Barbell Shrugged - How I Built This with Nick Bare - Real Chalk #112

Episode Date: January 28, 2020

Starting his career as a Platoon Leader and a First Lieutenant in the United States Army, Nick Bare has now become a YouTube celebrity and a CEO of a massive nutrition company conveniently called “Bare Performance Nutrition.” Currently sitting at about $6M a year in revenue with an eye on $100M (as he says in this podcast) is a lofty goal, but he’s proving year by year that it’s more than possible. This is his story...   To all my fans, remember, this is my last podcast on the Shrugged Collective. To hear me in the future please subscribe to the “Real Chalk” podcast on your perspective networks.    Hope to continue our journeys together on the new channel.    ------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc-ep112 ------------------------------------------------------------------ ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/ barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Ladies and gents, this is episode 112 of the Real Chalk podcast on the Shrug Collective. It is also my last podcast on the Shrug Collective before I go back to my OG channel, just the regular Real Chalk channel. So next time you guys want to listen to a Real Chalk podcast, you guys want to hear me, you want to hear all the things that I have going on, you guys will go to your prospective podcast network and you'll just look up Real Chalk and that's where you'll find me. And you're going to find some old shows that I have on there as well that people really, really loved back in the day before I switched over and became part of the collective. So

excited to get back to the old channel. It'll be a little bit easier for you guys to find my shows and so on and so forth. So exciting things happening. But anyway, getting into this episode here, this has been a long-awaited episode for you guys. Mr. Nick Bear, he owns Bear Nutrition. He's out in Austin, Texas. I went out and hung out with him a couple weeks ago. Super, super cool guy. Has a really rad story. Started out in the Army, was an officer.

Got into ranger school. Started doing some stuff on YouTube. It started to blow up a little bit. Started his own supplement brand. Started to blow up a little bit. And now the dude is, you know, sitting pretty high. He's got this really dope business. He has a really awesome community of people that work underneath him. He's got a whole gym in the, in the warehouse. The warehouse is massive and he's growing out of it like every couple of years getting, you know,

more and more orders. And it's just really cool. I think the whole reason we listened to podcasts is to literally listen to stories like this one. So I was really excited to be there. I was really excited to record it. I was really excited to hang out with them. It's just exciting times. You know what I mean? I can't stress that enough. So I'm really excited for you guys to listen to it. Jesus, I said excited again. Well, before we get into that, I want to talk about a few things I have going on. The Super Set 100 book that I made is actually so much cooler than I even thought it was. I started getting all these testimonials from people recently, all on their own account, just messaging me on Instagram, sending me emails and saying,

oh my God, like I'm getting such crazy results. I love this program so much. Is there any way that I can do it for months and months on end? And actually there is. I wrote a little asterisk in there about how you can do that. But basically I took some old school German volume training and I changed the tempos a little bit. And then every 10 days, I changed the tempo again. And I also changed the rest break. And then it all starts off with a two minute rest in the beginning, four second eccentric movement. So like, think about that as like going down on a back squat or down on a bicep curl, the down motion of the movement. It's a four second count. And that's really the only part that really matters for the program. And then that starts to dwindle down as

the 10 day periods go by. And then also there's an original two minute rest break, which by the end of the 40 days ends with a no rest break. So you have all 100 reps. Because remember, German volume is 10 sets of 10. You have all 100 reps basically for time on the last 10 days. So it's really, really cool. I'm really excited about it. People have been digging it. So you guys can check that out on jimryan.com. And for the first time ever, my next challenge, which is probably the biggest thing I have at the moment between the carb cycle and the keto cycle. And a lot of people always ask to bring back the carb cycle challenge. So this next one, you guys are just going to basically get to pick which one you want to do. So I'm going to have just all one challenge and you guys will pick the route, whether it's,

you know, you want to eat more carbs, you want to eat more fat, and then we'll go into the challenge that way. So I'm really excited to see how that works. I think we'll get a lot more people signed up, maybe give away some bigger prizes, you know, so really, really excited for that. Again, all the excitement is just all up in the air. So while the excitement is high, I want to get into the episode here. I hope you guys love it. And remember, if you guys want to listen to myself and the Real Chalk podcast, to go follow me on Real Chalk, on SoundCloud, on iTunes, on all your prospective networks, and I will see you on the other side, guys. Enjoy this episode.

What's up, Chalk Nation? I'm out here in Austin, Texas, still sitting down with Nick Baer. A lot of you guys actually have asked me to have Nick on the podcast, so we are here. We're actually in the warehouse. He showed me around. Insane gym, insane vibe. It's really, really cool, and this room is actually really cool. So first off, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for actually having me here. Sorry.

Absolutely. Welcome to HQ. We actually just redid this room. So we painted all the walls. So when I get into a new space, I'm like a very creative person. So I try to imagine what I wanted to be like. So I came in here day one, moved in here, built a shiplap wall in the wall behind us and then didn't like it. So rip that down, painted all the walls black. And it's like overnight. Like I'll think of something when I get into work at like 7am. Yep. And then by the night, like the whole room's changed. The people in the warehouse, the employees, the team here drives them insane because like

my idea is like they kick off and I have to act on them right away yeah I'm kind of the same I have uh I have notebooks in all of my bags in my car next to my bed and they're all handwritten ones and I just have like notes like everywhere on massive note person yeah I'm obsessed and every time I stay in a hotel like the one I'm in right now I took the notepad so they're all like hotel notepads oh i like i have white whiteboards like even in this room we have whiteboards my office whiteboards i have sticky notes everywhere i have notebooks everywhere but what drives me insane is i never put them in the same place so in the back of my head i'm like all right i have to always collaborate these notes collaborate

like collect them and put them together yeah i always have running to do things and then like creative board notes like video to do notes. Like my mind's always wondering, especially during training, like during running sessions. No, yeah. You can talk about, dude, my mind goes like, it's all over the place. How many notes do you have right now?

If you went on your phone, on your iPhone and clicked on notes, how many do you have? Like 20. 20? I have 120. Of like to do things? They're just like all random thoughts and like random things

and like workouts that I've made. And just, it's just, it just adds up. I guess mine's not that bad then. But I go in and I look at them and I'm always like, when I'm on flights, I'll be like, all right, let's consolidate this thing. And I'm like, no, I need every single one of these. If it was important at one point, it's probably important. Thankfully my house and my life is not like that. It's just my notes. So everything else is usually pretty, pretty clean. So your background is Army? Correct. Correct. So what exactly did you do in the Army? So I was an infantry officer in the Army. Oh, you started as an officer. Yeah. So I went to college in Western Pennsylvania. I'm

from Pennsylvania at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania on a ROTC scholarship. So I won the scholarship my junior year of high school, went to college to study nutrition. So I knew when I was going to graduate college, I was going into the Army. I knew that instantly. Yeah, in the ROTC, for sure, you know that. Yep. And where did you grow up? Grew up Central Pennsylvania. Oh, yeah.

Hershey, where they make the chocolate. Yep, I know exactly. I'm from New Jersey, so. Well, I grew up in a small town called Palmyra next to Hershey, but I tell everyone Hershey because Palmyra, there's nothing notorious about Palmyra. I remember being a kid and going there and seeing how the chocolate was made and thinking it was amazing. Well, you could drive.

You can't do this anymore. You could drive through Chocolate Avenue and you could smell chocolate. Oh, that's cool. It's pretty awesome. I haven't been there in a very long time. I myself tried very hard. Well, I got accepted. I just didn't wind up doing it, but I was going to go to Annapolis, the Naval Academy, for a while.

Where I grew up, my neighbor was the brigadier general of West Point. And he wrote me recommendation letters and stuff to get in. When I was a little kid, all I ever wanted to do was be in military school. I grew up just wanting structure in my life. I just thought it was the coolest thing. You're probably pretty happy you didn't though. I mean, I'm just happy. I get to do what I get to do every day.

Military schools, like I never really had like the desire to go to like West Point or anything because I wanted a college experience myself. Everybody I know who's done it is like, I wish I didn't do it. Yeah, because like ROTC was a perfect balance because you get that taste in military, you get your classes, you get the college experience. Because you know, when you graduate, it's like full force into the military. You still get to go home with ROTC, whereas West Point, you go to like your barracks. Yeah, you get like that break. And I'm glad I did the route I did. Because I know a lot of my friends that went to military academies, they were like, man, it was a good experience.

But at the end of the day, when you go into the real army, it doesn't matter if you're a West Point, it doesn't matter if you're a ROTC, it doesn't matter if you're green to gold or something. You're just another second lieutenant. Interesting. I thought that you'd have a little bit of hierarchy. Nope. The West Pointers tried to have bragging rights, but then the ROTC guys would have bragging. Everyone was like, oh, ROTC's better. Oh, West Point's better. So it was kind of like back and forth. But no, when you go in, you're the same. So at what point did you go in to get your Ranger tab?

So I graduated college, went to Fort Benning, Georgia. Fort Benning, Georgia, I did the infantry officer basic course first. And I finished that in like January of 2014. And then in February of 2014, I started ranger school. And it took me four and a half months to finish ranger school. And you started at what weight and ended at what weight? Because I know this is always a big one. Yeah, I started like 220.

And I think the lowest i got when i was there was like 170 but i graduated at like probably i think 180 okay um but the course itself is a 61 day course i was there for 141 days so i had like the extra opportunity to lose more weight yeah yeah i mean i've had a lot of special forces guys on the show and like they that's like's always the notorious biggest weight loss of anything that anyone's ever done. They're always like, Ranger School totally crushed me. Oh, I mean, it's sleep deprivation, it's food deprivation.

My mind never has thought about food in such a way as it did when I was in Ranger School. And that school itself was such a monumental part of my life because it completely shocked me and taught me, well, this is what sucking feels like. This is what hard feels like. Do you still think about it all the time? I use it as a reference point.

So I'm like, whatever sucks right now doesn't suck as much as it did then. And what's interesting about that school is there's no distractions. You're in it. You're there. You're not talking to the outside world. You don't know what's going on in the news. For four and a half months, your mind is just focused on graduating this course. Nothing else mattered.

And you're just so focused on that one thing where there were no distractions. You can't really find that anymore like you think about today like how many times you pick up your phone and look at it think of going four and a half months without looking at like or even thinking about a phone and how focused you can be i look back at all the time be like man like if i could just pull that focus like i did there on one thing that's powerful i've been wanting to climb Mount Kilimanjaro so bad. And I'm like, I don't think I have nine days to not look at my phone. You'll miss like a lifetime of things. It's just hard right now with the way my life goes. But how did you get to the point

where, okay, the military was over. And then a lot of times what happens is people, they're kind of like in a limbo phase, especially after the military, like what they want to do. A lot of times they want to either go contract. They want to be police officers, firemen. Obviously you chose a different route. You own a big supplement company now. How did that start? Like what was the first phase of that? So were you like a trainer or something first? No. So I actually started the supplement company and this is backwards. So a lot of people nowadays they'll start social media and it's like, Oh, how do I monetize this? Well, I must've been an idiot because I started my supplement company in 2012 when I was still in college. Didn't start social media until 2014. So I started my company in 2012 and quickly realized this is going to be harder than I thought. So. So in 2012, were you still

in the military or no? I was in college. I wasn't active duty yet. Okay. So what happened was the military-associated bank called USAA gives you an option to take out this loan before you commission the Army. It's called a pre-commissioning loan. It's up to $25,000. Most people took out this loan and bought a new car, got an engagement ring, went on vacation, paid off some other loans stuff like that I was like well I'm gonna take out this loan and start a company best part about this loan is you get the money you don't pay it back for 18 months so your first payment isn't due until 18 months after you get the money so I built this plan I was like I'm gonna apply for this loan get $20,000 out buy inventory with it and then make a million dollars so like i i find the manufacturers i

put these products together which is like a pre-workout to start all on your own you didn't have any anybody helping you no one i couldn't afford it i couldn't pay anyone so like some of my buddies in college would like take photos for free um someone helped me diet for a photo shoot for the business like soup i look back i'm like oh my god super amateur launched the business a friend from college did the website for me launched the site and like no sales like year one we did twenty thousand dollars in revenue because of fifty percent off discount codes i did and just being like yeah dude can you like buy some pre-work i have bills coming up yeah um and that's how it started you know so the first three years were really hard because i launched this company so you're not even in the military yet

like your life is pretty rough like you have a it was wild it was wild i mean you have school work to do you have you know your rotc stuff probably there's a lot going yeah and i started it like the year before graduating and my plan was was, well, I'm going to get this company off the ground before graduating. So I started making some side money. Well, it didn't work out that way. I was just like losing money. So like year one was $20,000 in revenue. Year two, I spent at Fort Benning.

So I was in and out of the field. I was in ranger school. I was gone all the time. But we still made like another $20,000 in revenue. Were you selling to a lot of like your your people like oh yeah like anyone that was in the school with i was like yeah dude i got this pre-workout like yeah try it out did they all think it was cool though i mean i probably would love to buy from somebody i knew they thought it was cool it's like yeah this guy's

got a supplement company yeah call it a call to come back i got a product like yeah um but i wasn't shipping anything out at that point anymore because where originally I was shipping out all my own products in my college apartment well when I went to Fort Benning Georgia my brother and dad had to take over all fulfillment at the house in Pennsylvania my parents house it was like two orders a week it wasn't much yeah and then after I spent a year in Fort Benning going through schooling and whatnot, got to Fort Hood, Texas for my first duty assignment. And my unit at the time was in Germany. So I was like, I have all this free time. What am I going to do?

So I started a YouTube channel. I was like, I'm going to start this YouTube channel. I'm going to document my training, nutrition, whatnot. I was never like, hey, I'm going to try to sell more products. I was like, I'm going to build this community online. So I started building this online community. And over the first year, I think I gained like maybe 10 to 20,000 subscribers through like... Which back then is really good.

Yeah. It was like 10,000 calorie eating challenges, like recipes, if it fits your macros type stuff. I was just trying to put out as much content as possible so how many videos were you doing like a week like two or three okay so i would like you're editing them yourself and everything yeah or not maybe lack of editing it was like very yeah put together but my schedule would be like you know i wake up at 5 a.m and i go into training for the military so we have pt from like 6.30 to 7.30 or 8. I'd do PT and then eat breakfast, and then I'd have my full day at work from like 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. If we weren't in the field, it's just a normal training day.

And then as soon as I got home from work, I'd pick up my camera, go to the gym, film videos, film recipes, stuff like that in my apartment here in Texas. Just trying to build this community online. And that's what really started kicking off sales. So as my social media platform started growing, the business slowly started growing as well. And that was the beginning of Bayer Performance Nutrition's like almost first successful year and it basically was on accident I mean well not like on accident but you didn't expect that that was going to no I mean I did I did YouTube for one because like I got to Texas I had no friends I had nothing to do I didn't know anyone um and I was like well let me build this community online because I know it might help me grow my business. It might help me with something in the future.

But the intent in the beginning wasn't let's attract these people to monetize and sell them. Let's just build this community and see where it goes. Yeah, that's really cool. And now, I mean, now it's just like if you don't have social media, you're going to have a really hard time getting your business going regardless. Oh, absolutely. Even Pepsi and Coca-Cola and stuff, even though they don't necessarily need it, they do see the value in it and they open their own Instagrams and whatever else they have right now. It's these connection points you have with people.

So I think on social media, social media goes through trends, obviously, from where it first started to where it was and where it is today. From MySpace to Facebook to Instagram. But I think- To hopefully not TikTok. Oh, I'm not, I haven't hopped on the board yet. I've tried a little bit. It's just awful.

I hate it. I think what's like cool about social media though, and where it's powerful is like you have these connection points to share a story with people that's authentic. You know, where like you have- Yeah. You would hope. There's a lot of people that I meet that i'm just like oh my god this sucks like this is so bad but then yeah you definitely meet like more genuine people can like people will identify like they they can you can only do that for so long until they're like okay you're you're a fake you disappear

or they'll still follow the fake person because they're just they're entertained by it right which i've noticed a lot like i i can't express enough like how the amount of followers that people have is not is irrelevant is not as relevant as people think so yeah i mean the most successful people i know actually my last podcast with alex he's like by far probably the most successful person I know. He has 12,000 followers. I think people confuse social media with business sometimes. They can coincide. You can be a successful entrepreneur and successful on social media, but it doesn't have to be the other. I remember a comment years ago where my business started growing.

I made a comment on a video or something like, hey we're growing we're doing this and one of the comments was he's lying his YouTube views haven't changed his subscribers haven't changed but he's saying he's making more money it's like yeah because I'm building a business I'm not building a social media platform like and I think that's where people get confused it's they can be together but they don't have to I hate that somebody even has to go out of the way to say something like that that's like the comments that people have gone out of the way to say i i look at every day and i'm just like i feel bad man yeah it's really bad yeah i made like such a great youtube recently about running and it literally because i only have 20 000

subscribers but it got like 600 000 views the video and like every single comment is like negative like well i'll say half of them are negative half of them are positive and like i'm literally getting instruction from like one of the best running coaches in the world and he's telling me all these cool things and i'm like excited the whole video like and trying to implement everything he's saying and then like all these people are just literally making up stuff they're like he's not even listening this guy shouldn't even be here like it should be somebody else like bubble like all this like Bad stuff. I'm like I'm literally doing exactly what this guy is telling me to do I have no idea why you guys getting so mad over nothing. I found there's different communities on social media

Instagram typically is people that actually want to follow you and if they engage with you Well, there's repercussions because they can go someone can be like oh let me click on this person's profile and see what they're all about yep youtube you can hide behind an alias all you want and a lot of people use youtube to like just go hate and shit on other people so it's two different communities because i know like i can put one thing on instagram and it receives feedback one way put the same thing on youtube and it receives feedback one way. Put the same thing on YouTube, and it's like troll city. I haven't really been too much in the YouTube world to figure all that stuff out yet. Oh, the trolls live on YouTube, I'll tell you that much. Okay.

Yeah. All right. So now as the supplement brand starts to grow, when did it get to the point where you're like, wow, this is what I'm going to start doing, this is it? So my unit got sent to South Korea for a nine-month rotation. And at that point, we were doing $2,000 to $3,000 a month in revenue. So like $25,000 to $30,000 a year in revenue.

And this is like a pivotal point of the business. Because I got there and I said, okay, well, I realized that I had a lot of free time in South Korea. Because imagine like working your regular job but being in a different country. And you're stuck to a military installation. So it's like we had all this free time where other people were like going out and either partying in like Korea, Seoul. They were either like playing video games, watching TVs, watching movies, like just not really doing anything like productive. So I saw this as a massive opportunity.

I was like, well, I'm going to do is I'm going to use all this free time to build this business. And it was like an investment phase in myself. So like my schedule in South Korea would be I would wake up at 4 a.m., I would talk to all my manufacturers and people I had to deal with with business back in the States because of the 14-hour time difference from like 4 to 6 a.m. And then at 6 a.m., I'd go to my morning meeting with my military leadership, 6.30, military PT, from 6.30 to 7.30. And then as soon as PT was over and everyone else was going to breakfast and showering and stuff, I'd go back to my room, I'd grab my camera equipment, go to the gym and film

because it's the only time I could film on the military post. Film, go to work at nine, work in my regular job, nine to 5 p.m., nine to six. If we weren't in the field, come back, keep filming YouTube videos, listen to podcasts, read books,

search how to edit videos, search how to build a business. And my goal when I got to South Korea was I'm going to build my business from $2,000, $3,000 a month to $10,000 a month in nine months. Well, I did that in like 90 days. Oh, wow. So within 90 days, we're doing $10,000 a month in revenue. So this is just because you were doing this research on how to? I was just like all in. I was spending all my, I was sleeping like two hours a night. Oh, okay. But all my free time was like creating YouTube videos, like researching.

So when I got to South Korea, my like YouTube channel was like 30,000 subscribers. And I like to think that I'm like one of the first people that was doing military vlogs. Like one of the first people like documenting this stuff. So it was this one day where I was like, I don't have a video to film. So I'm just going to film my day and call it a day in the life of an infantry platoon leader. So I filmed this video. I took the camera to PT. I interviewed my platoon sergeants and my NCOs and edited this video, posted it.

And the next day we went to the field for like 30 days. We were in training for 30 days. So I had like little access to my phone, couldn't make any videos. And one day I get back from training in the field when we're gone and I get access to my phone, check my phone and my subscribers are like 50,000. Holy crap. I was like, no, there's no way. So I refresh, it's like 55,000.

Refresh like 56,000. Two days later. It's like 55,000. Refresh, like 56,000. Two days later, it's like 80,000. Whoa. I was like, what the fuck is going on? Well, this video that I filmed before we left, apparently it got picked up by a military hate group and shared in a Reddit thread or something. And then it just went viral.

Viral like it had like over a million views but like but it was more because someone was hating on you and you actually benefited yeah so it's even this video only had like a million views at the time i gained like 50 000 subscribers in 30 days from it that's insane so like i had all these new people that found my content new and old content and like they were just like loving the story they were loving seeing that like i'm documenting the process in south korea and like i'm working on this business on the side and just like working so much and so hard they started supporting the business which in turn built the business um and that was like where we

actually started seeing some growth but like that was growth. But Korea was such a pivotal point because you've got to imagine nine months of just nonstop work. Military was priority, obviously. But in all my free time, it was just spent building the brand. And I say this in my book that I recently wrote. There are a lot of people, probably 90% of the world, that are smarter than me. And they could have done this faster and more efficient. But I took like the hard road with it. And like I didn't have all the knowledge.

I didn't have like mentors. I didn't have people that were teaching me this stuff. I had to learn all of this myself. And even though it took longer to grow it was like all organic growth but like those nine months in south korea were massive for me that's fucking like the coolest story i've ever heard i love how that just all naturally kind of happened how many subscribers you have now uh it's like 330 000 yeah that's really really good i know like if you have anything over 100 000 is super super, super good. Yeah, so I hit 100,000 right before we left South Korea. So do you get any sort of plaque or anything for having 100,000 or anything like that?

Yeah, I didn't get my 100,000 plaque, though. There is an actual plaque. There is, but I got it two years after I actually got it. Yeah, something like that. I always see the million follower one. People are like, they have this giant gold thing. Yep. I'm hoping to be there one day.

Yeah. Yeah. So did anything happen in particular that got you from like 100,000 to 200,000 or just like all slow organic growth? It was after... Was there another like 50,000 follower moment? No, there never was. But it was like after that moment, I realized, okay, well, this is what people want to see but before that i was like throwing darts or dartboard hoping one would

stick because i didn't really have like a vision necessarily for my content and once i realized like oh people find this military stuff interesting no one else is really doing this well let me keep filming some of this stuff and seeing where it goes and to this day like when people approach me like on the streets or i'm at an event or an expo, like, dude, I've been watching you since your Korea vlogs. So that's where a lot of people found me is like the Korea vlogs because it was so different. I didn't think of it at that point. Like I didn't think this is a great opportunity to do something different. It was like, man, this is going to be hard.

No one's going to want to watch this. But people did. I think when you are genuine and you have this really cool, unique path, that is what people really want to see. And I just think that is really, really cool. I didn't know a whole ton about you. I think the last time I was in Texas, I was like, who do you guys want to have on the podcast?

And you were, like, by far number one when I was in in Austin like maybe a year ago and then I just never had the chance to actually meet up with you right and then when I was coming to Austin this time I was like all right I want to make sure I definitely get him on and then since that time because everyone brought you up so much I was like I don't know who this guy is and I went and followed you and then I think at the time like 80 or 90,000 people on Instagram right and then I remember just being like, oh, this guy's, like I can tell like whatever, I don't know all of it.

I'm actually learning everything right now. But I was like, oh, this guy is pretty cool. He has like a cool little lifestyle and stuff like that. And it is like, you can tell it's more genuine and like it's just so much easier to follow something that seems so real versus like the guy who is like always

like in like the perfect kitchen, like making the perfect meal and like driving the perfect car in the perfect neighborhood. And it's just like nonstop ridiculousness. Well, I think – and that's like I was filming a lot of my videos in my barracks room in South Korea. And it was like – I don't want to say it was a piece of junk. It was a lot nicer than a lot of other people are staying in the military.

Yeah. But like – Especially as an officer, I always seem to get something a little nicer. Yeah, it was a little nicer than a lot of other people are staying in the military. Yeah. But like. Especially as an officer, I would assume you get something a little nicer. Yeah, it was a little nicer. But I like, I remember my back window in my room in South Korea, I'd open it up at night and there'd be wild hogs out there just like fighting. So I'd throw like potatoes at them at night. And then I remember like these massive like spiders and like centipedes would come in

my room and I'd like, they'd be on my floor and stuff. And I just remember like filming and documenting some of this stuff and it wasn't perfect like it wasn't this beautiful thing but people were like this is real this is yeah this is cool so I think what's really helped you know my social media or like my community growth and stuff is like there's a very interesting story that's been built along the way. Yeah, that's really, really cool. So now, how many years forward are we right now from that moment? This is 2016. When I'm leaving South Korea, it's 2016. Okay, so now it's 2020. So we got four more years. And then what are like some of the biggest things and setbacks? Have you had any setbacks since then in the business?

Yeah, plenty. Because those are things that people won't hear. Yeah, so when we first got back from South Korea, my brother ended up moving down to Texas midway through. So he moved the business from Pennsylvania to my house in Texas, which is like 1,100 square feet or something like that. And he moved all of our inventory down, which to describe the size of the company, then it all fit in the back of a U-Haul van, not even a truck, U-Haul van. So he moves it all to my house in Pennsylvania and he's shipping out. 10,000 bucks a month. Is it fits in a U-Haul? It was, I mean, that's crazy. We, we timed it up

so that there wasn't much inventory left. And then the new inventory got dropped off of my house in Texas. So he arrives at Texas, moves into my house. This tractor trailer comes and drops off a pallet of supplements at the house of like a new production order, which like you don't do that. Like a tractor trailer doesn't come drop off pallets

like a residential area. So at that point we're like, okay, we need to start start looking for a warehouse but at the time we couldn't really afford a warehouse i'm still not paying myself at this point so like this is 2000 my first paycheck was 2017 started the business 2012 my brother moves down like i can't pay you but he believed in the vision so he moves down shipping supplements out of our house. And I'm coming back from South Korea. We signed a lease for a warehouse, which was about 6,000 square feet.

And we're like, okay, we're going to build a gym in here. And we're going to use half for gym, half for supplement distribution to grow the supplements out of. So at the time, we had a few pallets of supplements in the warehouse. We built this big warehouse gym, opened up to the public, and just keep filming YouTube content.

So I still had a year left in my military contract at this point. So life was even crazier now. So you just opened it so anyone could just come and work out? It was a public gym, yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Is it like that still now? No, we have a private gym now. So it was a public gym, yeah. Yeah, that's cool. It was a public gym. Is it like that still now? No, we have a private gym now. So it was a public gym, but the thing was, like, life was even crazier because the gym,

the warehouse we had was 45 minutes away from Fort Hood. So I would wake up in the morning, go to PT. I'd drive 45 minutes into work to get to PT. Do PT, sleep in my truck from, like, you know, go to PT. I drive 45 minutes into work to get to PT. Do PT, sleep in my truck from like, you know, 8 to 9. And then go into work, work a full day. After work, 5, 6 p.m., drive 45 minutes back to where the warehouse was. Start working on the warehouse, putting it together, building the gym out, filming content, be asleep by like 2 a.m. and then up at like 4.30 the next

day. This was for a year. And I was like, we were all zombies. It was me, Preston, my brother, then Joe, who still works with us. I went to college with Joe's brother, and that's how we met. And then Joe ended up moving down from Pennsylvania as well. And your brother's here right now, too, right? Yeah, he works.

Yeah. So that whole year was just wild. And opened the gym. And within like three months of the gym being open, we were like, we've got to close it. Because we needed more space for supplements. Because the supplement company was growing. I was thinking that when you said you're going to have half the space be gym and half of it supplements. Like, poor business like you.

But we had to find out ways to pay for this rent and then like keep cash flow and stuff like that and we're like you know we just gotta go all in so we closed the gym down to the public got rid of some of the equipment um moved more inventory in and kept growing the business but like at that point it's like right fast forward a little bit a few months. I get out of the military transition now. We're growing this company. At this point, we might be doing like. Let's say.

Hundred thousand dollars a month in revenue. Seventy five hundred thousand dollars a month in revenue. And cash flow was a massive issue because we were were spending all of it spending all of it on inventory and the way it was working was we didn't have these massive relationships established with our manufacturers at the time we have different manufacturers now but like our manufacturers at the time we were talking to maybe like once a month so like we'd place a production order we put 50 of the money down when we place it, we'd have 12 week lead times. And then when it shipped, we paid off the rest of the inventory.

So like what was, we were growing so fast where we would pay for all this inventory up front, we'd get it in, we'd sell all of it in a week. And then I'd have to place an even larger production order. And wait 12 weeks to get it? Yeah, so all my money's tied up. And there were nights where I remember laying in bed and being like, I'm fucked. Yeah. Like, I'm screwed. Because, like, we were doing well, but, like, the cash flow was such a tough spot.

This reminds me of the book Shoe Dog with Phil Knight. Have you read that? No, I have not. He talks, he literally did all this, this like with his shoes for a little bit. Oh, it was a nightmare. Like the most stressful times, like where I, I would lay in bed at like night tossing and turning, just thinking about like how to pay some bills. And slowly we started digging ourself out where it was like, we started catching up

where we order more inventory. It all be paid off. We weren't selling out right away because we ordered more. And over time, like a year and a half, it wasn't an issue anymore. So this was like 2018. We're like, we're in a good spot now. We're like, we're growing fast. We're handling our cash flow well. We're not selling out right away. And that's when we just started putting systems in place and really focused on building a business, like putting the right hires in place, building out systems and functions and put us in that spot today. How did you learn how to make the system?

Did you read something you read about? Did you ask someone for a little bit of help? No, a lot of it was just like trial and error. Like I've made a lot of mistakes. I've lost tens of thousands of dollars, wasted hours on a lot of stuff. But I was very hardheaded. We're like, I wanted to learn it from my business, not someone else's business.

Obviously, I've read a lot of books, listened to podcasts, and I've used information from other people. But like I knew every business is specific and individual. So like you can take bits and pieces of other people's operations. But when it comes down to it, it's like, how does it fit your situation?

And that's kind of the systems we had to put in place. The military taught me a lot about building out SOP, standard operating procedures and systems. So like having that management leadership background did wonders for, for building a business. How often do you guys do meetings here? Once a week. Once a week once a week okay yeah we just had one this morning i'll say i don't do that many meetings at my at my gym i'm kind of just like pretty relaxed uh-huh but um i that's one thing i definitely wish i did more of was more meetings and then how many people have you had to fire and what was that like uh only two only two people in this whole time only had to to hire two. We are super careful with how we hire and who we hire. Because for me, the part I love about building a business is

building a team. The thing that I'm very careful with is building the right team. So before I hire someone, I will spend so much time, pros and cons, ask them questions about their values, their vision, their mission, how they want to be a part of this team. So I've only had to hire two or fire two people. And it's just because of like they interviewed great. They seemed like the perfect hire. And they came down to it. It was like lazy, making mistakes and not wanting to be a part of a team.

And like the culture and community we've built here is we're a team. We do team dinners twice a week. After work, we're all together. Oh, I like that. That's cool. Team dinners. Yeah, we do a lot of team dinners. We had a team dinner last night.

So I want to work with people, and people work for me, that want to see the business succeed and want to have fun. So like when we work, it's like it's work. It's strict. But like after work's over like 4.30, 5 p.m., we're all in the warehouse gym training. So we're building a family here. But like hiring is that one thing where I am very specific about. I like that.

I've had to fire quite a few people and the people that I've had to fire are always the people that I was like most excited about hiring. That happens, yeah. I was like, man, like they forgot. And then they just let me down a little bit.

They let me down like quite a bit. Like I want to cry. How about they let me down? I heard this phrase. It was hire slow, fire fast. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so accurate. As soon as you know that they have to go, like they're never going to change. You have to let them go

for sure. That's firing stuff too. Because like you, you want people to, to want to be a part of a team. Uh, you want to see them succeed and you want them to change because you know what they need to do to get to where you need them to be. Right. And like, and they want to be there, but there's like this one like daunting trait that is just like holding them back. And you know what they need to do to get to where you need them to be right and like and they want to be there but there's like this one like daunting trait that is just like holding them back and you know what it is but they don't get it and you're just like why don't you just do this and like they just won't and a lot of times I don't think it's it's the the job specific it's like that's just their character yep and like some people you can't you can't change yeah it's a bummer. We're looking for two people right now to hire.

There you go, guys. Yeah. I have so many emails in my inbox right now of people who have sent in resumes. And there are probably like 100 people that have sent in emails. And I've deleted 50 just by looking at their email so far. Yep. Where it's like the subject is job. And email says like, how much are you paying? Yeah.

Okay, dude. Come on. Let me use some free chicken. Don't do that ever again. All right. We're back on. Eventually we got a little cut off. One of the batteries died.

Actually, probably all four of them. All four. So we were talking about getting hired and the hiring process and how basically you just got a bunch of terrible emails. And when it comes to hiring, you're obviously very selective. Yeah, I think it's, for me, the most important part of this business. Like I said, the thing I love most about it and the most important part is building a team. Because, like, having that one weak person on the team or that one negative attitude, it destroys everyone.

It destroys everyone. It's a disease. For sure. And we've had that, and you can just tell the culture isn't right. And it's my job then to fix that culture. I've had that with trainers in my gym where one trainer just thinks that everything sucks,

and it's just his vision of it, and he just keeps telling everybody that it sucks and then i can feel like the whole vibe starting to like deteriorate and i literally just i have to go in and i'm like this is it this person's going and like and i'll tell everybody like hey i'm firing this person today and you're like whoa you sure like it's gonna happen that fast and i'm like absolutely it has to because i can feel it oh yeah and i'm not even in the gym as much as i used to be like i can just walk in and feel it i'm like nope not not not in this place this is my baby one of the things like i'm really proud of that we built here is um everyone's really excited about like the growth that we have but everyone wants like 10 times more of what we built not so we have like the money to go spend

it and stuff but seeing the success and like seeing the people we reach for one and the feedback that comes back it's like everyone in different departments like whether it's customer service and shipping if someone comes on our instagram page it's like yeah you guys ship so fast love your customer service that's props to them you know so they feel good about that but everyone here that works at bear performance Nutrition, they want to improve. Whether that's their personal life and their health and their fitness. BPN, Bear Performance Nutrition as a whole. The product line, revenue, events, stuff like that.

Everyone's on board with the vision that we've created. I love that. That's really cool. So have you always, have you been able to scale up every single year from the year before? Yeah. So like a slowly scaling up now or maybe faster every year since 2015, we've doubled revenue. Oh wow. That's really good. Yeah. That's exactly like Phil Knight with Nike. He doubled every single year. Yeah. So like, and we're like, we're our projections for this year is we'll, we'll double, uh, 2019's revenue. That's crazy.

So when you wake up in the morning now, is it just like, wow, this is what I get to do every day. And you're super pumped on it. Or do you still have stresses and it's like still the managing the beast? I still have stresses, but the stresses are more so, um, in like a positive way, in a positive way. How do I, how do I take it to the next step? Well, it's not really a stress.

It's a, it's a problem that I have to find a solution to. Which is like if I'm not having these problems, well, that sucks. So they're good problems to have. But now it's like how do I put these systems in place to build this business to the beast that I want it to be? Because it's not just like being reactive anymore. Where in the beginning we were reactive. It's like reacting to the growth we were reactive it's like reacting to the growth reacting to the market reacting to customers now it's like how do we get to the

forefront and like jump ahead of all of our competition and lead in a different way and i think a lot of times people like look at the supplement industry and supplement market and they go it's saturated that's how i think about it yeah like someone's like you should start something i'm like oh my god no way it's like it's saturated. That's how I think about it. I think about it like someone's like, you should start something. I'm like, oh my God, no way. It's like it's saturated. You gotta think, when I started in 2012, there wasn't nearly as much competition. Yeah.

Now there's a lot. And people are always like, well, how do you stand down from competition? And so you gotta be proactive. So take a different approach than everyone else is taking. Not necessarily with product development. Our focus is creating really good products, but it's products that we want to use personally.

So I'm a massive fan of trying these different types of fitness. If you look at my fitness the past decade, it's gone from bodybuilding to powerlifting toFit, to marathon running. Did an Ironman a few weeks ago, and now I'm training for ultra marathons. So it's like along the way of all that training, I find products that I want to use as a different athlete and create products for that purpose. Which that's my favorite part of like your whole thing. Because I know you probably follow me a little bit and like I'm such a big fan of so many different types of fitness.

And I think a lot of people, some of my like OG followers are like, well why don't you do like more crossfit stuff still? Like you own a crossfit gym. And it's like, well, I mean I'm 33 years old now. I've done all these, like I don't wanna be bored in my training and technically biking is still crossfitting.

Right. Like it's all like, it all comes together. But like, I think that there's a lot of people right now, they think that, you know, they want to make it in the space or they just want to be cool. And they just feel like being in the gym all 24 seven is like how to do that. And it's like the moment you're outside, maybe in the middle of a long run or like the middle of a nice bike ride or a hike or something like that. And you realize that you're outside and you're doing something that like you're able to do that not a lot of

other people are able to do because you work out and because of the lifestyle you live that's when you really starts to click for you you're like wow i really love this you know what i mean i don't always feel that way when i'm in a dark gym like working out like i do love it in that moment but the feelings i get when i'm outside like in the middle of something really really hard and i have like 10 miles to go or whatever it is. Like that's when I like really feel most alive for me. Oh, same,

same here. So like I've learned the thing I like trying all these different things too, is cause I learned so much of the process. You learn everything. Like you learn more about endurance supplements, strength supplements, like recovery stuff, electrolytes,

just everything. And it humbles you. So like when I, I remember when I first started doing CrossFit, I, like that humbled me more than anything. Like doing Olympic lifting. Then when I signed up for this Ironman and I started swimming and biking, that humbled me again where it's like, shit, I can't swim. So I went from like being able to swim 25 meters to swimming 2.4 miles in six months.

And the things I've learned about endurance training and aerobic systems throughout that process has been game-changing to what I'm building for a base of knowledge, what I can share with other people. Because all these people that want to get in the fitness industry, they're like, well, I need to go to the gym and be a bodybuilder and be a powerlifter and stick to that niche. And if you enjoy that, yeah, that's one thing. But if you're getting the itch to do something else but you're afraid to do it because you're afraid it doesn't fit my brand, well, screw it. Try it.

When I launched the Ironman series, I literally told everyone this is going to be the most unsuccessful thing I've ever done on YouTube. And it blew up. Oh, wow. People loved it because it was different. And like, it was me like absolutely sucking at these things. And people loved it. Yeah. Because they can relate now because if someone sucks at swimming, you're like, oh yeah, he

sucks at swimming. My swim was awful. Like in the beginning, it was awful. I can actually only swim combat side stroke. Oh, really? Yeah, that's literally like I'll swim miles with combat side stroke. Oh, man. When I got in the pool for the first time, not the first time, but I signed up for the Ironman, not knowing what the Ironman was, to be honest.

And I hopped in the pool for the first time. I did 25 meters down the length of the pool, and I came out gasping for breath. And for the first two months, I was like how do people breathe underwater and then I still don't get it I went freestyle stroke I like literally can't breathe what happened is I finally was like screw it I'm going to open water I went to a lake there's a lifetime here in Austin that owns a lake and a lifetime fitness owns a lake it's awesome geez it's uh only used for swimming and kayakers uh it's a quarry so it's super clean and i just started open water swimming so like all right i have to swim to get to the next buoy i have to swim 200 meters which then turned into 600 meters and then by the time

i knew it like my body just learned how to swim i don't know how like people always ask how did you learn how to swim i just went to open water and I forced myself. My body just learned how to breathe. And before I knew it, I was like going, you know, a mile and a half getting out of the water, feeling fine. Oh, wow. Nice. It was massive transformation. So, all right. Now the business is booming now. And then now you're just basically having fun with your own life and trying to do different types of fitness to keep you happy and excited and all this stuff. I'm looking at you.

You still have pretty decent size to your body. For some reason, I'm trying to lose size for this run. Yeah. It won't go away. Yeah. I assumed when I met you, I was like, oh, he's probably going to be like at the skinnier phase because I see you doing like all these longer runs. Right.

I was like, oh, he's not. He looks exactly the same. I mean, I still hit the gym. During Ironman prep, I was hitting the gym like three times a week max. Really? Yeah. And were you still almost the same size? So I started Ironman prep like 220.

I got down to like 195, like 195 now. And now I'm hitting the gym like four or five days a week. But it's not like to gain, I'm not lifting to put on size and strength because right now I'm training to qualify for the Boston Marathon. So I'm trying to get lighter. But I just want to maintain – I love weight training. For one, I want to do it because it makes me feel better. And I want to look good.

I want to look soft. But I don't want to gain all that size and strength. So how has your diet changed from when you first started all this supplement stuff in the military? Actually, let's go military diet to like first year of the – four years into the business to now. So I was like the biggest bro when I first got started. This is like when I was in college because in college I got really into bodybuilding. I just wanted to be as big as possible. I used to go to the college cafeteria and just crush everything.

Oh, I'd give so hard. I didn't know what macros were at all. No idea. Well, that's how I started eating first. I started just eating everything. Like I'd go to the caf and I'd get the chocolate milk. I'd get four glasses of chocolate milk. I used to do so much chocolate milk. And I found out about these magic things called macros when I decided to do a bodybuilding show my senior year of college.

So I dieted down for a bodybuilding show. And I remember I was like, how am I going to lose all this weight? So I went to my professor, my nutrition professor at IUP. I was like, I'm looking to do a bodybuilding show. I need help getting down to like 6% body fat. Can you help me? And she's like, I teach nutrition on like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. I have no clue. So I found this dude in the gym that helped me track macros, started tracking macros. And that took over my life for like three years after that, where like after my bodybuilding show, I couldn't eat like normally again, because I was so focused

on like hitting my macros. Well, you can also look at food and just start dissecting it. Yeah. That's how I still am. Like I don't measure really anymore at all. Actually, yeah, zero. But I'll look at food and I just know what it is. And like even it doesn't matter what it is anymore.

I'm just like always analyzing it. Oh, in the same way. Yeah. But like I was tracking macros in college and, and it had to fit my, it had to fit my diet. So I went in the military and it was like, I wanted to maintain all the size and strength. So, but you can't track macros in the military. Couldn't track macros, but I was, I would still track if we weren't in the field. Okay. So like throughout the day I'd track, I'd prep all my food. I'd consume like 500 to 600 grams of carbs a day. And, um, I was like, this is what I got to do to be big.

When we go to the field, I fill my ruck with like protein bars. Actually, I would make my own protein bars when we go to the field and throw them in my pack and take all this food with me. So like I want like loose size, tuna packets, protein bars, peanut butter, all this stuff. And I tracked macros for a long time where I was focused on quality, like whole foods. But still, I was kind of in that mindset of like if it fits your macros, if I can fit the cereal in here, I'm going to eat it. If I can fit like this Pop-Tart, I'm going to eat it. And then after I got out of the military, my mindset slowly started changing as I got into more functional training. When I got into CrossFit, when I started running marathons, it was like a natural progression of what is making me feel better that I'm going to want to eat to perform.

So then I slowly started cutting out these things that would just fit my macros, like cereal and sweets and stuff like that, that were a treat, even though they fit my macros, I started cutting them out naturally just because I realized they weren't making me perform very good or feel very, really good. And it was like a very slow, gradual transition to the point where I'm at now where I don't track any macros. I haven't for like two years and I'm focused on like the quality of the food source. i'm more focused like my diet now is higher fat higher protein same uh moderate carb um really depending on what my training is for the day because i remember when i used to eat like 600 grams of carbs i'd finish a meal like lunch and i'd want to take a nap yep i was like, why am I tired? I fucking hate carbs. Literally, I always have.

I was always like, why am I so tired? And then I started realizing, I feel really good. So everyone's like, you're keto. No, I'm not keto. I still eat carbs. But fat and protein makes me feel a whole lot better than all these carbs do. Plus you live in Texas so you get to eat more brisket. Oh, absolutely.

We recently bought a Traeger. Have you heard of Traeger? No. Wood pellet smoker to cook meats. Oh, that sounds amazing. It makes the best. We have steak three times a week now, revised because of this Traeger grill.

I went to Whole Foods this morning and they had eggs that had brisket in it. And I was like, this is amazing. I've never been to a Whole Foods. Brisket's in everything down here. Yeah, it's amazing. But so now my diet is like it's focused on whole quality food sources. Like we'll juice every once in a while.

I'll go to Whole Foods. I'll get a juice, a fresh juice. Focus on like fruits and vegetables, a lot of meats. Dude, I didn't eat a vegetable until like 2018. I was the same way. No joke. Broccoli or like vegetables for me, like back in my bodybuilding days were like frozen broccoli. And I would just be like, yeah, these are my veggies.

Yep. I mean, now I'm just like, what? Like my fiance will make like really good Brussels sprouts or like broccolini and like green beans. I'm like, man, I'm craving that stuff. Yeah. So what I found is once you start eating that way and once you start training for performance, I'll finish a workout and I'm craving like a fruits,

like a juice or I'm craving something nutritious. And I know my body feels better. So I'm going to eat that way. I'm not going to say I don't go out and have a burger and fries and a pizza to enjoy myself. Yeah, for sure. But I know what my body feels better with. So from the beginning of the company to now,

what are some of the biggest things that you've noticed in the supplement industry through trial and error that, like, you feel way better after workouts when you have whey isolate versus maybe some other sort of whey? Have you found out, like, different types of ways to mix the proteins that you feel like is better? How much different are your products from day one to now? Night and day. That's what I mean. So what are some of those things? Just so the audience understands what they should be looking for in products.

Right. So the big thing in the supplement industry is it's manufacturers because there are some garbage manufacturers out there, and there's really no way to tell who's making your stuff from a consumer standpoint. I've heard there's two different types of manufacturing. There's give me the cheapest one so I can make the most money, and then there's give me the best one so I can have the best product. That's what I've heard from other people. Yeah.

So a few years ago, we changed over all our manufacturing to two companies. One's here in Dallas, Texas, and one's in Valencia, California. And we made plenty of videos of both these manufacturers. So our consumers know who our manufacturers are. They've seen our facilities. They're not the cheapest, but they are the highest quality. So when we changed manufacturers years back, our profit margins decreased dramatically, but the quality of our products we know are a whole lot better.

So one of the things we're working through right now, it's been a work in progress for months that we're about to be complete with, is a BSEG cert. So all of our products will be certified um drug free banned substance free okay so now so our manufacturers had to get approved go through the audit we had to go through the audit so now every time a product gets run it gets shipped to bscg they certify it then ship it to us and we can guarantee that it's banned of 500 plus drugs. So athletes are safe, all that kind of stuff. Which is hard because I was on the Olympic bobsled team back in the day

and that was a hard thing was like, you know, where are you going to get your supplements from? A lot of times you get tainted or just like a very small amount of something, but you'd pop up for on a test. Yeah, it's like, you know, if a manufacturer, a manufacturer should be taking the consumers behind on a test yeah it's like you know if a manufacturer a manufacturer should be taking the consumers behind the scenes to see it and like educating a lot of people will make the excuse well we don't want to know we don't want to tell people where our stuff is made why that's not selling your stuff you're selling your stuff so like

we've done videos where we take our we take the video camera into the lab and like we've shown like hey when like like for example citrulline if citrulline comes into our warehouse our manufacturing facility before it's even anything's done to it's quarantined it's quarantined it has to get tested it gets tested to make sure it's it's banned substance free and it's 100 the citrulline that they bought then it gets the approval then they can blend it and then when the product. Then it gets the approval. Then they can blend it. And then when the product's complete, it gets quarantined again until they can test it. And then when it's approved, then it can be shipped to us. So there has to be all these standard operating procedures

for CGMP certified facilities, current good manufacturing practice facilities. So that's like one of the things that consumers should know and companies have a responsibility of like taking the consumer there uh so that's for one when it comes to like products it's itself yep like we are slow to introduce new products to the market so you'll see companies launch 40 products you probably don't need 40 products on your line. So like, we're slow to launch new products. Like this past year we've launched a Strong Reds, super food powder, a multivitamin, and we're working on vegan protein right now.

That's big right now. Yeah, it's big. People are so into that stuff. And we're working on an endurance formula right now. Does your, did you, like when it comes to the vegan, are you going to have like the rice and the pea protein combined? So we launched vegan before and it was like two years ago. It didn't do very well. So we discontinued it.

We're bringing it back because of the trend. And it's a pea, watermelon seed and pumpkin seed. Okay. Blend. And it's a pea, watermelon seed, and pumpkin seed blend. So we're bringing vegan back, vegan protein back. And we'll launch different variations of flavors and products and stuff. I've never heard of a protein profile like that. That's kind of cool. It's called smooth protein.

And it creates a complete amino complex? Correct, yep. Cool. So we're working on those products. But like launching new products, we're very slow because you don't need everything under the sun. Is the whey the same though back then as you have now? Or do you have different type of formula and like it's just in a typical whey? No, our whey right now, it's different too.

Our whey now, it's from Glambia Nutritionals, which is like one of the biggest protein suppliers in the world. They're farmers in the U.S. And we changed up the blend. So it's an 88% whey, 12% casein blend. It's like two grams of casein per serving, which just improves like mixability, mouthfeel, texture. But like we know where all of our whey is sourced. We know where all of our way is sourced we know where all of our ingredients are sourced from but like our way we wanted from glambia nutritionals so that's we get our way from um so like we our relationships now with our manufacturers talk to them like

multiple times a day um whether that's for product development or quality control some of the things we're working on or improving flavors and whatnot or launching new flavors. But the biggest difference from a manufacturing standpoint is who our manufacturers are now and the relationship that we've built with them over the years. So now when you look at another product right now, I look at products and I just look at the ingredients right away. When you look at products, are you looking at like where it's manufactured and all that type of stuff now?

I mean, a lot of times I can't tell who manufactured it. It doesn't say on there? No. Okay. It'll say manufactured for. Okay. Which would be like Bayer Performance Nutrition. Or what if it says like it's made in some sort of state or country and you're just like,

you just know that it was not manufactured in a good place. I mean, although US-based supplements should be made in the U.S. Some people get their stuff made out of the U.S. That's sketchy. Yeah. That's super, super sketchy because there's like – there are some manufacturers in the U.S. where like they're sketch manufacturers. There's some really, really good ones with some really good systems in place.

And unfortunately, as a consumer, you don't necessarily know who makes your stuff or who makes your company's stuff, their company's stuff. But I think that's the company's responsibility to share that information. Because I've never been a person who says, like, I'm not going to tell you who makes our stuff. I'll be transparent about it. I'll take you there. I'll show you.

Yep. And we'll tour the facility on video. But it's because I'm proud of who our manufacturers are and the relationships we've built and the products we make. So what are some big red flags, though, for people looking at supplements in general that they could use right now? If I'm looking for the best protein, best this, best that, what am I looking for? There shouldn't be any proprietary blends. I mean, it's not old news or new news. that what am i looking for there shouldn't be any any proprietary blends um i mean that's you know it's not old news or new news but for some people might be yeah i mean so there's there's different ways so like for example um if for example i had an energy blend in my pre-workout and it listed like five ingredients and i didn't tell you how much of each ingredient was

in that blend um that's a proprietary blend typically because the the company wants to pixie dust it meaning they can list the really good ingredients but put very little of it in because it makes their product cheaper um so i obviously got for proprietary blends i actually always was kind of against proprietary blends just because I knew that there was never like a certain amount that they had to like really list. Right. But I always thought that those were like kind of before right now, actually. You just kind of lightened it up. But like I always just was like, well, it seems like there's a lot of all that stuff in there because it's usually like a huge number.

Yeah. So typically proprietary blend with all like the cool shit in it. Yeah. What they'll do is they'll put like the really cheap ingredients uh a lot of it in there and the very expensive ingredients a little bit of it they call it pixie dusting but there's but then they can put 5 000 milligrams of all this stuff when it's really just like 50 and then 4 900 of the other thing for example if you needed if you need five grams of creatine a day and creatine's in this blend, they could put half a gram of creatine in there.

It's still in there, but you're thinking you're getting creatine, but you're not gaining any of the benefit. From another standpoint, sometimes blends are used because, and this is one reason they can be used, is there's ingredient suppliers out there. And ingredient suppliers make ingredients and they'll do all the research behind this ingredient and this ingredient might have multiple ingredients in it for example our strong reds has this ingredient called spectra in it now spectra it has multiple ingredients in it and it's in a blend form. Now, we don't even know all of the dosages of the ingredients in this blend, but they do that because they'd make this blend and they put it

through clinical studies and trials. So they spend millions of dollars studying it and they've shown these claims. Like for example, Spectra has been shown to increase nitric oxide by 64% in clinical studies. Obviously, that's valuable to them. And they don't want Joe Schmoe over here making Spectra and selling it and using those same claims. So, like, sometimes companies that make these, like, blends, like Compound Solutions maybe has Pico 2, which is a mushroom blend. Yeah, they've spent the money to do the clinical research behind it. But it's not like Joe's Supplement just picking five ingredients and putting a blend together, if that makes sense.

Yeah, no, I get it now for sure. Yeah, so like there's some really – once you get more in the industry, like once we became more established, instead of us going to suppliers, suppliers started coming to us. And they wanted us to use their product. And they'll come to us with all their clinical research. And it's impressive because, you know, these ingredient suppliers will make this ingredient. They will do all this research and put this ingredient through clinical studies and prove that it does this.

Like these claims are validated and then you can use those claims because man this like this has actually been shown to do this that is it's good information and it's like millions of dollars worth of research yeah that you can use but you're just buying buying the ingredient you know so there's some really really cool innovative ingredients out there that not enough people are using because i think the industry is also at this point where at least in like the bodybuilding space that i see where everyone's like all you need is beta alanine citrulline malate creatine monohydrate yeah those are great ingredients but there's some really cool ingredients out right now that

are being like researched and putting through clinical studies that are doing some really cool things um i noticed like quest bar has some really long, interesting ingredient in it. I never really looked it up yet, but it's just this super long, interesting ingredient that I've never seen before. Is it trademarked? I'm not sure. We probably look it up on our phones or something, but it's this super long ingredient. I just assume that's probably why it tastes so good.

I haven't seen it. I mean, there's a lot of ingredient suppliers out there that are making like, obviously they trademark it, they patent it, they do the research behind it. And no one else can use it. And no one can use it. But if they're spending the money and time to do that, it's typically a really good ingredient. Like we use nitrates in our pump product by Thermalife and it is like a a badass ingredient for providing pumps in the gym. So it increases nitrous oxide quite a bit?

Yeah. But it's like he spent the money, the owner of that, spent the money to do this research and patent this and own this patent. It's good stuff. So there's really good parts of the industry. There are really good parts of the industry. What I'm really interested in is the sugar aspect. So like when it comes to sweetening products, how many options do you have? Like, I know you have like erythritol, you have sucralose,

you have like different types of stevia, all this stuff. What are some of the things you're looking for to pick the right sweetener? And like when you get a sweetener from a company do they show you like the the studies behind these sweeteners and like what they do and all the side effects potential side effects or anything like that i mean most most sweeteners are because i've heard even stevia has like 500 different strains of stevia so you're not just getting stevia it's like there's a million different kinds right so i mean we'll either use sucralose or a combination of stevia and monk fruit it's like in all of our because obviously sucralose is artificial sweetener stevia monk fruit being a natural sweetener right now there's nothing

really negative on sucralose that's like proven yet so, I feel like it's in everything. That's the thing is people, and I try to explain this to people all the time too, is people will reach out and saying, I don't want to use your pre-workout because there's sucralose in it. Well, they don't realize that like probably half the other things they consumed that day had sucralose in it at higher dosages than we have in a pre-workout. So like sucralose is in almost like it's all over the place now but sucralose isn't a bad sweetener you know it's like a lot of these sweeteners artificial sweeteners get a bad rep but they're really only like sun some can

only be like negative if consumed like crazy high dosages so like We'll use sucralose in our whey proteins, our performance line, our health line, like strong reds, strong greens. Our vegan protein will be naturally sweetened with stevia and monk fruit. Part of it is what demographic are you selling to? Because a lot of people that are going for the health line, they're looking for a natural sweetener. A lot of people in this performance line are okay with an artificial sweetener, which there's nothing wrong with sucralose.

A lot of it's just like hearsay type stuff. Would you almost argue that there's certain parts of stevia that are like worse than sucralose? No. No? No. I mean, sucralose and, I mean, stevia and monk fruit, like very safe, natural sweeteners. The biggest difference is using them in a product because like, yeah, sucralose is really easy to flavor with. Monk fruit, stevia, like the stevia bite is harder. So like, I think it comes down to almost like an ignorant, uneducated consumer base, which some of this information they shouldn't know. It's not like common knowledge, but like they want a really good tasting product that's

also naturally sweetened and like vegan. So they want like a vegan protein powder that's naturally sweetened that tastes like a chocolate bar yeah that's really hard to do and it's like yeah like come on i'm flavoring pea protein with stevia and monk fruit it's not that easy yeah so it's like what does the demographic want what does the consumer want and what is the best sweetener for that option uh and it works with different ingredients too. Like people want an unflavored product of ours sometimes. I'm like, well, you got to realize just because I don't add any sweetener to it, it doesn't mean it's unflavored. You're going to taste like a chemically taste to it.

So we have to add different acids like citric acid or malic acid to products to make it taste better. So it's like you take this base of ingredients, you blend them together, you add sweeteners, and you add a malic or a citric acid to kind of balance that flavor profile out. And that's tough. I've actually had raw protein powder before. It's had any acid or anything at the Power Crunch warehouse. Right.

And it just god awful yeah it was really really bad so i think it's what's tough is it was hard to even swallow yeah people like people want um people also wanted to mix up like it's it's sugar and it's like we can make this these products like mix very very well But if there's a little bit of settling, you have to keep in mind we're not flavoring and we're not mixing sugars together. We're mixing together these ingredients that some of them don't just dissolve in water as much as they should. So like when you have really good manufacturers, they'll like – they know how to work around these issues. And like they have experience and they have lab teams and they have chemists that will make these changes. And like we're going to our manufacturing facility Thursday to actually put together the endurance formula.

Because typically what happens is like I'll send them over. I'll talk with our sales team and we'll put together a formula of what we're looking to do. Flavor profile wise, sweetener wise. And they'll send us samples we'll try the samples provide feedback they'll change the samples resend them and we've done that like four times we just haven't been able to lock it down so we're just going out there thursday but that goes over like a month's time span probably right yeah so we're just going out there thursday just try to knock it out at once because like we tried adding this mushroom blend to the endurance

formula just like like two grams but it's so overpowering that like even though i wouldn't mind it i gotta think of like the community like will this give them a negative connotation of the product like well i can't do that yeah Yeah. So you have to, everyone wants the perfect formula, the perfect flavor, the perfect mixability. But if people realized how much went into creating like all of this, it's a lot. Yeah, I would imagine. Yeah. I'm definitely at the point where I'm just like, I just want the best product and I don't even really care. Like it tastes like dirt and I'd still just be like, cool.

I could personally drink anything. Same flavor pre-workout every single day. But like one of the things we do pride ourselves in is flavoring. It's like we're sticklers when it comes to – like we've been trying to do this s'mores-flavored protein. I've never even had a shake from you guys ever, so. I'll give you some stuff today. Yeah, I'd love to try it out.

We just launched a fruity cereal whey protein. But we've been trying to do this – Fruity cereal? Is that going after a specific brand? It's a specific cereal, yeah. But I can't necessarily say. I feel like I know which one it is already. But we've been trying to work on this s'mores-flavored protein for like six months,

and we just can't lock it in. So we're probably not going to do it. Okay, wow. Six months of research and you're not even going to do it now. Nope. Dang. All right, well, now that we're at the point now where the business is booming, you know, you're obviously pretty happy with a lot of the way things are going.

What do you want to see for the future? Like even just for yourself as a person, like what do you want to get into? Like you obviously, after these marathons are over, what's the next thing? So I have like different echelons of goals in my life. Like one's business. So like eventually I want to be a hundred million dollar company. That's our goal. So like putting systems in place to reach that. My book launches January 28th, so establishing myself as a published author this year in 2020.

That's actually a big deal, that's cool. I think that's super dope. I'm actually looking at it now. The fact that you have a hard copy book is just so cool. Yeah, we started that last January. So it's been a work in progress. Is there an audio version of it? Yep, just finished recording that.

Cool. Yep, that was a nightmare. Recording an audio book? I've heard it's rough. Oh my gosh. I haven't listened to, what's the black guy who's always in your, oh, David Goggins? Right. I haven't listened to his audio book, but I heard his audio book is like, it's like two people talking to each other i've actually i've heard that i haven't i haven't read any of his stuff yeah um but i did hear that it was like a interview format

or something yeah i was like that's kind of cool i wish i would have done that because like reading because i naturally talk fast i slur my words i don't finish one word before the next it's like reading the audiobook the producer like stopped me 10 times a paragraph. It was painful. How long did it take you to do it? Four days. Oh, wow.

That's actually not bad. It wasn't too bad. How long did it take you to actually write the book? Like changes in everything, like seven months. Okay. Yeah, like making changes

and re-editing. I always wondered like how that went. Like did you just sit there and literally just start writing it? Or did you like kind of talk and someone else wrote it? A little bit of both. So I talked to someone else, hopefully put it together. And then we came up with the manuscript. And I went through it and I was like, I hate it.

Yeah. So I pretty much wrote the whole thing over again. And then I read it all over again I pretty much wrote the whole thing over again. And then I read it all over again, and I wrote the whole thing over again, and it was like so many changes made to it. Like it's not even the same book it was when it first started, which is crazy. But finally I got to a point where I was like,

all right, this is it, I'm happy with it. So we locked that in. It was supposed to originally launch in November because I'm making changes and changes. Got pushed back to late January. Every time you make a change, is that financially an issue? No, it just pushes things back. Okay. So that's like goals from business because personal development. Fitness, this year I'm trying to qualify

for the Boston Marathon, which is a sub-three hour marathon. And then I put my name in for the Leadville 100 lottery. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, so I find out January 19th if I get selected for that. How long is that race? 100 miles. 100 miles, yeah.

In Colorado. Yep, that's the mountain bike race, right? There's a mountain bike and there's a run. I signed up for the run. Oh, okay. Yeah. I want to do the mountain bike race bad. I heard that is brutal. Yeah.

So I signed up. I'll find out if I get that soon. And then I'm going to train for an ultra. I just haven't decided which one yet. Another 100 mile plus ultra. And kind of see how far I can push it. These next two years, I want to dedicate to like ultra trail running and i just want to do like a crazy like the craziest race possible

and like really push myself and then after that reassess what i want to do fitness wise but like i knew like the iron man was a little taste into endurance um i was like kind I kind of like this, but I don't like biking or swimming. So I'm just going to run. So now I'm just focused on ultra running. I like that. That's cool.

I remember recently getting into climbing mountains a lot. I love going to new places and just finding the biggest mountain and then just climbing it. Yeah, that's awesome. Did you see Free Solo? I have. That's insane. It's nuts.

Yeah, I don't do that type of climb i do like more like aggressive hiking and mountaineering okay yeah so like i just summited mount hood just like a couple months ago it was like a two-day thing but i learned how to like do all the ropes and do all like the ice axe stuff right thing and i definitely want to do some bigger stuff i was supposed to go to codopaxi uh this past year but is that? Cotopaxi is in... Oh, wait, is that Pakistan? No. Where is it, actually?

Cotopaxi's in... That's on the tip of my tongue. Yeah, so while you're thinking of that, we got your running staff, you want to be a $100 million company, Boston Marathon, ultras, anything else?

I'm sure I'll find something yeah move into a bigger warehouse oh yeah that's the other one yeah I want to move into a bigger warehouse and this one's pretty big

this one's 10,000 square feet we're looking at one that's 30,000 square feet but really just like I'm a big fan of like forced progression forced growth and

I know like when we were in our old warehouse and we moved into this one, this one was big for us. And we didn't have it filled. But I'm forced to grow into something. And I'm forcing the team to grow in and kind of fit the shoes or live in the shoes you're living in. So I know if we move into a 30,000 square foot facility like we will force ourselves to outgrow it and that's my goal for like the next 12 months i think the biggest fact i've ever seen is the rogue fitness warehouse in ohio how big is that it it's got to be hundreds of thousands of square it's insane i would love to eventually have like hundreds of thousands of i mean it looks like a

city i mean it's humongous i've never seen anything like it they're manufacturing some pretty intense stuff there oh yeah and i walked inside and it's just like it looks like home like home depot looks like the bathroom there right it's like ridiculous how big it is and humongous ceilings just stacked all the way to the ceiling. Mike, whenever I, I love warehouse space personally. I'll drive around Austin and me and my brother will look at warehouses. Like my fiance thinks I'm like fucking stupid.

Warehouse born? Yeah. I get like butterflies looking at warehouses. And I just like, I'm always thinking like, I wonder what the base price is for this thing. Like everything. Because warehouse space just gets me excited because it's, like, you know that that was built for someone to move in there and operate, like. A huge company.

A massive, massive company. Could be a billion-dollar company. Yeah. And, like, that, someone's having that, like, I don't want to say luxury, but, like, someone's worked that hard to be able to operate out of that. It's badass. Yeah, it's really, really cool. Yeah. I get so excited about so many weird things now that I never thought I would ever get excited about like five years ago.

Just like little stuff like that. Like I have something equivalent on my own, and it's just like it's crazy how you grow and you get older. How old are you right now? 29. 29. Oh, my God. You're still so young. It's crazy.

God, I feel so old these days. How old are you? 33. That's not much older. It is quite a bit, though. A 29-year-old self of me was way different place than I'm at now, for sure. Damn it. All right.

So where can everybody find all your products, all your social media, all the things that is Nick Baer? Website is Baer, B-A-R-E, performance nutrition.com. YouTube, if you search Nick Baer, you'll see a bunch of my videos pop up. And then Instagram is Nick Baer Fitness. Nick Baer Fitness, yeah. He has a lot of good stuff on his Instagram. This is where I first saw him.

And thank you guys so much for being on the podcast once again. I will see you guys next Tuesday. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure if you guys listen to for being on the podcast once again i will see you guys next tuesday thanks for tuning in make sure if you guys listen to this podcast and you love it you tag me and you tag nick bear fitness on instagram on youtube on wherever it is that you're listening to it and uh thank you guys so much i'll see you next week