How Bloom Built the Playbook Every Founder Will Copy in 2026

Your reputation is [ __ ] everything.

If you're not all in, you're going to be beat by the person who's all in.

That's Greg, co-founder of Bloom, a brand that's on track to do half a billion dollars in sales this year. I

never reinvent the wheel. We take a wheel that's already existing and we make it 10 times better. The white space wasn't making a greens powder. The white

space was distribution, accessibility, palletability. So, how can you look at a

palletability. So, how can you look at a category that is saturated but find the white space within it? In this episode, Greg breaks down the systems behind 15 billion views, 50,000 plus retail doors,

and how he built a Tik Tok army with his wife, his mom, and his best friend from [music] high school. We have someone who quit their job and made $50,000 in like two weeks selling our clear protein powder on Tik Tok shop. My [music]

biggest growth hack to any entrepreneur today is just guys. 180 million bootstrapped [music]

guys. 180 million bootstrapped [music] on pace for 500 million this year. Built

with his wife, his mom, his best friend growing up, the American dream. Stay to

the end. We're going to give you the full playbook. Um, less than 5% of

full playbook. Um, less than 5% of marketing spend is on meta, 85 plus% on influencer. You probably have like the

influencer. You probably have like the largest in-house influencer marketing program in CPG. Let's just start super macro. Give people context on how and

macro. Give people context on how and why we got to going allin on influencer.

It's funny because so the the brand obviously started for my wife's Instagram page. So, we very much

Instagram page. So, we very much understood like the influence that a content creator could have, aka an influencer. And once we started to get

influencer. And once we started to get some traction with our third product launch or fourth, which was our greens powder, we knew the way we had to get that in front of as many eyes as possible was through influencer

marketing. I didn't know how to build

marketing. I didn't know how to build out an influencer program. But what I did know was my best friend Leo at the time was working sales on biotech Wall

Street, working like a crazy a crazy boiler room, just like thousands of outbounds a day.

Amazing movie boiler room. I'm going to pop that one up.

Amazing. Amazing movie. So he's in the boiler room. He's doing thousands of

boiler room. He's doing thousands of outbounds a day. And he's always telling me these war stories from this sales room that he's operating. And one day we, you know, we get together. We're in

Manhattan. And we're like, you know, that boiler room that you're just doing thousands of outbounds a day. Can we

just copy and paste that and build that within the walls of Bloom and just build the craziest influencer program that's ever existed. And we knew that the

ever existed. And we knew that the product stuck, right? Like when people tried the product, they wanted to try it again and they wanted to make content with it. So like all we had to do was

with it. So like all we had to do was figure out the outbound. So Leo ended up joining the team and we just scaled that program to the moon and now we have over 15 billion views across Tik Tok and Instagram and it has been like the bread

and butter rinse and repeat. We have not fixed what is not broken and have just ran the same strategy for 7 years.

Shout out Uncle Leo here in the audience. Love it. So he obviously came

audience. Love it. So he obviously came in and probably dissected the infrastructure, the numbers, the metrics. Let's just like double tap on

metrics. Let's just like double tap on that. I'm sure there's a lot of people

that. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that hear about Tik Tok shop and affiliate and such. What does the inside of this influencer program look like? Like how much outreach? What does

like? Like how much outreach? What does

the the unit economics look like on it?

Are you paying people? Are you giving them an affiliate?

On a basic level, it starts with the scouter, which could just be literally a 20-year-old intern. By the way, the

20-year-old intern. By the way, the entire team is under 30 years old. They

are the Bloom girl. Your influencer

team, if not your whole brand and as much of your team as possible, should look like your avatar, right? So, all of our team, there's like six guys on the Bloom team and like 94 women. Like, we

are by far the minority. And that's

because like I want our team members to look like the bloom girl and that has always been what works for us. Then from

the scouting team, which is generally just interns, you go up to just influencer relationship managers and then from there you have the director of the whole team who started as an intern at Bloom and now she's just like leading

this whole ship. Shout out to Jillian.

She's a beast. And so Jillian's at the top and then there's kind of these account managers to manage the relationships and then you just have at the lowest level just people just scouting 247 on the internet on Instagram on Tik Tok. I think this girl would resonate

Tok. I think this girl would resonate with our brand.

And then some fun little tips that anyone at home could use is use VPNs.

Put your iPads, put your iPhones around the country, get different algorithms. What you don't want is the same 19-year-old Italian girl who lives in LA

who shops at Iwan. her her algorithm as she's scouting will look exactly the same as every other girl in that room who is scouting. So, you want people with different algorithms going on, right? Cuz you want to find the the the

right? Cuz you want to find the the the mom in Kansas. You want to find the police woman in North Carolina. You want

to make sure you're scouting them as well. And the

well. And the bar right there. That's a little cheat code right there.

That's a huge cheat code.

I'm big on the reset suggested content.

If I ever feel like my algorithm is kind of going off topic, I I I reset it.

I didn't even know you could do that, so thank you for that.

Yeah. So, so you're saying literally you're completely agnostic to location.

You just want it in random locations and then you go by location.

Yeah. And then you just change it up when you need a new algorithm. You just

change your location using the VPN.

Love that. For sure.

Probably should have on like a VPN sponsor for that one. That's that's a good one. Um, how big is that that team?

good one. Um, how big is that that team?

What's the size of this influencer team?

The team has fluctuated depending on how much scouting we feel like we need to do and how much we're trying to scale the program. Right now, the program is not

program. Right now, the program is not scaling too much. we're in a very healthy place, but you know, it could range from 15 to 25 people in-house and we've never tapped into an agency whatsoever. And this was also like the

whatsoever. And this was also like the early days of Tik Toks when like content creators weren't just like all signed to UTA or like whatever the big agencies were. Like we were talking directly to

were. Like we were talking directly to them. So we knew their birthdays. We

them. So we knew their birthdays. We

sent gifts on Mother's Day. We knew when they were having a tough day and we had real relationships and we still do with our content creators. And then going back to the contract, it's just all reverse engineered around CPM, right?

So, if you guys run meta ads at home and you know what your CPM is, let's say it's $20 per thousand views that you get. CPM is cost per thousand views, we

get. CPM is cost per thousand views, we just you the best way to start is just cut that CPM in half that you're getting on Meta. And that should be your goal

on Meta. And that should be your goal for the influencer program. And if you scale it as robust and aggressively as we have, I mean, we've had CPMs that are below $2 for months at a time, which is

like insane marketing dollars, right?

Insane efficiency. So, if you think about the 15 billion plus views that we've now received, which is dozens of Super Bowl ads worth of views, I mean maybe a hundred Super Bowl ads worth of views. We we definitely are not paying

views. We we definitely are not paying $7 million for a Super Bowl ad for those amount of views. You know what I mean?

So, in short, understand and know [clears throat] your baseline CPM. Most

people are spending most of their dollars on meta. You cut it in half and then you want to win either obviously lower than that or even just better than meta. So, it's just a new source. Yeah.

meta. So, it's just a new source. Yeah.

And then what are you doing? You're just

giving people a [ __ ] ton of free product and some basic guidelines. sometimes

depending on how big that influencer is.

But I would say ve going back to the guidelines, that's huge. Like your

content is at the discretion of the algorithm, right? So if you give them

algorithm, right? So if you give them some lame ass product brief because you're the suit in the boardroom sending somebody exactly what you want them to say, you might as well just do that yourself, homie. You know what I'm

yourself, homie. You know what I'm saying? Like you are hiring that content

saying? Like you are hiring that content creator because that is what they do for a living. They are the best at what they

a living. They are the best at what they do. You should give them as much

do. You should give them as much creative control as possible with that product. So, when we send somebody a

product. So, when we send somebody a crisp apple energy drink, just incorporate in your content like you always would. Explain exactly how you

always would. Explain exactly how you would to your community how you're using that product and why you like it. And

that's what we want them to do. So,

there's a ton of creative freedom with our influencer program. And if you don't give them that freedom, the video will not get views and you will never have a viral hit.

Well, there's something that you're saying but you're not saying right now, which is absolutely crazy. I did this in the beginning of Iconic and people thought I was crazy. I mean, are you doing attribute? There's no attribution.

doing attribute? There's no attribution.

There's no attribution. We've never done an affiliate code. We've never done a coupon code. And the reason for that is

coupon code. And the reason for that is cuz we never we never optimized for Shopify. So, we're an omni channel

Shopify. So, we're an omni channel operation.

You're just optimizing for top of the funnel. You just want as many people as

funnel. You just want as many people as possible to know where you are cuz they can transact almost anywhere cuz you're in 50,000 70,000 doors.

Every CMO, every head of marketing, every marketer knows that half of their marketing isn't working. They just don't know which half. That is very true for this program.

That is very true for this program. Our

attribution is a complete shitow. any

suit CMO would hate this program. The,

you know, the easiest way to do it is obviously correlating. When a video

obviously correlating. When a video starts to get some views, you you look at your Amazon search traffic. That

would be like the easiest direct relationship that you could find. But

that's not always the case. If you're

trying to run an influencer program for an exclusive skew at Walmart, right? You

you don't know like the attribution window. People know jargon if I say

window. People know jargon if I say attribution window. people. You don't

attribution window. people. You don't

know if your attribution window is 7 days, but people only go to Walmart once every two weeks and they saw the video two weeks ago and then they convert two weeks later at Walmart. You don't know it's because it happened from that video they saw two weeks ago. You get what I'm saying?

Yeah. I feel like a lot of people are just over obsessed over the attribution and this is just general I've talked about before just common sense and intuition. It's working for Greg at the

intuition. It's working for Greg at the highest of all high scales. I mean

you're talking about again hundreds of millions of dollars. 85% is going to influencer. And when you say 85% that is

influencer. And when you say 85% that is in what? Free product, free payouts. And

in what? Free product, free payouts. And

free product, shipping product, shipping cans is [ __ ] expensive, right? Like

this is like a 10 pound package when you're selling sending a 12-pack. But it

also is sometimes, you know, six figure payouts. But these are pre-negotiated

payouts. But these are pre-negotiated numbers before the before we even have them post. And so we can just look at I

them post. And so we can just look at I mean the simplest way would be look at their last 10 videos see what the average views are and then you could figure out what your comfortability is for what you're willing to pay per CPM right and if you think that half of

their following is in India and your product's only available in America then you know cut that CPM in half like you need to make sure that the person seeing that video is your avatar. If I if I know I'm selling a product only for

women and I know 25% of that person's [clears throat] followings are males, then I will just cut that that CPM 25% to make sure I'm only paying for the women right?

What are those other things to double click on? So half CPM, you win even if

click on? So half CPM, you win even if it's a bit over. Obviously, you want to diversify against meta. Looking at the trailing 10 videos to see the blended views to back into the CPM asking, I guess for their geography, you want them

not to be [clears throat] 90% in [ __ ] Well, yeah. I mean, you know, a lot of

Well, yeah. I mean, you know, a lot of our retailers are in Bumble [ __ ] So, we love Bumble [ __ ] But, but I mean, you were even telling me the other day you found Bloom Energy in like the middle of nowhere right?

Middle of Nora is like in a random convenience store in Santa Barbara.

Okay.

Bumble [ __ ] I'm talking about Bumble [laughter] [ __ ] like like Sagal, Africa or something.

You will find us in Sagal. I don't know. I don't even I

in Sagal. I don't know. I don't even I don't think you're in Sagal.

We're We're pretty dominant in just in just domestic right now in just the US, but we are definitely launching internationally. We're on Dr. Pepper

internationally. We're on Dr. Pepper trucks.

So, like we're anywhere you can kind of find a Dr. Pepper at this point. It's

it's it's pretty incredible and that's why it's 50,000 doors. But I would say the last thing is like if as you are trying to launch an influencer program, if you're at the early stages of this, you want to find the influencers that you think your avatar is already

following, right? So don't just like

following, right? So don't just like sign any woman like find the niche that you're talking to and then find the the influencer that that niche is already following and then you can slowly get wider as you start to dominate that

niche.

And where are we at as far as biggest bang for your buck from a size perspective? 5,000, 20,000, 100,000.

perspective? 5,000, 20,000, 100,000.

You you should have a diverse portfolio, but it's a game that works at scale. And

I would say that if you only have a limited budget, I would I would strictly stick with like, I don't know, 5 to 50,000 followers.

So, it's a little S&P S&P game. Just

sprinkle in all different sizes.

Yeah. Shoot from the hip.

And what about platform? I I would imagine you guys are very Instagram heavy.

Majority Tik Tok by far.

Wow.

Yeah.

By far.

And what's second? Instagram.

Yes. And then that's pretty much it. We

don't really do anything on Facebook. We

don't really do anything on Snapchat. We

don't really do anything at YouTube on this point. And we don't we don't do a

this point. And we don't we don't do a ton of podcasts at this point, and I can get into why in a second.

Yeah. Hope you guys are enjoying the episode. We put together a free PDF on

episode. We put together a free PDF on Greg's playbook on how he built the largest in-house influencer program and CPG, his 60,000 plus retail door

strategy, his validity marketing strategy, how he built a Tik Tok army, and the one partnership that unlocked a 3X in his business. Links in the top of

the description below. Enjoy the rest of the episode. I guess for me, these

the episode. I guess for me, these people on the Tik Tok side, I mean, I feel like everyone is programmed now.

It's like the the bar keeps raising for what percent brands are giving from an affiliate perspective.

Yeah.

People do people like this better because they're like, "All I do is just care about views." Not not so much sales. It's more just views and CPMs.

sales. It's more just views and CPMs. They like this better.

Tik Tok shop is a very different game than Tik Tok. And I would say Tik Tok Shop is an incremental game to Tik Tok.

So, we still very much have the built out robust influencer program that has no affiliate links, no coupon codes and is just like we're doing a normal content creator relationship in that scenario. And then we also are building

scenario. And then we also are building out a pretty a pretty robust Tik Tok shop affiliate program amongst the Tik Tok shop universe, which is one of leadership's top priorities right now for sure. So, where are you guys going

for sure. So, where are you guys going under the notion that you guys are so heavy on influencer? You mentioned

podcast, Tik Tok shop, like where else are you going? What does the future look like for Bloom from a paid perspective?

I have made all of the mistakes of shiny object syndrome. I mean, I've spent $3

object syndrome. I mean, I've spent $3 million on one month on on on on, you know, traditional media ads and got probably three sales from them. Like, we

this is how we plan on moving at the speed of culture and being part of culture forever is just I see I see this not changing anytime soon. Do not fix what's not broken.

Yeah.

Interesting. So, don't break what's not broken. I I like that. Looking back on

broken. I I like that. Looking back on what you've done, obviously you've done a lot right. What are some mistakes that you guys have made, whether it be influencer or acquisition?

I think just casting the wider net. So

if we keep the net narrow, I went back to changing the algorithms and making sure that we're seeing everybody in the country. The whole point of Bloom is

country. The whole point of Bloom is being accessible to everyone in America, right? That's why we are intentionally

right? That's why we are intentionally in the we're in as many stores as possible. We are not strictly in the

possible. We are not strictly in the ultra premium retailers of the world.

and we need to make sure that we are signing and working with all of America.

And so making sure that if we're hiring a team that's only coming out of UCLA and they're in our Venice Beach headquarters, they can be biased towards the LA influencer. And so making sure

that they are aware of who the Bloom consumer is nationally and that we are working with that influencer as well would be the biggest mistake that we could avoid. And then of course also

could avoid. And then of course also like I mean this goes way back before even Bloom existed. Like we grew Mari's following through meme page marketing.

That was one of the biggest growth engines for growing Mari's following was we would buy meme pa meme ads and show her journey, her fitness journey and say

go follow Mari Llewellyn, right? And the

amount of times I went all in on a meme ad to go try to blast her page with followers and then it ended up just being 10,000 people from India that I could not sell a product to and then you know we were eating we were eating tuna

fish that night. Let me tell you, like that was that was a bad night.

We're going to get into the origin story for sure.

Yeah, that's that's big origin story.

But like we I I can't even I can't even say how many mistakes we had made even before Bloom existed through influencer marketing that now we're able to connect the dots and have this this optimized

system today. Right? So this is eight

system today. Right? So this is eight years running and you make a mistake and you make sure that the next day you start over from zero and you continue to move forward. You don't just like give

move forward. You don't just like give up on the program overall. Right? And

that's why it works best at scale. I

mean to your credit though and for people out there listening I mean just like with a lot of things like you can say for from a retail perspective you know if you want to stay cool and elevated you start boutique and then you kind of go downstream. As far as like an

ICP perspective when I think of Bloom I do think of like California and Texas. I

think that that's a good starting point cuz I do think those are the influencers that influence the other influencers.

Well said. So, it's a mistake, but at the same time, it's like you're start you're starting at the top of the pyramid, and now you need to go win in we're back to bumble [ __ ] the bumble [ __ ] of the United States. I'm not going to call it any random state, but let's just say like more in the middle.

Fly over states.

A flyover state. So, it's just just more in the middle. So, it's a that's a a mistake, but I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily say it's a mistake. This all

has to do with CAC LTV and retention.

I'd love to know like what are some of those like retention strategies that you guys are doing kind of looking at the end customer whether it be these like mixer bottles these blender bottles like the bogos like what are some of the

things that you guys do that are that are optimizing for retention I mean optimizing for retention I think every problem in your business is probably a product problem so if you're having an acquisition problem it means that your pro your product is not appealing to

anybody and they don't want to buy it right if you're having a retention problem it means they finally bought your product and then now they don't want to keep on buying it but I would say one of The biggest mistakes we made early on in Bloom, just because of Mari

and I's age at the time, was going after a very young consumer. So, if you're selling ritualistic supplements that you're supposed to take every day for long periods of time, or you're trying to create habits with people, generally

a younger consumer is going to have a tougher time having a ritual, right?

Like, I didn't have a morning routine when I was 20 years old. So when we first started to really scale the Greens business, because of our age, most of our followers and most of the people we were converting were way younger and

they just had a lower retention rate as a result. So like that was not as

a result. So like that was not as quality of a business as it is today because it was just a younger consumer that like was not going to repeat and was they don't even subscribe to things.

Why would a young person subscribe to something like I didn't subscribe to [ __ ] until I was like 30. So that would be the biggest issue for retention. I

would also say that's where community comes in. And what separates just

comes in. And what separates just selling a product versus building a brand is people are like people are rooting for your company and your community or your brand as if they're rooting for a sports team, right? And

it's like people have followed along with Mari and I for 10 years now. So two

years before Bloom and then now seven, eight years with Bloom where it's like they've seen this whole journey and we're throwing in real life events around the country. We're sending out free product to our top customers all the time. They're seeing these displays

the time. They're seeing these displays in Walmart and they realize it's not just like Coca-Cola's display. It's like

Greg and Mari's display. And I think that they like ride that wave with us and they feel like they have they have stock in this company and they're they want to continue to support it. And the

the feeling's mutual. Like we want to support our community back. And it's

been an amazing journey having people kind of make Bloom a part of their life.

And now you see a Bloom trademark in so many different aisles of the stores because we've been able to create a platform brand with supplements, with soda, with energy drinks. I think Bloom Baby could exist eventually, right? Like

wherever our consumer's journey is, very much correlating to my wife's journey.

Obviously, we have a four-month old son at home. And I just think I just think

at home. And I just think I just think taking them along for this ride and moving at the speed of culture, right?

It's like female energy drinks weren't really even like a thing four years ago.

And then now because some people have helped or some companies have helped pave the way, seeing this this this cultural change and making sure Bloom's part of that with female energy is just

the best way to keep the consumer coming back. But to be transparent, like we

back. But to be transparent, like we have parts of our portfolio that were doing over $und00 million 2, three years ago, and today they're doing under $75 million. Today, like they're cutting in

million. Today, like they're cutting in half years later. Bloom has net grown, but we've been able to follow with what consumers wants and needs are to keep on coming back into the Bloom portfolio,

not necessarily the first product they joined Bloom with.

Yeah, I think you guys have done a great job of building brand versus product and listening to to your community. I want

to double click on community and events because I just think everything ladders back up to just brand. Like the fact that you guys are doing all this influencer and not meta, it's paid off where people actually are really resonating with you on like an authentic

organic level.

I guess with that being said, like do you guys think you could launch anything and it'll work cuz people are just following you? Like if you guys launch a

following you? Like if you guys launch a car tomorrow, do you guys think it can work? I think I think you need to

work? I think I think you need to continue to level up with the size of TAM that you're going after. [snorts]

So, we started with the most niche product that you could possibly sell. It

probably had a $10 million ceiling.

female pre-workout with people who were sensitive to caffeine and had anxiety and the women were lifting weights, which in 2019 was like this is like as niche as it gets, right? The largest

that product could have ever gotten was $10 million. And then you have to

$10 million. And then you have to recognize you look in the mirror and you're like, "Okay, this is a good business, but I'm ready for the next challenge." And my community is asking

challenge." And my community is asking me for other products. Then we made recovery powders. Then we made protein

recovery powders. Then we made protein powders. Then we made the greens powder.

powders. Then we made the greens powder.

And then we went into energy drinks. So

we were slowly going after larger and larger TAMs, larger and larger challenges and I see no reason why we will not continue to do that. Do I think the end result is

us creating a vehicle? No. But I think that there's like more aisles of the top retailers in the country. Like I said, Bloom Baby where Bloom could absolutely play in like other huge categories. I

don't know what the hell is bigger than energy drinks other than maybe soda with our balloon pop. But like,

yeah, I don't know what the next challenge even could be. I can't fathom it, but like there's a lot of runway left for this energy drink.

Yeah, I want to keep double clicking on marketing. I completely agree. You guys

marketing. I completely agree. You guys

have continuously reinvented yourself, guys. We're going to get into it. The

guys. We're going to get into it. The

fact that you're like having products that are doing like 100 million plus, and I'm not going to say you're like aborting them, but you're definitely rep prioritizing your focus on new stuff with bigger TAMs. So you guys are

ultimately going after bigger and bigger TAMs in conjunction with listening to your community.

They're asking for it.

Yeah.

Like they they if you actually grow a community before we even had Bloom, our community asked us to make supplements because we were selling workout guides and they said, "I need supplements to take with these workout guides." So

Bloom was born. And then eventually once we had some more credibility like once we got to the greens powder, people were like, "We really love every supplement that you're making. I'm looking for a better for you energy drink. Can you

guys please make one?" And so we just did, right? And so that was it's just us

did, right? And so that was it's just us listening to our community and also of course listening to like what Mari and I want as a consumer as well. What are our pain points? Like we can't find a better

pain points? Like we can't find a better for you energy drink that is like as palatable as what we would like it to be. So we made Bloom Energy. But yeah, I

be. So we made Bloom Energy. But yeah, I think like the community will tell you where to go, which is like why having that that nucleus of a brand is so crucial to building something that's

multi-deade proof.

Yeah. I mean, obviously you can listen via email, post-purchase survey in the comments, but I do think Inerson events has been big for you guys. What What's

the thesis on events? Are you guys doing a bunch of small events? Are you go guys going massive? Do you want to do a Super

going massive? Do you want to do a Super Bowl commercial? What is the actual like

Bowl commercial? What is the actual like event strategy?

I would rather fewer big events than many small events. Like I would I don't want to go have a thousand lemonade sales, right? I want to have like once a

sales, right? I want to have like once a quarter something badass take over a building in Soho. It's open to the whole public. I'm sick of this VIP [ __ ] for

public. I'm sick of this VIP [ __ ] for only the top influencers in LA. I want

our actual consumers coming to this event, lining up down the street, and to be able to experience everything for free. So, like, we just took over a

free. So, like, we just took over a retro diner in in Austin, Texas for an entire weekend. You could literally book

entire weekend. You could literally book tables on like reservation.com. Like, it

was literally open to the public. Every

meal was free and everything was just bloomed out and you were getting root beer floats. We were launching our

beer floats. We were launching our better for you root beer there and you could get Bloom, you know, root beer floats, Bloom cheeseburgers, Bloom pancakes with root beer syrup and it's like every meal is free for just a whole

weekend. Our whole community could

weekend. Our whole community could participate. And what I will say is that

participate. And what I will say is that your in real life event could be so kick-ass, but if it doesn't capture good digital content, it's probably useless.

If you have a lame event that does make good digital content, that's a win in my book. So somehow you need to find the

book. So somehow you need to find the happy medium of the two. But it's like if you're going to have a thousand, even 5,000 people or maybe even just 500 people experience your event.

If they have the best time, I'm happy to give that back to the community. But you

need to make sure the event is reverse engineered for digital content because that's going to be creatives that you can use for literally years to come.

Yeah. So we we we had a we've had events three years ago in New York or even in London where like tons of our community were there, but we had so much content captured. We're still deploying some of

captured. We're still deploying some of that content today. So like that's that's what some of our favorite photo shoots happen at these events.

Yeah. I mean it's wild that you have a thousand people online. You need to get video B-roll of that content. And then

you go back to that same city, you use that that actual B-roll. My favorite is, and I can go back to like comment sections and keyboard warriors and how they've almost ruined my business many times, but my favorite thing to do at

events is sample unreleased products, especially for the energy drink. If we

can have like 10 flavors that we're thinking about, and I even think like, you know, it's never the ones that I think are going to perform well, it will end up being like a blueberry lemonade that I never thought would perform well.

Sounds pretty good.

But yeah, it's coming out in a couple months. And then [laughter] so but if

months. And then [laughter] so but if you can get like real life reactions, especially if it's not necessarily a Bloom community member and it's just someone on the streets of Soho, you get a raw reaction of which of these 10

flavors is your favorite, that is the best way to get consumer data. I [ __ ] hate syndicated data about, you know, if I'm looking at Target and Walmart sales and they can tell me who it is and why

they purchased it or like post-purchase surveys I've had a ton of bad luck with.

The worst story with Bloom was we when we were a protein business because once COVID took off, we hopped on COVID and we went crazy with protein powders for baking at home, right? And so, which goes back to just like you need to stay

ready so you don't need to get ready, which I'll get into in a second, but having protein powders and then we would get 50 comments a day, let's say, about making a vegan protein powder. And so,

this was a no-brainer. Our community is telling us to make vegan protein. And

then we went all in. We order like, you know, a h 100,000 bags of this vegan protein. I think it was like lemonade,

protein. I think it was like lemonade, lemon shortcake flavor or something like that. And it was going to be a hit. The

that. And it was going to be a hit. The

community told us exactly what to make.

And then we launched the vegan protein.

And the 50 comments a day, we sold about 50 bags because it was the 50 vegans that were following Bloom that were leaving comments every day. And I just call that the the loud minority is the keyboard warriors. I mean, as I'm sure you know,

warriors. I mean, as I'm sure you know, with your personal brand that you're building now, like that comment section, you don't even know if it's someone that even gives a [ __ ] about.

You got to double click in and see if they have subs or where they're from because you could kind of go back and forth with what you just said. This is

why the in person is so so valuable. I

mean, you can even run as ads content of people actually trying it and getting that that organic reaction. But like

understanding and knowing like you could have never known those 50 people that were commenting were vegan, but if you're talking to these people, you can actually get the context. And kind of going back to what you said on syndicated data for people out there listening something that's very very

surprising to me is I think it was on the ran episode is I thought like from a conclusive evidence perspective you need like thousands and thousands of people.

Dude, if you get 150 people at your event trying the blueberry lemonade and 135 of them love it like that is enough evidence of obviously if you know who

these people are and they're not some random person that's outside your ICP.

That is enough to press the button. I'll

take People don't realize how small it has to be to really get the evidence.

I would take an N equals 50 of people walking around the street over more value than anything I can buy from some fancy syndicated data thing that I spend 50 grand for. For sure.

That's wild. And yeah, I think just to repin on what you said for people out there listening, I mean it's the same exact same exact thing from podcast.

we've said it before is so many people focus on like doing these podcasts and then they like forget about like the content at the end and the distribution at the end. If you have a really good product and nobody hears about it, then it's it's done. Same thing with an

event. If you have a really good event

event. If you have a really good event and you don't have any event to capture to then use later, then it's it's just those however many people that had a good time there. You don't get all of that kind of kind of long tail. So,

that's some great advice.

Also, last bit there is that's why our team is the Bloom Girl. So essentially,

I have 96 people who can sample energy drinks and can sample products and tell me what they're consuming, what they just found in their favorite grocery store and why we should make it. That's

our consumer and they work in our office and I can I can I can just look into our like, you know, community cafeteria fridge or our team cafeteria or fridge and just be like, "Wait, what's this new product that four people just brought in today? Tell me about it. Let's order a

today? Tell me about it. Let's order a whole bunch on Amazon and we're all going to try it." That has been the biggest incubation lab that exists for Bloom is just our team and what they're

eating and consuming or or or drinking because that's our consumer. We hire the Bloom girl.

Yeah, it's wild to think just that to tie on the event side. We're not saying that these are not good events, guys.

They're great events, but it seems as though that's like that's like last on the pecking order.

It's really just about the content distribution and then finding out if your ICP likes the product. for people

out there. I think that that's a great piece of advice to give people is bring product that's not out, find your ICP, ask 50 100 people and then not order vegan protein like YouTube content.

If you make an event that makes really good content, it's going to be a really good event like you know that that's that's a that's a direct correlation in my book.

And from a a cost structure on that, I mean all the things that we talked about and then you're just looking at just like top of the funnel awareness of of what it is.

Yeah. Yeah. And then that's like of course going to be the content that not only everybody who visits posts on their page and we'll make sure we bring some big influencers to the event as well, but it's also we take a lot of pride in

our owned profiles. So, you know, Bloom on Instagram, Bloom on Tik Tok, even like, you know, our founders content of course like my wife or whoever it may be is posting like crazy about these about these events. And so, like that content

these events. And so, like that content can get millions of views. And so, we take and that's like a very valuable million of like people we really want to make sure see it. So that goes a long way as well.

Yeah. And as you build your own channels, then you can start featuring people and doing co-branded posts. Then

you have value against for sure obviously the people that you're partnering with. I want to tie up on the

partnering with. I want to tie up on the marketing side for anybody out there listening. What would you say is kind of

listening. What would you say is kind of the single most important shift that people need to understand and see that's happening in marketing? What are you seeing on your side?

I would say I mentioned earlier moving at the speed of culture. There have been four monumental cultural interventions that have happened in just the last six years that I can that I can think of.

Right? The first was co and I mentioned how we hopped on that and started to sell a ton of protein for people baking at home. Then Tik Tok was launched or

at home. Then Tik Tok was launched or Tik Tok started to really get some traction. Our team hopped on that so

traction. Our team hopped on that so fast. Then I mean GLP1's was like

fast. Then I mean GLP1's was like [ __ ] crazy seeing how much just like consumer trends and pallets have changed and what people are actually buying at Walmarts and Targets and on Amazon

because of this like pharmaceutical intervention that is GLP1s is crazy. And

then of course the most recent is Tik Tok Shop. And so Tik Tok and Tik Tok

Tok Shop. And so Tik Tok and Tik Tok Shop are two very different things. and

trying to balance the two algorithms and master both of them. Any brand that can pull that off in 2026 going into 2027 will be the brand that can win omni channel. It's going to be the brand that

channel. It's going to be the brand that can win not just Tik Tok shop sales but their Shopify, Amazon, and whatever retail doors they're in. Like that is the omni channel playbook right there is mastering Tik Tok and Tik Tok shop as two separate things

because you just think that you're getting the most bang for your buck as far as top of the funnel goes because everyone is knows that they can make money there on the affiliate side.

The affiliate thing is like awesome. I

was on a Discord call yesterday with I think like 150 or 200 of our top affiliates and like they're just they're all quitting their nineto- fives and if they haven't that's their goal with joining our affiliate program. They're

quitting their nineto- fives and they're doing this full-time. And we have someone who just made like a a a normal person who just made who quit their job and made $50,000 in like two weeks selling our clear protein powder on Tik

Tok shop. Like it's crazy. I think I

Tok shop. Like it's crazy. I think I think it's the coolest thing about it is it's the first time our community can really like monetarily experience these wins with us. So it's like now our Bloom

consumers also our Bloom salesperson.

It's almost turned us into this like massive sales force and marketing force where like everyone can just like experience this growth with us. And

because we're such an omni channel operation and 50,000 doors outside of, you know, our digital channels, we can really lean in heavy to how much we're compensating these people and how much

we're compensating our our our content creators and affiliates because that channel isn't necessarily like what's keeping the lights on, right? Like we're

we're allowing that halo to bring lift elsewhere. So when we're crushing on Tik

elsewhere. So when we're crushing on Tik Tok shop, we see the Tik Tok shop sales more than 30% of those going over to Amazon, going over to Target, going over to Walmart. So we're we're at this huge

to Walmart. So we're we're at this huge advantage where even though we're not these like crazy ecom, Tik Tok shop growth hackers, we can lean in so heavy on just how much we're incentivizing our

creators because we know it's going to affect the whole omni channel operation.

Yeah, cuz you have evida elsewhere. I

mean, you guys are going to absolutely smash cuz when I think of like, you know, these new playbooks where people are just running it up so fast.

Like Hudson from Comfort, this guy's done like three in three or four years, like 29 years old, like like a billion dollars.

He doesn't have the hedge in retail. So,

I think I can't think, correct me if I'm wrong, I can't think of any like CPG brands that are probably in even 20,000 plus doors outside of Rahal with David Protein

actually, that are running it up on this Tik Tok shop. So, I feel like that you guys have an enormous opportunity here to to win on both sides and get the bleed over.

The best part is is that most of my competitors who do have that amount of doors, they're the legacy corporations.

Cola is not on Tik Tok shop. Pepsi is

not on Tik Tok shop. You know, Mountain Dew is not on Tik Tok shop. So, it's

like I am selling soda. Red Bull is definitely not on Tik Tok shop and I'm their competitor with an energy drink.

And so it's like that's where the young brands like us can really take some market share fast because they're probably still figuring out like when they want to launch it and we're a year in, you know. All right, guys. If you

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I want to change gears a bit and we're going to talk about kind of this reinvention playbook cuz as we mentioned, you guys are scaling stuff up and then just kind of going to the next battle. Let's start with just this $1.36

battle. Let's start with just this $1.36 million day. For people out there,

million day. For people out there, that's what they may or may not be doing in a year. Tell us about that day. What

happened?

Damn. All right. So, Mar and I were living in Brooklyn, New York. We had

been there for about a year. We had just lost our one full-time employee, and we had had our greens powder sold out for quite a while. And, you know, maybe maybe 6 weeks.

Contextually, this is your hero product.

This was our hero product at the time.

And it sold out quick, you know, a couple six weeks ago, but we didn't really think anything of it. It was

going to be a big restock day. And we

blasted our email list. We start the day. It's 9:00 a.m. We're in our first

day. It's 9:00 a.m. We're in our first co-working space. We walk up the street

co-working space. We walk up the street from our from our, you know, two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. And we get to the co-working space. We send out the email

co-working space. We send out the email blast. We send out the SMS blast. We

blast. We send out the SMS blast. We

post on Instagram. Mari posts all over her Instagram. And we just kind of

her Instagram. And we just kind of waited. And so

waited. And so much traffic came to our Shopify relative to what we were used to at the time. And within 12 hours, we did $1.36

time. And within 12 hours, we did $1.36 million. And now obviously we do like

million. And now obviously we do like over a million a day. But at the time, that was just like, what the [ __ ] just happened? And the worst part is is that

happened? And the worst part is is that we actually sold out that day. So, so I had to tell our consumers again like, "Sorry guys, we sold out." But I learned two I learned three things that that day. One, restock is the most powerful

day. One, restock is the most powerful word in validity marketing, right? And

everybody, especially with the digital brand, should be chasing validity with everything that they have because you are still just like the random Instagram brand. You are still like the random

brand. You are still like the random influencer that made a CPG product. And

you need to find words of validity or or statements of validity that you can attach to your brand as often as possible to be associated with, you know, the big brands that people don't question buying.

The marketing language we're talking about here, marketing language and like what what is more valid than we've had to restock this three times, right? Then people

know, oh, somebody bought this so many times that it sold out three times and now it has restocked.

I've seen this one hat brand I always get an Instagram story. like the hat that's been restocked 11 times and they're and they're doing like $2 million a year on just that messaging.

That's fire. Restock is the most powerful word in marketing. And I would say second is like that was the first day where we had to have some extreme discipline and say we're not going to touch this [ __ ] money. We're going to

roll it back in. Right? And so that day we took that $1.36 million and we called our manufacturer and said, "We will take $1.36 million of more greens, please."

Right? So we so we just rolled it back in. And so we just kind of continued

in. And so we just kind of continued snowballing. We were bootstrapped. we

snowballing. We were bootstrapped. we

bootstrap to $180 million. And so that was the first day where it was like discipline is on the line. We're not

going to go buy a BMW. We're not going to go buy an apartment. We're not going to do anything. We're just going to double down and get more product. And

that was kind of what we did with Bloom for I mean up until today really. I mean

we were profitable but cash flow wise like just to grow at that scale the money was always going back in. And so

to have days like that and have the discipline to to roll everything back in and put your back up against the wall even when you have a place where you can take some comfort is just what makes entrepreneurship and what makes a brand

growing this fast.

Yeah, it's always good to have money in the bank. Maybe get a little 4% on tea

the bank. Maybe get a little 4% on tea bills. Yeah, you can get creative there.

bills. Yeah, you can get creative there.

I'm not in the inventory game. So with

you guys, it's I mean it's just it's a cash suck all the time. I want to double click back in that marketing copy because you said something there and it's something that I've seen you guys do a lot on the internet and you with your personal brand is not only like

restock I'm sure there's a lot of other words but just like saying things that only you can say like there's so much stuff that like the more you grow people like don't want

to flex but at the same time like you should flex and say the social proofing things that nobody else can actually say.

Yeah. And and social proof is the best way to say it. I would say building in public is the only reason Bloom exists today. How are you going to separate yourself from the corporations?

It's building in public. And if you're to me building in public is one founder forward. Like if you if you have too

forward. Like if you if you have too I've seen pride kill some of the best entrepreneurs. Put up that cringe

entrepreneurs. Put up that cringe content. Put up you in the manufacturer.

content. Put up you in the manufacturer.

Put up maybe occasionally show you having the bad day. don't cry on camera every [ __ ] day, but once a month maybe you can cry on camera. And and and building in public and sharing validity

statements along the way, even if you have to use the word this is how many we've sold. And I think coming from

we've sold. And I think coming from especially the female content creator point of view, which was my wife, obviously talking about your business as if it was a business was like lowbrow in

2019 2020. It was like lame for Mari to

2019 2020. It was like lame for Mari to run Facebook ads saying come follow my page. It was weird that she didn't want

page. It was weird that she didn't want to just go sign the big Gym Shark deal and wanted to actually make her her own brand, right? And so, not allowing your

brand, right? And so, not allowing your pride to stop you from doing the the against society's suggestions way of life has been what

has made Bloom. So, like examples of validity statements or announcements that we've made along the way is like we're number one on Amazon. I don't need to know anything else about that product. If you say something is number

product. If you say something is number one on Amazon, I want to try it. If you

want, I used to post if Target would send us an email about how much we crushed sales at the launch day. I would

screenshot the email and post that on our Instagram and say, "We just crush Target." And if anyone is wondering

Target." And if anyone is wondering about whether or not they want to try that product and they see that we're now the number one selling OTC item at Target and we and we beat [ __ ] flown

even, then it's like, I should probably go try that product. So, like constantly posting validity statements will open so many doors for you and will just increase your chances of good luck,

right? And I'm not talking I'm not just

right? And I'm not talking I'm not just talking about getting more consumers.

It's going to have retailers calling you. Wait, this product's crushing it in

you. Wait, this product's crushing it in Target. I should probably also have this

Target. I should probably also have this on my shelves. It's also going to have investors come to you. It's going to have people that just want that are talent acquisition. The only reason

talent acquisition. The only reason we've been able to attract such an incredible team is because we have shown everything that we're doing on a on a on a quantity and quality level through LinkedIn, through Instagram, through Tik

Tok. And because of that, people are

Tok. And because of that, people are like, I want to go join this movement and join this team over in Austin, Texas at Bloom, right? So, it's like if we weren't building in public this whole time, I think Bloom would be 10% the size.

I love that. I feel like I don't see it much outside of CPG. I see like Dom Ross, Shackleford with Breeze does it.

Hudson has done a good job on the apparel side of flexing it, but not enough people. I mean, I'm just thinking

enough people. I mean, I'm just thinking in my head like seeing these Instagram stories where it's like a Microsoft Excel sheet and it has like the week-overweek percentage and you see like you against, you know, you against like a huge brand that everybody knows

immediately it opens the curiosity gap and it allows you to never run those annoying ads of like comparing my greens to another greens, right? Or comparing

my energy drink to another energy drink.

I never talk about the competition. I

talk about what I'm doing and that's all that I want to talk about. I don't want to shine light on anybody else. And I I do think this goes back to like because we were so much in the female space,

this was like very odd in the female space because like people were too we're too we're too posh to talk about the business that they were scaling and this was difficult for my wife in the female

space coming from England where like no one talks about how big their business is like it is not pro entrepreneurship over there. So for us to like break

over there. So for us to like break through this uncomfortable spot of talking about how much we have sold was was tough for us but it has paid dividends every single time we have made

these announcements.

Love that. So you guys are nine figures from a green's perspective and then kind of going back into that reinvention playbook. You then go on to energy and

playbook. You then go on to energy and soda and all this other stuff. What are

those moments for for people out there like those reflection moments like how and why and when like why did you know obviously you're saying you want to go after bigger Tams but what are these like key inflection moments that say hey

we need to go on to the next thing the the biggest the biggest key into going into the next thing is I never reinvent the wheel. So with any product that we're going after first and

foremost we do not reinvent the wheel.

We take a wheel that's already existing and we make it 10 times better. So we

are not the first greens powder. We are

not the first energy drink. We are not the first better for you soda and I wouldn't have it any other way. And so

when Bloom Greens was highly competing with AG1 at the time called Athletic Greens, if they signed Joe Rogan, if they signed, you know, a huge front page Wall Street Journal publication ad,

whatever, I loved when they did that because all they were doing was rising the tide for all of these ships. They

were advertising for Greens overall. And

if there's one thing you don't want to do as a bootstrapped brand, it's spend your money on education. I don't want to explain to anybody what an energy drink is. That is a waste of my marketing

is. That is a waste of my marketing dollars that I need to spend on explaining why mine is better. Right?

And if I don't need to teach any There's already cup holders in the car, right?

It energy drinks go in this can. I'm not

going to literally that exact shape. It's

of course I'm not going to put an energy drink in a soda can. I'm not going to put a soda in an energy drink can. I

don't even notice that. But obviously,

yeah, you're right.

Of course. Right. No sense. And I'm not going to put an energy drink in a [ __ ] milk carton, even though that'd be hilarious. Like, I'm going to put it

be hilarious. Like, I'm going to put it in an energy drink can.

I do think there's white space for that.

Little little innovation there.

So, if there's one thing that I I think so many people get overwhelmed entering a saturated space, but you want a saturated space because that means so many brands have already spent the money educating people on what this product is.

And then you can win on product, on brand, on anything and everything else.

Yeah. And then I would just say like as as you're going after challenge, you know, one of the ways that you can just know you're meeting a savage entrepreneur is if you see them every six months, they're like completely different, right, than you than when you

saw them and you're like, "What the [ __ ] happened to that guy? Did he get a haircut or something? Or is he just like acting completely different?" And it's because if you're truly leveling up a business and constantly going after bigger and bigger challenges, like you're going to see that in your

self-development as well. and you are not even going to be able to recognize yourself in old photos because of where you were at as an entrepreneur and where you were at as a brand. And as we were going after bigger and bigger

categories, it just kind of was like, why would I continue to give my mind share to something that has such a low ceiling? At the time, maybe it was booty

ceiling? At the time, maybe it was booty bands, then it was pre-workout, then it was recovery powders when I can give all of it to something that is 10 times the size. If I never did that, this energy

size. If I never did that, this energy drink is obviously doing more in a day than the Booty Bands could have done in an entire year. But the Booty Bands business was comfortable. Like I could have just stopped.

We're going to get into the booty bands.

The booty bands business and the PDF gang. That that that was an interesting

gang. That that that was an interesting in that in that in that era of my life.

I was talking to Pakistan on WhatsApp more than I was talking to anybody in America. Like

America. Like WhatsApp and the kick app I used to be on a lot with those shot for shots on Instagram.

Occasionally go on Telegram if things are getting crazy. If

you're on Telegram, it's getting weird.

[laughter] Signal Signal was out there for for a little bit. Dude, it's so crazy, man. I forgot who I talked about.

crazy, man. I forgot who I talked about.

That was Brian Garflow, CEO of Skull Candy. Great episode. Just the more and

Candy. Great episode. Just the more and more mature that people get as entrepreneurs like don't want to be first mover.

Yeah. No.

Don't want to be first mover.

No. And and this word like why would you want to launch an energy drink? That's a

saturated space. It's like that's exactly why I want to launch an energy drink. There's already a place for this

drink. There's already a place for this in Target. There's already a category on

in Target. There's already a category on Amazon. If you're creating a product and

Amazon. If you're creating a product and there's not already a category for it on Amazon, get ready to need to raise some [ __ ] money because you're going to need to go educate all of these people and 90% of them won't even want to buy your product.

Yeah. With that, with that being said, I do think there's something to be said about if you do do that, you could have an asymmetric outcome and win huge, but the chances that's not my journey. Speaking for

myself, you're layering on top of the pre-existing brand and you could just turn the lights on on a random category.

What are those key things that you're looking at when you're looking at a new product? You mentioned TAM, you

product? You mentioned TAM, you mentioned asking your community, is there anything else big that you guys look at?

I would just say that that that the category stale, right? So, when we saw the energy drink space, we were like, this isn't cute. These products don't even taste that good. There hasn't been much change that has happened here in a while. And for some reason, a lot of

while. And for some reason, a lot of these brands are still growing. Like the

category overall was still growing rapidly. So, you don't want to enter a

rapidly. So, you don't want to enter a declining category and then go try to like revive the whole category yourself, right? So, energy and soda were to us

right? So, energy and soda were to us stale.

And these are like these are like 100 billion plus market. They're massive.

Oh my god, it's insane. And it's global.

So it's like and because we were something that I have looked at now in my career in the last 3 years is what categories have a higher barrier to entry. So when we were launching just

entry. So when we were launching just supplements, it felt like every month there was just another 19-year-old in a penthouse in Bickl, Miami who was somehow creating a a legitimate

competitor to us on Amazon, right?

Right. So, it's like, okay, if the the Bickl penthouse [ __ ] can create a competitor within 60 days, we're going to pop up a ton of brickl [laughter] [ __ ] with a bunch of lambos. Yeah.

lambos. Yeah.

Yeah. With a bunch of with a bunch of rental. Yeah. [laughter]

rental. Yeah. [laughter]

If they if they can make a competitor to this business that I take so much pride in, then did I really create something that special? And how can I now play

that special? And how can I now play chess instead of checkers and create strategic barriers to raise my barrier to entry? So, the first of course was

to entry? So, the first of course was just going into retail, right? So like I know that you can't just get into retail in 60 days. And so that started of course with Target, then Walmart, and then now we're at 50,000 doors. But the

second was like signing massive strategic partnerships with some of the biggest companies in the world. So like

with the energy drink, a very difficult high capital to start, you know, hugeQs, a supplement you might just need 20 grand to start the whole project, right?

But with the energy drink, like hugeQs, we're on Dr. Pepper trucks. We already

had the retail relationships.

it still worked with everything that we were doing in terms of influencer marketing and the relationships that we have with those retailers because of our nutrition business. So, it's like what

nutrition business. So, it's like what synergies can we find that we can connect the dots to still creating something innovative but but allows us to use the strengths that we've built

over the last decade. Right? So, I

wouldn't go start you mentioned a car earlier. They don't I don't think they

earlier. They don't I don't think they sell cars at Target, right? Like how can that and that's one of my strategic partnerships. So it's like how can I

partnerships. So it's like how can I make sure that whatever my innovation is using the things that I have accumulated over the last 10 years.

You should read this book Porter's five forces is on uh competitive analysis and I feel like we're starting to see more about production and supply chain and now what you're saying distribution like

those are starting to become like the biggest modes possible. The fact that you own the mind share of the target buyer whoever it is you have the ability you're at least going to get a crack to bring in X new product.

Yeah. And then I mean you want to talk about the target buyer like this wasn't at Target but one of the old school ways to get a buyer's attention at a retailer was just let's just say we're talking about Target they're in Minneapolis. You

would buy the billboards in Minneapolis for your brand and then they would be like I'm seeing this brand everywhere.

Like how I should probably call them up and try to get them in my store cuz you always want a scenario where the buyer's calling you and you're not calling the buyer cuz then you're going to have the leverage, right? And so how we did that

leverage, right? And so how we did that in 2022 or 2023 was we would find the buyer and who they followed on Instagram and then we would sign all of those influencers and they'd be like, I'm

seeing this product all over Instagram.

Everyone I follow is talking about it.

Can we have a meeting cuz I want to get this on my shelves. So that was always the best way to get somebody who's who is, you know, Illuminati to us, get their attention. I love that you said

their attention. I love that you said that cuz people on the Gretman episode, he talks about he's like a maniacal hawk on looking at his phone and looking at the tables on his restaurants. Like the

reality is is like that happened and I'm going to take a wild guess here. You're

not going to be like to that buyer like, "Oh, I did that on purpose." Like you never you don't say anything and you can create this massive strategic engine in and around them without talking to them and obviously they're going to come to

you. You're not going to go them. More

you. You're not going to go them. More

people need to do that.

Yes. And more people need to realize that there are humans behind those desks. Like you you imagine these

desks. Like you you imagine these massive corporations and that you're just talking to some like, you know, binary computer making only objective decisions. But the reality is is they're

decisions. But the reality is is they're making emotional decisions and they want to make a bet on you. And if they're seeing a brand crush it digitally, they want to be the person in the walls of that retailer that took the chance and

brought in that digital brand and it was a huge success. So if you can find like the entrepreneur within these large corporations and figure out how to partner with that individual, that's the person when you're in a meeting room

with 10 people at a large corporation, you're looking at them the whole time.

Hyperfocused on that one human, that one entrepreneur that wants to make a name for themselves within the company and they will take the bet on you.

Yeah. So for someone like you, someone that goes to the gym six times a week, sub 10% body fat, we can we can talk about some [laughter] stuff like that.

Perhaps throughout this whole entire journey, you're bootstrapped. So you bootstrapped

you're bootstrapped. So you bootstrapped 180 million, no outside capital.

I'd love to give people context on why you chose that route and now what has been the payoffs. I want to get into the partnership after, but why did you guys not raise outside capital?

I mean, you know, you you mentioned reading a book a second ago. I graduated

college with a 24.

I was 21 [laughter] 2.11 5 years University Delaware. I needed to get a certain score on the last test.

That's first that's the lowest I've ever heard.

But [laughter] aren't you curious? I'm so curious to like I would imagine that I can go back and get a 4.0 now because like when I focus on things obviously I'm when I focus I'm good.

I'm curious. You think you could do good? Do you think you can get high

good? Do you think you can get high grades?

I think I could now. I think I I would like to think so. Yeah. Yeah. And I

would and I would probably be not taking Adderall and I was taking a ton of Adderall for that 2.6.

You want to [ __ ] around and go take a like a Harvard digital class with me? We

should do that.

I'm down to do [laughter] it's like two weeks like 2500 bucks. I'm down.

And then we could get on our LinkedIn and then we could get a consulting gig.

Amazing. [laughter] And then we could take a picture outside of Harvard after and then we can flex that as well.

That's hilarious. I like that.

So, I'm not an academic. My wife's not an academic. When we launched Bloom, she

an academic. When we launched Bloom, she had dropped out of college at that point. She was working the front desk

point. She was working the front desk the opening shift at an Orange Theory Fitness, like cleaning the [ __ ] bathrooms. It was the worst. And I grew up in a society where it was just like lawyer, doctor, finance, and you're

going to an Ivy League school.

Otherwise, you and your family are never going to be talked about again, right?

Like that's all anyone cared about. And

I was like this kid who could not even finish a sentence in a book because my ADHD was so outrageously miserable. And

I finally was able to to figure out a space where I could use that ADHD and harness it towards hyperfocus on one thing which started as the gym, right?

So I just got obsessed with the gym and I seem to get some like positive society status around being the person that was in shape. And then I realized, oh, if I

in shape. And then I realized, oh, if I just teach people how to get in shape with my wife, we'll make a whole following out of giving this free value away. Right? So that was the the the the

away. Right? So that was the the the the the seed for everything that had started was taking this thing that like most of society said was like kind of dumb and we were not academics and I can't even

read a book and it's like how do we choose that one thing that we are good at and start our community by giving that away as free value right but your question was why did you bootstrap was

it just did you just not know any better going back yeah so going back to not being an academic we didn't even [ __ ] know what enterprise value was I didn't realize like anyone would want to like buy a brand like Bloom or buy a piece of

a brand like Bloom and become a large scale investor. Like I had no idea what

scale investor. Like I had no idea what any of this was. Like even when we had the $ 1.36 million day, like I thought that was crazy, but I didn't know what anyone else was doing. Like we were locked in a room forever just working

together. So we had kind of no idea what

together. So we had kind of no idea what we were creating the whole time. And

it's funny like even when we ended up moving to Boulder, Colorado, which is we moved there because we were starting our entrepreneurship journey. We had Mari

entrepreneurship journey. We had Mari Fitness. Then we had the Slay app and we

Fitness. Then we had the Slay app and we moved to Boulder, Colorado because we just needed to get away from the society and this culture that we were in of lawyer, doctor, finance. And we lived there for a year and a half. We don't

have one friend. We didn't make one friend in Boulder, Colorado. It was just my wife and I working every day, seven days a week for a year and a half. And

that's where we launched Bloom. But

yeah, we had no idea what we were building. And then one day we were we

building. And then one day we were we were at you know a trade show and someone came up to us and we're like are you aware of what this business could be worth like and we want to buy a piece of it and we could help you you know scale

it up and we had all the fun private equity conversations and none of them really floated our boat and we were profitable at the time and I don't know that just like wasn't really our thing.

Shout out to anyone who does private equity deals like do do your thing. That

just like wasn't Bloom's path and so yeah we had no idea what that was. We

had no idea.

So why NeutriBolt? Let's talk about that deal. That was that was a big deal you

deal. That was that was a big deal you guys had a couple years ago.

So we had a nutrition portfolio and we had a little bit of a reputation for ourselves of like, you know, we we were continuing to take swings and not only were we able to sell an amazing greens

business, but the greens business was Bloom as an overall platform brand and we really understood social media and we were kind of like the new the new hot thing on the block and I wanted to go

after beverage. Once we we were told

after beverage. Once we we were told from private equity that if you add a beverage to the portfolio, two things will happen. One, no one was acquiring

will happen. One, no one was acquiring beverage businesses at the time, right?

So like you know Celsius buying Alani or Cure Dr. Pepper buying Ghost or whatever these recent transactions are that have been happening.

Context, what year was this? 2022. 2023.

2022.

Yeah.

And no, 2023. Y

and so there wasn't a market for energy drinks. And even worse, generally a

drinks. And even worse, generally a large scale strategic doesn't want to buy like a platform brand. They want to buy an amazing collagen powder brand.

They want to buy an amazing just a lone energy drink for meat on the bone. They don't want it fully, right? Cuz like Nestle might just want

right? Cuz like Nestle might just want the supplement powders, but they don't do energy drinks. And then Cur Dr. Pepper probably only wants energy drinks, right? So, I'm not speaking for

drinks, right? So, I'm not speaking for Dr. Pepper there, but we knew we wanted to go after energy drinks. And I also knew that I was just like a 28-year-old trying to figure out like how was I going to level up my career? And so

after talking to a thousand different potential partners and private equity and banks and whatever it may be, we had a choice of either just selling this whole business or trying to go after the

next big challenge with what we had built, which we knew would be beverage.

And the only person who was down to partner with us on beverage was Doss Cunningham, who's the CEO of Neutribalt, which is C4. We all, most of us men in America probably tried C4 pre-workout sometime in our life. You probably

snorted it at some point. And so

[laughter] no no start.

Yeah, we talk a lot about no explode on this.

You remember no explode?

Dude, BSN, hell of a product. Hell of a product.

That's a banger.

Mine would I would just keep it in the trunk of my car and it would like crystallized in the bottle and like if you could get a crystal before an arm pump, it was over. But anyway,

this was the steroids before the steroids.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Thank God

for those two. And then [laughter] so and so we we sat with Doss and there was two huge things that we noticed. one, he

had taken a C4 pre-workout brand and had also launched it into C4 energy drink and scaled that to over half a billion.

So, it was someone who had done it before.

The exact playbook that you guys want, exact playbook, but for men. So, in

theory, we could plug into the same manufacturers, the same sales team, the same distribution partners, which at the time he had an inked contract and still does with Dr. Pepper. So, out of the

gate, we could get a beverage onto Dr. Pepper trucks. On top of that, he was

Pepper trucks. On top of that, he was one of the only, you know, I don't want to speak for him here, but he was one of the only billionaires I'd ever met that still had his whole family intact. You

know, every time I called him, he was at a baseball game for his kids. And, you

know, good dude.

Good dude. Texas Texas values. And it

was like, I need to figure out my mentor cuz I have no idea like what type of person I'm going to turn into, especially with like the size of the business that I'm running, the amount of wealth that I'm coming into, whatever it may be. I was like, I don't want to lose

may be. I was like, I don't want to lose my wife and all these other rich people are losing their wives. So, it's like, how do I figure this out? I should

probably go find a mentor to work with.

And so, I came through in the PJ, guys. Just

just quick context. [laughter] We'll

talk about that later. It came through in the PJ.

That's crazy. Yeah. But I uh I actually tried to get a helicopter. So, so I I had two things. I had like a personal and business mentor that I could go work

under in my 20s and also somebody who had the playbook of how to launch this beverage. And when I think about

beverage. And when I think about partnerships, if the word strategic doesn't come before that, I think you might as well just sell your whole business, right? And we didn't want to

business, right? And we didn't want to sell our whole business. And I knew that if we signed a contract with Neutrabolt with the intention of this being a a joint venture of making a beverage together and getting Cure Dr. Pepper

involved, I could sell 30% of the business and the business would be worth three times the amount the next day. So if you're going to sell a chunk of your business which

will be the most expensive or valuable contract that you ever sign in your life, it better be something that increases the enterprise value of your business because you are now associated with that

brand. Right? So on day one of signing

brand. Right? So on day one of signing that business, we I mean we sprinted to the R&D lab, came up with Blue Energy, we were already in talks with Dr. Pepper, we got an exclusive launch with

Target just 6 months after that. So, it

just took six months from signing the partnership contracts to having a product on target shelves and it blew out of the water. Then 3 months later gotten Dr. Pepper Trucks and then now two years later we're in 50,000 doors.

Let's stop for a second there. You said

pretty big inflection point there. You

had offers in your company. So

yeah.

So you had a nine figure offer for someone to buy your company.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean the business the business was profitable omni channel. It was a hero scoop brand. And

channel. It was a hero scoop brand. And

it checked all the boxes for like what a business what what type of businesses people wanted to acquire at that time.

No risk, no reward here, guys.

But what the hell was I going to do? Be

like a 28-year-old and lay on a beach and then even now today it's like I have the son and it's like or have my son at home and it's like if I sold Bloom, he's just going to like not see me go to work every day or he's just going to like see

these cans in stores and not even believe me that I made it. So it's like, you know what? What actually matters at this point?

Yeah. And ironically, so many people, it's like the the Mark Zuckerberg thing.

It's like, "Why didn't you sell for a billion dollars?" He's like, "Oh, I

billion dollars?" He's like, "Oh, I would start this same company." And you actually start seeing that.

Exactly.

The Rahal episode is is is a perfect example of that. He literally sells an RX bar for 600 and then he waits for his non-compete and does another protein bar.

And catching Lightning in a bottle twice is a whole other level of risk. I

already had Lightning in a Bottle, so why would I give it up? And so, I knew that I could take what we had and just make it I mean, this could be, you know, generational. We've all seen the

generational. We've all seen the monsters and Red Bulls of the world just go decades and now they're handing down the the the the crown to the to the I don't know what do you call it? Like

they're their the next person.

I mean the fact that you guys have all the retail doors and Tik Tok shop affiliate and like you guys are going to absolutely hammer the [ __ ] out of that.

We're excited, man.

That's going to be absolutely crazy. How

did your job change kind of overnight?

You signed the deal. What is Greg before that and what is Greg after that deal?

It's funny because like one of one of my rules with talent acquisition has always been one hire for your pain points and sometimes your pain points are just the things that you don't enjoy doing. And I

love building brands. I love marketing and I love, you know, disrupting and embracing culture.

I don't really love the supply chain side of things. I don't really I definitely don't love the P&L side of things. Like I don't have Microsoft

things. Like I don't have Microsoft Office on my computer. I hate

spreadsheets. And

Leo said that six months ago you downloaded it.

Yeah. Well, I haven't opened it. And

[laughter] yeah, I use I use Mac numbers. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's some that's some that's some ghetto [ __ ] Yeah.

He he tech he texted me yesterday. I

told him no Microsoft Excel today. I'm

more of like a Google Sheets. I know

like like three or four different like little ninja lookups, but I'm happy with AI. So, we can really walk away from

AI. So, we can really walk away from that [ __ ] And so, with that deal, like they handle all the commercialization of the product. They handle all the supply

product. They handle all the supply chain for the product. I don't really need to like worry about these 18-wheeler trucks going on around the country because Dr. Pepper handles that.

And so I was able to kind of get rid of everything that I don't enjoy doing and was able to embrace what I'm good at and what I do enjoy doing. And Docs is a P&L guy. Doss like gets fired up with a

guy. Doss like gets fired up with a spreadsheet in front of him, right? And

like Dr. Pepper loves logistics and sending this product all around the country. So, I basically have this team

country. So, I basically have this team where it's like, if you can make a strategic partnership where it's 1 plus 1 equals 3 and you're both doing what you love, then that's going to be a a

magical ride off into the sunset.

Yeah, it sounds like a a win-win there.

If you had to kind of boil down, obviously this guy is an OG and he took the same exact playbook. If you can kind of boil down some of the key learnings from him, what are some key things that he's taught you over the last couple years? Because obviously you guys have

years? Because obviously you guys have had explosive growth with him coming out as a partner. It's funny like we have a a pretty a pretty impressive board for Bloom now

that we we do have a cap table and a couple of them are self-made billionaires and we'll have a problem with this energy drink which you would think like for these incredibly high IQ people that are on our board this is

like this is simpleton stuff right and we'll have a huge problem that we bring to the board and they'll just be like man this is a really tough one like I I don't know and I think just like the the biggest thing that I take away from that

is just like we're all humans and therefore this is free game for everybody, right? And it's like no,

everybody, right? And it's like no, everyone has something that they're incredibly good at. Very few people are a 10 out of 10 at everything. I'm

definitely not a 10 out of 10 at everything. I'm a 10 out of 10 at one or

everything. I'm a 10 out of 10 at one or two things. And

two things. And I feel like you're a pretty gangster generalist. You're like a

generalist. You're like a like a little bit of a Swiss Army.

Yeah, you're maybe.

But, you know, just understanding that like we're all humans participating in this game and no one actually has that much of a greater advantage than anybody

else. And so I'm a I'm a huge fan of

else. And so I'm a I'm a huge fan of again like going into C the four-minute mile. Like once the four-minute mile has

mile. Like once the four-minute mile has been ran, other brands are able to do it. That's why I went after energy

it. That's why I went after energy drinks. There was already a playbook to

drinks. There was already a playbook to follow. And so just like understanding

follow. And so just like understanding there's a playbook to getting to this much success and trying to take as much notes as I can from his day-to-day life, which is I mean the guy's in the office every day. He doesn't need to be, you

every day. He doesn't need to be, you know, he's he answers my texts quickly no matter what and does not need to do this anymore. and just like continuing

this anymore. and just like continuing to say stay cognitively stimulated on a regular basis and and and embrace everything that comes with that has been like the coolest thing that I've learned from all of the successful people around

me.

How old is this guy?

Mid-40s.

Damn. Let's go.

Yeah.

Let's shift a little bit to to product and repo retail before we get into specific retailers.

Yeah.

Like what's your framework of deciding which product goes into kind of which door? How does how does that work? You

door? How does how does that work? You

know, I've played the exclusivity game a few times and it has created a lot of drama. You know, if the product does

drama. You know, if the product does well, the other retailers will be annoyed that they didn't get it first.

And I love FOMO. Sometimes FOMO is like the greatest game that you can play. And

I love a little bit of drama cuz they'll act upset, but then place a twice as large order, right? But generally

speaking, I try to shoot wide, give it to anyone who wants it, and not play that exclusivity game.

And the sales will kind of dictate on its own like which retailers should really pay the most attention and give the most attention to that product. I'm

not a huge fan of like this is our Whole Foods product, this is our Costco product, this is our Amazon product.

Like because of our digital marketing and it's being shown to everybody, I kind of need to make sure that the same exact product in all of its forms are available everywhere.

Interesting. We touched on Amazon a bit and you mentioned like you you don't win on Amazon on Amazon. I completely agree.

How do you guys look at just that whole entire flywheel from a.com to Amazon and then into retail? Like what's the holistic approach? Is it just all top of

holistic approach? Is it just all top of the funnel and just let it let it like fall as it may?

Well, our business is less than 5% Shopify. So

the day Wow. Yeah. Well, but keep in mind we're beverage too. So this is our largest business in the portfolio now is our beverages and no one has a DTOC beverage business right like if you want

a beverage on e-commerce you go to Amazon so it's it doesn't really work even like shipping a case when you say 5% DTOC that means just the the Bloom website not Amazon correct yeah like true direct to

consumer or Shopify that said when we so we were a DTOC only brand for the first 18 to 24 months the day that we extended out of Shopify we went over to Amazon

and The day we went over to Amazon, I did what every other entrepreneur at the time would have hated me for doing.

I used our email list, our SMS list, all of our Instagram portfolios or or or profiles and said, "Go buy on Amazon."

Now, I knew that we had hit the glass ceiling on Shopify. And I knew that the instead of just making a new product, there was a larger TAM to go after just on Amazon. And kind of just like

on Amazon. And kind of just like realizing that Amazon itself was a social media with an algorithm. If we

could bring so much exogenous or external traffic over to Amazon and kind of arbitrage that whole SEO that exists over there, we could double the business that was happening on our Shopify by

just playing the Amazon game correctly.

And you play that game correctly by sending people from outside of Amazon to Amazon.

Yeah. So, is that the best way to win on Amazon as you have to sacrifice elsewhere?

It it depends what you consider win.

Like I'm a guy where when I'm moving on to the next challenge, I am literally willing to sacrifice the last thing that I just won, right? So I've done that even with launching new products. I've

done it with launching new channels. And

so when we sacrificed Shopify to win on Amazon, there was a net gain. And then

when we went into brickandmortar retail doors, dude, we sacrificed all of digital resources to go towards winning Target. And then winning Target opened

Target. And then winning Target opened the doors to 50,000 other doors because that was the proof of concept that this product can work in brick and mortar.

And when I say sacrifice and you and you take your foot off of the gas of those other things because I'm a very big fan of not having a divers diversified portfolio even with your mind share and

what you're what you're prioritizing.

It's not like our Amazon just fell off a cliff the next day. This is the top three energy drink on Amazon. Like if

you're moving on to greater challenges, whether it's in products or within the retail doors that you're going after or the consumers that you're going after, the larger challenge will halo back to

what you just sacrificed or what you are no longer giving resources to. So, I'm a huge fan of like if you go after bigger goals, the things that you leave behind like won't just die overnight. If

anything, they'll just become like cash printers right?

Yeah. You'll still get some some drip. I

feel like I don't want to like typ cast like all different CBG products, but from like a drink perspective, it's just retail is obviously the most important, the most amount of doors.

Amazon is second because it has intent and the Shopify should be last.

Dude, Shopify beverage doesn't work.

It's too heavy. Just shipping cost unless you were going to charge your consumers $25 for shipping, which no one's going to do that. You know what I mean?

Got to go subscription. I feel like you got to go heavy on that to make it worth. But I guess you still get hit

worth. But I guess you still get hit with the shipping.

Amazon's won that. Like

interesting. So, I know we talked about just wanting to go into saturated, you know, markets, but obviously there was probably some sort of iteration on like whit space. What is like the white space

whit space. What is like the white space that you guys have seen like on the retail side? What specifically did you

retail side? What specifically did you see that made you want to obviously go where you're going now?

So, I mentioned we were kind of headtohead following the cotales of AG1 at the time and they were the top selling greens powder at the moment and

they were DTOC only and they were super expensive and they tasted like [ __ ] So the white space wasn't making a greens powder. The white space was

powder. The white space was distribution. If they were only DOC,

distribution. If they were only DOC, then I'll go into brick and mortar. The

white space was accessibility. Be a

third of the price and be everywhere. Be

easy to buy. The ex the the the the white space was palatability. So how can you look at a category that is saturated but find the white space within it? For

us, it was the energy drink space that the white space was the female isn't being spoken to correctly. it the

products aren't cute, right? So to me, whites space is how do you zoom in on the category and find the whites space within the larger category?

Go saturated, but find the white space.

So AG1, you just completely piggybacked and just went different distribution and on the energy energy drink, you just did branding, positioning, a little bit of different ICP on the female side.

Yeah. And I would say of course, you know, center of excellence of distribution as well.

Yeah.

With Dr. Pepper, I was surprised too when I I Googled you guys. I didn't know how forward facing

guys. I didn't know how forward facing you are on the female side. Like it's

like on like you type it into Google and it talks about like women's drinks.

Yeah. I mean I that we were we were ma we are made by women for women. I think

the energy drink has allowed us to tap into more men. It's funny going back to syndicated data.

Generally speaking the the mother of the household does the shopping right majority of the time. And that's just how society is set up right now. And the

mom is swiping her credit card. She

might be 35. she's a female, but she's buying the Doritos and Red Bull for her husband. The syndicated data will show

husband. The syndicated data will show that as the mom is buying it. So, you

need to be really careful with who's swiping the credit card. But what's also amazing about selling to the woman if she is doing the household shopping is when I make a soda that's healthy for

the whole family, the mom is buying that for her kids, she als she sets the trend because she's she's stuffing the pantry, right? So, she will get the husband or

right? So, she will get the husband or the boyfriend to start trying this product that she's trying every day. And

I feel like that influence doesn't happen nearly as much with the male consumer. Very rarely does my wife want

consumer. Very rarely does my wife want to start consuming a product that I take. I want to try the products that

take. I want to try the products that she's trying, right? Like, she'll like help me with my clothes. She'll help me with the food that I'm trying. I I could eat ground beef and [ __ ] rice every meal, right? And she'll like take me to

meal, right? And she'll like take me to the new restaurant to go try. I'm never

taking her out of her comfort zone. I

should probably do that more. But

[laughter] but like the the women kind of influence the entire household way more than a man ever would. And so I've never sold to men directly, but I I don't think I would have it any other way.

Yeah. And we talked a little bit off camera. We're going to get into it. Just

camera. We're going to get into it. Just

personal brand. I feel like that guy, it might have come from the woman. Then

he's on Instagram and then he starts getting your content and the guy content behind Bloom and starts resonating it with more dude. And I would imagine it's the same

dude. And I would imagine it's the same thing for hospitality just cuz I obviously just finished your episode.

Like I would be so curious. Obviously,

there's like a male female ratio that you want in any type of nightclub, but like even at restaurants, like you want to make sure that the woman is comfortable there. The guy's going to be

comfortable there. The guy's going to be comfortable anywhere, right? But like or a gym, you're opening up a large, we were just talking about a sick new gym that you're going to and getting in the best shape of your life. Like, you need to design that place for women to be

comfortable, the guy will be comfortable there, right? Like, if you make a place

there, right? Like, if you make a place that's like toxically masculine, a woman won't step foot inside of it.

100%. They're getting the continuity because my wife is comfortable and I like going to the gym with her.

Yes. So that makes a lot of sense. All

these big retailers, what are some of those key things we talk about all the time, obviously the sell through, not the sell in. What are some of kind of those key things? Obviously, I know you're talking to these retailers a lot.

How do people get the sell through?

Anything big you want to touch on there?

All right. So, first of all, I go to these meetings in person. I

don't just send a salesperson. We have

the best sales team out of anybody. love

our sales team, but like I try to go in person and be on a first-name basis relationship with anyone who's a decision maker at these retailers. That

is huge. And I've found that as a consistent variable even when I talk to the the biggest comp multi-billion dollar energy drink companies, they can name you who is currently in the seat of decision-m at these retailers and they

have their number and they're texting them, right? That is crucial,

them, right? That is crucial, guys. You've heard that from some of the

guys. You've heard that from some of the best CPG guys on this. So,

you're never starter. You're never too big to think that you can't go have that relationship in person. And as my life has gotten more complicated and I've had to take my foot off the gas of being on

an airplane as often, I I can see it hurting things. And I would say on top

hurting things. And I would say on top of that, going back to like controlling your luck, what are things that you could do to to have better l luck and more doors open throughout your career?

Your reputation is [ __ ] everything.

If a retailer places a PO and you aren't able to fill it or if you know you do fill the first one and it sells really well and you can't sell more inventory, that's very different than running out of stock on Amazon or Shopify where

you're only accountable to yourself. If

you do that to a Target or Walmart, that's that's their business and that'll be an empty shelf. Like these are huge cruise ships. They can't just put

cruise ships. They can't just put something else there. But a similar thought there would be now when Walmart has an energy drink company that can't fill a PO and they have an open spot in

the center of their doors and you know action alley they call it in the center of the Walmarts they know they can call Bloom and we will have enough inventory.

We do have the supply chain. Greg will

pick up the phone and say of course I have a product that I'll make just for that situation.

That is 100% relationship based.

Yes. And then and and then that person it's a net new spot that you can take and if you do well with good sell through and they like you then that other person relationship and reputation and I think it's funny because I would

say if you're in the first five years of your entrepreneurship journey and that's a blanket statement or a broad statement.

I'm not pro networking.

I think that if you're in the I say I think stay locked in and build something special and if you build something special the network will come to you.

When I was in the first 5 years of my career, no one gave a [ __ ] what I was doing. Anyone that I wanted to go have

doing. Anyone that I wanted to go have dinner with or wanted to go network with, why would they give me the time of day? Like, that's just the reality of

day? Like, that's just the reality of society. Once I built something special,

society. Once I built something special, once Bloom was doing over $150 million a year, they were in my DMs. They were texting me, hey, we should, you know, cross paths and figure out how we can

trade notes. And so I think networking

trade notes. And so I think networking in the beginning of your career is a super overrated fun thing that that sounds productive, but the reality is you're not going to

really be able to network with anybody that can move your needle until you're also building something special and can provide value back to them. These are

transa networking is transactional.

Yeah. I think for people out there listening, I don't think the number necessarily needs to be 100 million, but I think like I would say three million, five million.

Get get to a point where like you actually understand and know how to operate a business.

Yeah. Before then, I mean, dude, I remember the the beginning days of Iconic. I didn't leave the [ __ ] bean

Iconic. I didn't leave the [ __ ] bean bag. I just I didn't leave that whole

bag. I just I didn't leave that whole apartment. It was literally like CO was

apartment. It was literally like CO was nothing to me cuz CO was what it already [ __ ] was.

Dude, my life did not change at all when CO hit. It was an opportunity. I went 60

CO hit. It was an opportunity. I went 60 I think it was 68 days in a row where I went past the refrigerator three times.

I did I did a 100 pull-ups every single morning when I woke up and I did not leave my my nook.

I love that.

It was legendary, dude. I would also say my biggest growth

dude. I would also say my biggest growth hack to any entrepreneur entering their 30s, I just turned 31 a couple weeks ago. S and and of course as you get

ago. S and and of course as you get older, surround yourself with young people. That is the biggest growth hack.

people. That is the biggest growth hack.

these young people. I mean, it's almost like how I was like the Instagram guy because I was the generation that grew up with Instagram and Instagram to me was the same thing as like going on a walk. That's them with AI. That's them

walk. That's them with AI. That's them

with Tik Tok shop. Like my favorite people to network with is not the billionaires that have already made it and they're 45 and like whatever they did worked 20 years ago. I want to talk to the 22 year olds that are rocket

shipping these businesses overnight using the new tactics. So my biggest growth hack to any entrepreneur today is just surround yourself or regularly cross paths with young people. They know

the true hacks.

Yeah, I completely agree. For us in the AI, we just met with this guy Remy. He's

21 years old.

Crazy in in Miami. It was insane cuz he's just cracked 18 hours a day on this stuff. To tie a bow on the target stuff,

stuff. To tie a bow on the target stuff, what about from a a communication perspective? Like are you asking them

perspective? Like are you asking them what is doing good, what's not doing good? Are you showing them product

good? Are you showing them product before it comes out? like what is those other kind of little nuances that people need to know to make sure they're asking the right questions.

I I think this goes back to like what would a human want to see, right? And

they want to feel involved. They want to feel like they are taking a chance with your brand as well. And they want to feel entrepreneurial, right? They're

entrepreneurs within the walls of their corporation. And they have a crazy job.

corporation. And they have a crazy job.

They have like a limited amount of real estate where they need to choose a product that's going to live there for six to 12 months. And that's a huge that's a huge risk. And if you can take them along the journey of R&Ding a

product with them, then that's huge. I

would also say they're they're not entrepreneurs for a reason. So if you go there and ask them for advice on what to make, be very careful. That goes back to the keyboard warriors. Like they don't

necessarily know what will work. And if

you want to make sure they feel involved, you know, there are obviously some tricks to that. You can show them three products and you know two of them suck and you want them to choose the middle one. just, you know, show them

middle one. just, you know, show them two products that suck so that they choose the third one that you actually want them to choose and then they feel like they're part of the process. But,

you know, that's just part of like semantics and and dealing with humans.

Controlling the options. That's good.

Controlling the options. Yeah.

And but I would say like, yeah, love having relationships with them. They

they will they will generally change seats very often. So, you'll have a new person every two years.

I hate that.

I I get why it happens, right? cuz like

you you when you're competing with 20, 30, 40year-old businesses and they like are at people's weddings at these retailers at this point because they've done business together for 20 years and like I'm trying to get my foot in the

door. It it is it is advantageous for

door. It it is it is advantageous for for getting new brands in, which I'm always pro that. But yeah, having having a real, you know, then again, if I'm being totally honest with you, I don't

do dinners.

I don't think that you need to like really get to know who Greg is. like

this is a business relationship and I want to talk about building something really special with you, but I don't see any advantage to us breaking bread together in a in a in a fully

transactional relationship like that. If

anything, I almost feel like you want to have an illusion of yourself as like this large decision maker running your business. And I don't want to expose to

business. And I don't want to expose to you that we are all humans or that we are that I am like, you know, stressed about the same things that you're stressed about. I need to come in there

stressed about. I need to come in there briefly with a ton of confidence, involve you in the process, and then get back to my dungeon and and work predictability. They want Yeah. I don't

predictability. They want Yeah. I don't

think that like you should necessarily have like you shouldn't talk to them about your personal life. Like that's not what

personal life. Like that's not what they're there for. That's not what we're there for. We're there to do business.

there for. We're there to do business.

That's what this is for, guys. We're

about to get into that next. Personal

life.

Tying up on the retail side. What's one

thing you know today that you didn't know in the beginning?

retail, similar to every business relationship I've ever had, is generally what have you done for me lately? And

nobody, you do not deserve to be treated differently because of what you did 3 years ago. You deserve to be treated

years ago. You deserve to be treated differently because of what you've done in the last 3 months. And that is how I would like to be judged and that's how I would like everybody else to be judged.

That is how capitalism works. And I agree with

capitalism works. And I agree with capitalism. So, so I think in the past I

capitalism. So, so I think in the past I thought that once we had an incredible summer of 2023, then I could lean on that to have a strong 2025. That's not really the

case. It's like if you want to have a

case. It's like if you want to have a strong summer 2025, you better have a good Q1.

Rent do every day.

Yeah. [ __ ] yeah.

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code open residency.

All right, we talked a little bit about the machine. I want to get into the

the machine. I want to get into the people. As I mentioned in the beginning,

people. As I mentioned in the beginning, this truly is the American dream.

Started a company with wifey, brought in Uncle Leo. I don't know, he's

Uncle Leo. I don't know, he's your son's middle name. Hey. Yeah.

And then your mom was the CFO or accountant until 100 million. Why don't

you just walk us through kind of like the original cast of how this all started and then I just want to get into kind of the sequencing. You've moved

from like a ton of places and let's just kind of go through each of those checkpoints. So Mario and I moved five

checkpoints. So Mario and I moved five or six times in five or six years and I think one of the best ways to control your luck is just be in the geographic area that like best suits your goals. So

Mari and I finished school in Philadelphia which is where we kind of launched Mari Fitness together. Then we

moved to New York and lived in our dad's attic and that's where we started to have our first physical product which was the Booty Bands. Sold like a million Booty Bands, which was a crazy business in itself. And then we moved to Boulder,

in itself. And then we moved to Boulder, Colorado because we just felt like New York was not the place that like really embraced entrepreneurs. So I Googled top

embraced entrepreneurs. So I Googled top cities for entrepreneurs and Boulder, Colorado popped up and we kind of [ __ ] with hiking, I guess, not as much as people in Boulder. And so we moved to Boulder, Colorado, packed our bags and

just immediately rented, you know, a two-bedroom townhouse in Boulder, Colorado. And we stayed there for 18

Colorado. And we stayed there for 18 months. And that's where Bloom was born.

months. And that's where Bloom was born.

And we just stayed locked up and Mari and I and just tried to study social media and and what the female consumer was looking for. And then we were done with Boulder, Colorado. We moved back to

Brooklyn. We thought again that that

Brooklyn. We thought again that that would be a place where now our careers would thrive. It definitely didn't feel

would thrive. It definitely didn't feel that way. And we were really starting to

that way. And we were really starting to embrace influencer culture. Wanted to

build out the influencer program. I was

talking about Mari was becoming like a larger scale content creator. COVID hit

and we were like, "Fuck it. Let's go try this LA thing." And for context now, like there's many hubs around America where you could go do the whole influencer thing. But at the time like

influencer thing. But at the time like content houses and you know every big agency and every big brand activation, it was all happening in LA. That's like

Hollywood was where dreams were made, right? So we packed our bags, moved to

right? So we packed our bags, moved to LA quickly when COVID hit and we got a month-to-month Airbnb in Santa Monica.

It was one bedroom, one bathroom. And

that quickly became the Bloom headquarters in Santa Monica. We had

probably seven to eight people reporting to that Airbnb at full scale once we got to full scale there. And that means that those seven or eight people were using Mari and I's like personal bathroom, right? It was a one-bedroom, one

right? It was a one-bedroom, one bathroom. And so that was, you know,

bathroom. And so that was, you know, these are like the true grind days of Bloom where we had a team. And so that was me, myself, Leo, and a couple of our of our initial employees. And then my mom was back in New York doing finance.

And so Leo is my best friend from high school. That whole hire happened because

school. That whole hire happened because it was we just had the million-dollar day. Things were really starting to

day. Things were really starting to scale. I needed to find somebody that we

scale. I needed to find somebody that we could trust. I just lost the one

could trust. I just lost the one employee that we had who lived in Boston. We had a falling out. And I said

Boston. We had a falling out. And I said the only person that I could trust that could literally get our bank account passwords right now. I didn't know what LinkedIn was. I didn't know what any I

LinkedIn was. I didn't know what any I was going to start like just putting up [ __ ] stapled job listings on telephone polls. I called Leo and we had

telephone polls. I called Leo and we had the conversation about launching the influencer program and him coming on and Leo is my best friend and neighbor from high school and he was like, "Yeah, I'm all in, man. Let's [ __ ] do this." So

Leo joined. We're working out of this Airbnb. This is like I mean this is just

Airbnb. This is like I mean this is just like discipline and entrepreneurship summed up because Black Friday the day after Thanksgiving means that we couldn't go to Thanksgiving with our family for like four or five years

because Black Friday was too big of a day and Christmas 4 days later is January 1st which is like the Super Bowl for any wellness product. So we couldn't go to Christmas for four or five years.

We didn't fly home for the holidays at all. We had Thanksgiving with the team

all. We had Thanksgiving with the team in that Airbnb. We had Christmas dinners with the teams in those Airbnbs. what

you said there too. It's uh for me for people out there in the beginning I actually recommend not going home for Thanksgiving and Christmas and obviously like I care about my family deeply but I remember like the first year or two

that I did go back I was like not present at all and it was almost even worse.

Well, you were a huge Black Friday company I bet.

Huge black. But it was really fun.

I feel like the first iconic I ever bought was on a Black Friday sale in college.

There you go.

Yeah.

But it was fun. You do want to make sure transitionally you get those Shopify chuch-ings. like it was fun in the

chuch-ings. like it was fun in the middle years. I would do it. I would sit

middle years. I would do it. I would sit in the kitchen with my mom and I would keep the Shopify chuch-ching on. That

was a fun bonding moment.

That's when they realize like, oh, you might actually be up to something, right? Because otherwise they think that

right? Because otherwise they think that you're just like I mean it's funny. We

we launched Mari Fitness and we were using a TD Bank student account and I didn't even like trust banks at the time. Like I had no idea what the

the time. Like I had no idea what the [ __ ] was going on. So every day I would move our PayPal balance cuz we didn't have a Shopify at the time. I was having people DM us if they wanted the product.

I would say, "PayPal me $9.99." And then I would email them the instant download PDF. And then if they committed to that

PDF. And then if they committed to that fitness guide and showed that they they actually gave a [ __ ] Mario and I would personally train them through a 50 to 100 pound weight loss transformation.

And eventually we had like a 100 people who had a 100 pound weight loss transformation that was validity for this massive instant download workout guide business that we were creating.

So the genesis of Bloom was these instant down these PDFs and the booty bands. For people out there listening,

bands. For people out there listening, what was the size of this business? Oh,

like multi-million dollar a year business and like there was no COG, right? Like it was just instant download

right? Like it was just instant download PDFs. And the reason there was no COG is

PDFs. And the reason there was no COG is because we were finishing college, right? Like we had no money. We had

right? Like we had no money. We had

university laptops and we would go to a local Barnes & Nobles and just crank out on Canva the I think it was Canva on Canva these instant download PDFs on just exactly the types of weightlifting workouts we wanted to do. And if you

bought the guide, you would get a Facebook community. You would get

Facebook community. You would get private Instagram pages with videos of each exercise. You'd get tons of just

each exercise. You'd get tons of just like free content. And that's what like really started building a community for us, right? It's even like Mari launching

us, right? It's even like Mari launching a podcast for our community where she would bring on like the top doctors around the nation, neurosurgeons, mental health, whatever it may be for free for our community. Like that's what building

our community. Like that's what building a brand and building a community is. And

we learned all of that from the Mari fitness days. And so we scaled that

fitness days. And so we scaled that business as a PayPal business. But going

back to the TD Bank story, I remember had no idea what was going on. Every day

I would take the PayPal balance and move it over to our TD Bank. And then I would go to TD Bank in my car and withdraw all of the cash and just put it into the car's glove box. And then eventually TD

Bank was like, "Dude, what drugs are you selling? What is this like weird daily

selling? What is this like weird daily withdrawal that you're doing? You can no longer have a bank account here." So I was like, "Fuck this." Like what do you mean? Like I just want all of my money.

mean? Like I just want all of my money.

Da da da. So we drive to Chase in Westchester, New York, and we're going to open up our first business account. I

don't even think we had an LLC at the time. And we were like, "Yeah, we have

time. And we were like, "Yeah, we have an Instagram business. We would like to open up a business account." And they and you know, we got through the paper like, "Do you guys even like have any money? Like what's the what what are we

money? Like what's the what what are we doing here?" And Mari just took out 50

doing here?" And Mari just took out 50 grand from our bag and just put it on the table and was like, "We have this."

So it was [laughter] like we like still just like had no idea what was going on.

We were two like 21 year olds with like all this cash and we were just like, I think we need a bank account now. Like

we truly had no all we knew was action.

We didn't know education. So we were just moving forward and kind of figuring it out as we go. But anyway, we're back to LA now. Fast forward to 2021, 2022.

We're working out of the Airbnb and eventually some we works there. But from

LA, we bootstrapped the business. We had our first headquarters. We bootstrapped the

first headquarters. We bootstrapped the business to 180 million. And that's when we started the partnership with Neutribolt. And upon signing the

Neutribolt. And upon signing the partnership with Neutribolt, me and our main team and family moved to Austin, Texas just to show them how ser they didn't ask us to, just to show them how seriously we were taking the

partnership. and we needed to put all of

partnership. and we needed to put all of the odds in our favor for this partnership to work. So Dr. Pepper's based out of Texas, Neutropol's based out of Austin, Texas. We bought a building in East Austin and that became

Bloom's new flagship headquarters.

So zooming out, I mean, five places, 5 years, it seems like. What's the advice you'd give to any young founder out there? Just go wherever the [ __ ] you

there? Just go wherever the [ __ ] you need to go.

Go wherever you need to go because one of the best ways for you to increase your chances of luck is to be in the right place at the right time. So, you

know, I don't think LA is necessarily the right place today for that to happen, but it was at the time. So,

whatever that is for you today.

Makes sense. And you think just if you're in the beginning, they should just be willing to sacrifice anything at that stage? I feel like

that stage? I feel like if you're not all in, you're going to be beat by the person who's allin. Yeah.

Fact.

If you're not working Thanksgiving, then you're going to be beat by the person who's working Thanksgiving.

Random opinion, where do you think it's the best place to start a company right now?

Dude, I'm pretty bullish on this Austin place.

Yeah, I'm pretty bullish on it. like

why outside of Texas?

It seems to be like the entrepreneurship CPG hub that I've looked for my whole career. And I don't think it was that 5

career. And I don't think it was that 5 years ago based off of what people tell me, but in the last two years, I am like blown away by the amount of CPG or just

overall founders that reside in Austin, Texas. And the culture there is like

Texas. And the culture there is like Texas values of just like come over for dinner, let's talk about how to make each other better. They all have family values and like it's not it's not a lot

of this. There's no gatekeeping. There's

of this. There's no gatekeeping. There's

no gatekeeping. Everybody's open book, which is how I've been my whole career.

There's no [ __ ] secrets to anything that I'm doing. I think that is all in the execution and I can tell you my exact playbook. And you know, there's no

exact playbook. And you know, there's no prescription to go recreating Bloom, right? And so I love trading notes. I

right? And so I love trading notes. I

love meeting with other founders. I find

that I can almost only relate to other founders on a social level at this point. And on top of that, it's the

point. And on top of that, it's the perfect time zone. the PST time zone like really [ __ ] up my business or like how I would operate in business.

Like trying to get on to calls at appropriate times with people in New York or internationally in the UK and talking to my family in New York was tough living in LA. So like Austin is like the perfect time zone and it's a

perfect travel hub because you're sitting in the center of the country. So

I don't have any more like 4hour flights or four and a half hour flights to New York. Everything's just like two and a

York. Everything's just like two and a half hours away now.

Strong cosine. Let's talk a little bit about personal brand. We talked a bunch off camerara. Obviously, you know, Bloom

off camerara. Obviously, you know, Bloom was built on your wife's platform. She

goes, "On maternity leave, you've kind of stepped into personal content. What's

the hardest part of that?" Dude, I I cannot believe how hard it is.

[laughter] It's a lot.

I cannot believe how hard it is and how much work it is. I I'm blessed to be in a place where I was immediately able to get like a head of my media, who's JJ, is here today and he runs the whole show with me. Shout out to JJ. And everyone

with me. Shout out to JJ. And everyone

on the Bloom team has like I don't know.

I don't know.

They support me more than I feel like I even deserve. But everyone on the Bloom

even deserve. But everyone on the Bloom team who are all like huge social media heads and like on top of culture, they've supported the hell out of me and just want to help me as much as I can with my content and they're hyping me up

on a regular basis. But I would say building a personal brand to me is like the rawest form of entrepreneurship.

You are the product. So if I'm the CEO of Bloom and it's a 100 person company and I have a bad day, there's 99 people that can make sure Bloom still moves

forward. If I have a bad day, as you

forward. If I have a bad day, as you know, Greg Lav is my handle now. I'm

Greg Lecia, then my product is having a bad day. So

it's like the level of accountability and like it just it just fires me up like how much the the table stakes. I

just love it. I find it like very fun and scary. It's literally every day, all

and scary. It's literally every day, all day if you're putting out content on volume.

Like, I can't be [ __ ] hung over. I

could like, you know, be hung over a couple because I know I'm like locked in and I [ __ ] work out and I'm in the gym every day at 5 a.m., but like I like tequila. I like cigars. I'll feel like

tequila. I like cigars. I'll feel like [ __ ] some days. I got to have a lot less feeling like [ __ ] days now with this personal brand.

We were just talking off camera. I mean,

I think you need to embrace the airplane mode cuz nothing's worse than like coming on a podcast like this and someone just blowing a bomb on a text message right before you come on.

Dude, that would me. That would [ __ ] me up, man. it. Yeah, it's not. Of course,

up, man. it. Yeah, it's not. Of course,

it's not just like physical being in the gutter. Like, not just

gutter. Like, not just it's way more mental.

It's way more mental. Like, I just like need to stay in a good mood and I've surrounded myself with people who hype me up like, you know, whether it's of course my wife saying, "Good luck on the podcast right now," or I have Leo with me right now who is still my best friend

and lives is still my neighbor in Texas.

But, uh, like just making sure he holds back bad news until it's an appropriate time to say it because there's always fires. There's a fire at Bloom every

fires. There's a fire at Bloom every [ __ ] day, right? and like figuring out how to keep everyone in the company in the greatest optimistic creative state at all times really just comes

down to like cadence of communication let alone embracing communication.

I feel like there is people on both sides of the coin and they are very very passionate about their stance where it's like you seem to be someone that you should build in public and you should be creating content as a founder and other

people ironically the people that are not creating content as founders. What

have you seen like the personal and brand benefit that has come with you putting your name out there, your face out there and talking about everything you're doing?

You know, it's funny because like I I don't even have 100,000 followers.

Yeah.

But the quality of the followers in the sense of like people, the inbound of people who can truly help me move the needle to get closer to my goals has blown me away. And I think it's because

there's not a ton of us doing this. So,

it's been just like I'm so motivated to continue building these platforms and to continue posting because of the amount of inbound of just like like-minded people from around the world that I've gotten to meet because of it. And it's

made me a better dad, a better entrepreneur, a better husband, a better friend just through interactions digitally.

Yeah, it's so crazy. It's actually

ironic. I'm actually going to use the line that you said and kind of I kind of unpacked. content is a very saturated

unpacked. content is a very saturated market or from a whites space perspective. the amount of operators

perspective. the amount of operators that have like a min all you have to do is have like a minimal amount of juice, a minimal amount of brain, a minimum amount of social proofing, have a business that's like real like

there's so few and there's such a demand for that type of content and like I can think in my head we don't need to go through the names of like sub 10 people in the whole entire world that are

putting out consistent content that are males running a real company showing you behind the scenes of what they're doing.

I and of course we've all been tricked by every core seller with the rented Lambo, right? And it's like I think

Lambo, right? And it's like I think we're all just [ __ ] We've been sick of them from day one. And it's like so cool to now see real operators making content and setting the stage or setting the example for the next generation.

It's [ __ ] awesome.

Yeah. I think too we should do a little test. I'm going to ask a bunch of you

test. I'm going to ask a bunch of you guys that have been on the pod to do it.

Is like I also think that it's a CAC arbitrage. Like the reality is is like

arbitrage. Like the reality is is like when I was in Santa Barbara, like I never was someone that would have bought a Bloom and then I'm like, "Oh, Greg, bought a Bloom."

Yeah.

And now you're gonna I'm going to win on LT. You're going to win on LTV on that.

LT. You're going to win on LTV on that.

So, imagine if you were a male influential person at a large retailer who would have never seen my wife's content or would have never seen any of

the female influencers who post about Bloom.

A guy might find my [ __ ] and who who can actually change the trajectory of Bloom.

So again, just like what are things you could do to increase your chances of luck? I think building a personal brand

luck? I think building a personal brand is one of the biggest.

Yeah. Sahil, who was on the episode, has a great book, his his new book coming out eventually is about increasing the surface area for luck. And I feel like what you just said too, it goes back to like the no attri You're doing CPMs, but

the no attribution on the influencer.

It's just like I know people that have come on the podcast and they've literally found investors cuz people are like, "Oh, I watch the podcast." So

investors, bisdev, content. I mean,

there's a million different ways that people can come into the funnel.

I'm not I'm not I don't really have an active portfolio, but like my deal flow is ridiculous now, right? Because it's like people want me

right? Because it's like people want me to get involved in their business. And

so I I have to decline 99% of them, but like it's I was like, "Oh, this is how you get deal flow." Cuz I was always surprised like why like brands didn't want me to invest like don't you know what I'm building over here? Right? And

I was almost like insecure about my status in society because I was like, "No one has recognized what I've built."

And it's like, no, you just start making some content about it. And it's like, oh, no one was recognizing because they didn't [ __ ] know. The tree falls in the forest and no one's around to hear it. Like, you need to shout from the

it. Like, you need to shout from the from the rooftops like when you are doing something special because there's so much going on on Instagram and the news outlets that it's like if you don't try to make sure you're heard, no one's

going to notice. And some people don't want to be noticed. And shout out to them, but I I don't I have too much insecurity. So, I want people to notice.

insecurity. So, I want people to notice.

And so, it's been huge for that. I think

regardless of insecurity, ego, whatever anybody has, I just think that dollar for dollar, yes, it makes sense.

Yes, we'll see how it shakes out.

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Give it a try. I want to shift a little bit into into leadership. I guess let's just start like super macro. What would

you say like is your leadership style?

First and foremost, lead by example, right? Like that's the best thing that

right? Like that's the best thing that you can do every single day is just, you know, create create an environment where people and this this goes back to just having an a headquarters in Austin,

right? We are not a remote company. I do

right? We are not a remote company. I do

not operate well on Zoom calls. I

unfortunately to my team have had to tailor the entire organization about the environment that I thrive in and I have found people who also thrive in that environment which is like a very as few Zoom calls as possible as often as we

can get into a room together with as little technology as possible that's where the creativity has happens. I

think everyone in the company it's not just the marketing and the brand team creativity is how people thrive. So, how

can I create as a leader an environment where people as creative as possible, right? Whether that just means there's

right? Whether that just means there's incredibly healthy snacks and tons of caffeine and, you know, lunch every day, you know, provided to the team, but it's also like just an awesome building that

we own and we have been able to turn into the Bloom the Bloom house, the Bloom world. And so, people are just

Bloom world. And so, people are just constantly coming into our headquarters and being in a state where they can be incredibly creative. It's also a

incredibly creative. It's also a headquarters where I run a podcast studio out of this headquarters. It's

called the Pursuit Network. And so we have like really influential people coming in and out of the doors on a on a daily basis. And it's like it's an open

daily basis. And it's like it's an open door policy at our headquarters. There's

other entrepreneurs in Texas that just pick up a desk someday. And it's like you you want that activity. You want

those new ideas, those souls coming into the building. And you don't you don't

the building. And you don't you don't want to you don't want to stale under the the bright white lights type of environment, you know, in in your building. I don't

want a [ __ ] dentist office. So, I

would say leading through example, creating an environment where creativity thrives, but also positive and negative feedback loops. You can't just

feedback loops. You can't just constantly say the things that you don't like or constantly say the things that you do like. Then there's just infinite options for the for the latter. You need

to give positive and negative feedback loops. And I am very pro anger

loops. And I am very pro anger management. You need to control your

management. You need to control your emotions. In any business scenario,

emotions. In any business scenario, emotions will make you lose the scenario. So, I used to earlier in my

scenario. So, I used to earlier in my career, I thought like writing an email in caps lock was [ __ ] badass and everyone was going to see like how much I how passionate I was about this thing and then it's like, oh, I wrote a caps

lock email to the wrong person. And I

realized like how much that can [ __ ] up your trajectory. So, I don't know if

your trajectory. So, I don't know if there's been more than two or three times that I've gotten like angry at a team member. I don't think there's a

team member. I don't think there's a place for that at least at the Bloom office. Like it is a very

office. Like it is a very lead through positivity and do not lead through fear environment. Yeah. I asked

Uncle Leo what he thought about your leadership. He said he tenaciously

leadership. He said he tenaciously follows up and questions everything.

Always leads with that. Great motivator

of people. Always positive. Always

optimistic.

And I and and that you guys know each other.

That's what is that chatbt answer?

No. That was yesterday when I called him.

You [ __ ] called him?

I called him, bro.

Wow. Yeah, bro.

Damn.

Your assistant hooked it up.

I got a speech at his wedding soon. I'll

make sure I I double down on that. But I

but I um rip them up.

Yeah, really. They'll be mostly Brazilian and not speaking English, so I can really say whatever I want. And

[laughter] but yeah, I think dude, these people are my family. Like, we have people who have

my family. Like, we have people who have been with us for the better half of a decade at Bloom who have moved states multiple times with us, which is still blows my mind. There's a few people, a

bunch of people that are going to be multi-millionaires that a traditional trajectory for their role would not have made them multi-millionaires because they are at Bloom. And so

seeing cool cars in my parking lot that are not mine, nothing fires me up more than that.

Love that. You run basically 95% female company.

Yeah.

Tell me more.

I I I wish I had intention behind that.

I don't. Right. It's like I I try to hire the Bloom the Bloom consumer which happens to be a female. And I think generally speaking, a female thrives, you know, with a brand or a person

thrives working on a brand that they are passionate about and that they want to consume. So just the it it's just shaken

consume. So just the it it's just shaken out that way. Volum is a meritocracy like the hardest worker wins in the room. The one with the greatest output

room. The one with the greatest output wins in the room and it has just always fallen towards female team almost always fallen towards female team members. It's

all I know.

Yeah. I mean, that's just great simple advice is just hire team members, especially on the creative and brand side that are ICP. What about hiring from like traditional big companies?

Have you done that?

The biggest mistakes in my talent acquisition journey have been trying to hire people from the corporations that I wanted Bloom to be like or like that had

already achieved the goals that I wanted Bloom to achieve. So, if somebody were to apply, let's just use Red Bull as an example. were here in California where

example. were here in California where they're based or LA. Let's just say I wanted to launch an energy drink and I start to get some inbound resumes that say Red Bull on them and I just go, "Oh,

wow. They probably know all about the

wow. They probably know all about the magic that's happening over there. I'm

going to expedite their whole their whole interview funnel and just get them in these walls and then we're going to be able to figure out everything that Red Bull's doing." First of all, if a corporation is thousands of people,

chances are that one person applied [ __ ] nothing to making that brand special. And what made that brand

special. And what made that brand special probably started 50 years ago, right? So, it's like any time I've

right? So, it's like any time I've expedited the hiring process to try to get the sexy corporation on the resume within the Bloom Walls, I have made a

massive mistake. I think the first

massive mistake. I think the first question that I ask in every interview is, "Name me three brands that you love following on digital and why you think they're crushing it." Like, I just need

to make sure that that person gets what the [ __ ] is going on and what we're doing here. And then we just have a

doing here. And then we just have a conversation about those three brands.

And it might be a brand that I've never heard of, but I'll quickly pull it up on social media and see kind of what they're up to. And if they can explain to me why they think they are winning, we can move on to the next question. And

that's for anything from an executive assistant to on the brand team.

I love that. That's great advice that I've never heard. Just what are you consuming?

Let's just chat about the industry.

Let's just chat CPG for 15 minutes.

Let's see if you can hold this conversation. Do you get what's going on

conversation. Do you get what's going on here?

Beginning days and now hunger or talent what are you looking for?

Beginning days it was absolutely hunger.

I definitely did not my my my motto in the beginning days was I don't want anyone brainwashed by brands that are moving at a sloth's pace, right? I

wanted people who were right out of college that had no idea how what a normal pace was and you know had no idea about what what corporate America

what corporate America was. And I wanted entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs who just wanted to join a [ __ ] startup culture. And so I was very anti

culture. And so I was very anti corporate America brainwashed at the time. Now I have an appreciation for

time. Now I have an appreciation for people who have seen what perfection looks like. Right now that we're what

looks like. Right now that we're what what has gotten us to 100 million is going to be different than what gets us to a 500 and what is going to be different than what gets us to a billion. And so having people in in the

billion. And so having people in in the team who have been there before seems to be incredibly valuable at this point because they just know what that looks

like. And if I can find somebody who I

like. And if I can find somebody who I can take from corporate America who is sick of it and wants to be part of this entrepreneurship journey before

it's too late. That now for especially on a leadership level is like my my favorite hires at Bloom. Yeah, I do feel like you guys are in this explosive mode where there's still kind of meat left on the bone where if somebody came on now

from a corporate side, like you can still three, five, eight, 10x.

Yeah, because like it's not like shipping to to retailers, I don't really need like a young entrepreneurship mind.

I need someone who's done it before, right? Ordering millions of cans every

right? Ordering millions of cans every single day. I need someone who's done it

single day. I need someone who's done it before. But in terms of like the

before. But in terms of like the branding and marketing team, I think, and this goes back to like agism and how I feel about experience overall in digital and building a brand, it's like

what worked 5 years ago is not going to work today. And so it's almost like your

work today. And so it's almost like your experience is irrelevant to me. And I

think that a a 22-year-old who just loves digital is just as worthy as borderline leading a brand department, depending on how many direct reports

they have, leading a brand department as a 35-year-old is a seasoned vet. Yeah,

that's the thesis of this podcast is getting people that are currently in the arena. I am a student of history and I

arena. I am a student of history and I read tons of biographies and I love to learn about past entrepreneurs, but I feel feel like outside of the fundamental whether it be systems or finance or how to sell a company, those

are going to be tried and true forever, but just like Tik Tok shop and AI like Steve Jobs has nothing to tell me about Tik Tok.

No, I want a 25-year-old for that department. And I would say the finance

department. And I would say the finance and supply chain roles, I'm open to remote hires. I'm open to that being

remote hires. I'm open to that being around the country, but if it's something that's like directly pointing towards our impact on culture, that needs to be in the Austin headquarters or our LA office.

Obviously, this influencer machine and army is all in-house. It seems like you're very much so in-house versus agency. Why?

agency. Why?

I would say in the early days of Bloom, we were bootstrapped and we were competing in an era of like CPG brands raising a ton of money. And so they would raise a ton of money, have the pressure to deploy that money, and they

would just go sign the the hottest agency at the time with the biggest check because, you know, it was a check that I couldn't even fathom writing out of a bootstrap brand. So I realized early on like the only way we can

compete with these brands raising all of this money and deploying the greatest agencies in the world is to build something bootstrapped inhouse that's proprietary to us. And that has just

worked for us since day one. And we have continued to rinse and repeat that. I'm

very anti- agency. If I hire an agencies for a temporary period of time to learn what they are doing and then build it better inhouse. I mean, we were huge

better inhouse. I mean, we were huge fans of hiring agencies for a short stint or hiring consultants for a short stint and either, you know, in a consultant scenario, potentially hiring

them full-time if we think they're a killer. But I love test driving things

killer. But I love test driving things and learning with different systems, but it has to have a path to building it out inhouse.

How is it having multi-ity offices?

You're the first person on that has that.

I I've been traveling a little bit too much, especially now with our son. There

have been points where I just wanted the best person no matter where they were in the country. And

the country. And I've regretted it only if there wasn't a path to them moving to Austin or at least moving to LA. Obviously, we had an established LA headquarters and then I

moved with a lot of our leadership team to Austin. So, in in this scenario, it

to Austin. So, in in this scenario, it just makes sense to have this LA office.

Obviously, there's still like a lot of talent agencies and people that we do in person business with in Los Angeles. So,

we have probably like 25 people here in LA and I'll get out here at least once a quarter, but I also make sure my main players in LA are in Austin for a couple days almost every single month. So,

you said something key out there. We

actually are just dealing with it. If

somebody is remote, making sure you have 100% clarity and there's a path for that person to eventually be in person because then you're just wasting everybody's time.

Yeah. Like I I and and again that's me being selfish because I won't thrive as the CEO, as the leader to that person if it's just through Zoom calls. So like we have some killers in New York that have

made sense to be in New York and I also just want an excuse to go to New York once a month, but like we go we all go back and forth to New York and Austin together to at least have in-person time twice a month.

Makes sense. Yeah, I could tell you're an inerson type guy.

Yeah.

To close up hiring and firing, what are some of the big lessons you've learned over the years? You get some great advice. The interview question I think

advice. The interview question I think is so simplistic in nature and it's amazing just like what are the brands you're consuming and why? Who do you think is winning? I love that. What have

you learned over the last I don't know seven, eight years on just hiring and firing? Anything big that you can pass

firing? Anything big that you can pass on to the young generation?

You need to hire entrepreneurs and to me an entrepreneur is somebody who truly just wants to better themsel at all costs and they are they they treat themselves as their own company. So that

person first and foremost wants responsibility and wants ownership. They

would rather a harder job that they can own and put their name on than an easy clock in clockout responsibility. I

don't want anyone who's a nineto-fiver clocking in clocking out and just wants the easier task. But it's also somebody who because they are obsessed with self-development and improving their

skills. When the business grows, and

skills. When the business grows, and we've had to do this many times, when the business grows, if somebody's a leader in a department and they are no longer the right person to be a leader in their that department, but they are

talented, they are excited about the idea of me bringing in somebody on top of them. And that has been I've been

of them. And that has been I've been shocked at the feedback that I've been able to get from 99% of our team members when I say, "Hey, I need to put somebody on top of you who's been here before, who I think is higher qualified for

where we're going." And every time they go, please I would love that like I can learn from them.

Those are killers that say that they have the growth mindset and they have the wrong game 100%. And they just want they treat themselves as a company and they know that's what's best for themselves and they want what's the best for Bloom.

I love that. Yeah. Curious and growth mindset people that are on their own time which is crazy because like you would think like the average human ego would say like I just want to show on LinkedIn that I lead this department, right?

Yeah. I don't think I don't think we live in that world anymore. Skills

economy.

Yeah.

LinkedIn. LinkedIn's done. Looking back,

what's the one thing you've kind of learned about yourself as a leader in the last year? Let's just say everybody who directly reports to me at this point

at Bloom and in the last couple years is better than me at that vertical, which in turn means that I am the worst

person on the leadership team at any at any person specific vertical. Right? So

generally I am not the right person to make a decision on a specific topic. I

have somebody who's better than me at that specific topic. My job at the as the leader is to make sure they are in an environment where they can thrive. So

I'm more than happy to make sure we have a beautiful catered lunch. It can get as simple as that. I'm more than happy to make sure like I have a personal therapy session with that person to make sure they feel heard and that communication

is healthy and there's no drama within the team which is very rare at Bloom. So

just making sure that I am letting the top tier talent that we've been able to acquire thrive is my job now as the CEO.

It is not necessarily impacting small decisions of the day-to-day.

It's a good answer.

Okay.

No ego. That's you weren't thinking that like two years ago.

No. No. I used to well I probably was one of the best people on the entire team, right? Because I was only able to

team, right? Because I was only able to hire people in the beginning who were worse than me.

Yeah.

And so I was just able to delegate most of my tasks to that person to free up some of my mind share. But at this point it's like everyone on the leadership team is truly better than me at their

vertical. Like way better. Yeah. I feel

vertical. Like way better. Yeah. I feel

like hiring the right people, setting the vision, making sure the lights are on, that's your job.

All right, last little thing before we get into Quick Strike. You told me this yesterday. This [ __ ] was mindblowing.

yesterday. This [ __ ] was mindblowing.

What happened with the cartel? What h

what happened what what happened on a on Christmas day in 2022. Give us give us the whole entire story.

All right. So, I mentioned I mentioned not going to Christmas for like four or five years.

Yeah.

And then the first year that we could go back for Christmas.

It's beautiful moment, right? Like Mari

and I are with our family. It's

Christmas Day. This might have been like one of the first real Levecia Christmases that my wife could enjoy.

And like my Italian Christmas is [ __ ] hysterical. Like there's more ricotta

hysterical. Like there's more ricotta than there is water on the table. And so

so you know I get a call we're halfway through Christmas that four 18-wheelers full of greens product. This is still when we were bootstrap brand. We had no strategic partners. Like this was all

strategic partners. Like this was all going to fall on me. Four 18-wheers of greens product were headed to our number one retailer or what was going to be our number one retailer for a January 1st launch. And so that means that we now

launch. And so that means that we now had four days to figure that out cuz it's supposed to be at the stores in 4 days. And we had no idea where three and

days. And we had no idea where three and a half million dollars worth of product were sitting. And that was our cost,

were sitting. And that was our cost, which was a astronomical amount of money for me at the time. I think we were able to locate one of the trucks, which was great. We recovered that product, but

great. We recovered that product, but there were still three trucks out into the out into the wilderness, out into the dark abyss, and we see a random third party seller pop up on Amazon 2

days later. And my head of Amazon, who's

days later. And my head of Amazon, who's a [ __ ] savage, orders the product and realizes, "Yeah, this was the product that was that was specifically made for that retailer. We know that this is not

that retailer. We know that this is not supposed to be sold on Amazon or anywhere else. This is the stolen

anywhere else. This is the stolen goods." We get them kicked off of

goods." We get them kicked off of Amazon. Shout out to Amazon for handling

Amazon. Shout out to Amazon for handling this with us. It pops up the next day.

It's under a person's name. It was like Raul something. And

Raul something. And damn, Raul's a gangster. Real name. He

put he because because his company got kicked off. He probably didn't think

kicked off. He probably didn't think anything of it. So, he just started selling it under his real name with an address. The address is 10 miles from

address. The address is 10 miles from our headquarters in Los Angeles. my head

of Amazon, Alex, in his his bright red C63 AMG Mercedes, and drives over to this this warehouse, which is just an

opened chainlink fence block, you know, around the perimeter, no ceiling on top, just tarp on top of product. and he's

looking through the fence and he sees Clorox bottles, you know, Ninja blenders, protein powders from Orane, Bloom Green, all this clearly stolen CPG

products that he's selling on Amazon.

And this [ __ ] psycho climbs the fence with his iPhone and starts filming all of these products and he's going and he's like, you know, reporting back your guy. And I didn't even ask him to go, by

guy. And I didn't even ask him to go, by the way. I didn't ask him to go. I

the way. I didn't ask him to go. I

actually like probably realized this once he had already once I'll tell you once I realized. So,

doesn't sound safe.

So, he's leaving the warehouse and he's sitting in his car and this badass pickup truck, as he explains it, pulls up to behind him with the license plate, Raul, and comes up to the window and

goes, "Who the [ __ ] are you?" And my head of Amazon goes, "I'm the guy you just stole our [ __ ] from." And like skirts off in his AMG. This is like so funny if you know who I'm talking about.

Well, did you did you go Did he go straight this? Is he putting on like a

straight this? Is he putting on like a bulletproof vest or something? This is

This is risky.

This is insanely risky. And by the way, we end up looking up this guy's address on Google Maps and it was like a $4 million house in Orange County. There's

like a Porsche in the driveway of this guy had been running this operation for a minute. We look up his [ __ ]

a minute. We look up his [ __ ] fugitive record and he had been to jail many times for like, you know, violent assault, like the whole deal. And

he gets into a car chase with this guy, ends up escaping. Shout out to the AMGs.

And and gets back to the headquarters and is just and just we had just uncovered like, you know, this $3 million of product that massive ring.

This is like a massive ring. a massive ring. To be

completely transparent, the California law enforcement was incredibly unhelpful with this situation. In fact, like not surprising, did not even respond to our calls, end up needing to get, you know, national FBI involved.

What do you do? You call 911 and then you Yeah, you just keep on calling until you like meet a guy who knows someone at the FBI and that's who ends up helping you.

And of course, this ended up taking months. So, he was able to like clean up

months. So, he was able to like clean up half of the operation by the time we were able to have a sting. But anyway,

dude, this was like this just like sums up like the one chance we could finally go back to the holidays with the family.

Like there's a massive cartel operation, you know, abusing our Amazon.

It's all on you, bro. All the

responsibilities on you.

Yeah.

Drop of a hat. What happened with the retailer?

They they should understand.

Come on, baby.

Dude, they should, but they shouldn't, right? Like, we should have made Yeah.

right? Like, we should have made Yeah.

Like I I'm really objective with that stuff. And so Yeah. Now we always

stuff. And so Yeah. Now we always overproduce and they were super [ __ ] pissed.

Damn, I don't even know what to say to that.

This is this is a very real thing. This

is why third party sellers, especially on consumables, on e-commerce channels, is like a super high-risisk thing. Like

you don't know where it necessarily came, which is why like we're very proud now to own the seller relationships with these businesses. Like our energy drink,

these businesses. Like our energy drink, we sell directly to Amazon and they sell it on Amazon and so we own that relationship.

No middleman. Love it. I'm going to fire away tons and tons of questions here with Quickstrike. Brace yourself. Your

with Quickstrike. Brace yourself. Your

son, 3 months old, Kai, what's the uh thing about fatherhood that caught you off guard? I I've never felt like

off guard? I I've never felt like there's not enough time in the day more than there's right now. I'm trying to chip away at just my sleep hours and hopefully give those hours to Kai. But

it's been incredible, man. And it's

completely changed how I think about everything that I'm building and working on. I I I realized quickly that

on. I I I realized quickly that what I am going to pass down to him, the the any type of like monetary pass down will almost serve him no justice and

potentially be a disservice to him. And

the greatest thing that I can try to do is just one lead by example and be the man that he has memories seeing on how to be a man. But

the the wisdom and lessons that I can make sure he experiences in his life are like the greatest inheritance that I can ever ever build. So prior to having a son, like I was obsessed with the idea of like leaving this massive trust to my

offspring and like that's how I'll make sure we're generation proof. And it's

like [ __ ] that. All these rich kids are are [ __ ] So it's like I [laughter] got to I got to make sure all I pass down is is is wisdom and lessons and an example.

Love it. Most expensive thing you own that you actually use every day?

[laughter] that you use every day?

Yeah, every day. I mean, my house is [ __ ] I think I think my I have a Mercedes that's like a little It's probably 750,000 that I drive at least every week.

Yeah, it's life flex.

Yeah, [laughter] 750.

Yeah, but dude, I bought it for less and it's been going it's been going crazy on the market, but I'm an [ __ ] and I modified the hell out of it. So, I don't know if that ruined the value, but I but what's crazy is like the value was like

a million before it hit 5,000 miles on the odometer. And the other day on my

the odometer. And the other day on my way to work, I passed 5,000 miles and I was like, "Wow, that was a $100,000 drive to work."

I just had a lot of fun negotiating for for my car lease right now. Do you know about like the the lease swapping? Do

you know about that game? Are you

If you're a year in and you can just like upgrade your car, my buddy told me about this. I'm done

with the traditional leases. Like you

could just go on someone could have 15 months left and just hit them with like a 50% off lowball. They're going to come back in a month later and you just because they get the commission for those transactions.

No, no. I'm talking about you're going to the end user. Like you have a car and there's 18 months left on your lease and I just go to you and it's $1,000 a month. You say, "Hey, $500. Let me take

month. You say, "Hey, $500. Let me take over the rest. 500 a month."

Wow.

Yeah. I was thought I was flexing cuz I had this whole like massive negotiation with Mercedes and I absolutely love that. And my friend's like, "Yo, you're

that. And my friend's like, "Yo, you're sleeping." Cuz he's had like 15 cars the

sleeping." Cuz he's had like 15 cars the last five years. Yeah.

I'm like, "What is this racket that you're running?" Yeah. He just keeps

you're running?" Yeah. He just keeps getting like new BMWs and stuff, dude. [ __ ] yeah. I think, you know,

dude. [ __ ] yeah. I think, you know, going back to like the monetary [ __ ] First of all, entrepreneurship is worth it. Like money is freedom. There is no

it. Like money is freedom. There is no doubt about it. Like you are going to be able to do all of the things that everyone said that you can't do, which is kind of like sums up my whole life.

It's like I [ __ ] hate hated when someone would tell me no. If I'm at a restaurant and I'm ordering I mean Leo can vouch for this. If I'm at a restaurant and I'm ordering all of the dishes that I want, which is generally several dishes, [laughter] and the waiter is like, "You've ordered

enough." And I'll I'll I'll want to

enough." And I'll I'll I'll want to leave the restaurant. I won't. But like

that will that will like properly trigger me. I hate when someone tells me

trigger me. I hate when someone tells me no or that I've done enough or that like that's excessive.

You've done enough to be able to be be excessive. [laughter]

excessive. [laughter] And so I think money being freedom has been the, you know, the greatest unlock that it is. But like, you know, the the best memories that I have with my wife

with travel are not any five-star hotel.

It's like literally us in a camper van.

And so the reality is is the funnest things in life are like borderline national parks like are [ __ ] free and money is fun and awesome but the biggest

unlock is the freedom that it gives you and entrepreneurship is very much worth that goal. The freedom.

that goal. The freedom.

I agree. What's your benchmarks?

3 380 on a good day based off of a test I did a couple weeks ago. On a good day I tore this.

We're gonna pop up some shreddy on that.

This guy does crazy crazy pull-ups with the [ __ ] try.

I'm pretty nice on pull-ups, but I see you're doing like 40 lb weights.

Dude, I love the weighted pull-up. I

have I don't have any.

What's your max with no weights?

On a on a good day, I can get 25 real pull-ups. Like good pull-ups.

pull-ups. Like good pull-ups.

I'm high teens.

Yeah, you got me, dude. Breaking 20 was hard.

dude. Breaking 20 was hard.

Breaking 20 was hard. I would say, dude, fitness has been like everything for me.

Like, it is just like just because of the routine and discipline that you need to have like in your It's 24/7.

Yeah.

Right. So it's like you need it's not just the workout, it's the meals you get in, it's the recovery you get after. So

it's like me bringing those lessons over to entrepreneurship I think has been huge for my entrepreneurship. And it's

like dude, I was so young starting this journey that I couldn't walk in as some like ungroomed fat 25year-old. Why would

anyone take me seriously? I didn't even have like a product that was really scaling yet. So, it's like if I wanted

scaling yet. So, it's like if I wanted to enter a room and demand respect, I had to at least beat that more successful person in fitness and in health and have something over them, right? So, I think it it got me a long

right? So, I think it it got me a long way in terms of like the the initial reaction that people would give me when I would enter a room. And it's it's, you know, I don't have as much time for it

anymore or as as much as I did, but it's still a huge passion of mine.

You're doing okay here. Yeah. I'm not a huge I like some of his stuff. Her mozzy

his advice always younger people is just get jacked first.

And I wish I would have started earlier to have better muscle muscle memory cuz I had to put in like a long a long time in like my early 30s to just get a base.

So starting early is definitely worth it.

Dude, getting jacked as your first goal.

It doesn't take that long and I think that's great advice. I'm also going back to like pride has ruined the greatest men I know. Science is [ __ ] awesome these days and there's a lot of guys

that are afraid to hop on TRT or afraid to hop on the peptides or afraid to use the best supplements and it's like these things are [ __ ] awesome now. Like I

want to feel so [ __ ] good every day and science is allowing that. It's been

it's been incredible.

What's the secret sauce? Give us a secret peptide.

Dude, I run my TRT as you know anyone else can. and I had to come off to have

else can. and I had to come off to have the baby which was miserable but love love my TRT and then dude I'll take BPC BPC57 MC I'll take

TA1 for my immune system sometimes kind of overreacts to some foods I don't know I I'll dabble with whatever is kind of like you know my goals at the time but I'm always changing them up I don't like run the same thing forever

personal question for me I was thinking about potentially going a little micro dose on test but then I'm going to have to around the corner I'm going to have babies freeze that [ __ ] freeze first and then just rock the test.

Dude, freeze sperm or my wife and I ended up needing to do IVF, which is really cool cuz now we have like more embryos frozen that are already fertilized. But what we did when our

fertilized. But what we did when our baby was born was we took her placenta and I ran it out of the hospital to my executive assistant in the parking lot at 2:00 a.m. in the morning and she gave

it to a courier who drove it to Houston and brought it to like this stem cell exoome lab. And now we have a Creole

exoome lab. And now we have a Creole freezer, which also has my sperm just in case. But a creole freezer full of like

case. But a creole freezer full of like top tier DNA one:1 match stem cells and exoomes that we've been able to get like IV drips. I'll like put it in my hair to

IV drips. I'll like put it in my hair to make sure my hair is not falling out.

Like I'll I'll vape that [ __ ] Like it's it's pretty crazy, bro.

Stem cells are cool.

How bad was the come down on having to get off test to do that? And what what was that window? And could you like fully not function? Like what was it like? This is for the guys out there.

like? This is for the guys out there.

This is some this is some free game.

It was 8 to 12 months. And the general protocol is you come off for me for us to have a baby, right? I was able to get the sperm back probably in 4 to 6 months at a quality level. And by the way, like when you don't have sperm, like you're

still like you're still ejaculating, you know what I mean? Like, so you don't know if you don't have sperm. It's not

like you're just like dry busting.

[laughter] So I just took a sperm test with somebody called Fellow.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've done

[ __ ] Shout out Fellow, baby. That's a good one. Crazy. which is, you know,

one. Crazy. which is, you know, hilarious, you know, transactional jerkoff that you get to go experience, but you you it took probably four to six months to get the quality sperm back and

then cuz I had zero, right, when I was running test and then the protocol that's generally given to people is cheap and it's easy and it works. It's hCG and Clomid. That's what

works. It's hCG and Clomid. That's what

every doctor gives you. I was able to get kind of this new more expensive trial thing called RFSH and then I paired that with the HCG. I

didn't do Clomid and dude my test was still like 750. Like my test was fine. It felt like

750. Like my test was fine. It felt like more volatile.

Yeah, it felt like more of I mean now I'm like, you know, over 1500. But

you serious?

Yeah, I'll keep it high, bro.

Damn.

I'll keep it high. But the

the the volatility was definitely there.

didn't feel like I was taking testosterone, but like I didn't feel like total dog [ __ ] you know?

Yeah. So, check out RFSH. I think that's what it's called.

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