Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 119. Nick Green, CEO & Co-Founder of Thrive Market

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119. Nick Green, CEO & Co-Founder of Thrive Market · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: Jump into the deep end and get out there and
0:02
Speaker 1: make mistakes and let the world be your advisor. There
0:05
Speaker 1: is no better way to confront truth and reality than
0:09
Speaker 1: to be out there living in the real world.
0:25
Speaker 2: Hey, Hardler's Emily a body bringing you Episode one hundred
0:28
Speaker 2: and nineteen of Hurdle, a wellness focused podcast where I
0:32
Speaker 2: sit down with inspiring individuals to talk about everything from
0:35
Speaker 2: their big wins to how they've gotten through some of
0:37
Speaker 2: life's toughest moments. On the show, you can expect vulnerability, motivation,
0:42
Speaker 2: and candid discussions with everyone from top athletes to aspiring
0:46
Speaker 2: entrepreneurs on what it really takes to follow your passions.
0:50
Speaker 2: My mission is simple to inspire you to be your
0:53
Speaker 2: best self, move with intention, and have some fun along
0:58
Speaker 2: the way. Today, Hey, I am chatting with Nick Green.
1:02
Speaker 2: He is the co founder and CEO of Thrive Market.
1:06
Speaker 2: Now if you've never heard of Thrive Market before. In
1:10
Speaker 2: Nick's words, it is like whole Foods meets costco online.
1:15
Speaker 2: It's a membership driven model. You can buy healthy foods
1:18
Speaker 2: from top selling organic brands at wholesale prices. I myself
1:23
Speaker 2: have been a Thrive Market member for some time, growing
1:26
Speaker 2: up in a household where my dad is a costco fiend.
1:30
Speaker 2: Living in New York, where the prices for healthy items
1:33
Speaker 2: can be extremely extremely high. Thrive Market has enabled me
1:37
Speaker 2: to get a lot of the stuff that I love,
1:39
Speaker 2: everything from fresh fish to staples like flour and almond butter,
1:44
Speaker 2: all at super super reasonable prices. In today's episode, Nick
1:48
Speaker 2: talks to me about growing up outside of Minneapolis and
1:52
Speaker 2: learning from a really young age what it meant to
1:55
Speaker 2: eat and live healthy. His mom was super health conscious,
1:59
Speaker 2: so much so that he would literally bring his own
2:02
Speaker 2: eats to sleepovers at friends' houses. He talks to me
2:06
Speaker 2: about going to college, starting his first business at a
2:10
Speaker 2: super young age, and the lessons that came with that.
2:13
Speaker 2: We talk about him selling that business, moving out to
2:16
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, and the winding road he followed to founding
2:20
Speaker 2: Drive Market. We also open up today's conversation chatting about
2:24
Speaker 2: how Nick is donating his salary to COVID nineteen relief,
2:28
Speaker 2: and I think that's just a testament to not only
2:31
Speaker 2: how good of a heart that Nick has, but really
2:35
Speaker 2: the purpose and the mission of the company. And I
2:37
Speaker 2: think you guys are really gonna love what Nick has
2:40
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5:24
Speaker 2: I am sitting down with Nick Green. He is the
5:27
Speaker 2: co founder and CEO of Thrive Market.
5:30
Speaker 3: How you doing, Nick, doing great? Thanks for having me
5:33
Speaker 3: of course.
5:33
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for taking the time on this
5:37
Speaker 2: sunny day here in New York. You are based on
5:40
Speaker 2: the West Coast, is that correct?
5:42
Speaker 1: I am in another sunny place, Los Angeles, California.
5:46
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to be honest with you. On April
5:48
Speaker 2: twenty first, at twelve thirty five my time, I got
5:51
Speaker 2: an email in my inbox which led to me reaching
5:56
Speaker 2: out and us having this conversation. And the email in
5:59
Speaker 2: my inbox had the subject line why I'm donating my
6:02
Speaker 2: salary to COVID nineteen relief with your name at the top.
6:06
Speaker 2: So let's talk about that. Let's kick start this off
6:09
Speaker 2: by talking about that. First things first, what is thrive
6:12
Speaker 2: Market and then why are we donating our salary?
6:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Thrive Market is a platform that makes healthy
6:20
Speaker 1: products affordable and accessible to anybody. So a lot of
6:23
Speaker 1: people will say we're like Whole Foods meets Costco online.
6:28
Speaker 3: So it's a membership model.
6:29
Speaker 1: You pay sixty dollars a year and then you get
6:31
Speaker 1: access to basically the best products that you'd find in
6:33
Speaker 1: a health food store, a lot of like snacks and
6:37
Speaker 1: food items, but also you know, everything from health and
6:39
Speaker 1: beauty products to supplements to home goods, and they're all
6:43
Speaker 1: wholesale prices. So our goal is to make the organic, natural, sustainable,
6:49
Speaker 1: ethically sourced product accessible add or below the price of
6:52
Speaker 1: the conventional equivalent. And then we've created a whole sort
6:56
Speaker 1: of structure on the site for making the process of
6:59
Speaker 1: finding the best.
7:00
Speaker 3: Products really easy.
7:01
Speaker 1: So we curate down to the best individual items, we
7:05
Speaker 1: let people filter the whole experience based on their diets
7:08
Speaker 1: and values. We do a ton of content and tell
7:11
Speaker 1: the stories behind the products where they come from as
7:14
Speaker 1: well as well as well as how to use them,
7:18
Speaker 1: and just really laser focused on making that typically very
7:22
Speaker 1: difficult process of being a conscious consumer of living your
7:25
Speaker 1: values of being healthy into something that's much more easy
7:29
Speaker 1: and manageable. And the reason that I donated my salary
7:35
Speaker 1: to COVID nineteen relief really goes back to our mission
7:38
Speaker 1: as a business. You know, we are a social enterprise.
7:42
Speaker 1: We are a mission driven business, and that mission is
7:44
Speaker 1: really really simple. It's to make health living accessible and
7:47
Speaker 1: affordable to everybody. It's been the miss mission since the beginning,
7:51
Speaker 1: and I think we have felt since the moment this
7:54
Speaker 1: crisis began that, you know, for us a business, more
7:57
Speaker 1: than anything, it's just been a true moment for the mission,
8:00
Speaker 1: where you know, before a lot of people were thinking
8:02
Speaker 1: about putting healthy food on the table. Now every American
8:05
Speaker 1: family is thinking about, you know, how do I get
8:08
Speaker 1: good food on the table when I'm having to shop
8:09
Speaker 1: from home? How do I make sure that that food
8:12
Speaker 1: those products are safe. How do I make sure that
8:15
Speaker 1: I know where they come from? How do I make
8:18
Speaker 1: sure I can trust the platform that I'm buying and
8:20
Speaker 1: buying it from. So I think that we felt like
8:23
Speaker 1: it was a moment for us to really step up
8:26
Speaker 1: and serve our mission. More broadly, we've obviously seen real
8:29
Speaker 1: acceleration in the growth of our membership base, which was
8:32
Speaker 1: already growing very fast. We've seen increased engagement from our
8:36
Speaker 1: existing members who now are looking to Thrive as kind
8:39
Speaker 1: of their one stop shop at a time when there
8:41
Speaker 1: aren't a lot of other options, and we decided we
8:45
Speaker 1: really wanted to do more, so we set up something
8:48
Speaker 1: called the Thrive Market COVID nineteen Relief Fund, which basically
8:51
Speaker 1: allowed our existing paid members to donate a portion of
8:55
Speaker 1: their savings on every order to the shopping byudgets of
9:00
Speaker 1: people that were directly affected or families directly affected by
9:05
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. So one hundred percent of what is donated
9:08
Speaker 1: goes towards the grocery stipends for families affected, healthcare workers
9:13
Speaker 1: people you know, frontline workers in the crisis. And we raised,
9:19
Speaker 1: believe it or not, about two hundred thousand dollars in
9:21
Speaker 1: like three and a half weeks. We saw donation rates
9:24
Speaker 1: that were like nine times what we'd ever seen from
9:26
Speaker 1: a prior campaign, and.
9:28
Speaker 3: So really it was a long long story to get to.
9:31
Speaker 1: I donated, but I was just incredibly inspired by our
9:34
Speaker 1: members who are being so generous and really like standing
9:38
Speaker 1: up and showing that they believed in our mission. Every
9:41
Speaker 1: bit as much as we did. And you know the
9:43
Speaker 1: only thing that outstripped their generosity was the need from
9:47
Speaker 1: so many families that were applying. So I looked at
9:49
Speaker 1: it and I said, look like, we got to make
9:51
Speaker 1: sure this fun stays solvent. And if that means you know,
9:54
Speaker 1: me stepping up in a significant way, That's what I'm
9:57
Speaker 1: going to do.
9:57
Speaker 3: And that's what prompted that decision.
10:00
Speaker 2: Dig It. So you talked about part of the mission
10:03
Speaker 2: of Thrive helping people put healthy options on the table.
10:06
Speaker 2: Let's talk about you growing up and what was on
10:09
Speaker 2: the table and where you grew up.
10:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, I was so lucky growing up
10:14
Speaker 1: in you know, in the nineties in the Midwest. I
10:17
Speaker 1: grew up in outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, in a place and
10:20
Speaker 1: at a time when there actually weren't that many healthy options,
10:23
Speaker 1: and yet I happened to have a mom who you know,
10:26
Speaker 1: did all that hard work to make sure that we
10:29
Speaker 1: were that we were eating healthy. And so, you know,
10:31
Speaker 1: my story around help actually really starts with her story.
10:35
Speaker 1: And you know, she's a second generation Mexican American. She
10:40
Speaker 1: grew up in Denver, Colorado, and you know, very working
10:44
Speaker 1: class and really saw firsthand you know the effect of
10:49
Speaker 1: maybe not as much awareness on health and that that
10:52
Speaker 1: what that can have on people's livelihoods, their economic opportunities,
10:56
Speaker 1: uh and and just their their their ability to really
11:00
Speaker 1: like be fulfilled even beyond just being physically healthy. So
11:04
Speaker 1: my mom was like a health nut at a time
11:06
Speaker 1: when there were not a lot of health nuts, and
11:08
Speaker 1: she basically passed that on to us as kids, where
11:11
Speaker 1: you know, we were that weird family that like didn't
11:13
Speaker 1: have any soda in the fridge, that wasn't allowed to
11:16
Speaker 1: eat sugar and cereal, you know, where she was like
11:18
Speaker 1: going and making sure that all of the milk we
11:21
Speaker 1: drank was hormone free and has to be whole milk,
11:24
Speaker 1: not skim and just doing all this reading.
11:26
Speaker 3: I can remember the bookshelf at.
11:28
Speaker 1: Home, you know, I was like mixed in with my
11:30
Speaker 1: story books were like her books about you know, random
11:33
Speaker 1: health topics that you know, were way ahead of their time.
11:36
Speaker 1: And so you know, I basically saw firsthand one what
11:40
Speaker 1: a meaningful difference in her life health had made, and
11:44
Speaker 1: then in my own life, as you know, we were
11:46
Speaker 1: raised as really healthy kids, But then also saw, like
11:49
Speaker 1: I said, how difficult it was for her to do
11:51
Speaker 1: that right. It took her basically self educating herself, becoming
11:55
Speaker 1: almost an expert, and this is mine you was at
11:57
Speaker 1: the time before the Internet, in order to make healthy decisions.
12:02
Speaker 1: And you know, it's really interesting. You fast forward twenty
12:05
Speaker 1: some years and as I looked with my co founder
12:09
Speaker 1: Ginar at what was still the experience for most American families,
12:14
Speaker 1: it really hadn't changed that much. They were, you know,
12:17
Speaker 1: more more moms out there can get educated more easily
12:20
Speaker 1: because they can take that awareness into their own hands online,
12:24
Speaker 1: following different influencers and reading blogs and using just using Google.
12:29
Speaker 1: But yet there weren't a lot of affordable options, and
12:31
Speaker 1: there's a lot of misinformation and there's a lot of
12:34
Speaker 1: overwhelm right in our busy lives, like how do you
12:36
Speaker 1: make time for actually making those healthy decisions. So that
12:39
Speaker 1: was the genesis for Thrives was, you know, I want
12:41
Speaker 1: to build a platform that my mom would have wanted,
12:44
Speaker 1: you know, if the Internet had been around back then,
12:47
Speaker 1: and really that I think millions of other moms and
12:52
Speaker 1: other conscious consumers would want who are all over the country.
12:56
Speaker 1: And you know, I was living in California at the time,
13:00
Speaker 1: lived out on the East Coast, but really, you know,
13:02
Speaker 1: our target market from the beginning was those places that
13:05
Speaker 1: probably that maybe don't have a whole foods.
13:07
Speaker 3: On you know, within a within a mile away.
13:10
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people don't realize this,
13:11
Speaker 1: but fifty percent of American families don't live within driving
13:14
Speaker 1: distance of a health food store. So we wanted to
13:16
Speaker 1: be that health food store. And that was very much
13:20
Speaker 1: you know, the genesis the business was really twenty some
13:23
Speaker 1: years earlier and my experience and actually my co founder,
13:26
Speaker 1: Gnaar had a very different experience, but one that that
13:30
Speaker 1: oriented him to the same mission. So you know, that
13:33
Speaker 1: was that was how we became a mission driven business
13:35
Speaker 1: and really how the whole thing started.
13:37
Speaker 2: A few follow up questions. First follow up question, how
13:40
Speaker 2: many siblings did you have?
13:42
Speaker 1: I have two siblings. One of them my sister is
13:44
Speaker 1: eighteen months younger than me, and she worked at Thrive.
13:47
Speaker 1: So she left her job selling medical doing medical device sales,
13:50
Speaker 1: much better paid to come work at Thrive for the
13:53
Speaker 1: first the first two years until she had her first child.
13:57
Speaker 1: And then my brother is actually my chief of staff.
14:00
Speaker 1: You know, we're not technically a family business, but we've
14:02
Speaker 1: got the you know, the family the siblings are all there.
14:06
Speaker 2: And when you were growing up and your mom was
14:08
Speaker 2: like super health conscious, I only imagine that at times
14:11
Speaker 2: if you were going to friends' houses to hang out
14:14
Speaker 2: or just out and about town that I mean, not
14:17
Speaker 2: everybody else lived like you guys did.
14:21
Speaker 1: It was it was I mean, I don't see, it
14:22
Speaker 1: was the worst, right, Like, I like, these were the
14:24
Speaker 1: things I like resented my mother for, especially as I
14:27
Speaker 1: kind of you know, became an adolescent, because it was
14:30
Speaker 1: it was like embarrassing, right, I'm like the kid that's
14:32
Speaker 1: not allowed to drink mountain dew. I'm the kid that
14:35
Speaker 1: like you know, brings my own cereal to eat the
14:37
Speaker 1: next day when I have a sleepover because I'm not
14:40
Speaker 1: allowed to eat lucky charms or whatever.
14:42
Speaker 3: It was.
14:42
Speaker 2: Well, I was going to say, though, like I feel
14:44
Speaker 2: like I at the time, when I reflect on my
14:46
Speaker 2: adolescence and my eating habits, I would look forward to
14:50
Speaker 2: going to friends' houses because they might have the foods
14:53
Speaker 2: that we didn't keep in the house. But you had
14:55
Speaker 2: the rigidity to byo food.
14:59
Speaker 3: My my mom.
15:00
Speaker 1: My mom was like the like Jedi mind trick of
15:04
Speaker 1: all mothers. Like she was able to make it so
15:06
Speaker 1: that I like didn't even consider the possibility of not
15:11
Speaker 1: following what you know, what her prescriptions were. And it
15:15
Speaker 1: was strange because it wasn't like she was a mom
15:17
Speaker 1: that punished or you know, was like threatening.
15:19
Speaker 3: I wasn't afraid of it.
15:20
Speaker 1: I just if I if I didn't do it, I
15:22
Speaker 1: felt like I was doing the wrong thing, Like I
15:24
Speaker 1: actually believed everything she said, because she wouldn't just she
15:26
Speaker 1: wouldn't just say, hey, you can't eat trigger cereal.
15:28
Speaker 3: She would explain ad nauseum why we.
15:31
Speaker 1: Don't eat Tiggert cereal in our family, and so you know,
15:34
Speaker 1: and there were it wasn't just about health r there
15:36
Speaker 1: were so many topics where she would always have this like, well,
15:39
Speaker 1: in our family, we do things this way, and it's
15:42
Speaker 1: not because of what everyone else does, it's because of ABCD.
15:45
Speaker 1: And she would like have her you know, styllogistic argument
15:48
Speaker 1: for why we you know, why we why we do
15:51
Speaker 1: things a different way. And as I said, it was
15:52
Speaker 1: like the worst when you're like trying to be a
15:55
Speaker 1: you know, conforming cool like in the in group adolescent,
15:59
Speaker 1: but in rectross fact, like you know, forced me to
16:02
Speaker 1: kind of kind of by definition be a bit of
16:04
Speaker 1: kind of classic and you know, if I'm honest, like
16:07
Speaker 1: without without that orientation, like I wanted to become an
16:10
Speaker 1: entrepreneur totally totally.
16:13
Speaker 2: And did you even at the time, I mean you
16:14
Speaker 2: said that you would explain it ad nauseum, but did
16:17
Speaker 2: you truly understand what was really going on and that
16:21
Speaker 2: the things that you put into your body actually could
16:25
Speaker 2: affect not just like how you feel, but how you're
16:28
Speaker 2: capable of performing at that at that young of an age.
16:31
Speaker 1: I mean, not at that level in that in those terms.
16:34
Speaker 1: So she would always bring it down to.
16:35
Speaker 3: Like where I was.
16:36
Speaker 1: And obviously when I'm five or six, it was a
16:38
Speaker 1: different explanation when than I was twelve than when I was.
16:40
Speaker 3: Twelve or thirteen.
16:41
Speaker 1: But I remember being just like very conscious of what
16:44
Speaker 1: was in food. I think the other thing which I realized,
16:47
Speaker 1: you know, after the fact, Like she was very cutting edge,
16:50
Speaker 1: but there was also a ton of misinformation at the time.
16:52
Speaker 1: You know, like the enemy at that at that time
16:54
Speaker 1: was still fat.
16:56
Speaker 3: Right.
16:56
Speaker 1: She would she she had a strink whole milk only
16:59
Speaker 1: because she didn't want it to alterated. But she was
17:01
Speaker 1: actually concerned about that that that was high fat. So
17:04
Speaker 1: you know, I think there was there was stuff where
17:07
Speaker 1: you know, the just the conventional wisdom of the time,
17:09
Speaker 1: even in health circles, like we've later found out is
17:13
Speaker 1: not is not right. There was also other stuff where
17:15
Speaker 1: like remarkably her intuition on things was like spot on,
17:21
Speaker 1: even though she didn't even have necessarily research on it, right,
17:24
Speaker 1: like the push pushing towards organic, you know, I think
17:28
Speaker 1: back in the day, like people were like, why would
17:30
Speaker 1: you why would you do why would you do organic?
17:32
Speaker 1: And just like people didn't even think about the pesticides issue.
17:35
Speaker 1: It was like there is no difference. It's just it's
17:37
Speaker 1: an environmental issue, and no one was thinking about life
17:40
Speaker 1: is say it and its effect on humans and stuff.
17:42
Speaker 1: So I didn't like have a deep, deep understanding the
17:45
Speaker 1: way I have since then. And I think, like what
17:49
Speaker 1: is remarkable to me is that my mom was able
17:51
Speaker 1: to develop some level of understanding at the time before
17:53
Speaker 1: the internet, before a lot of information was widespread, and
17:57
Speaker 1: she had the conviction to act on it, you know,
17:59
Speaker 1: despite the fact that it was hard.
18:00
Speaker 2: We keep talking and we will continue to talk throughout
18:03
Speaker 2: this episode about the importance of eating organic and why
18:06
Speaker 2: we lean into these foods. But from an accessibility standpoint,
18:11
Speaker 2: I mean, the question that I get time and time
18:13
Speaker 2: again is I can't afford this, and what should I
18:17
Speaker 2: be doing if this is what everyone is saying that
18:20
Speaker 2: I should be doing, and I feel as though I
18:23
Speaker 2: can't conform, And I mean, what do you say to
18:25
Speaker 2: people when you hear stuff like that? Because I think
18:28
Speaker 2: to an extent, and obviously we can talk about this,
18:30
Speaker 2: but a certain amount of privilege can come hand in
18:33
Speaker 2: hand with being able to shop and eat this way.
18:36
Speaker 3: That's I think that's totally totally true.
18:39
Speaker 1: And it's not just cost, right, Like that was the
18:42
Speaker 1: most obvious barrier that we thought about when we started
18:44
Speaker 1: Thrive was all, right, like, how do we get natural,
18:47
Speaker 1: organic products at or below the price of conventional equivalents.
18:51
Speaker 1: The other really obvious one is geography, Right, even if
18:53
Speaker 1: you can't afford it, if you don't live near a
18:55
Speaker 1: place and it's not convenient and you're having to drive
18:58
Speaker 1: sixty miles from the years time, foods like it just
19:01
Speaker 1: ain't going to happen for most families. But I think
19:04
Speaker 1: one of the other things that we realize is there's
19:05
Speaker 1: all sorts of other barriers too, which is I think
19:08
Speaker 1: you're kind of getting at around like just you know,
19:11
Speaker 1: kind of overwhelm. There's barriers of guilt, and like I
19:13
Speaker 1: don't really want to address it because I know I'm
19:15
Speaker 1: not going to be able to do it perfectly and
19:17
Speaker 1: I don't know where to start, and so I'm just
19:18
Speaker 1: going to kind of avoid the topic. I think there's
19:21
Speaker 1: choice overload now, right, Like you go into the grocery
19:24
Speaker 1: store and like every product has a bunch of health
19:27
Speaker 1: claims on it. You know, you go into Whole Foods
19:29
Speaker 1: and there's forty almond butters, Like, where the hell do
19:31
Speaker 1: you start? And how do you know which ones are
19:33
Speaker 1: which ones are good? And then you know, you have
19:36
Speaker 1: a little bit of like also contradictory information out there,
19:39
Speaker 1: just in terms of like health tribes and different diets
19:42
Speaker 1: that tell you basically the opposite things, right Like if
19:46
Speaker 1: you're you know, if you're keto, like you're probably having
19:50
Speaker 1: a lot of meat. If you're a vegan, like, no,
19:52
Speaker 1: you can't have any meat, you know, And I think
19:54
Speaker 1: that that like that spins people up. So there's a
19:57
Speaker 1: lot of things that I think stand in the way
20:01
Speaker 1: of people getting healthy individually. And then when you talk
20:04
Speaker 1: about a family and you know, in particular, like you know,
20:07
Speaker 1: sixty five percent of our of our members are moms,
20:11
Speaker 1: like eighty five percent are women, So it's mostly women.
20:14
Speaker 1: And then within that most are head of household moms.
20:18
Speaker 1: You know, these are people that are very busy, right,
20:20
Speaker 1: So you've also got the like, how do I make
20:22
Speaker 1: time for this? How do I afford it? How do
20:25
Speaker 1: I get there when I've got all of these other commitments,
20:29
Speaker 1: and so it's just it's just hard, you know. And
20:31
Speaker 1: so I think people feel the pressure and they're more
20:33
Speaker 1: aware now that they should be maybe being healthier because
20:37
Speaker 1: they see that some of the information, but they but
20:39
Speaker 1: they don't know where to start.
20:40
Speaker 2: And I think the last follow up question I'll bring
20:43
Speaker 2: into this referencing your growing up is I feel like
20:46
Speaker 2: you have to have some maybe funny story about kind
20:51
Speaker 2: of tviating from the normal at some point or another
20:54
Speaker 2: and how it affected you and maybe all lesson you
20:56
Speaker 2: learned from that. Oh my gosh, do you totally do.
21:01
Speaker 3: Where to start? Where to start?
21:04
Speaker 1: I mean, like like I was the kid that, like,
21:08
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't allowed to watch PG thirteen movies
21:11
Speaker 1: until I was fourteen, you know, I literally, like I'm
21:14
Speaker 1: not even joking. I would go to a sleepover and
21:16
Speaker 1: I'd bring my own cereal right because it was like
21:19
Speaker 1: there was a list of cereals I knew I couldn't
21:21
Speaker 1: I couldn't eat. I remember my mom making the case
21:25
Speaker 1: for like or us, making the case to her that
21:27
Speaker 1: we should be able to lead Life Cereal and that
21:29
Speaker 1: was like the biggest win in our family was to
21:31
Speaker 1: get Life Cereal, which had a.
21:32
Speaker 3: Little bit of sugar.
21:34
Speaker 1: So I don't know, there wasn't nothing sticks out as like, oh,
21:38
Speaker 1: this was embarrassing and forced me to to get really
21:42
Speaker 1: comfortable being different from the norm. I would say it
21:45
Speaker 1: was like sort of a It was like the background
21:48
Speaker 1: noise of my life for the first twelve or thirteen years,
21:51
Speaker 1: like when most kids are being socialized and being sort
21:54
Speaker 1: of indoctrinated into the culture. I had my mom standing
21:58
Speaker 1: there and making sure like, you know, no, don't believe
22:01
Speaker 1: that that's not the truth.
22:01
Speaker 3: We're going to do it this way.
22:03
Speaker 1: And like I said, it was like it was kind
22:05
Speaker 1: of one big lesson in econiclasm.
22:10
Speaker 2: So talk to me about coming of age and moving
22:13
Speaker 2: on to college. Where did you go to college?
22:16
Speaker 1: So I went to undergrad at Harvard, and that was
22:19
Speaker 1: actually the genesis of my first business. I uh, I had.
22:26
Speaker 1: I was a good student in in high school. You know,
22:29
Speaker 1: it wasn't a lot to watching a TV. I was
22:32
Speaker 1: really I was into sports, but like pretty much like
22:34
Speaker 1: this like focused and pretty academic kind of kid. And
22:39
Speaker 1: so you know, I done really well in school and
22:41
Speaker 1: then you know, took the SAT and did really well
22:44
Speaker 1: in the SAT, and then got to the got to
22:48
Speaker 1: got to college and basically like met all these peers
22:52
Speaker 1: who also did really well in the SAT. But you know,
22:55
Speaker 1: many of them had been like preparing for college essentially
22:57
Speaker 1: since they were in middle school. And it was this
22:59
Speaker 1: like interesting moment to just see how different the experience
23:03
Speaker 1: growing up of like most of my peers, who you know,
23:06
Speaker 1: many of them had gone to private colleges, some of
23:08
Speaker 1: whose parents had gone gone to Harvard or places like Harvard,
23:12
Speaker 1: who'd been aware of places like Harvard, you know before
23:15
Speaker 1: they were doing their college applications, whose kind of lives
23:18
Speaker 1: had been oriented, And you know, on the one hand,
23:20
Speaker 1: felt like incredibly lucky that I had somehow sort of
23:23
Speaker 1: stumbled into this place which was amazing and opened up
23:26
Speaker 1: so many opportunities, but also realized that like, you know,
23:29
Speaker 1: how many kids were at my high school, for example,
23:32
Speaker 1: that were just as smart as me, but like for
23:34
Speaker 1: whatever reason didn't do well on the standardized test or
23:36
Speaker 1: didn't know that, you know, like one B plus and
23:40
Speaker 1: some like random class was going to tank your GPA
23:43
Speaker 1: and therefore impair.
23:44
Speaker 3: Your ability to get into the right college.
23:45
Speaker 1: And so you know, sort of realized that it, like
23:48
Speaker 1: college admissions was a game, that you know, standardized testing
23:51
Speaker 1: was a game. And that was actually my first company
23:54
Speaker 1: was called IVY Insiders, when we basically hired IVY League undergrads,
23:58
Speaker 1: kids who had just gotten into these is to go
24:00
Speaker 1: back to their hometowns in places like you know where
24:03
Speaker 1: I lived in Minneapolis and help kids at a fraction
24:08
Speaker 1: of the price of Princeter Review and Kaplan to get
24:10
Speaker 1: better test scores and prove their college admissions chances. So,
24:15
Speaker 1: you know, I had the kind of I don't know
24:17
Speaker 1: if this is a dubious honor or something I should
24:20
Speaker 1: be proud of, but I basically that was my first
24:23
Speaker 1: company own.
24:23
Speaker 3: It was my first job. So I've never had a
24:25
Speaker 3: real job.
24:27
Speaker 2: I don't know, is that what you say, like a
24:29
Speaker 2: real job? Who gets to define what a real job is?
24:32
Speaker 2: Although I always reference what I'm doing now, and I'll say, well,
24:36
Speaker 2: when I last had a full time job, And the
24:38
Speaker 2: thing is, like, I have a full time job now,
24:40
Speaker 2: it's being a freelance writer and a podcast probably have
24:43
Speaker 2: more than a full time jobcas. I can't think of
24:45
Speaker 2: a weekend in the last two years that I haven't worked.
24:47
Speaker 2: And I'm sure you can relate, but I always say
24:50
Speaker 2: when I last had a full time job, and I'm like, well,
24:52
Speaker 2: that was just the last time that someone else, without
24:55
Speaker 2: you know, question sent me a check every other Friday,
24:59
Speaker 2: right right, yeah, And I.
25:00
Speaker 3: Think, you know, it's interesting.
25:02
Speaker 1: I used to say that before, like, oh, I've never
25:05
Speaker 1: had a real job, and I think that more and
25:08
Speaker 1: more people had because that sort of like binary distinction
25:12
Speaker 1: is going away for a lot of people. You know,
25:14
Speaker 1: I think ten or fifteen years ago that was unusual.
25:16
Speaker 1: Now there's so many people that are doing things that
25:19
Speaker 1: are that are unconventional, and you know, some of that's
25:22
Speaker 1: probably the bias of the world, the kind of the
25:24
Speaker 1: people I'm around, but it feels like, you know, more
25:26
Speaker 1: people are breaking that mold, and you know, for me,
25:29
Speaker 1: I was I feel so lucky that I did break
25:31
Speaker 1: it right away, and like, never get into that comfort
25:34
Speaker 1: of having a paycheck or like, you know, kind of
25:37
Speaker 1: staying in the in the rat race, so to speak,
25:39
Speaker 1: because you know, right away I was off doing my
25:42
Speaker 1: own thing and like not having to be kind of
25:44
Speaker 1: comparing myself, you know, socially to others, and and just
25:48
Speaker 1: focused on building.
25:49
Speaker 3: Something I really believed in.
25:51
Speaker 2: So when you were building ivy Insider, how are you
25:54
Speaker 2: making money?
25:56
Speaker 3: We were so that business.
25:58
Speaker 1: Interestingly, it was like it's a services business, so it
26:01
Speaker 1: was not capital intensive at all. I wrote a book
26:04
Speaker 1: called The Ivy Insider's Guide to the SAT, which introduced
26:08
Speaker 1: a concept I called SAT game theory, which I won't
26:11
Speaker 1: go into, but it was like my whole philosophy of
26:13
Speaker 1: how these tests are games and you can, like you
26:15
Speaker 1: treat it like a video game and beat it and
26:17
Speaker 1: level up and like try to make it fun. And
26:19
Speaker 1: you know, it's like I can't use this word at
26:21
Speaker 1: the time because I only get existed, but gamify the experience.
26:25
Speaker 1: And so you know, that was like my you know,
26:28
Speaker 1: that was my main It was my curriculum. It was
26:31
Speaker 1: equivalent of my product. And then I taught the courses
26:34
Speaker 1: in my hometown and the first summer I thought like, oh,
26:37
Speaker 1: like teach a couple of classes. I ended up having
26:39
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty kids sign up, and then the
26:41
Speaker 1: second summer, I like, you know, I think I double
26:44
Speaker 1: or tripled that. It was like three or four hundred
26:45
Speaker 1: kids in my like in and around my hometown, and like,
26:49
Speaker 1: I basically couldn't do enough of the teaching. So the
26:52
Speaker 1: year after that, I hired another instructor in my hometown.
26:55
Speaker 1: As I was training him and like preparing all these
26:58
Speaker 1: materials to and him to do it back in the
27:02
Speaker 1: Twin Cities, I was like, I wonder if I could
27:04
Speaker 1: just do this with other undergrads at Harvard to do it,
27:07
Speaker 1: you know, in their hometowns. We're building a profitable business,
27:10
Speaker 1: but we were also helping people get into better colleges
27:13
Speaker 1: who weren't paying one thousand.
27:14
Speaker 3: Dollars for the class.
27:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're also like twenty doing this.
27:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe me. I can tell you a lot
27:23
Speaker 1: of I know, one of your themes is hurdles. Like
27:25
Speaker 1: I can tell you so many mistakes I made in
27:27
Speaker 1: that business. The way I described it in the past
27:30
Speaker 1: is I basically failed my way to success on that
27:33
Speaker 1: one for sure, probably in general, but especially in that business.
27:37
Speaker 1: I mean, I just had truly no idea what I
27:39
Speaker 1: was doing.
27:40
Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure you learned a lot, right, Isn't that
27:43
Speaker 2: the point?
27:44
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, I wouldn't change a single thing. And
27:47
Speaker 1: you know, not to get philosophical, but I read a
27:50
Speaker 1: lot of books on business over the year, and a
27:52
Speaker 1: lot of books on health, and a lot of books
27:55
Speaker 1: on performance and personal improvement. The only lessons I've ever
27:59
Speaker 1: really internalized that have really made a difference in my
28:01
Speaker 1: own effectiveness or happiness or performance. They've come through They've
28:06
Speaker 1: come through learning, or they've they've come through the grind
28:09
Speaker 1: and just like actually getting out there and testing what
28:11
Speaker 1: is true in the real world. And you know, I
28:14
Speaker 1: feel like with IV Insiders, I basically compressed, you know,
28:17
Speaker 1: decades of lessons that could have been, you would have
28:21
Speaker 1: been gotten in less painful ways into this like really
28:24
Speaker 1: really intense boot camp that really, you know, set the
28:28
Speaker 1: stage for what I've done since.
28:30
Speaker 2: All right, So then one more question about college before
28:34
Speaker 2: we move into what happened after IV Insider. What was
28:37
Speaker 2: your diet like in college?
28:39
Speaker 1: Oh, now, this is this is gonna be this is
28:42
Speaker 1: gonna sound like a contradiction. So I, uh, when I
28:47
Speaker 1: got to college, I'm a I'm like a pretty skinny,
28:50
Speaker 1: skinny guy. It was like naturally, which like being on
28:54
Speaker 1: a good diet actually doesn't help that issue. And so
28:58
Speaker 1: when I got to college, I was I was really
28:59
Speaker 1: competitive or in high school and was a skinny kid.
29:02
Speaker 1: And I weighed one hundred and twenty pounds and five eleven.
29:06
Speaker 1: I was very very skinny. And I got to college
29:09
Speaker 1: and decided I wanted to beef up and that was
29:12
Speaker 1: I sort of weightlifting. So my diet in college was
29:15
Speaker 1: actually very very strict, but it was I look back
29:19
Speaker 1: on it now and I'm like it was horrible. Like
29:21
Speaker 1: it was the whole like you have to eat your
29:23
Speaker 1: body weight in grams of protein, right, and so I
29:25
Speaker 1: was doing like exit every meal. I was doing a
29:29
Speaker 1: ton of dairy. I was doing chicken breast up the
29:32
Speaker 1: you know, just like I can't even eat chicken breast
29:34
Speaker 1: anymore because I ate so many chicken breast, you know.
29:37
Speaker 1: I was like obviously doing all the way protein stuff.
29:39
Speaker 1: I was taking creatine, and so I put on about
29:43
Speaker 1: twenty five pounds of like mostly muscle during that during
29:47
Speaker 1: that time.
29:47
Speaker 2: Worth again, Like I love the voice inflection of that,
29:50
Speaker 2: like mostly there was, there was you know, there's definitely
29:53
Speaker 2: some fat, but like I was, I was, I was lifting.
29:56
Speaker 1: So it was an interesting period for me because it
29:58
Speaker 1: was like I wasn't actually a sport, but I got
30:01
Speaker 1: very serious about weightlifting. I look back and I'm like,
30:03
Speaker 1: it's kind of embarrassed about it. And I'm also like,
30:07
Speaker 1: it's interesting because at the time I thought what I
30:10
Speaker 1: was doing was really healthy. So it was also like
30:12
Speaker 1: I look back on and it's like a reminder that
30:15
Speaker 1: you know that you like in a subjective sort of
30:18
Speaker 1: echo chamber, you can and like other people that were
30:21
Speaker 1: lifting that way and eating that way also thought they
30:23
Speaker 1: were being healthy. And you know, now I know pretty
30:26
Speaker 1: definitively it wasn't healthy at all. Like it may have
30:29
Speaker 1: increased my bench preast, but it was definitely not you know,
30:34
Speaker 1: conducive to life extension.
30:36
Speaker 2: Okay. So life goes on though, and you graduate college.
30:41
Speaker 3: And now I'm back down to one hundred and thirty
30:42
Speaker 3: five pounds, so I regress to my mean.
30:46
Speaker 2: How tall are you? I'm five eleven five eleven, okay.
30:51
Speaker 2: Ware paining a visual for the listeners.
30:54
Speaker 3: It's not it's not a great visual.
30:55
Speaker 1: My wife gives me a really hard time because when
30:58
Speaker 1: we met we met him in college, and she is like,
31:00
Speaker 1: you know, when I met you, you were like you
31:02
Speaker 1: looked great, and you know, it's like most people they
31:05
Speaker 1: sort of let themselves go over the year and gain
31:06
Speaker 1: twenty pounds. I lost twenty pounds, and you know, now
31:10
Speaker 1: I look a little bit amaziate.
31:12
Speaker 2: I'm sure that your wife thinks you look just fine.
31:16
Speaker 3: Like shit, we're thirteen years in. There's no there's no
31:19
Speaker 3: turning back.
31:21
Speaker 2: I love it. Okay, So you graduate college, you met
31:24
Speaker 2: your wife in college, So what happens after that?
31:28
Speaker 1: So I basically had a fork in the road. You know,
31:31
Speaker 1: I had an option to go at an offer to
31:33
Speaker 1: go consult at a company called McKinsey and Company. It
31:37
Speaker 1: was sort of like the dream job coming out of
31:40
Speaker 1: college at the time. This was two thousand and seven,
31:43
Speaker 1: and yet I was like seeing my business just continue
31:46
Speaker 1: to grow, and it was it was actually, I think
31:49
Speaker 1: kind of the the first really big test of that
31:53
Speaker 1: ability to be a contrarian, because I had the thing
31:58
Speaker 1: that like McKinsey job, that is the like gold prize
32:01
Speaker 1: at the end of the Harvard road, that like my
32:04
Speaker 1: peers were all gunning for that I should have been
32:07
Speaker 1: wearing as a badge of honor, and that I should
32:10
Speaker 1: have like a no brainer, gone and done, and like, honestly,
32:13
Speaker 1: the people that were amazing, the opportunity was amazing. There's
32:17
Speaker 1: nothing bad to say about the place or even that path,
32:21
Speaker 1: but it would have been a path that would be
32:22
Speaker 1: very difficult to get off because you can it can
32:24
Speaker 1: set you on that trajectory to then go to business school,
32:26
Speaker 1: and then for business school you go to you know,
32:29
Speaker 1: the next gig that's going to make money, and you
32:31
Speaker 1: know whatever. The proverbial golden handcuffs and conservatism I think
32:35
Speaker 1: can really set in.
32:35
Speaker 2: So you know, I was.
32:38
Speaker 1: I did a lot of reflecting on it. I can
32:39
Speaker 1: remember at the time, I actually went out with a
32:41
Speaker 1: buddy of mine who I was working at a startup
32:43
Speaker 1: out in San Francisco, and like had my first experience
32:45
Speaker 1: at Silicon Valley, which had nothing to do with my
32:48
Speaker 1: startup but was just kind of inspiring, and decided to
32:53
Speaker 1: turn my own path and went full time on IVY
32:55
Speaker 1: Insiders and basically spent the next two and a half years,
33:00
Speaker 1: two years heads down, Like I literally rent to an
33:04
Speaker 1: apartment in Harvard Square, we got an office in Harvard Square.
33:07
Speaker 1: I didn't leave a seven block radius for like, you know,
33:10
Speaker 1: including college, six or seven years. And then we ended
33:14
Speaker 1: up getting acquired in twenty ten by a company based
33:17
Speaker 1: here in LA called the Revolution Prep. And that's actually
33:20
Speaker 1: what brought me here.
33:21
Speaker 2: Before you step away, I mean, I can only imagine
33:24
Speaker 2: that the move to LA is a little bit stressful.
33:26
Speaker 2: You're obviously working quite a bit. You really want to,
33:29
Speaker 2: you know, solidify that these guys did the right thing
33:32
Speaker 2: by investing in you guys and going with you guys.
33:36
Speaker 2: What does your overall wellness look like at that time?
33:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's actually pretty ironic because I
33:44
Speaker 1: imagine moving out, like everyone who hasn't spent any time
33:47
Speaker 1: in southern California, you had this image of like just
33:50
Speaker 1: the beach and the palm trees and the Sokal kind
33:54
Speaker 1: of like health and wellness lifestyle, which.
33:56
Speaker 3: Is really true.
33:57
Speaker 1: But when I got out here, that was not my experience.
34:00
Speaker 1: It's because to your point, I was determined to make
34:03
Speaker 1: sure that the acquisition and integration went well. You know,
34:07
Speaker 1: I had something to prove. They had paid a significant
34:09
Speaker 1: amount for the business, and and I still had financial
34:13
Speaker 1: upside in the outcome. Once it was sold. So you know,
34:17
Speaker 1: I actually probably worked more in that first year after
34:20
Speaker 1: selling to business than I did when I was when
34:24
Speaker 1: I was working, when I was working for myself, which
34:26
Speaker 1: has also been a common theme for me, Like I
34:29
Speaker 1: feel like when I had I feel more pressure when
34:31
Speaker 1: I take someone else's money than when it's my own money,
34:34
Speaker 1: you know, at stake. But really I would say my
34:37
Speaker 1: like wellness, my life balance, my ability to like do
34:40
Speaker 1: the things you would think one would do after they
34:42
Speaker 1: just sold their company and in their mid twenties, Like
34:46
Speaker 1: I didn't do any of that.
34:47
Speaker 2: I was just you get out and it is around
34:52
Speaker 2: mid twenty twelve, you said, correct, Yeah, yep, okay, so
34:56
Speaker 2: it's mid twenty twelve, and what do you think you
34:58
Speaker 2: want to do?
35:00
Speaker 1: Ah, that's a good question I'm taking taking myself back there. Honestly,
35:03
Speaker 1: I was very open. I was less thinking about specific
35:08
Speaker 1: businesses and more thinking about like the broad themes. So
35:12
Speaker 1: you know, the I did a lot of reflecting, Like
35:15
Speaker 1: in spite of working NonStop during that year, I did
35:19
Speaker 1: a lot of reflecting around like what had been what
35:22
Speaker 1: had really been meaningful, meaningful for me in the IV
35:25
Speaker 1: Insiders experience, you know, it was interesting to like get
35:28
Speaker 1: some money in my pocket and like have that win
35:31
Speaker 1: and then sort of sit back and say, how does
35:32
Speaker 1: that feel?
35:33
Speaker 2: Like?
35:33
Speaker 1: How how fulfilling was that? Like what does that notch
35:36
Speaker 1: in the belt actually feel for?
35:37
Speaker 3: Feel?
35:38
Speaker 2: Like?
35:38
Speaker 3: What does it do for me?
35:39
Speaker 1: And the truth was it didn't do that much, Like
35:41
Speaker 1: my lifestyle didn't change. I didn't start like, you know,
35:45
Speaker 1: driving sports cars. I moved, I moved into a studio apartment.
35:49
Speaker 1: I didn't like go buy a big house, and like
35:52
Speaker 1: realized that even though I thought that that was part
35:56
Speaker 1: of my equation, was like having those like trappings of
35:58
Speaker 1: success like when I actually got it, it wasn't. And
36:03
Speaker 1: I also felt a little bit of that like anti
36:05
Speaker 1: climactic experience of getting what you getting what you want,
36:09
Speaker 1: even separate from the money, just.
36:10
Speaker 3: Thinking about like having the quote unquote success and.
36:12
Speaker 1: Being like, ugh, I don't like I actually enjoyed more
36:16
Speaker 1: the chase to get it than actually getting there. And
36:18
Speaker 1: I know that sounds super cliched, but it did make
36:21
Speaker 1: me realize that what, you know, what I really enjoyed
36:24
Speaker 1: about about IVY Insiders one was the challenge. It was
36:29
Speaker 1: like the like continual growth that like always being at
36:32
Speaker 1: the edge of your capabilities, learning more about how the
36:35
Speaker 1: world works, about how your mind works, about what you're
36:38
Speaker 1: capable of, about your just your emotional machinery. Like all
36:41
Speaker 1: of that to me was like it was a stressful period,
36:44
Speaker 1: but it's also as I looked back in retrospect, like
36:46
Speaker 1: with you know, the value of hindsight was like this
36:49
Speaker 1: fascinating game that I'd been playing and I'd grown so
36:52
Speaker 1: much so quickly. So that was one thing I wanted
36:54
Speaker 1: to get back in that driver's seed, but do it
36:56
Speaker 1: it even more scale, with kind of more intensity, more
36:59
Speaker 1: at stake. You know, it's like the classic I guess,
37:03
Speaker 1: like if you think about like an extreme sports person
37:05
Speaker 1: that just keeps wanting to go bigger, Like that was
37:07
Speaker 1: what I realized kind of entrepreneurship was for me, and
37:11
Speaker 1: that was agnostic to what the business would actually be doing.
37:15
Speaker 3: But then what I also realized what I was most.
37:17
Speaker 1: Proud of about IVY Insiders looking back, when I actually
37:19
Speaker 1: got the most satisfaction from kind of that feeling of
37:22
Speaker 1: your like your legacy or your impact was the tens
37:25
Speaker 1: of thousand students that would helped it was the like
37:28
Speaker 1: handwritten notes that I had from kids and from their parents,
37:31
Speaker 1: whose whose trajectories in life had been transformed. It was
37:34
Speaker 1: the feeling that I had, like you know, taken that
37:37
Speaker 1: baton for my mom and what she did for me
37:40
Speaker 1: and my you know, my brother who ended up going
37:42
Speaker 1: to Yale, and my my you know, the three of
37:44
Speaker 1: us all went to college.
37:45
Speaker 3: Like my mom didn't graduate from college.
37:48
Speaker 1: The feeling that I had like taken you know, carry
37:50
Speaker 1: that legacy and like done the right thing for hers.
37:52
Speaker 3: So I was.
37:53
Speaker 1: I knew that I not only wanted to play the
37:55
Speaker 1: game at a bigger level and challenge myself and grow,
37:58
Speaker 1: but I wanted it to be on some thing that
38:00
Speaker 1: had real purpose and to me, the only thing more
38:03
Speaker 1: fundamental than education, and like the only thing my mom
38:07
Speaker 1: cared about more than education. As I said before, was
38:09
Speaker 1: helped right. These were like the two cornerstones of kind
38:12
Speaker 1: of my DNA growing up and it took. So I
38:17
Speaker 1: looked at a lot of businesses. I actually I was
38:19
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur residence for God eight months and saw met
38:23
Speaker 1: with probably it has to be over five hundred other
38:27
Speaker 1: potential co founders I integrated through dozens of my own ideas.
38:32
Speaker 2: What does that even mean? Entrepreneur in residence.
38:37
Speaker 3: Well, it doesn't mean much. That doesn't mean much.
38:40
Speaker 1: It means that I had a really good friend he
38:42
Speaker 1: remains one of my best friends, who was the managing
38:46
Speaker 1: director at a startup accelerator and he basically invented a
38:49
Speaker 1: job for me to come hang out of the office
38:51
Speaker 1: and sit on their investor committee, but mostly just like
38:55
Speaker 1: led ideas percolate and meet interesting people to see if
38:58
Speaker 1: I could come.
38:59
Speaker 3: Up with my next thing.
39:00
Speaker 2: Oh, that sounds awesome.
39:02
Speaker 3: I mean it was amazing.
39:03
Speaker 1: It was amazing, and it was also dizzying, right because
39:06
Speaker 1: I saw all these people that were out doing things
39:08
Speaker 1: and it was actually a really tough period for me
39:10
Speaker 1: in my life because I wasn't doing anything at the time.
39:13
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you, like, during that seven or eight
39:16
Speaker 1: month period, there were definitely points.
39:18
Speaker 3: Where I was like, you know, am I one? Like
39:20
Speaker 3: you have self doubt?
39:21
Speaker 2: Right?
39:21
Speaker 3: Am I a one hit wonder?
39:23
Speaker 1: Like?
39:23
Speaker 3: Am I not? Really?
39:24
Speaker 1: Maybe I just like stumbled into that first one and
39:26
Speaker 1: got lucky, you know, and that that fear of kind
39:31
Speaker 1: of failure to launch, and that was the first It
39:34
Speaker 1: was a really really interesting experience for me because when
39:37
Speaker 1: you once you get going, like there's something about momentum
39:40
Speaker 1: where you just like keep going right, and I, like
39:43
Speaker 1: I stumbled in IVY Insiders right away started spinning fast
39:46
Speaker 1: and like you just go with the flow, and that's
39:49
Speaker 1: a that's an incredible experience. There's also like the opposite
39:53
Speaker 1: that happens when you're not moving, where you get that
39:55
Speaker 1: like inertia, you sort of ossify and like you can
39:58
Speaker 1: start becoming really risk averse. And it was the strange
40:01
Speaker 1: experience for me where ironically, like I should have been
40:04
Speaker 1: able to take more risk, right, I had more time,
40:06
Speaker 1: I had more money, I had more experience, but instead
40:09
Speaker 1: I was feeling afraid of failure and intimidated by other
40:13
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs that were out doing it. So there's a whole
40:16
Speaker 1: like kind of personal journey in that in that experience.
40:20
Speaker 1: And then you know, as as it happened with uh
40:24
Speaker 1: with basically every big thing in my life, like destiny
40:28
Speaker 1: kind of dropped dropped it in my lap and I
40:30
Speaker 1: met I met Gnnar, my co founder, who pitched me
40:33
Speaker 1: on an idea called shop Tribe, which was it was
40:36
Speaker 1: the mission was actually exactly what what iv Ins for
40:39
Speaker 1: Thride market became, but it was going to be done
40:42
Speaker 1: through basically group on for healthy food and he is,
40:47
Speaker 1: you know this like incredible entrepreneur, serial entrepreneur. He's grew
40:52
Speaker 1: up on a hippie commune in Ohai, California, where they
40:54
Speaker 1: had been doing group buying organic foods back in the
40:57
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties. Uh And and he pitched me on investing,
41:01
Speaker 1: and by the end of that meeting, I was pitching
41:03
Speaker 1: him on doing something together.
41:05
Speaker 2: So at the very beginning of Thrive Market, did you
41:09
Speaker 2: is this like in the height of group on?
41:12
Speaker 3: It's It's exactly right. It was exactly right.
41:15
Speaker 2: I haven't like said the word groupon in a long time,
41:17
Speaker 2: but it is kind of crazy that it has like
41:20
Speaker 2: all of those models, I mean, living social group on.
41:22
Speaker 2: I used to shop on Guilt City all the time.
41:24
Speaker 2: Why is it that you think, and I mean I'm
41:26
Speaker 2: jumping ahead a little bit, but why is it that
41:28
Speaker 2: you think that you guys have been quite successful whereas
41:32
Speaker 2: a lot of the other businesses that you may have
41:34
Speaker 2: been slightly modeled after have not been.
41:36
Speaker 1: The reason, I think, honestly, is that we didn't end
41:39
Speaker 1: up modeling ourselves after Groupon. So I wasn't attracted necessarily
41:44
Speaker 1: to that business model. What I was attracted to was
41:47
Speaker 1: the mission and the conviction that he had and like
41:50
Speaker 1: to see, like honestly, it was to working with him
41:53
Speaker 1: as an entrepreneur as much as it was even to
41:56
Speaker 1: the to the mission itself, because I like I saw
41:59
Speaker 1: his connection to it and there was like the feeling
42:02
Speaker 1: I remember in that first meeting where like, Okay, I
42:04
Speaker 1: don't think that he's nailed the business model, but like
42:08
Speaker 1: we can figure that out, and like he's got enough
42:11
Speaker 1: drive and I'm the same way that like, we'll figure
42:13
Speaker 1: that out. And we spent months iterating on the on
42:15
Speaker 1: the business model, and it wasn't until we started studying
42:18
Speaker 1: costco that you know, we we basically landed on membership.
42:23
Speaker 1: And I think the you know, you hear a lot
42:26
Speaker 1: of the you know, the uber for fill in the blank.
42:29
Speaker 1: I think one major lesson is don't be the you know,
42:33
Speaker 1: the fill in the blank for fill in the blank
42:36
Speaker 1: unless that first fill in the blank is actually a proven,
42:39
Speaker 1: like successful business and most pre profitable even public you know,
42:44
Speaker 1: high flying UH tech companies are not proven. So, you know,
42:49
Speaker 1: I think where where it pays to be derivative is
42:52
Speaker 1: when you can pull from models that actually stand stood
42:55
Speaker 1: the test of time. And for us, that was the
42:57
Speaker 1: membership model, which you know has been the bedrock of
43:00
Speaker 1: everything we do. It powers the mission, it powers our
43:03
Speaker 1: our path to profitability, It powers the loyalty of the
43:07
Speaker 1: membership of the customer base. So you know, we ultimately
43:11
Speaker 1: dropped the group on picked up the Costco wholesale buying model,
43:16
Speaker 1: and we never looked back.
43:18
Speaker 2: Talk to me about what the membership model is, and
43:21
Speaker 2: just right now at least, what does the membership cost?
43:26
Speaker 1: So it's sixty dollars a year it has been since
43:28
Speaker 1: the very beginning. Everyone asked, have you tested different levels,
43:32
Speaker 1: like what could you charge more for us?
43:34
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, we could charge more.
43:35
Speaker 1: The typical member makes back their membership being savings in
43:38
Speaker 1: about two purchases, so they save about thirty dollars per
43:41
Speaker 1: order of retail on average. But honestly, we just pegged
43:44
Speaker 1: it to Costco.
43:45
Speaker 3: Again.
43:45
Speaker 1: It was like, if that model has worked so successfully
43:48
Speaker 1: for this long and they have, you know, tens of
43:51
Speaker 1: millions of members worldwide, like why would we why would
43:55
Speaker 1: we go try to like optimize and tinker and improve.
43:58
Speaker 3: On the core of that.
44:00
Speaker 2: Your debate on the price for a while. We oh, totally,
44:02
Speaker 2: but that's can talk to me about that I have
44:04
Speaker 2: a fun story to share with you after you tell
44:06
Speaker 2: me about I.
44:08
Speaker 1: Mean, honestly, it was like it was one of those
44:10
Speaker 1: like pointless armchair discussions because you just don't know unless
44:14
Speaker 1: you test it. And I think one of the things,
44:17
Speaker 1: you know, one of the amazing things about business today
44:19
Speaker 1: and online businesses is you can test anything, right. You
44:22
Speaker 1: can run a split test and actually get like really
44:25
Speaker 1: good clean data for just about any question you want
44:28
Speaker 1: to have answered. I think one of the things that
44:30
Speaker 1: you have to like that can also be a dangerous
44:33
Speaker 1: thing because testing anything can lead you to want to
44:36
Speaker 1: test everything. And one of the things that we landed
44:40
Speaker 1: on with that decision, and I think with a number
44:42
Speaker 1: of other things since then, is like, what are the
44:45
Speaker 1: what are the.
44:46
Speaker 3: Things that aren't open to testing? Right?
44:48
Speaker 1: What are the things that we're just going to like
44:49
Speaker 1: plant a flag and say this is what we stand for, right,
44:52
Speaker 1: And and like sixty dollars feels fair. We know people
44:56
Speaker 1: can make it back into membership to purchases. It makes
45:00
Speaker 1: the membership a no brainer. If we're leaving a little
45:02
Speaker 1: bit of money on the table, we're gonna we're gonna
45:04
Speaker 1: be okay with that.
45:04
Speaker 3: For now. We decided not to not to mess with it,
45:07
Speaker 3: and it's.
45:08
Speaker 1: Been I think there's been a number of things like
45:11
Speaker 1: that where like we've said, hey, we're just going to
45:13
Speaker 1: make a decision based on like what we think is
45:15
Speaker 1: the right thing to do, and we're not gonna we're
45:18
Speaker 1: not gonna leave it to be an optimization question. And
45:21
Speaker 1: some of our best decisions like going fully non gmo
45:25
Speaker 1: from day one on our food catalog, like we were
45:27
Speaker 1: within six months of launching, we were the largest seller
45:30
Speaker 1: exclusively non gmo food in the country online or off.
45:34
Speaker 1: And you know, we've lost quote unquote a lot of
45:37
Speaker 1: sales from that with brands that we could be selling
45:39
Speaker 1: that don't hit those hit hit that criterion. But I
45:44
Speaker 1: think it's been that this pillar that because we haven't
45:46
Speaker 1: had to spin cycles on like making the decision. It's
45:49
Speaker 1: just been really easy, really clean. And I think people
45:52
Speaker 1: trust us because we've made decisions like that, Like they
45:54
Speaker 1: trust us because they know the membership fee isn't going
45:57
Speaker 1: to be hiked the moment that they come in. They
45:59
Speaker 1: trust us because as we were carbon neutral back when
46:02
Speaker 1: we launched, when like carbon neutrality on shipping wasn't even
46:05
Speaker 1: a thing.
46:06
Speaker 2: When you say that you can save up to what
46:09
Speaker 2: the membership fee is on your two orders. Where's that
46:12
Speaker 2: savings coming from? In what way?
46:15
Speaker 1: It's just peg to retail, So there's like the MSRP.
46:17
Speaker 1: And obviously there's places that people can buy things that
46:20
Speaker 1: are cheaper if you want to, like you know, price
46:22
Speaker 1: shop and get you know, your twenty item grocery list
46:25
Speaker 1: from five different places. But it's what you'd pay at
46:29
Speaker 1: a place that charges retail or a place like Whole Foods.
46:32
Speaker 2: Got it okay? And then the story that I wanted
46:35
Speaker 2: to share with you quickly I had Hayden's later on
46:37
Speaker 2: the show from Press Juicery, also La based. He and
46:41
Speaker 2: I were talking about when they first came up with
46:43
Speaker 2: the cost of the juices. And he's on the phone
46:46
Speaker 2: with the printer that's making the labels, and I think
46:48
Speaker 2: at the time, if I remember correctly, the amount of
46:51
Speaker 2: money or the cost of each juice was on the label,
46:55
Speaker 2: and so the printer is like, so how much are
46:57
Speaker 2: the juices? And Hayden's like one second, he puts the
47:01
Speaker 2: phone on mute, and he like looks at his business partner.
47:03
Speaker 2: He's like, do you think they're nine dollars? And she's
47:05
Speaker 2: like I think that's too much money. He's like, how
47:07
Speaker 2: about six dollars? And she's like, I think that's too cheap,
47:09
Speaker 2: and they like landed on seven dollars and he picked
47:12
Speaker 2: up the phone. He said, they're seven dollars or something
47:14
Speaker 2: along those lines. So it's always so interesting to like
47:18
Speaker 2: listen back and hear about how and why things are
47:21
Speaker 2: the way that they are.
47:23
Speaker 1: I think you had like there's it's easy to assume
47:25
Speaker 1: that like everything was like made with such deliberation and
47:28
Speaker 1: like examination. But the truth is, in entrepreneurship, there is
47:32
Speaker 1: a huge premium for just being willing to take action,
47:35
Speaker 1: for just moving the ball forward. And if you get
47:38
Speaker 1: the broad strokes right, all that optimization around the edges, Like, yes,
47:42
Speaker 1: that matters as you get to scale, it's real dollars.
47:45
Speaker 1: But it's not the difference between success and failure. But
47:48
Speaker 1: action versus inaction actually is like if he would have said,
47:51
Speaker 1: like hold on, let me call you back in two
47:52
Speaker 1: weeks when we do a customer study, like you know, chance,
47:57
Speaker 1: it's just it's a different orientation, but you got to
48:00
Speaker 1: have that bias to action as an entrepreneur.
48:03
Speaker 2: I love it. Well, So when do you first know
48:06
Speaker 2: I mean, you know in your gut that what you
48:09
Speaker 2: are putting together, what you guys are building, is there's
48:12
Speaker 2: a need for it. You feel really strongly about what
48:15
Speaker 2: you are building. But when do you first recognize that
48:18
Speaker 2: Thrive market is going somewhere?
48:22
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a good question.
48:24
Speaker 1: I mean I believed in the mission so deeply from
48:27
Speaker 1: the beginning, Like I said, it was like within in
48:30
Speaker 1: that first meeting I was pitching and working together, I
48:32
Speaker 1: was like, this is the this is the area of
48:34
Speaker 1: health that I want to have an impact on, Like
48:36
Speaker 1: I want to I believe that food is medicine. I
48:39
Speaker 1: believe that access to healthy food should be a right,
48:42
Speaker 1: Like I believe that it's crazy that you know, preservative
48:46
Speaker 1: laden like denatured foods costs less than simple organic ones.
48:52
Speaker 1: Like it just resonated so deeply with me that that
48:54
Speaker 1: conviction was there on day one and it never wavered.
48:58
Speaker 3: Now that said, we.
49:00
Speaker 1: Had like a bazillion hurdles in the first year, Like
49:04
Speaker 1: we didn't get to launch till a year in and
49:06
Speaker 1: during that time, you know, we spent hundreds of thousands
49:09
Speaker 1: of dollars with an outside consultancy building a site that
49:12
Speaker 1: never launched. We tried to build a content platform because
49:16
Speaker 1: we wanted to integrate like health education on top of
49:19
Speaker 1: the on top of the shopping experience, and that total
49:23
Speaker 1: like didn't even get to launch. We signed up wholesale
49:26
Speaker 1: accounts to a bunch of brands that we never activated,
49:29
Speaker 1: using like a shell company because we were worried that
49:31
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be comfortable with us selling at the prices
49:34
Speaker 1: that we were, and all of that ended up going
49:36
Speaker 1: to waste. And then we actually, once we finally kind
49:39
Speaker 1: of got our act together a little bit, we went
49:41
Speaker 1: out to fundraise and we got rejected by dozens and
49:45
Speaker 1: dozens and dozens of vcs, Like I counted it up
49:49
Speaker 1: back in twenty fifteen, and during twenty fourteen, we were
49:52
Speaker 1: rejected by more than one hundred and fifty vcs. It
49:54
Speaker 1: was like everybody in Silicon Valleys off New York and
50:00
Speaker 1: a basically said note to thrive market.
50:02
Speaker 2: And was there a common theme as to why they
50:05
Speaker 2: were saying no?
50:07
Speaker 3: There were a few.
50:09
Speaker 1: You know, I think we took for granted that we
50:10
Speaker 1: would be successful at raising money because we had both
50:14
Speaker 1: successfully started and sold businesses before. And I think when
50:18
Speaker 1: we actually talked to vcs, you know, they discounted those
50:22
Speaker 1: successes because they were in a totally different space, and
50:25
Speaker 1: I think rightly so, Like the truth is, we didn't
50:27
Speaker 1: know how to build an e commerce business. We didn't
50:29
Speaker 1: know anything about fulfillment and operations. We didn't know anything
50:32
Speaker 1: about managing inventory and doing procurement. Like a lot of
50:35
Speaker 1: those early mistakes were actually, you know, the same things
50:39
Speaker 1: that the vcs would have said. See, that's why we
50:41
Speaker 1: didn't invest in those guys. So there was like a
50:43
Speaker 1: legitimate set of real you know, like is this the
50:47
Speaker 1: right team to go out and tackle this opportunity? And
50:50
Speaker 1: what I would say there is like what they missed
50:53
Speaker 1: is how much it matters to just like be totally
50:56
Speaker 1: connected to the mission, the mission, all in and willing
50:59
Speaker 1: to figure shit out no matter what it takes. Right.
51:01
Speaker 1: So they saw that we didn't have all the answers.
51:04
Speaker 1: What they didn't see is that we were the ones
51:06
Speaker 1: that had the discrimination to get to the answers. And
51:09
Speaker 1: that was like one category of people that said no.
51:13
Speaker 1: The other was people that just didn't understand the problem.
51:15
Speaker 1: You know. And if you're a wealthy male VC in
51:20
Speaker 1: San Francisco who lives a block from Whole Foods, doesn't
51:24
Speaker 1: do your own grocery shopping anyway, Like you don't get.
51:27
Speaker 3: The plight of middle class and middle American moms. Right.
51:31
Speaker 1: Like, if you look at the the VC backed technology companies,
51:35
Speaker 1: most of them are not solving problems for middle class
51:38
Speaker 1: middle America. That's just the reality. They're solving problems, you know,
51:42
Speaker 1: for the vcs, right it's like elite millennial urbanites with
51:47
Speaker 1: a lot of disposable incomes. So I think we were
51:49
Speaker 1: just doing something very different that wasn't wasn't obvious. It
51:54
Speaker 1: was a latent demand that no one is really servicing.
51:57
Speaker 1: And the biggest question we got was how are you
51:58
Speaker 1: going to be with Whole Foods? And we had to
52:00
Speaker 1: say over and over and over, we're not competing with
52:02
Speaker 1: Whole Foods. We want to make this lifestyle accessible to
52:05
Speaker 1: people that you know, don't live near a Whole Foods,
52:07
Speaker 1: or are intimidated to go into a Whole Foods, or
52:11
Speaker 1: can't afford to shop at Whole Foods. And you know, interestingly,
52:17
Speaker 1: we ended up raising that first round eight and a
52:19
Speaker 1: half million dollars from about two hundred and fifty basically
52:24
Speaker 1: influencer and mission aligned investors, individuals like in everywhere from
52:29
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollars to fifty thousand dollars chunks, And it
52:33
Speaker 1: was like the exact opposite experience, right, Like they saw
52:36
Speaker 1: our determination, they aligned with the mission, and many of them,
52:39
Speaker 1: like if they were bloggers, their audience were the people
52:42
Speaker 1: that we, you know, were the people that we were
52:44
Speaker 1: going to be serving.
52:45
Speaker 3: So it was so interesting.
52:47
Speaker 1: Once we shifted our strategy, which also happened by accident.
52:50
Speaker 1: But once we did that, ball got rolling and it's
52:52
Speaker 1: like all of a sudden the checks came. It was like,
52:57
Speaker 1: you know, we got almost no nos. It was like, all,
53:00
Speaker 1: I'm on board with us, I care about it, and
53:01
Speaker 1: not only do I want to invest, but how.
53:02
Speaker 3: Can I help?
53:04
Speaker 2: What's the strategy shift?
53:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, honestly, we again, like I know, I sound like
53:09
Speaker 1: I'm like I'd just gotten really lucky, but we I
53:13
Speaker 1: had a friend from college who was crashing on my
53:15
Speaker 1: couch for a weekend.
53:16
Speaker 3: His name is John Durant. He was an influencer in
53:19
Speaker 3: the paleo world.
53:19
Speaker 1: He wrote a really a best selling book called The
53:22
Speaker 1: Paleo Manifesto, and you know, he started we started talking
53:26
Speaker 1: about Thrive Market. He said, oh, you know, I've got
53:27
Speaker 1: some friends that would probably really think this is cool.
53:30
Speaker 1: And so he introduced us to a guy named Mark Sisson,
53:34
Speaker 1: who is like the godfather of the paleo movement. He
53:37
Speaker 1: soon started a company that he sold to Craft Times
53:39
Speaker 1: called Primal Kitchen. We met with Mark at a at
53:43
Speaker 1: a Starbucks in Malibu, and he invested on the spot
53:47
Speaker 1: and introduced us to five other folks who each introduced
53:51
Speaker 1: us to probably five more, and all of a sudden,
53:53
Speaker 1: we had the who's who of the entire kind of
53:56
Speaker 1: like online health and wellness blog paleo you know, blogger
54:00
Speaker 1: community on our cap table. And it was honestly, it
54:05
Speaker 1: was the best thing that could have possibly happened to us.
54:07
Speaker 1: That's when I realized that while we're going to have
54:09
Speaker 1: some serious firepower. And when we launched, you know, it
54:12
Speaker 1: was like the floodgates just opened because these people started
54:16
Speaker 1: to tell their audiences and you know, we were getting
54:18
Speaker 1: Like I remember, we had a five thousand square foot
54:21
Speaker 1: office that also had our warehouse inside of it, like
54:24
Speaker 1: all of our products racked and bin We had to
54:27
Speaker 1: add storage containers in the driveway and then moved to
54:31
Speaker 1: a forty thousand square foot warehouse two months after launching
54:33
Speaker 1: because the business was going so gangbusters.
54:36
Speaker 2: So when you after you launch and you start to
54:40
Speaker 2: see success and now you're getting all of these investors.
54:43
Speaker 2: I know, I read that you raised one hundred and
54:45
Speaker 2: forty one million dollars across three rounds of funding following
54:50
Speaker 2: your November twenty fourteen launch. So after this things are working,
54:54
Speaker 2: it's going, well, what would you say at this point
54:58
Speaker 2: is the biggest challenge today?
55:02
Speaker 3: Like twenty twenty, after you find.
55:03
Speaker 2: That initial success, after you have that meeting in Malibu,
55:06
Speaker 2: after the money is there, and like it seems that
55:08
Speaker 2: you have a viable business.
55:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, like mid early twenty we call it like mid
55:13
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, so we're like six months in the business
55:16
Speaker 1: is just going gangbusters. All those vcs that rejected us
55:19
Speaker 1: at a five million dollar valuation are coming back and
55:21
Speaker 1: want to fund the business at one hundred million dollar valuation.
55:24
Speaker 1: It was insane, right, And the biggest challenge at that
55:27
Speaker 1: point is staying humble, right, not looking at the business now.
55:32
Speaker 1: You know, just as when you're when everyone's telling you no,
55:35
Speaker 1: you got to keep your conviction when everyone's telling you
55:38
Speaker 1: yes and telling you how brilliant you are, and like
55:40
Speaker 1: what amazing thing you're doing and how they want to
55:42
Speaker 1: be part of it, like really staying grounded. And you know,
55:46
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I don't think we did a perfect
55:48
Speaker 1: job of that, Like we at times started to drink
55:50
Speaker 1: our own kool aid.
55:52
Speaker 3: We moved in some cases too fast.
55:55
Speaker 1: We made some mistakes on hiring, We made some mistakes
55:59
Speaker 1: on kind of sequencing, Like we tried to launch fresh food,
56:03
Speaker 1: which is something we were not ready for at all.
56:07
Speaker 1: So we made some mistakes of hubris and it was
56:09
Speaker 1: a real lesson learned. And I think, you know, the
56:11
Speaker 1: best thing that ended up happening to us there was
56:14
Speaker 1: we got a great investor at the Series A, and
56:17
Speaker 1: then a year later when we raised our Series B
56:19
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, we brought in a group called called Imbis.
56:24
Speaker 1: They're out of New York. They're a private equity fun
56:28
Speaker 1: but totally unlike any other private equity group you've ever known,
56:31
Speaker 1: and that they are not raising funds all the time.
56:34
Speaker 1: They have an evergreen source of capital from one family
56:37
Speaker 1: that they raised back in like the late eighties, and
56:39
Speaker 1: they've just done so well at compounding that that they
56:42
Speaker 1: don't have to go out and raise funds. So they
56:43
Speaker 1: have a long timeline. They're very grounded themselves, they're very quiet,
56:48
Speaker 1: they don't do any pr and you know, they really
56:51
Speaker 1: got us focused on, like back to the basics of
56:54
Speaker 1: the business. And I think had we gone out and
56:57
Speaker 1: like gone crazy just raising BC money and just propelling
57:01
Speaker 1: growth for growth's sake, we could have really screwed up
57:04
Speaker 1: the business. And instead, I have to give a lot
57:07
Speaker 1: of credit to the people that, you know, both the
57:09
Speaker 1: early investors who like believed in our mission and kept
57:12
Speaker 1: us grounded to that, as well as the you know,
57:15
Speaker 1: some of the folks that we brought on, especially gray Croft,
57:18
Speaker 1: which is the fun that let our series A and
57:20
Speaker 1: then in this who let our series be who you know,
57:23
Speaker 1: both of them had been on our board and really
57:25
Speaker 1: kept us nail to that north star.
57:28
Speaker 2: I'll never forget when I sat down with Rachel Drury
57:30
Speaker 2: from Daily Harvest that she said one of the biggest
57:33
Speaker 2: challenges that they tackled after they were delivering successfully in
57:37
Speaker 2: the New York City area was figuring out how to
57:40
Speaker 2: make this a large scale operation, especially when it came
57:43
Speaker 2: to delivering fresh foods like all around the United States.
57:48
Speaker 2: I can't even I mean, just the logistice. I always
57:51
Speaker 2: use this word. It's definitely not a real word, but
57:53
Speaker 2: I always just think about the logisticizing that goes into
57:56
Speaker 2: all of that.
57:58
Speaker 1: That's a great term but perfectly perfectly captures the kind
58:01
Speaker 1: of like complexity, right, it's I mean, it's crazy, right.
58:05
Speaker 1: We ship We're shipping millions of products every month to
58:09
Speaker 1: you know, hundreds of thousands of people. We have over
58:11
Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand members today in every one of the
58:14
Speaker 1: lower forty eight states. You know, we've got eight hundred
58:18
Speaker 1: thousand square feet of fulfillment center space. Right, we went
58:22
Speaker 1: from five thousand square feet to eight hundred thousand. And
58:26
Speaker 1: you know, and we and we employ more than five
58:29
Speaker 1: hundred people.
58:30
Speaker 3: In our in our warehouses. So you know, it is
58:33
Speaker 3: a real.
58:33
Speaker 1: Difference between your traditional tech company versus a company that
58:37
Speaker 1: sells physical products.
58:39
Speaker 3: Is like, you have a lot of a lot of logisticizing.
58:42
Speaker 2: To do, a lot of logisticizing to do. Okay, So
58:46
Speaker 2: for someone that has never been to the Thrive market website,
58:49
Speaker 2: talk to me about the kinds of things that they
58:52
Speaker 2: can find there.
58:53
Speaker 1: You can find the best selling products which you find
58:56
Speaker 1: at a place like Whole Foods at at real savings
59:01
Speaker 1: you can find a bunch of products that will be
59:04
Speaker 1: in whole Foods in the future, but are like the
59:06
Speaker 1: new cutting edge, most innovative brands that we're outsourcing first
59:12
Speaker 1: and bringing to market first right, brands like Primal Kitchen
59:15
Speaker 1: that now have widespread distribution, like we launched Marx avocado
59:18
Speaker 1: maynaise before it was available anywhere. You will find seven
59:23
Speaker 1: hundred plus products that are in the Thrive market brand
59:26
Speaker 1: where we are actually sourcing like organic in many cases,
59:30
Speaker 1: regenerative ingredients ourselves and then working with co packers to
59:33
Speaker 1: develop first of their kind programs, and you'll find it
59:37
Speaker 1: across all the categories basically except for things that are
59:40
Speaker 1: in the refrigerator, So like the entire periphery of the
59:42
Speaker 1: grocery store, snacks, cooking ingredients, all of your supplements, all
59:48
Speaker 1: of your home goods, all of your bath and body products,
59:51
Speaker 1: all of your baby products, a lot of beauty products.
59:54
Speaker 1: So it's basically fifty percent of what people basically buy
59:57
Speaker 1: at the grocery store you're going to find on Thrive
1:00:00
Speaker 1: and you're not going to find a bazillion of each product,
1:00:02
Speaker 1: So like we're not going to carry forty alm butters.
1:00:04
Speaker 1: We're going to carry the like five or six that
1:00:06
Speaker 1: are the highest quality, best and really differentiated.
1:00:09
Speaker 2: And how do you get ahead of the curve, Like
1:00:11
Speaker 2: with knowing what's coming and what's going to be.
1:00:14
Speaker 1: Hot, oftentimes the curve comes to us right Like the
1:00:17
Speaker 1: best brands and the newest brands are doing innovative stuff.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: Know that Thrive Market has conscious consumers that will appreciate
1:00:24
Speaker 1: the extra lengths they're going to. They know that we
1:00:26
Speaker 1: will tell their story in a way that doesn't happen
1:00:29
Speaker 1: when they go onto Amazon.
1:00:31
Speaker 3: They know that we're aligned with the mission, and many
1:00:33
Speaker 3: of them want to make.
1:00:34
Speaker 1: Their products accessible to normal people, not just people that
1:00:38
Speaker 1: shop you know in in you know, Arawan and Los Angeles.
1:00:42
Speaker 3: In New York.
1:00:43
Speaker 2: I think what's interesting also about your business? I mean
1:00:46
Speaker 2: speaking as someone who lives two blocks from a Whole
1:00:49
Speaker 2: Foods and also like in the mecha of every food
1:00:51
Speaker 2: I could ever want delivered, I myself placed an order
1:00:55
Speaker 2: on Thrive two weeks ago because I could get the
1:00:59
Speaker 2: most amazing deal. Like I ordered a box of seafood, okay,
1:01:03
Speaker 2: and in that box of seafood that cost one hundred
1:01:06
Speaker 2: and sixty dollars, I probably got three hundred dollars worth
1:01:10
Speaker 2: of seafood that I would have bought at my local
1:01:12
Speaker 2: grocery store.
1:01:13
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, So when that's like, that's a perfect example
1:01:15
Speaker 1: of a program that we that we do ourselves where
1:01:19
Speaker 1: we're actually working directly with the seafood producers. Right, So
1:01:24
Speaker 1: it's like wild caught salmon program we're doing like on
1:01:27
Speaker 1: the with with our meat program, like we work with
1:01:30
Speaker 1: a fourth generation regenerative farm for all of our pork.
1:01:33
Speaker 1: We're working with a farmer's collective on all of our
1:01:36
Speaker 1: grass fed, grass finished beef. And because we source it direct,
1:01:39
Speaker 1: we cut out all the middle men. We can offer
1:01:41
Speaker 1: it a much better price. And the big difference that
1:01:44
Speaker 1: our members appreciated, it's not only a better price, it's
1:01:46
Speaker 1: actually a better quality too, So you know that's that's
1:01:49
Speaker 1: the goal is, like you shouldn't have to choose between
1:01:51
Speaker 1: better quality or the right price. Like if we can,
1:01:55
Speaker 1: if we can have the right model and we cut
1:01:57
Speaker 1: out the middlemen and go direct, we can actually offer both.
1:01:59
Speaker 2: So talk to me about what excites you right now.
1:02:02
Speaker 2: Obviously we're in one hell of a time with everything
1:02:05
Speaker 2: that's going on with the pandemic, But what excites you
1:02:08
Speaker 2: about Thrive at the time being Well, the.
1:02:12
Speaker 1: First thing I'll say is, yes, the pandemic has been
1:02:15
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's historically unprecedented, insane in so many ways,
1:02:20
Speaker 1: a tragedy in so many ways. But also, as I said,
1:02:23
Speaker 1: for us, this like true moment to step into our
1:02:26
Speaker 1: mission and serve. And that's been the word's not exciting,
1:02:31
Speaker 1: but it's been incredibly fulfilling and purposeful to know that,
1:02:35
Speaker 1: you know, the ten million products that we've shipped since
1:02:38
Speaker 1: mid March are all going to people that really need them.
1:02:41
Speaker 1: Right The half a million dollars that we've raised through
1:02:43
Speaker 1: our COVID nineteen relief fund is all going to grocery
1:02:46
Speaker 1: stipends for frontline health workers and families that are directly affected.
1:02:50
Speaker 1: So that's been it's been an incredibly galvanizing moment. And
1:02:55
Speaker 1: it's so strange and surreal because you know, our two
1:02:58
Speaker 1: hundred plus headquarters workers right now, we're all working from home.
1:03:03
Speaker 1: You know, people are working in their closets, like they're
1:03:05
Speaker 1: working in like their living room, right They're managing like
1:03:09
Speaker 1: so much challenge. But at the same time, you know,
1:03:12
Speaker 1: I feel like we have more like more sense of
1:03:15
Speaker 1: purpose and a higher level of conviction we're doing than
1:03:17
Speaker 1: we ever had before. I think there's also some real
1:03:20
Speaker 1: silver linings in in this, and one for us as
1:03:24
Speaker 1: a business is that, like people are accelerating that shift online, right.
1:03:28
Speaker 1: I think there was always there's always been the people
1:03:30
Speaker 1: that are kind of holdouts on buying their groceries online,
1:03:33
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, like nobody has that or
1:03:35
Speaker 1: most people don't have that choice. So you know, I
1:03:39
Speaker 1: think we're we're going to accelerate that secular trend five
1:03:42
Speaker 1: years in that many months. And then I think the
1:03:45
Speaker 1: thing that actually has been a little bit ignored but
1:03:48
Speaker 1: I feel really strongly about, is that there's also going
1:03:51
Speaker 1: to be an acceleration of the trend or unconscious consumption.
1:03:54
Speaker 1: Like I think the moment that COVID nineteen hit, everybody
1:03:57
Speaker 1: at some level became a conscious consumer. You know, everybody's
1:04:00
Speaker 1: thinking about safety, everybody's thinking about where their products come from.
1:04:04
Speaker 1: Everyone wants to buy from the places they can trust.
1:04:08
Speaker 1: And you know, that's a really powerful thing. And I
1:04:11
Speaker 1: don't think that's something that goes away, right, Like, you
1:04:13
Speaker 1: don't you don't get rid of that, that understanding of
1:04:16
Speaker 1: the risk of COVID nineteen. Even after the you know,
1:04:20
Speaker 1: say that there's a vaccine for the for the virus.
1:04:23
Speaker 1: So my hope is that it accelerates that trend as well,
1:04:27
Speaker 1: and that coming out of this, people are more thoughtful
1:04:30
Speaker 1: about the products they buy. They more are more attuned
1:04:34
Speaker 1: to the fact that, like, you know, disasters that affect
1:04:36
Speaker 1: like huge swaths of people and the environment are possible.
1:04:40
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think people are thinking a lot
1:04:42
Speaker 1: about sustainability at this moment because they're focused on the virus.
1:04:46
Speaker 1: But you know, it's a reminder that things that you
1:04:48
Speaker 1: think are unimaginable can happen. And we're already in the
1:04:52
Speaker 1: early stages of seeing that with climate change right whether
1:04:55
Speaker 1: it's in California with the forest fires, it's the way
1:04:57
Speaker 1: that the hurricane seasons have gone. I think that that
1:05:00
Speaker 1: for us like will extend this moment for our mission
1:05:04
Speaker 1: to be going on and being that platform that is
1:05:06
Speaker 1: the trusted partner for people who want to get healthy
1:05:09
Speaker 1: for themselves but also want to live their values, and
1:05:12
Speaker 1: you show up in the world as consumers that are
1:05:15
Speaker 1: that are that are sustainable and doing the right thing
1:05:17
Speaker 1: for the planet.
1:05:19
Speaker 2: When you look back on the past six almost years
1:05:23
Speaker 2: of Thrive, what would you say has been one of
1:05:25
Speaker 2: the best pieces of advice that you've been offered.
1:05:30
Speaker 1: That's a good question, and this is going to sound
1:05:33
Speaker 1: like a cop out, but I would go back to
1:05:34
Speaker 1: the statement I made earlier that the only things I
1:05:38
Speaker 1: feel like I've really learned and really internalized are from
1:05:42
Speaker 1: my own experience.
1:05:44
Speaker 3: Some of those have validated advice that I've gotten, but
1:05:48
Speaker 3: I've never had.
1:05:49
Speaker 1: A moment where like someone gave me a piece of
1:05:51
Speaker 1: advice it was fully internalized and I didn't have to
1:05:54
Speaker 1: learn it on my own. I just don't think that's
1:05:56
Speaker 1: the way the world works, and I don't think it
1:05:59
Speaker 1: hasn't been my experience entrepreneurship. So I guess the the
1:06:02
Speaker 1: advice that I would give to to your listeners if
1:06:05
Speaker 1: they're if they're looking for advice is don't take advice.
1:06:09
Speaker 1: Jump into the deep end and get out there and
1:06:11
Speaker 1: make mistakes and let the world be your advisor. There
1:06:14
Speaker 1: is no better way to confront truth and reality than
1:06:18
Speaker 1: to like be out there living in the real world,
1:06:20
Speaker 1: not listening to books. You know, not not not to
1:06:24
Speaker 1: slam podcast but not just listening to podcasts.
1:06:26
Speaker 2: Say don't turn them away.
1:06:29
Speaker 1: But let's be honest, like that stuff is inspiration, like
1:06:32
Speaker 1: if you read a book and it gets inspired, right,
1:06:34
Speaker 1: Like read a biography and get it inspired, Like to
1:06:36
Speaker 1: listen to a conversation with someone that you really admire
1:06:39
Speaker 1: or someone who's perspective on the world you really appreciate.
1:06:41
Speaker 3: But don't don't.
1:06:43
Speaker 1: Don't fool yourself into thinking that is the that's where
1:06:46
Speaker 1: you're going to learn how to get where you want
1:06:48
Speaker 1: to go. The way you're going to get where you
1:06:50
Speaker 1: want to go is first know where you want to go, Like,
1:06:53
Speaker 1: actually get clear on that and to start walking.
1:06:56
Speaker 2: If you look back right now on your experience in
1:06:59
Speaker 2: the entrepreneur incubator of sorts, and you're feeling like you're
1:07:04
Speaker 2: kind of stuck right and you're not sure what's going
1:07:06
Speaker 2: to happen next, and you're feeling just stagnant, and you
1:07:10
Speaker 2: look back right now on that hurdle moment, you have
1:07:13
Speaker 2: an opportunity to offer yourself one piece of advice.
1:07:17
Speaker 1: What do you tell yourself just remember that, I mean,
1:07:21
Speaker 1: this is a stoic saying that the obstacle is the way.
1:07:26
Speaker 1: I mean, it's totally aligned with your philosophy and this
1:07:29
Speaker 1: podcast too, of like the hurdles are those defining moments
1:07:32
Speaker 1: that feel like you're stuck, but it's when you break it.
1:07:35
Speaker 1: Like but once you do break through, it like releases
1:07:39
Speaker 1: all this energy and insight and growth. That is always
1:07:43
Speaker 1: the way it is, Like it never happens from like
1:07:47
Speaker 1: just like someone's spoon feeding you something. If it was
1:07:49
Speaker 1: that easy, everyone would do it.
1:07:51
Speaker 3: So you know it's it is. It is struggle.
1:07:54
Speaker 1: And once you have a level of like of course
1:07:57
Speaker 1: sort of meta awareness of that, you start to actually
1:08:00
Speaker 1: crave the struggle. You start to interpret it differently. It
1:08:03
Speaker 1: starts to feel different in your nervous system when you
1:08:05
Speaker 1: know and reinterpret that feeling of like this sucks, all
1:08:10
Speaker 1: of a sudden it becomes oh, I'm being stretched here.
1:08:12
Speaker 1: I'm going to learn something from this. This is good
1:08:15
Speaker 1: for me. And that doesn't make it feel good, Like
1:08:18
Speaker 1: it's still like you're still like I'm still human, I
1:08:20
Speaker 1: still feel all those the pain when I'm stuck, and
1:08:22
Speaker 1: like that period was still miserable, but it was you know,
1:08:26
Speaker 1: it was an inflection point. It was super formative, and
1:08:29
Speaker 1: most of my most difficult moments have turned.
1:08:31
Speaker 3: Out in retrospect to be that.
1:08:34
Speaker 2: What's the one item you put in your shopping cart immediately.
1:08:37
Speaker 2: Every time you place an order on Thrive.
1:08:41
Speaker 1: I place big orders, so I put a lot of
1:08:43
Speaker 1: items in my shopping cart every single time I shop
1:08:47
Speaker 1: on Thrive. I'm the wrong person to ask that. This
1:08:49
Speaker 1: isn't gonna sound really simple, but try our are olive oil.
1:08:54
Speaker 1: It's extra virgin, fair trade organic, and it's single sourced
1:08:58
Speaker 1: from is amazing multi generation family farm that is about
1:09:04
Speaker 1: three kilometers away from the oldest olive tree in the world.
1:09:07
Speaker 1: And it will be one of those experiences of like,
1:09:10
Speaker 1: unless you've had amazing olive oil before, it's probably one
1:09:13
Speaker 1: of those items that you consume but don't think a
1:09:15
Speaker 1: lot about, and then you have a good one. It's
1:09:18
Speaker 1: like I compare it to like I drank wine in college,
1:09:20
Speaker 1: but I never had a good glass of wine. You
1:09:23
Speaker 1: will experience that with this olive oil.
1:09:25
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time today, Nick. It
1:09:27
Speaker 2: was awesome.
1:09:28
Speaker 3: Thank you really enjoyed it.
1:09:29
Speaker 2: Please take a moment and leave a quick review by
1:09:31
Speaker 2: clicking the link with the description to this episode. We
1:09:34
Speaker 2: all face multiple hurdles in life. I want to hear
1:09:37
Speaker 2: about yours. Reach out to me at Emily at hurdle
1:09:39
Speaker 2: dot us. Connect with the podcast on Instagram and Twitter
1:09:42
Speaker 2: at Hurdle Podcast, Nick, where do they find you? How
1:09:46
Speaker 2: do they keep up with thrive market? Give me the
1:09:48
Speaker 2: details thrivemarket dot com.
1:09:51
Speaker 3: I don't and I don't.
1:09:52
Speaker 1: I don't blog, I don't have Twitter, I have no
1:09:54
Speaker 1: social media, so you can keep up with me through
1:09:57
Speaker 1: frivemarket dot com as well.
1:09:59
Speaker 2: I dig it. I am at Emily a Body at
1:10:01
Speaker 2: Hurdle Podcast Another Hurdle conquered. Catch you guys next time