My First Million - The $600M Protein Bar Founder is Back Again | Peter Rahal Interview

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

Episode 639: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk to Peter Rahal ( https://x.com/peterrahal ) about starting RXBAR with $10K and selling it for $600M, business ideas he would chase today, plus why he’s back with another bar.   — Show Notes:  (0:00) RX Bar's path to $600M (8:32) Branding to solve a problem (14:03) David Protein (16:22) Idea 1: Differentiated vasodilator (27:53) Idea 2: The coffee of sleep (32:28) Idea 3: Continuous Testosterone meter (36:58)Idea 4: New religion  (42:03) Why do this again? (45:28) How to survive the first year after exiting (53:03) How big is David going to get? (56:18) Remote v in-office — Links: • RXBAR - https://www.rxbar.com/ • SCOTT & VICTOR - https://scottandvictor.com/  • David’s Protein - https://davidprotein.com/ • Lucy - https://lucy.co/  • Moonbrew - https://moonbrew.co/  • Levels - https://www.levels.com/  — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it’s called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

Today we have the creator of RX bar on the podcast. This guy started in his mom's basement with $5,000 and built a protein bar that he sold five years later for $600 million. And he tells us the story of RX bar, his new protein bar, and why he's doing it again. And we got to brainstorm with what are four other ideas that he thinks somebody could start today, trends, opportunities, white spaces in the market, and how he thinks about them, how he even created RX bar using the same process that he's going to outline today. So that's this episode with Peter.

hall. All right. So here's how I want to start this. You created this, this little bar, the RX bar that you made, I think in your mom's basement with you and your elementary school buddy. You each kicked in $5,000. And five years later, you sell it for $600 million, which is amazing. And now you're back.

and you're doing this bar the David Bar which I've been eaten pretty religiously all right let's talk a little bit about RX Bar and then David I want to hear

kind of this story so we've I think generally the story is out there so I don't want to make you rehash too much of it could you give us like the cliff notes of the story

and then I want to I want to hear about a couple of things you said you read one article on ink and forwarded it to Jared so I want to get to latch onto that but give us first just the cliff notes of RX yeah so the cliff notes um

you know In Chicago, 2010, 11, 12 at the time, like, there's an emerging tech scene. Grupon was there. And it's sort of like, if you were doing some sort of information technology, you're a loser. There was no attention or love to like a food brand. It was like, no status. Yeah, it was like no status. And so we just wanted an opportunity.

We wanted a good job. We wanted an opportunity to be successful. I had a background in food, which was really helpful on the supply chain side. And then Jared's like my total counterpart. like very, very level-headed, reliable, organized. I'm more of like the creative type, I'd say. And I always like to trivialize innovation because, you know, as an entrepreneur, it's like, you've all these ideas.

And it was basically like, I just read ink. And I was like, hey, Jared, I just sent it to him. And I was like $10,000 we can do it a nutrition bar. And it was like some bad article, you know, like nothing, nothing to it. What was the premise of the article? What did it say? It was sort of like an inspirational thing of like you can start a business, like very low, cost ways to start a company basically.

And it said like protein bar. Yeah, nutrition bar. It's like a WikiHow article. Which showed why it's a low status thing to do, right? Like anyone can do it. You know, and I always was into nutrition bars. And so we just started making, you know, we just started taking actions towards making it. And right, like, where you start, sever you end up. And I was in a CrossFit. And so we saw a distribution channel emerge. it was very clear. I was like, I looked at Whole Foods and the traditional food retail

list and had no idea how to get there. And it was hyper-competitive. I was like, how are we going to compete? Whereas CrossFit emerged, these gyms are popping up 2012-13. No competition. You were not allowed on the shelf if you weren't paleo. So that was like the perfect example of an uncompetitive market, a small market that was growing like crazy that we could go build distribution shit in and we can make the product at home. So we just went for it. And once you, you know, you burn the boats and just jump off the bridge and figure out of fly. And you're, so you're literally making bars in like your mom's basement type of thing. Yeah. We got, we had a five quart, that eventually got a 20 quart sort of vertical mixer. And like, we didn't know how to form the

products. We had to figure out how to like form and package. And you said, uh, there's this really great article. You're like, you know, it sounds cool. We're, we're in there just, like in the lab mixing these things together and making it. And you're like, it didn't feel cool. It felt horrible. Like we, people were making fun of us. Oh,

yeah. Like I remember, I think another thing, you just can't care what people think. And it's also a great test of who actually cares about you and who's a good influence. Like you're the sum of where you surround yourself with. Like, you want your friends supporting you and saying,

no, you have to work on the weekends. Like not saying drag, trying to drag you out, pull you down. But yeah, looking at, I mean,

looking at from the outside, looking at what we were Jared and I were doing, there was no way it was successful. It was going to be successful. It was just some local, local little thing. Were you doing CrossFit or you just literally saw it as a distribution channel? I was doing CrossFit. Yeah. I was in part of the crosshood religion. So you take a box to your to your gym and you're like, hey, I made these? Yeah, I just show up with Tupperware. And so there was like a little consumer insights. What do you think? And then built a relationship with the owner. I'm like, I've loved to sell some product here.

And of course, they're good people. And, you know, it starts there. And then in the theory, so it's like, if it's going to be successful at one crosser chip, why wouldn't it be successful across others? And so what did it taste? So I eat RX bars all the time, by the way. I love them. But like, the first time you open it up, you, it looks different than a granola bar.

You have to get used to like it being made out of dates and it being dark. What do they say at first to the dark bar? and were they any good at first? Yeah, so they're really good at first because they're made to order. So we never carried any inventory, so everything was super fresh. So that certainly helped. And a customer back then was all paleo people who were very familiar with Larbar. So there was a familiarity to it that was helpful for the adoption.

And I think we had this guy from Fit Aid come on. He did the same thing. at cross he used CrossFit as the initial distribution for the same reason. He's like, I don't know how to get into retail. Yeah. But I know this community. I'm in this community. And what he realized was he gave them mini fridges. He's like, they didn't have a fridge already. So he's like, cool, I'll

give you the fridge, but then you stock my stuff in there at the beginning. And if you want to switch it out later and put other stuff in there, fine. You get to keep the fridge. But sure enough, they just like kept it going. And he used CrossFit to get to like, I don't know, 20, 30 million dollars a year in sales, you know, CrossFit is the main engine at the

thing at the time. And same for us. And we We merchandised on top of his refrigerators. That's great. So you go and you're like, if this works at one, it'll work at many, then what? You're just knocking on doors every day? Like, what was your life like? We wanted to get data on convenience stores, grocery stores, other places of distribution that are to get an understanding.

And so we tested at all those other areas. were more like normal markets where there's regular competition and the brand didn't work. So like velocities at a crosser gym would be maybe 80 bars a week, whereas the convenience store and the local grocery store was like one or four a week. So obviously we would just rather be in every crosser gym or on the country prior to any other distribution. So we were just laser focused on putting the product where it's successful, meaning the the store of the shop.

And the whole plan was like, let's just get to scale through this, this early adopter and this market. And then let's figure out how to cross the chasm once we have some scale and we're commercially produced around the kitchen. And so that was a plan to be the bar of Crosby, get some scale, and then figure out across the chasm once we're close to that size. I kind of triangulated a bunch of articles. And like your revenue was like something like $2 million a year.

than like $7 million and then like $160 million or something like ridiculous like that. Is that accurate? And if that is accurate, I think that coincides with like the rebrand, making your rebrand or your new labels the greatest value creation like to ever exist. Best use of designers. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, basically it's like dot com and Amazon for three years. And we'd like put our foot into some retailers and the current branding.

or the old branding didn't work. So it's like, didn't have product of market fit where we, with our core early adopters, whenever we started to go to the mass market or not our core, it was like, this ain't work. So basically we timed the rebranding with retail. And so there was a year before the 161, that was 36. And that was basically like getting into,

call it early adopters of food retail. So the Wegmans and these like publics, these regional ones that are really high quality. And then once that work, the larger ones adopted. And so it was like 36 and then the most of the market at 161. So 7, 36161? That's insane.

Well, the most of the same thing is actually like just way we were, we use profitable sales to finance the growth. Like there wasn't like a big equity check that came in that finance inventory. So how does that work? Because that scaling is so crazy, right? Even the, even if you're super profitable at 7, how do you buy inventory for 36? Did you have a really fast turnover or a line of credit?

Applied. Linenet credit personally guaranteed by your parents for $400,000. But we actually didn't dip into it, which is funny. So that's nice. It gives you confidence. And you started the business with 10 Gs, 10 grand, $5,000 each. Yeah, it's brutal. And then so just profitable.com.

They give you cash. You ship product. So it's a cycle is much better. And then it goes back to like sales cures all, right? We talked a little bit about the rebrand before, but who did that? You did that? You hired an agency to do that? What was the genius behind that rebrand?

Because this stood out to me from moment one, and it sounds like I'm not alone, that this helped explode sales outside of CrossFit. Yeah. So we hired an agency called Scott Victor, very talented brand strategist. But I think something I want to mention that's really, really important, because I get about people coming to do rebrands all the time. they're so fixated on the agency that they think the agency comes in and does it. But really the responsibility and accountability goes on the brand owner to articulate

the problem to solve and to communicate it in a brief for the assignment for the creative to figure out how to solve the problem. What did you write in that brief? So the output of our design is very simple. We had a name problem. RX meant prescription in the mass market, but in CrossFit and meant doing something of a high standard. So in the language, in the culture of CrossFit, doing something RX, it was language.

So if you did a workout, the first question you get is like, did you do it RX? And so it had a different meaning in this culture than it did the normal American culture. So that was a problem, name problem. And then it was very clear RX meant nothing and it wasn't a valuable name. You remembered it, which was nice, but it was a source of confusion. Okay, so you pull that through to the design. The logo and name is very small. So we minimized it.

Second, we have, when you formulate a product that's minimal ingredient and you can, and like design the way it ours is, you can claim anything. Gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free, high-protein. Well, this goes on. None of that mattered when we sampled it to people. And the only thing matters when I flip over the back and say, it's our. part. Like, what is it? And it'd be like, it's like eating three egg whites, two dates, six almonds, four cashers.

So that back a label thing that referenced earlier, that was a value communication. And second, we're in the third point, we're protein no man's land. The market was at 20. We're at 12 grams of protein you're talking about. Yeah. So we're kind of like, for protein people, they're like, yeah, it's not enough. But if you just lead with egg whites, so three egg whites is the first thing. That's like our hierarchies.

actually three egg whites. And so that creates a lot of consumer surplus because when you go shopping at a cafe for breakfast and you get egg whites, you get charged a premium. So egg whites are associated with premium. They're associated with quality and they're more expensive. And so that was a great way to communicate sort of value and surplus. So all these things are in the brief like name doesn't matter. Here's the only thing that matters. We don't want to be paleo position because that is a death trap. It's a laziness trap. And so all those factors are laid out into brief. And then the designer really extracts, synthesizes, and pulls that out. And they're not, they're not just a designer. They're like a brand strategist. So it's very important for like any entrepreneur.

Like it's not just, you got to do the work and actually define the problems. And then you bring in an agency. You, now you have this thing, which I feel like you did an amazing job on the brand. think we talked about this on the pod. We're like, dude, did you see the RX guy? He's back. He's got this new bar. Love the name. Love the branding.

Right off the bat. Can I read out some of these, what's some of the lines from his site, Sean? The copywriting on the site. Yeah, do it. It's beautiful. Your new thing is a protein bar. And the whole schick is that like Quest,

which is like a leading protein bar is only 20 grams of protein, but 150 calories. You're roughly 150 calories and like 26 or 27 grams of protein. And so the copywriting in the website is beautiful. It says the genius of a product is it has the protein of a meal, but the calories of a snack. We thank our predecessors in the protein industry, but we'll take it from here. Meet David, your protein bar, idealized.

I saw the angel in marble and carved it until I set them free. These are all like in signory of quotes or copy on the website. Be beautiful. Protein is essential to maintaining your skin's firmness and electricity in hair and scalp, nail help. It participates in practically every process of a cell in your body. So you're explaining how important the protein is. But then you have this one line where it's, you like have this graph on your website where you say how many grams of protein per calorie.

And you include Quest and Luna, I think, and a couple others or Laura Barr or something like that. But then you even include cod, which I thought is ridiculous. Because when I saw that graph, I was like, wait, you're telling me that David is even more protein dense per calorie than cod. And so it's quite good. Oh, here's the part that I love. You say, you know, we are a company that is here to make your bodies better. we're going to give you protein. And it just so happens some of our products might be edible, but some in the future may not be.

We focus on making, we build tools to help you increase muscle and decrease fat. And so that can come in. I think that's our mission. So whether that's food, beverage, or apparel, or that's what gives us permission to go create and serve. And that came from like my observation in the nutrition bar space is like that's the most fundamental thing people want. So we want to deliver that in the best way possible. The thing that would be the most fun for us is if we got to sit down with the founder

of our expart and just shoot the shit and brainstorm business ideas. We asked you beforehand, we said, hey, this is what we like to do. Are you the kind of founder your brain never turns off? You're always seeing opportunities that somebody could go do. And you sent us a little list. So let's start with that list. And I think the fun way to do this is, I'll just read the name of the thing you wrote. You didn't give us any details.

and you kind of pitch the idea of what you see is a potential opportunity here. So idea one, vasodilator. Yes. Okay. So I think history is really important to study in business. I think it doesn't get enough credit to look for the patterns in history. And for this one, in 2003, four, and five was in high school. This product called NO2 came to market.

And it just blew up the supplement industry. a good way. Pre-workout, right? Yeah, it was like saying you got these, like, big pump. Was that like Enno explode? That turned into Enno explode. Me and Ari were just talking about it. She said she, like, strict a pre-workout,

and I remember the days of taking that, and it would, like, make me N-O explode out my butt. Like, it was like the worst. It was, like, the worst. It was, like, cocaine, except it would make you, like, diarrhea. Yeah. So what happened is people started adding different features to it, but it has, like, having healthy blood cells

is like really important. And if you look at the market today, it's like super, I call it like chains and gains, like screaming to not a sophisticated obvious. Like it's just for pure gains. And so I would say there's probably an opportunity to sort of commercialize something

on just the broader benefits of healthy blood flow. And, you know, it's like for especially for men, like ED is a huge one. And like I think the positioning of the market, I think they're all very, very, very, very bodybuilding oriented. And I think there's one for like pedestrians.

Did you remember the one, Sean, the deer one? It's like, it's like cut. Bucked up. Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. It's sort of like analogous to dick pills in, uh, gas stations. Versus him. Yeah, versus him.

Yeah, exactly. There was a guy who came and spoke at one of Sam's conference. He created, um, Sam, what's the guy's name? He created the method soap. And then he's created the Band-Aid brand and they created Ollie gummies or whatever, like vitamins. Yeah. Eric Ryan. That's the guy. He's created three brands that are all like big in Target, different categories. And he talked about, he goes, what I could do? I could just walk through a department like a store, like a Target or a grocery store. It's like, what are you looking for when you're walking through those aisles? He goes, I'm looking for a sea of sameness. Yeah. And anytime I see a category at a shelf where they're all positioning, they're all chasing the same target or they're all positioned the same way. So for example, he said, bandades. Bandades were all sort of boring, neutral, try to be the color of your skin, blah, blah, blah. So they made a Band-aid brand. So they made a Band-a-Band-Brand. that was the opposite,

it was very loud. Badge of honor for a boo-boo, right? Or vitamins looked a certain way. They came in and tried to do it differently. So do you have a similar sort of philosophy where you see, let's say, these vasodilators, like, they're all broed out.

And you're like, if I just repositioned the same product, I would have a new audience. Yeah, I think Eric's strategy is very much design-oriented, like differentiation through design and that's, like, looking for. I don't have a clear of a strategy. I just really focus on differentiation and actually determining how competitive a category is

and how easily you can differentiate with what I call like valuable novelty. Does that mean that you actually want it to be the most competitive so then being very different? Yeah. Yeah. So it's like you want it to be perceived as very competitive, but then when you actually apply some rigor, look at it, it's actually not that competitive. Like, the protein market is perfect, example of that.

Like, barrier entry is pretty low, lots of noise. On the surface, extremely competitive. But if you look at it, there's actually like three and then a long tail. And that's, you show you,

you know, it's like, you want an uncompetitive market. And so like where can you find an uncompetitive market in a competitive market, I'd say? Because like a food leverage is like, it's too easy to,

it's just the world, it's easy to make food. relatively. So it's unavoidable. Of course, everything's competitive. Yeah, it's like Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel talks about

for the best investments are ones that seem like bad investments what are actually good investments and the things that seem like good investments but actually are good investments, the returns aren't even there. So you need that sort of, you need to be counter consensus,

meaning you need to find something that looks one way but is actually another. So you're saying looks super competitive. But when you sort of break it down, you realize actually there's a pretty big opportunity that it's not as competitive as it looks on the surface. Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly.

And it's just simple, like, people will come to me, oh, protein bars are so, so competitive. And I always ask, tell me, tell me about that. Like, how, you know, you just ask a couple questions. And it would be interesting that one can't either. What are those questions? What are the questions? Tell me, like, please explain more. Like, what do you?

They just can't explain the competitors. They can only, they're only, they're only referencing the volume of the category, like the volume of brands, but they're not necessarily actually referencing what they like who's good, who's not. And then second, a lot of times they're not even consumers of the category, which to me is the opportunity. It's like, all right, well, why aren't you the consumer in the category?

It's some dissatisfaction with taste or texture usually or price or something else. And so that's the opportunity actually. It's like, how do you bring new people to the category? So, yeah, just stuff like that. It's just funny. That's cool.

So let's take this viso dilator thing for saying. In the first 90 days of that, what would you be doing to figure? this out? What do you actually go do to get these answers? Oh, so first I'd figure out, I'd look at the literature and is it good or like just, so it's like two searches. One, what does the internet say? Like, what is the reputation of it? What does culture say about it? And then two, what does the actual literature say? So like, what is the, what are they atias of the world? What does heberman, Wayne Norton,

what do they believe through syndicating the actual literature? So does that basically just mean like is the perfect blend of that? Like a vaso dilator is good. And then you also see like NO explode looks way too broy and is lame. Do you want yes, yes on the culture? Or do you, why the two, what are you looking for as the perfect answer for those two? So on the cultural thing, is it second would be like a landscape. Like what does the market look like?

But before that, it was to say, is this a reputation that I can overcome? is there some sort of stigma that is it's good if it's okay if it's contrarian but is it is actually something so bad that I can't overcome it or like what is reputation just general and then second would be like or what's like this market map like how do I define this market and I don't I what I know I probably just define it as simply like bodybuilding oriented there isn't actually a

continuum of like you know natural people bodybuilders like that's like a natural opposing continuum but um yeah so just a study a study the market reputation of the market and then most importantly because because if the market says this is bad then that it's and but the literature says it's really it has all these benefits then that's a contrarian thing of like all right people disagree with you but then there's so so it's it's sort of triangulating those those things sam you invested in lucy right yeah So Lucy, the nicotine gum, our buddy John Coogan's involved with it. And now it's a pouch.

Pouch, yeah. At the time, I think the sort of cultural stigma, this pre-Zen being really popular, was nicotine equals bad, right? Aren't we supposed to be not having cigarettes bad, nicotine bad, blah, blah, blah. Science actually showed that there were some, I guess, some benefits. And then what they did was they were like, cool, can we overcome this? And it took actually many years, but the business is now exploding. But for years, it was kind of just trying to get enough momentum culturally to get over the hump.

Yeah. And that's so like the Peter Thiel's approach to consumer is actually how you make money in this business. And there's plenty of examples like kombucha. Protein bars are constantly this because no one thinks there's too many of them. Collagen was one. Nicotine's one. You know another one that's happening right now? Creatine.

So creatine, the science is one of the most studied supplements of all time. It's like there's so many benefits. But for years, it was like, this is only for football high school pros. Like, you know, and now we've made it cool. Or now, like, women are like, no, there's actually a lot of benefit here. Or normal average Joe's, like, there's a lot of benefit here. The whole creative movement, Sean, have you seen that right now? Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, I would say, like, the way you figured out is just asked your friends, like, hey, what do you think of this? And it's like, oh, it's sort of that's, and that's like cultural reputation. Right. And that's people are kind of disagreeing with you. So I'd say generally, if I were to ask what my pattern is for sort of consumer investing, it's really that. Like, what is something on the fringes or what is something people disagree with or is it in culture

that actually, if you look at it from a first principles perspective, there's actually something there. So let me ask one more question before we move to the next idea, which is I'm a smart guy. I can almost talk myself into anything or talk myself out of anything. I have a very good debater in my own head. And so what you're giving examples of is maybe things that are missing. understood or it looks competitive, but actually it's not. I can almost see myself justifying anything

under that umbrella. Yeah, hey, Peter kind of said this and I just don't have the actual judgment to be able to do it correctly. What's an example of an idea, Sean, of our product? Well, I actually want to ask you about the opposite, which is like, what are categories that you think you would like run away from? You're like, no, no, this is the type of thing I wouldn't go into for these reasons. Fast, anything fast following, like following liquid death, following Ali Pop. You got you guys. It's got to be the first one in the controversial, disagreeable thing. You can't, you know. Yeah, because you're trying to win big.

And I think I read something the other day, like in the AI category that Sequoia was talking about, they're like, if you just study all markets, the market leader, so whoever becomes number one of a new category will take something like 75% of all the profits, 50% of all the revenues and whatever. It's just like the spoils really do go to the winner if you're trying to win the biggest. And I think you could be looking at history. And this is why I think history is something I just like, I think it's so implaus. and studying consumer.

Like, that would be true with, that would be true with kombucha, college in market, these sort of big breakthrough new markets that emerge. Like, the first one to do it well takes all the problems. Are you, when you say you're studying history, what does that mean? Like, you're reading biographies, you're looking at old financial statements. What are you doing? It might, you know, be like, one would be looking through your phone at the old category, So like what did it what did photos of the category look like in 2012?

But for me, it's my own just experience going through it and remembering, you know, the different trends, the different new products that, you know, and just keeping that recollection of that. And I think it just isn't talked about when I see people starting consumer brands. It's kind of like, oh, here's today, here's the future. It's just such an important piece of like in the equation of whether this is going to work or not. But yeah, there's no one writing books on this stuff. but no one cares. So it's really, you have to just.

You have to piece together. Yeah, piece together. And yeah. All right, let's go to idea number two. I don't even know what this means. Night occasion in general.

I don't know. Is that an idea? What is that? Okay. So, again, I feel I feel myself as like an anthropologist. So if you look at the morning occasion,

it is very fixed, right? It's all around coffee, waking up, sunlight. Sunlight observation is a new one, thanks to, I think a human change culture in that way.

So circadian rhythm, taking supplements maybe or morning pills, whatever rituals the are. The morning occasion is kind of like clear in terms of like what products or services are there. And so sleep hygiene and the sleep occasion is something that's become very clear that's super important. And if you look at that, to me it's a wide open. Like there isn't a coffee of the sleep occasion. At night you have what, like magnesium maybe or something like that, right? I think it's like one maybe cat product.

Yeah, no one's owning it. Right now, you brush your teeth, right? So there's like, Colgate's got it. But like, there is a huge opportunity to sort of be the brand for that occasion. There's some obstacles, obviously. But to me, that's like, if I'm an entrepreneur, I'm really studying that. That's a strange insight to have. What made you get to that conclusion?

You just got to think about everything's occasion-based, right? Like, the best example is like champagne dominates a celebration occasion. outside of that, it's a terrible problem. Or for like for RX bar, it's like, I'm driving somewhere. I'm going to a gas station and I want to get something healthy. Yeah, like RKFOR was obviously on the go. It was a big occasion. But to be honest, it was egg.

It was because of the egg whites. There was some signals. It was breakfast. It was sort of like a great fast breakfast. When I think about like everyone's talking about sleep, you have eight sleep, you have all these brands kind of getting there. But on the consumers, like the food or beverage or supplement side, There's all these like sleep packs things.

But like the real opportunity is like, how do you be the coffee of fucking sleep? And that's where I would spend time. You know, coffee's the best drug. It's the biggest drug. So is there something like that? There's some brands working on it. But that,

I think there's, there's, which promising ones? There's one called, um, uh, moon brew. There's one called,

uh, beam. I use both of them. One is melatonin. doesn't that's the big controversial one melatonin is actually sort of you could have melatonin is actually something that could be contrarian people say it's bad for you it's habit formate it's exogenous hormone but then there's also literature that's high antioxidants too those are good but I me and my fiance we find we find

ourselves having this like this beverage at a small dose before bed and it's like a nice ritual yeah I think that's brilliant actually the the the marr basically like looking at moments and looking for openings. There's a Chinese company. I think it was maybe it was bite dance. The company that owns TikTok. Maybe it was the one that owns WeChat. Not sure.

But they, at their annual meeting, I remember going and watching their annual meeting, which was weird because it's all in Mandarin. I don't speak Mandarin. But I'm like sitting there trying to translate these slides because I was like, I want to learn from where other people are not learning from to try to see if there's any alpha there.

And one of the interesting things was their opening slide was all of the moments of the day, like so a 24 hour cycle, broken into 15 minute intervals. And what they did was they were like, we want to have a product or an app for every moment of your day. This is like totally dominating philosophy. That's insane.

American companies, you couldn't come out and say it, but obviously Zuck probably feels the same way. But they were like, you're in line for coffee. What's the inline coffee app? We need an app that is designed to be awesome for that moment. Okay, now you have an hour in bed scrolling at night.

What do we have for that? That's like the TikTok app where you're just going to infinitely swipe and be amused. And so seeing them think that way, I was like, oh, wow. And then that creates white spaces. So you say, oh, you might think photos is a crowded category. Like it seemed like photos was dominated by Facebook and Instagram.

And the Snapchat came out was like, oh, we'll use photos for messaging. And instead of photos for memories. And the way they just looked at it with a different lens, suddenly photos was totally a wide open, multibillion dollar opportunity that you had to look at it in some other angle in order to see it. Yeah. I would just emphasize, like, the consumers all that matters. And so putting yourself empathizing and going through that is where it all starts,

my view. Yeah, I like that. Do you also look for like, product inspiration from other places? Like, I know some people that do CPG that they're like, they travel a bunch or they'll be like, oh, yeah, in Thailand, they drink this. What is this? If we just take this and now we wrap it in a new label that's like American friendly, we might be able to have a product here.

So basically, you want to consume as much information, collect as many dots. so you can connect the dots at some point. And the best example is that is like I had an internship in Belgium and we supplied Innocent Beverage, which is a smoothie company. And in their label, they would, the innovative thing they did is they would, and their greening statement would be like one apple, one banana and half a lemon or a pinch of lemon. And obviously I took that dot and connected it to our X bar, which on the back of our label was two days, three eggs, six almonds, four cashews, etc.

But that insight was from just purely observing different markets and different brands and different balls. You're just like journaling or to keep track of these or it's all just in your head? It's in a way. Yeah, it's just in the way. All right. Let's finish up these ideas. I want to ask you about the bar businesses.

All right. So idea number three, continuous testosterone monitor. This is very fascinating. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think the American male cares so much about testosterone. And I think, I don't know if this is feasible. I mean, we do blood tests. So, and I actually, like, looked into this for, like, 10 minutes.

But if you were to have some way to measure testosterone or some broader hormones in a continuous way, so, like, when you wake up and moderate, like, I think there's a lot of demand for that. And I think the American male was loved that. Sam, you're the American male. What are your T-levels right now? Dude, I want to know my T-24-7. Are you 400? Where are you at? Is it higher than your math SAT score was? That's the test.

I don't even, what's the SAT out of? I don't even know. Do you don't get yours check, Sean? I've never got. I don't think I've got to check once. I don't think I've ever really, I definitely am not the typical American male. Wait, Peter, do you do you get yours check? Yeah, I do it quarterly. do you have man by the way

I was an investor am an investor in that thing called Levels which is a continuous glucose monitor and like yeah everyone has to figure this out and if you do figure out

it's pretty awesome but do you have some because you're friends with like I think Peter Tia is one of your investors because you're a young rich guy in the health space do you have some crazy

Brian Johnson set up where you have someone measuring your nighttime erections and all this crazy stuff no I've so I've gone from like getting close to being obsessive about measuring everything to just now I'm like totally over. It's like so easy

to overdo it. My routine is I'm currently off supplements right now. I just want to get a baseline of my blood markers. I test it quarterly. And then normally I take supplements in the AM and PM. I think I think culture is going that way. This is my this is my prediction for 2025, which is that I think everybody got really inspired and sort of overanalyzed everything through, Huberman and Brian Johnson. I love those guys. But I think the average person, it's way too much work for way too little payoff. And we all kind of know the sort of core four or five things you should do. And most people don't even do those. And so without doing the basic fundamentals, like none of the rest really matters, the sort of fine-tune optimizing. And so I think there's going to be a giant retreat

back to simplicity and basics for like health craze. So for the listener, Brian Johnson is like a tech billionaire who likes the headline is he spends two million dollars a year on his health to live forever whatever he's got this thing called the rejuvenation olympics where you can get your blood work done and it ranks you like amongst tens of other thousands of people to let you know like how good your blog work is and how long you're going to live whatever there is this woman in the wall street journal uh she was like a substitute teacher and she's like she's like says her income she's like i make like $50,000 a year and i just go for walks and i eat healthy and she was number one on the list and like Brian Johnson was like number six.

And it was pretty funny that all these guys are dedicating their lives and all the resources. It's just bingo night that you need with the community. Yeah. And I think it actually causes like, emotional regulation and not being stressed or anxious is probably more important than like obsessing about some other stuff. Exactly. All right.

Let's do the most exciting idea you have on this list. New religion. Talk to me. I'm ready. Preach. sort of religions I think it's a bad word it's like something to belong to

that helps you guide morality and ethics that can be a ritual or tradition that we all can like bond over and feel aligned on my hypothesis is that

there's no money to make in religion so no one joins no talent no good leader joins the church and therefore or it hasn't been innovating at all. And therefore, so the economics aren't there for a priest.

And so therefore, there's no innovation and there's a desperate need for innovation. And then, so, and then second, like, no one wants to be Jesus and someone has to be Jesus. That's why I think why we are where we are at right now. So if someone wants to be Jesus, I think there's a real opportunity. Have you guys ever gone to a Shabbat? No, something like that. It's the shit. It's the best.

Shabat is the shit. I love it. It's like basically a Friday meal where you don't use cell phones. Did you tell everyone how much you love each other? Yeah. And like Saturday I'm not working. Like forced. And I just think that's the obvious.

We want that. Why are you saying there's no money at it? These mega churches have $100 billion run rates. The priests are driving private flying private jets. Like, have you seen Joel Ostein? That's a billion dollar smile right there. So I think maybe it's like actually the best business of all businesses. I'm pretty sure that the Catholic Church is the largest landowner in the whole world.

Not to reference Peter Thiel again, but he talks about for monopolies, he's like all the companies that talk about how much of a monopoly they have, how dominant they are. They're usually the most vulnerable. And the ones that are super dominant, always trying to downplay how dominant they are because they don't want anyone to take aim at them for antitrust. It's the same thing I think for money. It's like the folks that are bragging about how much money they make are the

drop shippers and then the people who are silent pretend it's not about the money have all the money and that's the the churches. You're right. It's probably totally right. So I miss read this. But maybe I should be a priest. Well, I've thought about this a bunch of ways. I think you can you can either unbundle it. So, you know, one strategy for business is unbundled things. So take things that come in a bundle so you get God and a higher power. You're going to get community and a Sunday ritual. And then you're going to get an operating philosophy for life. And so that's the That's the current religion bundle. And then then you see things like, you know, look at the NFL every Sunday.

Look at Soul Cycle. Look at these things where it's like, oh, they're giving, they have two of the components, but not the other three, right? But then there's Tony Robbins. He'll maybe give you the operating philosophy without God. And for me, for example, that resonated. I was like, cool. I want this without the, but I, you know, I'd like to be in charge of it and not sort

of say it's somebody else that's deciding my fate. And so I think some people have unbundled this, but it would be very interesting to see somebody actually try to provide a new. bundle. And I think you could really just like, it's a first principle's approach, but like, across the different domains of life, like who's got it right? Like the Buddhists have got stuff right, the Jews have got stuff right, tourism's got stuff right, Christianity too. And just sort of built, like sort of look at it from that perspective. I bet you'd come up with something great. You actually have a, it appears to be a fairly academic point of view when it comes to

operating a business. And I think that that's actually pretty cool because I think it's considered like cool to not care or like I'm just going to follow my gut which I tend to fall in that category but to hear your kind of academic point of view I actually think it's pretty neat thank you I wouldn't call it that but I guess maybe from where you're yeah I mean I just it's like I'm a terrible student but I study a lot what does that mean I was like literally a terrible student but I do like all I do is my free time is study yeah it's actually nice for me because I kind of, I do the same.

And then sometimes I meet people who are 10 times more successful than me. And they're like, yeah, I don't even think about all that stuff. I'm like, oh, wait,

am I wasting my time? But you're like, oh, yeah, we looked at this. It seemed like really good distribution. Or I really thought that, you know, for the design agency, the inputs matter as much as the inputs will,

will dictate the outputs. And so I was super clear on this. Whereas, like, I think a lot of successful entrepreneur is just sort of handwave. And I get the sense that it's not really as hand wavy as they think. And it either they're downplaying it or, Or they're kind of like Michael Jordan. You're like, how do you shoot a jump shot?

He's like, I don't know. I just do it. I don't really think too much. But I like that you're able to articulate some of these things because at least for someone like me, that resonates because that's how I think. So, you know, it's too short. I would perhaps say like they're not as introspective. They're probably not analyzing why they came up with what they came up.

And they're probably not. They're just like, I think a lot of entrepreneurs are all about like charging forward and moving forward. I'm always sort of like looking back and studying the past of like, why did this work? Was it a framework? Can I come up with a framework? Was it a pattern? Well, let's do a little introspection on why do David?

Because you've, on one hand, one way of looking at this is you've already beat this level of the video game. You created a protein bar. You won $600 million. You get the nice house in Miami. And it's all done, right? And of course, you could go back and do it again, but maybe like you should do a new thing. That would be one argument. We and Sam have talked about this before.

There's two, you know, type one, type two entrepreneurs. Type ones are always looking for the variety of the next new thing. even though they're most equipped to actually go do the thing that they know really well, they don't want to do it. And then there's other people we call speed runners, this type 2, which is now that they feel like they have a new point of view, new mastery of the game, they're really excited to go to do it. This is just in their blood.

It's in their DNA. They just want to go back to the same space. I don't know if it's as simple as that, but why did you decide to do it again? Yeah, so it was in process. So I had an odd with Pete. So that was a constraint. But then I wanted to actually prove to myself that I wasn't just a CPG entrepreneur, that I could go do this in other sort of industries.

So I actually, I went to go explore different industries and try to like, and I kind of like started and stopped in a lot of times. What sorts of stuff? Give us a sense. Like synthetic biology, I think is like fascinating. That's a perfect example. I was like, this sounds like science fiction. Biotech is incredible.

Like if we can actually control biology, like this would be an amazing thing. So I started studying it. And you know, this is really like like Elon's like a not a good. influence like I was like oh he like I can like learn anything and then very quickly was like I can't fucking learn this stuff like these people like spend their whole careers learning this and I was like I'm not that smart I can't learn new things and I'm never gonna start a business where I have to pick up the phone to fix a problem like if I can't don't have the competency to fix the

problem or understand it I'm that's like a position I'll never want to be in that was a bit of like self-awareness call it a humbling moment. And I spent some time that I came back. And then when my non-compete came up, I was like, oh my God. I see it. Like I couldn't help but see like a vision of something to do. And so I was like, you know what?

I'm okay. I'm okay with just being called a type two. And I'm okay. Once I die, it just says like, no is protein bar. You know, like, watch what I'm going for. part on my gravestone that that's okay like and it and it goes back to like self-awareness like you got to do what you're good at and like one thing I've learned is like as I'm older I'm 38 now like I do find it harder to learn new things like I'm a later adopter why do it again is like I see

a huge opportunity to bring to grow the market to delight customers and it's far are you calling the shots are you the CEO and are you like a very hands-on CEO or are you doing it or are you chairman. No, I'm the CEO and I'm in the office every day. I'm at manufacturing right now. I only have one way. When you have a four-month-old kid, it sounds like you're going to get married soon. A lot of people in your position who imagine you have roughly in the ballpark of nine figures, liquid, that's enough money for many generations. You have a new kid where you can be at home with them. Why do you even give a shit about starting this new thing? I think I Idle mind's the devil's playground.

But you've had an idle mind, no, for the past few years? Yeah, but I still made myself busy. But it was idle relative to it now, yes. I just think it's dangerous. Like, I need to produce, I need to make stuff. I need stress. I need to be challenged. I need risk.

I'm a way better man with responsibility. And then second, I want to make sure my son sees daddy working, working hard. I need to be a role model for him. I need to be in an office. I need to be sacrificing. And then at a fundamental level, like, as a human, I'm just, I'm not happy. If I don't, I'm not like risk on. I don't have responsibility.

Does that mean you're kind of bummed out or like for the past few years? Yeah, it just was unfulfilled. Like, I was just like, and being an investor sucks. I, like, yeah. It's pretty boring, isn't it? Well, like, the only good thing about it is you're, you can, like, you have more freedom of time. time and responsibility. That's the great thing about it. And I just don't actually like that.

Have you ever seen this Reddit post by this guy, Jake, who started Movement Watches? No. They were one of the early DTC brands. They made a watch brand that got really big off of Instagram. And he wrote this thing on Reddit, which I think you would never expect this guy to be here. They sold it for, I think, $100 million. You would never expect him to just be lurking random, like beginner threads about entrepreneurship. And he wrote a thread that he says, I sold my company for millions and I'm lost more than ever, 31 years old. He says it pretty openly. I sold my company movement for a lot of money.

I thought all my problems would be solved. It made my life really cushy and comfortable. I optimized for being as stressed free as possible. I play video games when I want. I wake up when I want. I have really no reason to go to bed if I don't want to. I always thought this was the dream and I'd be happy forever until I wasn't. I realize I'm in this incredible unique situation.

I want to share some things. I'll just fast forward. There's a bunch of stuff. He talks about, I've been separated for the company for two years. I'm 31, single. I never have to work again. I'm also lonelier than ever and deeply depressed. I really believe that we need purpose in our lives to be happy.

For some that's raising a family, others, it's their career, blah, blah, blah. And then he goes to the bottom and he just says, we can plan and analyze forever, but here's the lessons, but there are lessons that are unknown until you start moving forward. You cannot live without struggle and pain. We either choose our struggle and pain, or it will find us through depression and lowliness. I thought that was really powerful what he wrote. And you, at my point, my feedback, you have to work.

He said you don't have to work. like you have to just not for money it wasn't for money that you had to work yeah yeah yeah just like you need to produce i want to bring up this article that uh you that got written about you um it was on medium you know i'm talking about yeah it was like a super sensationalized terribly accurate and she was just projecting i thought that was going to be the case i told i was going to pick it up and he goes he's this is what he's probably going to say and uh sean nailed the prediction. But for anyone who's talking about, who's thinking about, uh, or

the article that I'm describing, it's basically the head, it's beautiful photos, but it's kind of like they kind of paint this article as the lost young, rich guy who doesn't know what the hell he's doing in life and is unhappy. And like the photos are like you like looking off to the distance, but there was one pretty

amazing. Do you just pro tip for founders? Anytime somebody wants her article about you and they just take photos looking longingly at the window, they're about to fuck you. That's what they're trying to do. Just don't take the photo and don't do the article. The paragraph goes, so Peter bought a fully furnished house for $19 million in May. He supposed his time between here and Chicago. He chose Miami because there's no income taxes. He has a Ferrari and a Vespa parts in the driveway. A housekeeper who comes daily

keeps the seven bedroom spotless. The most are usually empty. Like just little jabs right there. It's true. And then she basically says, this looks like a place that ticked a box requesting the newly rich bachelor package and this setup fell straight from the sky. Just like constant jabs. First of all, I did it crazy that you probably spent the whole day with this woman and you probably became friendly with her. And that she just kind of like,

yeah. And like she couldn't like, I'm very introverted and I love being alone. And I never once said I was unhappy. It's more than like she was projecting what she would be like. She's like couldn't imagine living here alone. And I'm like, this is fucking great.

Like it was just like it just shows like you can't trust me. media. The story was supposed to be about my process for finding my next business. But it was still a good article. There was some cool insights of it's like a little bit about your background story. And the photos are dope. One of the things Sam and I like to talk about, when we both sold our companies, we were like the day you, there's like this whole process of like the journey of the thing. And then you're like going to sell. That's kind of a stressful time. And it's just kind of like relief when you sell, at least I was how it was for me and him. it's like more than what you think should be just exuberance

was actually just relief that the process actually like finished and it was successful and like your employees are all at a good spot and like everything worked out. But then there's like, you know, that post exit, right? Figuring out what you want to do, go to the ATM, you print out the balance the first time. You're like, holy shit, this is cool. Do you have any of those moments that you remember

that were just memorable for you, just like unique human life experiences that you had going through it? That's the first question. The second would be like, you know, if your cousin or your brother would, going through this or was about to do it. What would you kind of tell them? What would you advise them now that you've been through it?

Yeah, I would say by going through the process, it took me a while to, like, actually comprehend the money. Had you taken money out of the business before that? No. No. So I went from basically, like, you know, 75K a year to,

it's like really crazy money. So that process took me a while. And in general, like, that's just like financial literacy. I don't I don't have a good instincts on it for some reason so it took me about a year to like realize what it was and then going through it like I just I just maybe it's like I have kind of like low self-esteem for being dyslexic I think so I didn't think I was great you know what I just don't think I'm that special and then I didn't realize like you just get treated differently

you also were living in maybe not the most friendly or not the most Miami is not the best place to be I think well you could say it's the best place to be for the newly rich or you could also say it's probably it could be a pretty bad place to live if you're newly rich and a young man who's single like it could be it could go you become a D-Gen pretty easily yeah yeah if you know to have discipline it's a really dangerous place but it's actually a great place because there's a lot of high network people there that actually you can learn from. The issue with Miami is that there is no residue of the actual building. It's just the outcome. So you don't see the office. You don't hear the stories. You just see the

outcome. And so it's a bunch of like it's yeah, it's a byproduct of all that. You don't see the process any, any remnants of the process. And so that's what's dangerous about Miami on wealth management. And I would just define the different sort of options like you can go with Goldman. they're going to fee you, they're going to make you feel good. Just go through how to manage this money. Because that's what you need to get. You immediately need to figure out what to do and how to do it. And there's sort of like different categories and approaches

based on your risk appetite or what you want to do. So that's what I wanted to help with. And I would help someone. Here's how you should think about it. And here's how, like, help them not waste their time. All right. I want to ask you two questions. First one is real simple.

How big can this be, David, as I'm 75% away through this ball right now. I would, how big, so the market, I think it's like, it's like, say, $8 billion Tam, the protein subcategory. For me, the big exciting opportunity is to convert non-protein bar people and bring them into the category. So, so like, just interviewing people, they'll often say, I'm not a protein bar consumer. So I want, if we can achieve the mission of converting as many non-protein bar people into protein bar people, that would be a huge. I see a clear path to a billion in sales, top line. Is that your threshold for success? That's a good question.

Enterprise value, yeah, I would say, yeah, I would want a billion in top line. What's that worth? Depending on growth and EBITDA, you put a three or five on it. I love how you don't shy away. We have a lot of people that come on this podcast that they want to win. and they want to win big and they want money and they want they want things right we all want things

and whenever Sam will ask a question like that of like does that would that be would anything less than that be like not a success for you or something like that they'll like always go back to like what they think they're supposed to say no no no this doesn't define me as long as I wake up every day

and my wife kisses me on the cheek I'm good and I love that you don't give a fuck and I see that in a bunch of your quotes we have this quote section. I just want you to react to some of these. My favorite, by the way, don't trust a guy who celebrates his birthday.

Yeah, I know. He's completely true, but not a day I've stood, but it's kind of true. You talked about how most people don't really experience any adversity, and you said, quote, most people are soft as baby shit. Expand on that. Yeah, I just think it's character shit. I think it's like,

and you would have really high character. some trauma at it. Trauma is relative. And if you haven't gone through trauma, it's fine. But if you're just self-aware of it, like that's the first step. You do things now,

even though your life could be very comfortable, we've got a bunch of money. You could make your life as comfortable as you want it. Do you do things now that kind of voluntarily make your life less comfortable than you otherwise could? Without sounding like a rich asshole, like, no, I mean,

I'm really, I like the rich asshole assail version. of you. Feel free to sound like that. He's like, I have one butler, not three now. It's tough out there. It's like, I don't have the white mirrors. Like that's such a like, you know, it's so terrible.

No, I mean, so I think like that this being like physical exertion doing physically things hard is the easiest way to do adversity. And that's why like you see a lot of people doing that. And so that's easy. But my company's a priority and the first thing to go is my health. Like it's my company, my family. my family. My family's probably more important now. But like, I'm not as more.

I'm not as more. My family's more important. Then my company and then me. And so my health is the first thing to fucking go. Is your, is your new company in person or remote? What do you think? Yeah.

I made the biggest miss. Dude. He's like, have you been listening? Yeah. I was hoping there was like, I was hoping there was like a 3% chance. My company, we started it like kind of like right after COVID.

I've made such a mistake, dude. We did remote and it's like an irreversible thing. Yeah, if you want a high performing company, if you want to win, you obviously have to do it. And it takes like my work's fun. So being the off- Yeah, well, that's why I'm doing. I don't care about the winning.

It just is fun. It's fun to be around your, like they become your friends. Oh, and that's the thing is like my social bucket is fulfilled through my work colleagues. Like, so I don't really socialize outside of my work. Yeah, I mean, it's, I was in the same boat. You just, you give someone a job.

You're hired. You want to be friends? Yeah. My paid friends are the best friends. My two friends are awesome. Yeah. Well, dude, Peter, I know we're a little overtime, so we'll let you go. But you're awesome.

I really appreciate you coming on. I think your story's dope. I think you're very truthful and self-aware. And that's a pretty deadly combo. It's something, you know, I think two versions. choose to strive for. And I think you have a hardcore approach to this at a time where it is unpopular to be hardcore. You almost have to apologize for like caring and trying and working and prioritizing stuff. I think there's a bunch of people who will listen to this that want that also

and will feel more empowered to do it in the same way that you were saying like, Elon let you think, wait, shit, can I do anything? Right. Like it gives you permission to like, you know, to be a certain, to be the way you want to be. And I think you've done that today on this pod. So I appreciate you coming on. Thank you guys.