Latest / Ready To Drink Podcast / Building 30+ SKUs of Unsweetened Hemp, CBD & Functional Beverages | Josh Grigaitis, Founder of Mighty Kind Co

Transcript

Building 30+ SKUs of Unsweetened Hemp, CBD & Functional Beverages | Josh Grigaitis, Founder of Mighty Kind Co · Ready To Drink Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm uh Josh Gergidas, founder of Mighty Kind.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: We are a functional beverage supplier, brand manufacturer.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: We uh specialize in non-alcoholic and unsweetened options.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was born without a sweet tooth.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: So aside from being a dive bar owner of 27 years, I also was uh just motivated to find to figure out some uh beverages that I would be interested in myself.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Taking sweetness out pretty much takes 90% of all beverages out of the equation.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I kind of found myself needing to figure out how to provide some wellness beverages and a variety of you know plant magic infusions, but not lean on just formulating sweet things and covering up those bitter ingredients with sweetness.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I've just I've taken a little more time in the beginning.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: We do our own emulsions, we do our own canning and filling, and we're really hands-on with the whole manufacturing process right down to the main ingredient.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that that really allows us to control that variance and and really evolution of the formulations.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Couldn't really find anybody to do it the way we wanted to, so we figured out how to do it ourselves.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I think for the most part, that's I think that kind of gives the the quick.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, bar owner for 27 years, family business, wanted some alternatives to alcohol for myself, and also wanted alternatives to sugary sweet drinks for myself.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And now we've got about 30 active SKUs out in the the world.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Our first five years, we did nothing but unsweetened sparkling waters and really just honed in on that category.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh we last year we released a few uh pure cane sugar sodas just to answer the demand, and they are definitely selling well.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, people love the root beer and grape sodas and orange sodas and things, but I personally don't have a sweet tooth at all.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So our kind of special place in this in this beverage, in the wellness beverage, the non-alcohol space, the functional space is specializing in those unsweetened sugar-free options.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that was one of the first things that drew me in, is that I didn't know that story about the dive bar owners.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: So now we can talk some shot because it makes a lot more sense when I pull up your website before we hopped on here.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I go blind into these.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: For you, yeah, we met we met passing quickly uh at uh at the HEP Beverage Expo in uh in Austin.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I've always been a fan of your products.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think your design, first off, your design of your labels is super cool.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: You fit a whole new niche that's not the not the far-end Grateful Dead thing, but it's not the other thing.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're not trying to compete with alcohol, but you found a really good middle road and you found that I really appreciate that because a lot of times we have people just following on what's working and riding the curtails of it.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, first off on that, and then secondly, you have one of the most diverse portfolios of different products in here and the amount of SKUs.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, my first question is as a guy that's been in the beverage industry for 20 years, how do you manage that?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because in my distributor passed, I would have, I would have ran out of the room when you came in with that.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you manage right beer or right, sorry, right product, right account, you know, all that jazz?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I I constantly uh look back on the the last five or six years and kind of my my common question is or just thought is like, man, if I would have just stayed with one or two skews, I would be rich and famous and happy and and probably have my own island by now.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I chose to not get bored with, you know, one or two skews.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like lemon and cherry THC for the last five years would have worn me out.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I I feel like I'm trying to find the balance of keeping myself interested and excited to get up and work on these things every morning.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, ultimately that's that first goal is to fulfill my own needs so that I can be happy and and be a good boss for everybody else and a team player.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've I question every new skew that comes out, and it's very, you know, heavily thought through.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: We've had another 20 or 30 that we haven't done because we, you know, can't just do everything.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: We just today put out our first lion's main sparkling water with no sugar or sweeteners in it.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure I can't find another one in the market right now as far as a functional mushroom drink that's just a sparkling water.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it exists.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the same thing I was saying to myself six, seven years ago when I started in 2019.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: There doesn't seem to be one sparkling water out here with CBD that's not sweetened with something or has a nasty taste.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's just there's nothing really good at that time.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, the the CBD, the whole help uh beverage ingredient space hadn't really evolved much.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: There was a few players in it, and it was a lot of really bitter ingredients that you just couldn't really formulate a a lemon-flavored sparkling water with, or it would taste awful.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, as as time passed and we figured out how to do that kind of, you know, to to make our ingredients cleaner and simpler and less ingredients.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: It it's it's interesting because the space has got gone from one to a thousand.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's weird to talk about, but I do believe I was one of the first in the world to put a hemp drive THC into a can.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I believe you were too.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's I've been you've been on my radar for a long time because of that.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um I take things from an academic standpoint and I go deep.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: It could be the my my Asperger was an ADHD in the mix, but I've been following you for a while, man.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you I I I'll say you were because I think you were, yeah.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: When I first did it, it was Delta 8, which you know right away if the person isn't talking about Delta 8, they were not in the first wave.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the brand Delta was Instagram active, but I don't, they didn't even have a photo of a can or anything.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was like the label and the logo, and here's what we're gonna do.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I better put stuff in cans because this company looks like they're gonna do it pretty soon.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I went and got a dispensary or a manufacturing license for marijuana drinks in Oklahoma in 2019, because it was the most accessible state for marijuana by far.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: That you had$2,500 and a partner had to have two years' residency in Oklahoma.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that was really it.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you had an application filled out, they took your money and they gave you a license.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it at that time I was one of about 10,000 licenses in Oklahoma.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And since then they've they've reeled it in a little bit, but it still remains up there with the most accessible marijuana licenses in the country.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so, but I was there for one year in 2019, and by the end of 2019, I was sit thinking outside the box, and I was like, you know, this exact same drink I'm making in these dispensaries, I think it'll I think I could take it back to Missouri and sell it in my bar, and there's nothing illegal about it.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I like I was in the USA Today on the cover for non-alcoholic beverages in 2019, July.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Jeff Epstein article over here, Serena Williams above me.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Neither of them got a photo, and I was in the center packing packing a cooler full of non-alcoholic beer.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the article is like just a mile or two away from Anheuser Busch, Josh is getting ready for an NA party on a Saturday night, and it was like nobody had ever heard of really doing NA parties, especially at a bar, especially at the oldest bar in the city of St.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Louis.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And on a Saturday night, and in 2019, it was every Saturday at this bar, it was booze-free.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I got rid of every bar mat, mirror, clock, napkin holder, bottle off the back bar.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Everything went away for the night, and we brought it all back out the next night, you know, on Monday.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And people were just blown away that there was this bar that was actually catering to people not drinking alcohol at that time.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then in 2022, September, I was in the USA Today again for THC drinks, and it was like THC drinks available everywhere, and it's a picture of our Heady Lemon THC 10 milligram seltzer.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we did what was it,$10,000 in sales in like 48 hours.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just off that article.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like nobody had ever heard of the brand.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: My article in 2019, I hadn't had the brand yet.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I started it a week later because I'm like, well, I just got a damn USA Today cover and I didn't have my next project ready to enough.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Grab the surfboard, we're riding this one.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, let's open a beverage company.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was just like, well, that worked, there's no doubt.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I launched as a CBD company in 2019, but then 20, 2020 and 21, we started doing the D8 thing.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And by 2022, that USA Today article was D9, and the beginning of the D9 hemp movement was right there.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was like that article, as far as I'm concerned, is the one of the turning points of the AHA moment where I mean, I my voicemail filled up immediately.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like every kind of business you could imagine that was in interested in this new like, wait, how did you figure this out?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you get your hemp derived D9?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: How do you this?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: How do you that?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I had a bakery in California, like a third generation bakery in California call me and leave a voicemail.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like real strong accent.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, they they were asking if I could help them infuse chocolates because they think this could save their business because the bakery company is struggling and times are changing.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, we read this article and we we think you might be the answer to save our company.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like I'm like, this is a literally a food company in California calling a guy in Missouri to ask him how to infuse stuff.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you guys are in the most progressive cannabis state in the whole country.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is going on right now?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just kind of a sign that was like, wow, this is this is this is a new thing.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is big and this is happening, and thinking outside of the box got me here.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, not wanting alcohol got me here, and not wanting sugar got me into this category that people were back then never had seen.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like we made a hundred milligram water, 10 ounce water, so each ounce is 10 milligrams, and we sold it in the dispensaries, and nobody had ever seen anything like it before.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, you can drink this stuff straight.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing this?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't everybody else that makes anything, even 20 milligrams, it's super bitter, and just you can't it at that time you couldn't drink it.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was nasty.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we were just like changing the game with what we were doing.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I seven years later, there's nobody making that product like that we were making seven years ago.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's uh it's just constantly a reminder that I'm doing the right thing and that it's the space, it's it's like I'm in it way early, and I've done a lot of figuring out of things, and it's interesting because I'm sure a lot of the stuff, you know, just beverage manufacturers have figured out.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a a lot of it isn't the hemp problem.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's like I'm, you know, figuring out what generations of beverage makers have already figured out in front of me.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: It just has one extra ingredient that kind of throws it through a whole nother uh category of compliance and you know, uh doing things properly.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I I've uh I kind of feel like a big part of my battle is just that it's just the bev, like you said, it's into the whole beverage conversation.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's an additional challenge where, oh, you have this ingredient that nobody's really sure how to regulate within it.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I I probably got off on a tangent there somewhere.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can bring me back.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, you're perfect, man.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, to be honest with you, you just you just gave a bigger explanation to what I I tell every new client that comes into our strategy and market development business.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's about creating, and this is what it's been the same for every beverage and every CPG, to be honest with you.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta constantly throw pebbles into a still pond and let the ripples go.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And when those ripples start to come back, go back to figure out where did that where did the ripple hit and then where did it come back from, and then dive deeply into that and then lean into that and then throw another couple pebbles out.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people, I'm gonna rephrase that.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think some people, I'm not gonna try to cast the majority of this, but I feel like a lot of people in this industry, specifically this niche of beverage, and we dealt with the same thing in craft beer 15 years ago.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Coming out of it and not coming back, coming into it with a business mindset of understanding how to build a brand.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: You had 27 years in the bar business, you didn't have a product, but you had a business that was a ripple that had to figure out how to bring people into your nucleus.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: That piece is the most crucial piece to everything.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you assume that you're just gonna throw paper airplanes back and somebody's gonna send a check into your mailbox, you're out of luck.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: And even today, I think a lot of people will sit back and wonder, you know, I'll use I'll use an example, and this is not to pick on them, this is the reality.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Albertson's recently that just came out with their abdect, and they're putting up all their stuff, and and everybody's kind of today and yesterday and this week is like, we're still gonna get this because Albertson's going in.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: No, Albertson's is going in with the biggest brands that are available, with the best distribution, because they'll have the finances to buy back.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're the most risk-mitigated products that they can put on their shelf.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Let's not get ahead of ourselves to understand that that's what the problem is sometimes where people then get complacent right now over the next three, four months, where it's like, well, Target's doing it, Albertson's doing it, Circle K's doing it, so federally it must be good because they're doing no.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're you've got to look at the planogram and you've got to look at the SKUs that they're choosing.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: They're not taking chances, and this is not a dig on them.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is their smart business move.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: They're taking chances on the most risky brands so that they can move them out of quickly and get get credit back for the product.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: From my conversations with them and other people like that over the past few months when I was presenting other brands, I understand where they went and why they didn't choose the brands that we were presenting.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: At the same time, what you're telling, you're telling everything that's the truth, which is everything's not guaranteed.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of people are looking for linear decisions that have the least risk possible right now with guarantees.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I get that a lot on these discovery meetings and these episodes where it's like, Well, well, when can I get the money back?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's like that's not the first question in the first hour of digesting a strategy where I understand because I'm a solopreneur, I don't have I don't have overhead.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I also don't have a big business.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: I know what it means to lose a client or lose five accounts because that is detrimental to needing to change and pivot.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: At the same time, the expectation has to be that people have to understand there's gonna be mistakes, there's gonna be errors because we're all working within a fall.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what you've talked about is perfectly the same.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you've taken the greatest risk, but also the greatest RD opportunity with having the amount of SKUs that you have.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to kinda while I pick oned you in the beginning, as as a distributor must think you're crazy.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking at it the right way from a data-centric academic standpoint, it's the best scenario.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's like, okay, well, Oklahoma, these six SKUs work for Oklahoma, these six SKUs are gonna work for Georgia, these six SKUs are gonna work for Pennsylvania.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And as a company, which is what how you have to look at it, you're doing well because you have the right product, right account, and the right formulation.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing is, and I'm a portfolio guy too.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: I like having four to six brands that I work with on a daily basis for the day job.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: That part is important because if I'm leading with a strawberry lemonade from X brand, and all of a sudden this is like, this is iced tea territory.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I better sure as shit have an iced tea in my back pocket.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, I as a I just wasted my time driving out this account.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so kudos to you for it.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't I want everybody to understand that I think you're doing the right thing.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think anybody that looks at it and says, you're absolutely crazy down the backside, I'm sure economically it's it's a pain in the ass.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm gonna the warehouse is full.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I was gonna.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: My next point was gonna be I've been a warehouse guy before.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I was a warehouse guy during the craft beer move, where it was like you had everybody was operating in the wholesale world like a beer, like a brew pub.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Where it was like, you know, you remind me, your your uh website reminded me of like when I used to represent Dogfish Head, where it was like you had year rounds, you had seasonal, you had limited releases, you had occasional, like the the release chart had seven tiers, or I'm exaggerating, but it was no less than five of different variations.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And as a wholesaler, that's hard because you're rotating through constantly.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: And as an order picker, which I was a driver in the very beginning of my days, and I was I worked in the warehouse checking the trucks, that's challenging.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and especially, you know, Bud Light Lime and Bud Light This, and for us too, I want to caution everybody that's out here as we get, as I'm gonna say, as we prevail through this in some capacity, we will prevail.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't see an ending to this happening.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: But what I do see happening is pressure from distributors when scale starts happening to differentiate the doses in some fashion on the labels, because I think we're gonna see a lot of pick errors when the volume starts coming.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it's gonna be a pick error where they sent a five instead of a 10.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: They sent a 25 instead of a five.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's the thing where that's the only tweak from a labeling standpoint that I see as a problem when we hit that scale as an industry.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, I agree.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, two things have kind of kept me on this path.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: One is that I have a distributor here in Missouri that's like keep bringing the skews, you know, and and and we're we're the number one supplier for our distributor who is an alcohol distributor.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: It it's been an only because they athletic brewing left, but you know, we were still number two behind them, which is a good place to be.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I helped launch Wellbean Brewing in 2017 as well, which kind of set off my career, set my career off.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they pretty much agree.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: They pretty much tanked it after that, but I did it.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was I helped raise money, I helped with the initial branding of all the labels, and me and another person, I was kind of marketing and branding, and the other person was sales.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: That person went off and got a job for Diaggio and Ritual, and Tom Halaska is his name, he'd be a good person to talk to someday.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: But he uh he he worked for Ritual on as a national salesperson, and then Diagio acquired Ritual.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: So a handful of my friends are all in that Diaggio ritual team.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: But not to talk too much about that, but that was such an amazing one year for me.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Wellbeing was the first company in the United States to have a vacuum distill at D Alc machine from Germany.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: They were six months ahead of Keith Villa and Blue Moon.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And when I met them, they're from St.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Louis, it was a married couple, and they're like, Yeah, we're coming out with this thing called Well Being, and they showed me their logos, and I was like, I'm gonna fix your logos, I'm gonna fix all your branding.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And wait, is that you?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are you the are you the transition?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because that was when I was that you're at the time where I really started to try to get sober.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I had had those products, but I was during a transitional label changeover, yeah.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I was with them for the initial launch of Heavenly Body and Hellraiser, and then we released the what is it called?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And what the IPA.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, we re- I was with them for like the first five releases, the coffee stout, which was oh yeah, like Vic Victory Wheat and Victory Wheat Intentional IPA.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Intentionals.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: I told you, man.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: I remember those brands, and that's impressive.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was like between them and Two Roots, and Athletic Untitled Art who just closed up, which is sad.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, those are my in my opinion, those are the best NA beers in the market.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Two Roots was amazing, and that that went away as well.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: They were cool to see also because they had like all the different like NA, I think CBD, THC, like they had all the different kind of categories long ago.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I I helped launch Well Being.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: The owner started making decisions that I just couldn't see eye to eye on and realized they had to leave about a year in, which is fine.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody has their own path.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was a marketing guy that started a craft beer company and just right at the right time.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well being could have been a billion-dollar brand, like a man like Athletic.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, well-being as a name was just hinge.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: And not only that, you're you're I'm gonna say it because I I'm looking, I'm looking in my head right now, and I'm remembering the change, and I'm seeing you exactly you when you changed the branding, you gave, I'm gonna just say it because it was I was the consumer.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: You made NA beer and NA, that whole NA thing cool because you gave it the craft beer edge that no other NA beers were doing.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to disparage Red Bridge and the other ones that were out there, but it was like it was traditional beer marketing for for and it it was if I called it recliner marketing, like as opposed to like hiking and and backpacking and like being on the edge of something and and being edgy.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I I want to compliment you all, you guys, all on that, and you obviously on that, because if I'm remembering correctly, I see a little a little uh likeness of it into the the mighty kind as well.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that's your artistic style, yeah.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is my a graphic design part.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Of 23 years.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you're really jogging the dust off of my brand, my brand memory right now.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're best friends, and his design is behind all of my businesses.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the bar for 27 years has he's been the designer behind it for 23 of those 27 years.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: We met in the dive bar because he was in a creative block and he lived in the neighborhood and he walked in, and I was standing at the bar doing my whole, you're the only one in here, so you're gonna listen to what I have going on.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he sat there quiet, listened to everything I said about this new company I was starting called Loyal Family in 2003, which was really a birth of a production company out of the dive bar.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing booking for bands all over town, all over the Midwest.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was booking concert tours that would go to 20 cities.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I started this business, by the way.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was booking brand bands in the mid-Atlantic in 08.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: And mine was 99, started in 99 when I was 21.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: I lived above the bar and I've had bands sleeping in my house five nights a week.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: We I I was book I used to be like booking hotels and stuff like that.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then eventually it got to the point where I was like, you know what?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's cheaper for me to just rent a cabin right by the highway and then just bring, let all of them party there and just do whatever.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I did.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: I had a cabin on the side of the highway, which was the throwpoint of all the booking on the in the eight on 81 in the Mid Atlantic and between PA and Maryland.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like every time I book them, I would just send them the code and everything like that.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then every once in a while I would like be like, hey, can I guess can I come by?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you what was the coolest part about it.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I just you just I don't get to talk about the the music side of how this all started because that was really that was my joy was live music and stuff in the beginning.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was the collaborations that occurred inside the cabin.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'd have sometimes one or two bands that would be staying in the cabin at the same time.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden I'd get a text or a call and be like, dude, you gotta come over.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I got two little kids at the time that are babies.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And like my wife at the time, she was like, she would be like, What are you doing?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be like, I gotta go to the cabin.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden it'd be like this jam session, and everybody'd be partying and all kinds of stuff.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I I miss that part.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: I I it's not that I long for it, but I miss those moments of spontaneity and creativity for sure.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's super cool.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we actually I'm I'm currently in the house next door to the dive bar.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: I lived above the bar for 10 years, and I had a child in 2009, and I needed a house without a bar in the basement.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the 82-year-old guy that lived in this house here died, and he had been in this house for 82 years.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: His parents came from Italy, and so this and this whole neighborhood is Italian.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: So he literally knew everything about the neighborhood, downloaded it into my brain over frozen pizzas and afternoons at the bar when nobody else was in there, and just books worth of information about the neighborhood, the bar, the house, the everything.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and now I live in the bar next door, and my mighty kind office is on the other side of the bar.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I've just those three doors in a row is is bar or is house, bar, and mighty kind office.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome, man.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and I've had musicians staying here for for many years.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, five nights a week.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Over four over five thousand concerts that I've produced at three three or four different venues around town.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing, man.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: I could talk all day on this music side too, so we can have a side.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say you got you saw you got me jossed up.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's been uh a couple a couple of thoughts in my head, which may happen in in a couple months, is uh is to do a podcast interviewing musicians and stuff like that.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's an area of podcasting that I don't think is uh has been accelerated enough is like not talking as much about the music, but talk about the story and the stories involved and all that.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've uh I I haven't been able to pull myself away from booking five nights a week at the bar, even though I've had this other company and I now have like 30 employees, and you know, we'll do over, you know, we'll we'll do over a couple million this year in sales, and we're uh we're growing and and I'm still doing 15 hours a week at the dive bars, you know, running sound a few nights a week for the bands.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And but it's passion.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it's so fulfilling, and it's right next door.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I could never do it if I had to drive to it.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: So pretty exactly.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's the thing is like having young kids and everything like that, it's awesome that you have the proximity uh where you can do that.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure on the flip side, I'm sure it's hard to to balance life with you having that.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: That proximity has its ups and downs, I'm sure.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: I I it's hard to call off when they know you're next door.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: I they just like I'll you know, the the door will ring, the knock over there, or I'll get a little notification, and then 30 seconds later my di my door knocks at my house.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta get some blinds over there so you can just draw them and then people know the bus the office is closed for a couple hours.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have the I have the camera at the office so I can look at who's over there and be like, okay, or like tell them to come next door, or I'll be right there, that kind of thing.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a good way to it's a good way to hide from the sales reps when they come in too.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and I mean I on the music thing too, I I often tell people like one of my biggest motivations for this is so that I could stay in this industry of live music and events and bars and on-premise and restaurants and mute, you know, that for me is br just bringing people together and kind of seeing over time that alcohol was such a major player in that that it would literally deter people from getting together because either they don't drink or they don't want to drink at that time.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's like, oh, well, we can't go socialize because we're not in the mood to drink, and just all of that stuff.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can talk for a whole podcast on taking the word drinking back from alcohol and just owning it as a as a civilization.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's like when you think of drinking, you should immediately drink think of water and then think of anything else.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: But water should come first.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's no reason our world should be like, hey, are you drinking tonight?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you say no, somebody should be like, Are you dehydrated?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Should you you what do you mean you haven't had a drink in a week?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like you you've gotta have water, dude.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like you gotta stay alive.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's I'm joked about that bringing that word back for a long time, but it's it's a real thing.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like You're right, because if you look at if you look historically, it doesn't matter if it's it's it's like psychoactive or it's intoxicating, or if it's just water or a local beverage.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Go all the way back to living nomadically in teepees.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's the first thing.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Can I get you a drink?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Can I get you this?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Can I get you?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's like sharing a drink, sharing a bowl, sharing a whatever it is.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's that's I appreciate so much of what you just said because that was also what took me so long in the sobriety because I didn't know myself without that mechanism.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was like, how do I be the social curious person that I am without that bridge and that crutch?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that you nailed it.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was it, because that the the societal norm is not that.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's to come together has to be has to be an alteration of your brain in order to commune with people, you know?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, one of the coolest things, honestly, in this whole NA movement of mindful drinking and all of the things is just the bartender saying, when you say, Hey, can I get, you know, what do you have for IPAs?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you and the bartender says, Do you want alcohol or not?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like mind blowing.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like that per like that whole moment of wait, what?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have an NA IPA?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is it good?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, kind of like you just literally have the chance.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, of course there's gonna be plenty of people that are, you know, eight out of ten probably are gonna be like, no, of course alcohol.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: But those other two are gonna be like, actually, you know, I maybe I what what kind of IPA do you have?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'll maybe I'll try it.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: And like it like has that moment to flip somebody right on the spot.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I've seen it happen in our own bar where they're like, you know, do you want a seltzer?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, you want THC or alcohol?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, oh good question.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking alcohol, but you know, maybe I should try one of those.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not even really wanting alcohol, I just wanted a drink.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like you get into this conversation just and we're at a little dive bar, so it's like you kind of expect people to be knowing what they want when they come in or in their the regular gets their thing, but we've seen over time, like I have a funny story about a construction worker that comes in and gets crown and cokes after work, and like this was five years ago when I first started having like CBD oil on the back of the bar, like to put into drinks, and it was oil and water, it wasn't even mixing, and you know, like seems old now.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: But putting those tincture, putting that C BD tincture into a crown and coke, the guy came back the next day and was like, Holy shit, man! Like that, I haven't felt that good in a long time.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, and and I I bet it was two weeks later where he was not he started putting CBD drops in every one of his crown and cokes.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like every time he just like upcharged me a few bucks.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: That was so good.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I was kind of like, well, you know, you're mixing with alcohol and a sugary soda.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm not really sure it's getting what it should, you know.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, you know, those are doing their thing, and so is the CBD.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and it was a good dose, probably 50 or 100 milligrams.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was a lot of C BD, you know, for comparatively to a lot of products.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And within a couple of weeks, he was coming in and getting just C BD drinks and like not even getting the alcohol.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he'd still drink sometimes, but there was he was like, No, no, I'll just CBD's good.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Give me just give me a club soda and put that C BD in it.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Zebra drinking with you.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: We just flipped a guy that never had tried C B D ever, was you know, kind of not really open to all the stuff Josh is talking about behind the bar all the time, you know, and then he's like, ah, whatever.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa, you know, and that's C BD.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's not even THC.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's something that the majority of blue-collar construction workers, just a stereotype, are are not into C BD.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: They don't think that's gonna help.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: And even like my dad, it took a year of listening to people come in the bar and swear that it changed their lives for him to be like, Well, you know, I tried some CBD before bed last night, and you know, I fell right asleep, actually.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it was pretty great.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, and then so then a few days later, I'm like, So dad, you know, how have you been sleeping?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, you know, not bad.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and I was like, So did you you you still taking the C BD each night?
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, No, I just took it that one night.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't want to get addicted to it or anything.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and it's like he's having to flip his brain and and be like, okay, this is relieving me and doing good for my body.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: I can take it every night and it's not bad.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you you're so our that generation above us, the boomers, are so used to like not wanting to get stuck on anything.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta take it and get off of it instead of like, well, it's not numbing, it's actually relieving.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that means you can keep taking it.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a because then when you stop, you got your joint pain and everything kicks back in.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he's one of those that now he'll drink CBDs, and if he stops for a day or two, he's like, I feel pain that I wasn't feeling before.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: I would have never known that it was the CBD taking it away, but once I stop those drinks, it's real noticeable that I didn't have a couple that day.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's the that's the joy of what we're trying to do right now with getting everybody to normalize this.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Is uh I was just looking this morning, and I'm gonna I'm gonna line down here in a second, paying attention to time for you for picking up your son.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: With the regulate don't ruin NC, we have the petition part for North Carolina, but we also have a tell your story submission.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: And this week we just got 10 submissions in, unprovoked or anything like that.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I was brought to tears last night when I was reading the submissions because I think that's something that we're telling our story, like a save my business.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think another story that's not out there is the consumer's perspective of exactly what we're saying is how this affects them and how it affects every citizen in the United States.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I know we're at the tail end of this, so I don't want to open up that can of worms because I could talk for hours about how this is gonna change society, and not in some utopian way, but in a real practical way.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: But real quick, as we kind of wind down here, I'm definitely gonna have you back on uh because I wanna I want to talk to you about a bunch of other things.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but for today's episode, real quick as we're winding down, give remind everybody the brand, social handles, website, everything where to access you, and then um any states or anything like that where you guys are on the shelves and stuff.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the brand is Mighty Kind.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Our website is bemightykind.com.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Little call to action.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we are we do deliver straight to your doorstep in most states, Colorado, California, etc.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's a few that don't want us to right now.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: We are in we are on shelves in 28 states.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we have a store locator on our website that can help find the the nearest spot to you.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Our you know, Instagram is pretty active if you want to check out the brand.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's be mighty kind also.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, we're you know, we're a family business.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: My sister's my partner.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: My mom and my other sister are online fulfillment.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we're you know, we have uh about 10 full-time employees now, and it's a big family, and I run the dive bar with my dad.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, and and uh a fun little just statistic on that when we talked about the bar, but over 25% of our sales are non-alcohol right now at the oldest dive bar in the city.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the that was my last question.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna after you did that, was gonna say if this all ends, what percentage of your revenue is this, aside from obviously the brand, but like from a retailer's perspective, that number tracks.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: I just posted an episode from uh in North Carolina.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: 35% of A B bottle shop in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, 35% of that bar is non-alcoholic MTHC infused products.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's pretty what it's pretty amazing to see that.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: As for what's going to happen with us, we launched as a mindful drinking company with CBD in the very beginning.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: That was our first two SKUs.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have launched, we've released CBG seltzer since then.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have a variety of THC as well.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: We just made our first lion's main sparkling water today.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're we're prepared for whatever pivots are required to remain in this space as a functional beverage.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going anywhere.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're not just a THC beverage that's kind of doom and gloom if it goes down.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: We've got plenty of other revenue streams and, you know, just the non-THC products for us has still been over 30% of our sales as mighty kind.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we'll pump some more focus into that, put out some functional mushroom drinks.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: We've got ashwagandha and magnesium and some things on the way.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: So some different functional mushrooms as well.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I yeah, we're gonna be here for everybody, and and uh we look forward to seeing what what happens.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: I I wouldn't be in this business uh if I didn't thrive in chaos and I wasn't interested in waking up to a surprise every morning.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it it keeps me excited and and stimulated, and uh it's really tough to get bored in this space.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's the best way to say it, man, is uh accept the challenge and and figure out the figure out the angle for it.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: So perfect, man.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, hey, I want to thank you for coming on.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's no script, there's no agenda, there's no questions, and I want to remind the audience.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: Josh and I met very briefly and just handshakes and just exchanging a name real quick.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't even really have a conversation as I was kind of in the walking through.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanna I want to thank you for coming on and trusting me with your story, but also trusting just to share your story without that prep.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: We have a lot of people that that don't want to come on because there's no meetings in advance, there's no questions, and they they don't want any gotcha moments.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not what I am.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: I've been in this business for 20-some years.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: I've been still telling stories for longer than that.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I've I I people listen to my stories because I don't bullshit people.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I think if anybody reads what we do here and reads what we put out, we're very real and we're very honest, even if that reality is uncomfortable.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate what you're talking about.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: And for the tail end of how I close things out, this is one of the first times where the brand name actually correlates to my closing.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, as I want to tell everybody, and the challenge to everybody is five minutes of kindness every week to a stranger.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is the ready to drink podcast.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's about business, it's about beverages, but more importantly, it's about everything we just talked about, which is the human connection.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of people out in this world that are scared, that are lonely, and they don't have that going on.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: So five minutes a week of kindness to a stranger, when you're walking down the street, look at everybody, put your phone in your pocket, look at everybody when they're coming by.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be creepy and stare at anybody, feel the vibe, feel read their body language, and know how long you can engage or anything like that.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: When you're at the gas station, fill up your cup of coffee, don't just reach over and grab the lid from the guy next to you, the girl next to you.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Ask them how they're doing and care.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: And again, don't be weird, just feel the moving.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: And five minutes a week, 20 minutes a month, guaranteed every single person, if you do that, you're gonna change somebody's perception about how they're living on this earth every single month.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: Out of the thousands of people that follow this type of thing that we're doing, I hope that we can put thousands of good intentions out on a weekly basis because of this show.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Josh, thank you for what you're doing.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for also having the balanced approach that you have.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: You're not scared, you're not fearful of things.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know that you're smart, you know you have a good foundation to what you're doing, and you have the experience to pivot in whatever comes.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a doom and gloom guy, but I'm also a pull up your britches and figure out the pivot.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm happy to hear what you have going on, man.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: And uh much respect to you, and I'll be I'll be following up with you to get you back on another show in a couple months or so.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like we only, you know, got to the tip of the iceberg.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: We did, we definitely did, man.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: We definitely did.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much more I want to talk to you about.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll definitely, we're gonna have these conversations a lot more, I'm sure.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds great.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate your time very much.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, buddy.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: You have a good rest of your day, Josh.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: You take care, man.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: You too, Nate.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Bye bye.