Full Transcript – Keith Alaniz – Wild Business Growth Podcast #243

This is the full transcript for Episode #243 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast featuring Keith Alaniz – Saffron Soldier, Co-Founder of Rumi Spice. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Keith Alaniz 0:00
where there is ruin there is hope for treasure

Max Branstetter 0:17
Hello, hello, welcome back from the honeymoon from all your honeymoons. Welcome back to the Wild Business Growth Podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting. And you can email me at . And as I alluded to, like 20 seconds ago, this is the first episode back from the honeymoon and absolute time of our lives in Italy. We are pizza’d up, pasta’d up, gelato’d up, and today we are saffron’d up. This is episode 243. And today’s guest is Keith Alaniz. Keith is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rumi Spice, which partners with Afghan farmers to bring the highest quality sustainably farmed saffron, cumin, all sorts of amazing spices from Afghanistan, all around the world. In this episode, we talk what Keith learned and his crazy experiences serving in the military in both Iraq and Afghanistan, how he created connections and created a business partnering with those Afghan farmers. And the challenges and beautiful challenges. And problem solving that comes with running a business where your product is sourced from halfway around the world. It is Keith, and it is spicy. Enjoyyyyyyyyy the shoooooooow!

Aaaaaalrightyyyyy we’re here with Keith Alaniz, Co-Founder of Rumi Spice, super cool, and I dare say spicy company with a really strong mission behind it. Keith so much looking forward to a conversation today. Thank you so much for joining in how you doing today.

Keith Alaniz 2:15
Great, great. Thanks for having me, Max. Excited to be here,

Max Branstetter 2:18
of course. And if you can make it through the first spice pun, then you can make it through the rest. So thank you, but really excited to dive into the Rumi Spice journey. But before that, you you know, before even starting the business that served for the army in Afghanistan, and I was looking at your background, some of the some of the stuff that you did, and I saw you are a platoon leader for a platoon and who was in charge of neutralizing improvised explosive devices. IEDs which sounds like the most stressful job in the world? I mean, how can you take us back to that phase of life and what what the day to day was like there?

Keith Alaniz 2:59
Yeah, I mean, you know, in retrospect, you know, it’s the most stressful job short of being a startup entrepreneur, but commission, so I joined the Army, like in 99, I was really young 17 out of high school, kind of looking for something to do from the summer convinced my mom to sign the papers. And let me let me join. And this was pre 9/11, which is seems like a long time ago now. And then went to school. 9/11 happened while I was in school at Texas A&M and ROTC. And by the time I graduated, you know, we were well into two conflicts and Afghanistan, and Iraq. So right after commissioning, you know, in training, I went to go over as platoon leader for a platoon that was already deployed in Baghdad, Iraq, and this was a really tough time for Iraq War, it was probably the worst point, you know, in the war in terms of, you know, the IEDs were, I mean, we were in a sector where we were fighting, basically, there was two factions that were fighting each other, and then they were both fighting us. So it was, you know, nothing short of chaos. And our role was to, you know, go out the gate every day and spend 12 hours cruising down the streets at, you know, 10 miles an hour looking, looking for roadside bombs, and it was really, you know, at that time was basically us in our eyeballs trying to find what looked odd and out of place. You know, we’re very fortunate to come out, you know, relatively unscathed, but we found found a lot of bombs, and then some of them found us before we found them. So it was a crazy experience. But I’ll tell you where, you know, it really did shape my sort of view of life in the military. And, you know, it gave me an immediate perspective on the serious consequences of conflict. And I think that throughout my decade in the military, and you know, leading up to my experience in Afghanistan, it gave me an appreciation for addressing the sources of it. instability and conflict before it requires, you know, young men and women to go out and you know, fight because obviously at that point, it’s, it’s too late. I compare my experience in Iraq to Afghanistan, you know, where Afghanistan, I was there in a little bit different capacity with some language skills and some training in, you know, the Afghanistan culture, and some of the socio economic conditions of Afghanistan, particularly the language skills, you know, and so I compare my time in Iraq, it was like operating with a blindfold, compared to as much as I could see, and experience in Afghanistan with just a little bit of language skills and knowledge of the culture. I mean, my eyes were just wide open to, you know, what was happening in and around, which was a totally different, totally different experience than being in a place where I didn’t know the language and I didn’t know the culture, and I was just there trying to react, essentially react to bombs, you know. So it was, it gave me a ability to see having a perspective on what was happening in Afghanistan, how it could affect them.

Max Branstetter 5:58
I mean, you talked about once in a lifetime experiences, but though, he can’t even imagine what you went through and just kind of what was on your mind every day is such a fascinating and roller coaster of a time. You mentioned that you basically we’re we’re looking at roadside bombs with your eyeballs, which is quite the thing to add to your resume, I would say. But how did you approach each day knowing that there’s so much danger, and there’s so much on the line, you know, every time you step out on the road? That’s a

Keith Alaniz 6:29
good question next. Honest, honestly, it’s, I mean, this, this, I don’t know if there’s another way to sugarcoat it. But it’s a complete disassociation, and focus on what you have to do that day, and what that mission is, for better or worse, that’s how I dealt with it. And I think that’s how a lot of people dealt dealt with it, you’re hyper focused on the next 12 hours, I mean, the next 12 feet in front of you, you put everything else out of your mind, you know, I think that the time to daydream and wonder about like getting back home, and all that kind of stuff that is like nothing, nothing’s in front of your mind, except for the task at hand. And it’s an intensity that is one time exhilarating, and the same time exhausting, because you do that for you know, we were there for 15 months, you know, and, you know, it was it was mentally mentally straining, to say the least. But at the end of the day, you know, and experience that, you know, shaped shaped me, you know, because I think that that level of intensity is something that you never sort of experience again in your life, you know, and kind of knowing like, where your body and mind can go, when you do have, like something of critical importance in front of you is, you know, you kind of know, test your limits. And I think that, you know, in this case, it was like less physical, more mental, but certainly, certainly pushing your body to its limits.

Max Branstetter 7:49
So let’s get to what you first said maybe tongue in cheek, maybe not is even more stressful, which is being a startup founder is being an entrepreneur. So let’s get to the the Rumi spice story. And I’ve heard of saffron. I don’t know when I when I heard of it. I mean a while ago at this point, but I’m still not that familiar with it. But I know it’s a huge part of the business. And it’s super cool spice. When did you first cross paths with this thing called saffron?

Keith Alaniz 8:19
Yep, Max, I was just like you I didn’t really know much about saffron. I’d heard of it as a spice. You know, I was in Afghanistan. This is around 2014. And I was working with the local government and local tribal elders. And in this capacity, I was approached by a farmer named Todd Yosef. And he brought with him the saffron and he said, you know, look, I grow more of a saffron, if I could help, if I could find a market for my products, and he was talking about hyperlocal, like his local village market. So he was looking for whatever assistance I could give him. I had been developing this perspective on Afghanistan, and realizing that most of the causes of instability are economically driven. And, you know, it was easy to see that, you know, at that point, 14 years, you know, ultimately, like 21 years of international involvement was really focused on the urban centers, but 85% of the populace was in the rural areas. So there was they were not really seeing any kind of tangible benefits from the international involvement in Afghanistan. And what this farmer was telling me was, so microcosm of the larger problem, you know, there’s, there’s a tremendous capacity for production for doing, you know, great products, but a lack of a market to like really draw out that, you know, create that demand that would warrant increasing the supply of product that took us a little spice did some research and I was like, Oh, this is interesting. It’s the most expensive spice in the world. And it’s, it’s expensive because of the amount of labor it takes to harvest and process this product. So I talked to my friend Kim, and we had both served together and military. She was at Harvard business school at the time, and I said, Hey, Kim, this is let’s This is an interesting idea. What if we can open up some markets to these Afghan farmers, we could create a little business for them and start incentivizing them to grow more Saffron. And at that time, you know, like, well, maybe we can get like a handful of farmers connect them with a handful of chefs and restaurants in the US and you know, kind of be done with it. And that was really where it started. But as we started taking this background around to chefs, you know, we really realized that this was something special because of the particular terroir of Afghanistan the way that they they cultivated it, it was very high quality and like nothing that the other the chefs, you know, had seen before. So we really caught on with high end chefs as early adopters, and sort of realized we had something special on our hands. With the with the saffron coming from Afghanistan.

Max Branstetter 10:38
What is saffron tastes like? Like I mentioned, I’ve had it and didn’t even realize that I’ve had it before. But what does it taste like? And I guess a part B of that just to, you know, throw a curveball at you is, what are some of the most common foods that typically are spiced with saffron?

Keith Alaniz 10:53
That’s probably the second question. Most people would have probably experienced saffron in pi. So if you’ve had a decent buy, it should have saffron in it have I struggled to describe flavors. And saffron is one of those flavors. It’s a little bit hard to describe. But it’s the it’s it’s a floral sort of earthy essence that it imparts to the food that it’s in. But it very much changes from whether you’re putting it into a savory dish like Paya, or a sweet dish, like there’s a ice cream called bustani Ice cream that you can make with saffron. But there’s you can run the gamut of savory to sweet and how it can be applied. It also imparts like a yellow or red red color into food. So it is sometimes used as just a natural, like food coloring. And then there’s all of these other health benefits that come along with saffron and a lot of places in the Middle East. And other parts of the world. They use it for medicinal purposes as well. And a lot of the history of saffron, you know, from Cleopatra to Alexander the Great. It’s built around this idea of saffron as the health benefits of saffron saffron as an aphrodisiac. And there’s all these great stories about saffron and has a tremendous, tremendous history. I think I think the the floral, earthy, earthy flavor is probably the best way to describe the taste of saffron. But it’s one of those, there’s nothing even similar to it that you can put in a dish, but just call saffron is not a substitute, although some people use turmeric because it does color. Provide that color agent, but it doesn’t have the taste. It’s effortless.

Max Branstetter 12:20
Yeah, it makes you think I mean, tumeric is a great example. I think of like tumeric and cumin and garam masala. I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing that but like, there are certain spices that are so unique and like you only know it when you’ve tasted it. And they’re like, Oh, that’s it or that. It sounds like saffron. so versatile. I mean, the reputation for saffron precedes itself. But it’s it’s a really awesome spice to like be the, you know, front and center first thing, you know, flagship spice of your brand. So I see why you gravitated towards it. How about creating those relationships with the Afghan farmers as well as setting up? You know, the market in the US? What were those early steps in terms of turning this from a theoretical idea to an actual business?

Keith Alaniz 13:07
Yeah. So when we first started my partner, Kim, between the first and second year of business school, flew to Afghanistan, you know, as a civilian. I was there in Afghanistan with the military, but fortunately had a pretty long leash, given the job that I had. So I was able to meet her meet some of these farmers, she went and met some more farmers and literally carried back saffron and a plastic bag to the US and started knocking on doors and trying to find the market for these products. And like I said, we’ve found that the early adopters were high end chefs, they really appreciated the quality. And it started sort of gaining some traction with these chefs. And we started developing relationships with some of our suppliers that we still have today and exporting more and more saffron. As we grew, we realized that, you know, in order to scale, we needed to drive some efficiencies in the way that saffron was produced. Because the traditional way of production was the farmers would harvest the flowers that comes from a crocus flower. And then the women in the farmer’s family would get around in the farmhouse and extract the stigma for the purpose flour, dry it on mats, consolidate it and then sell it in the market. Well, you can imagine, you know, it’s one thing when you do that with 10 farmers, but when you have the demand and you add more and more farmers, if you’re talking about 100 different farmers with 100 different houses and all doing things a little bit differently, it’s very hard to maintain quality control over that scope of production. So one of our innovations in that sacrum industry is that we saw this operation problem and consolidated production in single facilities. It was very interesting because culturally, in Afghanistan, women are the ones involved in the processing. So we needed to hire women to do the processing of the crocus flowers in a centralized facility. And we needed to do it in a way that it complied with the local norms of women and In the workplace, so our partner went out and had to convince the heads of household that this is a safe place for them to work. And we really made a conscious decision to be Afghan led, and within the Afghan societal norms, we weren’t trying to go there and change the way, you know, people culturally, you know, felt comfortable operating, you know, waving an American flag and imparting our way of life on people, we just wanted them to have an opportunity to have an economic benefit from the market that we were creating, that became like pretty core to our mission is that now you know, what started as an operator solution to an operations problem actually became a driver of impact, which is really, what kind of drives our business now is that we hired thousands of women in Afghanistan each year. And this is one of the few, I can’t think of another one off the top of my head industries, where we’ve created this sort of ability for women to work, earn a wage and take that, you know, money home to support their families, it really changes the way that they’re viewed in their communities. And it opens up opportunities. They’re not just labor, they’re also our managers, and our financial people, like they do you all the roles within this company. And, and a lot of them are farmers as well. So it’s really shown, you know, the society that, you know, women can provide tremendous value in a working capacity, beyond what their contribution is already to the household economy, you know, they can go out and earn a living. I think that one thing I’m particularly proud of, you know, 20 years of involvement in Afghanistan, of the internet community involvement all went up in smoke a year and a half ago, or, you know, when the Taliban took over, everything went up and spoke except for what we were doing here, because we what we did was created things with the, with the local culture in mind. And I mean, honestly, we’ve we’ve been able to continue unabated, and our production continues, and women are continuing to be unpaid, even while the Taliban shut down women from other public spaces in Afghanistan, the people who work with me, spies in Afghanistan, are still able to go to work every day and earn a living and support their families.

Max Branstetter 16:54
Yeah, that’s a you got a lot to be proud about that. It’s amazing on so many accounts, and I’m glad you didn’t, you know, go door to door waving American flag and partying value.

Keith Alaniz 17:06
I mean, it’s, it’s funny, you laugh at it. But that’s not to dip. That’s probably an apt description of a lot of our involvement over 20 is

Max Branstetter 17:18
to put the production in perspective, so how long does it typically take like to go from a living crocus flower out and on a farm to an actual stigma saffron that is able to be consumed? Well,

Keith Alaniz 17:35
we harvest in late October, or in October timeframe, let’s say and that saffron from the harvest can make it here to the US and in a restaurant by December or January. So we can move it pretty quickly the way we set up our processing. But a fun fact is that it takes 150,000 crocus flowers to produce just one kilogram of saffron. So that gives you kind of a sense for the amount of labor that’s involved in each one of those focus bars, this students have to be hand extracted, dried, and then packaged up for sale. It’s very,

Max Branstetter 18:11
yeah, that 150,000 to one. And the flowers are very pretty as well, like, it’s a very pretty spice. It’s very, like, it makes sense that I mean, obviously, you know, the labor is what drives it up. But it makes sense, it makes sense. Shout out my friend spends, it makes sense that that is the most expensive spice in the world.

Keith Alaniz 18:30
And it’s immune to, it’s immune to automation. So it’s not something that you get, I mean, people have been thinking about automating saffron for years. It’s at this point to delegate tasks, sort of running through on the sheet.

Max Branstetter 18:43
Yeah, you spoke about the impact that you have, and amazing women that are part of the Rumi spice journey and putting these spices together, how have you created that on if you want to call it a program or a culture, where it’s, it’s encouraging this and you’re able to continue to give back and create opportunities like this,

Keith Alaniz 19:04
alright, starts with our customers, I think customers, they value the quality of the product, but they also value the impact that they’re having. And I feel that the, you know, American consumers more conscious with how they spend money and want to do things that, you know, had their monies go into good use. And that really helps us, you know, from a demand side, and we’re, you know, sold in Whole Foods across the country and, you know, 4,000 other places, and we continue to see our market grow. And it’s because of that, that we can continue to grow the demand in Afghanistan. I’ll also say that I think that food itself, you know, is important in sort of bridging cultures. I mean, you know, here in the US, like, you don’t really think about it, but every time you go out to eat, you’re experiencing a different culture. So you make a choice every night to go eat something with your family and showcase a different culture. Well, what we’re trying to do is really bring that culture, you know, connect that culture of Afghanistan to the To us, and really tell people that, you know, Afghanistan is not just the terrible stuff you hear on the news, you know, it’s not just war and terrorism and opium. But it’s a story about resilience. It’s a story about, you know, women working, and people trying, you know, despite 40 years of warfare, people working to, you know, provide a better life for the families. And it’s as beautiful cultures as beautiful food. And it’s this, you know, amazing, you know, environment that people don’t always mean, it can’t just fly to Afghanistan experience, but you can have saffron, and you can have cumin, and you can have all these ingredients from Afghanistan, and at least, you know, know that you’re connected to people and that sort of way.

Max Branstetter 20:37
It’s an incredible mission. And you mentioned the flight. And that’s something I was really wondering about is, I think, over time, and as technology has progressed, it’s become more and more feasible to, quote unquote, you know, run a business remotely. But not often do you have somebody who’s running a business where, you know, the main product is, is source, you know, literally such a long flight away, and I’m sure you travel around quite a bit. But the time of this recording, you recently moved to San Antonio, you were in Chicago before that, both not exactly a, you know, one hour flight or boat ride to Afghanistan, how do you maintain, you know, the business running efficiently in production and everything in that ballpark? While being so far away from the actual you know, crocus flowers in the beginning?

Keith Alaniz 21:24
Yeah, you know, it’s, we have a, we have a globally dispersed team. So I’ve gotten really good at looking at my world time to just make sure that I know where everybody is, but I feel like people are working 24/7 Because of our, the way our teams built out, but I have actually, you know, traveled, I haven’t traveled since COVID. But I’ve been to Afghanistan, you know, I look forward to going back there, we were trying to go and at one point, we were going every year to, you know, just have a presence there and to see what was happening. And we we rely on our partners, and we’ve established really good relationships with them over the years. And most people just call supplier suppliers, but these are truly partners. So we have, you know, mutually beneficial relationship. And we’ve established protocols and quality control and things, things like that. And that’s one thing that I think helped us to unlock the potential of Afghanistan is that we were able to take this like sort of, you know, modern way of food safety and teach that to our suppliers. And, you know, over the years, we invested a lot of time and money and resources into, you know, establishing quality control procedures. And that’s really what’s a lot the ability for us to export agricultural products at scale is because we can do it in a way that’s going to you know, frankly, just meet meet our pretty stringent requirements on on food safety. But yeah, I mean, I think it’s kind of become second nature to work globally, and we’ve been working you know, remote before the whole world work remote in 2019. That’s just how I’ve always grown this business.

Max Branstetter 22:51
You’re a true trendsetter, a spicy trendsetter. Speaking of that quality, your business has grown a crazy number in terms of how many different spices you offer. And I know you got merchandise now as well, there’s, there’s so many different products you offer in addition to like the original saffron, how have you been able to, you know, maintain that roomy spice brand while adding more and more different flavors and spices to the mix.

Keith Alaniz 23:20
You know, we really center on the quality and this and the story. So number one, it has to be a high quality product. So we’re not just trying to get you know, any run of the mill product. But what’s great is that because of the way that agriculture is done in Afghanistan, we tend to get high quality products it’s you know, I think in the western world we’re probably used to consuming products that are commercially produced. But there is this trend towards local small small farmers and people realize that you can get better quality often from smaller farmers and you can you know, if you’re buying large industrial production, Afghanistan that’s all there is is small farmers so all of the products tend to be pretty high quality. I think what’s really interesting about our products other than saffron are that they are all wild forage that so the saffron is farmed but the you know the cumin and the fennel all those other products that we’re bringing out there found during wild and regions in Afghanistan. And so the villagers go out and force these products when it’s harvest time they’ll go out to the mountains in congress this cumin so that that I mean not only is it a cool story, but they that the quality is so much differentiated from like a run of the mill, you know, spices that are you know, domestic production. It’s just a totally different, totally different experience.

Max Branstetter 24:46
If quality is important not only in your spices but in your business and your podcast as well. consider signing up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter, you can do so at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. It is your place to learn Learn how to create a high quality podcast, prove the quality of your own podcast, as well as improve the quality of your entrepreneurshipment, just made that up. But it is the mix of podcasting and entrepreneurship. And it is a new email from me every Thursday to your inbox, except when I was on our honeymoon because, you know, honeymoon, MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Now let’s, you know, do that thing where we switch gears and dive into the mind of Keith. So let’s switch gears a bit, let’s get to inspiration and creativity. So this is more you personally, as entrepreneur business owner, how you stay inspired how you stay creative, and you just segwayed perfectly because you talked about people in Afghanistan, being able to, quote unquote, Wild forage, grab these spices, they’re out in the wild, I’m curious, and your standpoint, outside of work, what do you do in your free time to help you stay creative? Or, you know, blow off steam? Take your mind off things? What keeps you flowing there?

Keith Alaniz 26:11
You know, that’s a tough question to ask someone who’s an entrepreneur and with kids. So I think I’m every time I’ve spent time with my kids, and they’re actually pretty inspirational. And I think just last night, I was making my I mean, on my personal Instagram, I was making the posts, and I was listening to what they were saying and doing. And, you know, they kind of inspired me to make a little post about about Rumi, you know, just by the game that they were playing. Yeah, I mean, I’ll be honest, I lean on my team who has, you know, got a great marketing director, he gets all the creative juices going for the company. One thing I’ll say, though, is I think it is tough to work on the left side and right side of your brain, because, you know, you’re, you know, especially folks serving small businesses are trying to do a lot and you know, it’s, it’s hard to just kind of turn that on and off. I think it’s a special talent, people who can, who can be creative, and then be analytical at the same time, you know, are the same day. So yeah, I definitely look look towards my teammates, and try to stay connected with other folks in the in and around business and in food, and then kind of get creativity and inspired from, you know, chefs and from, you know, other folks in the food business and what they’re doing

Max Branstetter 27:21
in a day, in addition to your kids who provide endless inspiration, and sure entertainment as well, and social media content for you. But how about in the, like, the food space? Are there any well known chefs or food brands that you kind of admire and learn from?

Keith Alaniz 27:40
Oh, yeah, definitely. Not to name drop, but we’re Thomas Keller’s, you know, uses our saffron and, you know, everything that him and his restaurants do is like really inspiring, like, as a personal, you know, like me cooking like probably a little bit outside of my skill level for the most part. But it is it is really cool to see the stuff that he’s coming up with. And likewise, other other chefs something more my, my style is like, we have a lot of chefs that make hire, you know, Spanish chefs, and you know, pay restaurants, Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba! in Chicago, Danny Lledo in DC. And they’re doing all kinds of incredible things. So I like to see what they’re doing. And then I’ve kind of tried to do my own at home. So I do like making, making pie, it’s actually not as hard as it looks. And then I think like from a brand perspective, what I’ve come to realize is that, you know, we do have a high quality product that almost speaks for itself, it’s hard to tell people what food tastes like through a picture. But what we can tell people is the story. So we have been trying to lean more and more on the story because I think people appreciate knowing that this is not just sort of a faceless brand, but this brand represents people and these are the people that it represents. And this is the struggles that they go to this is their accomplishments. And this is you know, sort of our journey and I think sharing that and being really upfront with our journey as a company and you know, the mission and what we stand for, I think is really important to drive that connection with our, with our customers.

Max Branstetter 29:07
Oh totally so much meaning to the brand but also personality and it’s an incredible differentiator for the brand. I mean the spice category is so crazy crowded and there are so many companies that are out there trying to stand out there having a strong inspirational story behind it is only for the better. You You alluded to your cooking ability so now that you know how to make pie as well but overall, how has your your cooking skill been impacted by you getting into the spice slash food business?

Keith Alaniz 29:43
Oh yeah, you know before this I was like a meat and potatoes kind of guy. I wouldn’t know like if I could grill things you know, I’ll make it but I wasn’t much of a much of a cook per se but now I won’t say I’m an expert and I still think that my wife is a better cook than I am. But I do like to play around. The kitchen a lot more. And I’m always trying to try. Try new things. One of my favorite aspects of the job is going and talking to chefs and selling into restaurants because it’s just such a cool atmosphere. And actually, it reminds me a lot of the military the way that the kitchens run. Yeah, I really enjoy just kind of getting in there with the chefs and like, seeing what’s going on behind the kitchen and talking about how they want to, you know, build their menu and you know, what we can add to the menu in terms of ingredients? Yeah, maybe I’m able to kind of glean some ideas off of, off of, you know, just being around these really creative and really skilled chefs.

Max Branstetter 30:36
It’s like that show The Bear. Yes, Chef. Yes, Chef. That’s

Keith Alaniz 30:42
really cool. Yeah.

Max Branstetter 30:47
Speaking of unusual shows, let’s let’s get to The Unusual: Pet Peeves, Quirks, and Weird Talents. Now this doesn’t have to tie back to Rumi at all. It’s more about you personally. But you know, you’re welcome to try to tie it back. If you want Pepe, what’s your biggest pet peeve?

Keith Alaniz 31:01
You know, I wouldn’t say much call it a pet peeve. But I think that I’m a pretty like detailed and analytical person. So that’s not everybody’s telling us not everybody’s style, you know, at the time, but you know, I think that I appreciate when people appreciate that, like a detailed analysis of things. And so sometimes I have to like, you know, understand my own sort of propensity to like overanalyze and, you know, be able to meet people halfway on on a good solution that may not be may not be perfect.

Max Branstetter 31:35
How about quirks but something a little quirky, a little quirky about your personality that your wife kids should bring somebody, somebody? Somebody calls you out for? Yeah, I mean, she’s welcome to?

Keith Alaniz 31:46
Well, I should I shouldn’t use that previous answer for this answer. But I think I think, you know, my wife would say that, um, like, you know, like, common sense. I mean, I would say that maybe I

Max Branstetter 32:01
wait, this sounds like my wife. And

Keith Alaniz 32:05
I think that, like, I’m a guy who is going to never remember where, where I parked, you know, I’m just going to walk away from my car without a second thought. And then this hope that I wander back to it, you know, when I’m done, you know, wherever I am. And that’s, that’s kind of a typical, like, I’m like, I should be thinking about something in my head. And then like, not eating, right, be aware of what’s happening.

Max Branstetter 32:26
Right. Always thinking it’s Yeah, multitasking is very intriguing, and always be thinking of something else. But yeah, that’s how you lose your car. Yes.

Keith Alaniz 32:36
But you’ll find it eventually. Yeah, exactly. What time to think, well, you’re looking for it, but

Max Branstetter 32:43
how about weird talents, and I won’t let you say being detailed and analytical for this one. This is something that like, could be, I guess, not based on your last answer, but it could be a memory trick. It could be you know, musical instruments something like that. Just something you’re really good at that you do it like a party or talent. You

Keith Alaniz 33:00
know, I don’t know about a talent show. But yeah, I do play musical instrument played guitar and piano and have it performed in a very long time. But yeah, that’s that’s my talent, I

Max Branstetter 33:12
guess. Perfect. Well, let’s wrap up with some some sweet tunes called Rapid Fire q&a. You ready for it?

Keith Alaniz 33:20
Let’s do it. All right, let’s

Max Branstetter 33:22
get wild. I’m not gonna make you sing. Now. That was a joke. I just like the music reference there. What it is, could be guitar or piano. What’s what’s your favorite song to cover? I’m one of those instruments.

Keith Alaniz 33:34
That’s, you know, you catch me I mean, it kind of ebbs and flows, right. Like but, you know, lately, you know, anything that’s like Disney or like, Jim Henson songs, you know, are a big hit around the house. And also like, you know, country like particularly Texas country music. What’s a good one “Dixieland Delight” by Alabama. One of my favorite songs to play.

Max Branstetter 33:57
Could you sing? No, I’m just kidding. Okay. All right. Speaking of Texas, you moved from Chicago to San Antonio. Besides the obvious, the weather, what has been the biggest change in being back in Texas?

Keith Alaniz 34:14
You know, I think have been around family and a place where you have roots is a big change for me. I mean, I’ve my family’s been in San Antonio for you know, many generations and so it’s it’s a, it’s nice to be able to go around and you know, have connections places and honestly, I can’t really go anywhere in San Antonio even though it’s the seventh largest city in the country without running into someone that I probably know or that knows knows me or you know, so it’s it’s got that small town feel, which I really appreciate.

Max Branstetter 34:45
I’ve been to San Antonio once we went as a family exploring some Texas cities and I’m sure you don’t go because it’s you know, it’s probably like going to Times Square it’s so over touristy but the San Antonio Riverwalk, I think is so cool. It’s like such a cool unique part. The town and it’s I just remember we’re down there’s, you know, it feels like a city below the city. It’s like got a sample separate field to it’s very unique feature.

Keith Alaniz 35:07
Yeah, I’m not sure how recently you came, but it’s I mean, it’s expanded so much. And so I mean, it’s a used I would say like, you know, maybe 5-10 years ago it was very touristy, but now it’s everybody goes because they’ve expanded it. And there’s all these new, you know, kind of more local, like places that people go and hang out. And just that whole area of town has really changed a lot, a lot of exciting things happening you

Max Branstetter 35:31
another Texas question for me are toes here. You are an Aggie, went to Texas A&M. So Gig ’em, there you go. But what is your favorite tradition from a&m?

Keith Alaniz 35:42
I think my favorite one is Aggie Bonfire, which, you know, you may remember in ’99, there was this big tragedy where the bonfire fell, but then, you know, still kind of continues in a form off campus. And I was, you know, working on bonfires, it was, you know, an experience of a young person where you get to, like, work really hard, you know, blood, sweat and tears with, you know, people that you don’t know when you start and then you kind of become really good friends and a really good bonding experience, and just a good taste of like, teamwork and hard work. And yeah, there’s a thing called bonfire where they’re so when the weather drops, like you kind of get that reminiscing of what it’s like to be out there in the cold, you know, chopping down trees and working hard with your fellow Aggies. So that’s got to be my favorite one.

Max Branstetter 36:27
Yeah, there’s I think, A&M has got to be one of the schools with the most tradition and there’s so many traditions there and ties to school spirit tight, and there’s other football traditions as well. What is your favorite recipe? I know when you’re on your set, you offer recipes. What is your favorite recipe using your spices? Besides pie?

Keith Alaniz 36:48
Asides? There’s one that’s Saffron Flan that I’m a big fan of making. So I do like you know, flying and that’s a actually it looks really great when you when you make it and it’s not not terribly challenging to make. So yeah, I think that’s my favorite one. I started quite risotto, I like risotto too. But that’s that’s also pretty, I think, common. Maybe for me, I have a lot of saffron.

Max Branstetter 37:15
Saffron Flan sounds like it’s one of those words. It’s like they say the term Cellar Door is so easy on the ears to hear. I think Saffron Flan is well it just rolls off the tongue. Yeah, that’s great. And then last one, besides saffron, what would you say is the most underrated spice

Keith Alaniz 37:32
Oh, easily the cumin I think that once you start using it, it’s you can’t go back to regular regular came in, it’s so differentiated in my mind even more so than saffron. Whereas you could get like a lower quality saffron and add a whole bunch of it. And you could probably elevate your that flavor to the same as like the high quality saffron that we’re bringing with him. And it’s a different profile. So it’s like, you can’t just add a bunch of local acumen and get this, you know, taste and flavor of this, of this wild forage black human because it’s an actually entirely different sort of species of plant that it’s coming from. So that’s, that’s one of my favorites, although the zaatar spice is like super popular now. So I think that that was really growing in popularity. And me I like it, too. But I got it. I got it figured out like But everybody’s using the software because it’s flying off the shelves.

Max Branstetter 38:25
Yeah, that I’m a huge human fan. So definitely off to try yours. And the tar. I don’t think it’s probably like saffron. I’m sure I’ve had it but didn’t know it. But it was a very cool, I think kumin at some point along the way, I realized like, oh, that smell that tastes like that’s cumin. And I just love eating like meals with meat in it. So it makes sense that it’s heavy in there. But Keith, this has been phenomenal. Thank you so much. Just absolute blast, love what you’re doing and created. And, of course, my pleasure and all for all things roomy. Where is the best place for people to try out roomy space, any roomy space as well as if they want to connect with you online.

Keith Alaniz 39:08
Yeah, you can you can find us at RumiSpice.com or Rumi Spice go to any of your neighborhood Whole Foods stores and you’ll see our products in the spice aisle.

Max Branstetter 39:20
Perfect. Last thing, it could be a quote line wherever you want to end on Final Thoughts, stage is yours, you can sing us off of you. And I’m just gonna I’m just gonna keep teasing. Quote to send us off here take us home.

Keith Alaniz 39:34
But the thing is certainly off top my head. Well, one thing I’ll say is that we named the company is Rumi, because he’s a poet. They spend a lot of time in Afghanistan. And he has a great philosophy. So we’re trying to you know, we want people to associate Afghanistan with these things like, like Rumi that just brought this beautiful philosophy to the world still today the world’s best selling code. And one thing that I think maybe may be top of mind, for me now is a Rumi quote that says you know where there’s ruin, there is hope for treasure. So I think that you know, the perception of a lot of the world and what Afghanistan is, is this place of war and ruin, but you know, what we’re bringing out is really treasure. So that’s my that’s my quote.

Max Branstetter 40:17
A great quote from the Quotable Keith. Thank you so much, Keith, for coming on the podcast, sharing your Wild story, those Wild spices, everything Wild. And thank you, Wild Listeners, for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite app and tell a friend about the podcast and then go try out some spices with even if you’ve never had it before unknowingly know what said spice tastes like before. You can also find us on Goodpods where there are really, really good podcasts and podcast recommendations from podcast people and beyond. And for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. That’s at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Until next time, let your business Run Wild…Bring on the bongos!!