Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Tom Bilyeu: Powerful Entrepreneurs Bet on Themselves (Part I) REPOST - 110

Episode Date: August 5, 2019

Tom Bilyeu quit a comfortable job in software...in the midst of a recession. A few years later, he had co-founded Quest Nutrition and grew it by an astounding 57,000% (not a typo)! In this episode, Tom reveals when you should pivot industries, how he structured manufacturing around his product, and how he kept up with his business’s unbelievable scaling rate. Watch or listen now to also discover the most critical thing entrepreneurs forget when trying to sell their businesses.    “Copy and conversions (are) two very critical things that all businesses need -- traffic and sales -- in order to make the machine work and generate lots of profit.” - Bedros Keuilian   Here’s what you’ll discover:   1:10 - How Tom scaled Quest fast enough to maintain its record-breaking growth 19:34 - Why copywriting is essential to articulate your marketing message clearly 21:12  - The secret to selling your company for as much as you can get 24:59 - How Tom bet on himself, gave up equity in one business, and pivoted to a new industry 34:06 - How Tom built a huge Quest fanbase on Facebook by giving away free content “Never bet on the company, always bet on the entrepreneur.” - Tom Bilyeu   Follow us on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian / @tombilyeu Buy Man Up and get Bedros’s High Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/   Make sure to review us on iTunes: http://bit.ly/theempireshow   YouTube: https://youtu.be/XZ4qGn2WTB8

So I said, look, the hard part was quitting. I've already done that. So now I'm just going to be really honest with you. Money's powerful, but it's not my primary motivator. And when I don't have passion, I'm like every other person. But Bezos, if I'm passionate, I'm superhuman. And I can't be stopped. Welcome to The Empire Show.

I'm Beidros Kulian. Here on The Empire Show, we help passionate and purpose-driven entrepreneurs like you turn your idea into a business and your business into an industry-transforming empire so that you can grow your income, impact, and influence. If you're a new listener, then welcome to the show, and be sure to subscribe to our podcast. And if you're looking to dominate in business and in life, then this is the show for you.

Today we've got a very special guest, someone that I not only look up to and respect, but also whose product I purchased when I was a personal trainer and when I was coaching and consulting personal trainers in the industry. That product happens to be Questbar, which was listed number two on the Inc. 500. list and also was growing at a rate of 57,000% per year. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome Mr. Tom Villew. Welcome, sir. What's up, dude. Did I get that right? Perfect. Okay. First off,

57,000% in the year of growth. It was over three years. Over three years. Yeah, yeah. Explain that piece first and then we'll start jumping around and doing a deeper dive. So, how does this happen? A 57,000% increase in three years. Yeah, literally crazy. And, and, you know, and, you'll start jumping around and doing a deeper dive. So, how does this happen? How does this happen? Yeah, literally crazy. And the thing that, like, people can grasp it when it's software, and that doesn't necessarily mean that you have more employees and more square footage. It just means that you have more revenue coming in. But for us, because we were a manufacturing business, it was more square footage,

it was more purchasing, more ingredients, it was opening more stores. I mean, it was pure madness. To grow by, if I hadn't been there, I don't know that I would believe it. It's crazy. Because in the manufacturing space, that level of growth is never seen. Yeah, it was a banana. So imagine you go and get a facility and you think, okay, we'll be here for, you know, three to five years. And by the time you move in, you already have to find another place.

So then you get another place and you split it in half because it's just way too big. But we're growing fast. It can't last forever, right? But you have to take that leap. Otherwise, it's going to stunt your growth. So we had this deal with the landlord who did not want to rent to us, by the way. And my business partner and I had to drive out especially just to convince him to give us a shot. Now, where's this happening? What city state?

By then, we're California City of Industry. Gotcha. And we convinced this guy who had half like this furniture warehouse and half like a manufacturing facility to give us the half that was manufacturing, but then with his current tenant, though, we had to do it with them. And then we had the option if we wanted to rent the other side. So first of all, by the time we moved into the first half, we had to boot the other tenant out because we needed it all.

Like that's how fast we were growing. We were doubling at times month of the other side. month, over a month, over a month, over a month, which it's easy to do the first time, maybe the second, by the third and fourth, it's just ridiculous, doubling. So then by the time we had finished taking over and building out the first half, we already had to take over the second. It was just madness. That is nuts.

So the whole idea of the Empire Podcast show is to take entrepreneurs that have built empires and reverse engineer the thought process, the actions, the ideas that they had so that our viewers and listeners can go and implement into their businesses, right? The whole idea is to turn ideas into businesses, businesses, into empires. And so we know that there was 57,000 percent growth over a three-year period in revenue. You hit the Inc. 500 list, number two spot, of course, a very prominent spot to hit. The first warehouse that you guys buy to manufacture, what is the lease that you sign? Like, you signed the lease for how much square footage, and then already you've outgrown it.

Oh, the first one, yeah, that was ridiculous. So it was 5,000 square feet, literally in Compton. Okay. And, yeah, we agree that pretty fast. But I think that was actually the one that lasted the longest because we were really just beginning. And I remember at the time we bought a palette of protein and we thought, oh God, are we really going to buy a whole palate? Like that's crazy. Right.

First of all, getting protein is brutally difficult and there's something that people don't really think about because they don't want to sell to you. It's all a part of the cheese manufacturing process. So there's actually a limited amount of way protein to go around. So it can be really hard. So in the beginning we're like, okay, they're making us commit to a whole palette. It seems crazy. We ran the math. We thought we have 18 months.

that palette at our growth rate when we projected 18 months probably lasted like six weeks Holy smokes That's how fast is starting taking off You're projecting 18 months It lasts six weeks Yeah it was crazy

So does the market literally run out of Quest bars At that point? There were times Yeah yeah yeah for sure So here I thought that was being manufactured To create the scarcity and urgency Like I was on the receiving end of it Not at all So that wasn't being manufactured

Not even slightly like Tell me more My wife would go on and on like Oh let's take the PlayStation which is something I love. And she was like, I'm telling you they're like faking the scarcity. And I'm like, that's not always the case. Like we're killing ourselves to get the ingredients to buy the stuff to make it fast enough and we just can't.

Holy smokes. So you get your second square footage, your second warehouse that you're split, and what is the square footage there? The first one is 5,000. The first one's 5,000. The next one was a popcorn facility that we took over. And so that's even before the one that I was talking about. So we go into the popcorn facility. It's going to be the same thing.

We'll make during the day. You can make during the day. during the night, the popcorn, and then we just, by the time we get our equipment in, literally, this is like in six weeks, eight weeks, maybe 12 weeks. We've already changed our business so much that we're like, I'm so sorry,

but we're gonna have to take over more space and then eventually, and I'm talking, eventually, like two months later we're like, we're gonna need to be manufacturing around the clock so you're not gonna be able to do the popcorn anymore, you're gonna have to move that somewhere else. There was a guy living in one of the rooms, literally he was an architect or something

and he wasn't supposed to be living there, but we knew he was. And so finally we had to kick him out because we needed the space. It was just, it was like this machine that just kept needing more square footage, more ingredients, more employees. I mean, 57,000% when it's a tangible product, it's crazy. That's nuts. Okay, so I'll be the voice of our audience, and someone's asking right now, because I know we have a lot of listeners and viewers who are manufacturers of many things, right?

From there's icon meals which does protein, popcorn, et cetera, to many different supplement companies. So are you manufacturing in both locations at this? point or just one? I think at one point we were manufacturing in both the 5,000 square foot facility and the popcorn facility, but I can't swear to that. But I'm pretty sure we did. And then definitely we did as we moved into the bigger facility. We were still doing at the popcorn facility, which we'd completely taken over.

But we're moving so fast we never changed the name. So we'd say, this is Quest and Trition, come to this address, they would come. And they'd be like, I'm out in the parking lot, but it says break time snacks, where you guys it's supposed to be. We're like, yeah, we keep me needing to order that sign, but we're just growing so fast, don't know how long we're going to be here. So for our entire tenure there, it said break time snacks. Holy smokes. And so, all right, here you are, Quest Nutrition comes out like Thunder. We'll talk about the marketing in just a second. Clearly, you had supplement or protein or manufacturing background that you were able to

grow this thing so quickly with you and your business partners, right? No. So, I mean, we were consumers, obviously. So I had transformed my own physique. They had transformed their physiques. I was about 60 pounds heavier than I am now. And so we had gone through it at a personal level while we were building a software company. So that was a company that we did before Quest. And in all of that, we thought, well, we know business, and we certainly know from a consumer perspective the protein bar business. We don't know manufacturing at all, never intended to be manufacturers. We went to the manufacturers of protein bars and said, hey, we've got this formulation. We want you to make it for us. And

to a person, they were like, your bar can't be made. They're like, we get it. We understand why you're trying to do it. But you have to understand that the equipment has grown up over the last 70 years in conjunction with the use of high fructose corn syrup. So once you take that corn syrup out, even though we were replacing it was something

that felt pretty similar, it just changed the dynamics of the machines. And so we went around more than the country. We went to Canada and even farther in some cases looking for equipment. And we just kept breaking their equipment. So couldn't do it. And so we realized, okay, we're going to have to be our own manufacturers and we're going to have to engineer new equipment.

Holy smokes. Okay. So that was the loaded question I wanted to ask us because most people go, well, if the company's growing that quickly, clearly this guy's got a manufacturing background. But I knew the fact that you guys came from the software space. In fact, the eight years previous to that, you guys were in software, right? Same business partners? Yeah. Yeah.

Same business partners. How do you find good business partners that you can then pivot and go into the nutrition space with? Well, I got really lucky. in that they hired me as an employee. And they said back at the software company, and they were like, look, this is what we tell everybody. We look for partners, we settle for employees. So if you come in and you act like an owner,

then we're going to treat you like an owner. And you've got every opportunity to earn your way through sweat equity into ownership in this company. And so the crazy thing was they made that offer to everybody that walk, I mean, the number of people that they would like get to know on a personal level and be like, hey, hey, hey, by the way,

if you want to come work for us, there's a real opportunity here. And just one by one, they all fell away, fell away, fell away. And nobody, like, really poured themselves into it. And I was doing stuff like, when I moved, I wanted to move closer to them, and I timed apartments based on how long it would take me to get to their house, so that if they ever called it, like, two in the morning. Now, I'm just a copywriter at this point.

But however long it would take me to get to their house, like that would determine what apartment we could have. So my wife would find something she liked, and then I would time it. And so when I found one that was seven minutes or less to both of their houses, I was like, okay, we can go live there. Oh, smokes. That way, like, but you know, like, there's, I want to be successful, and then there's motherfucker, I'm going to be successful.

And I was just in that zone. That was the latter. And it was just, there was no way. I saw an opportunity. I was going to make everything of it I could. I poured myself into it. I literally gave myself over to it. Holy.

And what city was this in when you guys were doing the software and what circuit, what time? So this would have been 2003 is when it began. and we were in Marina del Rey, California. Marina Del Rey, California. So going to eight years, that takes us right through the economic crash. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that was gnarly. Okay.

We were at the software company when that happened, had to let go, like, half of our staff or something crazy. I mean, tears, like the whole thing. It was brutal. Walk us through that picture. So Tom Billu and his business partners, if I remember correctly, is it three business partners? Total, me included, yeah. Right? Okay.

So three of you, total, come up with this great software. And really, the software was, wanted you explain to our friends, because it wasn't anything exciting. It wasn't like an app or anything. It was for large companies, right? Security software, yeah. Security software.

And you guys were rocking it until the economy crashes, and the economy crashes, and it does have an impact on your business because it's, am I right in saying it's mainly businesses using your software? It wasn't entirely, so we were split. So we had, part of it was aimed at consumers

and part of it was aimed at businesses. And I think we might have been better off if we'd been better selling to corporations which can weather the storm if they really believe it's business critical. But that was where we were least experienced. We understood how to market to people direct online. Like that was our background. So AdWords and stuff like that was how I cut my teeth and came up. And so we were very suited to that, emotionally even, because we were not good at long sales cycles, which of course when you're dealing with big companies and governments, they can be some pretty crazy long cycles.

Yes. So I'll get back to the, you said something magical. You said, hey, my strength at the time was copy. And then you said you cut your teeth on AdWords. That's copy and conversion to very critical things that all businesses need, traffic and sales in order to make the machine work and generate lots of profit. But we'll get to that in a moment. So how do you, you go through this economic crash. You have to cut half of your staff. What does that conversation look like? What does the conversation look like between the three partners? And then what is the decision? look like that you have to then go, who do we cut? How do we cut them? Share that. Yeah. So the economy is destined to crash soon again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Winter's coming. So it was the one thing that has always been true, and I'll definitely speak for myself on this, but one thing that's always been true for me is that it's the people come first. So figuring out like, okay, not only what's their job function, but like what's this going to be like for them as a transition? Like, is there anything that we can do to help make it more graceful? So we were looking at both of those things.

Just like who's in dire straits, who's maybe deeper into their career, and it's going to be harder for them at that point to transition out. Who's got versatility, who can play multiple roles? So just assessing, like, you do have to protect the business. So you can't just keep people on because you want to make sure that, you know, this doesn't become a brutal time for them. But at the same time, you know, looking at, okay, who can wear multiple hats so that as we shrink down, who's going to be a versatile player, who makes this a better place to be?

So this is one of those things, man. Anybody out there watching right now, I will say it really matters if you are like company plus or company minus. So if you're making it a better culture, if people feel they can trust you, if they feel emotionally safe around you, that's a huge win for the company. If you're the sort of whiny, make excuses, even if you're crushing your sales, man. And that's where you find people where it's like, oh, they're so good at sales that we've kept them probably longer than we should have.

Right. But in times like that, where you're really having to thin the herd, it can come down sometimes to just, do you make this a better place to be? So we were looking at just job function critical. Are they making this a better place to be? And then, you know, the sad reality, how much do they cost? And some people, depending on where they are at that part of their career, they may be really expensive.

And there's certainly a vulnerability in that in hard times. Sure. But one thing you did say that I want everyone watching and listening to this to take is that can they wear multiple hats, how do they level up the culture, the morale in the organization, even if they're heavy closers, if you're not generating great value, culture, morale, in times like that, you may be cut. Right? And I always talk about that, that you and I, we're entrepreneurs and our employees who are,

would I consider team members, they're entrepreneurs. And like, whatever department you're in, that's your entrepreneurial spirit. Like, you'll always take the greatest risks where impact theory is concerned, right? Your most recent passion, I guess now the comics, as you're launching your comic brand. But the entrepreneurs within your employees must know how to move the needle, not only the money needle, but the morale needle as well. So that's a great lesson there. Thanks for sharing that. So going back to, now we're going backwards in 2003.

You're married to Lisa. Yes. And, you know, we got to go on a double day. We had such a great time with you guys, and she's just a ball of energy. I love her. How did you two meet? Because it's a pretty unique relationship that you guys have. How did we meet?

Well, at the time I was a teacher, and she was my student, and it was a school for adults. I do feel compelled to mention that. But, yeah, she was my student, and really hit it off, and I had a pretty easy way to take her out, and I could pass it off as it was. was all business if it didn't go well, which was one of my friends who also was associated with the school was screening as film. I said, hey, why don't you come to the screening with me? And it was just electricity right from the jump.

And yeah, she refused to sleep with me. And so that extended the thing. Good on her. I was traumatized at the time, but ended up being just amazing. And so we really got to know each other super fast and it's awesome. And you don't hide the fact. at all that she has like literally been there through the growing pains, through the adversity, through the dark times, and as you guys enjoy the great times now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I will tell

you that is one of the most amazing things. And I typically do all the time. Look, your significant other is going to turn into a bag of wrinkles. It's just the way of life. But nothing, and I mean, nothing is more amazing than a shared history. And so sharing that experience and coming up together and, you know, her proving, like, it's so funny now because she gets accused of being a gold day. which is hilarious. Right. Because she married me when I was dirt poor, dirt poor, and made her clip coupons, the whole nine.

I mean, it was, yeah, some lean times. So for her to literally help build the empire with her own hands and to now, she has to laugh when people are like, you're just in it for the money. And you know, in that way we have so many similarities to my wife and I, when we got married, I was $86,000 in debt. And we were stealing the neighbors, literally the month that we got married, we were still in the neighbor's penny saber, because we were still in the neighbors, because every penny saver had a coupon in there for a foot-long sub-sabwich.

You buy one foot-long, you get a second one free. Nice. And so we were sitting all their neighbors' coupons and using them because they weren't going to use them. They were sitting on their driveway for days. So that was, I can relate to that. But you're a school teacher, but why don't you tell us what you're teaching? Because that kind of leads to the copywriting, doesn't it? Yeah.

So I was teaching filmmaking, which is my background. So I went to film school and thought that was going to be it. That was my path. and unfortunately, a very bad mindset led to that not working out, at least not out of the gate. And yeah, so she came, she felt she went to film school in London and didn't feel she had learned the practical side of filmmaking enough, and that's what I was teaching. Gotcha. Did you write scripts? I did, yeah.

So wrote some scripts, won some awards. Actually had one script turned into a feature film, which was a heartbreaking experience. It was starring Michael Madsen, and I thought, you know, this is it, man. I made it. And I just wasn't happy with how the film came out at all. And so that was actually my partners, their whole thing was, you're coming to the industry with your handout. That was their pitch to me when they brought me on to be a copywriter. They said, you're coming to the world with your handout.

If you want to control the art, you have to control the resources. So why don't you come with us? We need a copywriter, but, you know, don't think of yourself as a copywriter. You've got a chance to really get ownership in the company. and get rich and then you can build your own studio. I thought, that's amazing. And they said, we think it'll take about 18 months. So it took 15 years, but it did work.

Did you lose hope then? No, 18 months and 15 years, that's a big disparity. No, no. Being in the middle of it and really seeing what was going on and beginning to understand the reality for myself, one that they were sincere, they really did think it would take 18 months, so they weren't BSing me. We were just all wrong.

And then I was so in the middle of it, it really did always feel like, you know, this is close, this is close. And then my thing is, I will give myself credit, I've always bet on myself. And so I thought I can make this happen. Like I can see where this goes. And then once I finally found the missing piece, which was to really love what I do and to believe in it, then everything changed. And then, of course, the wealth did come.

But it was an incredible journey that has now set me up to actually do film for real. That's fascinating. So let's move back into entrepreneurship now that we've learned a little bit about your background. Would you, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, how necessary is the ability to write copy in today's entrepreneurial space? Somebody has to do it. So you don't have to be the one that knows how to do it, but you better have somebody on your team that does. Copywriting is really just being able to articulate your message in a way that people feel. So I would say copywriting has changed dramatically in the last 15 years since I started.

When we were writing AdWords copy, one, the term clickbait didn't exist. We hadn't even gone through that phase yet. Then clickbait was really useful and worked really well. And now we've come out the other side where people smell clickbait, then they're going to avoid it and it discredits you. And so all through all of that, all you were trying to do was elicit an emotion in the person reading that. And if you can elicit an empowering emotion from that person and then actually deliver on that with your product, it's gold. But if you can't get people to feel something, if you can't be persuasive, no matter what you're doing, whether it's copy or just in real life, if you can't persuade, you're done. That's the word I was looking for, persuasion.

So you agree that copy, great copy, good copy is persuasion to move people towards action. 100%. 100%. And anybody watching and listening to this, if you think that your ability to just post something on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and brand yourself, is enough, it's not. You've got to elicit emotion and influence and persuade people into action. The action is to trade money in exchange for product or service. And so you're, you know, you've mastered copywriting. And of course, you guys are using Google at that point. That's for the software company. But now the software company's over. Did you guys sell it? What

happens with the software company? We did, yeah. Sold that. How does that process look for anyone who wants to know how to selling a business look? It is actually, if I'm honest, it was really cool. And I came into business like totally just like the excited kid who had no idea, never thought he'd be a part of any of this. And so I'm very grateful because in the beginning, remember, I just thought I was going to be there for 18 months, I was going to get rich, and I was going to go make movies. And so I didn't really feel like I needed to understand business, but I thought this is a

pretty powerful skill set. So I took it really seriously from the jump and wanted to learn as much as I was I could, force myself to learn how to read contracts. I was like, why am I ever going to need this? But this seems like a pretty powerful skill. And so I wanted to know and understand everything. And so in doing that really, really amassed just a lot of skills. But selling a company was certainly not something that I ever intended to be a part of.

And having to understand VCs versus strategic and like, what are we doing? And then to make the most ridiculous mistakes in our first process of trying to sell the company and literally saying to people, hey, don't worry, this is a business that was born to be sold into slavery. So we want you to come in, take it over. Like, don't worry about us. Like, we'll do whatever you want. We'll leave whenever you want.

This isn't our passion. It's not our baby. And we're like, why don't people want to buy this company? I don't understand. And the reality is, especially if you're talking an investment and not just a strategic buyer, the thing that they're thinking is, are you passionate enough about this,

that you would just die for it? because they need to know that their money is safe with you. And I think it is very wise to say never bet on the company, always bet on the entrepreneur. And if the entrepreneur is somebody that you're like, whoa, this person is special, man. Like, I've met a lot of people in my life, but this motherfucker is going somewhere.

Like, there's something about them. I know they're not going to quit. And obviously, you and I talked about this in our interview. Like, there's something different about you for real. And I know the people watching this show already get it. But, like, even now I'm getting the chills, thinking about you because of what you're like. So when you find people that are like that, that have that kind of drive and what they've decided to build,

like they're going all in, and they either want you as a strategic because they know that by being a part of your team, they can do something even bigger, or they need your money because they want to grow, right? Those two scenarios are exciting when it's somebody like you. But when you've got somebody like I was back then saying, I don't even really want to be a part of this, dude. We just pumped this up for the cash. They're thinking, whoa, whoa, whoa. If I give you my money and then times get hard, you're going to bounce, dude. So I know you're not going to weather restore them.

I know you're not going to make it through the hard times. And so it was just ridiculous. And I cannot believe that I actually thought that's what they wanted to hear. So yeah, that was pretty stupid. So would you say that was the biggest mistake you guys probably made? At that company? In the process of selling that company. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No question. No question. And do you think, and I guess you could never say, but just in your opinion, in hindsight, do you think it negatively impacted your valuation versus had you said, dude, I'm in here, like they see the intensity, the ferociousness that Tom's committed and sort of the two other partners. No question. Really?

That's interesting. Another great lesson for us, entrepreneur builders, guys and gals, if you're listening to this, watching this, just know that sooner or later a business, you're either going to shut down or pass along. And whether you pass along to the next generation or you pass it along by way to someone who's going to buy it, a venture capitalist, a venture capital firm, M&A firm, you are going to want to sell it for as much as you can get. And I think the lesson that you just gave us there right there, Tom, that they want to know that the dude or dudette that started this thing

is in it, ferocious, committed, and my money is safe as the transition happens. For sure. That's huge. So, 2010-11 come around and why Quest bar? I mean, it's such a big pivot from software to nutrition. Let's figure that one out. Yeah, so it literally Quest was a company born out misery. So I'd gotten so profoundly unhappy at awareness technologies. I went in and quit. And by that point, on paper, I was a multi-millionaire. I had ownership in the company. And I said, look, here's all your equity back. I can't do this anymore. Really? Yep. Here's your equity back. Here's your equity back. I said, you could sell the company for a billion dollars tomorrow. You will never hear from me. I'm not going to file a lawsuit. Like, I'm walking away. So, and dude, I was so profoundly unhappy,

like, to just the marrow of my bones. And I remember saying to my wife, I just want to feel alive again. I want to do something that I'm passionate about, that I believe in. And like selling data loss prevention software just is not it. So where was the unhappiness coming from? Looking back again, hindsight being 2020, the source of the unhappiness was... That I was struggling really, really hard to build something that I didn't believe in. I didn't care about it.

We didn't use in our own company. So it was like, I don't really care about this. Like, our software presumed that people are bad and that you need to like build software to protect yourself against your employees. And I didn't feel that way. I've only known you for less than a year, and I know that that is not your core belief system. Literally, anathema to who I am.

We would never use it in our own company because it made people feel like they weren't trusted. And so it was like, yeah, everything about this just doesn't resonate with me personally. So I finally, like, as the three of us had always said, like, we'll do anything within our code of ethics to build this company to be financially a juggernaut. It was always about money, money, money, money, money.

Thinking about the profit, all that, which is super important, but isn't one of my primary drivers. But at the time, I was so committed to that and it seemed so right and I need to get rich so I can go tell these films. And so, like, that was my shtick. And so for six and a half years, that's all I did. And in the beginning, I was learning so much about business that it was building me up. And that was masking the fact that I didn't care about what I was building. I was just learning so much. It was awesome.

And then it just got to the point where started to take away from me. It wasn't a good use of my time. I was never at home. I was working around the clock. And not only was, I only rich on paper, which people watching this need to really understand the difference between paper money and bank account money. Bank account money, at least, is powerful. Paper money, it's mildly interesting.

I guess it makes for a good story, but you can't spend paper money or when people say they're rich on paper. And so while, yes, I was a multimillionaire on paper, I was still driving a beat-up Ford Focus with a leaky exhaust, you know, living in. like lame apartments. And so it was like, certainly didn't feel rich. So I was like, I'm doing all of this for something I don't care about and I'm not even like walking away with the money. So my mantra became the struggle is guaranteed. The success is not. So you better do something that you love in and of itself in the moment right now today to be worth that struggle. So what would

I do and love even if I were failing? And that became my obsession. So when I went in and quit, My partner said, look, we could do this without you. And what year was this, just so we can track the journey? This would have been six and a half years after 2003. So, yeah, this is like 2008, 2009, somewhere in there. Yeah. Just the economy has crashed. Already there's chaos.

And you're like, hey, I've got this profound feeling I don't belong here. Correct. And so they said, we could do it without you, but we don't want to. And those are the words I need to. I got to stop you. That takes some balls. The economy just crashes, dude. And you're like, hey, partners, I quit, take all my equity back.

I promise, even if it sells for a billion dollars, I'm not going to come back and sue you. The economy having crashed, it's not like there's tons of jobs for amazing copyrighters or people with your skills. Like, there is no safety net whatsoever. And you're just like, I'm turning it all in? Yeah. Keep going. And that was the best. In fact, that decision changed the course of my life in no uncertain terms.

So my wife said words that now have become somewhat the core of our marriage, which was, I said, look, I know that I promise you I would make you rich. and I'm going to, but I need you to let me step backwards for a minute. I made some mistakes going into an arena I didn't care about, and now I'm just like not to be cliche, but I'm dead inside. Like I am not having fun. And I'm a huge, like, I think in metaphor. So Batman has always been very important to me because Batman has no superpowers and has struggled

and used the darkness in his life to give him the fury, quite frankly, to do the things he needs to do to become so great that he could avenge, you know, the mistake that he saw is having let his parents die, and that's why he's fighting all this crime and evil and all that. So I'd always gravitated towards that, never really liked Superman because he's given his powers and didn't have to earn them. And then I started to think, well, wait a second.

Actually, Superman's an amazing metaphor. The yellow sun is passion. And when I don't have passion, I'm like every other person. But Bejras, if I'm passionate, I'm superhuman, and I can't be stopped. And I wanted to get back where I felt that. And so I went to my wife and I said, I need to step back, I need to do something that's my yellow sun. I need that passion.

And I will build us an empire. And she said, I bet on you. And she said, ah, I have the chills. And she said, look, whatever, if we have to go backwards, sink or swim, we go together. And I was like, all right, let's do this. So I said, we're going to move to Greece so that we can cut our expenses to the quick. We're going to live in some tiny-ass town because she's Greek. She's Greek.

She's Greek. Right. Yeah, to set the story, she's Greek. We'll go to some little town in Greece, cut our expenses to the quick, and I'm going to get back to writing. And I'll build up a library of intellectual property, and we'll come back to the States and we'll sell it. And so that was the plan. And when they said, look, we could do this without you, but we don't want to. Then I was like, okay, well, I've already done the hard part, which is quit.

I mean, these are my two closest friends. So to leave them, I was actually embarrassed. And I was like, I can't believe I told you I was going to cross the finish line, and I'm not going to. just is no longer worth it. And being able to connect over something other than the money, so I said, look, the hard part was quitting. I've already done that, so now I'm just going to be really honest with you. Money's powerful, but it's not my primary motivator.

And so I want to connect you. I want to feel like brothers again. And we lost that somewhere along the wayside. And I want to be passionate. Whatever we're going to do is going to have to be based on value creation. It's got to be something that even if we were losing, that we would have a great time, like what is that thing? And I grew up in a morbidly obese family,

and I'm very much speaking for myself here, because we found it in the company for three very different reasons. But for me, having grown up in a morbidly obese family, having watched my uncle essentially eat himself to death when I was 12 years old, and my mom and my sister had been morbidly obese my entire life. So I was just like, I'm going to lose them too soon if we can't solve this problem.

And then my business partner was a nutritional genius. The kid is like a whiz kid. It was crazy. And so even at a tech company, we were all taking advice from him on what to eat and why, and he would hold these sort of just impromptu mini lectures around the lunch table. It was so fascinating, and it was changing my life.

And I was losing all this weight. And it was like, whoa, this stuff really works. So when he was like, hey, why don't we do nutrition? I was like, I can connect to that. So my thing was, there's a great Mother Teresa quote. Nobody will act for the many, but people will act for the one. So I wasn't, look, I wasn't thinking about the hundreds of millions or even a billion people that struggle with weight.

I was thinking about my mom and my sister. And I was like, I can show up every day. and fight really hard for them. And I'm not dumb. I get it. There's a business here, and it's a huge business. But when it got hard, when I was tired, when I was fatigued, when I wanted to stop, I'd think about my mom and my sister and I can show up for them every day.

Wow. That's profound. So you're showing up for your mom and your sister, and that's got great meaning to you. Obviously that business partner who's got this nutrition knowledge, this background, this understanding, I see why he got into Quest. What about a third partner? What was his driver? I mean, now I'm speaking for somebody else, so that's always risky.

But I will say what he used to say was that he was just down for the group. And so he saw that his skill set would be amazingly valuable in a manufacturing space. So he felt like he could be very valuable. And by then the three of us worked very, very well together. So for him, it just made a lot of sense. And as we got bigger, he really grew into that role. And it was just extraordinary to see him. So he's actually just betting on two winners, that he knows that there are two winners.

these guys, I love working with them. I'm betting on these two guys. I'm in for the ride. In my words, he may characterize it slightly differently, but roughly. Gotcha. And so there was a very unique way, and I, at least this I found about Quest through Facebook. And so I'm going to assume that Facebook was a big driver for Quest Bar. There was a very unique way in that you guys marketed Quest. So anyone who's going to manufacture, quite honestly anything, for that matter, from nutrition to apparel. How did you guys use Facebook to force-multify the growth of this company? So I had read Tim Ferriss's book, The Four-Hour Workweek,

and I thought, whoa, this is really interesting. And Kevin Kelly's notion of a thousand true fans. And I thought, that's really interesting, because the software that we had, like, no one wanted to talk about it. It was you didn't trust somebody, and that was the only reason that you were using it. So it was all, like, inward-facing. You didn't want to, like, shout it from the rooftops.

And I just thought, hmm, this is. really interesting where we've got an opportunity now, wasn't called social media back then, but with social media, we've got this opportunity to build community and to give people a reason to say something about us. And I said they'll say something good if we give them reason to and they'll tear us apart if we give them reason to. So I pulled my partners aside and I laid out this whole thing about how we could use Facebook and this changing way to market to build this community. And they were like, that sounds amazing. We have no experience in that whatsoever, but what do we really have to lose? Nobody knows who we

are, this company's tiny, it doesn't exist. So it was like, yeah, go ahead, try it, see what happens. And so for the first year, I was just all focused on community building. And so we said that the first rule of Quest marketing was the same as the first rule of Fight Club. So you never talk about Quest. And so our

marketing was always about the consumer. And we did what we called mirror marketing. So we wanted them to see a reflection of themselves. You looked at us, you saw you. Can you give me an example of that? Yeah, so if you wrote in or you submitted something to us, In fact, this is how our marketing ended up evolving.

So if you sent in a recipe that you made and just were like, oh my God, I made this thing with this Quest Bar is so amazing. And you were just sending it to us an email. That would become that Instagram post or that Facebook post. We'd be like, oh, so-and-so in Ohio made this amazing dish. Isn't this incredible? Like just giving her all the credit in the world. But then that made other people, oh, like, you'll post these.

So then they started sending them in. So we started posting more. And then it became people only wanted us to talk about Quest and how they could use quests in their lives. So then it was, you know, we're doing cookbooks and we're doing cooking shows and all this stuff to show them how they could use the product, but it didn't start with us.

It started with them. They were the ones sending it into us, which gave us the idea for all this stuff that we then started pumping out. But it was literally just reflecting back to them what they were giving us. I've been dying to ask you this question, just to, again, a fan of your product,

a user, like from the early days. How much influence did the marketplace have on your marketing and the product versus you guys scheming something up in the boardroom and then saying this is what we're going to do to market? Oh, well, from a nutrition side, that was purely like science. That was just looking at the metabolism. So there were times where we were almost aggressively, like,

we hear you, we get what you're asking for, and we're never going to give it to you because it's just not what we believe is accurate from a DNA perspective, from a metabolic standpoint perspective. So people were saying, like, you know, can't you use evaporated cane juice or something like that? get that you don't want to use high fructose corn syrup. But it was like, metabolically speaking, that level of sugar is just disastrous. So we were avoiding that stuff at all cost because

we wanted to steer by metabolic reality, plain and simple. This reminds me of Steve Jobs quote, and I'm going to slaughter it, but he says something to the effect of like, people don't know what it is they want. He'll give society what it is they want and need. And so you guys were really in a position to turn down ideas that maybe large amounts of people had, which could have resulted in even more sales. Dude, we really talked about that. Like, at the end of the day, it was not at all when we were small because we were so, hell about, remember, this is coming out of, I'm never going to chase money again.

Like, that was literally like, I'm never going to chase money again. You get that right. So if you want to work with me, like, definitively, that's never going to be top priority. And everybody was like, we feel the same. We want to do something that's beautiful. We want to do something that really adds value. So it was like we had so much clarity of purpose. We knew what our why was, right?

Our why was to end metabolic disease. So it was like, cool. If you want to end metabolic disease, you can't put 20 grams of sugar. You just can't. So it was like, okay, well, that makes it nice and simple. And that's how we ended up being more expensive. It wasn't like we set out to be an expensive bar. Our thing was these ingredients are expensive.

So we were just with maybe even slightly thinner margins in our competition, we just had more expensive ingredients, better ingredients. metabolically speaking. So it was like, we were just obsessive about that. That's fascinating. And so you take the marketing to Facebook and what year did you guys start? Maybe if you can even remember back to what month, what year? And then when did you really start seeing traction? Like, holy smokes, we weren't going on this just for the money, but I think we've got this cash cow. So we started thinking about the company and formulating in 2009. And then we officially launched in 2010 pretty early in the year, if I remember. I don't remember exactly what month.

But around May, we pulled it back off the market because we wanted to make some formulation changes. And we relaunched in August of 2010. And that's when it was like, whoa, we're starting to get pretty steady orders now. And then by, certainly by that December, it was like we were getting so many orders that we had to move from shipping off my living room floor to shipping out of my partner's garage. And then probably three to six months after that, we had to get a facility because we couldn't ship out of the garage anymore.

and then it just snubbed. That is nuts. Okay, it was probably around. I was thinking back the other day, what I love about Facebook is you can just literally scroll back. And myself and my friend Josh Carter, actually Josh is one who turned me on to. It was early 2011, like February 2011, that, Quest, what is this? And I remember someone saying, you know, you just put in the microwave,

especially when it's cold outside, you put in the microwave just for a few seconds, and it's just nice and warm and gooey. And holy hell, you just created a whole new product with it. Dude, I'm absolutely blown away, Tom, but I got to cut you off right here, man, because we're completely out of time and you've given more information and more in the trenches tactics to build an empire than anyone has ever given on this show. But friends, tune in next week as we go to part two with Tom Billu and how to build an empire here on the Empire Show.

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