Yeah.

And, and the natural opt-in rate then was in the 50s. Now we've actually improved it dramatically. And so the, the organic behavior from consumers was they actually wanted something subscription-oriented, which makes sense for a product that effectively has a dose.

Yeah. And is it daily?

Yeah. And it's daily.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

Would you consider yourself a good marketer today?

I think I'm a terrible marketer.

Whoa.

Really?

My team sometimes disagrees with me, but I actually think—

I don't know. I've talked to you. I think you're a pretty good marketer.

I don't know. I feel like I had to teach myself what the business needed from me in order for it to survive and then thrive. But marketing doesn't come very naturally to me.

Yeah.

Like, I'm very quantitatively oriented, which is actually helpful in today's like e-com world of analytics. But a lot of what, you know, I think we as a team and as a brand became good at were things that I had to like force myself to be good at because that's what it needed from me. And I think probably the thing I was really good at with the business and I still try to lean in on is I'm good at adapting with the business. Like businesses often outgrow their founders and I don't think mine has outgrown me yet.

Oh wow.

So we'll see if it does.

I think it's very self-aware of you and great that you saying that. I think that's really great. You guys are actually very similar. and you don't know each other that well, but he's—

We rode the bus together.

Oh, so you know a little bit.

Yeah.

It was very intimate seating.

Yes.

Oh yeah.

It was nice and close. He's a numbers-driven, models, but I think from a marketing, not a creative marketer, but will understand the models really well.

Yeah.

Right. And then some people are on the other side of marketing, which is they're just idea factories.

Yes.

And you honestly, in order to make a really strong e-commerce and omnichannel brand thrive, you need, you need to be able to meet in the middle across ideas and analytics.

And when did you jump from Just DC to going into retail? Because we were talking earlier and you're in a whole whackload of Targets. When did that happen? Like, when did you make your first jump into retail?

So we had been turning down 4 different retailers for a long time, including Target and Walmart. We didn't feel like we were ready actually, which I understand is a rare reaction from a founder.

Yeah.

But I—

It's so good when it comes to retail to have that.

Yes, because you only get one chance to launch. And frankly, I want it to be the best launch ever and I want it to be perfect. And so, we really needed to build up, in my opinion, like more scale and more resilience as a team and as a brand in order to execute against that well. And last year we felt ready.

Okay.

So we spoke with Target and Walmart and they were both incredibly supportive. And I felt very lucky because it's rare that brands get that opportunity. And I think it meant a lot that they really saw, I think, what the brand stood for. And Target frankly just made an offer we couldn't refuse. And they're such an incredible emerging brand partner.

Yeah.

And it's been an incredible launch. So we're nationwide now. Uh, the products are doing incredibly well. You know, we're number 1 kids vitamin, number 2 teens vitamin. Um, we're expanding our assortment, lots of exciting things.

Very cool. There, uh, we have the privilege of speaking with hundreds of founders pretty much every year. I have, I can count on like one hand the number of people would turn down a Target or a Walmart. Uh, you'd be on one of them.

Yeah.

You're still not in a Correct. xCloud is still not in any mass retailer except for the Costco roadshow.

Right. And we're not on this. We don't stock the shelves.

No.

We actually do a demonstration.

It's your inventory. It's your demos. Yeah, it's a very small list of people that can resist the siren call. Oh, yes.

But at some point, I think it makes sense for everyone. It does. Yes. It's just when. D2C is amazing, but at the end of the day, omnichannel, It's like you have to go where the customer is.

Yes.

And if at some point you are talking about some kind of transaction, maybe it's an IPO.

Yeah.

The market will wanna see that you're omnichannel.

Yes.

So it, but it's great to not be in a hurry. It's great to be patient and it's great to have options.

Yes, I agree. I think what's, it, it's very different by vertical, but for our space, if you think about not my business, but where consumers are actually buying these products, it's 50% retail, 40% Amazon, and only 10% direct-to-consumer.

I did not know that. It's 10% DTC?

It's 10% DTC.

I mean, I'm like saying to myself, I just wanna go buy some. I'm like, I would immediately just go to Amazon if I didn't know her. You know, just immediately go down there and buy it. You're right.

Like a lot of consumables in our house are being delivered by Amazon boxes.

Yes. And that's actually part of what's really exciting to me about this inflection point that the brand is in because only 10% of families prefer to purchase direct-to-consumer, but we are 80% direct-to-consumer, which means purely from channel distribution, we can still 10x the business.

Yep.

And so, you know, even though we're 9 figures, I feel really excited about the future.

Yeah.

You know, we had an incredible retail launch. There's still so much opportunity. I don't feel the business slowing down at all, which is I think very frankly not what I anticipated at this scale. Like I, in the early days, I think I dreamed of being this size, but you never really think you're going to do it.

You never know.

You know? Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you launch in Target, give yourself a grade at a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being awesome, 1 being terrible. How'd the, like the execution of a launch in Target, how did you guys do? It's your first time in retail. That's a lot of doors.

Yes, it is. And we did it with a team that was, that only really knew direct-to-consumer. So, very different operationally and mechanically. I would say probably on financial performance, 4 out of 5.

Yeah.

Personally, I'm pretty happy with it. I think the only thing that actually would've made it better is if the business itself were larger. Because the—

like brand-wise, you think?

Uh, yes, because we— so we know from Meta that 80 million households nationwide have seen the brand name for Slate.

Wow.

Um, but if that number were 150 million, I'm sure, you know, retail performance would be even better. Um, and so that's one piece of it. I think operationally, I would say 3 out of 5. A lot of things were new to the team. I don't think anything was truly outcome-changing, but there was a lot of learning as we go, which we also expected, and it's why we waited so long and also why we launched with just one partner because we had gotten a lot of feedback that we should say yes to multiple offers from the retailers themselves who were saying, oh, I don't mind you're also working with so-and-so. We ultimately decided it, it would just be too much for the business.

Sure.

It's a really great decision on so many levels. Number one, you can only do so much.

Yes.

Everyone wants to do everything.

Yeah.

And you can only do so much. But also I was talking with Mike Beckham about this yesterday and you, you really should just stick your toe in the water and learn.

Yes.

And then just go a little bit deeper and learn, 'cause it's, you don't wanna mess it up. It's way different. You know, just like the complexities of D2C.

Yes.

Um, and, and all the tactics and hacks of DTC, it's, it's the same exists in retail. And if you don't, if you just, you're not native to it, you could, any little thing could go wrong and that could be really become a really big thing.

Yeah.

Your sphere of influence in retail is actually, I think, smaller than in DTC.

It's, it's very small actually. So much is out of your control. Like, um, you know, some really nice 17-year-old is placing your product on a shelf.

Right.

In a town you've never been to. So, uh, and the retailer relationships really matter and they're not, uh, they don't like it when you make mistakes. So I think you really need to protect like how they see the business and how much you can support them and how much you lean in, which I think We've been really lucky because it's just been an incredible outcome and we're really excited about what the future looks like. But, you know, like I know brands where they didn't handle one conversation well with the buyer, which I think sometimes is on the brand. Like sometimes you, people do inappropriate things in the meetings, but it can really ruin the trust between like a brand and a retailer.

Yeah.

Because so much of these things are judgment calls for buyers, right? They don't know how you're going to perform. They're making a bet on you, on your team, on your brand. And there's ways for them to try and reduce the risk by asking for certain pieces of data, by asking for certain things from you, but ultimately they're making a bet in you. And so how you hold yourself, how you interact with them, it all matters a lot.

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Would you consider yourself, are you more of a strategy person or more of a just do things and execute like hell? The what to do versus just how to do it?

I think for most of a company's life cycle, success is dependent on 99% execution and 1% strategy. Strategy is almost useless.

What's the 1%? Where is it valuable?

I think things like business model structuring as you think about margin.

God, you speak so much English. You guys, man.

I mean, it isn't easy. I wish I would've known all this when we were riding the bus for an hour and a half yesterday. Because I say this too, there's just so much randomness in everything. And when you're a quantitative person, you really You feel it. You realize how random things are, right? Um, so, and you just have to be okay with the rand— like, so what you said about how much of it is really strategic? No, it's execution because, um, the randomness comes at you and then you need to execute.

Yes.

Right?

Yes. Um, I think, you know, there's, uh, an incredible book written by the former CEO of Snowflake, uh, who's also like a, serial professional CEO, but he actually talks about this in the book about how everyone puts so much emphasis on strategy. And I think part of it is because it's the easy and the fun part.

Well, it's easy to write about.

Yeah, it's the dreaming part, it's the vision part, and it's easy to talk about, but the actual doing is really, really hard. And the level of how you execute really matters because you can do the same thing, but do it way better. And only one of those scenarios is going to work. And it's really hard to tell the difference in a lot of times. And so I think often strategy is glorified. Yeah.

Everyone has a plan until they're punched in the mouth.

Oh yeah, that's the best quote ever. You know, when we were talking TikTok shops yesterday, all that was playing through my head, you know, my number one takeaway about that was, oh yeah, this is just another channel that is incredibly mundane, you need to send a bajillion messages to a bajillion creators, and that's boring, but that's the execution part. And the actual pieces, those 2 guys did a lot of it. I'm like, oh, they just summarized the whole thing in 4 moves. But the 4th move, I'm like, oh God, that's a lot of emails, man.

Yeah.

It's like, oh, okay, now you need to send out a million emails. Each step is very hard.

That's where it falls down. It's right there. It's like, I don't even know if I'm willing to do that.

Yeah. Yeah.

So how, uh, how has your— as a brand, so like, I guess let me start here first. I just want to finish on the product because, uh, my wife is highly skeptical of gummies.

Yes.

Uh, I've heard this from multiple people. How do you get around that? Because you've talked about like there's only so much ingredient in the gummy, but my wife is skeptical of it because she's worried about like, is it candy? You know, like, does my kid only want to eat it because she thinks it's candy? Am I building the wrong sort of like, I don't know, muscle in my child? How do you convince skeptical mothers to give their kids gummies?

Yeah, 3 ways. One is the ingredients in the gummy matter, not just from an active standpoint, but actually how you get it to gel. So the 2 most common ingredients are pectin and gelatin. So gelatin is what's used in a Haribo gummy, and it's distilled from animal bones. And pectin is basically what's in oranges, apples, fruit jams that causes that texture. And pectin is less sticky on the teeth. And so dental health is a huge thing.

Yep.

And so effectively, there are differences even within how gummies are made. And I think one thing that we're really good at is actually educating consumers to change their behavior. And so that's one thing. Another thing is I think sugar levels are often a concern.

Yep.

But you can work really hard to reduce the sugar level. So for our products, one gummy has the same sweetness and amount of sugar as 2 grapes. So if you think about your child eating fruit, which I think most parents think that's great, it's really not that much if you manage and optimize that. And then the last thing is, and this is just my personal perspective on health, and this is how I act in my own life regarding nutrition, but it doesn't really work to basically take all treats and delights away from your life. Like, we're all going to eat things that are unhealthy at some point.

Mm-hmm.

It's just a question of how much. And I think moderation is actually the best way to be healthy. Like, how do you teach your kids, you know, it's okay to eat that cupcake or a piece of candy because it tastes good and there's a really good evolutionary biological reason why it tastes really, really good, but also it's not something that you should be eating every meal or every day. And I think it's that almost like first principles thinking or habit building that's more important for improving your family's health. Because speaking for myself, um, you know, growing up, my parents didn't think eating carbs was very good. And now I love carbs.

Yeah.

And so, you know, children also end up leaning into those things that they weren't allowed when they were young.

Yeah.

You look past the— you look at the last like 50 or 60 years of health, and I swear to God, every claim has been refuted. Yes. And every pyramid and every everything, it's like, it's all wrong.

That's right.

I feel like I can't eat salad anymore, you know? I'm like, I'm waiting.

Yeah, the microplastics in salad.

Yeah, microplastics. It's like I saw a video that kale's bad for you.

I'm like, dude, kale is not bad for us.

What's happening here, you know?

I'm like, somebody— yeah, there's some ads. I keep getting this ad on, on X, like, don't— men shouldn't eat blueberries. Like, I keep— and I haven't really— I haven't clicked on them. Like, this is what I mean, you know?

This is your right turn. And I think this is like a hard part of your category. Yeah, these There's so much pseudoscience and some of the people peddling it have huge audiences.

Yes.

You could get, a mom can receive a thing, it's like, this video's got 20 million views on it. That's got to be right. That's a solid piece of signal. And then you're sitting here building a brand and you're like, okay, now how do I produce something that refutes that?

Did you see a video of me yesterday? That's basically what was happening.

So how then has the, as you just switching to the sort of marketing side of this, As the brand has grown and gotten bigger, how has channel mix and marketing changed over time?

I think the biggest impact on that has actually been probably platform-level changes, which you guys have talked a lot about on the podcast. We find that we need to effectively redefine creative strategy and execution every year.

And it's just, that's infuriating.

Yeah. Uh, it is really, you know, uh, like the, the thing about the space is it's so competitive and there's very little barrier to entry. And so the protections that you can have are really only science and brand because literally anyone can look at a product and copy it. It's very easy in the space.

And so.

I think that's why that educational piece is so important for us and also why we're actually very anti-fad. I think a lot of the trends happening in health are not necessarily rooted in, frankly, what's true to scientists or academics or doctors. So, as one example, there's so much conversation about protein right now.

Yeah.

And it's an incredible category.

It's like $8, $9 billion on its own.

Yes.

Just protein.

Yes. And it's growing very fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's hugely tied to weight loss and GLPs, and now it sort of has its own halo. So I think it's really interesting that, for example, the CDC has actually reported that 90% of Americans get too much protein.

Really?

Yes.

The Italians everywhere are like, told you so.

Yes.

Get some pasta.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so I think there are things that become true culturally or become something that's talked about on TikTok or Instagram or in the news, and it becomes really trendy, but also it sometimes doesn't last. I think protein is actually going to be a lasting trend because there's some fundamental changes happening, but there's a more, I think, rigorous way to approach it where you're taking all the facts into play, right? Like, hey, most Americans— it may not be 90% anymore because of GLPs, but most Americans definitely get a lot of protein.

Right.

That's just 100% true. We eat a lot of meat, and now we're eating a lot of supplemented protein too. But there are interesting deficiencies happening that do impact protein. So how do you address it in a way that's more true to how the scientists are thinking about it, to the combination of what may help you actually feel better, which I think is, is what's potentially really powerful.

You ever—

the—

I'm listening to you talk and what makes me think for some reason I'm going here, but in, in agriculture, in food, in like, I'm a big food person. So like in food and ag, like mono, monocropping is bad.

Yes. Soil depletion, huge issue.

And it turns out in nutrients, what I'm hearing is like you can't mononutrient yourself either. So you can't just over-index on protein and be okay. There's a whole— what you're saying is there's a whole bunch of things that probably make the efficacy of protein much more efficacious, right?

Yes.

It's like if you don't have these things, you're taking all the protein, it's not good.

That's exactly right. And the reality is even though science and biology and medicine have advanced a lot, we actually don't really understand most of how the human body functions. If you only took effectively a solution made up of all the things that we know are critical to human functioning, you would actually become vitamins, protein, macronutrients, you would probably still get pretty sick pretty quickly and you would not feel well.

Yeah.

And it's because there's a lot of things in food that we don't understand that interacts with all of it. And so, That's like my other challenge with the supplement industry is often products are marketed as a replacement for something.

Yes, that's totally true.

Like as a replacement for eating vegetables.

Yeah, you don't need to eat vegetables, just take this thing.

Yeah, exactly. Like if your kid only eats beige food, just, you know, just give them this thing and everything will be perfect. And the reality is some products can help, but it's actually still not a replacement. And I personally find it challenging when brands are out there marketing, things like that, because it's really appealing to consumers because they want an easy fix. We all do, right? It's, but it's not, it's not actually true.

How much, I'm curious to get both of your answers on this actually. How much time between product marketing and like, just call it operations. If you were to put a percentage on each one, and if you look at a typical week, where are you spending your time? I'm listening to you talk about product and it sounds like you know a lot about the product, but how do you allocate time across all of those things?

Right now, it's pretty evenly split, but I think that's because we're building up some new structures within product and how we develop products. I don't have a head of supply chain at the moment, and so that's also why I'm spending more time there. Historically, I've actually spent the most time in brand and marketing because as a consumer brand, marketing is the engine of the business.

Yeah.

it's sales. So, um, it's not, especially in a category this crowded with so little consumer understanding, if you don't have good marketing, even if you have an incredible product, it can be really hard to break through the noise.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Jason, how, where do you put your time now?

So there's like a few different buckets. There's, there's marketing, finance, operations, product, and overall strategy. Like those are the 5 areas. That's the way I look at it. And I probably, um, product is the one that I probably spend the least on, but it's also just my purview, my per— just, just like my— it's just been that, this is just the way like the distribution of work has. I've been getting more involved in the execution of product lately because it just becomes more and more important, uh, at, at our scale. But yeah, I kind of look at the world in those, in those 5 categories.

Yeah.

and marketing, finance, ops, and strategy. Those 4 are really like my day. And then it's more on the product side. It's just walking around asking lots of questions.

Yeah.

To the teams and pushing people. Like, I just heard that one like pretty easy product was delayed and it was just really frustrating to me. And I'm like, this doesn't need to be delayed. Like, we're trying to make it perfect and it's actually really excellent already. And perfection is the enemy of not only good, but certainly excellence, right?

It's progress.

So it's like, just go. And, uh, so that's really my role in a lot of respects at the company. That's how I look at it.

Yeah.

Because we've built out a really big team now. I mean, not so much big, but really an excellent internal team at our scale. And I think it's, it's a job as like a senior leader to just, just like take the pulse, get things moving, and move on to the next one and ultimately define the strategy.

Has there been a hire for you that was like, Just massive shift in the business.

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I spent the last roughly 18 months building out a C-suite.

Okay. Mm-hmm.

Even though I've actually been trying for much longer than that unsuccessfully.

Yeah.

They're such hard hires, but now we actually have a really strong C-suite and it's completely transformed my role. And so, it's very different working with people who are true leaders and executives. They already have a very strong POV on strategy. They have a very strong view on cultural values, which I think is a part of what you're talking about with driving velocity and helping the team understand, even though we're at this scale, the most important thing is to get it done.

Yep.

And yeah.

Has there been a stage of growth that you've actually found most difficult? Like, when you look back at all of them?

I think the early years were probably the hardest for me. I'm a big external validation sort of person, and there's no data. You have no idea if what you're doing is correct. You talk to 20 incredibly successful founders and all of their advice is completely different on how to build your business. There's no one way. And you're just like, well, I've never done this before, but I guess I got to pick because I'm the only one who's picking and you have to make a bet. And that adjustment was hard for me.

You actually, I didn't realize this, but you had a co-founder in the business.

Yes, I did.

And now that person is no longer in the business.

Yes.

Can you just for people, like I've actually gotten this question, it happens often, right? Where you have like people start and not everybody finishes. If you're willing to share, like I'd be curious to think like, how did you guys come to this like point where you're like, okay, this just doesn't make sense anymore?

I think one, Piya and I are still incredible friends. I was actually just talking with him this week.

Cool.

Which is great and I feel very lucky. And we were friends before we started the business together as well. But I think it, It came to a point where our working styles were incredibly different. And at the time we had a 50/50 split in the business.

Mm-hmm.

And so, and there were only 2 of us. And so you couldn't, like, no one could veto anyone else. And it was very consensus-driven. And the way that he and I would actually both describe the challenge is if you imagine a spectrum from 1 to 10, where 1 is gut instinct-based decision-making, which can be really powerful, versus like 10 is hyperlogical, like quantitative. You need to break it down and it needs to be really thorough. He was a 1 and I was a 10. And so it was really hard for us to agree on things.

Yeah.

And I think ultimately it started to become very hard for both of us. And I'm really lucky because he's a great person and it was very amicable and friendly and he's been an amazing shareholder. But it was challenging to operate the business that way. And I don't know if you guys feel this way, but I hate consensus-driven decision-making.

Oh my God, yes.

I think it's like the enemy of companies making good decisions.

Jake, again, love language.

I mean, we have to get to know each other better.

Yeah.

You're saying so many things that are that are right on. And I always talk about decision-making in terms of Kahneman and Tversky, the fathers of behavioral economics. And Daniel Kahneman wrote the book Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow.

Yes.

It's System A and System B. It's like lizard brain versus prefrontal cortex and really being analytical in how you do things. And Even just like your daily interactions with your employees, right? You can see who is a system A person and a system B person. And it's like, I just feel like the more you can be, you need, the system A is like the creativity. It's so—

Yes.

Like you need that creative person. You need the people. And if you look at like the really successful founders who we meet, right?

Yep.

You are a management consultant, right? And then there's like the other people who are just like, ow, Screw it, we're making this, you know, like, and just like, we're gonna just like figure it right, and we're just gonna figure it. And like, they both, they both work. I think the latter— I, and I think Alice's profile works better at scale. And the fact that she, uh, was able to actually get to where she is now, like, not being this, not being the super creative, but being— having an idea and being, and being analytical and being able to execute, I think those are the businesses at some point you need that to really make a business last.

The best ones have both. Like the, the, when you've got like 2 co-founders, 2 or 3, whatever, but like you've got one in each sort of skill.

You complement each other.

Yeah. That like complementary skillset is—

But if you're looking to hire great people, I think, um, really good junior investment bankers are amazing and really good—

Spoken like a true former junior banker, by the way.

I was, oh no, I was a senior banker, but like, but here we go.

I'm sorry.

This is one of them.

No, seriously.

I think that those kind of work, like management consulting, banking, these are basically professional shit eaters, right? They do such— and if they work hard, they're in. They do mundane crap. They're great people. Well, I'm with you on that.

I actually totally agree. Yeah. And it's like you just did that, that combo. It's very hard to do that job. So you can put that person somewhere else. When I started working at HexClad, I gotta be honest with you, it was easy. I mean, it was just so much easier compared to the last than everything else that I'd done. Everything else was punishing. You know, like, we sell a product that people love and value and like, and that's, you wake up every day and you're like, wow, this is great. Like, people love what we do. This is amazing. I want what I have. Right? It's like, it's just so much. So you take someone that's had like, had the beatdown of management consulting. Yeah. or iBanking, and you put 'em in this consumer world and they're awesome.

Yes.

And that's why you're, I mean, that's why you're awesome.

Meanwhile, you talk to people who've been in consumer a long time and it's like, oh God, consumer. Speaking of shareholders, you've, so you raised a little bit of money?

Yes.

Was it from one person, multiple people?

It was from a venture fund in Austin actually.

Okay.

So, where we're at, but it was started by 2 former founders, one of whom had sold his business for $300 million bootstrapped. And so he was, over time he became my main contact because they split up the portfolio that way. And it was just an incredible source of learning from someone who had been there.

So you had a rare kind of investor that was actually useful beyond the money.

Yes. And it was actually something that I had looked for in that process because I felt that someone who was an operator would just understand I didn't wanna be on this fundraising treadmill. Like, I didn't wanna be pushed to hit certain numbers just for the sake of getting to the next round.

Yeah.

No matter how much it costs the business. And they really got that and they were really supportive and they also understood businesses aren't perfect. In fact, they're incredibly messy and very ugly sometimes. And when he sold his business, it was 1,000 employees, and talking to him taught me a lot.

As you, and I don't know if this is something you bring up with him, but, and you're looking at your business now, obviously execution number one, but you still have to spend some amount of time on what the next moves are. You mentioned the whole protein GLP-1 thing. Are you concerned or excited for the, I guess, the downstream effects of what those things are doing to, I guess, broad health, broad nutrition? And how do you think about that over the next decade?

Yeah.

My personal opinion or my business opinion?

Give me both.

Yeah.

Okay.

My business opinion is actually how I feel about it is irrelevant. It's here to stay. It's going to drive a lot of consumer behavior over the next couple decades, and it's dramatically changing consumption behavior and also how people think about health. And so, for better or for worse, it's something that the business really needs to think about and also something that is really on our family's minds, which ultimately is what matters to me.

Sure.

I don't, frankly, my opinion is irrelevant in that sense. Personally, I actually think it's a really interesting stage for society. So much of chronic illness is tied to obesity.

Oh, yeah.

And it's an incredible help. And so, you know, when you think about medical outcomes at a population level, they should theoretically dramatically improve. Um, and you know, I think the more tools that people have, the better it is.

Yeah.

Right.

Like, it's just like, as a consumer person, I just think of the, how it, number one, it will change consumer behavior, particularly like what we put in our mouths. Uh, and then number two, like the second order effect is like, it's going to change the physical layout of stores. It is like the size of a grocery store might actually just totally shrink. Right. Or what's in them. Like the, was it like, I think when I was a kid, It was like 90% of your average grocery store was effectively like processed and packaged food. And it was like—

We thought that was healthy back then.

Can you believe that? Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was the diet of the story. The recommendation from nutritionists was TV dinners are complete, right?

Yeah.

Complete.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Completely shit. Yeah. In hindsight.

I grew up on those.

That tells a lot, Jay. So did Chris. Okay. So as you build the business, you've built this team. Do you— are you a kind of founder who actually has a hard time letting go of certain things? Do you like to stay in the weeds on things? Like, you're building a C-suite, are you like a, I'm going to trust right away, or does it take you time to get there?

I think I prefer to build up trust over time because it's easier to give more leash than to give a lot of freedom and then yank it back, and then everyone's really unhappy. And so, when someone's new reporting to me, that's how I prefer to operate. Over time, I want everyone to have a lot of autonomy because for me, I want to be the dumbest person in the room, right? I want whoever is on the team who's a specialist in that area to be 10 times better at it than me. And so that means frankly, they should be right more often than I am. They should be debating me. They should be challenging me.

Yeah.

That's how we make the brand better. And so in that sense, it hasn't been hard. I do think what is hard for me is actually the coaching aspect of it.

Oh.

Because every member of my C-suite is older and has more experience than me. And so, and I think this is very personal to me because they're amazing, but sometimes I, I, I really struggle to like coach them, you know, um, even though, yes, I do know the company better and it's, There are probably some skills where I'm stronger than them, but that's been something that's been harder for me, actually.

Yeah, it's the most common, one of the most common pieces of advice when you're building a team is like, you always wanna be the dumbest person in the room.

Yes.

But nobody ever follows it up with like, what happens when you are the dumbest person in the room? It's like, as the founder or CEO, you're like, well, what do you do now? Go home? So, I totally get it.

Well, there's a— look, there's—

Jay just yells at people.

You always have value. You're always gonna have value to add. And, you know, it's nice to say, oh, I surround people, you know, surround myself with people smarter than me. But the truth is you're surrounding yourself with other smart people.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

But, you know, some people are smarter than you on other topics, but there's always gonna be topics, right? Yes. And moreover, you did not get to where you were to the point where you can hire these people. There's no way for you to say, oh, like, they're just smarter than me. You just have to have the, uh, they're just the belief system. Yeah, you just— I mean, I see this all the time because everyone has it, you know. People like to talk about things like imposter syndrome, or it's just like, yeah, you just have to have like the, the strength to, to believe. It took me till I was probably 50 years old, 55 now, to like genuinely believe in like my ability and capability to— and where I'm— where I can literally— I'm sorry, I'm just— I have no problem like going toe-to-toe with anyone at anything in, in business anymore. But it took me a long time. I wish I would have gotten there sooner. There's like that level of confidence that, yeah, you objectively should, you know, be able to do that.

I think that comes from 2 places though. I don't know if you agree with this. I'd love to get both your opinions, but like, I think that As you get bigger and you build a team like that, right, where they are very capable and very smart, and they also, they're confident, they're like, when they speak to you—

They're really good.

They're really good at convincing you to do something. But there's really 2 things that sort of founder or like founder-ish people, like even CEOs, right? Presidents, CEOs, you can bring context and permission to anything. So like you're coming in, it's like, let's say I'm talking to my head of finance. That person's job is finance all day long, but you come in with like complete context. So it's not just history of the business, it's like context today. Yours is very wide. And then the second thing would be you're entirely permissionless. So like what I do with my time is I browse my company and I look for areas where I can go and invade, right? And all I'm doing is I'm going into something for a period of time because if I'm there, they now move without permission to do anything.

Yeah.

And you're the, you're like, The king of context, because as the founder and the person who built it and ran it, I think that was so well said. You know, and right that sometimes I know things. Great.

Have confidence like Jason.

It's Thursday. Thursday is my smart day.

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Okay, so let's go to, uh, I wanna talk about this, like, I even think I've heard you say this yesterday, that it's like something is always going wrong.

Yes.

Which I think we would all agree with. Like every day something is always going wrong.

Every, every hour.

Every hour. And, and at scale. the some things increase in frequency.

And in impact.

And in impact.

Because a 1% error at scale is really bad.

Yeah. It's funny, you should never chase 1% wins when you're small, but when you get bigger, all you're trying to do is avoid 1% losses.

Yes.

How do you deal with firefighting now in the business?

I try to let the team do it instead of me.

Okay.

The way I think about it is I hired really good people, who should be able to take care of most problems, and it'll continue getting escalated through the ranks. And if it gets to me, it must be a really big problem, either a business life-threatening problem or something that could only be decided at my level.

Mm-hmm.

Either there's too much context or it's cross-company or there's something about it. And so, what I find is, for better or for worse, only the worst problems come to me and it gets, those problems actually get more challenging as the business grows because you're hiring better people, your teams are more autonomous. And I think that often for me decides what I need to focus on more than the reverse.

Is there been a time, when was the last time you thought the whole thing was going to fail? Don't say yesterday.

Not yesterday.

We were hanging out yesterday.

Yeah, yesterday was a good day. I was hanging out with you guys. I think I've been very lucky with the business in a lot of ways. Even though we raised so little capital, like, you know, I've talked with founders who have told me, you know, their company might be 3 years old and they say, there's been 5 moments when I thought that the company was gonna run outta money and I couldn't make payroll and I had to delay it. And we had $1,000 in the bank or what have you. And I've actually never had that moment, but I have had a lot of moments where it's like, oh man, we messed this up and I didn't see it at the time, but now I really see it and now I have to deal with the consequences. And they might be multimillion-dollar consequences, which is not fun.

Yeah.

And so I think that probably happens frankly like once or twice a year. And actually, speaking of 1% mistakes, the cost impact of those mistakes are larger, right? So, a mistake that we might have made 5 years ago, it's like, okay, oh shoot, we're out $50K. Now it's, okay, I lost $2 million in the business.

Yeah.

And so, I think while the frequency of it actually happens less, it's still pretty consistent. And I think actually that will stay true as long as we're growing quickly. Because you're entering a new phase every 6 to 12 months of scale, and you need to rebuild systems and processes and understand how to operate differently. I think if we were growing 10 or 20% year over year, I've never actually grown at that pace, but—

Yeah.

My feeling is that it would start to get easier because you've built things that work for the next year, and that the cycle of change now slows down, and so you get more breathing room. But if you're growing 50 to 100% year over year, everything is urgent all the time, and the thing that worked 3 months ago now no longer works. And so that's probably, I think, what's driving it for us.

Yeah, you wind up, when you double a company, you kind of wind up rebuilding it.

It's a new company. Yeah, it's a new company in a lot of ways.

Yeah. In our research, Give me a sense for unit volume that you sell.

Yes. So I actually just checked this morning. We've sold half a billion gummies.

Holy hell.

Yeah.

And how many, again, ignorance in consumables, do you think in terms of units or do you think in terms of families and homes that you're in?

Both.

Both.

I think when I run the business, I think often from the financials actually. because the business is very capital efficient. And so that's always been important to me. I think in terms of impact, I think in terms of families.

Okay.

Like our company mission is to help a billion families become healthier, whether through the products, whether through donations, we've donated millions of dollars of product, or through actually funding scientific research in the future. Because one thing I think about is when I first started, the brand, I talked with a lot of academics in the space. And one thing they told me is there's actually very little funding for nutrition, even though it impacts so much of health. So as one example, 1/3 of cancers are actually tied to lifestyle and nutrition. But because there's nothing to patent, there's no one, like no one's going to own eating more vegetables. And the cycles to see the impact of nutrition is it's so long, it's over decades, and research cycles are usually 5 to 7 years. And there's really interesting studies, like for example, taking a really easy supplement of folic acid reduces risk of stroke by more than 30%.

Whoa.

And, but because no one's making enough money, no one's funding these things. And so I think there's a lot of things that you can do for human impact. And that's one of the things I'm really excited about for the business is How do you effectively leverage capital for that way? Because when you think about a nonprofit, their number one issue is actually fundraising. It's like a constant cycle. 90% of their leadership does it. But if you have a business that's successful and self-funded and profitable and has impact through its customer base, through its size, you can start to do some of these things a lot more easily. And that would be my dream for the brand.

Yeah, and it's always been like really successful people become philanthropic, right? And there's another thing that Mike and I were talking about yesterday, and if you can use your business and what you've built and that kind of gives you philanthropic points, it's like, okay, we're driving our business here, but we've learned this with it, right? And we can go, I think that's awesome.

Yeah, business for, uh, as a, like a service area for impact is actually like a great idea. Uh, it's controversial to some people, but I think it's— I don't know why, you know? Like, a business is an entity. We treat them like people, but we don't want them to behave like people. So, you know, like, it's just a weird hypocrisy that we do.

There's a Supreme Court joke there, but—

Oh, there's so many, right? But like, I, I— believe me, I thought a lot about this one. Uh, you know, looking back at the entire journey so far, first day, when you left being a management consultant, if you could like go and talk to that person right now, is there something you know today that you would like Listen, young Alice, you are really going to need to know this.

Get to know Matt and Jason. They're going to teach you a lot of things.

Yeah.

Network value. It turns out it's pretty important.

Just send a lot of cold emails to them until they finally beg you to stop and just take a call.

Which just goes right back to copywriting. Everything comes back to copywriting. Okay. So we like to finish these with this thing called Titan 10. We ask questions, you give us the gut reaction answer to those questions. I'm going to lock you, not lock you. I'm going to strand you. Lock sounds aggressive. I'm going to strand you on a desert island and all I'm going to give you is a piece of paper.

Okay.

3 numbers on the piece of paper. This is all you get to know how to run your business. What are the 3 numbers?

Top line. Bottom line, payback.

Awesome. You also get to bring a book, but it can't be about business. A book, a resource, or entertainment. Like, what are you bringing to pass the time, but it's not about business?

I love Lord of the Rings because I'm a complete dork.

This tracks. It's such a great way. I love Lord of the Rings, man.

It must be probably Jason's favorite too.

Yeah, did love the movie.

Yeah.

But it's great because hobbits are so useless. They're the most useless group of living things in all of Middle-earth and they're tasked with saving. Yeah. Sometimes you just gotta rise to the occasion.

There's something incredibly humorous about it. What is your, gimme a contrarian belief about business that like a lot of founders would be on the other side of.

I don't think the Product idea matters.

Oh, man. I'm going to get hate mail for that. Single most important word in leadership?

Respect, because you can be feared and still respected and loved and respected, and it'll all work.

What's the single most important word in business?

Longevity. Not from a biohacking perspective, but from how do you build something that lasts?

Cool.

Let's have fun. Best meal of the day and why? You're a nutrition person. You can't say vitamins.

Dessert.

Dessert.

There we go.

I love dessert.

All right.

Yeah, that's a good reason too. It's just awesome. Most overrated growth tactic right now?

I think hacking media buying.

Okay, then most underrated?

Just really good consumer psychology.

Copywriting. And love it, Alice, you crushed that. That's the pod.