Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Building a Billion Dollar Business with No Bullsh*t

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

Lisa Bilyeu (co-founder, Quest Nutrition) talks to Nicole about how to set goals without the BS, how she monetized a production fail and why we don't need to shy away from the word “housewife.”

I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash. But I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start, or even too complicated, if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full-time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you.

I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself.

Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. Hey guys, are you ready for some money rehab? Wall Street has been completely upended by an unlikely player, GameStop. Are you ready for some money rehab? Wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. Today I'm sharing the first part of my conversation with Lisa Bilyeu. Lisa co-founded Quest Nutrition, the health company that makes delicious protein bars,

among other things, which grew 57,000% in its first three years. She also is the co-founder and president of Impact Theory Studios, the digital-first studio that produces original content focusing on themes of empowerment. My conversation with Lisa covered such distinct areas that I wanted to split it up into two parts. In today's episode, you'll hear the story of how Lisa and her husband co-founded Quest Nutrition, the epic fail they turned into a huge success story, and a new strategy that will completely change the way you set goals. In tomorrow's episode, Lisa talks about how her and her husband made the decision not to have kids in order to maintain their set goals. In tomorrow's episode, Lisa talks about how her and her husband made the

decision not to have kids in order to maintain their career goals. It's a taboo take that a lot of women are shy to share, but Lisa is a completely open book and gives some really helpful strategies around how to make this decision for yourself. But more on that tomorrow. Today, it's all about Quest. Lisa, I'm so excited to say welcome to Money Rehab. Oh, yeah. Thank you for having me. Oh, yeah. And I was reading in your bio that you freaking love your life, which I freaking love that you put that in your bio. You can feel that from you. Oh, thank you. It really does come from spending eight years not loving my life and not even asking or even believing that I had the right to love my life. So you better believe now having spent eight years

there, I just made myself a promise. I would never go back. And so every morning I literally wake up and, you know, obviously running a business, it always comes with problems. So I don't want to pretend there isn't, but like when you wake up every day and it's predicated on passion and a mission, oh my God, it can be utterly life-changing. What were those eight years like? And when were those eight years? So I got married. I had massive, audacious dreams to be a movie maker, to win Academy Awards. I was going to come to LA and I met my husband and he loved movies. And so we got married, came to America or he's American. So I moved here. And as we started to try working on movies, you know, I got like a photography gig. I got a PA gig. Hollywood wasn't what I thought it would

be. And so people weren't very nice. People were cruel. People were willing to step on you, to yell at you. I actually had an actor throw a matchbox at me and so yeah so you can imagine this young girl who had these massive dreams you find out your dream isn't actually what you thought it was going to be so to cut a very long story short my husband and I decided we'll just go make up make our own money and then we can finance our own films and now you basically hire the people that you want to hire and you don't allow people to walk all over you and so we we're like, oh, that should be an easy plan. Well, making money can't be that hard. This is 2000, 2002. So it's like, we didn't have the word entrepreneurship back then, but that basically is what we said. All right. You, as my husband,

you're going to go out, you're going to make enough money. We did what I call the Steve Jobs effect. So Steve Jobs always wore black shirts and jeans. Why? Because in an interview that we had read at the time, he said, you've only got a certain amount of decisions you can make with utter clarity in a day. So things like, what am I going to wear? What color am I going to wear? What am I going to eat? Are all decisions that only fatigue your brain. So he just says, I don't make those decisions. So my husband came up with a genius plan. Oh, I'll make all those decisions. I'll decide what you're going to wear, what you're going to eat. I'll do all of that. You go out, you focus on business and it should take us about 12 to 18 months. And in 12 to 18 months, we'll make enough

money and we'll make movies. Seemed like a great plan. And as you can imagine, it wasn't that at all. So I had basically committed, and I really want your listeners to hear this because this is one of those moments where I committed to something that I thought was going to be temporary. I sacrificed what I wanted in life for something that I thought was going to be temporary. I sacrificed for the greater good, if you will. And that greater good ended up being in complete detriment to my happiness and to what I ended up actually wanting in life. So after a year, of course, surprise, surprise, we didn't earn enough money. And then it was like, oh, it's just going to take another

year. And how many of us say, do you know what? It's fine. I'm just going to do it for another year. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. And what I now call, I got stuck in purgatory of the mundane, where my life was just mundane enough. And so I didn't hit rock bottom, which let's face it, I don't know about you, homie, but there's so many people, amazing people that I've met that have achieved success by hitting rock bottom. But what about, it jolts you into action. I've got nothing else to lose. But what about all the rest of us who don't hit rock bottom that then say, well, my life isn't that bad. And that's where I ended up for eight years, where I said, who am I to complain? I have a roof over my head. This is where gratitude went from being amazing tool that I was using to self-soothe.

You know, when I'm like, oh, but I'm not living my dream. It's okay, Lisa, but you can be grateful for having a husband that loves you. You can be grateful for having a roof over your head. But that gratitude piece in year one was a beautiful, but by year seven, year eight, it kept me exactly where I was because I was saying, how ungrateful are you, Lisa? You want more when you've got a husband that loves you. You want more when you have a roof over your head. And so I wasn't asking for more. So that was why for eight years, I wasn't asking for more. I wasn't addressing my unhappiness. I thought that I had to sacrifice for the greater good. And I was stuck in purgatory,

the mundane, when my life wasn't bad enough. So I didn't think I had the right to make a change. And from a homie who has hit rock bottom, I call it this idea of not drowning versus swimming. Just because you're not drowning doesn't mean you're actually thriving and swimming. And I think a lot of women in particular, where they're feeling in a burnout state or purgatory of the mundane or that just like it is what it is. We're just getting through the day is not like your core thriving zone, it sounds like. So after that happened to you, I assume that one year became two years became eight years. And then when did you make the choice to not dismiss your own happiness when you told me the story of Steve Jobs? And I've written about this too. And I think it's so important to take some of those decisions off your plate so you can

focus on more important decisions. So you're not having decision fatigue there i thought you were gonna say we streamlined the wardrobe we wore the same thing every day and then quests happen from that idea where you're just eating the bars so you're not having to think about what to order no no no no that's what i wish it literally was so my husband had started this tech business where his business partners also wanted to get into movies. So they were entrepreneurs. They had already made some wealth. So it seemed like a no brainer. Oh, we'll team up with these entrepreneurs. They want to make movies too. They've got the experience. This should only take, you know, 12 to 18 months. And then after every day, that idea started to pivot and making money

to make movies ended up going into just making money and money is not fulfilling. And so even though at that point after eight years, we had actually a couple of million dollars on paper that we had built equity in the tech company. But to that point, it ended up being, what are we doing with our lives? Like I said to my husband, you come home every single day. And the first thing out of your mouth is don't ask me about my day. In the book, I call it my book, Radical Confidence. I call it my own personal fight club. Rule number one was don't ask my husband about his day. Rule number two was don't ask my husband about his day. And when that happens, you're no longer connecting. And so after that just becoming a point of just every day, that was a pattern. I just said, what are we doing with our lives? Like you're not

happy. I'm not happy. I've ended up being a housewife. Now I need people to hear when I say that it wasn't my dream. If your dream is to be a housewife and you're living it, I freaking applaud you. But that was something that was so far what I wanted to do for my actual life that I dreamt about. When I realized I got stuck for eight years doing something that I despised, it became a what are we doing this for? I would like to know too. I'd like to actually double click on that for a moment. You've talked about calling yourself a stay at home housewife in interviews. I've heard there is a debate around the best terminology for this role, housewife, homemaker, home engineer, some have said family manager, house CEO.

But ultimately, I think that that idea of rehashing the terminology comes from this desire to override a stigma around this role. So when you were, as you say, a stay-at-home housewife, did you feel that you were met with a stigma at the time? So what's interesting is back then it was encouraged. So it was, oh, well, being a Greek Orthodox girl, I was brought up to believe I would end up staying at home and my purpose in life. So whatever name you want to call it, I'm the sort of person that's like,

I didn't get caught up in semantics. It's like, whatever you want to call it, I was supporting my husband. I was cooking and I was cleaning. So whatever word you want to put to that, that was what I, it was the act, right? So it was, I tried to call myself, to your point, CEO of Billu Enterprises. Now, going back to semantics, I was using that as a title to make myself feel good for something that I actually despised. So you want to talk about giving yourself sometimes a title or a name that doesn't serve you, which is why I personally use the word housewife because I never, as a kid, I would say, I don't want to be a housewife. I wasn't using the terminology that people use now. And so I use that very deliberately to remind myself of something I don't want to do.

And so I always encourage people to use language that motivates you and encourages you to be on the path of the life you actually want. So I personally use the title very deliberately. It isn't to make anyone else feel any other way except to make me feel a certain way. Because just like I said, if I said, well, I was, you know, CEO of Billion Enterprises, it now makes actually me feel better about myself. But I'm trying to make myself feel better about myself over something I hate. Yeah. And you're delusional about it. Yes, exactly. So I say just own it, right? Be very honest about what it is. Use language that can actually help you to get to where you want to go. Hold on to your wallets, boys and girls. Money Rehab will be right back.

in some extra cash. But I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start or even too complicated if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for

work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. Now for some more money rehab. It could be a good catalyst to actually do something else so you're not just just, you know, sugarcoating what you hate. And I put it this way, money without meaning is just paper. So I think you got to that point over those eight years and Quest was born. What was that like becoming business partners with your romantic partner? Yeah, so that was very surreal. And to time into the identity piece of the housewife into this

transition is a lot of us have an identity, whether it serves us or not. But to me, the identity of being the housewife, because I was told that from my family, from my dad, from my grandmother, growing up every which way, I was told that was what I was going to end up. That was my purpose in life. That's what I was told. So as I started, as Quest started to grow, we grew at 57,000%. So that takes you from zero to a billion dollar company in five years. We were the second fastest growing company in North America. So just to give you an idea of one day as the traditional Greek wife, because that was my identity that I'd adopted for eight years. I said to my husband, how can I support you as the Greek wife? So in that, he was like, oh, well, because they were

trying to transition out of the tech company. So I was pretty much the only one that was free. So like just ship a couple of bars from the living room floor, measure some peanut butter when you have some time in your home scale. And then we would rent kitchens and cut protein bars with knives and rolling pins. And that was how we made bars. And it would take us about eight hours to make about 2000 bars. It was like the business partners and all the wives. And if we could con some of our friends to come and help. And it went from that to five years later, we're making 1.5 million bars a day. And it's coming off a line like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Now, when you're growing that much and you have zero experience like me, as you grow, you have moments where you don't know what the hell you're doing.

So I go, I'm, you know, mailing bars from my living room floor. Next thing I know, I'm taking big trash bag full of, you know, bars to the post office. Next thing I know, I'm taking big trash bag full of, you know, bars to the post office. Next thing I know, the UPS guys come in to pick things up from our business, you know, partners garage. And every step of the way, it may seem silly, but every step of the way, when you go from being a housewife and just doing, you know, your job, quote unquote, to now being faced with things, you don't know what you're doing. In those moments, my self-esteem immediately wanted to run. My ego was screaming at me, Lisa, what the hell are you doing? You're not going to be good at this,

which let's face it is something that holds so many of us back, especially women. And that was the moment. It was those moments that made me realize right now, I'm worried of letting go of my identity. I'm worried about stopping being a housewife because I was getting accolades for it. And now transitioning over to helping build a company where what if I fail? Because every day I'm facing my own inadequacies. Literally every day, I'm like, I have no idea what I'm doing. The postal service, like the UPS guy comes to me and he's just like, all right, so you know what know what actually i can take way more bars if you put them on a pallet and i'm like all right thanks inside i'm like i have no idea what the words what he just said like what the hell is a pallet and so i'm like running back to google and i'm like what is a pallet and it shows me a picture and i'm like

oh yeah i know what that is where do i get a pallet from where do i get a pallet from one comes up all right how much is it before i know it the next get a pallet from? Where do I get a pallet from? One comes up. All right. How much is it? Before I know it, the next day, a pallet shows up. I figure it out. I put bars on. The UPS guy goes, oh, well done. I'm like, oh, thanks. But it's those little things that literally every single day, I think, can hold us back because we are facing obstacles. We are facing challenges. And what it does is it challenges our self-esteem. It challenges our does is it challenges our self-esteem, it challenges our ego, and it challenges our identity. And in those moments, which is what I break down in the book, of how I started to figure out where my identity was holding me back, where my validation was coming from, and how, as the final piece, I flip all that around,

and I stop looking outside of myself for other people to give me validation. That in turn will help me change my identity because now I'm not holding on to being a good Greek wife. I'm building the good in me with my own self-esteem because I figured out how to bring validation to myself. And then as a result, I'm now changing my identity from being the stay at home supportive wife to an entrepreneur that now is running a business with my husband. You figured out a lot of other things along the way as you were growing Quest. I heard you talk about in an interview where a big product mistake turned into a new successful product. Can you tell us that story? I thought it was so cool. Yes. Okay. So this is literally one of the most, the biggest lessons I ever learned.

And it happened in the most amazing way. So it's early days of quest. There's like four of us on the line. We've just about managed to hire other people to run a bar product, the production line. And it costs about $5,000 to run a bar. Now, when you're a startup, $5,000 literally can make or break your business. You've maybe got three more bar products that you can run without losing money for you to be able to sustain your business. So one day we're in there in the production and the guy who's the lead comes in and he's got this ghostly look on his face and he's horrified. And he's like, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I've just messed up a batch of bars. And we're like, oh my God,

what did you do? He's like, I'm making this peanut butter batch. And he had all the batches all lined up. I was going to do peanut butter. Then I was going to do the mixed berry. And then I was going to do the lemon flavor. And so I'm mixing in the first batch. I'm doing peanut butter. I'm doing the peanut flour. And then I accidentally grabbed the flavoring of the mixed berry bar. And so he's like, so it's all wrong. And so my husband, I'm the person that panics. So I'm like, oh my God, the company's going to lose, right? And so I go into, this is the biggest failure. We're about to go broke. This failure has like totally demolished the company. Shit. And he, my husband goes, let's just see what we've got. Before we panic,

before we go into DEF CON 1 mode, let's actually just figure out what we have. So we walk into the production and we're like, let's just try it. So we try it. And someone turns around and was like, you know, it kind of tastes like PB&J. And in that moment, we saw the failure and we said, how can this be the best opportunity? So we took this product, we wrapped them in clear wrapping, I printed out for my home printer, for my Staples printer, the nutrition value, because you can't sell product without actually having a nutrition value attached to it, but because the only thing that had changed was the flavoring, the nutrition for the peanut butter was still the same,

so we could actually legally sell it. So we purple asked on Facebook and we're like, guys, limited edition, prototype, only 200 boxes available for this PB&J. Homie, we sold out like that. Literally within two hours, we sold more product than we'd ever sold in the shortest space of time.

Then you can imagine two days later, three days later, people were getting the product. And they're like, oh my God, this is the best bar I've ever tried. So now the people that didn't get the product had major FOMO. So they're like, we want to try it. We want to try it. Within three to four weeks, we created, designed the PB&J wrapper. We had them manufactured. We put it up for sale.

And it became our number one selling protein bar at the time. So the lesson we learned is your failure, the thing that right now you're so worried about, that people literally will hold people from getting started because they think a failure means they are a failure, but it doesn't. A failure means it could be the best freaking opportunity. And I use that story every time because I'm not saying failure doesn't sting. Even now in my 15-year business career, failure still freaking sucks. I'm not going to pretend. But every time that suck comes, you just say, how do I fight it?

I remind myself, how is this the best opportunity? For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. I love the strategy Lisa recommends around breaking down big goals into bite-sized pieces. It's like I always say, you can take baby steps to the finish line. So take your dream and ask yourself, no bullshit, what would it take? No bullshit. What would it take? Money Rehab is a production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Mike Coscarelli.

Executive producers are Nikki Etor and Will Pearson. Our mascots are Penny and Mimsy. Huge thanks to OG Money Rehab team Michelle Lanz for her development work, Catherine Law for her production and writing magic, and Brandon Dickert for his editing, engineering, and sound design. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.