Habits and Hustle - Episode 101: Nick Taranto – Founder of HOP WTR, Co-Founded Plated (Acquired by Albertsons), Serial Founder.

Episode Date: February 2, 2021

Nick Taranto is the Founder of HOP WTR, Co-Founded Plated (Acquired by Albertsons), and is a Serial Founder. From his childhood taking candy kids didn’t want from Halloween and trying to resell it, to selling a business in his 20s for over 100 million dollars, to his most recent endeavors in non-alcoholic beer, Nick has been business-minded for as long as he can remember. Discussing the importance of risking big while you can, and growing and finding time for reprioritizing, he shows what it means to be successful young and bring that success through life without burning out. He also gives us a little eye-opening behind-the-scenes for his Shark Tank appearance. Having trouble taking your ideas from your brain and bringing them into real life? Wonder why this guy ran 87 miles at one time and how that aligns with his success? Nick’s wild, and someone you can really only experience from the man, himself. Don’t miss it. Youtube Link to this Episode HOP WTR Nick’s Twitter ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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San Antonio, Texas. Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habitson Hustle, fresh it. Today, we have Nick Taranto on Habitson Hustle. He is a serial entrepreneur who is also an ultra marathon or an Iron Man guy. He created, he's created, played it and sold it to Albracen for what, over a hundred million dollars or how much did you sell it for? Around there. Yeah. Something like that. And your new project is something called Hopwater. That's your new product. And you have very interesting stories and I want to just kind of like deep dive right in so without further ado. Let's do it. I'm excited to be here. Good to chat with you today. I wish I wish we were on the treadmills, but we'll do that one part two, okay?

Absolutely. I don't worry. You don't have to like tell me twice. This is my favorite. This is my best friend right behind me. This treadmill. So I love running also. I kind of feel like I'm like a female for the gum. I mean, I just go and go. So and my knees will prove it, because I have like my knees are all screwed up now. But so tell me the story. So when you were younger, you just decided you wanted to run and you just ran and ran eight to miles one day.

Yeah, I mean, essentially that's what happened. I mean, the longer story is that, you know, when I was in my late teens, I wound up like battling with depression. I was just like having a tough time seeing the positive side of life. And I'm generally like a very positive person. I think you'll gather that from this phone call. And I always was growing up. And then my parents got divorced

and some other stuff happened in my life. And freshman year in college, I just was in this deep dark place. And the only thing that made me feel better were substances, but also running. And I quickly realized like substances are not a good way to long-term, get to a sustainable, healthy place. And I quickly realized like substances are not a good way to you know long-term get to a sustainable healthy place.

And I started running, I got run a little bit in high school, you know like three or four miles. So I started running three miles around this pond outside my dorm, I went to Dartmouth in New Hampshire. So you know middle of January, you know started running three, four miles, like dress, Ted De Toe in fleece, because it was like negative 10 degrees outside. And that helped, but then I found myself needing eight miles, 10 miles to feel better, and I found the longer I ran, the better I felt. And over the course of my winter and spring,

that led to me going out and running 20, 30 miles at a time, just by myself, in the hills and mountains of New Hampshire. And then I got this crazy idea, like, look, there are these 100 mile races that exist out there. You know, why don't I try to be the youngest person ever to complete one of these things? So, I'm 18, I start training for 100 mile of Tramerathon, and I signed up for the Vermont 100. And I learned a lot of lessons

because I didn't really have a good strategy or training plan. I would literally fill up a backpack with whatever food I could find, most oftentimes, like cookies and nuts. And then I'd go run 40, 50, 60 miles through the mountains. I just start sometimes at midnight, and I'd run until 5 p.m. the next day.

I'd just go run up and down mountains, run the equivalent of a Mount Everest in 50 or 60 miles. These are New Hampshire mountains aren't the, you know, the Himalayas or the Rockies or even the Sierra's in California, but like, you know, you can do like 3,000 foot peaks. So I run through like the presidential range, Mount Washington is the biggest mountain in New Hampshire and you know, eventually got the Vermont 100 and you start at about 5am and I did the first marathon was done by the time the sun was coming up and then second marathon was done around lunch,

third marathon done as the sun started setting and I got to the mile 80 mark and I just started to loosenating like crazy. I thought I had turned into a giant walking talking Mr. Potato Head. I'd just run way too far. And my body and my heart ready for it. So I looked down at my arms and I had these white stocky looking arms and these big brown gloves. And at this point, you know, it's the middle of July in Vermont. I wasn't wearing anything on my hands or arms. I looked down my legs were these stocks. My body was a giant potato and I don't know, it's probably only lasted 30 to 90 seconds or something that I popped out of it and I was like, whoa, this has gone a bit too far.

Oh my God. So that's kind of a crazy, okay, first of all, they, I mean, I've heard that a lot and I'm a thing is like so running or in general exercise and a big believer, that's like the best thing you can do for your mental health in terms of really kind of shifting your mood, maybe changing the serotonin levels. And so that's kind of like, I feel like a natural antidepressant, basically. Totally.

You know, are you familiar with the idea of whoremedic stress? No, tell me. So like, you know, in life, there's, we're all gonna have stress at some point, right? And whoremedic stress is the idea that there's actually some good stress, not all stress is bad. And this process of hormisis is actually your body

and your mind, and even down to a cellular level, everything that you're being is reacting positively to stress. So that's why high intensity interval training is good. That's why you know running long distances makes you feel good. It's your body reacting positively to whormedic stress. So obviously you don't want too much of of anything in life, but this, you know, having some whormedic stress regularly is a very, very, is about the best possible thing you can do for yourself. Yeah, I never heard it be called, or metextress, but I'm a big believer in what you just said.

However, what I've noticed, because I'm very much into high intensity, hit training and running. And as you were saying, sometimes, and I'm know, the, like, as you were saying, sometimes, an I'm an extreme personality as well, like that, that too much of anything is a bad thing because, you know, you can also get a adrenal failure, and like your body is like too overstressed, you know what I mean? And like, it shuts down basically,

right? Or you don't get the same, you know, you don't get the same highs, you just get fatigued and actually depressed by the opposite. Totally. When I trained for my first Iron Man, maybe my only Iron Man, I don't know if I'll go to do that crazy thing again, I got really disciplined about looking at my training stress and how much stress I was putting my body under. They're really good tools and technology out there for measuring training stress now. So, just getting really dialed into exactly how much stress you're putting on your body and then making sure you've got good recovery so that your body and your brain can bounce

back is super, super important, especially when you're pushing that hard. Absolutely. What were you using to see your stress level in your body? What was it like a particular app or what kind of technique is that? Yeah, I worked out with a Garmin watch with a 400 735 and then I used a program called Training Peaks, which is very triathlon-specific. And it essentially measures your heart rate and then triangulates that based off of all the data that you've injected into the system over all your training. And it tells you, here's where you are in terms of your stress level,

how much stress you've built up, recommends how much time you should take off and shows you after you've had a big day. And if you go ride 100 miles and then run 20 miles, which you do when you're doing Iron Man days, your training stress will be way off the charts. And then you know, okay, I need to take it easy for a couple days. Maybe just do a light swim or some yoga.

Otherwise, there's real risk of injury. So it's a really good way just to make sure that you don't get injured. Wow, I like that. Are you still kind of an extremist when it comes to workouts and, you know, you're not doing any more Ironmans, but you're still doing ultra-marathons or? I know, I'm more of just like an extreme dad these days.

Ha ha ha ha ha. All right, we all are like, or I would say not just dad, but you know, extreme mom, dad, at home COVID person. Totally. I mean, what I realize is like, you know, if you're talking about doing these ultra endurance things, it's just a lot of time. You know, it's like 15, 20 hours a week, just training.

It doesn't even, it doesn't even include like making sure you've got oil on your chain on the bike and massage and foam rolling and all that stuff. So I came to the realization, like, look, my kids are amazing. I've got a six-year-old and a four-year-old. I want to be a super-present dad for them. And I also love building businesses. And at some point, something has to give, right? There are only 24 hours in a day, and I've also realized I need eight hours of sleep.

I'm not one of those people that can run on six or even seven. I really need eight. So you got 16 operating hours in the day. Just have to prioritize what goes into your pie. Absolutely. I'm glad that you said that because I have a lot of people who I speak to and even some friends in mind who are extreme athletes, they do ultra marathon, they do the Iron Man and they have three kids at home, four kids at home.

If you do the math, to train for an ultra marathon, to train for 100 mile race, whatever it is, the amount of hours it takes out of your day, just to do that training without the recovery, like you were saying, without doing a job, if you have some kind of other thing you're doing, a parent, a husband. It's like, in a way, it kind of sounds, and I'm going to probably get a scrutinized for this, but it's a kind of like selfish thing to do when you actually have family because you're spending eight, nine hours a day by yourself, truthfully, if you're running, you're running by yourself, right? Just doing what you know your own thing, I never understood, like it's one thing when you're doing

when you're 18, 19, a single guy without a family kid. But it's a super difficult thing to do unless you're getting paid for it as a career, I guess. Right. Just to do it. Or if you're in a place where you want, you know, you can, you can financially take a year off and say, I'm going to prioritize this from nine to five or whatever the case may be. But yeah, I mean, I don't know how people work a full-time job, have kids,

and do ultra endurance training. It just doesn't really compute for me. Unless you're one of those people that really only needs four hours of sleep, and they do exist, but I think they're few and far between who really can function that way. I think most of us really do need seven, eight, nine hours of sleep. Oh, absolutely. I agree. But it sounds to me you're pretty convicted in general. You could convicted how you do one thing in life is usually how you do everything else in life as a generality.

I know, but it seems to be a true generality most of the time. You were like, you were very, you're committed and convicted of being to run, so you ran until you, you know, 82 miles and you kept on doing that. You did that thing. I also read something about in 2004, the whole tsunami thing. And you like been raised all this money and then gave it to a guy. And then he forced to stole it. It seems like you, when you have an idea of what you want to do, you kind of, you set for it to actually do that. What's that quality called?

Does it just conviction? Well, I think it comes down to risk, right? And this idea, to my mind, the bigger risk, the bigger thing that I'm scared of is waking up when I'm 80 and saying, oh man, you know, what it could have showed up, I wish I had. Right? So, to my mind, you know, I've raised, well, first I'm very lucky I was born into a family with parents who love me and were there to support me and they prioritize education for me. And I wasn't born independently wealthy by an associate imagination, but between going

to school, going to the best possible schools I could, and then taking big risk and selling a business at a relatively young age, but able to continually raise the safety net over the years. And this idea of like, when you're 18, you can take pretty huge risks because if you fail, all right, so what? Now you're 19, go do something else, right? And obviously, as you get older

and you have more responsibilities and you have kids, the downside of failure becomes greater. Right, but I, from a pretty young age, I was like, okay, like, I don't take this risk now. I'm just going to regret that I didn't. And instead of spending time thinking about it and probably to my detriment when I was, my late teens in early 20s, I did a lot more doing than thinking. Right? So, like most of us, like most of us.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. This idea of like, okay, if you have this idea that burning a hole in your head, just figure out how to test it against reality as quickly as possible, right? Whether it be running some crazy distance or starting a microfinance nonprofit, which is what you're talking about, we're starting a business.

It's like try to get out of the PowerPoint, and out of Excel, and out of your own brain, and into the real world as quickly as possible. I would say has been my general operating principle. Was Plated, your first company that you actually built and then sold? Yeah, certainly not the first one that I started. Yeah.

Plus, I was gonna say, what was the first business that you actually started? Was it that thing when you said it earlier? Well, I think I've always been entrepreneurial. I wouldn't have called it that back when I was in seventh grade. But even in seventh grade, I was the kid who after Halloween went and asked people for the Halloween candy they didn't give out and then tried to go door to door

and sell it. You did? I love that. And that didn't work at all, right? Like I literally was like posting these really bootleg signs on the telephone poles around my town with my number, you know, scrolled out and the police like called my parents. Like, your son is is trying to solicit

unregulated goods here. So that was the end of that person, Debra. But I've always been interested in going and trying to see if I can make things work in the real world. So Plated was the first venture backed business. We raised real money for, and that really worked. And we took that from my co-founder, Josh, and me, to over 1,000 employees.

And we raised almost 100 million in venture capital. And we sold that to Albertsons in 2017, Big Grocery retailer. So we made our early investors over 20 times their money in under five years. It was a crazy entrepreneurial rocket ship ride. Just an amazing experience. And I learned one or two careers worth of stuff in a very compressed period of time. Very stressful, you know, complex business. We were shipping perishable food. Two consumers homes, we couldn't find anyone

who would do the manufacturing for us. So we had to build our own operations and fulfillment centers, you know, big, refrigerated warehouses. You know, and we were always running out of money. All it was five years of just constantly never having enough cash on hand. And as any entrepreneur will tell you, cash is, or any business owner at all, will tell you, cash is king, right?

So we came very close to missing payroll multiple times and just, you know, a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of stress. But not the good kind of stress. Yeah. I'm gonna say not that kind of you and I just talked about the physical hormonics stress. Hormetic. Hormetic, okay. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so I mean, I tried to to do I tried a lot of things before that though, which you know, I think You know too few people who've who've had you know entrepreneurial success talk about all the failures they have on the way Right, you know, it's I Want to know more besides the besides the Halloween candy. What else did you try before you did played it? So right out of college

that you tried before you did played it. So right out of college, I was really interested in microfinance. And I've always been very mission driven. And I thought microfinance, this idea of giving small loans to people who wouldn't otherwise have access to capital was a very interesting way to potentially change the world. And again, instead of just reading about it purely academically, I said, this makes sense, let's go see if we can make it work. And I got a government grant to move to Indonesia.

And I teamed up with a group of local guys there who've been running their own nonprofit for some time. And we was able to raise money back from the States, and we started making these very small loans. The average loan we gave out was $68, which might not seem like a lot here, but for the folks who are working with, that was the difference between having books for their kids to go to school or being able to get surgery

if they'd gotten injured or pooling their money together and buying a brickmaking machine for their village. So that was super rewarding, very interesting work, but had trouble scaling it. You know, we got up to a couple thousand loans, and then it was just all my time was raising small checks from wealthy individuals back in the US. And that's when I realized, okay, you know, I really like to move fast, you know, and

then I just saw myself standing still, almost treading water. And that's when I came back and I did graduate school at Harvard. I did the Kennedy School, Business School joint degree, to learn how to build profit-driven businesses that could scale quickly. Wow. And then you go to Harvard, and then you were also then you went to the Marines basically, right? That's a whole other chapter of your life. Yeah. This is like you're so it's like fascinating. I mean, so normally people would do they'd go to the Marines

and then maybe not go to Harvard or maybe go to college. I go to afterwards. What made you decide that was your path? Yeah, I first started thinking about serving in the military on 9-11. I had born in New York, I grew up in New York. I was in New York on 9-11. You know, their kids from my town and from my school whose parents died in the attack. And that's when I first started thinking about military service.

But I was a Jewish kid growing up in the New York suburbs. Like I literally knew no one. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're Jewish? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad is a Turkish Jew. No way. I thought for sure you were Italian.

A common misperception, yeah. I mean, the name obviously got picked up, like crossing the Mediterranean at some point. You know, there's a project that I'd love to do at some point, you know, when I'm like 65 and wearing tweed, wearing a suitably tweed, go like a male event around the Mediterranean and figure out what exactly happened. But the hypothesis is that my family was in Spain or Portugal, not sure which, back in, you know, kind of forever ago.

And then in the Inquisition in 1492, all the Jews got kicked out and migrated across the Mediterranean over some period of time. And at the time, the Ottoman Empire was basically the only place in Europe that was taking in Jews. So that's where my family landed. And it was there for hundreds of years. And then my dad's a Turkish immigrant. So he came over from Istanbul.

But yeah, that's a. Oh, I was. Well, I've just blown away. First of all, I thought you're for sure Italian for sure. Maybe Greek, but not meant mostly Italian, but then how old are you? Not to be like, not to pry into your personal life, but I'm going to. I signed up for this run a podcast. I'm 36. I signed up for this, we're on a podcast. You're a chair right? Exactly.

I'm 36. You're 36, okay. Because I mean, a sidebar here is me and my best friend, we started breast cancer charity, it's called Babes for Boobs. And what the charity is, is we basically auction off very, very eligible, not to say you have to be Jewish at all, but why am I supposed to say that?

Very eligible, I was gonna say Jewish there, but bachelors for these dinner dates, and it's all tongue in cheek, and what happens is, within the, we actually then give all the money to breast cancer. So all the money we raise from the bachelor auction, we go, and so the big joke is,

usually I get, I know a lot of different bachelor's or I know you're married, but I've known to how long you're married, but that's why I was curious. I'm like, hmm, maybe. And then that's why I'm asking really more than anything. Or not even asking, but that's why I'm super proud. Nine years married to two great kids.

But no. No, I know. You said you have two kids and I know you're married, but I just like, that's why I was kind of, I was just kind of like, crying for those reasons. But carry on. So that's what we do. We do it all for charity, for Brett's cancer. And it's just a way for us to give back, but I digress.

I love supporting a good cause. I actually do this. Have you ever heard of the Pan-Mass Challenge? Do you know that? No, which one does that? It says bike ride across Massachusetts every summer. It's been going on for like 40-ish years now. And I think it's now the biggest single weekend fundraiser

in the country, if not the world. So something like 7,000 people ride bikes across Massachusetts from like the Berkshires to Cape Cod. And you know, not 2019, because that was COVID, but the year before, or not 2020 was COVID, I think 2019, there is like $40 million in a weekend for breast cancer. And it all goes to Dana Farber,

not just breast cancer, not just breast cancer, mostly kids cancer. But it's a great, great, great, right? What is the name of that? Cause I will actually, I'd love to learn more about it. It's an amazing organization, it's called the Pan Mass Challenge. My brother's and I, yeah, it's another digression,

but I've got three adopted siblings, and their mom died of breast cancer. So we've been doing this ride together for, oh, like 15 years now, and we're all over the country, but we come together and we ride our bikes, like 100 miles, like 112 miles, and all the money goes to Dana Farber for cancer research.

That's amazing. You just said you had three adopted siblings and their mom died. So how did you know them? We were super good family friends. They grew up in our town and their mom died of breast cancer, super terrible, like two year battle with breast cancer back in the mid 90s. Our families got much closer together during that process. And then super, super horrible, but their dad then died two years after that, which is very suddenly.

So these three kids were very close to us, to our family, and my parents stepped up and adopted these, you know, the three kids, and they're now my siblings. That is an incredible story, amazing. Wow. Yeah, so that's a big part of what shaped me, seeing death at a young age and then also seeing my parents step up and perform this really selfless, active service. And it's been a wonderful thing now, 20 years on to have this giant family of amazing people. That's certainly pretty, pretty wild thing to live through. That's incredible. It speaks volumes about your parents, obviously.

I mean, and, you know, you learn by example, right? So it makes sense now why, a lot of the things you do, why you do it, right? Like you said, so Yeah, I mean part of it, you know, trying to minimize regret if you know God willing I lived till I'm you know 90 but part of it's also realizing, you know, like Susan who was the mom died it I think she was 41 and Joe the dad died at like 43 So like I'm not you know, I'm basically that age now close enough and you just see like wow like all these things you take for granted can just go super fast. Absolutely. I know I totally agree with that. And so wow that was that's I didn't know that that's amazing that's the amazing

to your parents. I mean that that just, like I said, speaks such volumes of the character that you grew up with, so amazing. Now being a parent also, I just realized, wow, what an incredible thing to do, right? Right, well, three kids is no joke, I mean, one kid, I mean, is a lot, you know? Like, that's basically like you

you have an orphanage how many how many biological brothers or sisters you have. I'm one of four biologically. So there was seven kids in your house. Yes it was this modern day Brady Bunch. We went through like gallons of milk and and flocks and chickens. Yeah, my family probably should have been buying her to cattle at a time, but. I'm gonna say, when did your parents do for a living? Obviously you said you weren't, you didn't grow up very wealthy, but what did they do in terms of?

My mom's a pediatrician. Okay, well that makes more sense. So she's a kid's doctor, that would be great. Yeah, yeah, very nurturing and also just very mission-driven. And my dad is a consultant. So he was a consultant in the medical space for a job. Wow, that's amazing. I just have like a whole new respect for you and your family. Amazing.

Well, it wasn't me, right? I mean, that's all my parents, but you grew up in that environment. So you basically act as you see, right? Like, what's that saying? You know, like, don't do as I do, you know, whatever it is. Like, don't, you act by example. You lead by example. You don't do as I do, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Blazing deals, boundless options.

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Okay, so let's go back to plated then for a moment. So then what would make you think, you know what, I'm going to start a food company when, you know, from everything I've heard and I've spoken to people, like the food industry is the most difficult. Like you were saying perishable foods, right? Like what would it even give you that idea to even start that? And then the other part is, I don't know how it was

back when you started it, but I feel like there's so many of those food delivery services, companies. It feels like it's a saturated business. Was it not saturated at the time? And was there a need when you started? This is a crazy thing. Now we're almost a decade later. So you have to realize, my gosh, tech change is so fast. When we first came up with this idea back in early 2012, no one was doing food delivery.

You had grub hub and seamless, and one was doing food delivery. I mean, like you had grub hub and seamless, and that was it. And- We burned with it, was blue apron, though. No, we were before them. Oh, wow, okay, I didn't realize, okay. Yeah, so we were the first American meal kit company. And yes, we knew it was gonna be hard.

I think if we knew exactly how hard we probably would have gone a different way. But there's something to be said for doing hard things, right? And you like hard things apparently. I mean, that's what you do. Yeah, I mean, I really love this idea of, look, this is a big challenge. If we can make this work, it's going to be financially rewarding and just like an amazing challenge and experience along the way. I love that in startups, you can move fast.

You can just, again, take your ideas and put them out in the world and very quickly figure out, is this all just BS or do I really have something here? And then what I loved about plated is that it was it was very mission driven. You know, we loved this idea that we were going to be helping, you know, potentially millions of Americans eat better and teach them how to cook again. You know, you looked at all the trend data and people were cooking less because it was just not convenient. You had to go to the store, you had to figure out what to cook. Most people didn't know how to cook, didn't know how to shop, didn't understand ingredients,

and we were going to help facilitate all that. And it started super humbly. My co-founder and me on my kitchen counter go into the local grocery store, hand delivering orders. and counter, go into the local grocery store, hand delivering orders, and with a long, you know, a couple of years of just really slugging it out with very little to show for it. But you know, again, we spent a whole podcast probably talking about the plated chapter. No, but it's interesting because I mean, you were in a chef, right? So you were a guy that that did you like to cook?

Like what would give you this height? Was it you or your partner Josh? I mean, who thought, like, what was the, like, did you just see a need in the market? And you thought this is something we should attack and figure out, or what was that it? Or, yeah. Neither of us were, you know quote-unquote food guys

Right, I mean I I knew how to like boil water. I can make a really good wrong I've gotten gotten good since then not good. I've gotten passable better better better. Yeah better But no, we saw this, this, this big opportunity, um, and then, you know, a couple of things had changed structurally, you know, again, this like 2012, right? So people are starting to use their, their mobile phones for commerce, right? Like, this is back just when Facebook was starting to really get into their mobile app, and, and, uh, interest was literally just launching and you know we saw that food was the number one most shared thing on Pinterest. Instagram was just launching.

Oh right. So you know this is not that long ago. It's crazy how much it came out. I was going to say it wasn't 10 years ago. It was eight years ago. First of all. Eight years. I know. I finally came out like 11 years ago. It's just amazing how fast things change with technology. So we saw these trend lines of consumer shopping online more and the ability to trust in online commerce. And we saw that food was this last frontier where less than 1% of all food orders were coming online. And we said, this is going to happen, right?

This mobile wave is going to enable this. And that was enough for us to start digging in and doing work. And again, really hard slog. We had to build our own fulfillment centers, just some crazy war stories. You can tell on the treadmill next time. But we were able to grind it out

and build a great business that I'm very, very proud of. What was the tipping point? Like, how did you, what was the tipping point of the business? Yeah, so we started in June of 2012 and I would say it didn't really feel like it was working until two years later, spring of 2014, and the actual tipping point was going on Shark Tank.

We went on our episode aired and our orders just lit up across the country. We did more revenue the months after we went on Shark Tank and we had done cumulatively the entire history of the business up to that point. So that really validated for us like, wow, there's a lot of demand out there. And this, you know, people want this. And that allowed us to go raise a big chunk of capital to scale up the business.

So you didn't actually end up doing, or you were going to do a deal on, like again, this is all just hearsay, right? Because otherwise I would read, if you had a book, I would have read it, but you know, you don't have one of those yet. So it's just me like searching online and getting all my info.

That's why some of it could be choppy, like that story about the thing about the tsunami. So you made a deal, it said with Mark Cuban, right? And then at the end of the show, or after all that happened, the deal never went through. And you made a deal with Kevin O'Leary or something. Is that correct?

You got it. Yeah, that's what happened. We did a deal on air that when we got to the paper work phase, it just fell apart with Mark Cuban. Which happens, you know, no, that happens all the time. People don't realize that it happens probably more often than not. Totally. I mean agreeing in principle to something is great, but you know that the devil's definitely in the details.

Oh, sure. So, but then almost a year later, nine months later, met Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O'Leary, and reconnected, and he was excited about what we were building, and he did the deal then, and the rest is history. Well, how did that happen? So, like, because I'd never heard of that happening. So basically, the deal with Mark Cuban

doesn't go through. You like just whatever you go about your business. And already your business was already kind of just fun, the visibility of the show. It already kind of started the momentum. Well, the show hadn't aired yet, right? And the thing with Shark Tank that a lot of people don't realize is if you don't get a deal done, your probability of airing goes way down. Oh, yeah. So only only one and two shows that get filmed actually air. At least that's how it was four or five years ago. So we were thinking, oh, you know, crap. We have this great opportunity to get on Friday night, primetime TV, and it's not going to happen.

But then we, I was doing a CNBC piece with Kevin O'Leary in our office, and we got to talking afterwards. And he said, you know, whatever happened with Mark, you know, as we talked through it. And he dug in, got excited about where we were, and you know, invested, call it, you know, almost nine months after we had filmed the show. And after the deal had fallen apart with Mark.

And, you know, I think he, I think he, yeah, I don't know if he, if he would corroborate this, but I think he pulled a couple of strings to get us, to get us on air. And, and you know, a few weeks later, we were on Friday night and, you know, psych crashed, tens of thousands of people visiting the website simultaneously and just orders went,

you know, did the hockey stick go vertical thing? Wow. So is he, is he as jerky in real life just as he seems on the show? No, he's a teddy bear. It's all made for TV. It's all made for TV. Yeah, that's what I don't know if I believe you 100%,

but you know, just for BPC with you, I'll say, okay, great. Yes. A friend of mine did a deal with Mark, not a friend of mine. A friend of a friend did a deal with Mark Cuban recently on air and off air. Her business is like crushing it. It's like some vegan corn beef. Do you know this corn, do you have you heard of this thing? I don't know this particular company.

I mean, I don't I've been seeing that one, but the better for you meet alternative spaces. Hot. Super hot. It's been it's, you know, I'm not a vegan. I don't know. Are you a vegan? I've gone through those chapters or I mean, I've experimented with it, but I'm back to like omnivores that. Yes, I'm with you on that. I mean also, you know, like a lot of these things have a lot of sodium in it. Yeah. The, I mean, I'm not a big fan myself. Again, I'm going to get published.

For sure, vegan doesn't necessarily mean healthy, right? Like vegan lollipops and vegan chocolate chip cookies like organic cookies. Organic cookies. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. I definitely try to like limit my meat consumption, though. Yeah.

I try to get most of my protein from plant-based sources. Right. OK. I love fish. I have to be honest with you. It's my favorite. I love fish. Yeah. Good salmon, for sure. Right. Okay. I love fish. I have to be honest with you. It's my favorite. I love fish. Good salmon for sure.

Right. Okay. So then let's keep on going. So then you, you know, your sky rocket and then how did it happen that Albert sends? And by the way, how much did Albert's actually buy you for? I said over a hundred million, but I think it was probably way more than that. So what was it? I don't think I'm technically allowed still to give the exact number, but it would have been fully realized more than $200 million. Got it. Okay, I'll accept that as an answer. You can poke around the internet also. There's some commentary out there. That's what I'm saying. I don't understand if I would poke around the internet

and get my answer versus just asking you, what's the difference? You're just technically not allowed to say it. Is that? I think that's right. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so I'll just poke around and put it in the show notes. No, I'm just kidding.

You can, for sure. I can't stop you from doing that. No, so how did it happen? How did Albertsons become like, what happened? How did that kind of evolve? Two things happened in the spring of 2017 within like two weeks of each other. One is that Blue Apron, our closest competitor, they went public. And then the second thing which really moved the market was that Amazon bottle foods.

the market was that Amazon bought whole foods. So, again, that's only three years ago, right? Like, you know, three and a half now, but that really shook the food market. You know, publicly traded grocery stores saw 30% of their market cap erased, you know, in a matter of days. Because everyone was like, oh, Amazon's coming for food. Grocery is done. Right. So, that basically catalyzed every grocery player

out there to have a conversation with us and say, hey, can you be a part of our story for Wall Street around how fast growth, digitally native brand, big data, we need to be able to tell that story, can you help us? So we had a bunch of conversations with people with different firms, different big grocery retailers, and Albertson's got really excited, and it happened very quickly, and it was a phenomenal, phenomenal outcome for a lot of people around the table. Wow, and then, so what happened to it then? is a phenomenal outcome for a lot of people around the table.

Wow. And then, so what happened to it then? They didn't, it's like debunked, isn't it? Like what happened after that? Yeah, it's a sad story. And unfortunately, this happens with a lot of acquisitions. We have a big, big promise of working together. And after, you know, Albertsons is a huge company, right?

$60 billion company, $3,500 grocery stores, over 300,000 employees. Is that big? Yeah, I mean, Albertsons own Safeway, Vons, Acme, Pavilion, Jewel Aasco, 15 other grocery brands that all over the country. So they are huge. They're one of the big, big grocery players in the country. So we got swallowed up and kind of got lost, unfortunately, which happens a lot of the time. Yeah, and I can't share too much more, again, for legal reasons.

But yeah, ultimately within a couple of years, they ended up shutting down our e-commerce presence. It's kind of like watching your first child get left on the curb. But I've come to terms with it. It's, you know, it's all good. But I mean, at the end of the day though, you walked away with your money though, right? Like it didn't affect your bottom line.

It's just sad to see something like that that you've worked so hard to build just kind of dissipate, so to speak. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, again, I don't want to go into too much detail, but Yeah, definitely a sad sad sad end of the story, I would say Who do you think in today like because I mean like we're talking now the food industry that the food delivery You know such a big market who do you think does it really well these days?

Well, I think Amazon and Whole Foods, that they're really doing a good job, very, very good integration. They've just executed really, really well. Instacart also, just very smart execution and consumer centricity and enabling the shopping of the retail experience in a digitally first way, super, super smart. Then if you get into the food delivery scene, the prepared foods, obviously we're talking

here December 15th and just last week DoorDash IPO and they're valued at $70 billion now. They started after we started plated. They're part of the Y Combinator class a few months after we started. I don't know about that one. I'm bearish on that one. I think they've got very high expectations that they have to deliver on. But the trend lines are there around people ordering in more, especially during the pandemic.

If you can deliver convenience at a reasonable price, people are willing to pay for it. And food is still something like 10% of the entire economy. So there's a lot of opportunities still do food better and build better business models in and around food. But in terms of like, even every day I feel like even in my email, I get like three or four new meal delivery companies

that are, I mean, like meal prepared companies, right? Is there any one of those that you think is really good at it? Like freshly did a really good job? I don't know if you track those guys. They actually just emailed me today. They just sold to Nestle, but they did a very good job with the business. I mean, these are really hard businesses. Right?

That's what I'm saying. It's super difficult business. They are. They're really, really hard. I think a lot of the startups that you see just won't make it. That's just the reality. But if you have for you as a consumer,

if they're subsidized with venture capital dollars and they're willing to give you free meals and deliver it to you and you like the food, you know, take advantage of it while it's still there. You know, I wouldn't necessarily go invest in any of them. No, no, exactly. I mean, I just think in terms of how do you keep the quality really high, right, when that, when you're doing it such a mass, such a mass level.

It's hard. It's really hard. I mean, it's also low margin, right? And, and, and, you know, you've got salmon, and kale, and microgreens coming in from all over the country. And you have to package them and make sure that there's their foods. It's hard, hard business. Yeah, it totally is.

And then, so let's go into hot water, your new project, who where, so hot water is a beverage, right? It's a non-alcoholic beer, basically, with like, neutropics. Is that more or less what we're talking about here? Yeah, more or less. Basically, we... You're here to fill in the blanks. Yeah, I'll fill in the blank for you. So you know, we sold the business in 2017 plated and then I moved out here to Southern California and last year, oh, you know almost two years ago now In 2019 I found myself just drinking way too much beer

You know, I was on like a between three and five IPA a day diet, which I don't recommend for for anyone and I put on You know north of 20 pounds and I was just feeling gross and you know the next morning I was groggy and you know got it six year old and a four year old and they were shaking me out of bed And it was just like becoming a problem. You know, it's not it's not cool. Wow Yeah So were you like boarding is it were you boarding on being like an alcoholic a little bit or just? I don't know if I go, I mean, technically if you followed like the guidelines, I was having like, you know, something like 30 to 40 drinks a week, right? Which is, you know, way, I think would put me in that range.

I definitely had control over it. I could stop, but like I have alcoholism in my family. And at various points, I've said, whoa, this is getting, you know, too close to the rail. And I had one of those moments where I was like, okay, look, dude, you like got to get yourself in check here. And I looked out for alternatives because I love that taste of beer and I love that celebration of cracking a cold one or three or five at the end of a day. And I just couldn't find what I wanted. I wanted something that was, I'm also big into fasting.

And I wanted something where it was zero cow. It wasn't going to have a glycemic response, but it was going to make me feel that same feeling of, you know, crack a cold one and give me that homage to having a beer at the end of the day. And I couldn't find what I wanted. And, you know, teamed up with my buddy Jordan, here in L.A., who's been a beverage e-commerce executive for many, many years. And we did research and both came to the conclusion, look, there's a big opportunity here

to be the healthy alternative to beer. No one is owning that space. So sitting in between non-alcoholic beer, which is almost a $10 billion category, it's the fastest growing part of the beer market. And functional beverages like kombucha or adaptogenic drinks, neutral drinks, which is also already several billion dollars and growing double digits every year, we're playing right at that intersection of these two very large industries that

are growing super fast. So, hop water, we take hops, which is what gives beer, it's beer-y, you know, flavor, takes intennial and Columbus hops, and we brew that into water, and we add adapt the gins and neutropics. So, we've created what we think is the healthy alternative to beer. So whether it's Tuesday, Wednesday, you know, Thursday, you're trying not to drink during the week or it's dry January, you're trying to go a whole month without drinking, so over October, or you just want that, you know, beer-ish type experience, but you don't want the calories, you don't want the calories, you don't want the alcohol, you don't want the gluten, right? No calories, no alcohol, no gluten. That's what Hop Water

delivers on. So we spent a year, you know, formulating the product, getting the, you know, what they call the juice in the industry, getting the juice right, building up a brand, and we launched just a couple months ago, and it's going super well. I mean, we're really excited about what we're seeing. We're starting to go into retail here in Southern California, so we're in Aeroan. You know, that store we were. Yeah, of course. Yeah, we were there.

They're number one new beverage last month. Wow, you're kidding, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah, so I mean, we definitely found, you know, it's similar to how I felt with Play2 where it's like, yeah, this is a no-brainer, right? People want that beer type experience, but they don't want the calories, they don't want the alcohol, they don't want the gluten, and if you could build a better for you version of beer, there's a big market for this. So that's what we're building.

No, I think you're accurate. I know there's a lot. I mean, I would guess mostly men though, right? Or is there, what you're talking about? That's what we thought when we were starting this thing a year ago. And we had an early advisor who was a woman who said, hey, you know, don't go too heavy after the dudes. I think there's a big opportunity for women. And it turns

out women are actually the fastest growing segment of the craft beer market. Really? Yeah. So what we're seeing is actually a large chunk of our customer base is women. So I'm curious is that because women tend to, or typically don't necessarily go for beer because they think it's very bloating, they think there's a lot of, you know, the gluten like you were saying and calories. So like if you take out all those things,

you know, maybe if, you know, that's why you have more women now becoming, even though it's not a real beer, but gravitating in that direction. Because women love the puja. All those olipops and poppy or whatever these other drinks are, it's just another extension in that space that women actually really do like. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's what we're seeing.

The feedback has been great on the flavor. We've got classic, which is more of a pure play homage to a clean, crisp IPA. We've got mango, which is really delicious. I like to say it's like a surf trip to Costa Rica in your mouth. Oh wow. Oh wow. I know.

I know. I gotta go get one of those, okay. Then we've got this blood orange, which I love. All of the blood orange is awesome. I like to say that's a, like if you go to Bend and you take a Bend Oregon brew master and smash it together with a romp across the Spanish countryside, that's the hop water blood orange.

Really? Okay, that sounds like a that's a very that's an interesting distinction, but I should try that one too. So if your people are in an LA like because era one is a it's a very high price grocery store for people who don't know who don't live in LA, like, because Error One is a, it's a very high price grocery store for people who don't live in LA or maybe New York. I think Error One's in New York now too, correct. Is there a, I think that they were planning to launch New York, probably in New York. Oh, they were, okay.

They'll probably launch New York maybe next year or year after. But yeah, just, Error One's just LA. Yeah, folks wanna try the product. It's a hopped HOP WTR. We took the vowels out of water. So HOPWTR.com. And we're on Amazon now also, so you can find us there. And you can buy it by online.

You can buy a variety pack, 12 pack for ID pack. You get the classic mango and the blood orange. And yeah, I mean, I really love the product. My fridge is stock with it and we go through like over 100 cans a month in my household. Oh my gosh. What's the price point though for people? 3.49 and then various, if you order our 30 plus pack, it comes down below three bucks.

So where else will you be selling eventually brick and mortar wise? I mean, besides everyone, do you have plans to go to Whole Foods or to be in Albertsons or wherever, where else would you be selling? Yeah, I mean, we're seeing that this should work all over the country. Our sales online are mapping one to one with beer consumption over the country. Our sales online are mapping one to one

with beer consumption across the country. So yeah, we're working on all that now. That's part of the 2021 plan is to scale up retail. I'm curious, because now we're obviously in this whole COVID situation. And to launch, I mean, even though you've been around for a couple of years, how do you kind of, how are you marketing, what are you doing

as a startup business to kind of get, to gain traction and momentum? Well, we had the idea in 2019, but we only launched a couple of months ago. So it's still very much. Right, so right, but you've been doing it, you started, you didn't start it during COVID, is what I mean. You were like, well, we can't we can't have the idea of pre-COVID, but then pretty,

you know, pretty quickly you were in COVID, yes. Yeah, so we had to build launch plans for COVID and it changed our entire approach really to how we were going to build the business. We were originally going to launch retail and scale retail sooner. But e-commerce has been great. I mean, that's how we're building the brand. Log digital advertising, working with influencers on Instagram and other platforms. And it's working through that channel.

That's giving us the confidence to scale and to also figure out, hey, here are the other markets around the country where we should go next. So by the way, your branding is beautiful. I'm not sorry, I thought it's really... I'll get a lot of time on it, yeah. Yeah, it's really nice. Who did you use?

Is that internal or did you hire like, I'm not saying more to it. An amazing woman who I got to know over the last few years, Who did you use? Is that internal or did you hire? I'm like, I'm outside. I worked with an amazing woman who I got to know over the last two years, who used to be the creative director at Chipotle. And she runs her own one woman band shop where she pulls in free lancers and she does amazing work

at a fraction of what the big agency's charge. So she was in London when we were doing this project and Jordan and I are in LA. So we were doing 6am specific time calls to London. It was dark there for a few months. But it was, she did a great job. It was a really, really good job. So you also do these fast.

Are you do intermittent fasting? Is that what you're gonna say? Or? Yeah, I mean, I started with intermittent fasting, doing, you know, called stop eating at 8 p.m. and then, you know, don't eat anything under any calories until noon the next day. And then as I got more into the research and, you know, you've learned a little bit

about my psychology at this point. I'm so glad you're not going for 30 days at a time without eating. But that's all I mean, I've done now three times a five-day water fast. You know what? You know what? What do you mean, speak a Jew? Oh yeah. Speak a Jew.

Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Yeah, speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew.

Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a Jew. Speak a mom here. I am. Now I am. I mean, this is, you know, I get it. I get that it's like huge right now.

It's a trend. It's a fact. I think it's a trend. It's like a health hack. I had this woman on my podcast who was extremely knowledgeable, doctor, and who does these fasts. And, you know, I basically did the entire podcast and then all the research before and after,

just like with my mouth, like, like, I don't get it. Like, how do people go five days on a water fast? It doesn't make sense to me. Like, doesn't your body, like, how do you know? I thought, what happens to starvation mode? You know, like you body, like, hold on to anything, any calorie, like, whatever happened to that. Like, the pendulum is swinging one way and then it changes to the next and and in a year from now they're going to say that's awful. You shouldn't be doing it and okay, that's right. Go ahead. There's definitely a rant to be had around food science research and you know every week there's some new thing claiming that this is what you should eat

or this is what you should not eat or avocados give you cancer or whatever, right? Oh, gosh. Okay. I don't believe that neither. Yeah, the science, the research and what the media trumpets like is not very, not, not, there's a lot that's presented very inaccurately. What's, let's say, but as far as fasting goes, the science is pretty hard and hard and fast. Hard to be funny.

Where basically the hardest thing for me is that it's, it's mentally getting through the first two, two days. If I can get through that, then what happens is your body starts releasing all kinds of serotonin, or releases serotonin and human growth hormone. And you just get surged. I have found on day three and beyond

with euphoria, you just feel amazing. And you don't actually feel the need to eat anymore. And there's some research out there where if you're morbidly obese, you can go months without eating in a medically supervised environment. The famous one, this guy, I think, went like 330 days without eating and lost a couple hundred pounds in a medically supervised fast so it's it's It's possible to do that. I'm not advocating to do that. What I've found is that five days is more than enough for me I've got I've got many friends who've gone two weeks

Two weeks you are who've gone three weeks two weeks. You were who've gone three weeks. At the two to three week mark, you really start doing some damage to your organs and muscle. Five days. Yeah, five days, no problem. From everything that I've read and from the experts I've talked to, nothing but health benefits in that range. And if you think about it like historically, biologically, if you go back 10,000 years and beyond, you know, humans would go hunt, right? We'd hunt, we'd kill something, we'd bring it back to the tribe, we'd feast, and then we'd go in some cases, you know, weeks without eating again.

So humans are uniquely, biologically adapted to do this kind of long-term fasting. No other mammal can do that, not in a non-hybernated state. So, I mean, I do it less these days because it takes a lot of discipline and I find it's also with young girls in the house. I find having to explain why I'm not eating is not the best thing for their upbringing.

But it's certainly, if you're at all intrigued, it's worth double-clicking and doing some research to figure out if it's something that fits into your own lifestyle and, you know, habit. DQ presents Picture this. You're getting together with all your best friends.

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So hurry in and get your cake better fixed today. Only a DQ. Happy taste good. No, I've talked about this. I've talked about it quite a bit actually on this podcast. I've had, like I said, had experts come on talk about it, I've had a lot of different guests who do it. And especially had like I said, I've had experts come on talk, but I've had a lot of different

guests who do it. Especially just like intermittent fasting, I feel like become like synonymous with just daily diet. I feel like everybody's doing, a lot of people are doing it. Personally, I'm having a part time even doing that because I love breakfast, I love lunch, and I love dinner. And, you know, like, it's a difficult thing for me to do. However, you know, I should try again. Because whenever I hear, whenever I hear people like, you talk about, I'm like,

maybe I should just try it again. But I think there are two things, all three. Like, one is during COVID, all, you know, if you're home all day, it's just like, you know, you know, it's just too much. It's just too much. But the other side of that is, if you look back at like stoic philosophy and this idea of taking some time away from the things you love to make yourself stronger, emotionally, and physically, I think it's really interesting. Like in modern life, back to the DoorDash and Amazon Fresh point,

you can literally get anything you want in the world delivered to you with the click of a button. Yeah, absolutely. Almost, like within a reason. So taking a break from food, the same way you might take a break from your mobile phone, just to reset your brain and make sure that like you know you can go without food for a couple of days if you have to or without your phone for a day

if you have to. I mean, I think there's a lot of positive benefit to doing that periodically. I absolutely agree with you 100%. It's just, it's mindset, right? It's like you have to just kind of be, you know, get into that place of commitment and just be disciplined and do it, you know? But you're right, we're being through COVID and being at home all the time and like, you know,

also like I said, I have kids too who are also seven and five, it's almost exactly how yours are. And I think it's also difficult because I'm feeding them and there's food around and that's really about acquiring that discipline of just like, or just like, I wanna have breakfast with them.

I wanna have dinner with them. I don't wanna just sit on the sidelines. Absolutely. Like, you know what I mean? While they're eating. Right? And they're like, well, why aren't you eating? And then, you know, like, what message to my little girl on my setting? You know what I mean while they're eating right and they're like well why aren't you eating then I you know like what message to my little girl on my setting you know what I mean it's like I'm

100% on the same page with you that's why I'm doing doing less of it now yeah no I yeah but exactly so yeah that's basically I'm gonna have to try it and I maybe when once we get through this or over this hump I mean let's do it together. Whenever like LA comes back, this would be fun. Let's do this. Whenever we can get back in the treadmill together in a safe way, let's do like a 24 hour fast and then go in the treb-mills together. Where we do that, are you able to work out after doing a 24 hour fast? So here's the crazy thing, right?

With 24, it's a little sketchy because your body is still, you know, working off of glucose and glycogen, which is essentially the trigger in your blood and that's stored in your liver. Yeah. Once you get beyond three days, you're running off of fat. So when I got to the end of my fourth day, I ended up running like three miles

in like you sub eight minute miles and felt fine, totally fine. Now I think if I had done that during my first, you know, before I'd switched into ketosis, burning fat, which is glucose, it would have been a different story. So maybe, maybe it's not the best idea to do it. 24 hours. I was gonna say, why don't we just kind of want to ease me and with like, you know, maybe like four days of intermittent fasting. And then like, we can try this other, this other type of fasting, maybe the three day. To get into ketosis, though, is very difficult. People think like, what people do a lot of, they blend diets. They're like,

I'm gonna be ketogenic and I'm also gonna be, and then you're doing nothing for yourself. I was fully off the deep end on this stuff, with the pee strips, peeing at the end of the day to make sure I was building. And Sillin Kato says, yeah, I think all this stuff, where you take it to the extreme, like, okay, do it to the extreme for learning

Shake but then you know try and come back and find some more balanced healthy Place and patch together these learnings around what makes what works for you, right? And we're all we're all so unique. There's no way you can look at some guru and say yeah, that's that's the exact way I want to live my life, right? Oh, absolutely. I totally agree. It's not a one size fits all cookie cutter. And that's the problem right now, right? People read these things like, oh, he's doing it. Oh, Ben Greenfield's doing that.

I'm going to do that. Meanwhile, you're like 400 pounds. You have an exercise ever. And now you're doing it. I mean, it's just it's having some type of, you know, you kind of be realistic with where you're at and then make things work for who you are with where you're at and then make things work for who you are and where you're at at that moment. So that's my two cents anyway.

But we all need some of that come out of this year. Oh my goodness. No kidding, right? I mean, well, you're very interesting. So how do people find more information about you and hot water, all of it. You tell us, Nick. Yeah, hot water come, come try us out. And we love feedback, right? We're still a young, young company. And we can only learn by hearing from people good and bad. H-O-P-W-T-R dot com or Amazon, or all our ads on social.

I can find this there, H-O-P-W-T-R. And then I'm out throwing the interwebs also, Instagram and Twitter and whatnot. I don't do too much social media, but I'm around or drop a line through Hopwater, just nick at Hopwater.com. Yeah, that's me. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

You're a great guest. Oh, it's so fun to do this with you. And I really do want to get on the treadmill, and we'll go round two. Honestly, like, anytime. This episode is brought to you by the YAP Media Podcast Network. I'm Holla Taha, CEO of the award-winning digital media empire YAP Media, and host of YAP Young & Profiting Podcast, a number one entrepreneurship and self-improvement podcast where you can listen, learn, and profit.

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