The $BN Greenoaks Backed Protein Bar

Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. Big fan of yours as well.

2012. A little bit of context. I was in Chicago. The startup scene was emerging, and it was sort of like default was like, you have an idea, you have to go raise money. And so my dad’s more of an old school guy. He’s like real business fundamentals. And I remember putting together a deck, had this idea. And I remember asking him like, do you know any, you know, rich people that would be interested in investing? And he said to me, you know, Peter, you really need to like, shut the fuck up and just try to sell a thousand bars.

And left it at that. It’s obviously call it bull or direct or vulgar or whatever. But in that messaging was like, really just make the product, focus on what’s important. And it was a message of prioritization. And so instead of spending my time having lunches or whatever with high status people, really, and using that time to do that, I should have been formulating making the product. We just totally stopped doing investor work and went straight to just actually designing and making the product. And so instead of raising money, I went to PowerPoint, which at the time is all I knew to, like, design the labels, printed them, went to my parents’ house in their kitchen and and started formulating.

at the time, three months. Versioning is pretty dynamic. There’s, like, tons of versionings, but I would say probably 30 till we started selling. But then it just it just doesn’t really end. You always keep incrementally improving.

I actually have a photo of the first transaction. So it was actually my partner, Jared. He brought some product to his office and was selling it to his colleagues. That was the first b to b or b to c sale. And then the first transaction was a CrossFit gym in Chicago called River North. And I remember selling one carton of each SKU, two SKUs at the time, and, yeah, put it on shelf at a CrossFit gym. So that was the first b to b sale.

it’s tricky because it can be a lot of noise and especially in the consumer food and beverage, like you want to be getting it to the right group. So I went to a CrossFit gym. So those were clearly defined early adopters where they would appreciate a, you know, a paleo protein bar. So their feedback to me, I waited the most. Whereas like if I went to some of my other social circles that really didn’t appreciate egg whites for protein, etcetera, I would like discount their opinion, actually.

So a lot of it is very observational, but you have to filter out what’s important and not and have that discretion. Because if you just if you just react to everything, you’re just gonna be confused.

uncompetitive, you have to have a very clear positioning. Having a very clear position is super important. And it kind of relates like the best brands are semi polarizing. Having that niche origin

No. I think we’re probably a little safe. We we did have no BS on our package. As risk taking as I am, I was probably, like, not willing to take as much brand risk because I just wanted people to like the product. Like, you know, like, the risk reward wasn’t there. And especially in context to, like, David, I think David has a much stronger point of view.

Yeah.

competent on nutrition.

Yeah. So in the market defined by CrossFit gyms, or like that was like the first market we started, we had product market fit right away. I remember dropping off two cartons again. And I was like, alright, it’s 24 bars. See how long it takes. They sold out my two hours. And so then then you could just extrapolate that, like, so why would a CrossFit gym in Wisconsin, Indianapolis be any different? So we knew right away it was going to work. What were the

We did everything direct. So we did direct B2B, CrossFit gyms, other gyms, and then direct to consumer through Shopify or Shopify store, and then eventually Amazon. In the beginning, the first twenty four months, like, we didn’t do any retail. It wasn’t in our cost structure, and we also couldn’t manufacture enough. Like, Jared and I were making the product with our hands. How long were you making the product for? For, like, eighteen months. How many bars is that? Our capacity was like 10,000 bars a day. Wow.

But was it was terribly inefficient, very laborious. That’s why we could bootstrap it because we just could control our inventory. So we didn’t have much finished product sort of made to order. Wow.

So it was a kitchen, and then we moved to a 2,000 square foot commercial space, had the inspector come. There’s GMP practices, so good manufacturing practices. You gotta wash your hands, wear a hairnet, wear lab coat, clean everything. Why did you fire your mama? She was a volunteer. She was free labor. We’re, you know, we’re making product that are that to start, we’re making it at my parents basement. Right? And like late in the night, the weekends. And my mom wanted to help, you know, seeing her little son, your youngest son making product.

And so one of the most painful tasks we had to do was putting labels on the front and back of premade packages. So it was super, like, just really repetitive label off, label on. Had to be you want it to be accurate, you know. Because at this stage, we’re like faking it to our till we make it. So we like wanted to make it look very, like commercially made even though it’s homemade. And my mom, bless her heart, she could not keep a label on straight.

You know, she would she would just keep making mistakes. So then I I had a had a quick meeting and let her go. But she’s a she’s a volunteer, bless her heart. But it’s it is true. Has

Spoiling your parents is probably the best thing you can do.

So this is two thousand and thirteen, fourteen, and we kinda tried. Again, this is Chicago, so there’s not, like, a robust investor sitting. It’s like a bit of old money. We were a CPG product. We weren’t tech. And whenever we tried, they wanted two times revenue, one times revenue, and we were profitable, you know, from inception more or less. So, you know, we got decent terms. We probably would have, but then we just could never get alignment and we just kept growing. And then at some point, we just really never needed to.

Honestly, if we would have raised, we would have just paid ourselves. I think like we would have like been less miserable. But if, you know, if we had like $2,000,000 of growth capital on the balance sheet, I don’t know what we would have done differently. The marketing tactics were just around trial sampling, like really fundamental stuff. You know, we didn’t play the ad game because we had such strong product market fit and we’ve always had inventory issues. It was matching sales and demand or demand and supply the whole time.

If we would have raised money and had grow like a a balance sheet, I think we would have done stupid shit for sure.

Yeah. It was a very, very, very good constraint. We had to be very disciplined on dollars going out, how we marketed. You have to you’re forced to stick to what works. There’s no point of experimenting.

Well, we’d say big brand until you get to some scale. I think when you get to scale, product market fit is a little different. And then it shifts to like brand marketing, which is really about relevance novelty. But when you’re in the growth, getting to scale, I think product market fit, if you have it, it doesn’t take much to accelerate it or agitate it more. What do you believe about brand that most people would disagree with you on? It’s really analogous to a human being. If you look at a human being, they have parents.

They have DNA. They have a personality. They have traits. They have the dark side of their personality. They have the the bright side of their personality. They have social, they have friends. So who are they friends with? They have a point of view. They have clothes that they wear in a certain style. And so when you look at what makes a human’s identity and defining that, that’s the best way to define a brand holistically. That’s how I think about branding. It’s like, it’s it’s a human being.

You have to define it. Don’t make it abstract. It’s from its religion, its point of view, its friends, who its enemies, etcetera. The question is, what I think is true about brands that people disagree with? Most people will. Ironically, as a brand person, I would say products more important than brand right now. Products all that matters actually, brand secondary. Why do you say that? If you look at the history where brand brand really mattered, it was difficult to get awareness and distribution. It was like all about brand.

And today it’s really easy to get awareness and, you know, you can’t just do a big out of home campaign and get it in store and sell. That’s not enough. It’s basically gotten so competitive. The merit of the product has to be really powerful and strong. Whereas back in the day, like, the brand could kinda, like, do all the work and distribution is what mattered.

Yeah. But but I would say it’s actually no no easier time than ever to get awareness. I can just open up a social media, get some clicks, get some like, and so I can get the first try of the product and maybe attract someone through the brand and messaging and positioning. But to get the repeat, you have to have really strong product and and consumer surplus in the product. I’m looking for something to disagree with. So But I think most brands are shit. Oh, totally agree.

I think most brands there’s like that’s why, like, the personality analogies, like, most don’t even define it. Like, they’re just fucking nothing. They’re just, like, middle of the fairway. If they’re at a party, you wouldn’t know they were there. You wouldn’t wanna talk to them. You have no clue what their point of view is. That’s most brands.

Red Bull. And the reason why I think that they’ve just been so disciplined with it, they associate themselves only with sports and activities where death is a real possibility. And I think that discipline is really cool. That’s all they do. It’s things sports and activities where you can die, they’re there. And another one is four Loco. You know, this is an it’s an America. It’s a really great case study. It was started Ohio State University and it mixed caffeine with malt liquor and went viral, like one of the first viral products.

And then like the FDA came after them and like banned mixing caffeine with alcohol. And then it like got total setbacks and then it stayed alive. But its positioning is so clear and its customers are so clear. So like if you see somebody drinking a four Loco in America, you know they’re going after it. Like, it’s going for a wild night. So there’s just such a clear position. Everything they do is like ludicrous. I guess it really absurd, outrageous. And it’s one of those things where it’s like college kids, their demographic’s so clear.

So perhaps it might not grow to be ubiquitous outside of its core market, but it is such a clear, clear position.

Yes. I think we have a clear position and identity. What do you think that position and identity is? So our name takes this sculpture of David, Michelangelo’s masterpiece, the biblical hero. And one of the symbols we use is the chisel. We use it very subtly. The chisel, when applied, it’s the obviously, the artist’s tool. But when it’s applied, it creates beauty. And if you double click on the meaning of a chisel, it’s actually discipline and education. So when you think about, like, the rigor of a sculptor, you have to know exactly where to hit, you have to repeatedly hit it, that takes a lot of discipline, but then you have to be very smart about it.

You can’t just be unorganized, you have have a holistic picture. So the brand’s values are defined by those components. And so they’re around discipline, intelligence and beauty. That’s how we wanna show up in the world. When you consume the product and you consume the brand, we want to always reinforce those three values or traits.

Well, so you bring a good point. So it’s not obvious, and good things aren’t obvious. And so as you engage, so maybe you just see the product, the gold gets you, you try it, the protein gets you. Why gold just to get attention? Well, one gold, what is the meaning of gold? What like what is the brand equity in gold? It’s luxurious, It’s powerful. It’s decadent. It’s actually quite feminine. And so there’s a lot of equity in gold meaning. And so we are borrowing basically, renting borrowing that use using that gold and colors really powerful and communicating emotion.

So that’s the choice for gold. And then in general, we wanted a primary brand color. So we have a gold brand block when we’re in store. So when you go to store, you see like all gold. Typically in the bar set, it’s merchandise by color or flavor primarily. So you’ll see a brand, its main colors, its flavor communication, and then the brand color is secondary. So they’re just communicating flavor, not brand. And so we wanted to communicate brand, not flavor. So that’s the logic for gold.

But back to the sort of layers of branding. So we don’t expect you to understand those components. We want to get you with the product, the merits of the products, some consumer surplus, hopefully. And then as you engage and you see us, we want those riddles and layers, we’ll call them Easter eggs, to be discovered. So for example, like, I don’t expect you to know about the chisel, but when we launch our apparel line, I want you to connect that dot. And then when you see the content, so like, it’s all in the whole ecosystem of your engagement with the brand, but not just in day one, in your whole life as you engage with us.

So, so, so there should be friction in understanding brand. You want small hurdles. So when you understand it and see it and connect the dots, it actually lives in your head.

100%. So in the absence of God, you need affiliation, you need belonging, and you need signals of status, and brands are filling that void. Do you think David is a symbol of status? You know, if you see you’re eating a David bar, you’re signaling to people that you know. It’s premium. I’m having a little bit of a luxury. I can afford it. I care about my health. I’m smart because I care about my health. Health is the next status thing, really.

we executed really well and got lucky. So the hardest thing is, like, you know, is material planning and supply, like, growing supply with demand and matching that. You know, manufacturing is just like always a pain in the ass. Like mixers break, things are down. And then there’s like food safety stuff, you know, like you’re dependent on these suppliers. And if they ship you a lot that’s out of spec, you have to like pivot and figure out a new thing. So everything the most difficult thing is just scaling the supply chain and quality.

That’s the hardest thing.

In American market at least, in the bar category, there’s a real threshold. Getting to a 99¢ or a dollar 49 price point really unlocks the mass market. So like a lot of Americans are not willing to pay anywhere north of a dollar 99 for a bar. The real, real massive market is in the 99¢ and below. You think Nature Valley, like the big, big, big brands all have an offering that’s pretty low. And another interesting thing about price is with like kids products. So in the survey data, if you asked a mom just pricing questions, it would show up as like, yeah, I’m willing to pay for my kid.

But in the actual data, they are not. And I thought that was really interesting because no one wants to admit that they’re they don’t want to spend too much money on their kids. Right? But in the in the actual behavior, they absolutely do not wanna spend a dollar 50 for a bar for their kid. They wanna spend 49¢. So that that’s one thing. But, like, partially, I don’t like survey data because you can get bad data.

I wouldn’t call it low end. It’s more just affordable. Like, I think so. I think it’s about sizing, offering, and figuring out clever ways to just get cost out. Like at David, we wanna do that. We wanna have, like our gold bars are are premium, and then we wanna, like, have different offerings to address different demographics and occasions.

Yeah. They’re in but they’re in a different business. So two strategies that are so important in branding that luxury does better than anyone, and luxury is where the best brands are, hands down. It is around scarcity and exclusivity. So those are the ways you actually create really good brands. In the food business, can’t do that because you need to be everywhere and you need to be available. You need to be in stock in full. One of my strategies is actually like, how do we build the brand outside of our core products through different things?

Because you can’t in the food business, you have to be available and

And that’s for our premium product. That’s in our current life cycle where we’re at. We’re, you know, we’re nine months old. And I’m thinking about longer term as we proliferate and expand in our sort of different phases of our life cycle, you’re going to want a full portfolio that addresses a larger population. Now you can’t be everything to everyone. So your positioning has to be consistent. But in the food business, different than luxury like Chanel, we can’t offer exclusivity and scarcity. And so we have to find other ways to do that.

That will be a key part of our strategy moving forward.

I think we’ll have different things positioned different ways for different people.

There’s a lot of layers to it. So I’ll give you the background. Starts with why we made the product. So with the and then further questions like, why do people eat protein bars and what do they what do they really want? People eat protein bars for protein. And so what they want is the most amount of protein with the least amount of calories, like just a protein delivery system. And so one way to measure that would be through this objective measurement, which was calories coming from protein.

So what percentage of your calories are coming from protein? That should really define objectively a good product or not in the protein bar space. And in general, for processed foods broadly, the value of a processed food should be measured by calories coming from protein. And so we created this metric, it’s on our package called CFP, calories from protein, and we’re at 75%. And so then we were with our chief science officer, Peter Attia, and he was like, well, we can’t just compare ourselves to just other bars because it’s like and showing that you’re number one isn’t cool.

So he’s like, we gotta find something that’s better than us. And the thing we found, the the food that has the best protein to calorie ratio is boiled cod. And it’s funny because it’s unappetizing. So on our comparison chart, we put boiled cod and this was from when we launched. That’s what we were comparing ourselves with. And so it was a little tongue in cheek. So I created a paleo protein bar, which is like minimal processed food. And it was part of like that movement. And so when we launched David, we had a lot of criticism from sort of people that were maybe fans of RXBAR or expected RXBAR two point zero.

And so sort of a tongue in cheek way to address them is like, we listen to the market, you don’t want to process food, which is a whole other conversation because everything’s processed. And so we launched Boiled Cod to address them. And it’s very inconvenient, doesn’t taste great and is extremely expensive. And so it’s a way to communicate this concept of protein to calorie ratio. And it’s a way to emphasize the importance of like affordability and actually how difficult it is to get the calories for protein we got.

Do you think it was the right decision? This is my second time doing this, and I just have to I can’t just be selling protein bars.

So no one no one’s saying we’re not doing protein ice cream. I don’t think we have product market fit with boiled cod, so I don’t think we’re gonna be carrying it forever.

no one does. Do you think we’ve sold? How much do you think we’ve sold? How long have you been selling for? Since Monday. It’s Friday now.

you plan to sell? I we have no idea. I mean, this is just a giant experiment. We were taking bets in the office. I was the most bearish on it. I didn’t think we’d sell a lot. That was not the objective. I was expecting maybe, you know, $500,000 worth over the next three weeks. I’ll report back to you in the actual numbers, but but the objective was not that. I mean, this is the objective was to have a clever way to have some riddles and get people questioning and to get brand awareness.

I know. We’re not good at making content.

Time on what? Record. Oh, well, there’s one constraint we have. We don’t have much supply of a really key ingredient of ours, but also independent of selling product, we do want it. We just want to do bold things and have fun. And we thought it was fun and it’s not. It, be clear, it didn’t take away the development of actual commercial products. So, like, we we still have our our calendar out. Like, it’s this this didn’t interfere.

Yeah. Yeah. So our societies are generally really confused around nutrition and nutrition science. You know, like Peter Attia, how he talks about, like, if you put science at the end of something, it’s not real science. And it’s a little bit of that with nutrition science. And so people in the confusion want to have like very simple, simple sort of correlations to help them understand it. And in general, the conversation on nutrition is very emotional. It’s not really intellectual. Some of those simple correlations would be like, I don’t understand food.

I’m just going to find some attach myself to something like processed food is bad and non processed is good. So that’s like a very simple thing. And there’s much more nuance to that. Another one would be like, oh, that has a lot of ingredients. Therefore it’s bad or less ingredients is good.

Like salt. Okay. So sodium chloride. People probably wouldn’t you go on the streets and be like, hey, is sodium chloride good? People would be like, no, I don’t know what that is. But it’s just salt. Like it’s idea like chemicals are bad. No chemicals are good. It’s like everything’s technically a chemical. So on the processed food argument, most things are pasteurized. All things have to be pasteurized for food safety. So that’s a process. Things are packaged. That’s a process. Like brushing your teeth is a process.

So it’s not a really sophisticated way of saying, Oh, all processed things are bad. Now, this is where like calories coming from protein. So if you’re looking at processed food, like an RX or a David Protein would be processed, and then a potato bag of potato chips are processed. Those are the same category. They’re wildly different. And it’s like a net positive thing to get protein unequivocally. So to lump them together because they’re processed is not really that sophisticated. And my point is like an objective way review processed food would be to measure its value through calories coming from protein.

Is it though? Like, whey protein isolate is food derived. It’s actually just filtered to have higher percentage of protein.

No. I mean, the digestibility will be measured through peticas, so it’s amino acid composition. You know, isolates just for further filtration to get more of what you want, a higher concentration of protein. So like milk protein isolates are and whey protein isolate is 93% protein. So what you do is you remove the lactose, which is sugar, and you just get what you want. So it’s it’s actually better process. And on top of that, a lot of those processes filter out unwanted things.

Yes. It’s efficiency. And And there’s another like, here’s another thing. So did you see on Twitter the plasticlist.org?

Okay. RXBARs were like really bad on plasticizers, so microplastics. And RXBAR is predominantly an agricultural product. It’s dates, almonds, eggs. David scores like is super clean. It doesn’t have any plasticizers, heavy metals, and that’s because of its processing. So that’s an example of like by that definition of clean. So I think of clean as without unwanted heavy metals, pesticides, microplastics, like that to me is clean. David beat RXBAR ironically. And then if you were to survey people, they would think RXBAR is organic, but yet it has these things in it.

So, again, there’s much it’s not simple. There’s nuance

so. No.

like, six six years ago.

I really decouple myself as an employee and myself as a shareholder. I was the CEO of RXBAR, then I was also a shareholder. So the sale, like as a CEO, I was still had a job. I really decoupled that and I was in CEO mode. You know, it was just another day. It was good achievement. We sold the business to a larger company to scale it.

I was pretty private. So we didn’t do any media stuff. Like, I didn’t wanna be like a public facing CEO or anything like that. So, you know, we went from this like quiet stealth sort of like Chicago startup to $600,000,000. Like, no one knew our revenue. We were quietly big. What revenues were you doing when you sold? We did 161,000,000 in sales. Wow. What was your growth rate? It’s like we were 300% year over year for, like, five years, four years. Why sell? Candidly, like, opportunity for financial freedom was one big factor.

No? We just weren’t paying her like, not that type of money. Yeah. We were doing good. Started doing some bonuses and stuff, but not like that type of money. But the big reasons to sell was financial freedom. And then second, RXBAR did belong in a broader portfolio. These a single brand company really belongs in a portfolio of things. And then the thing that the big food companies are really, really good at that can’t be understated is like mega scale. I viewed it as like my job as a CEO is get this thing to scale, build a good brand and good product, good supply chain, and then hand it over to someone to take it to the next chapter.

But I do think, like, great companies don’t sell. It’s true. Like, Peter Attia says that. My position with David’s a little different.

No.

The TAM in in food and beverage is pretty clearly defined. 161, I was like, we can probably get to 300 or 250,000,000 in sales, but I didn’t see a very clear path to like 500,000,000. The product portfolio that we could do was defined by quantifiable whole food ingredients. So our design, that famous design of RXBAR, really was a constraint on where we could innovate. Because you had to formulate stuff that could be communicated on the front of PAC. That to me lowered the TAM. So as a CEO, I’m responsible for the vision.

I didn’t see a path to, like, 500,000,000 or 1,000,000,000 in revenue. So therefore, it sort of made sense to get it to the big guys. Were

right. Oh, I mean, completely right. But then two devastating things happened in RXBAR’s future is one is fasting and keto. Fasting is all about skipping breakfast, basically. And then keto is all about like, no sugar, no carbs. We were a breakfast, predominantly a breakfast occasion product. And then on top of it, we’re full dates. So that was a headwind. And then second, the big black Swan headwind was like the COVID and COVID just destroyed the bar occasion. You’re at home, you’re not on the go, the category got crushed by like 50%.

You’re not in gyms. No, like the purpose of a bar is completely gone. So that was devastating. So When did you sell? 10/06/2017.

I think probably like 200, but profitable. Right now for and especially in Mars portfolio, like they need stuff to get to a billion in revenue. And I think then its position is hard to innovate. You can’t go down on price because if you’re using a whole real food, like egg whites are super expensive. I think they made their money, but I don’t think it’s like an extraordinary buy.

You need to understand kind of culture, anthropology, where nutrition is going, and then you need to understand the market,

Like, I think when I was younger, I thought like, oh, I don’t have to work. But then you’re just like, I just love to like, it’s all about the process. Money is an outcome, but I I didn’t really prioritize money necessarily. I just, like, wanted to make useful stuff.

Yeah. Yeah.

like, alright. I went from I basically went from making like a 150,000, maybe even less to like whatever getting a big check.

No. Yeah. It’s weird. And then you just see it, you’re like, alright, then you realize like nothing really changes. I think someone told me this once, the things that actually change is like where you lay your head down at night and then how you travel. That’s kind of like all that changes. Money is great for freedom. That’s about it. What do you do now with money that you didn’t do before? My process is I think a lot of people go through this when you get money, you start to like, so when you spend it a little bit, like you indulge, maybe you increase material consumption because you’re like, oh, I always wanted that, like a car or something, a house.

And then you spend the next, you know, some period of time accumulating stuff. And then I think people figure this out at different times. Then I think you spend equal amounts of time selling all that stuff and simplifying things. So for me, like, I spent, like, a year, like, sort of accumulating things, and then I realized it doesn’t do anything for me. There’s no utility in it. And then I just started selling everything. What stupid shit did you buy that you sold? The stupidest thing I started buying was cars.

What did you buy? I bought a Ferrari, a Porsche Singer, which is a beautiful piece of art. And that didn’t make you happy? No. No. It just became it became a to do list thing. So then it there became a cost to it. And then it didn’t make me happy or like, I think you discover your relationship with material things this way, and hopefully you do it sooner. And then, but for me, was quickly, I was like, why am I doing this? I think as a kid, had fantasized about, like, a car collection or something.

Because my my my uncle was a race car driver, so he was, a huge role model for me. He won the Indy five hundred. And and so I grew up with cars, and it’s a combination of art and science, and it’s beautiful and exhilarating. Think I fulfilled that childhood thing to want a car collection. And then I quickly realized like it just wasn’t doing it for me. And on top of it, I’m like, I like to work and build stuff. And so that, you know, I accumulated some stuff and then I just sold it all.

And now I just have a Tesla, like a Model y, and it does the job beautifully.

Yeah. I I bought a plane and that really puts cars into, like, context. Like, cars make no sense. You know what I mean? Like, plane’s probably the best thing. But then I you know, it’s just like lighting money on fire. So then I eventually sold it, but that’s for sure the best luxury and freedom thing. It shrinks the world, but I don’t I don’t have a plane anymore. And I I fly commercial.

Yeah. It changes the politics, both with people you’re you’re friends with. It changes the politics. Your relationship with people prior to some event or accumulating wealth and power, those relationships become more precious. When you say it changes the politics, what do you mean by that? So in my nuclear family, I’m the youngest. I was bullied to depict of the little one. And then all of a sudden, I’m the provider. And then I can provide things for my family that others can’t. And so turns out it’s harder to criticize the one who’s giving you who’s providing.

So it does change relationships in the sense that you can do things for people that others can’t.

So power comes with great responsibility. And I think it’s sort of a magnifying glass of your values or personality or power just magnifies it. So it makes the good traits better, makes the bad traits worse, but it comes with great responsibility. So that’s the one thing I’ve learned.

I think it’s a blessing. It’s more positive than negative. You obviously have to check it. I haven’t done much work on it. You know, it’s like this obsession thing. It’s like an itch. You just gotta keep itching it. I don’t understand it, but you’ll have, like, this irrational sense of urgency with stuff.

Yeah.

Oh, I think as the world gets more competitive, yeah, it’s true. Ordinary things don’t get ordinary outcomes. So I think it’s totally true. Like, look any a really successful person. I could like, any real outlier, I’m sure there’s a huge cost to it.

and relationships probably were the biggest one. Yeah. Like when work is the priority, so your health’s kind of the first thing to go. And then relationships, like

now. I think one way is I try to set a boundary, which would be like, I’m I’m home by, like, seven for dinner and then spend that time with my son and my wife. And then, you know, I ask for permission if I can stay late in the office. Like, I give her power.

The more time you dedicate, yeah, the better. Yeah. It’s sort of abstract, but there is a benefit of like pulling away and changing environment and disconnecting. Found especially from the creative process, like if it’s an execution mode, more time, better. But there are times where pulling away changing environments does help connect the dots I found. But in general, yeah, more time, more output. What do you not value that other people do value? Two things. I don’t value the opinions of others. God bless me with this.

I just don’t I just really don’t care if people don’t like me in a way.

No. I think I’ve always been that way. Like, I I know, this concept of, like, affiliation. Like, I don’t need to be affiliated with anything. Like, I don’t care where I come from. I don’t care about what university I went to. I don’t care like, I’m like a lone wolf in that regard. I think a lot of people, whether they recognize it or not, really care about like affiliation or opinions of others. And I’m like truly free from that. And that’s been a huge blessing, in entrepreneurship.

And then another thing is like, I’m just discovering this. I’m kind of happy if people are upset with me. Unpack that. Like, why? Not not necessarily loved ones, but, like, I I don’t know. I I found, like, myself, like, when people are upset with me, I’m kind of happy, and I haven’t unpacked the psychology behind it.

Oh, part partially. I think it’s tied to my upbringing and relationship with authority or social norms through my, like, education in school. So, like, growing up dyslexic to protect myself and my self esteem, I had to disagree with and devalue the institution that was grading me.

Yeah.

I’m leading. That’s my current hypothesis is that, like so for me to have self esteem, I had to say school is wrong, and they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Yeah. It depends on his personality or his or her sort of temperament. There’s a lot of variables. I think university is good for maturity. It would depend. I don’t think it’s necessary, but I do think the structure can be helpful. But it sort of depends on their themselves. But I’m not I’m not, like, dogmatic about it.

Setting expectations, communicating are clear, and just empathy on both sides. I think just little hacks, like just spending time and and like setting boundaries on time and then just being fully present. Like my my thing is like, I’ll go from being like boss mode, fucking like really intense maybe, and then I’ll come home and like bring that with me. And I catch myself doing that, and you just have to really, like, decouple and change your state in certain environments.

And it goes back to that idea of, like, decoupling. I was an employee and as a shareholder. Founder, I don’t think means anything.

you

I think it’s a helpful thing for founders to accept it because it’s a it’s sort of like this It’s like a status thing, but it really, you’re really an employee. I don’t think the founders should be treated that differently. They shouldn’t have privilege. To your question about RX being easy to sell or not, like humility is a real value of mine and it’s freedom from pride and pride’s a sin. And so decoupling emotionally from what you’ve created is, I found, really, really important to be super objective.

Why is pride a sin? When it consumes you, it distorts your judgment, and it blinds you from seeing truth.

Yeah.

Yeah. Probably.

general, I think being free from pride is a very powerful thing.

Huberman and Attia, I would call it, like, our were our brand Muses. You know, Muses, term in fashion, is, like, the sort of focal point to design around. So I wanted it something for their approve like, they’re our sort of design target. Peter Attia, I think of him as, like, the voice of America. He’s sort of America’s doctor, and I think he’ll have a voice as America’s doctor for a long time. And then Huberman’s sort of America’s researcher. He synthesizes research and information. And so having those as a resource to make sure we’re making the best products possible was really a dream.

Yeah. It was investing through skin in the game, I think, is important.

Well, I mean, I wanted to bring a lot of people in. It was just hard because there’s this more demand than there was available. It’s like it’s sort of like a wedding invite. And I was like, you have to draw the line somewhere. I just had to keep it small.

Underwriting it? So the conservative underwriting would be like, alright, who’s its closest competitor? It’s Quest Bar. What’s Quest Bar’s sort of TAM? Where is it going? And that’s like the base worst case scenario. If they just do bars and get to market and full ACV, what does the business look like? And then you you add sort of market multiples to that.

like, three fifty on bars,

Yeah. So that would be, like, the underwriting for, like, worst case scenario, sort of, like, if they don’t really do what they say they’re gonna do, this would be a minimum billion 5, something like that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Billion. So so everyone eats. Food is enormous TAM. The way you have to do that, address the TAM, is through different brands in different positions with different offerings. So David’s TAM, I think, is one point like 1 to 1,500,000,000. And then with with these brands as assets, what’s really, really important is you let the assets be the assets. Like, you don’t force them in places they don’t belong. And so it’s for growth, you know, you’re either growing or you’re not, you have to plant the seeds for new brands.

And so we will be planting those seeds and having a portfolio of brands that offer a different value to different parts of the population and and and different occasions. So you so you the way to get to 10 is to have a diversified portfolio that addresses large groups of people that don’t really conflict.

Yeah. The the difference Mars done is has done it through M and A. We’ll do it through we’ll do it through creation.

can spin it up.

Culture of bureaucracy. Unpack that a little bit. So making sure individuals in the company have high agency and decision making is happening closest to the problem, not causing people dependent on other things for decision making. So like making sure it’s decentralized and there’s not sort of this bureaucratic sort of like central procurement data and analytics going to one group, like avoiding bureaucracy and making sure we have a very fast, fast org.

I think it’s the biggest single problem is overconsumption of calories. It’s hyper palatable foods that are cheap, that have not a lot of value. So I think concept of like energy toxicity, over consumption of energy, calories. And then secondary would be like just too many people have fucking microphones and there’s just utter confusion.

Ellis and Lane Norton. Those are the main ones.

Currently, I do a bit of CrossFit, maybe one or three times a week. And then I just do strength training, big compound movements, like ego lifting, a little bit of that.

strange. I actually like to smoke cigarettes. Dude, I love smoking cigarettes. Yeah. I know. Yeah. I don’t do it regularly, but I do think it’s one of life’s pleasures. I agree. Does your wife mind? No. No. But if I was a regular smoker, yes, she would be like, you need to stop. But if I have an opportunity to indulge, I will. How often is that? I mean, now we’re just like in work mode, so I’m not around people that smoke, but on social occasions, which is rare, I guess.

But so right now, it’s been a while. But when I do, I do.

Yeah. I think so. I mean, it’s always good thing about consumer is there’s there’s always a need for novelty. So there’s always an opportunity. People want new. So, yes.

Unpack that a little bit. You know, I’m 39, so I’m like, I think starting my spiritual journey a bit. But I I I’m a big fan of history too. And I think people aren’t talking enough about the decline of religiosity and the failure of religion to adapt and innovate to to modern times and the consequences of that, the secondary effects, I don’t I don’t think people are talking enough about it.

I think of lack of purpose, grounding, clarity on sort of values and and and conduct.

But I think there would be more tribalism and more micro wars if it didn’t exist. And so the thing with religion is that humans it’s like a human construct to gain alignment, perhaps that’s one definition. It’s like culture or politics. It’s going to exist no matter what. But I think it needs to exist. And I think that the issue might so my one I think economics have caused no talent to go to religion. So, like, the really talented leaders don’t go to religion because you can’t make any money.

So there hasn’t been any innovation in it. That’s my capitalist view on it. It’s like, it turns out you can’t make any money being a priest, so therefore, you just don’t do it. And and so all the the talent’s going to other places to create companies that are sort of quasi religious anyway.