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Episode 361: Stephen Koepfer – Stunt Performer, Sambo Coach, John Wick

Stephen Koepfer, the Stunt Performer, Founder of New York Combat Sambo, and Co-Founder of Breakfall Studios, joins the show to share his journey from filming special effects movies as a kid to working on stunts for the John Wick movies, The Blacklist, and Ray Donovan. Hear how to become a stunt performer, how movie stunts get made, what he learned working with Keanu Reeves, Jonathan Banks, and Liev Schreiber, how to create a community people want to be a part of, and a scene that blew his mind with special effects. This episode covers everything from Tom Cruise to art therapy. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• What’s a scene Stephen created with special effects as a kid
• Who is involved in making movie stunts happen
• Why do Tom Cruise & Jackie Chan do their own stunts
• What was it like working on John Wick: Chapter 2 & John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
• Why did Stephen choose sambo

Connect with Stephen at USSambo.com, on social media @SamboSteve, and check out his Film Fights With Friends podcast.

Enjoy the shoooooow! Check out the show notes below for much more detail. You can also find the full transcript here.

Show Notes

• Intro & Childhood Special Effects Movies
  • [0:24] Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to save time with your high-quality podcast and use it as a business-building tool
  • [0:34] Connect with Stephen at USSambo.com, on social media @SamboSteve, and check out his Film Fights With Friends podcast
  • [1:58] Shoutout, Podcast Movement
  • [2:51] How do you become a stunt performer
  • [6:49] What’s a scene Stephen created with special effects aka special FX aka sfx as a kid
  • [10:09] How old was he when he made those childhood special effects movies

• Being a Stunt Performer
  • [11:41] Who is involved in making movie stunts happen
  • [15:20] Who decides whether the A-list actor or a stunt double does the stunts
  • [18:01] Why do Tom Cruise & Jackie Chan do their own stunts
  • [20:40] What was it like working on John Wick: Chapter 2 & John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
  • [25:13] What was it like working with Jonathan Banks
  • [30:59] What was it like working with Liev Schreiber
  • [32:15] The Wild Business Growth podcast is on YouTube! Subscribe @MaxBranstetter to watch full video interviews with Wild entrepreneurs like Stephen
  • [32:16] Sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter and receive How to Edit Your Podcast in Audacity. It’s where podcasting meets entrepreneurship – and terrible puns
  • [32:18] Such an honor speaking at Podcast Movement ’23 in Denver and Podcast Movement ’26 in NYC! Sign up to grab the slides from my first session at MaxPodcasting.com/PM23

• Sambo & Martial Arts
  • [32:56] What is sambo
  • [34:57] Why did Stephen choose sambo
  • [40:37] How do you create a community people want to be a part of
• Rapid-Fire Q&A
  • [43:25] What does Stephen love about art therapy
  • [45:06] Who would he want opening up for him when headlining a major concert
  • [45:35] Who’s a coach he models his coaching style after
  • [49:12] What’s a scene he’s been a part of that blew his mind with special effects
  • [53:15] Connect with Stephen at USSambo.com, on social media @SamboSteve, and check out his Film Fights With Friends podcast
  • [54:31] What are Stephen’s Final Thoughts
  • [55:27] Follow the Wild Business Growth podcast and tell a friend about the podcast. And show love (or roast me) by leaving 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify
  • [55:37] The Wild Business Growth podcast is on YouTube! Subscribe @MaxBranstetter to watch full video interviews with Wild entrepreneurs like Stephen
  • [55:38] Check out the Wild Business Growth podcast on Goodpods, where you can see what your favorite people are listening to
  • [55:40] Connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter (aka X), and Threads @MaxBranstetter and TikTok @WildBusinessGrowth
  • [55:42] Save time with your high-quality podcast. Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to bring your podcast to life and use it as a business-building tool
  • [55:44] Sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter and receive How to Edit Your Podcast in Audacity. It’s where podcasting meets entrepreneurship – and terrible puns
  • Theme music: Freestyle Percussion Magik – “Jungle Tribe” – provided by Jamendo

What is the Wild Business Growth podcast?

Wild ideas. Wild growth. Every Wednesday morning a new entrepreneur joins the Wild Business Growth podcast to share the wildly creative and unusual ways they grew their business – and teaches you how to do it, too. Hear the minds behind WordPress, Stacy’s Pita Chips, Drybar, NFL RedZone, Big Mouth Billy Bass, the voice of Bart Simpson, and more Wild stories. Hosted by Max Branstetter (that’s me), Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting.

How do you start a podcast?

Interested in starting a professional-sounding and professional-looking podcast for your brand, but don’t want to deal with the time commitment of all those behind-the-scenes details? I’ve got you covered. Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to save time with your high-quality podcast and use it as a business-building tool.

Thanks for listening to Stephen Koepfer on the Wild Business Growth podcast. To hear more Wild stories like this one every Wednesday morning, follow the Wild Business Growth podcast and tell a friend about it. And film a special effects scene with a Super 8 camera with them. Until next time, Let your business Run Wild…and Bring on the Bongos!!

00:00
And I can tell you right now that I was legit 100 % scared.

00:25
We’re back. Welcome back to Wild Business Growth. This is your place to hear from a wild entrepreneur who’s turning wild ideas into wild growth. And I am Max Branstetter of MaxPodcasting. This is episode 361 and today’s guest is Stephen Koepfer, or Steve for short. Sambo Steve is a stunt performer, a filmmaker, a lifelong martial artist. You can see his work in the John Wick series and Ray Donovan.

00:53
and some Walking Dead stuff, and he’s worked with all sorts of cool people. And in this episode, we talk how stunts are actually performed on the big screen and on your favorite streaming devices. How his passion for Samba, a specific style of martial arts has made his businesses and his on-screen dreams come true. And even some art therapy. It is Sambo Steve.

01:21
Enjoy the show.

01:29
Alrighty, we are here with Steve Kepfer. Some call him professionally, Steven Kepfer. Now he’s gonna kick me off of my show. We’ll call you the stunt guy for short. You’ve either seen you on screen or seen your work on screen in some form. And maybe you’ve been beaten up by, no, I’m just kidding. Steve, thank you so much for joining. How you doing today? Hey, great man. I’m so glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. Well, thank you for making the time and.

01:58
This connection was created by podcast movement in New York about a month ago at the time of this recording. So shout out podcast movements. I think the best thing about conferences like that is you never know like what random conversation, who you’ll meet or who you’ll turn into. So in our case, we were literally standing at like a cocktail table, just kind of waiting in between keynote sessions or something. Yeah. you reach out your hand, we introduce each other. And I could tell by looking at you, I was like, this guy worked on John Wick two and three.

02:28
Uh, he’s been on a bunch of stuff. He’s been a stunt guy for, Jonathan Banks, one of my favorite guys. Uh, so no, no, I was just blown away by your background. And then I, as I say, friendly stock to you over lunch, checked out your IMDB. And of course, first thing that comes up is a picture of you and, uh, Keanu. So pretty cool. Thanks for saying, Hey, in the first place, I do have to ask how in the world does somebody become a stunt guy? Well, that’s the question, right? Nobody, there’s no direct route.

02:56
for us. Everybody’s got some other way into the business. I mean, I can say for me, there was always since childhood interest in film, in filmmaking and making Super 8 movies when I was a kid. But even as a youth, went to filmmaking summer camp. All my other friends went to regular summer camp and I went to filmmaking camp.

03:21
But I always envisioned myself back then at least a special effects guy or like a behind the scenes guy. Like if you looked at my bedroom library back then, was like all how they made Star Wars, how they made Raiders of the Lost Ark, how they made, you know, American War Oath in London, like all the special effects stuff. That was all me, like building models and blowing them up, you know, or slapping latex all over my face and trying to make prosthetics and…

03:47
So that was sort of my youth, you know, but if you ask my parents, I was always the performer, you know, like I didn’t see myself as the performer. I saw myself as the sort of this, like everything I’ve ever done in life has been some sort of creative pursuit, whether it’s music or art. You know, I went to high school, a magnet school for art. played in bands my whole life and you know, so it’s always been some sort of creative something. But you ask my parents, I’m the one who was dancing around doing shows at the family holidays and you know,

04:15
putting on the Grease soundtrack and doing Grease lightning on a couch for everybody. You know, like that was me. I was definitely a bit of a media whore, you know, so all these years later, here I am in stunts. But to more seriously, to your question, it’s everybody has a skill that gets us in the door. You know, maybe you’re a pro skateboarder, maybe you’re a skydiver, maybe you’re a race car driver, maybe, you know, in my case, you’re a martial artist, maybe, you know, you have something that gets you in the door.

04:44
And someone who helps you get in the door, because it very much is about standing on the shoulders of others and people taking a gamble on you. Because we don’t have managers and agents and acting schools and we don’t have all those things, you know, so it’s really about being able to do what you can say, do what you say you can do and somebody trusting you. And then, so once you get in, you get your first job, then, then the real challenge comes like, you know, the first challenge is getting in the union. That’s hard enough. And then.

05:14
Once you’re in and you get a job, then it’s about continuing to work. So I got in for my early jobs, let’s say, were like for Sambo, my martial art, which was tied into the John Wick franchise. But how many Sambo based movies are there really? then it’s like, okay, well, how do I keep working? So then you start expanding your knowledge and education and learning how to drive, learning how to shoot and edit and learning how to…

05:42
stay calm under fire, literally, like when you’re on fire or learning how to fall properly or you just have to keep learning and hopefully you’ll keep building that network of stunt coordinators who trust you. Hopefully you get to work. It’s a tough, I think it’s even tougher than acting to get into, honestly, because acting there’s obviously for every, let’s say for every production, there’s 50 actors and like maybe, you know, just a handful of stunt people.

06:12
You know, so there’s a lot of demand and not a lot of supply. So. And you’re the one of the crazy guys who’s willing to do that. Uh, basically a thousand ways to die, uh, but keep living of lighting yourself on fire and falling over and, pulling people over and all that. But, uh, you mentioned when you were really little of like creating those scenes with your, which I had to, I had to look up when I was doing research, what would you call it? A super eight camera?

06:41
Yeah, super. I’ve seen the image before. Yeah, it’s kind of like the almost had like the handle on it, a handheld thing. And do you remember, was there a particular scene that you made when you were a kid or like a model that you used when you were a kid that that was just like, whoa, we did this one, me and my friend Mike Sarna, maybe he’ll listen to this one when we post it. I think he’s the first one that listens every week. Of course, he’s an uber fan, but he lives down in Nashville now. He ended up becoming a becoming a airline mechanic.

07:11
But anyway, long story short, he and I used to make movies together. This is my family had a house in Connecticut, like it was my grandparents’ house. And so would go up there for the summers in between school years. And so we would make movies. We made this one World War II movie. I remember we built a model aircraft carrier, probably yo big, like maybe a foot and a half long or something. And it had the tiny little airplanes on it and everything.

07:39
His father was a photographer. mean, his father was an amateur photographer. His father was actually a engineer for the Navy. You know, a lot of Navy folks lived over there near Groton, Connecticut, where we were. So he actually worked on the Trident subs and stuff like that. But point being, he was an amateur photographer and he had flash powder there. Like, so the old school, remember like before you had flash bulbs, they would have a little thing you put powder and it would go poof, you know, it’s like whatever. So we made, we rigged up this effect.

08:07
where we took one of the little mini airplanes from the aircraft carrier, glued a hook onto it and put some fishing line, like from up here down to this big boulder that was in our backyard. And on the boulder we had where we fastened the pick point for the other end of the fishing line. We made a pile of flash powder. And then on the little airplane, we put a bunch of testers model glue, which as you know, was flammable. Maybe you know is very flammable.

08:36
And we, so we set this thing on fire and slid it down the wire and it landed, it landed in the, um, in the flash powder and boom exploded. Now, of course we’re kids. We don’t test anything. We just do it. Right. So I’m like right up close with the camera and the thing blows up in my face. You know, was like, was, it was an amazing shot, all for the shot. Everything goes for the shot. Right. So.

09:00
I remember looking at it like the explosion was so fast and massive. was like only three frames, three or four frames on the film. I didn’t get burned thankfully, but that was fun. And then we cut to like me in like, we would go to like the local thrift store and buy like as close as army Navy store, buy like uniforms and stuff. We put me in like a pilot’s uniform and just smeared like charcoal.

09:26
you know, like charcoal, Kensington charcoal all over my face and just made me look like I just was in an explosion. So we cut from that explosion to me laying on the ground, like getting up and like, and we, you know, there’s no VFX filters. So we would buy like smoke bombs and off camera just have smoke bombs shooting smoke off, you know, into the frame. So I would look like I’m coming out of smoke and, and then we would, of course, part of that film was the loading up the model. Cause my house was on a lake, right? So we would

09:55
build this model aircraft carrier, load it up with M80s and float it out into the thing, the lake and just blow it up. Boom! You know, it was like, yeah, we’d have so much fun doing stuff like that, dude. How old were you approximately when this was going on? Oh gosh, like nine or 10 maybe. Wow. Something like that. That’s like young and dumb. they had like a child…

10:21
Oscars or child Emmys for just kids and that kids imagination of uh, yeah Or maybe it would be the Nick you’d be getting slimed on Nickelodeon So all that stuff, but it’s funny I ended up in stunts because stunts people think is a daredevil type life, but it’s actually completely the opposite There’s a ton of planning and risk mitigation that takes place. But for sure my life was bullet-pointed by

10:47
stupid things that should have killed me or really maimed me or hurt me along the way, you know?

10:55
Yeah. So I mean, that’s a huge area I’ve been wondering about. It’s like, as a stunt guy or someone in the stunt world, you’re doing so much. There’s so much like technical expertise behind it and tactics behind it. And we’ll get into a little bit. Obviously you have like your incredible martial arts background as well. But a lot of this stuff, it feels like so much. It’s like the vast majority of the iceberg is under the surface. And then the tiny tip is, you know, what

11:24
This was just not sound right. It makes its way onto, you know, screen and people actually see. For starters, for somebody like me who, childhood film creations were only slightly less creative than what you just said. Can you just share like, what are kind of the big players in a typical stunt in a movie, for example, like what are the main people involved in creating this and then actually making it happen?

11:52
Well, honestly, every single crew member is, you know, so there’s no, there’s no one. I mean, obviously there’s the stunt coordinator, right? Who is in charge of the coordination of the basically stunt coordinators, the department head. Sometimes if it’s a big production, you’re much more that administrative person than a boots on the ground person. Although you might, you know, it very much depends on the size of the film. Like I’ve never, I now don’t even know if I want to stunt coordinate a big Hollywood.

12:22
You know, like the Fall Guy or something like that, you know? Yeah. I had the reps from the Fall Guy waiting to talk to you after this interview. Oh, there you just terrible timing of yours, but go on. Oh, man. Bummer. So the yeah, I like I like I personally I like I’ve stunt coordinated some features, but they’ve all been independent films where it’s not entirely an action movie, but there’s action sequences in the movie. So you’re really working with the.

12:48
the director and the re you know, the director to tell the story they want to tell. So in the end, it’s really the director. Everything comes back to the director. But in terms of the accomplishment of a particular gag is what we call the stunts. A particular gag is let’s say this horror movie that I just worked on where we had to it involved mainly rigging and where we had to levitate someone, you know, the main actor off the ground for about, you know, eight to 10 feet or something like that. They’re on wires.

13:17
And then there’s a prosthetic monster’s arm, like think of an octopus tentacle coming up and wrapping around him and he’s stabbing at it. And then the arm drops him and then he gets dragged away by the, tentacle from this creature. You know, so that scene alone, it took place in a hedge maze. Like think of the Shining. That scene alone, you have to, you’re starting with how it was written, right? So that’s, that’s where everything starts. How it was written.

13:46
What does the director want to show? How does he plan on shooting it with the direct photography? Because just how something is written doesn’t mean you’ll see it on screen, right? It might say, a man gets killed by a monster, but that could happen off screen. So part of it is in the early prep phases is in your pre-production meetings, talking with the director and the cinematographer like, okay, so how do you plan on shooting this? What do you want seen? What do you not want seen? That will dictate lots of

14:16
safety concerns, you know, or how we’re going to address different actions that we want done. So once you kind of have that all laid out, then like, for example, on the day, I have to bring in riggers, you know, to riggers to do the wire to assist me with the wire stuff. We have to work with a crane and then that involves the, the key grip or the crane operator, like, and then we have, of course, training the actors.

14:43
We have the medic involved. have, yeah, there’s just, it’s every bit of crew, the special effects makeup people are involved. So it’s no, no one thing happens on a film set independently of every other department. So it truly is a collaborative process. And so sort of for each aspect, you’ll have people who are focusing on a little more or a little less of part of that action that that’s going to be put on in front of the camera, but it really is. Everybody is contributing. Everybody has to buy into this.

15:11
Everybody has to be on the same page. What story we’re telling, how we’re going to tell it and bringing this to life. So it really is about a team. It’s a team effort. Who decides that whether the actual, you know, like a list actor is going to do the stunts themselves versus have a stunt double for a particular scene? We do as a team. I mean, I’ll make my suggestions. So for example, let’s say in this case, right?

15:41
they had only specific cranes available, right? So then you have to do a research, you have to do your math. You know, this is where the math comes in. So everybody in school, don’t cheat on your math. You have to do your math like, okay, what’s the load limit? What’s the maximum breaking point of this crane? How much weight can it handle? You know, you’re always at least estimating, at least if you’re doing a dynamic movement of a person on wires, you’re at least estimating like,

16:09
The load would be three times like maybe what the person weighs, right? So let’s say you have, let’s say you have two people off frame pulling the wire and then you have 180 pound actor on the wire. So now you’re talking like three adult males, just static of, you know, you’re talking like maybe 600 pounds, but then multiply that by three because you’re going to be moving it in a dynamic, moving the person dynamic way. So you have to go into looking to what is the load limit of the crane.

16:39
What is the maximum breaking point of the gear that you’re using? You know, all these things. So once you figure out what you can do based on the equipment you have, and then this is where the discussion to your question comes in. Well, listen, if you want to fly the guy, we’re not going to do it with the actor. You’re going to have to bring in a double. If you want to fly the guy 20 feet over a hedge and land over here, you know, that’s, that’s a stunt double. If you just want to levitate him.

17:08
we can do that with the actor. know, so a lot of it becomes this dance of budget. You know, what can you afford? Like we can pretty much always do what you want if you have the budget, but almost always, especially in independent films, it’s like, well, we don’t have the budget. Okay. So if you don’t have the budget to hire three stunt doubles, then we’re going to have to change the actions to make it safe for the actors. So it’s, it’s always a negotiation. Like how much money you have.

17:38
and how you want to tell the story and do you actually need that thing to tell the story that you want to tell? Like, do we need to fly him to tell the same story? Like, you shouldn’t be doing cool for the sake of cool because doing cool and risky for the sake of cool just makes things more risky. So it’s really about doing exactly what you need to tell the story you want to tell in the safest way possible. Yeah, because I feel like over time you get some actors like notably like

18:08
Tom Cruise, Jackie Chan, like guys that are known for like doing a lot of their own stunts that some of the movies come out and you’re like, I swear they, they had this idea for this outlandish crazy stunt and they wanted to make a movie like just to make that happen. are movies like WIC, you know, that are action porn. That’s the whole point, you know, and then like, and then Tom Cruise has the money and the budget to spend a year training for something, you know, so, and

18:35
You know, there are stunt doubles that test everything before he ever does anything. You know what I mean? So it’s like, uh, but it’s his money, it’s his production and he’s got the time to do it. But your average, you know, modified low budget film with maybe a $700,000 or a million dollar budget doesn’t have a year for you to, to train somebody and skydiving or, know, like whatever, uh, you’re lucky if you get a decent amount of rehearsal. So a lot of it.

19:03
Is also like one of the frustrating things for me is when I get hit up by a director, sometimes I’m hit up after they’ve already cast the movie. And then you ask them, well, okay. So this, this actor has is playing a character that has to do X, Y, Did you audition them for their physical ability? Oh, well, they said they could do X, Y, Z. I’m like, oh, but did you actually ask them to do it? Because the actors are notoriously liars. They’re notoriously, they notoriously lie.

19:31
You know, they took a workshop in something and they’ll put it on their resume as a skill. Like, no, that’s not a skill. That is just a workshop that you took. Maybe they’re just really good at acting. Yeah, maybe that’s a great. You did a great job acting that crack skull on the concrete because you said, you know how to do a, you know, a 540 twist in the air and land properly. But the point is, is if you’re going to.

19:55
Wadish, if you’re gonna cast an actor and you want them, you know in the beginning you want them to do their own stuff, you should be keeping that factor in mind when you cast people, which doesn’t always happen. Speaking of things not always happening, so John Wick is something that I think when it first came out people were probably excited about it and then as sequels and sequels came out it just feels like something that’s just grown and grown and there’s kind of more more lore to it and I think that

20:22
Your use of action porn was the first time action porn has been used on a phrase on this podcast. So we’ll give you some sort of award for that. There we go. But you don’t want to visualize what the the trophy will look like. But I think there’s something about that movie franchise that just is so fun and so well liked. Can you share maybe a story from the set or just something from your time there? if like what makes that franchise a little bit different or a little bit more fun? Well, I mean, I think

20:52
The first John Wick, which is still my favorite, was a game changer in terms of the action genre. You know, you have these movies throughout the timeline of action films that are sort of game changers, like, you know, like The Matrix was, and then John Wick was for a certain practical kind of fight sequence. You had like movies like Ang Bak was sort of one, or, you know, there’s all different ones like that will affect.

21:21
The Collateral was one, know, Collateral with Tom Cruise, speaking of Tom Cruise, was one in terms of like proper tactical gun work. Like that was one of the first really good tactically sound, realistic looking movies that showed gun work. What was, I think what was unique about WIC when I saw it too for the first time, because I didn’t work on the first one, although nobody knew the first one was, you know, it was just an indie film.

21:47
It wasn’t like a big studio thing. like when it came out, nobody was expecting that. I knew about it because they had come 87 11 guys, the, know, they’re the guys that, know, Chad Stalski and David Leach who direct co-directed it. And then, uh, the action team from 87 11 there, when they came to New York to shoot it, they actually stopped by my gym looking for Russian bad guys, you know, looking for people to cast. Hey, do you have anybody that might be a good Russian bad guy? So I knew it was.

22:15
in production, like who knew? Like I sent my friend Vlad Kulikov to casting. actually got cast. He was in the first one. He’s the guy that gets sniped by Willem Dafoe when he’s putting the plastic bag over Wick’s head in the abandoned church there, I think. By the way, that’s an incredible line to put on your resume of like successfully looked for Russian bad guys. That’s it, man. So I felt good. mean, and again, I wasn’t even in the union yet.

22:43
You know what I mean? It was just like, oh, I have some Russian friends. I’ll send them over to audition. But Vlad got picked, which was cool. So, but to your point, like there was really what was cool about the fight choreography from a fan perspective, someone who comes from a, you know, someone who teaches grappling arts and judo and Sambo and has been involved in the fight scene for a long time. To see that movie, they struck the perfect balance between practical

23:12
and fantastical, know, like so practical moves that were strung together in a fantastical way. You know what I mean? So like there was not a move in there that individually was not legit. But when you put them all together, like no fight ever happens like that. No fight ever, you know, goes down like Wick would be dead a hundred thousand times by now. You know what I mean? But if you look at each piece, like people like me were like, oh my God, that’s this throw and that’s that throw and that’s this submission and that’s.

23:42
Like you could really feel it because, then the other, the other thing that they did differently and that’s coming sort of a reaction, I guess, to the Jason Bourne era of fast cuts, shaky camera, like all this kind of stuff is the 8711 guys went back to showing wide angle where you can see the whole action without cuts, no cutting. So that’s why you had Keanu training for like six months beforehand and Halle Berry training for like six months beforehand because.

24:12
If you want to work on a wick series, you’re going to have to actually be able to do it. You don’t have to do your own quote unquote stunts. Like Halle Berry’s not getting hit by a car, but Halle Berry is definitely doing her own fighting. Like Keanu actually has said in an interview in the past, like I do my own action. I don’t do my own stunts. Like that’s not me falling off the roof. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, you know, that’s Jackson Speedell or, you know, one of his other stunt doubles when it comes to the fighting and the driving. Cause he does a vast lion’s share of his own.

24:42
driving, that’s Keanu. But he’s also very specific to say he doesn’t do stunts. He just does really good action. The other one that jumped out to me that you’ve done is a stunt double is really, really cool. Working with Jonathan Banks. like, I’m a huge, like everyone, I’m a huge Breaking Bad fan, a huge Better Call Saul fan. also somewhere along the way, I went to IU, we’re a big IU family and we found out Jonathan Banks, the IU guy as well. it’s like extra love. But I still think Mike Urban Trial is one of the best characters ever.

25:11
Love his character. Yeah. What stuck out to you about working with him? First of all, like you, I was a big fan already. And so when I got cast to double him in The Beast in Me on Netflix, it’s not a stunt action, not a stunt heavy show, by the way, but it had a few a few things I worked on, like two episodes. But I was super excited to work with him.

25:35
But you do this, you work in this business long enough. Like you definitely learn that you have your fanboy side and then you have your professional working side. And most of the time, like 99.9 % of the time, once you work with somebody, you just realize they’re working stiff like you. They’re there to do a job. You know, they’re human. They make mistakes. They have their quirks and X, Y, Z. like it’s rare that I get too fanboyish. Like I remember the, my very first

26:04
just as a bit of a detour, but to this point, my very first union stunt job was on the blacklist and I got to work with Brent Spiner, right? So I’m a huge Star Trek fan. So I was like, Oh my God, I get to work with data. You know what I mean? And I was like one of his thugs. Like he was the bad guy of the week and I was one of his mercenaries. But again, he just turned out to be the most down to earth, like dude, like no ego, just another guy on set trying to get a job done. After a while, you just realize like,

26:33
that most of the time you’ll hear, not always, but I’ve almost never had a bad experience with somebody with an actor that I was doubling, like maybe once, meaning once they were like an asshole, but most of the time they’re not. Sometimes they’re not social, which is fine, like, I’m at work, I’m not here to pal around with you. And so I think a lot of the reps that you hear about, so and so, this actor’s difficult, or I think a lot of those reps come from people who just wanted more.

27:01
than what’s professionally acceptable at a job. So it’s like, I heard that about Lee of Shriver. I heard like before, cause I doubled Eddie Morrison on Ray Donovan, right? So I heard like, oh, Lee of Shriver’s whatever. I heard some bad stuff about him. And then when I got to work with him, it was like totally the opposite. It was like not like that at all. He was totally fine and cool. And I loved working with him. But again, he wasn’t like,

27:28
You know, in between takes, like talking with you and you know, he was just doing his job, you know, and said, that’s it. And, that’s, so I think a lot of those negative reps come from people just wanting more than they’re obliged to, to get. But to your question about Jonathan Banks, he was great. And just a little cool thing that I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this on any shows before, but one of my mentors, doc, do HAME, stunt coordinator, veteran stunt coordinator and stunt performer was Jonathan Banks is long time.

27:58
stunt double on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and, you know, for a lot of things. And I got to know Doc because he was the stunt coordinator on Ray Donovan and we’ve just stayed friends. When I got the job, I texted him, Hey, I stole your job, man. I’m doubling Jonathan Banks, man. He was like, Oh, tell him I said hi. So that was kind of cool. Cause we had a little, I had a little olive branch or a little something to, when I met him to say, Hey, I’m, you know, Doc is one of my mentors and it’s so cool that I’m getting to work with you. And that kind of made.

28:28
it a little nicer too on set. It broke the ice a little. Yeah. I was just about to say you had your icebreaker. Yeah, exactly. Because you know, TV, like it’s not like a movie. Like sometimes a lot of the times on television, you’re coming in for an episode and you’re gone. You’re not working like the whole length of the production. Like I did on Ray Donovan because I worked, I was his double and there’s a lot of fight scenes and I worked for the whole season, you know, so I got to spend more time with Eddie. But

28:57
With Jonathan, it was literally like two days, but he was super cool, super chill, enjoyable to work with, you still at his, let’s just say, advanced experiential level of life, still ready to go and rough and tumble himself if he can, you know what I mean? And like at one point he came over because we were doing what’s called camera rehearsal. So camera rehearsals where you’re up the shot, but

29:24
It’s just for the camera department, for everybody to make sure everything is lined up. You you get your blocking right, you get everything right. So I’m doing the fall. There’s, there was a tight shot on him before he has a stroke and he falls and he’s in this wine cellar in this scene and he falls into a bunch of wine bottles and stuff. So, but when you’re doing a tight shot or mid shot, like out of frame is a big pad, you know, so you can fall into the pad. So he comes over and this is super nice of him actually, really nice of him. This goes to show what a pro he is.

29:53
He comes over to me, he goes, you get paid anyway, right? If you’re, and I’m like, yep. He goes, okay, let me do it. He goes, get out of here. Let me do it. Cause we only get paid residuals. This is something people don’t know, but we only get paid residuals if we’re on camera. If we do everything rehearsed, we go through, we do everything off camera. Let’s say supporting the stunt performer or only doing the blocking rehearsals or only doing.

30:21
like something where helping train the main actor, because a lot of our jobs as a double is to help train the main actor that we’re doubling. But if we’re not in the final cut of the episode, we don’t get residuals. Wow. So the fact that he actually took time to see if I was going to be getting paid was awesome. Yeah. And then once he found out, like, yeah, you’re going to be getting paid because I’m going to be on camera. But he’s like, all right, let me do this. I can do this.

30:49
So it was awesome. was great. And I enjoyed chatting with him and hanging out with him for a couple of days. It was really cool. Yeah, that’s super thoughtful. think between him and Schreiber, I would imagine it just makes your voice drop down a couple more octaves because those guys have the strongest, lowest voices I’ve ever heard. Dude, the scene in Ray Donovan where I was also doubling, I also doubled Zach Grenier, who played the mayor, the New York City mayor in Ray Donovan. I doubled both of them on that season, right?

31:19
There’s a scene where Ray Donovan punches the mayor in the throat. They’re in this like, like a spa. Ray Donovan is trying to threaten the mayor and you know, like whatever this whole storyline where he’s, he’s the fixer, you know, he’s trying to fix things. So he, there’s a scene where he punches the mayor in the throat and then the mayor falls down towards camera. It’s a low angle looking up and it’s over. It’s like from behind the mayor up to Ray Donovan looking up at him from sort of the floor, a low angle from the floor.

31:48
So if you watch that, was me. And I can tell you right now that I was legit 100 % scared. I was like, this guy will rip my head off. The energy that Liev Schreiber projected as Ray Donovan in that moment was truly frightening. I didn’t have to act scared. was legit, the nerves were really legit tingling. That’s the best. He’s the real deal. He was really great at it.

32:18
Speaking of the real deal, mean, the through line that made these opportunities on screen possible for you in the first place is your knowledge and expertise in terms of I just created a word in terms of martial arts. And I think, I mean, I’m someone who I guess just call me a layman when it comes to martial arts. Like I know kind of the names of some of the top ones, but Sambo I actually wasn’t familiar with until we met and I looked more into it. so

32:47
Right for anybody, know, it’s probably just me who doesn’t know but for anybody for anybody who’s not familiar like that type of martial arts or whatever you want to call it What makes Samba different not to belabor the John wick point but they knew from John wick one that wick was gonna be a Samba guy so and they really did a great job of presenting the flavor of Samba I always tell people now like before I used to say when people would say like oh what’s Samba? I’d be like, well, it’s like judo, but you can also do some wrestling stuff

33:17
but you can also punch and kick and you can also do these other things. It’s like a mix of that kind of stuff. But for the lay person, it’s a grappling based style, very much like judo. And we train in a, in a jacket, very much like judo, but it originated in the Soviet Union in the early 20th century. It was formalized as a sport in the Soviet Union in 1938, been around a while and the roots of it do extend to judo.

33:42
and Japanese jujitsu and other indigenous wrestling styles from the Soviet republics, like Georgian wrestling and different wrestling styles from that world. Like every culture has its wrestling style, just like Japan has sumo and Korea has shirom. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen shirom, but it’s like sort of like, it looks like Korean sumo. And then Uzbekistan has a style called koresh. China has shuaijiao, you know, but every culture has a…

34:11
By the way, you could totally be making up all these names and I’d be like, 100 % fake. Don’t fact check this. This guy’s not even a stunt guy. Every culture has a style where a sport where it’s one guy’s trying to throw the other guy to the ground. You know, I mean, that is across cultures. And Switzerland has one called Schwingen where they actually wrestle in sawdust pits. There’s catch wrestling, which was the original sort of Olympic wrestling before they took out submissions.

34:39
So, I mean, you go, right, wrestling was all the way back to the original Olympics. mean, so as long as humans have been around, wrestling has been around. And so, and Sambo is basically a wrestling style that was created in the former Soviet Union. Still exists. Now it’s a big international sport and all that kind of stuff. Why’d you zero in on that as, mean, it’s now a huge part of career compared to other alternatives. Like a lot of stuff in my life. I walked through a door that opened to me.

35:08
And honestly, this kind of goes back to your, topic, you know, uh, we haven’t talked business yet, but I will say this is a business podcast. is the problem with sometimes all of guests on and an area that’s so foreign yet so far fascinating to me that I have so many questions about their craft that I forget to dive into their entrepreneurship part, which is kind of funny for an entrepreneurship podcast, but go on. Yeah. Right. But this ties into the entrepreneurship part, which is everybody. We all have, uh, these doors that open to us in life and.

35:38
We can choose to walk through them or not. And oftentimes walking through them is really risky because you’re probably stepping out of a safe space or a comfortable place or whatever, but you’re never going to succeed if you don’t do that. know, so Sambo for me legit was just timing. I was not happy where I was training at the time. This is like in the late nineties, somebody said, Oh, there’s this Russian guy teaching Sambo over, over here. I was like, Oh, let me go check it out. And I was sold.

36:07
I wasn’t sold on Sambo. was sold on him, my coach, you know, it was the way he taught the way he did everything. Like if he was a judo guy, I’d probably be judo Steve right now, not Sambo Steve, you know what mean? But he was a Sambo guy. then, so then after training with him, I really learned to love Sambo because of him. But then years later, after I took over the gym, he went back home to Russia. I took over the gym for him. And at that time it was, I was still working.

36:34
full time at Maimonides Medical Center. I was a child life specialist and art therapist in pediatric ICU and oncology and ER sometimes. But I worked there. so when Alex went back to Russia, I was running the gym at night just as a sort of, you know, I had my day job and then I had the gym at night. By 2005, the gym

36:59
or I should say not the gym because it wasn’t my gym yet, but I was renting space from somebody else. I was teaching, you know, five days a week. It was as big as it was going to get under that sort of parameter of a part-time side gig. And at the same time, after 10 years of working in oncology, was pretty, I was kind of burnt out. So, you know how they say like, if you know you’re getting, if you’re aware of your burnout, you’ve been burnt out for a while. So I had to make a decision.

37:28
Which do I want to do? Like the martial art career, their martial art business is not going to grow any more than where it’s at now if I don’t give up this other thing. So I took the leap, man. I took the leap of faith. came into, sadly, you know, like, and I’ll say this regarding entrepreneurship. Sadly, I think in this country, you have to start with capital. You know, it’s not like the American dream anymore. Like, it’s not the 1950s. Like you have to have some money in the bank.

37:56
And so unfortunately I had my father and another relative of mine had passed in 2004. So I inherited some cash, not enough to like quit my jobs, but enough to float me for a little bit. So I just decided to quit the medical center and try to make a go at this martial arts thing and start my own gym. And so when, when I did the business plan, I was like, okay, well I

38:25
I have about, I could float for about three years on this money. So if I’m not breaking even after a year, I’m going to shut it down. But after a year I was breaking even and then little by little, here we are 24 years later, you know, still doing it and still building other businesses that all kind of like a tree. If you, if you’re successful with one thing and then you expand, like you don’t want to sit, you don’t want to sit on your laurels. You know, you have to keep growing, you know, so sent then the stunt business kind of

38:54
comes into the studio, you know, then we started Breakfall Studios, right? What is it? 11 years ago, you know, and then out of that came the podcast, another business, but they all sort of support each other’s growth. It’s an iterative process, at least for me with business is it’s this constant like reassessment. Where can we go? Try it, fail or succeed, reassess again. Where can we go? What can we do?

39:21
How can we support the existing business with a new business and keep growing? now, you know, now like my partner and I, Paul, we own a small production company that not only runs the podcast, but we do, you know, we’ve done stunt coordination jobs on other productions. We’ve done productions for, you know, Adobe Creative Cloud and for Paramount Pictures and things like that. And then it all kind of dovetails together, right? Oh, you need a space to rehearse with your actors? I happen to own a place. So it’s really all about

39:51
Making sure everything is supportive of everything else that you’re doing, but the same time in a way that where if one fails, they don’t all fail. Like they can all function independently, but they also all support each other. Yeah, that’s a great philosophy. And I like your, metaphor of the tree, cause you can really visualize it with the different branches, but it all goes back to that strong base and the strong roots beneath everything. And so it’s beautiful that you turn, you know, really sad moments with

40:20
you know, your family and family members passing away and were able to take some of that and fuse it into something that’s helped out so many people and inspires so many people online now these days too, you know. So you’re doing the offline and the online for good, which is pretty great. But you have to, you have to, whatever, I don’t care what kind of business you do. Like in our case, it’s a training facility and a production company, but we’re all sort of living in the same environment.

40:49
But you have to have a community that people want to be a part of. So take our gym. So the first thing, if you walk right into the door of our studio, the first thing you’re going to see is food stores, like literally stacks of food containers. And people will be like, what’s that for? I’m like, that is for our students who experience food insecurity. That’s for our students who lose their snap. That’s for our students who lose a job, who get laid off. So we have a food drive in-house.

41:19
And by the way, over the counter medicine drive to in-house. So if you lose your health insurance, you lose this. have, we have supplies of cough medicine, you know, like basic stuff, first aid supplies and food. also have an online food drive for feeding America, by the way, which anybody can donate to it’s linked in all our stuff. But, um, the idea is that you have to. I take the, the act locally and think globally moniker very seriously. So like we want.

41:49
the community in our space to be the way that we would want the world to be. And that means having a diverse group that trains there and works out there. It’s a safe space for LGBTQ people. It’s a safe space for trans people. We embrace that because that’s the way we want the world to be. And if you walk into our gym and that’s something that you’re not comfortable with, the door’s that way.

42:17
But I truly believe in the end, the success of the, could have the greatest business model, but if you’re not aligning with the right people and with the right mentality and with the right desire and intent of what you want to bring to this world, then it will be, eventually it will fail. Eventually it will fail. Well, without fail, let’s wrap up with some rapid fire Q and a. You ready for it? boy. Here we go. Yeah. All right. Putting you on the real, putting you on the, what’s putting me in the hot seat.

42:47
Is there a name for the, the mat or the surface in Sambo? Here’s the thing we do. A lot of grappling schools do this. It’s called shark tank. So it’s where you’re in the middle and you’re grappling people one after the other, one after the other, or lose. You’re just going next person, next person, next person, whatever they can throw at you, you have to deal with. So this is very much like verbal shark tank here. Perfect. You worked in an entrepreneurship tie without even trying that. That was beautiful though. So, Oh, I didn’t even catch that.

43:13
Yeah, let’s get wild. Let’s let’s swim with the Samba sharks here and Samba Steve. So you mentioned art therapy, which is like a whole other separate like we could do a whole episode on that. I think it’s fascinating. But what is a just personally is a style of art or an era of art that you think is the most therapeutic to be doing? Oh, my gosh. Well, I think that the most therapeutic creative pursuits

43:42
whether it’s art or music or theater or whatever. But if you want to just talk about visual art, I think the most creative aspect of it is the process of making it. So I could care less what it looks like in the end. It is irrelevant. That’s the art side. When you’re doing it for yourself, for your own personal reasons and therapeutic reasons, it’s about the doing of it. Doesn’t matter what it looks like. Doesn’t matter for anybody ever sees it.

44:12
It’s irrelevant. It is the act of creating that is therapeutic to me. That’s beautiful. And it actually flows right into the next question or the next shark tank. mean, creating music is a form of art. You mentioned it, you play music all your life, especially growing up in bands and stuff like that. Let’s say you are playing the piano and you are the biggest name in the world in music.

44:42
Piano is what I play by the way. I don’t know if you knew that, that is my instrument. So that’s from my research. We’ll pretend that I didn’t know that. But thank you. Um, let’s say you’re playing the key tar now and, am an eighties kid. You’re playing like a Woodstock original Woodstock size concert or live eight concert, you know, where it’s like seemingly millions of people on and on. If you’re the headliner, who would you want to be, you know, direct support or the, the opener?

45:12
Right before you. Oh man. Okay. Let me think. Richard Ashcroft. For those who don’t know from the verve, I would have him doing a solo acoustic set as my opener. Wow. I’m key tar. Yeah. Can’t have an acoustic keytar, man. We can invent it. We can invent it. What’s a coach in any sport that you would say you most

45:40
resemble in terms of your coaching style when it comes to martial arts? Interesting. I’m not sure who I most resemble, but aside from my coach, I’ll name two coaches that I did some training with that I really embraced their approach to how I do things. And one is Matt Lindland. Some people might know him from his MMA career, but he’s a Olympic level wrestler. He is the Olympic Greco-Roman coach.

46:07
now for the United States, I was able to spend some time at training camps with him. And he absolutely, you know, like we were talking about how WIC or these movies or these points in time that change, like training with him changed how I do certain things regarding coaching my athletes, approaches to technical instruction. The second would be Greg Jackson, who’s also a very known MMA coach. And I took a

46:36
workshop with him that really changed how I scout opponents. When I was training fighters, how I would scout opponents and build strategy to defeat them. Kind of business related too, but basically the nutshell of it is like you’re scout, you’re going to fight someone. You’re, my guy’s going to fight some guy and you have two options. know, first thing I would do is I would watch every fight that that person had from beginning to end in order that I could get.

47:05
from their amateur days all the way up to their most recent. And I would literally sit with a notepad, round one, fight one. How many times did he try a takedown? How many times did he do this? How many times? And then I watch for trends through his whole career, which things he keeps, which things he disregards, discards that. And then you look for patterns in this person’s performances.

47:31
Right. that those patterns are going to show you what they think their strong suits are. The other thing you look for is where do they go when they’re not doing well? What do they do when they’re not having the outcome that they want? Where’s their safe space? So every fighter will have a safe space that they go, you know, that they can depend on when things are not going right. So when you’re scouting an opponent and coming up with a strategy of how to fight them.

48:00
You have a choice. can either destroy their strong, what they consider their best stuff, which you’ve learned from watching every fight. This guy always does this. This guy, always does this. He always does this. So you could take that tool away from him in the very beginning, or you can craft your strategy to make them go to their safe space and destroy that. Because if you take their safe space away,

48:27
They have nowhere to go when they’re in danger. Then they’re in unknown territory. And when people are in unknown territory, that’s when they make mistakes. So basically that was the crux of Greg Jackson’s workshop on how to scout people. And it changed the way that I, uh, look at opponents, you know, or competitors. Yeah. Sounds like a one-man NFL scouting department. love the analytics and diving into trends and all that. Watching tape. It’s all a lot, a lot going on in the, in the film room. All right. Last one.

48:57
Yep. Last shark here. I’m just always blown away by special effects. And of course they’ve evolved and evolved and evolved over over your career. And who knows like what it’s going to look like in 20, 30 years, 40 years. Was there ever a scene that you’ve been a part of in some form that when you’re filming it,

49:23
It doesn’t stick out as that special. And then when you saw the final result with special effects and everything, you’re like, holy shit. I’ll tell you a scene that’s almost the flip of that. Yeah, sure. You flip the shark, you know, backwards. Well, this is a scene where they opted to go without the practical effects. But anyway, so I was on an episode of Dead City, Walking Dead last season, showing up to set. The original plan was we’re all going through these swamps.

49:50
Like real swamps, by the way, pretty gross. Like real swamps are trudging through these swamps and there’s water walkers in there. And the idea was that they were going to be pulling us down into the water one by one as I was part of Maggie’s crew. You know, we’re going to, we’re getting picked off by the walkers. And so the original plan was that they were, they had three prosthetic necks for me. They were going to, they were going to, I was going to get pulled down and they were going to show my throat getting ripped out and.

50:20
Blood-Sprite, know like the whole classic. Yeah, I was so excited dude. I was like so excited. This is gonna be the best Halloween ever. Yes So then the director Got the notion that they wanted it to be more like Jaws You know where it pulled under the water and you don’t know what’s going on a little more mysterious And I was like, oh man, and even the effects people were like damn We just brought three necks for you. But you know like

50:48
So, but we went without it. then, so basically Maggie and I are walking through the, uh, the forest and I get pulled down out of frame. And it was a very simple, just like, just had to fall down at the right time and make it look like I got pulled down. And then they had the VFX guy, uh, the practical effects guy with a blood cannon was going to shoot blood up from, up here. Like I get pulled down, blood gets sprayed up.

51:16
So we did some takes with the blood and did some takes without the blood and they were concerned for the blood for continuity purposes getting on Maggie’s wardrobe. You know, so there was some concern about the spray of the blood, but I remember we did three takes. None of them I felt good about. Like, you know, as a performer, you know, sometimes you get to this, you feel like I could do better than that, but you don’t see what they see on the monitor. You know what I mean? But there’s plenty of times where you feel like you’ve done a great job and it looks terrible.

51:44
And you’ve done a terrible job, but it looks great. But on this day, I was already disappointed that I didn’t get to do my neck ripping out scene. And I was disappointed that in my performance, even though they were like, check the gate. So check the gate for the people not in the film industry. That’s an old, that’s a carryover from when it was actually film where you would have a gate on the camera. Check the gate. That means we’re moving on to the next scene. We got what we wanted.

52:11
I wasn’t happy. was like, I want to do one more. Can I do one? No, it looked great, Steve. It looked really good. Trust me. We’re moving on. So I don’t know. I left feeling like I didn’t do my job. And but when I saw the episode, I was like, oh, that looked really fucking great. know, it looked really good. So they were right. You know, so again, you know what it is. Trust people. You have to trust people. They said it looked good. It looked good. But I definitely didn’t feel good at the end of that day. The ultimate.

52:41
Trustful there. Yeah. Yeah. Steve, you’ve taken us from action porn to blood cannons. And so we have a whole lot of new terms for our vocabulary. So thank you so much. Uh, could talk with you forever. Just so fascinated by what you do. And it’s, it’s awesome and super inspiring that like all the cool stuff you’ve done on the screen, but also the fact like you’re a multi multi-business owner now. And then you’ve, I mean, for, decades, um, and you’re helping out so many kids and adults and doing a lot of good stuff out there. So

53:09
Really glad we met and so glad we could reconnect again in this forum and excited to chat again in the future. So thanks so much for coming on. You know, you have Breakfall Studios, you have New York Combat, Sambo. Did I say that right? You did. You did. And then awesome podcasts, which I was binging earlier. Oh cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Film fights with friends. So definitely check those out. Especially geeked out about the Penguin episode and the

53:37
football coordinator, stunt coordinator. Yeah, Rocco. So there’s a lot of good stuff there. Yeah, that was a cool episode. We try not to be, know, people think we’re a stunt podcast, but we’re really not. We’re a filmmaking podcast. As you see, we have people from every department on the show. And like a fun buddies busting their chops podcast because you guys get at each other. I mean, there’s plenty of places people can learn more about you. What’s like the simplest way for people to learn more about any of your stuff? You just search for Samba Steve, S-A-M-B-O.

54:07
Steve and you will find me everywhere. It’s pretty much universal across YouTube and Instagram and, you can just search for my name on Facebook or the name of the school. can go to ussambo.com and that will bring you to the gym and Breakfall studios. And from there you can find everything. Awesome. And then for those not familiar, Sambos S-A-M-B-O. Yes.

54:31
Last thing final thoughts stages yours. It could be just a quote one line, whatever you want short and sweet Send us home here Sambo Steve. Huh? I will send you home with what I said before if a door opens in front of you Walk through it That you don’t want to be that person that a year from now says I should have done XYZ Don’t be that person you want to be the person that tried If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but you have to walk through the door or else you’re just gonna be stagnant

55:00
Like my coach used to say, stillness is death. You got to keep moving. Walk through the door.

55:10
Or in Steve’s case, let yourself on fire and do a triple McTwist headspin break dancing, beat boxing, piano playing stunt through the door. Thank you so much, Steve, for coming on Wild Business Growth. Make sure to subscribe to Wild Business Growth if you’re not already tuned in, subscribed, subscriptioned out there on your favorite podcast platform on YouTube. It is @MaxBranstetter

55:39
And for all things podcast production or the podcast or the Podcasting to the Max newsletter, that is at MaxPodcasting.com. Thank you so much. And until next time, Let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!

00:00
Well, we’ll get to the procrastination part in a little bit, but.

00:18
Here, here, welcome back to Wild Business Growth. This is your place to hear from a wild entrepreneur turning wild ideas into wild growth. I’m your host Max Branstetter of MaxPodcasting. This is episode 360. And as if we’re not usually corny enough on this show, we’re coming full circle in this episode. Today’s guest is Rob Mattson. Some call him Robbie, some call him Gramps, some call him Rob, and…

00:48
He is a longtime friend, longtime fan of the show from the early, early, early days. He is a Navy veteran, served as an aircraft technician on an aircraft carrier. He has had a very successful sales career and he has walked the equivalent now of about one and a half times around the earth. He had a goal to the walk the circumference, circumference, circumference of the earth.

01:17
by age 50 and he’s still going. So we’ll talk about that in his awesome second lap podcast. It is Rob Robbie Gramps. Enjoy the show.

01:36
Alrighty, we are here with Rob Mattson, also known as Robbie Mattson, also known as Gramps, the man with three names as he’s known by anyone. uh Good friend, we’ve come back. We’ve actually never been in person, but feels like we have because we’ve been connected online. Shout out our mutual friend, your old Navy buddy, Patric Fransko for introducing us in the first place. Pat. What’s up, Pat?

02:05
uh This is episode 360 and we’re coming full circle with this podcast because not only have you been a fan of this podcast and a big supporter of this podcast from the early days, you are someone who literally has walked the equivalent of walking around the entire world. So 360 feels like a fitting episode for you. Rob, Robbie Gramps, thanks for joining. How you doing today? Fantastic. I’m grateful to be here. Thankful. And the irony in the numbers in my life, like when I finished walking the circumference and I don’t want to steal a lot of the thunder,

02:34
but I finished on Pi 314, 2022. So there’s these number of things that show up and being episode 360, I mean, it’s impressive. It’s great. Thank you. I appreciate that. Were you listening to Lateralis by Tool and got the Fibonacci sequence going when that ended too?

02:55
No, half of what you said, I’m like, what is he talking about? All right, that’s one of those songs and background of the songs, either know it or you don’t. So, we’ll spiral out of that one. And I’m a fan, I am a fan of Tool. So it’s surprising. Yeah, well, I’m sure we’ll talk music too, but I wanna start off with something that you and I haven’t really talked about before, but I know it’s a big part of your background, how you and Pat connect in the first place. Your time in the, I wanna say early 90s on the USS Kitty Hawk.

03:24
aircraft carrier in the Navy. I’m somebody who grew up loving Behind Enemy Lines, obviously Top Gun, those movies. I just think aircraft cooliers. Shout out. uh What’s the show? Full House, Dave Coolier. I think aircraft carriers are some of the coolest things in the world. Can you share what life was like on an aircraft carrier? I followed in my dad’s footsteps. And I was going to say, it’s kind of ironic, same name dad. When we go and you look at LinkedIn.

03:53
we have our names in reverse. like one has Robbie quotes in the middle, Rob Matson, the other one says Rob, in the middle is Robbie Matson, and I can’t remember which one of us did, but I followed suit because he had done it first. uh I’ve gotten his uh retirement envelopes for years, the supplies, like that. Anyway, so he watched,

04:20
And I struggled with meningitis in college. And so I was forced to, hey, this is going to happen or you could join the Navy. And I was like, Hey, I’m going to do that. went and because of Top Gun was very, very interested in joining the military all of a sudden. And I think it was the motorcycle and I did buy the motorcycle. And so I fulfilled all of that. think the leather jacket didn’t play volleyball as much as maybe I should.

04:49
Uh, but my humor is not going to get any better. Uh, but yeah, you did my podcast. You know that you still invited me the as VAB, which is the score or the test you take to decide what you could do in the military. I took it and basically I had, think it was a 99 out of a hundred or 98 out of a hundred and I could do whatever I wanted. So I actually decided at first I was going to do ET, which is electronics.

05:15
technician more nuclear. So, hey, I’m gonna do something different than what dad did. He did AT and then ultimately I got talked into doing aviation electronics technician, which is AT, same thing he did. And so I went and basically joined, went to bootcamp, went to A school, which is to learn how to do this stuff and then was stationed with a squadron attached to the Kitty Hawk. So I was never…

05:45
a black shoe as they call them, you the guys that are ship’s company. I was always a Brown shoe or an Airedale or, know, I had the wings of on all of our, ranks and ratings, um, showing that we were part of the squadrons. And so I was part of that. And then similar to like watching Top Gun, you know, not all of the pilots names are actually on the plane. They’re flying it’s on the squadron planes, but they rotate through the planes. And so it’s like, anyway, some of the things that they show.

06:13
in that movie ultimately are nothing like what it is. And then some things are very, very close to being like it. I met Patrick within a couple of months of joining the squadron. So call it just shy of two years in the Navy because I had to go to bootcamp school, then go to the other. then anyway, so it was quite a bit of time in just over a year and a half before. And then all of a sudden I was on the squadron and I Patrick.

06:41
He was in AT as well and it was like, hey, great, we met each other. But he was doing this cool thing called troubleshooting. And I was part of the, basically where you’re gonna do each individual shop. And so I was in the AT shop. And part of that is being in the military and the stuff that they don’t show you in Top Gun is you have to kind of earn different pieces. And so I did the first three months of the first six month tour actually

07:11
temporary assigned duty or TAD to the mess hall. And so I was washing dishes and serving food and things like that, getting scalded with hot water for the first 90 days of that. And then I moved in and had all these clean uniforms and everybody else was all dirty and nasty, because for the first 90 days they were working. And I was, as I said, getting scalded. But I did that, I worked nights. So I got to shift my whole body, and I would basically have breakfast

07:41
dinner and vice versa and that was fun and I enjoyed that. I learned how to drink a lot of coffee at that point in my life. And then I got to do at the end of that first one, so right before Patrick, actually it Patrick was leaving the Navy and I was transitioning actually into being a troubleshooter. My dad flew out to Hawaii and did a tiger cruise with me and got to spend a week after the end of a cruise with us, we did flight ops and

08:09
They get to eat in the mess hall and do all the things we do. And even though he and I did the same thing, he was a reservist, so he’d never actually get to experience it. So was kind of really cool to experience what I was doing through his eyes and actually learn now that I’m older what perspective is. He thought it was super cool. And I’m like, yeah, some of this sucks bad. I can see how you would think it’s cool. I guess what’s the misconception about?

08:36
besides working in mess halls. What’s the biggest mess conception about working on like an aircraft carrier and with these like crazy powerful, I think it was F-18s that you were working with? F-18s, yep. That’s the Hornet or Super Hornet? Yes. That’s all I know about planes right there. That was it. We were Hornets. The Super Hornet was out when we were in VFA 97, which is what I was in. And we actually have a Facebook group. So shout out, hey, whatever. I’m one of the admins.

09:06
But we were running, I think it was A, B, they then had C, Ds, and then the super hornets were E, Fs. And the different letters were one cedar versus two cedars. And so I believe ours were Cs at that point then. So anyways, we had like the oldest planes and all the new guys had that. And so there’s that kind of misconception like, you’re always gonna have the latest and greatest. And we were…

09:31
kind of like the bad news bears and that we were making these things limp along. Shout out, Patrick will know some of these terms, but we had a hangar queen, which basically means we had an airplane that sat in the hangar. The whole cruise, I think one time, just because we didn’t have enough parts to keep 10 of them going. Which, you don’t wanna advertise that because the enemy’s like.

09:58
Hey, whatever, we want to go attack them. And no, they’re really strong. I’ve been like, no, they don’t even have a full set of planes because they’re trying to keep limping along with old technology. anyways, shout out. I normally go really positive, but that’s probably the negative thing I’ve ever said on a podcast. I never thought about that before. That’s cool. I think the statute of limitations is that the hanger queen will forgive you. can you put into perspective the feeling of a

10:24
just being around a plane that’s either landing or taking off in an aircraft carrier. Max, it’s like incredibly humbling to be around, you know, an airplane. And I’ve been around airplanes and interested in airplanes. And, you know, when I lived in Alaska as a kid, my dad had tons of friends that had either float planes or small planes. And I’ve held the stick and flown and all that, you know, as youth.

10:54
You get around, you know, an F-18 and I mean, it’s like being around a Canon. It’s like being around a Dragster, if you’ve ever been around a Dragster or a NASCAR or some sort of high performance piece of equipment that is just, you know, if you get too close to a certain place, it’s going to suck you in like a Ginsu. You have to watch out for that as well as the back. It’s, you know, similar to like a horse. You’ve got to, you know, make sure you’re in the right place during the right time.

11:23
incredibly humbling. I’ve got permanent hearing damage just because they’re extremely loud. And for being a troubleshooter, you have to be able to have the muffs on and be able to communicate with the pilot. And so you can’t have double hearing protection. so at some point I’m to go in and they’re going to start paying me disability because I’ve had permanent hearing damage since I was 20 years old. But anyways, long story. You’re around a very powerful machine. You’re

11:51
kind of ducking under because it’s, you you’ve got them all stacked together. So you’re very conscious of space. They’re usually chained down. So you’re not only trying to avoid the plane, but you’re also looking or not looking. You’re not able to see the like trip wires, if you will, that are there. You’re kind of sometimes even feeling with your pants and you’ve got your pants that are stained with a brown from the chain rust at all these memories that you’re

12:20
you’re bringing up as I’m thinking about the life of that. But yeah, you’re ducking around and then if you’re up there during flight ops, then you’re also dealing with planes that are actually launching and landing and trying not to get vaporized as that’s all happening.

12:39
I’m glad you’re not vaporized. I’m going to, this is going to be a hard cut from, you know, the fastest machines on earth and above earth to one of the slowest things we can do as humans, which is walking. And so I think when I think about you and what you’ve done in your personal brand, and now you’ve got the second lab podcast, which I’m fortunate you had me on recently, really, really cool. You started walking at some point and now you’ve kind of made it part of your identity. And obviously there’s tons of positives that come with it, but you,

13:09
You’ve now turned it into media platforms as well. And so there’s a really cool story there. I actually don’t know what’s, why did you start walking every day in the first place? I’ve thought on this a lot while walking, you know, when walking as one does as one walks and thinks. Yeah, exactly. Well, I call it defrag in my hard drive when I’m walking, I’m actually fixing the realigning and things like that. But if I go back, I

13:38
I would go back and I would tell you that as far as I can remember, uh, we as a family live in Alaska, you know, elementary school, did cross country skiing, cross country running. We were doing five K’s and 10 K’s as a family, all of my youth. So it was always, you know, physical downhill skiing, uh, mountain bikes and living in Alaska mountain bike. And actually mountain biking kind of terrain off road and

14:05
different kinds of tires and just kind of craziness like that. even up to becoming part of my first business, my partner and I, would, in between sales calls, we would pull off and change shoes, kind of like Mr. Rogers, for those that remember who that is. And we would go for a walk for an hour and have a water bottle with us and just have kind of partner meetings, team meetings.

14:32
you know, talk through what did that sales call just mean? How do we, know, sort of a, you know, they’d call it like a post-mortem or a debrief or a, you know, an analysis. We would do that while walking. And that happened and progressed. And then I had kids and, know, I grew to as large as I think I ever was. I think it was probably 225 or 230 pounds, six foot tall. And I was like, why am I not doing this?

15:00
Fast forward, I started to kind of occasionally mowing the lawn or different things, never on a consistent basis. Then I basically got divorced and I think there’s this time where everybody gets sort of slapped in the face with something that was mine and with me and so I bought a Fitbit. This is probably my 12th one maybe or 13th and I’ve had this one. uh

15:27
The one right before this, the longest, I think I had five years and then it shorted, bought this one and then it started working again. So it’s down in the drawer and I have a backup to the, anyway, so 12 of them in and I started measuring sort of the walking and I was doing it and I was, hey, I wanna do this daily and it was passe. People were doing like contests, like a daily contest, hey, who can walk the most and.

15:52
You would do things to sandbags so you could be the winner and things like that. So that started going on and then eventually and fast forward to the meat that you’re looking for and you may cut right to this. So this may be the intro and boom. We’re gonna cut. gonna cut. We’ve been recording for 15 and a half minutes, but you were listening have heard four seconds. So thanks for, no, I’m just kidding. I would not be surprised. No, no, no, no,

16:18
We’re at minute three. I listened to these and I was gonna bring the headphones. I have them over there. I’m not gonna stand up and make you have to whatever, but I had wired in headphones at the time and I would bite on the cord because when you’re walking a lot, they would fall out of my ear. But if I would bite on the cord, whatever. And so I probably have some sort of cavities that came from all the electromagnetic impulses that I put into my face. But I started to listen to podcasts and I started to listen to…

16:46
books and I started to listen to people and David Goggins was on with Jesse Ixler on Joe Rogan’s podcast and talked about living with a seal, which was the book that he did. And I was like, is interesting. by the way, for those picturing like a zoo living with a Navy seal for, you for those, not the seal, the animal. So yes, yes. No, no. Thank you for saying it sounds like a kid’s movie, actually, if you first think of

17:14
If you get to see the cover of it, it’s pretty funny because there’s a, you know, curly head, stir crazy kind of, think Gene Wilder when I think of him and his wife actually refers to him as Gene Wilder like, but then there’s this guy screaming in his ear and that’s David Goggins. oh We listened to them talk and then with, and I was very fortunate to listen to all that. And then David Goggins book came out. And so I basically was probably the 10th book that I listened to on Audible.

17:43
in the time I was listening, been walking at that point three years, two and a half years, three years, and I listened to it and he was basically, the short version is when you get done the way that we are brought up as humans, when you get done and you’re winded and gassed and feel like you just gave the world everything, you’ve given 40%. You have that much more capacity, capability, you have more, but yet,

18:13
there’s things in circuitry and systems that want to protect you and save you and keep you sane and alive and all those other things. And I say that lightly. And so I took that and I was like, I’ve got this much time. It was 20, what was it? 2017, 2018, right in that timeframe.

18:40
And I had just over three years until I was gonna turn 50 years old. And I’d been walking and I did 2,500 miles the first year of my Fitbit without reading this book. I did 3,500 miles the second year without reading this book. And I think I did 4,800 miles the third year and I had read the book and this is when this all started. And I basically went to…

19:03
at the restaurant business would say, went through, I did a soft opening and I started to see how could I do this? I wanna do 12 miles a day, that’s how I can get to this number that I wanna do, which is 24,902 miles on my feet.

19:18
Max, I failed miserably. I couldn’t do it. Like I could do 13 miles and then I would do 12 miles and then would do 11 and a half and then I would do eight and then I would do 11 and a half and then I would do 15. And I’m like, damn, I can’t. And I’m a traveling salesman. Like, you know, your dad is a sales guy. uh Like I’m traveling, I’m at Southwest Airlines, I’m doing all these things and it’s like, man, I’m still trying to squeeze in four hours walking like every day. And how do I do that? And I realized I could do 84 miles a week.

19:49
I failed, I think once in three and a half years to do 84 miles in a week. Every other week I did 86 to 112 miles. I, I over, which made it so that I actually finished 28 days earlier, four weeks early. So instead of my birthday of April 11th, I finished, as I said, 314 high 2022. And now you brought up second lap. Now we’re sitting at 38,000, 100 and something as we speak.

20:18
So we’re halfway through lap two. Congrats on that. That’s. That’s a lot of walking. It’s a lot of walking. Call you Christopher walking, but that’s the best joke I’ve heard you say today. Thank you. It’s the only one. So, yeah. It’s really cool that you you started doing this. You obviously saw there were benefits and then you you set a goal for yourself. And this is like a.

20:44
big goal. This is not like, you I want to run a mile by the end of the month. You know, like this is it’s a lot, a lot of miles. And then you did the work to figure out, OK, what’s actually the equivalent of of walking the circumference of the earth? So congrats on making it this far, you know, one and a half so far. I have a few logistical questions because I’m just really curious, like behind the scenes. So first of all, schedule wise, how do you work this time into your day? I mean, you’re a traveling salesman. You’re busy with your day job as well. How are you still able to get everything done?

21:13
including work and walking. In the early days and through lap one, that completion, it was all hands on deck and it was get everything done. And it was sometimes walking on the treadmill until midnight and sometimes even till two in the morning because I could preload like I would wake up in the morning and I’d already walked two miles the night before technically, but it was that counted as that day. So that’s the

21:41
That’s the problem with their system is it’s a 12 to 12 and because it’s at midnight, it sort of throws things off and then in early days, and I’m not going to go down this tangent, but I’ve probably walked 290 to 350 miles that are untracked because of them and their technology. last mile. It’s like the last tapes, the last miles, secret life. What happened on those walks?

22:07
No, I’m just kidding. it didn’t happen because I don’t have it recorded technically, but I would get on a plane in Dallas at 10 p.m. and I’d have my 12 miles in. It’s like I’m going to get this done before I get on a plane. Well, I can’t sink at, you know, 33,000 feet. So when I land in Seattle, I’ve already gone past one morning in Dallas. So my Fitbit started to reset. So when I land, I get credit for 150 steps.

22:37
I don’t get the 25,000 that I did the whole day before. So it did that a bunch in the early days. I think they fixed that glitch. So there were a lot of matrix-y kind of learning things that it went through, but it’s, as I said, started to say all, all, all times. Like I would get up in the morning and it’s amazing, which you can do between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. You know, can get a couple, a couple hours of walking. And then I would walk during lunch. As time went on, I learned because I create my own schedule as, know,

23:05
a sales guy that I would do, you know, the two-ish hours a day of the mandatory either training or sales profile, you know, the, the, people are sitting like I’m doing now and sitting in front of a screen, those people, instead of doing that, I would have my phone in my pocket and I’m walking and I’m participating that way. And I would do that, or I would have, you know, just where I didn’t have to have a presentation.

23:31
I can talk through pretty anything. And so if my S and engineer, I was gonna say SE, a systems engineer was there, he could drive a presentation and I could talk while I’m walking as well. So I would just prioritize walking. When you get to the grocery store, would park as far out, if not walk to the grocery store as possible. Anytime, anywhere that I actually had to get in a car, I would end up walking maybe close to 500 steps from the car to get into wherever I was going.

23:59
Anyways, because that’s just what I would do is you, you find ways to do it. My house has a central part where the stairs are and I can walk in circles. And so in an hour I can walk a lot. Like I can walk a lot and I would do like patterns on the floor because we have tile floors. I’m going to give you the warped sense, you know, kind of like things because I’m

24:23
trying to keep going. But yeah, you just walk anytime it’s possible and to the point where we set, we’re one car family. We sold the car because it’s like he’s made this goal and he’s not going to ever get in a car by himself. Next you need the Fred Flintstone mobile where you can get your steps in while moving in the car too. I could see this, the whole Tesla and self-driving. I could see you sitting in the passenger side of a self-driving Tesla.

24:51
with one of those pedal things that you have. So you could be actually moving while you’re doing it. I tried doing it. So my equivalent of that, so where my brain goes, during the circumference of the earth walk, or circumference earth 50 is what my tagline was, when I was doing that, I flew to India. So I traveled for a day and a half. So I was walking up and down the aisles of the airplane. While we were flying and people were looking at me and you know,

25:20
all of the stuff about people and the whatever, I was like, hey guys, I have to keep walking. I’m literally walking around here. So like, and in any case, like I said, it’s sporting events. I would walk around the field while everybody else is sitting down in the chairs watching soccer. You know, those kinds of things, Max, like literally, if it’s possible, I would be on my feet. Speaking of feet, I know that you’ve gone through.

25:49
lots and lots of shoes. What tips do you have for keeping your feet in good shape, keeping, you know, just like your joints aren’t aching too much. Cause like you’ve, I’ve heard stories of, especially those who do like ultra distance stuff. And I mean, well, Goggins is one of those like super ultra distance marathons, things like that. some of the blisters and you know, it’s almost like you can get trench foot at some of these tough matters, stuff like that. Like how do you, how do you keep your body and your feet and your mind intact for doing these long distances?

26:18
I take a lot of my life from the movies that I’ve watched and the lessons and the learning that we’ve got there. This is why you run like Forrest Gump does. Lieutenant Dan, it’s amazing the miraculousness of you choosing that movie. Lieutenant Dan, he basically says to Forrest and to Bubba when they’re there, he holds up a pair of socks and he says, socks, take care of your feet.

26:47
That’s the magic. I change my socks on average four times a day. Like every time I go for a distance of walking when I come back, I put those socks in the laundry. Hey, they’re gonna get cleaned up. I buy socks and I’m all tangent. You buy the kind of socks that have a lifetime warranty that if everything goes wrong, you just write the thing and they exchange them. So we’ve been, instead of, I used to throw them away before I knew that was the thing. Like I would wear socks out, cause I’m walking all the time.

27:16
And then we found that out. so when I wear them out, my wife does this program and sends in, we get like eight at a time because we just sort of both use the same brand and, and do that. But I changed my socks after every walk, which is roughly four times a day. Um, so there’s nothing there. Uh, I spent a lot of time in bare feet when I’m not wearing Brooks. So Brooks is your, your running shoe or walking shoe brand of choice.

27:41
Brooks Glycerin is my brand and I’ve had, I think I started with 12s and now they’re in 25s. So I mean, I’ve gone through all these model changes. For a second, when you started saying that I interpreted that as shoe size and I’m like, your feet are just growing, you have shack feet. That would be so awesome. My shoe size is actually a 12. It’s, think it’s 11 and a half, but because you so much, learn, you always get a little bit bigger for your feet swelling.

28:12
Especially when you’re walking 12 miles a day or 16 miles a day at point sometimes How often do you switch those shoes up get new get a new pair? That was the for the joints I can start to tell where when I’m getting close to four Probably 450 to 500 miles. I know that it’s time to get the shoes I’ve gone past when it is and so I can I’m you can’t see me But I’m rubbing my knees my knees and ankles like that’s where you can feel it and it’s achy and you’re like man

28:41
and a new pair of shoes, then we go through new kicks day and you wear those and those are, it’s an amazing day, super comfortable. I tried the tricks where I bought two pairs and I would alternate days. So I would wear a shoe and then I wouldn’t wear it the next day and then I wouldn’t wear it the day after. I got no extension of life. All I did was have to manage which pair I wore yesterday by leaving one set tied and the other one untied and things like that. So I wouldn’t.

29:08
you know, break the system and it gave me no increased effectiveness in the shoe. So it, at the high point of my walking, it was literally 29 days. I had 29 days and needed to do a pair of shoes. You’re like on like a lunar schedule there, pretty close to it. Yeah, exactly. It ties just into all your walking, but as we hinted at before, so you started over the past couple of years, the second lap podcast, which I think is brilliant because you were

29:38
I mean, we talked about it when you had me so kindly on your show, but ah we had talked in the very, very early days about you doing this and what you’re doing and your goal. And I want to start a podcast, but I’m not sure the best way to go about things like that. Something that anyone who starts a podcast goes through those and you had so many great ideas. And so it’s really cool to see it come to life now. But I second lap is that much cooler because, yeah, like

30:05
it would be great to start something along that first lap and kind of follow you as you go through your goal and of course, you’re posting throughout, but there’s nothing wrong with having this. You’re doing the second lap again and now you’re talking about what you’ve learned the first time, you’re talking about what you’re doing on the second time as well. For anybody, like I highly recommend checking out your show. You literally walk and talk. So it’s like while you’re walking, while you’re getting closer and closer to your goal each time and you’re having these amazing conversations. I also have to say that you’re some of the best I’ve ever seen at.

30:35
just getting people to have real conversations and genuine and oh you don’t need to plan out like a 20 bullet point outline or scripted questions, anything like that. Like I think, you we can all agree conversations are good for people and good for connection. And so that was one of my favorite parts when you had me on was of course, yeah, we talked some podcasting stuff. We would talk some technology stuff and that realm, but probably two thirds of that podcast was talking about how I became a

31:02
a father over the past year and talking about how Jamie’s doing and how my outlook on life has changed. And that stuff is so fun to connect upon. And I’m sure it was fun for you to look back at that time in your life too. So for sure, we’re just going to talk for 10 minutes about, you know, compliments for your podcast. no, I, for you, I think what does it mean to you to be able to kind of add this layer where now not only are you walking, but

31:26
You’re also connecting with people during it and you’re talking about all sorts of things and it’s kind of all under this second lap brand or second lap podcast. I think, you know, when we started talking about doing a podcast had, you know, a plethora of ideas and you throw in ADD and you throw in, you know, all these things that you’re doing and, you know, I’ll put a pin there and I’ll pause that when people are getting excited about people and their goals, their

31:56
They’re really excited as people are getting close to their goals. So when I started this whole process, I got to walk this in three and a half years. People, they lose interest in 20 minutes. You know what I’m saying? And I’m trying to be funny and human, I’m being serious as shit. Like people get, even without ADD, they’re like, oh, okay, no. And I’ve learned that as a sales guy, if at 20 minutes people start looking.

32:24
at their phones or they start moving around, it’s because you need to tell a joke or get them to stand up and sit back down and do something. We’re just, a domesticated wild animal. And I was two and a half and then one and a half and a half a year. And so I was always far enough away that that never really entered my mind as that’s gonna be the identity. I’d have to, once I get there, I can have that identity, but it kept me from, I never had a shoe brand or Brooks’s,

32:53
Brooks has taken between me and my bride before she found a bigger toe box and she’s not a Brooks person. We could talk about that. But before she changed, she was Brooks for probably 50 pairs and I’ve gone 130 pairs. So they’ve gotten more out of me than they will get out of a lifetime of most individual runners. And I’m still walking. But I got nothing from her, no endorsements, no free pair of shoes. And I even started this whole campaign.

33:22
Walkers are people too, because their tagline is Brooks running. So I then got an Instagram and I made it Brooks walking and I tried all those things to get in their face and nobody cared because I wasn’t there. And so I got past that. became, hey, I accomplished 25,000 miles on my feet. I did most of it in 12 miles or 84 miles a week, 12 miles a day. I did it in these things. I had a broken toe. I cut my foot.

33:51
traveled around the world, I went on vacations and what one week didn’t even have the Fitbit on my body and that was during the, you know, the thing. I did these things to throw landmines in my own way. In addition to the landmines that are just there as a natural human. And then all of a sudden I was there and I had it. And so I started to do these podcasts with, he goes by Food is Fueled New York City. uh Ryan, I started talking through V Friends.

34:21
Big into web three. And so we started talking. This was the podcast that he did. He interviewed me as a podcast before I even started doing my own. And so I did his and he and I had kind of a jam. And so we did kind of what I’d say, probably probably close to 26, 28 episodes. So we did half a year where we did an episode a week and we just talked to each other and we kind of went back and forth. And that was on the, for those listening, that was on the V dads podcast, right?

34:50
Yes, it wasn’t, didn’t, we hadn’t moved it in and it didn’t have really its own identity. So we were sort of, you know, triaging and helping each other. And as we said, I’m feeling around in the dark a little bit. I don’t know exactly what I want to do. And this is, hey, I’ve seen some people where it’s like you and me, we could just do a weekly podcast and just talk and that could be what goes. And then it’s like, well, how does it be different than other people? How do I do something that’s different? How do I do something that people are going to remember?

35:19
And other than the technical difficulties, which you are going to remember, cause I’m moving, wireless is not ubiquitous. And I’ve been in wireless since 1998 and experienced it. It is so much better than it was, but it’s still not perfect. And if you’re moving, you’re going to deal with those things. But anyways, long story short, Ryan had some changes in his life. And so I found myself sort of an island and I

35:48
had met Ronnie, my current producer, current, you know, better half, 51 % of second lap, met him at VCon through Patrick. So back to the six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Of Patrick Fransko, yeah. Of Patrick Fransko, for sure. But Kevin Bacon makes it so that the people will pick it up and we’ll get more likes on YouTube. I’m trying to tell you, I’m trying to learn these things. Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate you. I all your movies.

36:18
Footloose. That might be a maybe a clip. We might start that the movie with. Oh, I thought you’re gonna ask me to cut it. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. We’re now at the six minute mark, um This is Oh, Ronnie and I got together. Yeah, we had talked to Vycon. We had touched skin. We had become friends. We had shared some NFTs. We’d done some things and he had a podcast and

36:47
I don’t know if he took pity on me, but he sort of, hey, I could help you with some of these things. I could help you with this. And I was like, hey, if we’re to do this 50 50, I can talk to everybody in the world. I can do whatever, but if it doesn’t go in the right socials, if it’s not the right tags, if it’s not the right product coming out the other end, and you and I talked about this, this was the magic sauce that I had to come to terms with. And most people that I do the podcast with don’t fully understand yet.

37:16
the parts are worth more than the whole. Like the whole YouTube shorts, the back to the whole people have 20 minutes worth of attention span. My podcast, a lot of times are 45 minutes. I’m defeating my own rule. I’m going too long. Yet Ronnie can cut it up into 50 clips of Opus, through Opus Clip or whatever it is, and he can start posting it on different socials. he’s slowly, as you said, you don’t wanna get flagged and stuff, so he slowly turned the spigot on.

37:46
you know, four a day and now five a day and six a day. we’re, you know, trying to hit the right people, but we’re, really trying to spread the news and we appreciate you highlighting the podcast, but we’re really trying to spread the news and help a younger generation to, you know, have conversations, to learn the lessons, to hear some of the, you know, skinning of the knee or bumping of the, the forearm, you know, the scars that we have that

38:16
keep you from becoming maimed or worse, you We wanna be able to share those and we try to do it in a humorous way. I think one of the things that I find most curious is curiosity. Like I really have become more and more and it’s getting faster and faster and I’m wondering when it can slow down and.

38:42
And I can’t remember if it was you, somebody that I was talking to as the podcast things were kind of come into terms. And I don’t know if I credit you, might’ve been Brian, another guy was in the Navy with Patrick. But they were like, you’ve consumed all of this stuff. Like it might’ve even been Dr. Danita who was a guest like two depots ago. They’re like, you’ve consumed all that. You need to get it out. You need to share it with some people. you’ve.

39:10
It’s not like I was going to boil over, but you know, they do share with you that, you know, to learn the best things in life, you get to the point where you’re, you’re teaching, like you’re, you’re a mastery of it. And I’ve been waiting a long time to say this. I’m glad your podcast is where I’m going to use it. They say 10,000 hours of anything makes you like a professional. I’ve walked for like 15,000 hours now or whatever it is. I’m like,

39:40
I’m a double platinum professional procrastinator and walker. Like I’ve got a couple of, you double majored in both those. Well, we’ll get to the procrastination part in a little bit, but I think that was my best joke ever. Start the whole thing with that. That’s the clip. Half the people won’t understand what you just said. So you might have to go back. They’ll get there eventually.

40:09
So I guess whether it’s whether you’re doing it, you know, walking and talking to a podcast or not, just high level, if you kind of zoom out, why would you recommend walking, you know, for anyone who can to add as part of their daily repertoire? We all talk about health and we talk about mental health. We talk about how to be a better person. We talk about all these things. All of them require action. So I equate walking to action and it gives you

40:39
That ability for me, I locked in when, and I don’t know if he’ll be a bad guy at some point. So if the future, he’s a bad dude. Remember that we’re all in this. Yeah. Disclaimer. Yeah. Disclaimer. But I, I watched an HBO special. I think it was on with in Bill Gates brain or something like that. And he would take these pauses in life where he would grab a bunch of books and he would go off and he would consume them and walk and.

41:08
think about them. And so that was part of what I was thinking as I put the earphones in and I started to do the circumspect the earth by age 50, you know, challenge with myself is I started, I want to be like Bill Gates. I want to be smart. I mean, he was the richest man forever. When I lived in Redmond, Washington, going to Redmond high school, he would be Bill sightings that you would see working at Microsoft. And so was like, man, I want to attain that. and so

41:38
Walking gives you that time. I said earlier, defrag your hard drive, which is, you you do all these things and you’re in the midst of something and all of a sudden, your kid comes up and you have a kid now, so I can use this as an example and you understand, you’re in the midst of, you know, dicing onions and this beautiful human comes up and grabs your leg and you go off and do this thing and you come back and hopefully your onions aren’t stinky because you were gone for too long, but you finish up kind of doing your thing. in our mental world, we rarely come back.

42:06
Like, so it’s like this garbage in your head. And I think it’s why we have certain dreams or nightmares or we don’t sleep well or we eat bad or we do all these other things have anxiety because we have these thoughts in our head that never get to end. I use the walking to have that, you know, way to clear that out. But it’s really been me going to school. It’s been my ability to learn that curiosity thing I said.

42:35
My big thing now, I’m kind of a snob when it comes to it. I wanna listen to autobiographies read by the author, read by the guy that it’s about and listen to their tone and inflection where the humor comes from their body language that comes through because it’s them that they’re reading. And I want it to be over four hours because each book costs $12 and so it’s like a financial thing. It’s just really hard for my brain to get around. Hey, I can just listen to a three and a half hour Joe Rogan podcast and it’s free.

43:04
I don’t have to do this four hour book over here, but I wanna get as much out of each as I can. I think that is so walking for me and why back to your original question is it gives people an excuse to go out and do something that’s gonna be good for their mental health and they can take the opportunity through AirPods or wired headphones to do something else or go with a partner and have a conversation like I do with you do somebody that’s stationary.

43:34
On second lap, that was the last plug.

43:40
Well, that’s a wonderful note to end on and would be a perfect place to wrap this up, but I’m going to screw it up because I really want to do some rapid fire Q and A with you. Please do. Yeah. You ready for it for this? All right. Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s get wild. We’re stretching. We’re doing some, some tibia dorsiflexion. That’s my favorite workout from high school football. remember. Uh, well, it my favorite workout. It’s just a fun thing to say. It is. It’s when you, when you’re stretching someone, uh, I mean, it’s usually with the partner when you’re, you grab the

44:09
the front of their feet and like pull wait the top of their feet and pull it down towards you. it stretches your shin. Okay. muscles. I guess. Yeah. I guess you dorsiflex your tibia. Anyway, more where that came from Alaska. So super cool. I mean, I’ve always been fascinated by Alaska. I haven’t been there yet, but I definitely want to go there at some point. It just seems endlessly beautiful and also endlessly huge when you see the

44:38
realistic maps, it’s almost intimidating. Genormous. Yeah. What’s like your elevator pitch for why someone should either visit or move to Alaska, live in Alaska? So I moved to Alaska as a kindergartner, spent the year, a fourth grade in Utah, and then I left Alaska in the ninth grade. So was there during the youth. I give that as context of if you’d asked me then, I’d have said,

45:07
want to be here. I want to be back in California with my friends. I want to go swimming. We would go to Hawaii on the dividends from living in Alaska every year. And I would love to be at the beach. So I’m a beach person. So I would have said that I did cover it as a, as a sales guy in my early fatherhood. So I would go up and I would sell industrial products and drive around up to Fairbanks, things like that. And going back as an adult, I would tell you that it’s so awesome. I mean, it’s like, you know, untarnished world.

45:35
There are some dense populations of humans that you can go and get your supplies and be around, but you can easily get on a float plane or get in a car and be gone and away. We’d spend all weekend from Friday night through Sunday down on the beach in Alaska in a camper that my parents left there. And we’d go fishing and just outdoors and downhill skiing and riding up on this chairlift above the clouds and then skiing through the clouds. mean, just.

46:04
All of that stuff, being in rivers and hip waders and a moose walking in while you’re fishing for salmon, all that’s happening. Like a bear standing up against the outhouse of the cabin you’re renting, out of Lakeia to fly into a thing and somebody pulling the trigger of a gun so the bear would run off and not maul us all and eat us. And that all happened. Rapid fire, I tried to rapid fire back to you. Let’s hope you weren’t in the…

46:32
I can’t imagine how scary that is if you’re in the, if you’re sitting down at an outhouse where we’ll talk about what doing, but a bear scratching at, oh my God, geez. We were, we were at the campfire and the outhouse was up behind us. So no, the guy that would have been, that was a shitty situation. All right. All right. Sales. haven’t, haven’t, Diven dove, dived much into it, but I mean, you’ve had an incredible sales career.

46:59
a lot of big name companies, especially in like the tech space, the cybersecurity space. For anybody in sales, what’s like your best sales tip? Just quick tip on sales. The oldest one is two ears, one mouth, listen more than you speak. Them talking is you winning. Ask open-ended questions so that once again they’re talking. I the ultimate goal is to get them talking. I use it to get my biggest secret hack to ADD.

47:27
which is in the midst of the presentation, there are times where I will go to Bermuda. And then I come back and there’s still a room of people and I’ll look at the room of people and I’ll be like, what was I talking about? And they’ll either know, and if they know, I know they’re listening and hey, it’s a cue and I can’t, whatever. And if they have no idea, I start over, I go somewhere else. was like, we don’t remember you. And then it’s like, okay, I used kind of my…

47:56
What does it say, using my negative as a positive? So I would say that. But sales really is about people liking you, people buy from people they like. That’s why I think, and I’ve had numerous conversations, thousands of conversations with adults, and we do all believe that AI will never take over the job of a salesperson because people wanna talk with people. They wanna human interaction. And I’ll say this to you.

48:23
I hate talking to these automated systems on the phone where you just. it’s the worst. Yes. It’s like, I just want somebody to hear my voice. Oh, we just did a, um, I actually mentioned it on, uh, when you had me on your show, you know, we had this cousins get together in the city a few weekends ago and then we had a big family style meal at car mines after, which was great. And it all worked out. I’m not kidding. I, I had five or six different calls with car mines to get that reservation and make sure there were enough high chairs because car mines has some automated system.

48:52
where how can we help you? What are you interested in? All these things. to be, to specifically be like, all right, we have a group of this many, we need this many high chairs. It eventually got to the point where they were just like, sorry, I can’t help you. You know, it’s like, and so you need to, you need to talk to the host or hostess. They changed the systems where it used to be, I’m gonna show my age here, but you used to say zero and you come up and say, no, but I want you hit zero again. would know zero again. And then would, it would hear you.

49:23
the third zero. And then it was like the pound sign. And then it’s like, you have to know Morris code now in order to get past. Or you can’t get to a human ever. And I just, anyway, so I don’t think salespeople will ever be replaced. You’ll get replaced by a bad salesperson or one that can’t use the technology or the tools or the things, you know, can’t get behind the times, but you’re always gonna have a human because people just, as I said, they just want it. So listen more than you talk.

49:53
War movie, you mentioned Top Gun was very inspirational for you. Besides Top Gun, what was your, and I know that’s kind of romance as well, but what is your favorite, if you could watch it on repeat on a plane, what’s another war movie that you put right up there? Max, I don’t like to watch the war movies as much as I did when I was youth. really have, I take my TV time and I give my TV time to have acts or Twitter for those of us who are old enough to know there used to be a bird.

50:22
I kind of give my time to a different way. Yeah, I’ve tried and I really, my thing is lead with love, leadwithlove.eath, if you’re into Ethereum, I’m really about either fear or love, you get to choose and I’m choosing love, so I’m leaning in that way. I have sons, you look at war movies differently after you’ve had a son, you’ve had a daughter, you maybe look at differently after a daughter. I can’t remember that far back anymore, because the daughters were first.

50:50
I’ve seen all the ones that I would say are worthy of the awards they have, Saving Private Ryan, I think the first 20 minutes, no real conversation, just those doors opening and the guy next to you’s head exploding and the realism of being that I’ve been on an aircraft carrier and around people and thinking all, you know, I’m very.

51:15
much because I listen to books more than I watch movies. My brain is a better movie projector than that. Whatever. I kind of shy away from, but I would also say that I grew up in a family where my parents were huge, like dirty dozen, uh Magnificent Seven, anything with the Duke.

51:38
all those Telly Savalas, I’m trying to think of all the guys. mean, I just, all the old war movies, my mom was really big into those and even with a son. So I just kind of contradict myself really crazy. But, or Clint Eastwood, you know, all those kinds of things, you know, those are kind of dating myself. I don’t know, the new ones like Full Metal Jacket. Now you’re dating yourself because you called Full Metal Jacket a new one. And it’s probably 30 years old, right? It was a…

52:05
Yeah, I mean, it’s got to be 80s from the 90s. It’s got to be the 90s. I’m trying to bring it. I’m bringing it north. New ones would be. uh Oh, I actually really liked Warfare. You watch Warfare. Warfare was really good. I watched it on a plane a couple. It was it’s just in one of those classic movies where it’s so innocent at the start and then it just spirals out of control. But it’s like all pretty much in one setting. It’s crazy. And that’s our that’s our version. My wife just watched all seasons of Homeland in a.

52:34
seven week period and I got to watch all of it and it was like very reminding of the whole Saddam and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I have one. I know keep going back to this, but one more military adjacent question for you. What is the song that was either like your guys like pump up song or that you listened to before you got deployed? Like what song do you think about when you think about that era and when you were serving? There are so many pieces of music that take me back.

53:03
to that time because not only was I in the Navy and hair on fire and being that whole thing, was having two children and becoming a father as that’s all going on. So that’s happening and it was 1996. Michael Jordan is winning the NBA champion for either the, was it the second three Pete? It’s like, so I’m trying to think when Space Jam came out and then-

53:32
Yeah. Yeah. So back up from there. know, what year was he a baseball player? That’s what you got to figure out because that’s kind of the defining thing in there. But I have these shirts where I had to wear it, you know, because I was a CL Supersonics fan and my other family was in Chicago. And so the rivalry because they were in the better. But back to the music. I can always come back around the tree. I would go to either anything on the Top Gun album.

54:00
just because you’re gonna take why it’s the association. Kenny Loggins stuff. Yeah, Kenny Loggins. For me, I would listen to, while I was reading books, because I didn’t have audible at the time, would listen to Discman, so I’d have the CD and I’d have the earphones, I, R.E.M., the Smiths, I grew up on everything ACDC, everything Van Halen, everything, you know, sort of that guy, and I just…

54:28
It was anything but country western and I would tell you with Kenny Chesney and a couple of these guys that have gone in and bastardized David Matthews I’m even listening to a little bit of country western now So i’ve you put music on and i’m probably gonna start moving my head. Well that answer was tnt. It’s a dynamite so I think one of jamie’s favorite uh post-bath songs by the way, so fantastic Rob, thank you so much. Uh, oh I had one much later one to throw in just because you mentioned it

54:58
Are you a crier when you chop onions? I’ve tried every single, what do call them? Mama’s lesson or whatever. Wives, wives tail. Yeah. Nothing stops it. A good, a good onion. When that’s going to be really good in your flavor. Cause I like onions. Like I like raw onions. I like sauteed onions. like burnt onions. like all that’s a whole, that’s a whole other thing. Cause that

55:24
I can’t stand raw onions, but I think sauteed onions are some of the best flavored and smell in the world. My parents tried to punish me with onions. Didn’t work. Joke’s on you. I love them. Yeah, jokes on them. Because I lived in Seattle, showing my days before I graduated in high school out of Southern California, moved a lot. We were home of Costco. And you go to Costco and you get the ketchup and a row of raw onions on the top of it.

55:53
You get the flavor and the heat and the crunch and all. It’s just sorry. Awesome. No, that’s that’s great. I love little like quirks like that. I have the same. I I cry like a lot when chopping onions. Also in general, but yeah, chopping like like I’m the same way where it’s like you there’s nothing like you can kind of try to close your eyes, but that’s not safe while chopping. So.

56:20
I don’t know, I just learned kind of recently that not everybody has that. Like some people don’t cry while chopping onions, which blows my mind. So crazy stuff. So. can of duck your head out. Like if you do the kind of duck and dive. Yeah, but all this is not safe for chopping stuff. No, no, no, no. Everything. Like I was thinking when you started doing the, I know what this is, but you’re right. I was like, no, you’re right. Everything is knife safety avert. Like anything you do to try and avert. mean, I mean, guess you could put the whatever is.

56:47
cotton balls or something up your nose. I’ve never tried anything like that. That doesn’t sound, yeah, nevermind. Don’t do that. Well, as Bill Raftery says, audience. So Rob Robbie-Grams, thank you so much. This has been an absolute blast. I know it’s been a long time coming. Thank you for having me on your show and for, know, obviously that naturally led into this as well. It’s like, it’s long overdue you coming on here. So appreciate all you’re doing. uh

57:14
Strongly recommend everybody check out second lap podcasts. I know you’re you’re on all the platforms. You’re on Apple You’re on Spotify on YouTube as well YouTube even do live streams, which is awesome more power to you That’s a whole other bag of worms in terms of tech issues and all sorts of things, but you’re up for it So where else Rob, you know, whether it’s social media or anything else you’re doing, know, what 3.0 space like what’s your main CTA? What do you want people to check out to learn more about you?

57:38
The best way to find me, because in my world, especially when we’re looking at web three and a lot of these X people is I want to be a doxed real human. You know, you’re not talking to some bot. And so I am R H M A T T S O N.

57:57
at all of the socials in a blue check mark fashion so that you know it’s me. And I only say that if I type R-H-M-A-T-T-S-O, you should see how many people are trying to look like they’re me, all the way down. so I guess it’s flattering because they’re doing that, but yes, just check me out. I’m on Instagram and Facebook, both as I said, blue check mark, just to make sure people know that in this sea of

58:27
digitality of people that you know that you’ve got a buoy of me over here that you can know that you’re talking to a 54 year old man that’s got Einstein and Johnny Cash telling you what you can do for the world. And smooth sailing and uh you know hopefully a lot more smooth sailing than uh a blues from a fulsome prison or anything like that but Rob. Good one. Thank you. I’m grateful. Appreciate you. Back at you. Final thoughts just literally one line take us home here could be a song lyric could be your outlook on life just

58:56
Send us home. Hug the human every day. Make sure it’s 20 seconds. It’s when you get the best amount of positive events.

59:08
Rob, you are lucky that this episode wasn’t edited down to 20 seconds. Rob, no, thank you so much. Absolute blast. Long, long, long time coming. Really, really appreciate all you do. Make sure to check out his 2ndLap podcast. And for those of you, Wild Listeners, Wild Viewers out there, make sure to subscribe to Wild Business Growth on your favorite podcast platform or on YouTube. YouTube is @MaxBranstetter for the video versions.

59:34
And you can find all things MaxPodcasting, the Podcasting to the Max newsletter, anything else about the show at MaxPodcasting.com. I hope you all have a nice Memorial Day weekend in the US at the time of this recording. And until next time, Let your business Rob Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Full Transcript
• Show Notes
• Wild Business Growth podcast Summary

Episode 360: Rob Mattson – Walking the Earth, Aircraft Carriers, 2ndLap Podcast

Rob Mattson, the Host of the 2ndLap Podcast, joins the show to share his journey from serving as a US Navy Aviation Electronics Technician on the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier to walking the circumference of the earth. Hear what it’s like to be around fighter jets as they take off, how to find time to walk more, how often to change your shoes, why you should visit Alaska, and whether we cry when chopping onions. This episode covers everything from Tool to The Flintstones. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• What’s life like on an aircraft carrier
• Why did Rob start walking every day
• How do you keep your feet in good shape when walking long distances
• Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon & Patric Fransko
• What song does Rob think about when reminiscing on his time in the Navy

Connect with Rob on social media @RHMattson and check out his 2ndLap Podcast.

Enjoy the shoooooow! Check out the show notes below for much more detail. You can also find the full transcript here.

Show Notes

• Intro & Life on an Aircraft Carrier in the US Navy
  • [0:27] Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to save time with your high-quality podcast and use it as a business-building tool
  • [0:30] Connect with Rob on social media @RHMattson and check out his 2ndLap Podcast
  • [1:56] Carrie Reagh and Patric Fransko – Wild Business Growth podcast #52: Social Mint and Eye Magnet Management
  • [2:46] “Lateralus” by Tool
  • [3:42] What’s life like on an aircraft carrier
  • [8:33] What’s the biggest misconception about aircraft carriers
  • [10:21] What’s it like to be around a fighter jet taking off on an aircraft carrier

• Walking the Earth & The 2ndLap Podcast Story
  • [12:55] Hear Rob interview me on his 2ndLap Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify
  • [13:16] Why did Rob start walking every day
  • [17:02] Living with a SEAL by Jesse Itzler
  • [20:17] “Christopher Walking” by Pop Smoke
  • [21:04] How do you find time to walk during the workweek
  • [24:36] Would Rob thrive with the Flintmobile from The Flintstones
  • [25:49] How do you keep your feet in good shape when walking long distances
  • [26:26] Does Rob run like Forrest Gump
  • [27:37] Why is Brooks Glycerin Rob’s walking shoe of choice
  • [28:17] How often does he change walking shoes
  • [31:20] What has the 2ndLap Podcast meant for him (Apple Podcasts, Spotify)
  • [34:45] VeeDads podcast
  • [36:02] Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon & Patric Fransko
  • [40:19] Why should you walk more
  • [43:36] The Wild Business Growth podcast is on YouTube! Subscribe @MaxBranstetter to watch full video interviews with Wild entrepreneurs like Rob every Friday
  • [43:37] Sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter and receive How to Edit Your Podcast in Audacity. It’s where podcasting meets entrepreneurship – and terrible puns
  • [43:39] Such an honor speaking at Podcast Movement ’23 in Denver! Sign up to grab the slides from my session at MaxPodcasting.com/PM23

• Rapid-Fire Q&A
  • [43:56] Tibia Dorsiflexion
  • [44:43] Why should you visit Alaska
  • [47:05] What’s Rob’s best sales tip
  • [48:35] Carmine’s
  • [50:01] What’s the best war movie
  • [51:55] Full Metal Jacket came out in 1987
  • [52:14] Warfare
  • [52:49] What song does Rob think about when reminiscing on his time in the Navy
  • [53:28] Space Jam came out in 1996 and Michael Jordan switched to baseball in 1994
  • [54:58] Does Rob cry when he chops onions
  • [57:13] Connect with Rob on social media @RHMattson and check out his 2ndLap Podcast
  • [58:52] What are Rob’s Final Thoughts
  • [59:26] Follow the Wild Business Growth podcast and tell a friend about the podcast. And show love (or roast me) by leaving 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify
  • [59:29] The Wild Business Growth podcast is on YouTube! Subscribe @MaxBranstetter to watch full video interviews with Wild entrepreneurs like Rob
  • [59:30] Check out the Wild Business Growth podcast on Goodpods, where you can see what your favorite people are listening to
  • [59:32] Connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter (aka X), and Threads @MaxBranstetter and TikTok @WildBusinessGrowth
  • [59:34] Save time with your high-quality podcast. Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to bring your podcast to life and use it as a business-building tool
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00:00
An unbelievable commitment to quality.

00:19
HeyG1, welcome back to Wild Business Growth, your place to hear from a wild entrepreneur turning wild ideas into wild growth. I’m Max Branstetter of MaxPodcasting. This is episode 359er and today’s guester is Kat Cole. Kat is the CEO of AG1, formerly known as Athletic Greens. AG1, if you haven’t seen them advertised in some form.

00:49
is absolutely seemingly taking over the world in terms of supplements and nutrition and nutrition’s plural. You can tell I don’t work there. uh Vitamins, daily health drinks. It is a fascinating, fascinating company. And in this interview, we talk everything from Kat’s journey from a Hooters girl to up the ranks of Hooters, leading the charge for more and more tasty food brands like

01:18
Cinnabon, Anne’s, Welcome to Moe’s, and everything from how AG1 markets their one-of-a-kind product to how she has been able to help them triple their revenue in recent years. It is K-A-T-1. Enjoy the show.

01:44
Oh, Rady, we are here with Kat Kohl, CEO of AG1. And we’re gonna set a record for things that have three syllables or three letters. Boy, I’m on top of it today. Kat, thank you so much for joining. How you doing today? Great. Thanks for having me. Of course, of course. Thank you so much for making time. know, it’s really cool. I love when whenever I have a guest on I love

02:12
listen to them in other podcasts and looking at their LinkedIn and learn more about their background. Just so I know a couple of questions to ask you and for you, it kept coming back to Hooters and Cinnabon. So two iconic brands, very different realms. So of course I want to talk a little bit about that before everything with AG1. Hooters, near and dear to my heart, we actually have, uh you know, we used to go to Myrtle Beach growing up and there’s some big family

02:36
picture that we have, like including my grandparents and cousins and all, like a huge family picture that for some reason we took outside of the Hooters in Myrtle Beach. So it’s like if you look at in our family lore, you know, the Hooters brand is there. Also, I know growing up, uh I was nervous whenever I was talking to a Hooters waitress there. So let’s hope today I’m able to get over that and as a former waitress yourself, things can be smoother. So on the Hooters front.

03:06
Obviously, there’s so much we could say about the brand there, but what’s something about the Hooters brand or the Hooters business as a whole that you think most people would be shocked to learn? I mean, the big one, look, it’s a very mature brand. was born out of the early 80s. It’s gone through many iterations of the concept, but because it’s known for female waitstaff, there is this assumption that, oh, there are these

03:34
these women, these girls who are waitresses, and then the men run the place. And actually women ran the company. One, like 80 % of the hourly workforce was female. Every person I worked for in my 14 years there, until I worked for the CEO was a woman. So you just think 14 years, assistant managers, general managers, marketing managers, promo managers, regional managers, and I had incredible male mentors in the company as well.

04:03
But it’s pretty wild to think about an entire career of that duration that is predominantly female leadership. And certainly that contributed to not only my story of seeing incredible examples of women in leadership, but many others. My story is not unique. There were a ton of former Hooters hostesses, waitresses who moved up into salary roles, management roles, became franchisees, became executives like I did. I’m one of many.

04:32
actually. So I think that’s the thing that might surprise people. Yeah, it’s really, really cool to hear. And from your standpoint, I saw I think you’re 26 when you got your first VP role there and moving up there. So what do you think made the difference for you to go from, you know, working at one location to actually being like in charge of, you know, training and development across, all these places around the world? Well, first, I think, again, it wasn’t very different from my predecessors there. So

04:59
many of the executives came out of operations, came out of running restaurants. So in that system, it wasn’t exceptional, but it is exceptional when you compare it to many other people in different businesses and different industries. So I just want to give credit where credit is due. Like the business was just a talent machine uh pulling people from the stores into roles where they would shape policy procedure and make decisions that would then affect the employees.

05:29
on the franchise and corporate side. So that should just be noted. It wasn’t all me, but it was me among many others. And so if I look back and think of the me related things that made a difference that were similar when other people got those opportunities as well, uh one was I worked all the jobs, right? Not everyone wants to work all the jobs. I worked all the jobs. I was a hostess, a hostess, a waitress.

05:58
a bartender, a shift leader, a promotions manager, a regional training coordinator, a new store opening manager, a fix it trainer who would go to stores that had problems and uh retrain team members, a management trainer. So that’s part of the outlier element of the people who did move up in the company, including me, is we had the breadth of experience of knowing end to end how the restaurants ran and

06:27
that is required to be exceptional in corporate management at such a young age, right? Because there’s so much when you’re that young. I was 20 when I took my first corporate gig. So I moved to Atlanta and became an employee training manager in the training department and then moved up as the company grew. And as you said, at 26 became one of the vice presidents and then was in various executive leadership roles for six years there. And so what I lacked was experience in years.

06:55
at that level of management in multiple companies. But what I had was unparalleled knowledge of the way the operations worked, what the employees and managers needed, what good looked like from the inside, not just the outside. And that makes a difference if you’re willing to tap into that internal experience as a strength. And I did so worked all the jobs is one thing. The other is I enjoyed working all the jobs. I wasn’t working all the jobs because I felt they were rungs on a ladder to get

07:25
up the ladder. That certainly ended up being the case, but that wasn’t my why. I was working all the jobs for three reasons. One, uh I grew up in a tough upbringing, very poor family on both sides, single parent, alcoholic father, helped raise my daughter or my daughters, my sisters who are like my daughters, I guess. have an actual daughter and son now. And so I needed to make money. And if you can work more different hourly jobs, you have more access to income.

07:54
So it was very self-serving, the reason I wanted to work all those jobs. The second driver of the why is I love to help. Sometimes the way I learned the job was not thinking, oh, if I learned how to be a bartender, I could have two more shifts this week. It was that the bartender had to go home because her son was sick uh or the manager needed help because her assistant manager called out and I wanted to be helpful. So the second of my why is I’m a helper.

08:21
I like to be helpful. like to enable others success. I have since I was very young. And the third is, I uh was curious, like, can I do it? I think I can. Can I do it? No way to know unless I try. And usually when it’s in a moment where someone needs help, it gave me more courage to be not perfect at something because no one would expect me to be perfect because they’re asking for my unexpected help. And so I’m like, can I do it? Yeah.

08:49
It’s probably fine if I’m not perfect. So I needed to make money. I wanted to be helpful. And I was curious to see if I could learn and do the new thing, put those together. And I ended up raising my hand for almost every opportunity that came up, whether it was an impromptu need or something that was more typical, like a job opening or an opportunity to travel and open new operations. Well, the other thing that we didn’t even talk about with Hooters, but they always found delicious was the food. uh, and speaking of delicious food,

09:19
Cinnabon. So I will raise my hand and voluntarily, you if you ever need Cinnabon taste testers, you know, I’m always game for that. But these are kind of quirky questions, but I just have to know first, what’s the secret? how did the team create the Cinnabon smell anytime you’re by a Cinnabon to be like the best smell in the world? It’s funny, you know, people have all this lore around do they pump it through fans and

09:49
It’s just the fact that the ovens are out front. And so when you’re baking all day, fresh baking, I mean, every hour you’re pulling fresh baked cinnamon rolls. It’s like when you bake cookies in your house, right? The whole house fills with that aroma. Same thing, except imagine baking cookies in your house all day, 24 seven. That is what we were doing. They’re all fresh baked. Many of them made from scratch for many, years, hand rolled in the store.

10:18
baked in these ovens right behind the counter. And so that aroma is just getting out everywhere. And there were times that the founders of the concept tested putting the ovens in the back like a normal restaurant. The reason they were in the front to begin with was they just got a small space and so it was an accident. And when they put the ovens in the back, the sales dropped by half. So they’re like, even if we have more space, those things are going out front.

10:46
And it was also part of the theater, right? It helped you see that they were fresh made. You literally could see them going in the oven as raw dough roll and coming out fresh baked. So there was something about the theater that also drove the watch, the awe, the gawking, in addition to the aroma, attracting people. So nothing other than just fresh baking, delicious, uh full of sugar and fat products that you definitely should not be eating every day or very frequently, but.

11:15
iconic, right? Like iconic aroma, iconic product, the cinnamon roll the size of your face. And something that in the 80s and 90s was beloved and, you know, in every mall. And then over the years, even trends of, of consumption and indulgence has changed. People wanted smaller products, more responsible indulgences. We ended up expanding the product into grocery stores where it was just the cinnamon and coffee creamer, just the cinnamon in

11:44
coffee flavors and finding more ways to extend that nostalgic flavor and that delicious aroma, but into things that were less insanely indulgent as the world moved to more conscious indulging. Yeah, that’s actually, and that hints to my last question for now, before we get to AG1, I promise we will get to AG1 in this interview. I guess the distribution or retail strategy, whatever you want to call it, there’s not that many brands that

12:10
come top of mind when you think about like airports and malls and historic like, there are very specific locations that like Cinnabon, Anyands, I know another brand that you you touched over the years. Yeah, fantastic smelling one, by the way. But what went into this, like such like a defined distribution strategy there of like, hey, we need to be in all these airports, we need to be in those malls. And then I guess ultimately, testing out grocery as well. I mean, if you think about any

12:40
business’s distribution strategy. There were a few things that lead to it. And it was certainly true for Cinnabon and the other brands that were in focus brands, the parent company that I led. Cinnabon gets all the love because it was, you know, I was president of Cinnabon in the recession and we turned it around and it’s a really fun contrast comparison to AG1. People like to highlight like from cinnamon rolls to nutritious drinks and supplements. But the reality is we had many brands in between. Jamba Juice,

13:09
uh, Mo’s Southwest girl where we had. Welcome to Mo’s that, you know, my wife, says that all the time. Uh, McCallister’s, Schlotzky’s, had deli soup salad. So we talk about Cinnabon a lot, but my portfolio of brands, I ran the parent company, there were nine presidents and seven incredible brands, some of which were healthy for you. Some where you could pick your, pick your path of more indulgent versus healthy and others like Carvel and Auntie Anne’s and Cinnabon.

13:38
or just pure fun, ah not good for you, but fun for you. The strategy for those brands, if you think about it, is that fact, that the average consumption for Cinnabon, the average frequency of a customer was 1.25 times a year, one visit per year. So if people only come see you once per year, what must be true about your location? You must be around many unique

14:07
visits per year. If it’s the same people every day, like a roadside of traffic patterns going to or from work, you won’t do very well because they’ve already those same people who drive that route every day have already come to see you. They’ve made their one to two visits per year. so airports, casinos, vacation destinations, travel plazas, malls, these are places that

14:38
Individuals don’t go very often, but many people go occasionally. That’s just it. So the snack brands are in high, unique feet, unique foot traffic locations. They do not require the same people going every day. If you contrast that with something like a Mo’s where you would go to lunch every day or a schlotzky’s to get a salad or a flatbread, those, while they might do very well in a mall or an airport,

15:05
perform very well with the same people, office work, travel, commuting, and so different distribution strategy versus say an AG1 that is a daily consumption habit subscription business makes a ton of sense to be online in the most direct to consumer convenient way for people to shop in a way that is the best value for that high frequency consumption habit. If you put those two occasions together,

15:35
very low frequency, sporadic, indulgent occasions, very high frequency health consumption. You have this stuff in the middle, which is grocery. People who shop a couple times, not every day, but it’s once a week, twice a week. So when you’re shopping in grocery retail, you are less likely to indulge, purchase very indulgent things because you don’t want that in your home, shouldn’t have that in your home, right? That’s a special treat. But it might be expensive to buy something you’re consuming very frequently.

16:05
there. But for things like an occasional like muffins, cereals, coffee creamers, grocery and retail makes a ton of sense. It also makes a ton of sense for discovery of a brand. And so we would put some of our restaurant brands, sauces, products, uh well known versions of those items in the freezer section in grocery stores, because it’s a great place to discover the brand or be delighted by a brand you haven’t had in a while if you don’t go to the mall often.

16:34
Whereas AG1, people who are really serious about supplementation and their health are probably likely to go to our website and find their favorite flavor and their perfect subscription package for the best value delivered wherever they want. But we’ve just rolled out in Costco in the last year, in Target just this week, AGZ and AG1 with seven counts and 14 counts, which is a great place for people to grab that in between amount if they forgot it on a trip.

17:03
ah If they want to gift it to a loved one or just try it when they never have that’s easier for many people to do then go to a website with larger portions and a subscription

17:17
Not that I’m full yet, but with that appetizer of Hooters and Cinnabon. Let’s get to the AG1 entree. And as you mentioned, it’s fascinating to compare and contrast these brands. And the previously mentioned brands have seemingly been around forever and iconic and have very distinct personalities. And AG1 now compared to those, it’s like, it’s a baby. It’s brand new. Yet, I mean, in my lifetime, like I’ve never seen any sort of nutritional drink or

17:47
supplement, vitamin, whatever you want to call it, product take off like this. And I know since you’ve been there, there’s been really, really cool, know, tripling of revenue, we’ll call it that we’ll get into all that. But so AG1, formerly athletic greens, I heard that one of the big influences of you actually landing this role in the first place is uh has to do with the podcast. Can you tell us about that?

18:14
I’d been on a few podcasts that were more, you know, had more of a venture capital backed audience, more of startup audiences. And the founder of then called Athletic Greens heard me on two of his favorite podcasts and then asked to be introduced to me because the business was growing so quickly and he was humble enough to know he could benefit from advisors outside perspective to help him on growth, leadership, brand.

18:43
operations. And so he asked for an introduction to someone he realized was a mutual connection that guy made a dear, just incredible human made a connection with us. And the founder asked me to advise him and I just left 10 after 10 years at focus brands was taking time off to be with my little kids post COVID and reshaping that whole business within the restaurant and hospitality industry. So it was

19:11
beautiful timing because I was in this advising era of my life. I’m like, I’m going to advise, invest, work on blogs, books, whatever I can do to share knowledge while I think about what will I do next? Will I operate again? Do I want to start a fund? Will I spend my time in more of a portfolio approach? Really all were considerations in 2021. And then Chris reached out to me and said, look, here’s the things I heard you say. This is what I think I need help on.

19:41
Could you be an advisor? And he didn’t know because the subscription was under my husband’s name that I had been a customer for two years. So I was a huge fan. And actually I had no idea how big the company was and I didn’t know much about the business of the product. I just loved the product. It had helped me so much with my energy, my immune health, my hair, skin and nails after my second child. And I was one of these over-supplementers going to the grocery store, getting a bunch of pills and powders. And my husband called me out one day.

20:11
and said like half this stuff is expired. You don’t travel with it. You travel so much. You don’t keep up with it. Try this. And he gave me a pack of AG1 and I tried it instead and I was able to stick with it. I built a routine in the morning, shaking up this like incredibly healthy green drink. And then I started feeling the benefits. So I was a huge fan. And so you put that together. He asked me to help. I was in a moment where that’s what I wanted to do. I’m an angel investor.

20:40
many, many early stage companies. So I have a deep love and respect for founders and early stage businesses. And I was a fan, a customer. And so I started advising him and that advisory work turned into him saying, look, just come help me build this. And it turned out to be an incredible moment. Many people have heard this word, the Japanese concept, Ikegai, where you have

21:03
overlapping circles, almost like a Venn diagram. And I forget all the specific circles, but it’s like your purpose, the opportunity, the chance to grow, mission driven, fits lifestyle, right? Like all these things. And that was absolutely AG1. So I joined in the fall of 21. And alongside the founders, we grew the business. It was growing like a rocket ship, like over a hundred percent year over year. We raised our only round of funding raised 120 million at a 1.2 billion pre.

21:33
uh valuation and then grew the business. And as you said, we’ve tripled the business since then, turned it to profitability, which it wasn’t in those early hyper growth stages and moved it from a single product, single channel business to now multi-product, multi-channel AG1, AGZ, uh all these things. And now Costco, Target, Amazon, and more to come with the broadest breadth of those products, flavors.

22:02
and incredible science-backed innovations available still on drinkag1.com. Well, congrats on that. It sounds like you guys have been busy. You might be napping every now and then, but not constantly. I think uh that’s a really important point that you shared is that you, mean, unbeknownst to the founder at the time, you were already a fan of the brand. with brands and big name brands like that, I always think that uh there’s a finite level of how passionate you can get.

22:31
about a brand that you didn’t start yourself, unless you’re like a fan, like if you’re a customer, and you’re using this all the time, and you kind of live that lifestyle. And so that was such a great, perfect fit, as you mentioned there. Now, looking across the category, do you even, how do you describe the category that you’re in? We actually straddle a few categories, which is like Ikegai. Yeah, it’s quite interesting, right?

22:59
As a product, we are a daily health drink that combines three very clear supplement subcategories. A multivitamin, there’s a full stack, very thoughtfully curated research-backed multivitamin, multi-mineral on the label with amounts showing you what is the amount of each key vitamin and mineral. We have probiotics in AG1 NextGen, five of the most clinically studied, live, dairy-free.

23:29
live culture probiotic strains, uh incredible. then, so that’s the second category of supplementation it combines. And the third is what people would consider greens, superfoods, phytonutrients, prebiotics, right? This beautiful fruit and veggie blend that serves many purposes. One of the purposes is those fruits and vegetables themselves contribute to vitamins and minerals. They are prebiotic.

23:56
uh fibers for the probiotics. So you get many different um plant varieties that help feed beneficial bacteria in the gut. And then you have uh adaptogens, herbs, mushrooms, things that have other benefits over time. And so it is a daily health drink, which used to be, I guess, in the OG days like orange juice or Tang, like what do you wake up and drink that gets you going?

24:24
This is, AG1 is definitely the thing now, but it is also replacing your multivitamin, replacing uh your base level probiotic and combines those things in a ritual that you can stick with. People stick with it because it becomes a ritual versus something you have to do like pills, a lot of separate pills. And it doesn’t replace everything that everyone needs, of course, but it radically simplifies.

24:52
a growing complex stack of vitamins, minerals, and superfoods that work together to support energy without caffeine. uh Love caffeine, but it’s also great to have that mental focus and nutrient-driven energy throughout the day, that more natural sustained energy. Gut health, all of our human clinical trials have continued to show proof of beneficial bacteria growth that helps support uh

25:21
a healthy gut, all kinds of other markers of a healthy gut, short chain fatty acids, digestive perceived digestive benefits, less bloating, et cetera. And then all those things come together, right? Vitamins, minerals, energy, natural energy, gut health to lead to a strong immune system because a large part of our immune system lives in the gut. So we are in the natural energy, nutritional supplement, immune support, digestive support business.

25:50
But ultimately, the way I think about it is it’s functional food and beverage. It’s your daily health drink. And what we’re starting to see really driven by GLP-1 usage is this fusing of food and beverage and supplementation. How do I make sure what I put in my body is nutrient-dense? I can eat as healthy as possible. I can take supplements, which you have to make sure are high quality to know what’s in it and it’s getting into your body and doing what the company says it’s going to do.

26:18
What’s starting to happen is those things are coming together because there’s only so much food you can eat and only so many supplements you can take. So the more you can make sure you’re eating and drinking the nutrients that you need on a daily basis, not just occasionally, the more you’ll cover natural nutrient gaps and meet growing nutrient needs in a busy, stressful lifestyle. you look at all that goes into it, it just makes the story that much more impressive because the people say, especially in the like,

26:47
the service business, people always say like, don’t try to appeal to everybody, you can’t do everything, like you really have to find your niche and focus and like, if you’re known for like one thing, that’s how you stand out. That’s, you know, in the service business, like that’s how people refer people to you. And your standpoint, like, there’s so many benefits, and there’s different types of ingredients. And there’s really like, if you’re looking at this, and like, you know, like when I was in business school, I could see back then if AG1 was around, this could have been thrown as a case study of like, where should they focus? Like, who do they market to and all those sorts of things.

27:16
So it’s that much more impressive that you and team have been able to put it in what started as one core product and now there’s multiple products, but the brand and what’s behind it is such a strong thing. What do you think has allowed you to achieve such consistent growth uh with the product that many people could say, you know, it’s kind of complicated at its core, I guess. An unbelievable commitment to quality. You don’t get this much

27:46
Um, repeat purchase. Think about it. People are writing a check metaphorically speaking, right? It’s hitting your bank account every month, or if they’re on our three month plan every three months, either way you are being reminded, you don’t forget, you don’t set it and forget it, right? You are being reminded that you are paying for this thing and it is showing up physically at your door. It’s not even like a SAS subscription you can forget about. You have constant reminders.

28:16
that this is something you should value. If you don’t, you cancel it because we’re high integrity, we make it pretty easy to cancel if you want. And so what would drive that level of growth? In a DTC business, you can’t keep acquiring your way to that type of growth. Not in an economically feasible way without constant subsidies, fundraising somehow, which we’ve only done one of. You have to have people who love it enough.

28:44
to make it a part of their daily routine and tell their friends. That doesn’t happen because of, no offense, podcasts or marketing. There’s no And you take that back, no, I’m just kidding. Yeah, yeah. There’s no amount of marketing that can get someone who is investing $2.63 a day in their health to keep doing it if they don’t feel that it’s working. It’ll get them to try it. It won’t get them to keep drinking it or tell their dad or their kids or their friends that they should drink it.

29:13
So that focus on quality from the early days that then led to outlier attributes like having NSF for sport certification that proved what’s on the label, proves what’s on the label is in the package. Our commitment to an additional 20 million worth of research, five human clinical trials, peer reviewed, double blind, randomized, placebo controlled for anyone who says it’s placebo.

29:41
There’s more human trial rigor in this single multi-ingredient skew than anything similar. And those are the types of things, those investments that say to a customer, A, I’m feeling more benefits because the quality is there and the consistency is there. But even for things that I may not feel, when you eat an apple, you don’t miraculously feel healthy. When you eat broccoli or chicken, you don’t

30:10
miraculously feel better, but you know that there are good things in there for you. So you should do that pretty often for a supplement, especially one that’s on the vitamin side versus say sleep or energy where you’re going to expect to feel something. You have to trust that what is in that is covering your gaps. How do you trust proof?

30:31
So over the years, we’ve invested more in proof, more in third party verification of our label, of our ingredients and of our claims, Eurofins, Alchemist Labs, NSF for sport. I could go on and on and form sport in Europe. And then the human trials that prove what’s going on in the body that explains why people feel the benefits that they do or what is going on even if they don’t feel something that they might have a question about like a particular vitamin or uh a probiotic.

31:01
And so that, that’s it, right? It’s quality, quality, quality. That is what drives growth. That is what drives trust. And it is millions of tiny decisions and lots of big ones that in many cases, the customer won’t ever know about or see, but stack up to that level of high quality experience. And then what we’ve shifted to in the last few years, turning that quality into marketing.

31:29
Like actually filming at the labs, having the labs talk about our procedures, having our creator partners talk about our approach to safety, our approach to quality. Like it used to just be lifestyle, unboxing, all these fun things. And now it’s what really wins and converts is yes, people talking about their own experiences, but it is really people advocating for how do you know what’s on the label is in this stuff? And how do you know it’s the good stuff? Because it’s the wild west out.

31:58
Yeah, I think there’s endless desire to know like, okay, what are the actual ingredients in here? What’s the behind the scenes? Like what are the trials look like? What’s the kitchens look like? You know, what’s the kitchen smell like? Shout out Cinnabon. I think, so you and team have done an incredible job obviously in terms of that focus on the quality, the focus on the testing and to make sure everything is know, shaped from that perspective. You mentioned that

32:24
you the word of mouth and referrals to friends and family is what really takes the business to the next level, which is true. It is true in pretty much every business. Obviously, you know, podcasts can only go so far. That being said, I know you yourself had appeared on lot of podcasts. Some might say you got the AG1 job because you’ve appeared on podcasts. I’m just making that up. No, but it was a catalyst for sure. Yeah. But then also the. So like I personally am a huge fan of Tim Ferriss and like you guys have been sponsors of the Tim Ferriss show for I mean, as long as I can remember.

32:54
And so can you just talk a little bit about like when you’re looking at your marketing strategy overall, like what are some ways or some levers that you’ve found a way that maybe this is a potential way that can create some word of mouth? What’s interesting is we, um one, I’m so proud of all the partners that we get to work with. since I’ve joined and long before it was in our DNA, we only work with people who are authentic AG1 drinkers or AGZ drinkers if they’re promoting AGZ.

33:23
because the customer can tell the difference, right? A paid read is a paid read, but it’s that in between occasional mention of, love this stuff, or I was drinking my AG one and then, and it is so important in a high skepticism industry, like supplements to have truly authentic partnerships. And you mentioned Tim Ferriss. So Tim Ferriss put us in his book, The Four Hour Body, ah that was 15 years ago, and he didn’t have a podcast then, and we didn’t pay for that.

33:52
And there was no sponsorship. And so many people will call out the highlights of our big scaled business today and miss the fact that Rogan was an AG1 drinker right long before he had a podcast. Huberman, same thing. Tim, same thing. And there’s so many other partners who that is true for, who we have worked with over the years. So it starts with they’re a customer, they’re a fan.

34:21
then they start telling their community, we wanna double down on that. And we did that early before podcast sponsorship was the thing that it is today. We were very early because some of our early customers became those very originators of the podcast movement. So then the way we thought about it is trusted recommendations. You’re a real customer, no one can talk about the product better than you. And if you’re spending your money, your time, if it’s your job building a community,

34:50
that has value, we’re going to pay you for that value. We’re not going to take advantage of that. And so we built a machine to do that consistently. But today, as we’ve brought on incredible leaders, our CMO, who’s led world-class brands, our chief growth officer, that’s done the same. Our marketing mix today would probably bore some people who think it’s all podcasts. is out of home. It’s TV. It’s direct mail. It is a

35:18
very diversified marketing mix. The creator part, if you want to think of creators broadly, is a low double digit percentage of our marketing mix. The way we think about it is one, at our scale, a full funnel approach. We have demand generation where we want to be in front of people, community, IRL, activations, run clubs. Our run clubs are unbelievable.

35:42
And really just having the brand out there. And occasionally we’ll be sampling and mixing things up, but it’s about enabling people’s morning and their start. Then moving more mid funnel, right? Getting people who have some awareness, but helping to explain what is this product? It’s green. What does it taste like? What’s in it? Is it a vitamin? Is it an energy drink? Is it a gut health product? Right. Taking people on that journey to understand when you see AG1, the daily health drink.

36:11
What about it is a health drink? Oh, I’m drinking my multivitamin and my probiotics. Got it. Oh, I’m getting a good diversity of plants that are hard to get. Got it. uh Then it’s taking people further down that funnel of when I get that, what does it do for me? It supports natural energy. It supports digestion. It’s an incredible companion to people on GLP-1 agonist class of drugs that are eating much less and have less access to nutrients. It’s a gut health support product. Okay, got it.

36:40
Now I understand what it is, I get kind of what’s in it and I understand what it’s supposed to do for me. Then people, you’ve got to bring people on different journeys. Some say, eh, I don’t know if I can trust that. How can I trust it? You take those folks down the third party certification, human trial research path. There’s others that are like, yeah, I trust it because someone I trust recommended it. My dad, my brother, my trainer, my doctor. Where can I try it?

37:08
I just want to try it before I subscribe. So then taking them to trial mechanisms versus the people who are super warm, they’re definitely interested. They just want the best value, which is going to be subscribing. Three month plan on our site. So there’s a full funnel approach that requires giving people the information they want and not more than they want in that moment and giving them the opportunity, long form blogs to go deep or quick fun hits on paid social.

37:37
or something that reinforces who is this brand on streaming or on TV, like our Hugh Jackman partnerships. It’s like, someone who’s a incredible performer seems to defy age, doesn’t promote a lot of brands. That guy drinks AG1. That’s interesting, right? Like women and men alike are resonating with Hugh Jackman, of course. Some people see him as Wolverine. Others see him as the greatest showman. So if you think about that range that I just described.

38:05
It is really an approach of full funnel demand generation, demand creation, pulling that demand through and recognizing a premium supplement purchase that simplifies and combines so many things is also a deeply considered purchase. It’s not something people hear about the first time and decide to buy. We are long past that moment. And so we have to have what people want and need throughout their consideration journey.

38:34
As you said, you all are doing an incredible job and I think you called it a highly skeptical industry or an industry that people get highly skeptical about. I’m not sure the right terminology. Unfortunately for you people are going to be highly skeptical about my next questions because we’re going to wrap up with some rapid fire Q &A. You ready for it? Yeah. All right. If you just random ones here, totally not tied to the business at all, but all right, let’s get wild. I heard that you had a very non-traditional, I guess, order.

39:04
in your life of you got your MBA before any sort of undergrad, anything like that. Can you just give us a quick look into what was involved in you getting into a grad school without having that degree? One, I’ve gotten pretty far in my career. was a vice president of a company doing 800 million in revenue.

39:25
And I had a mentor tell me, look, everyone in the industry knows you. If all you want to do is be in hospitality, restaurants or franchising, you’ll be fine. But if you ever want to break out into different industries, you need an advanced degree. And while I didn’t know if I agreed with her, and certainly that is far less true today than it was back then, I didn’t know if I agreed with her, but I hated the idea of having a door closed to me. Like I am the queen of optionality. I do not want a door closed.

39:55
And so that was one reason I pursued it. was good advice at the time. The other was she also, you know, gave me a provocation where she said, you’re an incredible leader, but you’ve been in the same company for 14 years or at the time it was 12 years. And I thought, am I as good of a business person as I think? Or am I only good because I just know this company inside and out. And one way to prove that was to get an advanced business degree where I’m working with.

40:24
other professionals. And so that was the why behind like, why do it when you’re already a vice president? Many people do that to get a job to like get I, I had unresolved questions. And I wanted to make sure doors weren’t closed to me. So what was involved is many of these incredible universities and business schools have executive MBAs, where you go to school nights and weekends. So it’s not Monday through Friday, eight to five, it’s Thursday through Sunday, um five to nine. And you have to

40:54
have led for a certain amount of years at a certain level. You have to take one of the qualifying tests for uh an MBA and pass with a higher score than is typically required because they’re trying to de-risk it. then you need referral letters from sitting CEOs. And so I got 10 letters from CEOs uh of people whose companies I had helped over the years.

41:21
those I had advocated for, who I would have never thought I would have anything to ask of them. But this was the one thing I asked of them. Can you write me a referral uh letter to make sure they know I’m a sure bet? And so that’s what was involved. They did. And I got into all the schools I applied to. That’s an amazing look. I’m exhausted just from your application process for that. But that’s a great story. All right. And speaking of exhausted, you and your husband are certainly a power couple in many ways. Can you share the crazy world

41:50
trotting feats that your husband does and that he tries to achieve? My husband who has spent his entire career split between operating venture backed companies and then transitioning to the investment side, being an investor uh in venture capital with the focus on early stage businesses. uh He is also as a hobby, an ultra endurance athlete, is one of these people who runs hundred mile races, helps other people train races like

42:20
Leadville, the Leadville 100, the Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc. So he does that stuff, you multiple Ironmans around the world. And then that led him to ocean rowing. He rowed the Atlantic Ocean with a rowing partner, set the US record, fastest crossing of the Atlantic in a rowboat in 45 days. And when he was done with that, he decided he wanted to keep going.

42:44
and circumnavigate the globe on only human power, which means he rose the oceans and cycles the continents. So he has rode the Atlantic. He has rode the Caribbean, which took two attempts, a Southern attempt and a Northern attempt after having to be rescued in a very dangerous situation on the Southern attempt. ah He has cycled most of the U.S. so he’ll complete the U.S. cycle. And then when he does that, he will have completed one third of the planet and will plan the Pacific row and the Australian cycle in the years to come.

43:16
A lot of AG1. A lot of AG1 on that boat. say you have your built-in uh power influencer ambassador there. All right. And then last one, you mentioned a little bit at the start that you had a bit of a tough upbringing and uh you basically were put in a role that you had to help raise your siblings at a young age. Looking at the positives of that, what do think that meant for your career to be kind of thrown into a higher responsibility role at such a young age?

43:45
It certainly created a incredible muscle for leadership and in particular mission driven leadership. Like I wasn’t paid to take care of my sisters. uh You negotiated your baby. I ended up from a very young age in a related way, volunteering for a lot of volunteer leadership roles, nonprofit school activities.

44:12
So it was clearly my joy, my muscle and my calling to lead groups of others, to help other people be their best. And I can’t think of a single one of those examples, debate team, track, cheerleading, the nonprofit where I was the best performer, the most knowledgeable, the sharpest, the smartest, there was always someone who knew that thing and performed that thing better than me.

44:41
And I felt the most fulfillment, not in trying to be better than those best people at that thing, but in uniting everyone who was doing the thing and bringing the resources to bear and being there for when things got tough. And that was my joy. So certainly building that muscle when you’re not in business or in income driven things is pretty powerful when you then combine.

45:10
If you can lead people when they’re not being paid, it is an incredible skill to have when you then bring in financial stakes or other elements of business that bring in other elements of the human experience, ego, teamwork, again, compensation, career development, impact on the world. So it gave me an early start is the short answer to what most people don’t really start getting to until they’re in their twenties.

45:38
maybe in their early 30s, like actual leadership roles. I’ve been doing that since I was a kid. So it builds a muscle, a real comfort with being wrong, a real comfort with not being the best, a real comfort with the range of the human experience that occurs in teams and in different types of businesses at different moments in their trajectory. And I love work. Like I grew up, I love work. I am not a…

46:06
Uh, one day I’ll go sit on an Island. Like how long can you sit on an Island? You’re going to be sunburned. You’re going to be bored. You know, I feel work is noble and I love all types of work and championing all types of work, whether it’s solopreneurship with incredible AI tools for people to shape their own freedom and narrative and opportunity or big, big complicated networks of human type of work. that early experience built me.

46:35
almost I’m built for purpose for leadership at scale in particular. Okay. Thank you so much. It’s just a wonderful message to live by and to learn from and really appreciate you sharing all, all the behind the scenes of, you know, different stages of your career and all the amazing growth at AG1. I know if people want to learn more, they can do so at drinkag1.com. You’re on LinkedIn, you’re on Instagram. Is there anywhere else you want people to connect with you? Oh, all the places. X, I’m Kat Kohl, ATL on X, we’re drink.

47:06
underscore AG1. AG1 was taken and we couldn’t get it. So we’re drink underscore AG1 on a lot of those platforms. But yeah, we’re on we’re in all the places, all the all the things if you’re there, we’re there. Come find us. Perfect. And then I often end with final thoughts where it’s to live by. However, I think you’re a last answer. I mean, it’s gonna be hard to top that. So we’re gonna land this nicely. Thank you so much, Kat. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

47:34
Thank you, Kat. Thank you, Wild Listeners, for tuning in to another episode of Wild Business Growth. You can subscribe or hit follow on your favorite audio platform, as well as subscribe on YouTube @MaxBranstetter for the video versions. And all things about this podcast, about me, about the Podcasting to the Max newsletter, if I could even pronounce it correctly, would be at MaxPodcasting.com. Until next time, Let your business

48:04
Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Full Transcript
• Show Notes
• Wild Business Growth podcast Summary

Episode 359: Kat Cole – AG1 CEO, Cinnabon President, Hooters Girl

Kat Cole, the CEO of AG1, joins the show to share her journey from Hooters Girl and President of Cinnabon to tripling the revenue of the top daily health drink. Hear why Cinnabon smells so good, the unique way Kat became CEO of AG1, what’s led to the growth of AG1, their marketing strategy, and the leadership skills she learned from her tough childhood. This episode covers everything from word of mouth to “Welcome to Moe’s!” Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• What’s something people would be shocked to learn about Hooters
• Why is Cinnabon in so many malls & airports
• What is AG1
• How did Kat get into grad school without an undergraduate degree
• What crazy fitness things does her husband Daley Ervin do

Connect with Kat at DrinkAG1.com, on LinkedIn, and on social media @KatColeATL @DrinkAG1 @Drink_AG1.

Enjoy the shoooooow! Check out the show notes below for much more detail. You can also find the full transcript here.

Show Notes

• Intro, Hooters, and Cinnabon
  • [0:27] Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to save time with your high-quality podcast and use it as a business-building tool
  • [0:30] Connect with Kat at DrinkAG1.com, on LinkedIn, and on social media @KatColeATL @DrinkAG1 @Drink_AG1
  • [3:09] What’s something people would be shocked to learn about Hooters
  • [4:44] How did Kat move up the ranks at Hooters
  • [9:34] Why does Cinnabon smell so good
  • [12:26] Why is Cinnabon in so many malls & airports

• The AG1 Story
  • [18:01] How did Kat become CEO of AG1
  • [22:49] What is AG1
  • [27:28] What’s led to the growth of AG1
  • [32:59] What is AG1’s marketing strategy
  • [38:31] The Wild Business Growth podcast is on YouTube! Subscribe @MaxBranstetter to watch full video interviews with Wild entrepreneurs like Kat every Friday
  • [38:32] Sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter and receive How to Edit Your Podcast in Audacity. It’s where podcasting meets entrepreneurship – and terrible puns
  • [38:34] Such an honor speaking at Podcast Movement ’23 in Denver! Sign up to grab the slides from my session at MaxPodcasting.com/PM23

• Rapid-Fire Q&A
  • [39:13] How did Kat get into grad school without an undergraduate degree
  • [41:47] What crazy fitness things does her husband Daley Ervin do
  • [43:35] How did her tough childhood help teach her leadership skills
  • [46:52] Connect with Kat at DrinkAG1.com, on LinkedIn, and on social media @KatColeATL @DrinkAG1 @Drink_AG1
  • [47:40] Follow the Wild Business Growth podcast and tell a friend about the podcast. And show love (or roast me) by leaving 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify
  • [47:44] The Wild Business Growth podcast is on YouTube! Subscribe @MaxBranstetter to watch full video interviews with Wild entrepreneurs like Kat
  • [47:46] Check out the Wild Business Growth podcast on Goodpods, where you can see what your favorite people are listening to
  • [47:47] Connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter (aka X), and Threads @MaxBranstetter and TikTok @WildBusinessGrowth
  • [47:48] Save time with your high-quality podcast. Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to bring your podcast to life and use it as a business-building tool
  • [47:52] Sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter and receive How to Edit Your Podcast in Audacity. It’s where podcasting meets entrepreneurship – and terrible puns
  • Theme music: Freestyle Percussion Magik – “Jungle Tribe” – provided by Jamendo

What is the Wild Business Growth podcast?

Wild ideas. Wild growth. Every Wednesday morning a new entrepreneur joins the Wild Business Growth podcast to share the wildly creative and unusual ways they grew their business – and teaches you how to do it, too. Hear the minds behind WordPress, Stacy’s Pita Chips, Drybar, NFL RedZone, Big Mouth Billy Bass, the voice of Bart Simpson, and more Wild stories. Hosted by Max Branstetter (that’s me), Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting.

How do you start a podcast?

Interested in starting a professional-sounding and professional-looking podcast for your brand, but don’t want to deal with the time commitment of all those behind-the-scenes details? I’ve got you covered. Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to save time with your high-quality podcast and use it as a business-building tool.

Thanks for listening to Kat Cole on the Wild Business Growth podcast. To hear more Wild stories like this one every Wednesday morning, follow the Wild Business Growth podcast and tell a friend about it. And buy them some AG1. Until next time, Let your business Run Wild…and Bring on the Bongos!!

[00:00:00] ​

[00:00:05] All righty. We are here with Jess Loseke, co-founder of Midwest Barrel Company, uh, as someone from the Midwest and who loves barrels and companies as well. This is a dream come true. So thanks Jess. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining. How you doing today?

[00:00:33] Great. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:00:35] My pleasure. My pleasure. Well, thanks for all you guys do. Um, we we’re gonna get into all sorts of your story involving barrels and bourbon and wine and beer and all that, all that fun stuff. But before that, I have to rip the bandaid off in a very, I’ll call it inappropriate way, but it ties to your business.

[00:00:53] Um, as prep for this, there’s some interesting things I’ve learned about your business and a couple things involving barrels. One being sex toys and one being bungholes. So choose your own adventure. Which of those, uh, would you like to share a story?

[00:01:12] Uh, I mean, let’s just tie ’em together. How about that? That’s, that’s where we wanna start.

[00:01:17] Yeah. Well, it might be,

[00:01:19] Okay.

[00:01:19] well, you can decide if that’s where we wanna end too, but yeah, go. Yeah, go for it. Uh, share, share what those have to do with your business.

[00:01:27] Okay, so we are gonna get right into it. So, um, let’s do a little barrel anatomy for you. So every barrel bourbon barrel anyway, is built from American Oak. American white oak wood, and each barrel has what are called staves, so you can think of those as the slats. They have two heads and they have six rings, and the rings are what hold it together.

[00:01:49] There’s no nails, no screws, no hinges. One of those staves contains a hole in it, and it goes either on the, what is called the belly of the barrel, or it goes on one of the heads and wherever it is that is called. The B hole, which gets lots of chuckles from people outside of the barrel community.

[00:02:11] it’s a, it’s infamous for, uh, from Beavis and Butthead, right? There’s a famous line about it. Yeah,

[00:02:16] know, I am not super familiar with, um, EVAs and Buttheads show, but I could imagine that fitting right into the type of comedy that, that they enjoy.

[00:02:28] there’s some famous line about TP in in Bungholes. We’ll just leave it as that. But anyway, that’s how I first heard about it before the barrel anatomy came into it.

[00:02:37] Yeah, so probably the most, um, crazy story of any barrel that we’ve ever sold was when we were still located in Nebraska and there was an individual that lived in western Nebraska that liked to produce interest rate in interesting contraptions for. Intimate activities, and so he purchased a barrel from us and was going to make some sort of contraption.

[00:03:11] And I don’t know how the B hole was working into that, but I’m sure that’s, that’s as far as I got in my, my questions. We, we left it at that.

[00:03:20] I appreciate that. Um, yeah, and I just threw you through the ringer right away. Uh, don’t always start with every guest talking about bungholes and sex toys, but we’re relevant. You know, we always try to ring it up. So thanks for that, Jess. But, so let’s.

[00:03:33] That’s the most interesting podcast intro I’ve ever done. So

[00:03:38] Great.

[00:03:38] that to the

[00:03:39] It, it’s up there. Well, next week we’re, uh, helping a client launch the Bung Hole podcast, so that should fit well. No, I’m just kidding. So,

[00:03:46] Yeah.

[00:03:48] all right, let’s get a little, a, a little less unruly. Um, let, let’s get to Midwest Barrel Company. And so you hinted at some of the, uh, the interesting ties of the barrel world there, but, uh, I heard that.

[00:04:04] This actually started like way, way, way back in the day. Kind of from your, your husband’s hobby of like buying and selling stuff online. Can you, can you take us through his shoes and kind of your perspective of that?

[00:04:16] Yeah, so when

[00:04:18] I.

[00:04:18] first got married I was working in HR consulting, so I specialized in human potential and positive psychology and traveled quite a bit with healthcare clients, and so I was gone a lot and he was working on his PhD. What is called viticulture. So viticulture is the science of growing grapes, and he had quite a bit of extra time on his hands, and so he started going to garage sales, auctions, estate sales, if you’ve ever seen the show, American Pickers, that was like right at their prime and he was like right in the American Pickers era. So I like to tell the story that he started out buying other people’s junk and reselling it to make money. So he did that from 2013 to 2015. And in 2015 we had our first kid and I thought, Hey, maybe we shouldn’t spend all weekend, every weekend at these auctions, because he was buying farm equipment and collections of things, so he would have to be there.

[00:05:19] Very first to scope out what he wanted, but then he always wanted the most expensive things that went at the end of the day, and then we’d have to go back it. It just was a whole thing. So he decided to start thinking about what’s one item that he could and resell, and he landed on wine barrels because of his connections in the Nebraska Wine and Grape Growers industry. And he started doing that and quickly learned that craft breweries were using barrels to age beer and started getting requests for bourbon, ba barrels. And just this hobby kept getting out more and more out of control. that’s kind of the background story. Do you want me to go into it? How I got into it?

[00:06:01] Yeah. Yeah. Would, would love that. But, uh, I, I think real quick on, on that part, what, what is going through your mind when. Your husband’s spending all of his free time, just like basically a whole black market online of all sorts of different products.

[00:06:17] Yeah. Yeah. So. I, I tell, I get asked a lot, how do you work with your husband? I, I could never do that. I could never work with my husband and I, I totally understand that, but I think the thing that makes us a really unique match is that we both let each other be who we are and we don’t try to change each other.

[00:06:36] And so when he started wanting to do this, it really wasn’t out of, it wasn’t motivated out of making money, it was motivated out of. opportunity and just something that he thought was fun. And so I was super supportive and my support started to change as we started having a family, because he would go to state auctions and buy things, and the police kept coming to our house because he would buy like a bicycle, for example.

[00:07:07] And then he would list it on Craigslist at the time, then somebody would see their bicycle listed, contact the police, and then they would show up at her house. So this was happening fairly regularly. He would go meet people in parking lots. I didn’t love that one to sell. I mean, it can kind of be a bit of a dangerous game, but ultimately he got a lot of joy out of it and I was not involved.

[00:07:29] That was like his thing. And he did his thing. I did mine and we were happy Couple.

[00:07:35] All right. So what turned you into an unhappy, no, I’m just kidding. No, but what, what made you what? What made you realize that it is time for you to join the business as well?

[00:07:46] Well, nothing made me realize. Um, so in 2017 we had our second son and I had a four month old baby and I was getting, I’d gone back to work for maternity leave. I was getting ready for work and I was running through the house, like physically running, and I went around basement. Landing and I slipped off the top of the landing and I shattered my left humerus bone.

[00:08:11] I broke ribs. I eventually had to have back surgery, it was a life changing injury, I took another leave of absence. I tried to go back to work the following January and I just, I wasn’t ready. I still had a ton of physical therapy I needed to do, and Ben was in his last semester of his PhD program, and so I quit my job without a plan. So we were living off of, he worked at, for the University of Nebraska. And so, um, we were living off of his very small salary and then he had this business that took up a ton of time, but we were really, we were funneling every dollar back into it because he would just use that to buy more inventory and. quit my job not ever intending to be in barrels, but he had hired one employee and through 2018 they were with him and I, I had kind of started, you know, showing up a little bit more. then at the end of 2018, that individual quit and we just had kind of our own come to Jesus moment of. Do, do we want this to be a real business or is this a hobby that we need to scale down?

[00:09:19] And ultimately we decided, let’s go all in. reengaged in childcare and I showed up not knowing anything about bar barrels, but I knew how to work really hard and I knew a lot about leadership and scaling, um, companies just from working with other great leaders that I had. And so it turns out we’re a pretty good team, and that’s how I entered.

[00:09:42] I just kind of showed up at work one day and I was like, at least I,

[00:09:47] Uh, I got chills in multiple ways. Uh, one just fired up that, you know, you guys were like, let’s do this. Um, but on the negative side of, um, on the childcare side, you know, we, we’ve learned over the past year how expensive daycare is and that, that’s

[00:10:00] mm-hmm.

[00:10:01] not a fun, but a very, very, uh. Worthwhile cost to add to your, your costs.

[00:10:07] So, um, that’s a, that’s a huge adjustment there. So, alright, so at the start, um, my, depending on who you are, either very impressive or very immature start to this episode. Uh, I shared a little bit of the aspects of the barrel world, but can you just give us a background of like, you know, we don’t need exact numbers, but like, just kind of high level, what, what are your barrels.

[00:10:33] What type of clients do you have? Like most often these days? What are they used for?

[00:10:39] So we have three. The largest amount of barrels that we ship go internationally. So they’re going to go a BA bourbon barrel can only be used or filled one time, but, and it cannot age bourbon a second time, but it’s still a very great product. And so here in Kentucky, distilleries will fill their barrel, they’ll empty it, they can’t use it again.

[00:11:03] That’s where we come in, we buy it, and then in a often as possible, we wanna get that barrel. a second fill because it’s still a super great product. So we ship a lot of barrels to Scotland, Ireland, and India, China. So those are all huge whiskey markets. We ship to over 30 countries, but those are our four biggest ones. it’s not going internationally, which a a barrel for scotch can be used up to 40 years in Scotland. So it’s filled here for four to 12 years, most commonly, and then it can go there for another 40 years to hold more whiskey it’s not used for that, the next. Consideration is can it go to a brewery for craft beer? So craft breweries will use a barrel anywhere from. Three to up to 12 months. Um, probably six to nine months is the, is the sweet spot where most of them will do that. So a lot of them, and that’s where we really grew and got our start, was in craft beer. And then the third outlet is my fa favorite when it goes from our home to yours, where you’re going to use barrels for really cool and interesting projects.

[00:12:07] And so we sell the full barrel, we sell the barrel parts, we sell smoking wood, kind of anywhere in between that we wanna extend that barrel lifecycle as long as possible.

[00:12:17] And now we know that it can be extended in many different ways, but so it’s really cool. It’s like something that, I mean, like I, for a while now, I’ve been a huge fan of beer and bourbon and. Um, you know, anything in, in that ballpark, but I had never really thought of like barrels from, I guess from a product standpoint, I always, you know, if you go check out, if you go to Louisville and check out, you know, whiskey Row there, um,

[00:12:45] Mm-hmm.

[00:12:46] there’s barrels everywhere and all those distilleries.

[00:12:48] But you, I hadn’t really thought about like how many different ways they can be used and how they can be recycled. And so like you guys, it’s like the, the niche of niche in like a cool, cool area and can be used in so many different ways. And now if you look at, you know, like if you go to like a craft brewery, it’s always pretty cool when they have something that’s like a, you know, a barrel aged beer, like a special offering on tap.

[00:13:11] So it’s cool you guys are a part of all that.

[00:13:14] We kind of hit the, um, the sweet spot with that, where we entered the market when craft beer was really exploding.

[00:13:21] Yeah.

[00:13:21] And so we became a, a, a trusted resource because we didn’t just buy one type of barrel. Our goal was let’s bring in all different types. We can be a hub. So if you are a craft. Brewery and you’re gonna do four barrels of beer, maybe one of them is a bourbon barrel, one’s a wine barrel, one’s a tequila barrel, and one’s a rum barrel.

[00:13:41] And so that’s really been a sweet spot of ours, is being able to service customers that can’t afford to buy just a onesie twosie. So we bring them in and then we’re able to distribute everywhere.

[00:13:53] Onesie, twosie. I like it. It’s like samesies from super bad. So the how, okay, so the way you’re, you’re, you’re painting the picture of your husband getting started with this and. Before your injury and everything there, it kind of just sounds like a crazy guy with a bunch of barrels in his house. Um, and now you’ve, which you’re not rejecting.

[00:14:15] Um, and now it’s like you’re this international company that’s got, you know, tens of thousands of barrels at any time and you’re trusted among some amazing, amazing clients. Uh, what did you do personally to like. Change that to like, alright, we’re gonna get this to like a real, like, trusted company.

[00:14:37] So the, the first thing, and I have to give Ben a ton of credit, um, he’s super scrappy. He just starts without all the information. And the thing that he did that really changed everything for us was he put a barrel on the internet. So he actually built his own Wix website, put a

[00:14:55] Hmm.

[00:14:55] on, and then we’ll never forget the day that somebody bought one online. And so what I’m really good at, Ben, is really good at just starting without all the information, like actually to the frustration of our team a lot of times where he just. and I’m really good at coming behind him and putting systems and process and scaling that. And so I’ve been able to really grow our e-commerce, um, platform.

[00:15:19] And so we’ve had, I mean, we did then we moved to Squarespace, then we moved to WooCommerce, and then we’ve built two different Shopify stores. And so we’ve really been. You know, perfecting that. But I think to go back to your question, the key differentiator of what we’ve done is we’ve focused on hiring really great people and put and making that core to who we are.

[00:15:42] So identifying what’s our mission, what’s our vision, and what’s our core values? And really trying to stay true to that and being will, being willing to pivot wherever the business us or takes us to, has allowed us to. Not just narrow ’cause it is a niche category, so you have to be flexible as needs change.

[00:16:01] A couple of years ago you couldn’t buy barrels anywhere. There was such a shortage and today it’s the opposite problem where the spirits industry has changed a lot and so barrels are readily available and so we have to be able to, will be willing and able to adapt as markets change. And because we focused on. Uh, I mean, I, when I hire somebody, the conversation that I have is we move really fast here and we change all the time. And so whatever job that you think you’re getting hired for today, might not be doing that exact same job six months from now. And if that sounds exciting for you, this could be the right place.

[00:16:36] If that sounds intimidating or unattractive, you will struggle to fit in here because we just are constantly evolving.

[00:16:44] I think that’s. That’s something that’s really appealing to a lot of people, especially like new company startup space. I think a lot of people want to, like, they’re craving that entrepreneurial aspect of, I wanna help out any way I can here. Or like, let’s figure out stuff. And there’s something incredibly rewarding about like, if you come up with a new idea, you know, we can get this rolling pretty quickly.

[00:17:05] As opposed to, I mean, I was just talking to somebody on a call earlier who was saying how when, you know, when they worked in the corporate world, they were so frustrated by. It would have, everything would need to go through like three rungs of approval. Um, and you can just go. So that’s really exciting.

[00:17:18] And then, I mean, I mentioned startup, but like now you guys have been around for over a decade, so congrats on that. Like it’s, it’s really cool how far you’ve come and Yeah. Yeah, it’s really, it’s really inspiring. Um, when you look at the, the operation side of things. It’s, uh, I didn’t plan to make this pun, but I’m sorry.

[00:17:43] It sounds kinda like a barrel of monkeys where it can get really complicated really quick if you’re not organized with things. So now, I mean, I heard you mention another interview that you’ve, you know, sometimes can have like 20,000 barrels in your warehouse. So how do you keep things or like, how do you get it to the point that you can run things efficiently and organize at a scale like that?

[00:18:04] So we’ve made a really strategic decision up to this point that we don’t do what other cooperages do. So most of our, our competitors actually make new barrels, or they repair used barrels. And I’m not saying that we won’t ever get into that space, but up to this point, we’ve found that our specialty is really getting the barrel from point A to point B as fast as possible. so we have an inventory management system, and that sounds very basic, but a lot of people in our industry, this is, it’s just very historic. They haven’t, they haven’t needed one. And so they don’t have, um, inventory management systems in the same way. We can’t operate our business without one because we’re trying to move so many barrels, so, so quickly.

[00:18:45] And even when we need to get our barrels repaired, that’s a great example of. They’re still ours, but they have to go, go somewhere. And so just having the tech, the tech has been really critical to us. And I’ve actually strived to lead our business, like tech founders think I went through a program a few years ago, it’s called Pipeline Entrepreneurs, and it’s an amazing um, program.

[00:19:10] And they’re a cohort system. They take 13 entrepreneurs out of Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri every year. And you go through four different modules. I went through that because it’s mostly tech founders that do it. And I really wanted the experience of learning to think and act like a tech founder because I wanted to build everything tech enabled.

[00:19:32] And now we have these great, all of the platforms that we use are AI driven and were able to move way faster than we would be able to if we didn’t use that.

[00:19:45] Yeah, that’s, yeah, inventory is cra it’s something I got a little exposure to in, uh, just my short time in the corporate world. And it’s kind of satisfying when you can get things organized and you figure out what skews to get rid of. And we call it skew, rat skew rationalization, things like that. But um, man, it can get so complicated and so tedious.

[00:20:05] And what advice do you have for anybody who is looking to get like a handle on their inventory like that?

[00:20:13] Yeah. For us too, our inventory all looks identical and so to, to the layman, the barrel. A barrel is a barrel is barrel. But to us, what matters is what was held inside that barrel. it could be produced by the same cooperage, it could look identical, but what it held, it could contain vastly different value. And the, the best advice that I probably have is that you need to start small and your, and your tech is, it’s something that it’s not a one-time investment. And this was something I had to learn. So I’ll just use my, our website as an example. I came on. So Ben had built a Wix website and then in 2018 we built a Squarespace and I was involved.

[00:21:01] I wasn’t really working in the business, but I was really involved with that website. when I came on full time, I. WooCommerce was my big, my first big project. And the, the goal of moving to WooCommerce is I wanted a way for our domestic breweries to be able to quote an accurate shipping quote from the website.

[00:21:21] I didn’t want them to have to call us because understand how e-commerce works. You wanted, want to get online and see, well, I’m gonna add four barrels to my cart. How much would it actually cost for me to get them there? They don’t wanna call me and ask that. They just wanna be able to see that. And so that was the first. Big project that I did, and when I did that, I thought, oh, we’re done. We’re set. We’re good. I quickly learned that every year you really need to have a CapEx budget for your website, and it’s something that you’re gonna have to continually invest in. And it’s not just, we bought this, the software, we did an implementation, we’re done.

[00:21:59] It continues to require, it’s just like a piece of equipment. It’s just like a, a truck that you buy that you have to maintain over time and then you get so much life out of it and then you have to buy a new it. Tech works. You can’t look at another company of the same size and see where they’re at and think we’re gonna be at the same place just by implementing this one piece of tech. You have to map it out and you have to start with baby steps, because otherwise it gets way too overwhelming and things break, and that’s where your whole operations breaks down.

[00:22:35] And that’s why large companies really struggle to implement. Tech enabled features when they haven’t used them is because it has a trickle down effect and then systems start breaking and they ship the wrong products at the wrong time to the wrong people, and then they stop using it.

[00:22:52] And, and I have to ask you a couple definitions there. You reminded me, uh, cou, cooperage I’ve heard of before, but, uh, technically what’s the cooperage?

[00:23:01] Yeah. A cooperage is a. Facility for barrels, they are going to be somebody that produces a new barrel from scratch or they repair an existing barrel. And, um. It’s a historic practice, so Coopers, um, that they employ what are called Coopers, and it’s a trade and it’s a, it’s a very fascinating trade. And so historically barrels were made by hand, and today there are really advanced manufacturing facilities that can do the majority of it by machine.

[00:23:36] But a Cooper still oversees the process.

[00:23:38] I got it. Yeah. I knew it was something barrel related, but I didn’t know it was like, I thought it was just kind of like a wood factory as well, like if that even makes sense. A wood something like, I didn’t know it was barrel specific, so That’s awesome. There’s a whole like history there too.

[00:23:51] So yeah, so kind of the process is every barrel starts as an American white oak tree that grows somewhere between 70 to a

[00:23:59] They’re all, they’re all oak.

[00:24:00] tree down. They’re all yes, but there, there’s French oak, Hungarian Oak, there’s some other wood types, but American white oak is kind of the tried and true that everybody wants. Uh, and so they grow, you know, up to a hundred years they harvest the tree and then every tree only makes between one and three barrels. so then from there it goes to what is called a stave mill, where they. Take the logs and they produce the staves, which are the slats of the barrels, where the bunghole goes.

[00:24:30] Watch your mouth. I’m just kidding.

[00:24:32] step, the next step is those staves, actually they’re, it’s a process called seasoning. They’re gonna sit outside anywhere from six months up to three years. And then, then when they’re done with that, that’s when it goes to the cooperage. So the Cooper actually assembles the barrel before the heads are put on.

[00:24:50] Everybody knows and loves the fire part of it, so they either toast or char the inside of the barrel. And that char is what gives your bourbon the flavor that we all know and love.

[00:25:00] I feel like I’m back in fifth grade and we learned about the water cycle and, you know, evaporation, condensation, precipitation through the lens of barrels. It’s really, really interesting industry. Um, like who would know that? Well, obviously you

[00:25:12] you there’s a,

[00:25:13] guys Go ahead.

[00:25:15] yeah. Didn’t I tell you there’s a quiz

[00:25:16] Yeah, exactly.

[00:25:18] Yeah.

[00:25:18] pop quiz at that. Uh.

[00:25:20] Yes,

[00:25:21] The other definition real quick.

[00:25:23] I’ve heard of it, but, uh, CapEx, is that capital expenses or is that,

[00:25:27] yes.

[00:25:27] cool. You can tell I didn’t study accounting.

[00:25:31] yeah, and, and again, that’s, more so just thinking about like what areas of the business are we going to invest in. So it’s not, it’s not a monthly expense, it’s not a, uh, what would be considered like a yearly expense. These are, are generally more one time expenses. You can deduct them differently on your, your taxes, but you have to plan for them.

[00:25:53] And if you don’t plan for tech expenses. It’s, it’s really challenging because they sneak up on you and if you don’t plan for any maintenance and something breaks, I mean, I found that that websites, they do break. And so you have to have a plan for what am I gonna do when something doesn’t. We, we actually, we, we moved a couple weeks ago and so we took our website offline and our, um, marketing team was doing some updating while our warehouse team was physically moving, when we turned our website back on. Google had unindexed all of our pages, which we have thousands of pages on our website because every product listing is its own page, and so we’ve had to spend the last two weeks re-indexing, and that’s never a word I thought that I would know what re-indexing on Google is. So it’s just things like that that we didn’t consider that we we’re just like, oh yeah, we’ll pause our website for a week.

[00:26:49] Our marketing team will be working remotely. This will be a great time. We, and then we had to physically move our inventory. We’re like, we won’t take orders, so it won’t be confusing. This will work. Perfect. And then lo and behold, Google’s like, Nope, done.

[00:27:03] Oh my God. Sorry. You have to deal with that. Yeah. That sounds, that’s just like one of those things as a, as an entrepreneur that just like the whole, like anything that can go. Wrong will go wrong. Like you never know what you’re gonna see and what you’re gonna have to deal with there. And internet’s always a, you know, it’s always like wrestling a rattlesnake there.

[00:27:19] Um,

[00:27:20] Yeah,

[00:27:20] so

[00:27:21] sure.

[00:27:21] actually moving was one of the things I was really excited to ask you about. So, um, there’s a big move which we’ll get to, I mean, an even bigger move. But, uh, your recent move, so is that just, is that within Louisville or did you, or What’d you guys do? Okay, cool.

[00:27:35] So we are like pretty much professional movers at this point.

[00:27:40] And, and professional rein indexers.

[00:27:43] yes, exactly. You know, all, all the things. So we, um. Okay, let’s back up ’cause I’m sure you’re, you’re wondering about this. So, when we started in Nebraska, we, I mean one year we moved five times because barrels are very big. And every single time that we, we would move, Ben would say, if we ever fill this warehouse, we’re doing something wrong.

[00:28:03] Because our goal is to get the barrels in and out as fast as possible. And lo and behold, the business continued to grow and so we continued to get bigger and bigger. At one point when we were in Nebraska, we had moved to what I thought was like our dream facility and everything was, you know, finding dandy.

[00:28:21] We had worked so hard to find it. And then we made the decision to relocate from Nebraska to Louisville. clearly the biggest move that we’ve ever done. And it, it was a proce, it was kind of a lengthy decision. Um, we knew we needed to make the move because we were shipping so many barrels from the Louisville surrounding areas, so Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee.

[00:28:45] We were sending them to Nebraska, and then we were sending them back out to a port to go overseas, and it just didn’t make any sense. we first tried to set up a remote facility in Louisville and that we just couldn’t really get that off the ground. And so then we decided, well, Ben and I are gonna move for six months to a year to get it up and going.

[00:29:04] And then we pretty quickly realized. I think we’re gonna need to move full time. So then we decided, okay, we’re gonna have our Louisville facility and we’re gonna keep our Nebraska facility. And then after doing that for a little bit of time, about a year, we’re like, we cannot continue to have our Nebraska facility. It just didn’t make any sense. And that was, was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made as a leader, because we had a really great team in Nebraska that had stuck with us through the move, I had to personally make. The decision of do we keep these people working remote? And we know with COVID that there’s so many more things that you can do remotely, but culture is such a big part of what we do. That there was a lot lost between having half of our team remotely and having half of it in person. So ultimately we brought everything to Kentucky, but there has been an industrial, um. Warehousing shortage ever since we’ve been here. So our journey to find the right location has been really hard. And in 2024, we thought we found the perfect facility, we, um, leased again.

[00:30:14] What was our dream building? It was huge. It was, would allow us to substantially grow bigger and then the market crashed. And so I don’t know how much you’ve been following the spirits industry, but it’s like the housing crash of oh 8, 0 9 is what we’ve been going through. And so ultimately in the last six months, we’ve had to really evaluate how do we continue to operate a, a financially healthy business and reduce our expenses and. Reducing our footprint was the, it was our biggest line item. Um, and so we made the, the difficult decision to move out of our other, I mean, it was a, a beautiful facility and we found a fabulous new facility that we just moved into two weeks ago. It’s quite a bit smaller, but it’s going to function really great for what we’re doing and I’m really excited about it.

[00:31:03] But it’s been one of the, one of the more difficult leadership journeys that I’ve been on has been, you know, the past six months.

[00:31:11] It’s kudos to you for having the, uh. I guess the courage to make those decisions. I mean, those are not easy at all. Um, do you have any advice for any entrepreneur out there who’s kind of struggling with a big decision like that, that could have big payoff, but also has a lot of, you know, scary aspects too?

[00:31:34] Yeah, I think the one thing, looking back there, there, you know, hindsight’s 2020, so you see the things that you did well and then you think, see the things that you wish you would’ve done differently. And the one thing I really wish we would have done differently is I wish we would’ve acted a little bit sooner.

[00:31:51] I think that some of these decisions would have caught, had a lot less angst if we would have. Actively started reducing our costs a little bit faster. And I, I think we really believed what every, all of us in the bourbon industry want is that it’s gotta, you know, it’s gotta turn around, it’s gotta pick back, pick back up.

[00:32:11] It’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. it just hasn’t happened quite as fast. And so I think that that’s the one thing that I, my experience share is like when. As an entrepreneur, we have the closest pulse on what is going on inside our business and oftentimes outside of our business. And even if your advisors or your team members are telling you no, that’s oftentimes because they don’t want the consequences of the change. did not wanna move. We had just moved, not even a year ago, and moving. I mean, I think we moved 6,000 barrels. That is no easy task, and we did it in four and a half days. And that we’ve never done something like that before. I, I wish that I would’ve just trusted our intuition because the result ended up still being the same thing.

[00:33:00] We, we knew we needed to move a lot earlier than we did, and we still ended up having to move, but it was a lot more painful because everybody was a lot less prepared for it because we had to do it so quickly. kind of the, the big thing. The, the other thing that I will say is that, um, when you’re going through. Periods where your business isn’t working in the same way that it once did. Really digging deep inside of you to figure out, well, I didn’t have a plan when I started. I didn’t know what my markets were gonna be or what products I was going to sell. And trying to get back to that, that founder that started it that wasn’t worried about failure because. There, there wasn’t anything to, to lose or to fail, but when things get hard, we get really, we get scared and we stop making, we start making safe decisions. But when you’re going through big changes, that’s actually when you need to make the most bold changes.

[00:33:56] That’s an incredible point. Uh, we, I mean, I’m very guilty of this. Like, it’s nice when you have a business and you get to a point of a certain level of stability and things are clicking and it’s like, it feels so good and you don’t want anything to change, but the reality is like. Every business needs to evolve over time.

[00:34:15] And there’s crazy forces like market forces like you’re talking about, um, that just kind of dictate how this, you know, something needs to change. And so, um, I think looking backwards and trying to, you know what’s funny? I, I, I have a client, um, shout out Shane. He’s got the, uh, the couples therapist couch.

[00:34:37] It’s his podcast. So I’ve learned a lot about couples therapy through this and. One of the things he talks about working on with his clients is like inner child work and how, I guess in therapy, um, you know, it’s common for, you know, to, for him to talk to clients about, like, looking inward and things that, you know, working out with your inner child.

[00:34:57] I’m clearly not a therapist. I don’t know how this works, but it’s almost like you’re, your inner first time entrepreneur work is what you need to do to like, look inward and, and get to that like. Back against the wall, but also, um, just entrepreneurial spirit and that’s what can keep things growing. So I’m, I’m, I’m a big fan of what all you, what you just said there.

[00:35:20] Yeah, you.

[00:35:21] Thank you. Well, you nailed it. I just, you know, regurgitated it and added a random example. Anyway, I trust on that random note. I trust that you’re ready to, uh, switch it up a little bit. I promise. No more question off the wall questions, however, this is, um, this is a segment called The Unusual So Pet Peeves, quirks.

[00:35:40] Weird comments. This is more, doesn’t have to tie to your business at all. Just about you kind of as a founder, you as a person, really. Um, first thing,

[00:35:49] So, okay, before we

[00:35:51] yeah.

[00:35:51] this, um, I saw that you had this on your list and so I asked my husband what he thought was interesting, and he gave me a list of really boring, generic facts about myself. And so I’m concerned, I’m uninteresting, and so I’m very curious to see where we go with this.

[00:36:05] You are very not uninteresting. Did I say that the right way? Not uninteresting. I get tripped up. Yes. You’re very interesting.

[00:36:12] Double negative. I

[00:36:13] Exactly.

[00:36:14] The double makes the positive. Yeah.

[00:36:16] Yeah. It’s so fa uh, we’ve had guests in the past that have asked their significant other or family members for that and it’s so funny to, it’s a fun exercise for any to be like, what’s.

[00:36:25] What’s unique about me in certain ways. So, so that’s fun. So anyway, we’ll, we’ll give him him some crap. But, um, let’s start with quirks. What’s something a little quirky? This could be from you or from Ben, a little quirky about your personality that somebody calls you out for, but it’s who you are.

[00:36:41] Uh, yeah. And this is kind of where we started. So he’s just like, you just, you love to work. And I was like, well, that’s super generic. And he’s

[00:36:47] I.

[00:36:48] he’s like, it’s to a different level where like this is like your brain works. So. Differently. And so parenting young kids, that was actually like being, being a mom, something that was really hard for me because, you know, little toddlers, they don’t, they’re not interested in, you know, dad works with barrels and mom works on her computer.

[00:37:07] That’s what they used to always say. Um, but I think how this is translating now from a quirky perspective. So last night I, did a keynote at Bellarmine University and it was 150 women that were there. And I invited my 10-year-old son to go and we were sitting at the table before I gave the keynote and I was like, Hey Theo, can you tell, can you tell this group, um. What, like what’s your, your biggest takeaway from it? And he said, my framework verbatim to, and he had only heard the talk once. And so from a quirky perspective, like I involve my kids in my work, like they’re going to run this someday. And like this is their, and, and that’s not my goal per se, but. just think I didn’t grow up with this privilege, and they have such a privilege of being able to get exposure to things that none of their peers do. And so I’m trying to get them to start thinking like a founder now. And so I have a very interesting parenting style, so that that’s where I went from. Ben’s like, I work a lot to, like, I have a very interesting parenting style.

[00:38:13] I’m all for that. I mean, I, I grew up with parents who are entrepreneurs. I think growing up with in an entrepreneurial family is so rewarding and definitely helps you think outside the box and think about, you know, problems and solutions in a different way. So, uh, I’m a big fan of your, what we’ll call it, Jess’s, take your child to workday every day.

[00:38:31] Uh, plan.

[00:38:33] There you go. And I did not grow up with parents that were, I mean, my, my dad drove a tractor at a feedlot, a cow feedlot, and my mom was a nurse, or she is a nurse. And so I, that I did

[00:38:43] Yeah.

[00:38:44] that way. And so I, you know, maybe it, it will seem normal to other entrepreneurs or founders, but for the average people, like I just to my kids around to work with me every day.

[00:38:54] Well that’s, yeah, and, and that’s like the best part of it is like, so you’re, I mean, so you had like an in incre, I mean. Fulfilling. Rewarding. Like loving, I’m sure it was absolutely amazing, but you had an incredible different experience and dynamic with your parents as far as work goes than you are and will with with your children.

[00:39:12] I think that’s awesome. Is just like how it changes over generations and um, I guess to an extent the, you know, my. My dad is the same way. Um, like his dad worked at, you know, international harvester forever and before that and, you know, and, and before that it was like farmers and stuff and, and before that.

[00:39:34] And so it’s like, there’s different, there’s different levels of just like what type of work everybody does. And so it’s really cool. And your, your entrepreneurial parenting approach. All right, so that’s, that’s, that’s quirks. Um. We will fire Ben after that one. And then, uh,

[00:39:49] Yeah.

[00:39:49] about, what about weird talents?

[00:39:50] What’s something that’s like, or like a, I call it like a party trick. Well, I call it a weird talent, but it’s like a party trick. What’s something you’re really good at, but it really has no impact on your, your business. A little thing

[00:40:01] I have no special talents. Like I’m a very

[00:40:04] You like to work? No, I’m just kidding.

[00:40:06] Um, yeah, I, yes. Um, I, I guess this kind of goes back to like. It’s not a party trick, but when I was a kid, I really liked to read a lot, so I was actually, I didn’t play at recess. I read books I think that has translated into me being a very rapid learner. And so I am able to consume large amounts of information without getting tired. so that’s kind of my, um. Like my superpower from a party perspective, um, since you use that word. I will tell you my, my biggest flaw is I’m super, super competitive. So much to the point that if I go to a party and there’s going to be a game played that I’ve never played and other people have played it, I won’t play because I will know I can’t.

[00:40:59] Hmm.

[00:41:00] And that it’s a huge, huge personality flaw. Now having children, I’ve tried to expand my, my game repertoire because they also don’t know how to play, and my chances of winning are substantially higher against them. So, so I feel like I am, um, I, so like I mahjong

[00:41:17] Yeah.

[00:41:17] you know, it’s, it’s

[00:41:18] Mj. Yeah.

[00:41:19] with women my age and I didn’t learn for a while.

[00:41:22] Well, then finally I went to a place where there were a whole bunch other people learning.

[00:41:27] Hmm.

[00:41:28] an advanced Rumi cube, which is like my favorite

[00:41:30] Oh yeah, my wife loves that. Yeah.

[00:41:32] think I’m, I think I’m for Mahjong and Mahjong for me, so.

[00:41:37] Oh yeah. I never thought of it like that. Advanced runway. It makes sense. I’ve only seen from a distance, all the little tiles out on a board. Um,

[00:41:45] Well, and they’re very pretty. And so that fits nicely where it’s like very, yeah, very pretty. At the same time.

[00:41:53] Um, okay. And then what about. Pet peeves, what’s something that just kind of ticks you off a little bit, but in the grand scheme of life, it’s not a big deal.

[00:42:04] Oh, I mean, I have a lot. Um, so I think from a business perspective,

[00:42:10] I.

[00:42:10] my biggest pet peeve is when people. I get frustrated with where they’re at and they want to grow, but they don’t know what they want to do and they don’t take any ownership over. Wanting to do it. And I’m seeing this a lot in the Gen Z.

[00:42:29] So I mentor, um, a lot of young women and I’m kind of seeing a very clear split between women that are growing up as athletes and have the discipline to work really hard. And then other women that are getting influenced by the social media culture that you can be a millionaire by the time that you’re 23 That’s just not how, that’s not how real life works. And so as a leader, it’s this constant challenge of trying to mentor people to figure out what makes them tick, because they have to take radical ownership over their own And as somebody that grew up very, very poor, I just can’t understand. Not having a good work ethic.

[00:43:14] And so I, I do struggle with that and I don’t struggle with that a lot in my own business because really, you know, I, I try to find top performers and people that are really, have a strong work ethic, outside of my company, I continue to have these conversations and you just gotta own it. And so that’s a big pet peeve of mine.

[00:43:36] Yeah, that’s fantastic. No matter what happens, whatever changes in the tech world, AI world, everything like work ethic, will always have extreme value. Um, I, I think none of that, that, that will be untouched. Alright, let’s wrap.

[00:43:52] I think

[00:43:52] Yeah.

[00:43:53] continue to see the, uh, bigger, um.

[00:43:55] I.

[00:43:56] A bigger gap between the people that are willing to work hard, because as ai, it affects every single job and role. People that aren’t willing to go out and learn and figure it out are gonna continue to fall lower and lower, where the people that are willing to just start doing and learning, they’re, I mean, that gap is just gonna continue to increase.

[00:44:14] Totally. Totally. Yeah. It works on that level as well. There’s a, the stave between groups will be, no, I was trying to think of a pun. That was awful. Alright, let’s.

[00:44:25] Chat gt those? You can, you can, you know, insert them. Insert them in. I, I can, I feel like you’re, you’re, I like

[00:44:31] Exactly. I like to use my brain sometimes, but yeah. All right, let’s wrap up with some rapid fire q and A. You ready for it?

[00:44:38] Let’s go.

[00:44:39] Alright, let’s get wild. You mentioned a pretty serious injury you had. Um, you know, unfortunately, like in our family, you know, we’ve seen with my father-in-law and my father. My mother-in-law, like I, some of my clients, I swear over the past few years, there was just like a crazy uptick in just fluke random injuries like that where somebody’s breaking bones or has back issues, things like that.

[00:45:04] Um, based on like your experience and your recovery, what tip do you have for anybody that is currently going through something like that where they’re on the in, in recovery mode?

[00:45:14] It kind of just hits on what we were just describing, but you need to take radical ownership over it. I also have an autoimmune disease that I’ve had since I was 20. There’s, there’s nobody else that’s going to own your physical, mental, or spiritual wellbeing. I mean, I’m a big person of faith and I think that when I had that freak injury that I was supposed to have a complete life pivot, but it really took me down to a dark place because I, my entire identity was wrapped up in the career that I had built, and overnight it was gone and, and I had to learn that. A job doesn’t define you. Even now with the role that I’m in, I have to, I have to be very careful that I don’t let that happen. But you do have to take radical ownership and there’s not a perfect balance. So you are gonna wake up some days and figure out, man, I’m super lonely and I don’t have any friends and. You need to go make friends then. And then you make some friends and you realize like, gosh, I haven’t been performing as well at work. I need to work on that. Okay, go work at that and, and then, man, my kid is really struggling in school. I can’t invest in work or friendships now. Okay, well go, you know, you have to just go where life calls you a lot of times, but be really radical and unhinged about your approach in that.

[00:46:27] Radically unhinged. I like it. Uh, yeah. Uncorked un unbanked. All right, so lo, so lowville, which, if you notice the reason I’m, I don’t know if I technically say it right as a local would say it. However, um, I don’t say it as. Louisville or Louisville because my dad actually, my dad’s side is from Louisville and he grew up in, uh, Jeffersonville, like right across the river.

[00:46:53] And so, uh, visited, been there many times. It is a great city. Love that city. Um, what, what’s the, what’s the thing that, since you guys have moved to that area, what’s the thing that you enjoy the, the most about the, uh, L one C four? Now, I know you’re not a Cardinals fan, but.

[00:47:13] I’m a Cards

[00:47:14] You are card fan now. There you go.

[00:47:15] yeah. We decided when we moved here that we, you know, we didn’t have Nebraska anymore, and so let’s go with Louisville because our, all of our red wardrobe transitioned very

[00:47:26] Hey, well welcome you for IU too. You know, just keep going.

[00:47:31] That’s a little further up the road. But then, um, we’re also big volleyball fans, which is huge in Nebraska. And Danny Bus boom, Kelly, who is from Nebraska, she was the Cardinal’s volleyball coach and got to know her well and she’s now back at Nebraska. But yes, we’re, we’re all in on the cards. We we’re all in on the Huskers.

[00:47:48] Um, but the, gosh, the people here are. Just top notch. Um, before we moved, everybody said Louisville’s like a small town, big city, and I didn’t really understand what that meant, but what I, and in Nebraska, there’s, there’s something called, at the state slogan for a while, was Nebraska Nice. And I’ve realized that Nebraskans aren’t nice compared to Louisville.

[00:48:12] Like

[00:48:12] What.

[00:48:13] Nebraskans are just, you know, and. All my Nebraska people, I love you. Don’t come for me. But there’s a different level of hospitality in Louisville that when we moved here, we op, they opened their arms to us and have just made us feel like we have always lived here. And I realized with that. I was like, wow, I didn’t do that when I lived in Nebraska.

[00:48:33] I didn’t, I wasn’t doing that for people that picked up their lives and moved. And I now, I’m like on a mic. If I ever meet somebody and they’re like, I’m new to the city, I’m like, I will introduce you to you. Everyone I know, I’m super passionate about it.

[00:48:46] Well, if your friends family in Nebraska are truly Nebraska nice, they won’t come after you. So appreciate that distinction there.

[00:48:53] Yeah. This is their opportunity to prove that they’re nicer than l. I don’t know if that’s the correct terminology, but we will

[00:49:01] Yeah, exactly. Also, you guys, I mean, you have a business in the bourbon or bourbon adjacent space, so of course they’re gonna welcome you with, you know, gung-ho over the arms. But no, absolutely. Yeah, I agree. Great people. Great place. All right, last one I saw in your Instagram bio, I think it was. Pickleball Pilates and Prosecco, which I’m a sucker for alliteration, so congrats on the three Ps.

[00:49:23] Uh, I use three Ps in my business too. Different three Ps. But if you could only have one of those Ps, what would it be?

[00:49:31] Oh, Pilates for sure. I love, and I probably need to edit that because, um, my mother-in-law would be so. that it still says pickleball because I haven’t played pickleball in a long

[00:49:42] Oh,

[00:49:42] went through it. She’s like, she’s super good. Um, and I, I am not, and so I, I, I got hopped on the trend.

[00:49:50] But if you’ve never done Pilates or lagree before, here is my plug. It will change your life. It will change your body. It, it’s, it is amazing. Um, if you’ve had back pain, we touched on that. It’s, it’s amazing for it. So that’s my, know we were gonna get Pilates in here.

[00:50:05] Of course, of course. Yeah. It’s a wonderful, uh. P to finish with. So, Jess, thank you so much. Um, huge fan of your business, what you and, and Ben and team, uh, Theo apparently as well are, are, are doing. So,

[00:50:20] And

[00:50:20] yeah, Brooks. Yeah.

[00:50:21] forget the, the

[00:50:22] Yeah, exactly. So, uh, thanks so much for making time and, and for all you guys do. Um, I know, and so if people wanna learn more, i, I know it’s, uh, midwest barrel co.com and then I know you’re on LinkedIn.

[00:50:34] Is there any anywhere else that you want people to connect with you guys or you online?

[00:50:40] Yeah, so I’m, um, I’m everywhere. Jess Loki. Um, I also have the, the Barrel Girl handle, um, LinkedIn. I, um, I’m gonna be reviving my newsletter soon, so you

[00:50:51] Awesome.

[00:50:51] um, can certainly follow that there. Um, and you know, I’m, I’ve, I’m on jess loki.com as well, so find me on all the

[00:50:59] Awesome. That’s Loseke. I, I’m terrible at spelling on the podcast, but L-O-S-E-K-E.

[00:51:05] Correct. You can also look up the barrel girl.com because nobody can spell my last name, so trying be smart about that.

[00:51:11] Perfect. And hopefully you can spell the correctly. All right, and the last thing, final thoughts. It could be a quote or kind of words to live by whatever you want. Just like one line, one sort of statement to, uh, send us home here.

[00:51:24] So I just wanna challenge all of the, the listeners that wherever you’re at in your journey, just to be unhinged on purpose and to just go live your best radical lives and take radical ownership over, over that. Be unreasonable in everything you do!

• Episode Summary & Player
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Episode 358: Jess Loseke – Midwest Barrel Co., Used Bourbon Barrels & Wine Barrels

Jess Loseke, the Co-Founder of Midwest Barrel Co., joins the show to share her journey from suffering a scary injury to building the top provider of premium used bourbon, whiskey, and wine barrels. Hear how to find your niche market, the best way to manage your inventory, how to make tough decisions as an entrepreneur, how to find that risk-taking ability you had at the beginning, and a lesson in barrel anatomy. This episode covers everything from bourbon barrels to bungholes. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• What was going through Jess’s mind when Ben was buying & selling so many items online
• How did Jess turn Midwest Barrel Co. into a real company
• What is a cooperage
• Why did Midwest Barrel Co. move from Nebraska to Louisville, KY
• Would Jess choose pickleball, pilates, or prosecco

Connect with Jess at MidwestBarrelCo.com, JessLoseke.com, on social media @JessLoseke & @TheBarrelGirl, and on LinkedIn.

Enjoy the shoooooow! Check out the show notes below for much more detail. You can also find the full transcript here.

Show Notes

• Intro & Spicy Bourbon Barrels
  • [0:27] Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to save time with your high-quality podcast and use it as a business-building tool
  • [0:32] Connect with Jess at MidwestBarrelCo.com, JessLoseke.com, on social media @JessLoseke & @TheBarrelGirl, and on LinkedIn
  • [2:12] What do barrels have to do with bungholes & sex toys
  • [3:23] “The Great Cornholio” from Beavis and Butt-Head

• The Midwest Barrel Co. Story
  • [5:08] How did Ben start Midwest Barrel Co.
  • [6:57] What was going through Jess’s mind when Ben was buying & selling so many items online
  • [8:22] Why did Jess join the business
  • [11:06] What markets do they sell used barrels to
  • [13:30] How did they find their niche market
  • [14:48] How did Jess turn Midwest Barrel Co. into a real company
  • [18:05] How do you stay efficient as you scale
  • [20:06] What’s the best way to manage your inventory
  • [22:40] What is a cooperage
  • [24:59] What is CapEx aka Capital Expenditure
  • [26:58] Why did Midwest Barrel Co. move from Nebraska to Louisville, KY
  • [30:35] How do you make tough decisions as an entrepreneur
  • [33:34] The Couples Therapist Couch by Shane Birkel
  • [34:24] The Wild Business Growth podcast is on YouTube! Subscribe @MaxBranstetter to watch full video interviews with Wild entrepreneurs like Jess every Friday
  • [34:25] Sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter and receive How to Edit Your Podcast in Audacity. It’s where podcasting meets entrepreneurship – and terrible puns
  • [34:27] Such an honor speaking at Podcast Movement ’23 in Denver! Sign up to grab the slides from my session at MaxPodcasting.com/PM23

• The Unusual: Pet Peeves, Quirks, and Weird Talents
  • [35:27] What’s a Quirk Jess has
  • [38:26] What’s a Weird Talent she has
  • [40:24] What’s her Biggest Pet Peeve
  • [42:00] Will work ethic always have value
• Rapid-Fire Q&A
  • [43:16] How do you recover well from a scary injury
  • [45:02] What’s the best part of living in Louisville
  • [47:12] Would Jess choose pickleball, pilates, or prosecco
  • [48:18] Connect with Jess at MidwestBarrelCo.com, JessLoseke.com, on social media @JessLoseke & @TheBarrelGirl, and on LinkedIn
  • [49:05] What are Jess’s Final Thoughts
  • [49:37] Follow the Wild Business Growth podcast and tell a friend about the podcast. And show love (or roast me) by leaving 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify
  • [49:42] The Wild Business Growth podcast is on YouTube! Subscribe @MaxBranstetter to watch full video interviews with Wild entrepreneurs like Jess
  • [49:44] Check out the Wild Business Growth podcast on Goodpods, where you can see what your favorite people are listening to
  • [49:47] Connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter (aka X), and Threads @MaxBranstetter and TikTok @WildBusinessGrowth
  • [49:48] Save time with your high-quality podcast. Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to bring your podcast to life and use it as a business-building tool
  • [49:52] Sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter and receive How to Edit Your Podcast in Audacity. It’s where podcasting meets entrepreneurship – and terrible puns
  • Theme music: Freestyle Percussion Magik – “Jungle Tribe” – provided by Jamendo

What is the Wild Business Growth podcast?

Wild ideas. Wild growth. Every Wednesday morning a new entrepreneur joins the Wild Business Growth podcast to share the wildly creative and unusual ways they grew their business – and teaches you how to do it, too. Hear the minds behind WordPress, Stacy’s Pita Chips, Drybar, NFL RedZone, Big Mouth Billy Bass, the voice of Bart Simpson, and more Wild stories. Hosted by Max Branstetter (that’s me), Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting.

How do you start a podcast?

Interested in starting a professional-sounding and professional-looking podcast for your brand, but don’t want to deal with the time commitment of all those behind-the-scenes details? I’ve got you covered. Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to save time with your high-quality podcast and use it as a business-building tool.

Thanks for listening to Jess Loseke on the Wild Business Growth podcast. To hear more Wild stories like this one every Wednesday morning, follow the Wild Business Growth podcast and tell a friend about it. And buy a barrel for them. Until next time, Let your business Run Wild…and Bring on the Bongos!!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Full Transcript
• Show Notes
• Wild Business Growth podcast Summary

Episode 357: David Lee – Nex Playground, Active Video Games for Your Living Room

David Lee, the Co-Founder & CEO of Nex and Nex Playground, joins the show to share his journey from selling a company to Apple to creating the smart little cube with active video games that transforms your living room. Hear how to break down a complicated problem, how David & team put all this cool technology in a small box, how to build a subscription model, how Steve Jobs gave feedback, and David’s history with former NBA player David Lee. This episode covers everything from HomeCourt to StarCraft II. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• Why did Apple buy EditGrid
• How did David develop the HomeCourt app
• When did he realize this technology could work for active video games
• How big is the Nex Playground
• Why is there beauty in constraints

Connect with David at NexPlayground.com, PlayThatMovesYou.com, on social media @NexPlayground, and on LinkedIn.

Enjoy the shoooooow! Check out the show notes below for much more detail. You can also find the full transcript here.

Show Notes

• Intro & Getting Acquired by Apple
  • [0:22] Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to save time with your high-quality podcast and use it as a business-building tool
  • [0:36] Connect with David at NexPlayground.com, PlayThatMovesYou.com, on social media @NexPlayground, and on LinkedIn
  • [2:30] What did David learn from his company being acquired by Apple
  • [5:50] Why did Apple buy EditGrid

• The Nex Playground Story
  • [10:45] How did David develop the HomeCourt app
  • [13:23] How do you break down a complicated problem
  • [14:16] What was the “aha” moment for AI tracking technology
  • [14:54] Which basketball coaches did David work with on HomeCourt
  • [17:02] When did David realize this technology could work for active video games
  • [20:44] How big is the Nex Playground
  • [21:31] How did David & team put all this cool technology in a small box
  • [25:13] Shoutout, Ken Krasnow!
  • [25:35] Why is there beauty in constraints
  • [27:52] How does David decide which games are on Nex Playground
  • [31:44] How do you build a subscription model
  • [33:19] The Wild Business Growth podcast is on YouTube! Subscribe @MaxBranstetter to watch full video interviews with Wild entrepreneurs like David every Friday
  • [33:21] Sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter and receive How to Edit Your Podcast in Audacity. It’s where podcasting meets entrepreneurship – and terrible puns
  • [33:22] Such an honor speaking at Podcast Movement ’23 in Denver! Sign up to grab the slides from my session at MaxPodcasting.com/PM23

• Rapid-Fire Q&A
  • [33:42] JJ Redick
  • [35:20] What was the hardest class at The University of Hong Kong (HKU)
  • [36:00] How did Steve Jobs give feedback
  • [37:28] Which video game character would David love to have dinner with
  • [38:52] What’s a funny story about former NBA player David Lee
  • [39:37] Connect with David at NexPlayground.com, PlayThatMovesYou.com, on social media @NexPlayground, and on LinkedIn
  • [40:21] What are David’s Final Thoughts
  • [41:06] Follow the Wild Business Growth podcast and tell a friend about the podcast. And show love (or roast me) by leaving 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify
  • [41:12] The Wild Business Growth podcast is on YouTube! Subscribe @MaxBranstetter to watch full video interviews with Wild entrepreneurs like David
  • [41:14] Check out the Wild Business Growth podcast on Goodpods, where you can see what your favorite people are listening to
  • [41:15] Connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter (aka X), and Threads @MaxBranstetter and TikTok @WildBusinessGrowth
  • [41:17] Save time with your high-quality podcast. Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to bring your podcast to life and use it as a business-building tool
  • [41:19] Sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter and receive How to Edit Your Podcast in Audacity. It’s where podcasting meets entrepreneurship – and terrible puns
  • Theme music: Freestyle Percussion Magik – “Jungle Tribe” – provided by Jamendo

What is the Wild Business Growth podcast?

Wild ideas. Wild growth. Every Wednesday morning a new entrepreneur joins the Wild Business Growth podcast to share the wildly creative and unusual ways they grew their business – and teaches you how to do it, too. Hear the minds behind WordPress, Stacy’s Pita Chips, Drybar, NFL RedZone, Big Mouth Billy Bass, the voice of Bart Simpson, and more Wild stories. Hosted by Max Branstetter (that’s me), Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting.

How do you start a podcast?

Interested in starting a professional-sounding and professional-looking podcast for your brand, but don’t want to deal with the time commitment of all those behind-the-scenes details? I’ve got you covered. Email me at max@maxpodcasting.com to save time with your high-quality podcast and use it as a business-building tool.

Thanks for listening to David Lee on the Wild Business Growth podcast. To hear more Wild stories like this one every Wednesday morning, follow the Wild Business Growth podcast and tell a friend about it. And play some Nex Playground with them. Until next time, Let your business Run Wild…and Bring on the Bongos!!

00:00
Oh, it’s Steve Nash and the wrong David Lee go on stage.

00:19
Hi, welcome back to Wild Business Growth. I am your host Max Branstetter from MaxPodcasting. This is where you can hear from a wild entrepreneur turning wild ideas into wild growth. And this is episode Heinz 357. You’ll need to catch up on that joke. Today’s guest is David Lee, the co-founder and CEO of Nex, spelled N-E-X. They are the creators of Nex Playground.

00:47
The little smart cube that sits below your TV in your living room transforms your living room with all sorts of cool games. And here’s the best part, it’s without a controller. In this episode, you’ll hear all about that, including their subscription model. You’ll hear about the company that David sold to Apple and his experience there and with that. And…

01:13
everything from who the real David Lee is, whether it’s him or the former NBA player, to aliens. It is the real David Lee. Enjoy the show.

01:34
Alrighty, we are here with David Lee, co-founder and CEO of Nex, known for Nex Playground, one of the coolest video game gaming console things that you’ll ever hear about. You don’t even need any controllers or anything like that. David, so excited to speak with you today. How are doing? I’m doing really well. Thanks for having me. Of course. We’re going to get into all things gaming life. uh For those of you watching on video,

02:03
This is very intentional wearing of a basketball jersey by me. We’ll talk some basketball as well. But before that, so you’re one of the few people that had an incredible journey of starting a company that then got acquired by Apple. And obviously people can speak forever about how cool the company Apple is and all the innovation and creativity there. So for your journey, you don’t need to give us like the full background, but I’m just curious, what’s the biggest thing that stuck with you or that you learned?

02:33
from building a company that actually could get acquired by Apple? Wow. What a question to get started. The first startup I built was building online spreadsheet. And it was the beginning of Web 2.0. When Reddit is just get first to get started, we are thinking offering get started around that time, building web apps, you know, and Web 2.0 is about like not just, oh, you can build a website, just.

03:02
one way publishing is about, you can also read and write, right? So it’s like, you know, can start editing the web so they’re making contributions. Web apps begin to become a thing. And I remember at that time I’m reading the blog uh of Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator. I was in Hong Kong, so it’s like, you know, he has influence, you know, way beyond America.

03:31
And he talked about like having online spreadsheet makes sense, having a lot of people, you know, edit the same thing to get it makes sense. We were building something similar. We were at that time, we still in like more like an agency helping other people write web apps. say, and I was serving a customer, which is the Hong Kong arts festival. Imagine Hong Kong arts festival. Okay. They are managing millions in budget. All in spreadsheets. They have like 20 something artists.

04:02
you know, organizing the budget. We come in and say, hey, we can do you, we can help you collaborate better. And end up what we deliver to them is like, hey, these guys probably don’t know anything other than operating on spreadsheets. So let’s just make that spreadsheet like, collaborable. the people probably get at the same thing at the same time. I think at the beginning of us building something, solving real problem. And they love it. So we end up with prioritizing that and it become one of the earliest online spreadsheet in the world. We shipped that two months before Google ship.

04:31
on the Google spreadsheets and we have a hell of a ride of like, you know, building that product and getting a lot of people use it. Google joining the market just make so many more people aware of this. And we are one of the top online spreadsheets out there and that eventually get acquired by Apple. It’s part of this, just, you know, you, you think something is right. You have experience of why this makes sense and you build it and you’re obsessed about it and make it one of the world best and people pay attention.

05:01
Um, eventually Apple reached out and say, guys want to join us and we, we joined Apple and, uh, have a way of chance to work for Steve Jobs. And then, you know, spend eight years at Apple build like bringing the technologies we allowed iWork switch to be, to be collaborative. So multiple people can work on the same document at the same time across native apps and web apps. So we, we, uh, spend a lot of time to do just that. When you.

05:31
do something and push it to the world best, then you would have the opportunity to get discovered, have opportunity to basically rise to the global stage ah and make a big impact. What is it about Apple, this seemingly larger than life company? What is it from their perspective you think that attracted them to you, attracted you to them? I always get that messed up. What is it that stood out about that company? Like this is really Apple worthy.

06:00
Let’s talk a little bit talk about like what’s the process of shipping a product at Apple. Oh my God. So we have a product already and the shipper product inside of Apple took us four and a half years. So because Apple want to keep a secret, they keep like the old product running for a long time, for years, know, proxy running. apparently the Edigreed guys just disappear.

06:30
And, but it probably keep running, but we were already working for Apple and building the Apple version of the online productivity suite. Basically making, uh, building web apps for, for Apple. The first three and a half years is literally just keep building demos and to show to Steve many times. And Steve would challenge you to do some of the craziest thing and web apps that worthwhile of.

07:01
the Apple logo is the bar is very high. You know, you need to feel like butter. The scrolling and everything and the rep process, you need to wear it, render it all in piece. All in piece of three million characters on it. Um, I think at that time, Google can only take one million and that’s it. I don’t know how much they can do now, but the bar is very high. It’s also very challenging and everything is like a deep, hard, challenging technical problems.

07:29
and to get to something that’s world-class. So it starts with what you want your customer to have, like high fidelity, you need to render and looks as beautiful as what’s rendered natively. So we need to kind of touch pretty deep technologies on the web and do something pretty crazy. And it need to be fast as well. So we also spend a lot of time on optimizations. Those are the skills that are so valuable.

07:58
And so transferable when we do something else too, basically making something that’s fast, meaning that you, you can be the best or you can be the first, you know, when something you come up and you are the first to have an optimized version of that. And like normally when new technology appear, it always be the person who actually can optimize it in, in, in so well that it become usable. become wow. Um, so what is it in Apple? I think I learned a couple of things in Apple. still like.

08:28
become a little more like life lessons. So there’s a couple of things. First is Steve Jobs, reality distortion field. So people had about, okay, well I still have this superpower, the reality distortion field, distort reality. But if you build an onion and understand, what exactly is that thing that really pull people into ambitious project, is it just a really big idea?

08:57
idea that’s worth doing, idea that’s worth sinking your life into. So, you know, that’s the first thing I learned at Apple. you know, the behind the reality distortion field is actually a really big idea that really pulls minds. You feel in Apple, know, you, when Steve talk about certain thing, you feel you’re drawn to it. You just feel you are, I just attracted to execute that and do that because this is great. That would be great if this thing exists. That is

09:27
The first thing, the second thing is Apple have a really deep demo culture. So the storytelling that all these meetings are centered around demos. Demos actually is a beautiful thing. It’s basically just focusing on the user, how you take user from point A to point B and how you solve a problem. No data.

09:56
Not saying that they would never, yeah, there will be some data inform as well, but the way that you talk about it is talk about the problem and now how like the product take user from point A to point B. Like everything else disappear. So it’s just focusing on the problem and the solution. And you know, that’s the second thing that I learned in Apple. think it’s just become life lessons as well and how we can keep focusing on a user, focusing on the problem.

10:26
and do something great.

10:30
Well, speaking of something great and something with a really, really cool design, which is clearly something that is just everywhere, you know, omnipresent in Apple. Let’s talk next, the next playground. And before we get to next playground as it is today, Little Birdie told me that in the early, early days, the idea actually had to do with basketball. Can you take us back to basketball and what you had developed originally? It was 2017. I left Apple.

11:00
And looking for my next idea. So I did not leave with an idea in mind already. I just left and looking for next thing to do. People know me, know that I love basketball. I go distance in making sure that every week we have a pickup game. Um, and that thing’s going on for over 10 years. So after, after Apple, so, Hey, we connect with myself. We connect with world. What should I be doing? Hey, maybe do something with basketball.

11:30
something that we love and is complete change of lane. feel like, Hey, you build up so much in like being the world productivity expert and full away all of that. And now about let’s do something basketball related, which is extremely rejuvenating and doing something that’s like, you genuinely excited about what we can do there. And we end up building one of the world first edge AI application.

12:00
So using AI to understand video, to track basketball shots. It’s a really niche idea, I would say. It’s like people who want to check their shots are the people who are obsessed about basketball. It’s just like what we, nerd basketball player would do. Hey, I want to track my shots so that I can count my make, miss, count my, you know, where I shoot it. So we push it pretty far um and we build like the world first.

12:30
password training app called HomeCourt. And it was using AI on the edge to process video in real time to understand password shots, understand whether it make or miss and keep counting. And also how you take it as well, where you take it from and all the mechanics, like the angle, like how high you jump, how fast you move before put up shot, how long you hold the ball before you put a shot, your time taken.

12:58
for that to get a shot up. So all these like, you know, very interesting and we, dive pretty deep into that. And that was the first thing we did before we, uh, it leads to the journey of next playground. But this is the first thing we did, which is pretty wonderful. We especially need home court today, because if you look at the NBA today, people are taking like seven steps and it’s not being called a travel. So we need to watch track that movement too.

13:25
It sounds like something created by somebody who plays a pickup game every, you know, every week for 10 years. So it’s pretty impressive. Yeah. We love that journey too. It’s about how we break down a complicated problem, right? Hey, what a camera can see. You see the hoop, you see the board, you see the lines, you see the ball, you see the players, and we want to understand everything and breaking that problem down and getting to a deep understanding for in front of camera in real time. I think it still is and pretty incredible achievement that we’ve made.

13:55
Just using a phone camera. So it’s a phone camera on a tripod, looking at a basketball court, understand everything and extracting intelligence in real time. It’s a wonderful solution to a very small problem. in that, you know, still focused on home court, the camera and the AI tracking and that, like that’s super cool technology. Well, can you give us some behind the scenes of, I guess the aha moment for that technology particularly? It starts with, we want to do that.

14:25
and break that problem down into smaller problem and solve those things one by one. It begins with, I cold call the basketball coach around my area. So I get to become friend to the basketball coach in Montevista High, Cupertino High, um and all the Los Altos High and all these high school basketball coach around the area. So they allow me to just go into their gym.

14:55
I thought you were going to say Steve Kerr next. Well, we actually went to Duke, so coach K, similar category. Yeah, not bad. He hasn’t done much in his career. To capture training videos. So we actually captured a lot of video and understand how the ball go through the net. And when you go to, when you were in high school, when you go to go to college, you say, wow, college kids can get the ball to go through the net like that.

15:25
every such so fast, so clean. It’s a swish. And, oh, we don’t have this data before. We think this is a miss because it just like go full is so fast. Because normally when you make the baskets made, right? Like the ball kind of go through it, just got the net, like you slow it down a little bit. And when you go to Stanford, for example, wow, the ball can go through the net this fast, can be this good.

15:51
And okay, well, we need some more training data so that we can detect, detect as a make. um So there’s a lot of data collections and I remember drive around to capture like image of basketball hoops, collect a lot of myself. We bang a lot for myself, tens of thousands, probably a hundred thousand rebounds that I did for high school kids shaking their sweaty hands. That was quite a year, a whole year.

16:20
to just do this. It’s a lot of data collection, a lot of breakdown, and a lot of hard math as well. So you can imagine how the, when taking come from the camera, right? So all the chord lines feel distorted. And then we work on an algorithm to basically turn it back to a bird eye view from that. So there’s a lot of camera projection math there. It’s fun. And I remember my team, hey David, I don’t know.

16:48
Whether it is a good, it’s a big problem, but it’s fun problem. So let’s try to solve it first and see how we go from there. It’s challenging, it’s fun and we have a good time. When did the pivot happen? When did you know that actually it’s not just basketball, there’s potential here using this technology for like a video game, know, family play system. How it all started is that we solved that fairly niche problem beautifully.

17:18
To the point where like Apple said, wow, you guys did some amazing. How about you talk about it, you know, on stage in 2018, iPhone XS announcement event. And we did that and we get NBA attention as well. So NBA invested in us the next year, hoping that we have them find the next Stephen Curry all over the world. ah Not just in the US, but all over the world. That was their hope that we, that the app that we created.

17:48
like help to bring training to, kids worldwide. And then with that find the next Stephen Curry. But we know this is a very niche problem. So who in the right mind would take their phone out, put it on the tripod and track their own shots. And when they’re doing shooting workout, very few people in the world would do that. Uh, we want to do more. want to make some things that meaningful to more people. So we begin to.

18:17
Think about what are the use cases we can do. So home court on a tripod, use the rear facing camera to capture what’s in front of it. Then we say, hey, maybe we can use the front facing camera as well to give some interactive feedback when you’re other form of practices, like your ball handling or your agility. So can we do more there? So we begin to explore those applications and then pandemic hits the next year.

18:48
Those part of Homecourt went viral, grow much faster than the short tracking part of Homecourt. The agility one grew 40 times. So 40 times usage. All of a sudden, like half a million people, wow, like we thought we have a pretty niche app. Then like half a million people is like using it. You know, this we reach like half a million monthly active user. People come in and they’re not even playing, they’re not even basketball player.

19:17
They’re a player for all kinds of sports. So that’s give us inspiration to do the first pivot. Hey, how about we take those things out and we create another app called Active Arcade and see how that goes. And Active Arcade went even more viral than Homecourt. But we begin to learn what’s actually working. And we find that the retention of using Active Arcade on iPad is three times of Homecourt.

19:45
And the retention of anyone could connect the phone to the TV or tablet to TV and use it there is 10x the retention. we finally discovered we actually building for the wrong platform. Uh, we need to find what I called at that time, a 64, 65 inch iPad, big device with camera and have processing that can do it. cannot find one. So end up that one of go find, Hey, let’s just build one. And that’s how we.

20:16
uh, begin the journey of building next playground and get to where we are, get to where, we are today is a hell of a journey at the hell of a pivot. Um, from home court about the training app all of a sudden to, uh, like a motion game console, we call it an active play system. So it’s a quiet journey. Well, I have to say that you have the cutest game console of all time. Cause anybody look it up or if you’re watching on video.

20:45
It’s like uh a cube that what is it like a few inches by a few inches? Yeah, it’s pretty small. Yeah. Yep. Three inch Cube. That’s what we have here. So like if you have in your living room It doesn’t disrupt the space at all and then when you watch the videos and what this thing can do is unbelievable the different games ah Now you’ve gotten to the point where you’re partnering with like pep the pig uh Bluey all you know our daughter I’m sure is soon to be favorite things, you know on the latest flight we were on she was just she liked the seatback screen so she was just

21:14
Fast forwarding through all those, but in time she’ll sit there and watch those. anyway, anyway, you know, this thing has really exploded in terms of the potential and, you know, the sales now as well. On that, uh, design note, how did you, you know, channeling your inner Steve jobs, how did you guys get to the point that you’re able to put all this amazing technology in, in camera in like such a cute little box, if you’ll call it. When we explore the industrial design of it, we write

21:44
the design brief. you know, our VP of design, Josh Finno, who also spent a lot of time in Apple before leading that effort, but he cannot do everything himself. So we do go out to a couple of industrial design firm, give them the brief and ask them to come up with a proposal of what that could look like. And then we get a proposal from, from Laval, who is an industrial design firm.

22:13
Momlad, this industrial design firm based in San Francisco, their design is different. They find out, we get it. It’s like, you when you say, hey, you build a game console and someone come in with something looks like a game console. And they come in with something very completely different. When we see it, we just fall in love with the design. And it’s our, they call it design rubik. It’s just like, it look like little bit look like a rubik cubes.

22:41
is we need to do a lot in, in after that, is it even, is it even possible to do it like this? When the design come out and we just like, wow, this is great. And then the work begin to try to make it work. That is the, when something click, it just begins the quest. Hey, I know it’s difficult, but, then more people want to pick up on that challenge because it’s fun when it become a challenge to our.

23:08
like mechanical design and like the rest of the hardware design need to basically fit everything into one small cube form factor. You get, you get to see everybody actually excited about working on that project. It’s like, and like go back to the Apple thing again, it’s just like when you have something great, you just pull people in. People want to make it, make it happen. People want you because like Nix all by itself cannot do everything. It’s important that we, at that point, when we start building Nix Playground, we have 40 people.

23:39
We lean in on our partners to help us to bring their superpower onto the table. So we have partnership with the SOC vendor AMlogic, who is a leader in set-up box chipset manufacturing. We are working with Skyworth Digital, who have bring in the manufacturing and mechanical design capabilities into the project and level.

24:06
doing industrial designs is like, you know, it’s next in the center, but we pull in a lot of great people to make it possible. It’s just incredible to see. You can’t think about in the 20s of 2023, we actually did it in one year. I was in the beginning of 2023, I was just carrying like a 3D printed model. Hey, we want to make it happen and just keep going around and asking for help to build this product.

24:35
And the whole thing happened in one year and the singular focus, the whole team coming together, not just next, but like our partners come together and make one thing possible with one goal to make sure the first 5,000 people got it. We only have money to create 5,000 units, but at that time, so that’s all we have. And we’ve only one goal to make the first 5,000 units. Or for first 5,000 customers, we’re happy about our product is a highlight of the career.

25:06
You hear people talk about beauty and constraint and how much amazing things come out of that. uh One of my old coworkers, a mentor of mine, Ken Krasnow, back when I was in the corporate world, he’d always talk about beauty and constraint. And apparently there’s some stories about Mick Jagger would learn to dance in like very tight quarters. like, that’s kind of why he dances the way he does. anyway, you had the physical constraint there of like, cool, how do we get everything into the box? And then…

25:33
basically a time constraint there as well. did this all in one year. How do you think you and the team were able to achieve such like a seemingly impossible task and stay so focused on that? First of all, that is the last bet that we can make. I don’t think Nick can come around to have another try if that fail. When it becomes clear, hey, this is the possibly last thing.

26:03
we can do together at that point is 2023, right? The company started 2017. So we are like, you know, more than five years in already into this. And, and over the five years, we build a tech, we start building content, uh, with home, connective, RK and subsequent something, other things that we also build on mobile as well. But mobile was the wrong platform for the experience we’re creating. So we now end up.

26:31
decorating the platform so that our tech, our content can shine and become that unifying factor that get everyone to do one thing only. And the team is incredible. Try to do everything right. I can, I remember those times I can only be really thankful that like we all pour our hearts into it because it’s not just that one year, but it’s all the work that accumulated before. Finally.

27:01
get to a point where this is arguably the best experience that we ever, we ever create and deliver to our customers. And it ended up with what cut through the noise as well. It’s really inspiring just hearing about like the design, like the actual hard product, like the actual physical product and what went into that. And we barely even talked about the games yet. So like I was just binging earlier, absolutely loving.

27:30
clips about what the actual gameplay looks like and what, we mentioned the Peppa Pig and the Bluey, but you’ve partnered with these really, really cool franchises and TV shows out there, and Sesame Street as well, and creating games that fit those brands incredibly well, but are also super fun for families, especially kids. What is your philosophy in terms of adding more games that are

28:00
playable on next playground. the beginning, we don’t have all these partnerships yet. It’s a small company who would trust us. But because we have Homecourt, because NBA behind Homecourt, when we start building motion experiences, we have an early partnership with Hasbro. um We are still really thankful for Hasbro to be the first one to believe in us. And they offer us Peppa Pig.

28:29
which is like certainly one of the crunch roll IP. And I remember the one thing that we are promising them is this is a big franchise and we cannot do any harm to the franchise. That’s the beginning of that. We deeply care about trust and safety. We are creating something that is certainly unique to the brand. Like Peppa Pig, you think about jumping in a muddy puddle very quickly with

28:57
next playground, can really jumping in a muddy puddle. Um, so we managed to get the license of creating a Peppa Pig game. So Peppa Pig is actually one of the game that is, is shipped in playground when we launch. And we have 18 other original IP titles that we created and the kind of accumulated over time. We ship AcuPrk there as well. And then we, we have other things we have.

29:26
We and we also bring in a few partners to create for the platform. So we ship the initial product with 19 games and now it’s grown to over 60 already. But the journey is more like that. We create a platform that’s focusing on trust and safety, focus on safety, privacy, security, because it’s a platform designed for families. And once we have that unique position, create a safe space for brand to connect with, like, you know, the family that we are serving.

29:56
So we are serving also have our own segment that we serve in family of young kids first. And then when Pepper is there, Sesame Workshop come on board. We are partnered with Sesame Workshop and then others like Mattel and Barbie and NBC Universal with Gaby Dollhouse, How to Train the Dragon, uh Kung Fu Panda and then Paramount with TMNT and then Prui come on board. And then we build out our

30:26
Big portfolio of licensed IP games and original IP games on the platform and create a rich experience for our customers. And we have exciting content roadmap for this year as well. I’m really excited about it. So that’s how we build up a library that I think that subscription model just works so well in a way that we don’t need to think about other ways to monetize our customers. Unlike, you know, games on mobile.

30:55
Or even games on PC, not just premium purchase, something with the LC, like, you know, some are as supported, some are having other mechanics. We don’t need any of that. We just, hey, like a simple, honest model of $89 a year, access the whole library of games, and we keep surprising our customer for a whole year. And we keep doing that. It’s exciting and liberating as well.

31:21
So we can be only focusing on how we bring in great content, great partners, great original IP onto the platform and keep serving our customer better and better. That’s something that’s transferable across so many different types of businesses. We’ve seen companies do subscription models really well, and then we’ve seen other ones totally butcher it and, you know, can make or break a company. What advice do you have for fellow entrepreneurs out there that are considering a subscription model? So subscription model.

31:51
mean one thing, you need to build a deep relationship with your customers. You need to have your customer at heart. You need to give more than you take. And the beauty of subscription model is when you have a bigger base, you will have more resources to invest in the offering. Essentially, basically your customer help you make the product better and better. So we have this idea of that, we’re from this model. We actually keep coming back.

32:21
to the market every week with a better product, because we keep shipping updates, new games, um you know, on ongoing basis. It’s really about building trust. It’s really about like, it’s a non-transactional relationship. It’s really about solving our problem that is recurring as well. Yeah, just deliver the value that you you are to deliver.

32:51
you know, serving what I call timeless consumer needs or timeless human needs. You know, our position is to serve the needs to move, the needs to connect with family, with friends, the needs to grow and the need to have fun. And we would always thinking about everything we do, think about our customers, think about how we surprise and delight them. It’s a commitment. It’s an ongoing commitment to do something that’s better and better.

33:22
Well, you absolutely read my mind and I think you AI camera track what’s going on in my brain too, because we’re going to wrap up with something fun here. We want to wrap up with some rapid fire Q and A. You ready for it? So we have a basketball competition. There’s a hoop behind. No, I’m just kidding. All right. Let’s, let’s get wild. Speaking of basketball, who is an NBA player that you say you try to model your game after the most?

33:53
That’s a great answer. well now he’s known as the Lakers coach, before that, I remember growing up, you know, because people are very either hate Duke or love Duke. He was at the time one of the most hated and hateable college players of all time, but that’s because he was so good and you know, like one of the best three-point shooters of all time. So it is more just on court and off the court as well. So catch and shooter.

34:21
And it’s also my role. I’m a student guard too, when I play catch and shoot. There’s a lot I can learn from him on that play style. And second, he’s so articulative. He speaks so well. I remember one time he’s also investor in Next as well. Oh, that’s all. Congrats on that. And we have a chance that we can, you know, interview him. Wow. Just listening to him and how articulate he is. Give me goosebumps.

34:52
So, teach your redneck 100%. Yeah, modern day Renaissance man with basketball player turned podcaster turned broadcaster, now coach, investor as well. It’s really cool. You’re getting to work with them a lot. All right. I saw that you study at the University of Hong Kong, which is something that’s probably just a couple hour flight from me. uh No, it’s probably very, very long from me, but you study computer science among other things.

35:20
What specific class was the most challenging class that you studied there? Embedded system. Sorry, say it again. What’s the first word? What system? Embedded system. Yeah. I remember that was a project that we need to program a train. It ends up, it’s a bit excited. Like, I think like, you know, we have a couple of teammates and there’s so many projects going on. It’s a hit. You guys deal with it. I have you deal with other projects. That’s what happened. That’s one of the harder costs.

35:49
I would be uh absolutely toast at any of that. All right. Steve Jobs, you hear so many stories about him, you know, larger than life figure. What was Steve Jobs actually like in terms of giving feedback on something? You know, as much as I wanted to be in the same room with him, he normally keep his meeting very small. So I have not been in the same room with him, but I would be sitting outside.

36:17
Every time there’s a debrief talk about the feedback he give. It’s always some, wow, is it possible? It’s always, always kind of, you you know, have that challenge that it’s both difficult and exciting at the same time. Sometimes it’s just the feedback is simple, but actually it’s very hard to achieve. But you’ve got to achieve that. Like that thing no longer is just being

36:46
something is transparent and something that’s like, don’t know no longer bothering you. So it, for the years is also trained for me and train a really good eyes for things that’s like irritating. And sometimes we moving those irritations could be simple. Sometimes it be really, really hard. Yeah. So that’s feedback from Steve is always challenges. right. So we’re going to go from that.

37:13
Seemingly almost fictional character they call Steve Jobs because it’s unbelievable all he did in his life to Somebody in a realm I guess adjacent to that so last one Let’s say you could have dinner with any video game character ever Who would that be? Has been alien so before? Somebody in the in Starcraft I am

37:42
Before my daughter was born, I’m big Starcraft II fan. Wow, it’s like so long time ago, like 14, 15 years ago. Probably meeting with someone from Protoss. It would be fun to speak with an alien. Because I’m a big, alien fan, and I’m hoping that the declassification really happen. Big alien fan and… No, I’m just curious. I’m just curious about those things.

38:12
Something that makes humans feel smaller, something that unifies us more, because when we are not alone, I feel that’s very unifying. When human beings are not alone, it’s very unifying too. Because I’m hoping world peace, hoping that we can drop our differences now that we know we’re not the only one out there. I’m hoping for that effect when we know a little bit more about those things.

38:42
It’s a great message and a much more heartfelt message than I expected when I asked about dinner with a video game character. So I appreciate how you keep the surprises coming. David Lee, which by the way, you’re a basketball fan. you familiar with the former Knicks player David Lee? Cause it is funny. There’s the same name. Yup. And I tell you a funny story. So when I go on stage with Steve Nash on Apple stage in 2018, when we talk about how Homecourt use AI to track motion.

39:11
and password shot in real time. I remember somebody make a joke, oh, it’s Steve Nash and the wrong David Lee. Go on stage. You’re the right David Lee in my book. David, thanks so much. Congrats on everything with Next, the Next Playground and Homecore and everything there. So excited to see what you guys do next and, and, and cover, enjoy more of it. So.

39:36
Thanks so much for coming on. Where’s the best place if somebody wants to learn more about Next or Next Playground or just connect with you online, what’s your preferred place for that? Well, you can connect with LinkedIn. I also wrote a blog called playthatmovesyou.com. We have a user community. So if you have a Next Playground, please join us on Facebook or Reddit or follow us on social media. And you will actually see me replying your message there. And I’m actually pretty active because I think listening to customers, interacting with them are very important for Next.

40:06
So I’m championing those effort to be out there and just talking to customers And further proof that you are the right David Lee Last thing final thoughts just like a few words ah Maybe a mission or motto words to live by whatever you want. Take us home here next mission is to connect families and friends through active play and We want to build next into a 100 year company

40:34
and a 100-year company will serve timeless human needs to move, to connect, to grow, and to have fun. That’s what we live by. And we will keep building from here.

40:52
keep building and keep building in particular, tiny smart cubes that are so cute and so awesome. Thank you David for sharing your next playground story, for coming on Wild Business Growth. Thank you Wild Listeners and Wild Viewers for tuning in. You know where to subscribe or follow if you’re not already. And on YouTube it’s @MaxBranstetter for the video versions. Anything else? It is MaxPodcasting.com.

41:21
said in that voice exactly. Until next time, Let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!