High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 529: Lessons for an Entrepreneur on the Way to $250 Million with Angie Bastian, Founder of BOOMCHICKAPOP

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

Angie Bastian, along with her husband, Dan, are the founders of Angie’s BOOMCHICKAPOP, one of the most successful homegrown snack food stories in the 21st century.    Angie and Dan Bastian were looking to put aside some money for their kids’ college fund when they started a small kettle corn business out of the family’s garage. They sold the popcorn at festivals and sporting events, eventually becoming the official popcorn of the Minnesota Vikings after delivering several free bags of popcorn to the players to eat while they watched film during training camp. Eventually, Angie retired from her work as a nurse practitioner and Dan from teaching history to run their company full-time.    The ultimate game changer took place when Angie’s Kettle Corn became BOOMCHICKAPOP, and the rebranding took place. Several years later, Dan and Angie, sold the business in the fall of 2017 as a part of a $250 million dollar buyout by Conagra Brands.   In this episode, Angie shares with us: How the popcorn company started, The behind-the-scenes story of the naming of BOOMCHICKAPOP, The strategies they used to overcame setbacks to build the company,  Why we should not discount our own unique perspectives, and  Her personal passions driving her today.   “Don’t discount your own unique perspective.” Angie Bastian   HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/529 FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong TO READ ANGIE’S PREFACE IN DR. CINDRA’S BEYOND GRIT FOR BUSINESS BOOK: https://www.beyondgrit.com/ Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901

Hi friends, my name is Dr. Sindhra Kampoff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best, so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed, packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go. Welcome to episode 529 with Angie Bastian. This is Dr. Sindra Kampoff and thank you so much for

joining us here on the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I'm grateful that you're here and I'm excited to share with you today Angie Bastian's story. Now Angie is a personal friend of mine and wrote the forward of my new book Beyond Grit for Business and it's likely that you have tried her popcorn or are a huge fan of their popcorn like I am. It's called Boom Chicka Pop. Now Angie Bastian along with her husband Dan are the founders of Angie's Boom Chicka Pop, one of the most successful homegrown snack food stories in the 21st century. Angie and Dan Bastian were looking to put aside some money for their kids' college fund when they started a small kettle corn business out of the family's garage. They sold the popcorn at festivals and sporting events, eventually becoming the official popcorn

of the Minnesota Vikings, which you'll hear more about in this interview. Eventually, Angie retired from her work as a nurse practitioner and Dan from teaching history to run their company full-time. The ultimate game changer took place when Angie's Kettle Corn became Boom Chicka Pop, and you'll hear the behind-the-scenes story of how that actually took place. Several years later, Dan and Angie sold the business to ConAgra as part of a $250 million buyout. In this episode, Angie shares with us how the popcorn company started, the behind-the-scenes story of the naming of Boom Chicka Pop, which I think is brilliant, by the way, the strategies that they used to overcome setbacks to build this company,

why you should not discount your own perspective, and her personal passions driving her today. My favorite quote from this episode, Angie said, don't discount your own unique perspective. To read Angie's forward in my new book, Beyond Grit for Business, you can head over to beyondgrit.com. Right now there is free shipping you can head over to beyondgrit.com. Right now, there is free shipping. Again, that's beyondgrit.com. And let's welcome Angie. Well, I'm excited today to have Angie Bashton today on the High Performance Mindset. Angie is the founder of the best popcorn in the whole world, Boom Chicka Pop, which is the only one that I eat.

I'm a fan. I'm a huge fan. White cheddar is the best, just to be clear. And Angie also wrote the forward of my new book, Beyond Grit for Business. So I'm really excited to have you, Angie. I'm grateful that you're here just to help inspire others and to give them some real strategies about mindset of business growth and just the mindset to allow people to thrive. So thank you so much for being here today. Well, thank you, Sandra. It's great to be here with you. And it was an honor to write the foreword for your book.

It was an honor for you to do that. And I was thinking as I was preparing for today, I was thinking about that at least the first time I know that we met and you heard me speak at a high school, I actually clearly remember that little keynote. It was when I had just started kind of doing more mindset training. And so it was pretty cool. And then obviously, you know, we've interacted lots of other different times and our friendship has grown. So thanks so much for, for me, I think you're a strong woman that I admire so much. And I think about what, what can I build in my business? And you're just one of those role models, the role model that I'm continuing to

consider and think about. So thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Well, thank you. It's funny because if you live long enough, you'll become somebody's role model. That's awesome. And even do something, you know, somebody's bound to notice and say, hey, I want to kind of do that, you know, or be like that. That makes me so happy. I want my kids to, you know, to also kind of like learn something or grow or, you know, as a parent, you just want what you're doing to be relevant to your children and have them and to have that go beyond your small circle of, you know, family or life. It's, it's really extra special to have an impact on the world in a way that's positive. So thanks for noticing. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And I think about the impact that you've made in so many different ways, right? Not only

with this like incredible popcorn and now seeing it all over the world, you know, whenever I travel and my mom picks it up, you know, because she's so proud of you. And you don't even know my mom, you know. But let's get started with your story. And, you know, you started popping popcorn in your garage to really fund your kids' college education. And so, you know, tell us about what that was like at the beginning. Sure. Well, my husband was a school teacher, and I was a psychiatric nurse practitioner. We were both fully employed, but we had two little kids, three and five. And, you know, we just had a

little freak out in that we hadn't started saving for their college. And, and we were just kind of restless and wanted to do something that was together as a family. And also, we thought, well, we could teach our kids how to do it, too. And so our motivation was really very sort of small. In the beginning, we didn't set out to create a global popcorn brand. What we set out to do was do something for our family and to teach our kids, you know, maybe the value of work and learn how to make change and smile and say thank you to customers.

So we bought a tent and some equipment off the website in 2001 of a couple in Gig Harbor, Washington, that was building this equipment. We got a little recipe and we started popping kettle corn first time in front of Rainbow Foods in Mankato, Minnesota. And then we just went everywhere we could those first three years to pop kettle corn on, you know, street corners and fairs and festivals and dragging our kids along. And, you know, I don't know, it was it was kind of craziness. And we just put everything back into that business. And we we were able to get connected with the Minnesota Vikings at training camp. And we gifted the Vikings some bags of popcorn on a Sunday night when they were watching film. And the next thing we knew their

sales and marketing team asked us if we wanted to be the official kettle corn of the Minnesota Vikings. And that gave us a whole new platform and a larger audience. And from that, we got a meeting with the Lunds and Byerleys Byer, which is a specialty grocery store chain in the Twin Cities area. And we moved the operation indoors, bought some new equipment, rented about 150 square feet in a grocery store kitchen that was vacated. And Dan quit teaching, started building and delivering, building this little business and delivering into the backs of grocery stores. And that was in 2004. We started at St. Peter Food Co-op, one little co-op store and three Lunds and Byerly stores. We are making everything by hand. I could, I continue to work in my job

as a nurse to support the family. And we went all in and for him in 2004. And by the time we were at, I'm going to say about 2010, we had probably about 80 employees, we had outgrown two production plants, we had settled into and built out another construction or another production plant. And we attracted the attention of private equity because we had grown and we were in Costco and we were testing and Target. And we were in a lot of grocery chains in the Midwest and private equity out of Boston invested in us in 2011 in a minority position. And they helped us grow. And in three years, we had a liquidity event, including our employees. And a new private equity came in out of San Francisco, TPG Growth, and they invested in 2014.

And Dan and I stepped out of the business, became board members. We hired a brand new leadership management team and built the company again, and sold to ConAgra Brands in 2017. And had yet another liquidity event for some farm employees. And, and, you know, it was, it was quite a journey. But the Boom Chicka Pop was a rebrand in 2011 that we worked on. And over the years, it proved to be, you know, a brand and a product that could stand on its own. And, you know, I like you go into the grocery store and see it. Only you probably buy it.

I fix the shelves because they're messy. And so I fix the bags. And so I still can't help being Angie to fix the bags on the grocery store shelf wherever I am. I love it, Angie. Well, thanks for that quick rundown of actually how you built it. Because I know people have to be wondering what were the different steps you took actually to build it and then, you know, sell it to ConAgra for a quarter of a billion dollars. Right. And you kind of think about that. It's pretty mind blowing to think that it started in, you know, in 2004 into just four grocery stores. Right. Popping it by hand to 16 years later, this brand that is recognizable and that you could, you know, sell.

I think that's really incredible. How does that, you know, when you think about what that moment was like for you to actually sell it and completely, you know, step away, what was that like for you? Well, it was dramatic. let's call it that. But it wasn't that we weren't prepared for it, because we came to understand that, you know, seven years before that, when you enter into a relationship with private equity, you know, you switch from sort of a family owned business to an investor engaged business and investors want to realize gains.

So in the way they do that is often is in a brand or in CPG is to is to sell. So we kind of knew that would be what would happen along the way. And had I would say that first engagement with private equity, had we sold that, you know, without being involved and had to step away entirely in 2014, it would have I would have felt both Dan and I would have felt relieved, but really sad, I think, because I don't think we were ready to be done. But then when we had this second private equity come in, buy out, build again, we reinvested in the company, sat on the board, built this team that was just this A plus team. And then it was fun. You know, it was just really fun. And the whole, I mean, it wasn't without its

turmoil and difficulty, but it was more fun for Dan and I at that point. And, and the whole bit, I mean, it wasn't without its turmoil and difficulty, but it was more fun for Dan and I at that point. And, you know, when it sold in 2017, you know, I just felt like my kid just graduated from college. That's what it felt like to me. I was happy. And we like we felt like we did it. But you know, it was, it was, it was still our that it still feels like it's ours. But I know it's not, you know, it's, it's the business is going on to thrive and live independently. And, and honestly, I have had a non compete that just expired October of 2022. So I was still tied to the success of the business in, in, in a very loose way, but, but still connected legally to the business in a sense, you know, and so, you know, I, I'm just

getting used to not being connected anymore. And, and it's, it was a slow process of untangling that intense connection. And I, I think Dan and I are just getting used to that now. Yeah. Well, I could imagine it's, you know, it's, it's your baby. It's like your kid graduated from college. And I could imagine the investment, like the emotional investment that it took just to build this. And I I'm wondering, Angie, what I really want to kind of dive into and focus in on is the mindset it took. Because I mean, even as you are going through the different steps and the risk taking that it took, when you take a step back and say, what allowed you to take the risks the way that you did?

What I would say is that, you know, we took incremental risks in the beginning, I would say. And, you know, we, the first investment for us was, you know, about 8,000, somewhere 8,000, $10,000 on a credit card, right? And, and that's how we paid for our first investment. And then the risk was the time that you use to build the business and that risk of what you're giving up instead, you know, of building this, which is, which is, you know, it's TV time when it's early on, you know, like, okay, that's no risk. We're just out chugging away building. So those first couple of years, it didn't feel risky. It just felt like we were doing something, you know, but then as as we continue to commit

to a greater degree, and every time you commit to a greater degree, what we came to understand is that there's larger risk associated with that. And it's financial risk. It's more time. It's more identity risk. Like, okay, I guess we're all in now. I guess I'm, you know, like when I retired from nursing, I didn't retire from nursing until we took on private equity. And then we were both like,

it just felt like suddenly there was no safety net under us. We're all in now. But that didn't happen in the first three years. You know, we we didn't take that kind of risk. I think we took financial risks that were were significant in 20 in 2007, when we built out a production plant. And, you know, more depth than we ever expected that we would take on and in my whole life, I never expected but it felt like we, you know, it didn't feel ominous to us. I mean, it was, it was significant. But you know, we were of the mindset like, okay, this is what we got to do. We got to, if we want to move forward, we have to take this risk and we'll just, we'll hold it. We'll just have to hold it and act, you know, just make sure it doesn't fail, you know,

or just, and, you know, every day we have little failures, I would say that, but the whole thing can't fail, right? Like we can't have a recall. We can't fail on the product. We can't fail on certain things, but we could sure fail like on a lot of things, which we did because we didn't know how to do it right. Or we didn't know how to do this. And so it was just about like,

we had had enough experience up until that point to know that when we failed, we would know what to do to fix it and to make it right or to learn from that and move on we would know what to do to fix it and to make it right or to learn from that and move on or get this resource to the table. And so every time we did that, it was like we grew a little bit more and we understood the business a little bit more and we felt a little bit more confident whenever we did have those kinds of failures. And then when when we when we started looking at like, this could be a really big failure, failure, like we could owe people millions of dollars,

if this whole thing, if the whole thing would fail, and that felt like a pretty big risk. But what I would say is that we have we have built that confidence in ourselves that that we didn't take that big of risk. The first the first decision we made, we took that risk when we had built confidence in ourselves that we could we could do this. And you know what? There's a lot of things out there you can't control. And so we are like, well, OK, if for whatever reason, there's something happens like a tornado hits the plant that we can't like, and we end up like losing this business. We'll owe a lot of people a lot of money, but we'll be fine. We'll be fine. We'll just pay them.

We'll pay back the money for the rest of our life, but we'll be fine because the things for us that really mattered were the people that we loved and cared about and, you know, and our reputation. And, you know, we weren't just going to walk away from, you know, that risk. We knew that it came with strings attached and, you know, we would never cut those. We would, we would honor those and because we knew who we were. And, and so we wouldn't abandon who we are just because there's risk there. And so it would just mean that, you know, our lives might have gone in a different direction. And so that's how we that's how we kind of settled in our mind that risk. I would also say we didn't dwell on the risk. We just we knew we knew it was there, but it wasn't like something that was a focus a lot.

No, no. Right. We're like, OK, we know a lot. No, no worries. We were like, okay, we know it's there. We signed it. We know how much we owe people. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go focus on what we can do. Let's go. Let's go build this thing. And that's how I think we handled risk. I really appreciate that answer because I think about how it was like calculated risks. It was like slow risks over time. And it wasn't just like it went from your garage buying something for 8,000 to the next day

selling it to ConAgra, right? Like it was small risks that the more small risks at the time, but it was like the confidence that you had allowed you to take those risks. And I think about people who are trying to build something, maybe building their career, building their own business, and building their confidence is really important to continue to believe that they have the skills.

And what you said is like, you weren't dwelling on all the things that could go wrong. It's like, well, what can I do to create this? Exactly. I mean, there's enough that can go wrong in a production plant every single day. So you can't just focus on that, you know, and you get a lot of notes, like when you're early, and you're an early entrepreneur, you have a new product. And you get an appointment with a buyer, which you think victory, I've got an appointment with a buyer,

I'm like, I'm in, you know, and they can still say no. And but, but for us, it was always, you know, it's not that we expected, we kind of came in expecting them to say yes, because we already had, you know, in our own mind, we had such great product, we had all this stuff. But but they would say no, you know, they would say no. And, and for us, you know, it's, it's it's as an entrepreneur that's like getting punched in the face a little bit um and and kind of take a step back and and then the goal I think in those situations is is to never ever um react in anger or or burn a bridge or or do something like it just we just never did that because you,

you know, we were as gracious as we possibly could be. And, and for us, it was also more about connecting with another human being and making sure that like they liked us or they cared about what we were doing or that they cared about the business. So maybe, you know, in six months when they maybe wanted to give us a slot in the shelf and they thought about like, you know, somebody that they'd want to do business with, we were hoping they would think of us, you know, and so we would keep in touch and we would, you know, always treat them like we would want to be treated instead of like that sort of reactive like dejection and rejection that you get and how you can react and say, well, you know, forget them. I'm going on to the next store, you know, and see if they want this because that could be the reaction. It can be.

And it's kind of how you can feel sometimes after you get a bunch of no's, you know. And, you know, for us, we just tried never, ever to do that. Well, I appreciate that answer because I think, you know, the ego is involved when we feel defeated or we get angry or frustrated, right? And I'm thinking about some of the people that I coach one-on-one Angie, who are maybe entrepreneurs or they're people in sales or financial planners, and they can, it can easily be easy to react with like frustration, you know, what's, what's, you know, or take it personally, like there's something wrong with you when really

it might not have just been a good time for them to put popcorn on their shelf at that point. Right. I do think we always try to kind of take in feedback on, you know, what we could do better to, you know, cause maybe we did come in too hot and heavy, you know, or maybe we did come in too aggressive or, or I don't know. I've been in, I've been in plenty of buying offices with professional salespeople that they act so salesy. I can just see the buyer shutting down, you know, like the buyer doesn't want to hear kind of their approach. And I, I always felt like, you know, and we always encouraged our people to just be people,

you know, just, you know, and, and, and we have a product and we know how to ask for the sale and all of that. But I just I think if I always tried to put myself in that buyer's chair and they're seeing like every half an hour, every hour, you know, all of these people coming in and telling them the same thing, we have the best product that you'll ever, ever have, you know, because we say it is and all, you know, and, and we're the best thing that's here. And we'll, we'll, we'll do all these wonderful things for you. You know, they hear that, like 10 times a day, you know, and so you have to distinguish yourself, maybe in a relationship, you know or in that that connection that you get with with someone or or in building that relationship and and I think you know and presenting a brand and and and a product that's of interest to them and and you've got to I I also think one of our keys was thinking about like sitting in the buyer's chair ourselves and thinking about how they would respond and how I'm looking at this product and this person to help me do my job better as a buyer, you know.

And that was, I think, helped us in a lot of ways, you know, to make them look better, because that was our goal, you know, they've got a, their job is to get as much revenue out of the real estate they're given on a grocery store shelf. And let's help them do that, you know, let's help them do their job better, if we can, you know, if we've got something that we can offer them to make them look good, not just us. So that was important for us. It makes sense, Angie, that your message to your people was just be a person, just be a human, right? Like connect with them personally, because I think that that's also who you are, really authentic and just like a connector.

You know, I know early on there were some disappointments. And I think about when you first told me about how that you were going to, you asked the Minnesota State Fair if you could have a booth there and they turned you down. And so it kind of makes me laugh now, you know, but I'm curious about how did you deal with those setbacks and what was the mindset that you dealt with? How did you actually deal with something that didn't go great? And what advice maybe would you give for others who do experience setbacks, you know, maybe small or big? Well, you know, we were I would say we were pretty far along in our business when the Minnesota State Fair opened up like an RFP for kettle corn for kettle corn.

Because they had apparently someone that had been there for a long period of time. And they were very loyal. And we understood that we weren't trying to, you know, do that. But when they opened up the RFP, we're like, Oh, let's go, we've got to be in, you know, we're, we were already a well known brand in Minnesota. We've got to be in, you know, we're, we were already a well known brand in Minnesota. And it made so much sense to us. And we were going to invest and build a kiosk and everything like that. And, and then they turned us down, which didn't make sense to us, right? Like, we didn't know why, right? It just didn't make sense to us, right? Like we didn't know why, right? It just didn't make sense to us.

They had their reasons. But I think very quickly, we just walked. We were just, we were like, okay, all right. That's not where we're going to be. Like they don't, like, that's not it for us. Let's go. And it really, let's just, let's not invest any more time and energy into that situation. And, and, and in fact, we use the investment that we would have otherwise used to do that to build

another portion of our business, which was in the branding and, and CPG space. And so, you know, had, had we been distracted, we stayed there and exactly fight to get in there. We, we, we might not have had the energy and resources to focus in this other direction, which we are like, fine, you don't want to, okay, great, we'll go, we'll go, we'll, we'll just keep going. And we kept in touch with the State Fair. And, and I think they eventually kind of reached out to us years later. And we were like, well, you don't really do that anymore. Had we had we stayed there, I think Dan and I, we saw the state fair is like, whoa, that would be that would be the hallmark of success. Right. Our business, if we would have kept that definition as the hallmark of our success,

Dan and I would still be hauling our kettle corn maker up there every year. And we wouldn't have realized the kind of success for our investors and our employees. And it just, this other whole thing probably wouldn't have happened. Yeah, isn't that incredible? Like, as I'm listening to this,

I think about, you know, this phrase, like how do things happen for you, not to you? And I think about how maybe not getting into the state fair was a gift in some way, right? For sure. Yeah, and you wouldn't have, it would have distracted you from what ultimately you could build. And I think that's a great reframe that people can have when they're going

through a disappointment or difficulty is ask yourself, well, okay, maybe this is, I'm just supposed to be meant to go on a different career path. Or maybe there's something, you know, better at the end of this tunnel than it, than right now, what seems to be the thing that I really, really want or we desire. Well, and I think the key to that is that what you just said, I think this thing is going to, something else could be better. I think in the entrepreneur's mindset, it's like, I'm going to go make something better than, I'm going to go make something better than love it. I'm going to go. This is because you because you kind of have your you feel like you have to prove something

to yourself in a way I felt like or we felt like. And so, you know, and maybe that's a dysfunctional way that that entrepreneurs work. I don't know. But because you're trying to prove to yourself and you're trying to prove to everybody else that what you're doing is relevant and matters and you can, you know, and that you can get validated out there. And so, but it's a drive that, you know, we always felt like, you know, rejection or whatever was motivation or competition, same thing, motivation to go be better. And we are going to make ourselves better. It doesn't just happen. I don't think you got to make it.

You got to make it happen. Yeah. And I think that's so much about mentality. As I work, Angie, with some really great professional athletes, that's actually what I see as a differentiator is when they're faced with a disappointment or difficulty or rejection that they have this sort of like sort of maybe watch me mentality, you know, that it's like, oh, I'm going to go make it happen. And I love the way that you just tweaked that from the entrepreneur standpoint that it was like, okay, well, that door closed. How can I go make something better and be motivated when you're faced with rejection instead of just giving in and saying, well, OK, that's not for me or doubting yourself in some way. Right. Because can I just tell you, and this may be there's a little there's there's more than a little satisfaction that that in a couple of years, I think, you know, after we got the rejection is they're gonna wish they

would have chosen. And then they came back and asked you, I think, you know, but we just didn't do it anymore. You know, so it was we were beyond that, you know, and you sometimes outgrow your rejections that you've had in the past, you know, so and, and if you didn't, you might end up getting stuck there. So, you know, we just never, never really dwelled on any of the rejections that we had and just moved on quickly. Yeah. I think that's hard for people to do, Angie. Was there anything that you did specifically in your own mind? Do you think like that came natural to you? Do you think it was helpful to have you and Dan together? Like what allowed you to actually move on quickly? Well, you know, I think the first time, I mean, you know, everybody's experienced

personal rejections in their lives, broken relationships, things in the past, you know, that, look, I wasn't always capable of moving on quickly when it came to rejection, because I had my heart broken, like everybody else, probably in their lives have got. And, you know, as a young as a young, young woman, and, um, you know, everything is there to learn, you know, I mean, every experience I felt like was for a reason for me to learn or to grow. And, you know, even personal experiences of rejection, you know, I had enough space to look back. And I think Dan, in the same way, we had enough space to look back on things like that, and just say, it's, you know, we know what that's like, you know, we know

what we know what, you know, really feeling stuck in a place feels like, and we don't want that. Like, I don't want that in my life. I don't want that in my career. I don't want that in, you know, in our partnership. And so I think, you know, that, growth happens through it for for me, at least happen through experience. And it just didn't make sense in a business to stay stuck in anything, you know. And so because I knew what that felt like and I knew that kind of, you know, that circular down the drain sort of thing could feel like. And it just didn't, it's just didn't make any sense to take that mindset into building something. It just does. It's an opposite. It's, it's, it's pulling in opposite directions. And so, you know, I would say, you know, both Dan and I together were like, we were already in agreement. Like, this is not how you live your how we would live

our life. We don't want to get stuck in anything. And so it just made sense to us, it felt rational to just move forward. Let's go. Let's I love Lizzo song, you know, that one song about, I don't know, it's, you know, walk. I don't know, I probably shouldn't swear. Let's walk your ass right out the door, you know, you know, put your head, you know, all of that song, she's, that's exactly right, like, okay, deal with reality, and go, move on, do what you got to do, and that's truth in business, too, you know, yeah, it just is, it's like, it is, yeah, there's a strategy I talk about in the book called learn, burn, return, Angie. And it's just this idea that this, I mean, it gives you a structure on how to do that. It's asking yourself, what am I learning? And then literally, once you take the lesson, you I hear is what you both decided on, you know, conversations with you and Dan, that it was like, all right,

this is how we're going to live. And we're not going to dwell. Because you're right, we just kind of get in this circular cycle. There was a moment that I remember when I was interviewing you for the book and you said like the best, one of the best moments was, you know was those times where you could give your employees a check right after you sold it.

And what that was like just to be able to gift the people that supported you into making this brand. And I want to talk a little bit about the people that you had. And you were talking in the preface of the book that, you know, creating a culture where people felt liberated to be their authentic selves, to share their ideas and perspectives was really important because it allowed people to like unleash their creative energy. Tell us a little bit about how you built that culture and how you think that culture ended up helping you be successful in the end. Yeah, well, you know, it's a culture that, you know, didn't get created in a day. I'd say that, you know, it's a foundation, I think that Dan and I built on in the way that we first tried to treat each other, you know, being married, building this, you know, like,

which is the very basic premise of that is expect the best out of someone, not the worst, you know, like, you just like, even though you might be upset, you know, but just kind of go, go with that, go with your best instincts about that person, not your upset, you know, but just kind of go, go with, go with your best instincts about that person, not your worst, you know, and, and so that kind of culture of collegiality, and looking at someone with, with the intent that their intent was, was for good, and not, not to be destructive in any way, you know, and to, but and I don't, and I don't mean that in terms of like this toxic positivity, because we all make mistakes, you know, I just mean, like, but when somebody makes a mistake, you know, that it's,

you know, they might not have meant to, you know, they were trying to manipulate, they were trying they like to look at something like that, it's an it's an opportunity for growth, it's an opportunity for us to learn more about each other, like there's room for people to be human in this system, and to make mistakes. And, and, and like, I have your back on this in or I, I'm here to support you. And that's really important when you're on a production floor working with, you know, equipment that is dangerous. And, you know, I think the way that we talked about it is OSHA comes in and they make sure that you have a standard of safety for your employees.

And then we took that mindset of safety as, you know, that physical safety that OSHA really requires to keep people safe, physically safe. We took that into let's make sure people feel, you know, safe, everything about them is safe, like, like who they are, who they are in their, in their choices of religion, their social groups or their ethnicity, and that everybody has something unique to offer, and let's make it safe for them to be expressive of who they are. And, you know, in our production plan, it wasn't easy because sometimes we had people that were dealing with drug and alcohol issues with drug court. We had people that were immigrants. We had people who had none of that. You know, they were college students. And so that there had to be there had to be some give and take and some, you know, some latitude for people to be human.

And yet grace, I would call it grace for each other. And I think that when people feel safe emotionally, and bottom line, physical safety, you know, nobody's getting hit, nobody's getting burned with, you know, all of that stuff that can happen in production plants, that people feel physically safe and emotionally safe, their anxiety energy just kind of drops. And there's a lot more space and room for problem solving and empowerment and, and visibility to see things that maybe, you know, anxiety makes them tunnel vision, you know, or if they're just trying not to make a bet, you know, not trying to get fired, you know, or whatever that is, that that people experience at work, or whatever fears it is, what we just try to do is have

accountability, here are the guardrails. Here's, here's the structure. Here are the rules of operation, you can't treat each other badly. You, you know, there's rules about working to like the switch from where the switch can't wear the style, you keep the food safe, all these things, work within these guardrails, and then bring your best self to work. And, you know, we have, we're all here together. And we might as well make it fun, we might as well make it enjoyable, we might as well make it a community where you feel like you're in it together with somebody, even though you're just making popcorn to sell, you're really doing much more than that. You're building bridges with the people you're standing next to or sitting next to at a desk. And believe me, we had people at

desk yelling at each other. It wasn't always peaceful. But, you know, if there was room for a dynamic exchange of ideas and personalities within a you know and then sometimes we'd have to just say reel it back a little bit let's you know that was maybe inappropriate and uh but every but people were clear about what was inappropriate and what was it and um and yet you know i think that culture is hard to manage in a way, but as that culture kind of evolved, it became really very much easier for our HR people, you know, to manage human resources than it did without those, that dynamic sort of changing sounds kind of loosey goose environment, but it became, it became really an enjoyable place for so many people. And we still have a Facebook page of Angie's alumni that we go on and people connect there because they miss each other. They do, they miss each other. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I think that was an incredible response, Angie. And a couple of things that I wrote down that I just want to highlight

is like expecting the best of the person. And I think sometimes we don't always, and maybe our default is to expect the worst to protect ourselves. So expect the best. You said grace. And like, I think ultimately it's like acceptance of people to create this environment of, of safety. You know, as we kind of, as I keep on thinking about now and, and, and what you're, you know, what you continue to be passionate about. Tell us a little bit about, I know you're really passionate about just like helping women and helping them grow their business or however you might support them. And so tell us what, where you, where you're spending your time now and what you're passionate about. Well, um, actually, you know, I, I do some mentoring for women who are in business and entrepreneurs. I also am a chairperson of the board of directors for a company called Prospera Foods. And it is a vertically integrated benefit corporation with a non-for-profit that is supporting shareholder farmers in Central America. And we're bringing their products to market, to the global market.

And through the Benefit Corporation, we are able to get profits to flow back to create a middle class and to elevate farmers. And these are farmers that are used to living off of $2 a day, you know? And, and so we are, we are selling cassava flour. Uh, we have a production plant that's produced, that buys yucca from farmers. And, um, we have been able to stabilize, uh, the yucca market in Nicaragua, um, which is a second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere behind Haiti. And it's a place where there's a lot of room for growth. And, you know, and the people are wonderful. And there's a school, we just got back from Nicaragua that we're educating there's a school that's now graduated seven classes and and you know there's a lot of impact that can happen in a place like

this and so actually I've spent a lot of time I still am very passionate about supporting women but I've gotten involved in in international economic development and community economic development and using my contacts from my CPG world and food world to open up markets for people where global markets were inaccessible in the past. Well, that's incredible, Angie. I think I can hear just so much of your heart, right? Like your heart in terms Corn to Boom Chicka Pop. And I was like, well, that's cool. Tell us how that came to be. Well, 2010, we were Angie's Kettle Corn still.

And we wanted to expand product offerings beyond sweet and salty. I wanted some plain old sea salt popcorn. Plus, Skinny Pop had just gotten launched on the market and was really eating our lunch because they had positioned the popcorn as a diet snack play. And the consumers were responding to that. I was personally annoyed by it, because I felt like it was sort of reductionistic in a way. And, and it made me get back into the stores and look at how are we talking? How are marketers talking to consumers about food. And what I noticed at the time is, because we were in the natural and organic snack aisle, is that they were very permissive color palettes, very masculine looking color palettes and very permissive messages about eat this food, it's really good.

And then there were other brands that were using more playful, more colorful wording and language. And those appeared to be aimed at children and adolescents. And then the food that seemed to be aimed at women was more in line with their assumption that we were all on a diet or something, or that we were all supposed to look a certain way, or, you know, I don't know, it just personally annoyed me. And so we, you know, we were trying to figure out a strategy, how we compete in the marketplace, how we launch some new products. And so we hired a creative agency, Mono, out of Minneapolis. And their creative team took our problem. And we were like, we really want to do this in a different way. We really

want to come into the marketplace. We'll give the consumer the product they want. But we're going to do it in a little bit of a different way. And here's how we want to do it. We want it to come from a position of empowerment. We don't want to be, our sales guys honestly kept saying, can't you just name it Angie skinny or Angie is, you know, nearly naked or, and I was like, no, we are not doing that. And nearly naked. Yeah. Well, cause there wasn't a popcorn out there called near, like it was something nearly naked. Yeah, because there wasn't popcorn out there called near like it was something nearly naked. And they were that was the language that was because it was, you know, very little fat, very little. So all of that stuff, it was really like, you know, what, why are we talking like this to about food, you know, and then I started looking at advertising. And the advertising seemed to position women with food as a moment of conflict or as a

sexualized behavior. That's what it looked like to me at the time. And I was like, we are not going to do that. That is not how we're going to talk to people about women and food. And in fact, let's do something where women are actually eating, where we show up on the shelf in a way that celebrates the feminine, that is clearly feminine energy that captures the attention of consumers. And especially women, like they're going to stop in front of it and go, Hey, I like this. I don't know what it is, but I like it. I don't know why I like it, but I like it. Like, can you help us do this? And can you can and so we we were going to name this product something different. And and they came up with a couple of names and boom chicka pow pow was one of those names and we all started laughing right and and we were like, there was just immediate energy in the room. But we had an analyst at the end of the table.

These were the days that we all sat around a table and worked on one table in this big kind of room in a garage in Eden Prairie. And after these, you know, 24-year-old brilliant marketers left, he said, you know, Boom, chicka, pow, pow is 70s porn. What, what boom, chicka, pow, pow is 70s porn? Well, we can't have that, you know, but but it also made me think, well, let's take that energy back, like it really belongs. Let's take it back. Let's, let's do something with it. Let's connect it to the, let's connect it to the product a little bit closer. And they did that. They came back with boom, chicka, pop. We were like, let's go the bright yellow bag. You know, I was, I was even a little too afraid that that bright yellow bag was too much. And I said, let's try white.

They go, no, I really think we should do yellow. And we're like, okay, let's go. Like, I knew it was right. I was kind of scared, but knew it was right. They knew it was right. We launched it in May of 2012. And by August, the bright yellow boom chicka pop bag, Angie's boom chicka pop. By August of 2012, that grocery bag was our number one selling grocery SKU after four months. And that was after being in business for nine years. So amazing. So consumers voted, right? And they voted with their pocketbook. And and we got we got we got distribution on the coast that we never would have got. Have we not been sort of provocative like that? And, and, and I would just say the design of it, of the package was really out of necessity because we needed that package to do a lot of work for us. Cause we, we didn't,

we didn't have the money to do advertising at that time. So we knew we had two and a half seconds to capture someone's attention. So how are we going to do that? And, you know, this is the brilliance of creative people. When you give them, you know, a brief about this is what we want to accomplish. We don't know what that looks like. They bring it to life and they brought it to life. And that's how it came to be.

That's awesome. I love that it was, you know, we're going to be boom, chicka, pow, pow. But the pop is so much better. I love that story. And what I love mostly about Angie is that it came from a place of like empowering women. And, you know, I mean, first of all, your product is incredible. I do think it's the best popcorn that you can buy. But then also to know that it came

from like the packaging was more about like empowering women and not making women feel like they're not enough or right. They don't have this, this perfect body or that they needed to eat it to be skinny. Right. And so I love the, the, the heart of how it came to be, which was empowering women. So good. Well, I know there's so many different things that we could talk about, but what I want to finish up with is just tell us what your advice would be for people who are maybe trying to build something, maybe they're entrepreneurs or, you know, maybe they are listening because they're inspired about building something

bigger in their career. What advice would you listening because they're inspired about building something bigger in their career. What advice would you give to people who want to build something bigger, maybe as a business or just in their career? Well, I think what immediately comes to mind is don't ever discount your own unique perspective on anything or your own unique purpose in the world, whatever that is, you know, and, you know, you build it, you know, just no one ever thinks exactly like you think. And, and the way that you think might feel obvious to you, or the way that you might see the world might feel like it's obvious, but it's probably not. And, you know, we might be, you know, an example of, you know, just the way that I saw

something in the marketplace that, that was maybe a little different than anyone else was able to, to help us create a brand that was worth $250 million, you know, and that was just built. I mean, we did execute product and everything. But you know, it's clear that the two together is the execution. And and the perspective together building that is what created this value, both tangible and intangible. And so don't ever discount that the way you see things in the world might be valuable as you build your career or build your business. Outstanding, Angie. Well, I so much appreciate the whole heartedness that I think you and Dan live with. And I can see, you know, how you've built this and, you know, that your heart was so in it. And here's a couple

of things that I want people to remind themselves of as I kind of summarize today. I love what you said about when you're, when you're faced with a rejection, just to never react with anger, frustration, keep those bridges open. And instead ask yourself, you know, how can, how can you grow? What can you learn? What, how can you take this as motivation to continue to be your best? Right. And, and you, you talked about like not dwelling on the negative. And when we're talking about the culture, you said, expecting the best out of people, creating that emotional and psychological safety. And then your last comment about owning that unique perspective is really powerful. So I know I'm hopeful that you and Dan are going to write your own book coming up sometime soon. But if you'd like to read Angie's foreword in my book,

Beyond Grit for Business, you can head over to beyondgrit.com and it's free shipping right now. And Angie, how would you like to end today? Anything you're thinking about? Well, I just have so much gratitude for everything that our life has become. And, you know, all the good and all the bad, because all put together, it created, you know, all the all the good and all the bad, because all put together, it created, it created, you know, the life that I that I have now, and which has given me the opportunity to meet so many wonderful people. And I, you know, just to be able to meet you, Sandra, and learn from your wisdom and your book, I learned stuff reading your book, Beyond Dread for Business. And I was like, Oh, that's how to describe what maybe what I was sort of thinking.

I didn't know how to say, but she knows how to say it, you know. And so I just I just every every moment in life, there's something to be grateful for. And and, you know, I'm just I'm just so happy that that my life has come to a place where I get to be around people like you, Sindra, and, you know, and other people that we get to meet in the world. It's where the energy is. Great things happen when there's vibrations between people. And I just, you know. That's so true. It's so true.

It's so true. It's so true. And I just think, you know, building relationships is one of the most important things that you do in the world and for inspiring millions of people. And I think after hearing this today, people will see Angie's Boom Chicka Pop differently because they hear the backstory. And then it's, you know, it's it's I would just say like more than popcorn. It's more than popcorn. More than popcorn. You hear like the real person behind it. So I'm grateful that you spent some time with us today. Thank you so much for being here, Angie. Thanks. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else?

If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. See you next week.