Next Level Pros - #97: Scaling Businesses From $0 To 8-Figures; Alex Neist; The Man Behind Hostage Tape

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

Welcome to a new episode of The Founder Podcast. In this episode, we explore Alex Neist's journey from the depths of personal and professional despair to the heights of entrepreneurial success with Hostage Tape. Discover how a simple change in his sleep habits led to a profound transformation in his life and sparked the creation of a brand that's much more than just a product—it's a movement. Alex shares the incredible story behind Hostage Tape, revealing how it not only improved his own life but also promises to revolutionize sleep for millions. Highlights: "I'm building a billion dollar brand. It is—I know it is. I can see where it's going to be. And I know what the TAM is, I know what the opportunity is." "This isn't just tape. It's a movement." "I need something that I'm I love doing and I love building. I love building these companies." Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction to Hostage Tape 02:08 - Origin Story of Hostage Tape 05:08 - Early Development of Hostage Tape 10:48 - Naming the 'Hostage' Brand 16:41 - Marketing and Brand Evolution 22:40 - Protecting Product Innovations 30:09 - Building a Brand Community 34:50 - Team Culture and Philosophy 42:17 - Future Vision and Strategy 45:15 - Influential Books and Resources Looking to scale your business? Want to learn directly from the same team that helped me sell my last business for 9 figures? Click this link below to check out how you can work with us. https://nextlevelhomepros.com/grow-home-service-vsl Join my community - Founder Acceleration ⁠https://www.founderacceleration.com ⁠Apply for our next Mastermind: h⁠ttps://www.thefoundermastermind.com⁠Golf with Chris h⁠ttps://www.golfwithchris.com⁠Watch my latest PodcastApple- ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-founder-podcast/id1687030281S⁠Spotify- ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2vI1JAtQrojSOA7D2⁠YouTube - @thefounderspodcast

People feel held hostage by their poor sleeper, their partner, and they don't know what to do. So we're tapping into this core emotion that people feel of feeling held hostage. So Chris, don't let bad sleep hold you hostage anymore. Don't let bad sleep hold your health hostage. Don't let bad sleep hold your wealth hostage. Don't let bad sleep hold your family hostage. That whole concept. Hey, Founder Nation, i have a special treat for you mr alex nice alex is the founder and ceo of hostage tape you've probably seen it all over social media the black tape over your mouth makes you sleep better we talk about brand and how he's able to take a commodity and go and charge a premium price you're not going to want to miss this one i had to go

through that low point to build myself back up in the right way so that now I deserved it all back again. And then I could actually take care of my kids, take care of my family, and now take care of all these millions of other guys and other people around the world and help change their lives, just like you changed my life. Yo, yo, yo, welcome to another episode of the Founder Podcast. Today, I am joined by Mr. Alex Neist. Alex is the founder of Hostage Tape. You've probably seen him all over social media, maybe a little bit with old Andy Elliott. They are pushing some incredible... Yeah, he's got all kinds of cool products. When you first see it, you're like,

what in the world is this? You got somebody with tape over their mouth. I think, you know, it's probably the initial reaction anytime anybody sees your product, but welcome to the show. Alex is super excited to have you. Chris, it's Rick to be here. I appreciate it. Absolutely. And yes, it's, it's quite, it's quite polarizing, especially when you see Andy, Andy and the Nail-Aid Army, he's already polarizing enough that then you're seeing hostage tape. You're seeing people wearing tape on their mouth or the nose strip. It's pretty, pretty crazy, man. I love it. I love it. So, I mean, where does, first of all, I mean, you've got an incredible story leading up to this, but like, how does a, a product like hostage tape even come about? Where did that idea even

initially stem from? It's actually a pretty amazing story. So the story goes like this. So six years ago, I had it all. And then within two years, I'd lost everything. And mouth taping actually changed my life. So before that, I had a business. That's a bold statement. I had started. What's that? I said, that's a bold statement. It's a very bold statement. So let's get into it. So I had a previous business that I bootstrapped and I was doing millions of dollars a year. It was a software company.

And as you can kind of see on my wall, I've got some jerseys back here. I was an athlete. And so I parlayed that into a video, sports video analytics company. I had the wife, I had my two kids, I had the cars, houses, vacations, I had all of it. And within two years, I was divorced. I was living in my aunt's basement and I'd sold my business for a job I hated. So I sold it. I was investing out the equity and I hit rock bottom, right? Every entrepreneur has that moment where they sell their company and they have these like illusions of grandeur. And then you realize a year in, you're like, they don't want me. They just want the thing I built. And then they want to get rid of you. And so in that moment, I'm like, oh boy. So I'm sitting

in my aunt's basement, right? Because I had to sell the house with the divorce and all that. What am I going to do? So I looked into myself and I thought, I need to start working on myself. I need to make myself a better man, a better partner, a better husband, leader, all of those things. And I actually started with my sleep. My sleep was so bad that it forced my wife into the other bedroom for years because I snored like a chainsaw. It was that bad. And as a result, the intimacy eroded over time. And it also caused me to be, I was burnt out. I was out of shape. I neglected myself and I was neglecting my wife, my kids, you know, that whole thing. And so when I discovered mouth taping, that was this life-changing moment for me because I had read James Nestor's book, Breath.

It's a best-selling book. If you haven't read it, you got to read this book. It's phenomenal. Where there's an experiment that they do. They go to Stanford Medical Center. They plug their nose for 10 days. And over those 10 days they developed sleep apnea they snored like crazy and they had dangerously low levels of blood oxygen and then

after those 10 days they unplugged their nose they mouth taped and everything went away in a day so the light bulb went off for me and i thought was it really this simple was it mouth breathing and so sitting in my aunt's basement, right? Like four years ago that I'm thinking, okay, so I tried it and I got the most amazing night's sleep that I've ever gotten. I felt like my 14 year old son. And so then from there, now I've had a series of life changing sleeps that has now led me to here four years later and four years later now. Yeah. So when you're, when you're at this point, right, you go and you test this thing with your sleep. Like, was there a product like hostage tape at all in the marketplace at

that point? So sort of, but not really. I mean, you, yes, you can go get tape, any kind of a tape. And you can use a lot of people will joke. They'll say, why wouldn't I just use duct tape? Now you could just use duct tape. I wouldn't recommend it. It's pretty rough. It's pretty toxic. You could just use scotch tape, right? You could use surgical tape. A lot of people who are mouth taping, they'll use like 3m microport tape, 3m tape in fact that's what james recommends in his book just to use 3m microport tape and so when i went on amazon you don't really know what to get that's part of the problem nobody really knows because you don't just go mouth tape oh here's 3m's mouth tape like doesn't exist right so you just find something you think is going to work

and and then you get it. And everybody always has the same reaction like I did was before you do, you're in bed. You've got the tape and you're like, wait a minute. Am I going to suffocate? Am I okay if I do this? Am I going to die? It's a perfectly normal reaction that everybody has. But then you go, I'll be fine.

Come on. This is my nose. My nose was meant to breathe i'll be cool so you put it on and then you you wake up the next day and for me i was a mouth breather my whole life i mean look being an athlete my whole life my coaches never taught us the dangers of mouth breathing and the benefits of nose nose breathing nose breathing okay they just it's lost in western right culture for some reason even though it's taught in yoga it's taught in you know eastern society but not here and so because i was a mouth breather my whole life when i finally kept my mouth shut and breathe through

my nose it was it was jolting right how that felt and so from there it was all right there's there's a product here because i'm i'm again i'm sitting in my basement and i'm going i gotta get out i gotta get out of this i gotta get in i gotta start a business again like most entrepreneurs we're cowboys right we love controlling our destiny and building things and that's what i wanted to get back into and so i i felt like okay i think i found it i think i found like something that i'm really passionate about that now was life-changing for me and if this was life-changing for me think about how life-changing it could be for other men right so i want to create a brand that actually inspires other men.

And at the time, I was really into Liquid Death. And I love what Liquid Death did with, they're selling the biggest commodity in the world, water. Water. Yeah. And they took it, they flipped marketing on its head to get your attention, to have fun, to actually build a brand, not sell water. Right? Like that's their value like when you

hear mike their ceo talk about it it's the value of what they built was something that nobody else can do they built a brand that then happens to sell really good water right right and you can't replicate that unless you try to build your own brand and so that's what i knew we needed to do and and i also remember moiz, who started Native Deodorant. He used to talk about this concept where if you're in the aisles of Target and you go down an aisle and you see a wall of blue or a wall of white for a product, there's an opportunity there to go, I can differentiate. I can create something because there's a big enough TAM

and I can make something different than stands out. There's an opportunity. So that gave me the balls to go, okay, I can do this. I can take a commodity that's tape because there's so many people in the world that need tape. Right. But I also knew that there's 128 million households in the US. Over 71% of them are mouth breathing at night. That means most people get terrible sleep. So think about how that's negatively impacting them, maybe even you on a daily basis, how that's hurting your health,

how that's hurting your wealth, your relationships, all of it. So I knew that, okay, the TAM is there. And then I knew that this was going to be a billion dollar brand. And that's where we're headed. I'm building, I'm building a billion dollar tape brand. Okay. I love it. I love it. The, you know, the, the concept of taking a commodity and differentiating through brand, through culture, through experience, right? Like I, I'm a, I'm a big proponent of that. Like that's what I did in building my business. You know, I come from the home service and product

industry, right? Like my solar panels, there is nothing that differentiates my solar panels from any other solar installer panels, right? Like anybody, right? They're all, at the end of the day, they're all the same. They all produce the same amount of electricity, so on and so forth. But it's like, how can I differentiate the brand, the experience, the vibe, the feeling of being a part of a movement, right? And so in that, to your point, like liquid death, hostage tape, Solgen Power, that is what a great business is built off of. Right? Like Apple, they solve a lot of the same problems that the commodities of home computing solve everywhere, but they just do it in a different fashion and do it with a different vibe and a different look and feel. And so I love that principle that you're emphasizing there.

Totally. And so let me explain the name. Cause I'm sure anybody listening or watching to this going, Alex, why would you call it a hostage tape? Because that's a word that is brilliant. It's very pull. Exactly. It is brilliant. Right? Thank you. So here's the story behind it. So back when I was separated and I was divorced and my kids would sleep over at my place and I was mouth taping, I used to warn them and say, hey guys, if you come into the bedroom and you see me with tape on my mouth, don't freak out. It's going to look like I'm being held hostage. And I didn't think at the time that I would actually use it just yet yeah but then i knew that that paired with this flip side of the coin that people feel held hostage by their poor sleep

or their partner and they don't know what to do so we're tapping into this core emotion that people feel of feeling held hostage so chris don't let bad sleep hold you hostage anymore don't let bad sleep hold your health hostage don't let bad sleep hold your wealth hostage don't let bad sleep hold your family hostage that whole concept right and so to bring this all around the story that i was telling you i'm gonna blow your mind yeah okay so obviously now four years later now i'm sitting here right and in fact at the end of the month uh the you know the limitless arena show that's going on at the maverick center we're the title sponsor i'm going to be on stage in front of 10 000 people telling this story to everybody um andy's going to be there with me at the end because he's going to help pitch an amazing offer to everybody.

But the coolest thing is that, yes, now we're the official Sleep Aid partner of UFC, right? Two years ago, we didn't exist. Now we're a partner with UFC. We're partners with Joe Rogan and his podcast, with Limitless Society, with Andy Elliott and the Alien Army. But here's the best part so the best part is now that i'm actually the man the father the leader and the partner that i've i'm proud of today okay so a while ago when we were doing curbside drop-off because my my divorce was so bad that we did curbside drop-offs my wife and I stopped talking to each other and I didn't

see my kids half the time right no terrible no father should have to go through that and that's just the way it worked out so one day in curbside drop-off my wife comes to the car for the first time in two years and we had our first conversation in over two years and then she invites me into her house and then I'm able to see my kids bedroom for the first time in over two years and then she invites me into her house and then i'm able to see my kids bedroom for the first time in also two years and so now my wife and i sleep in the same bed again every once in a while i'll forget to put it on and she'll bump me and say honey put your tape on because my wife my kids and I were actually back together now as a family. Wow.

How fantastic is that? So you're telling me that literally hostage tape you have to go through all these failures and difficulties to build who you're going to be to be able to become that person that then deserves all of those things. And I lost myself, right? Yeah, I was the athlete. I was the professional quarterback. I was the entrepreneur who built the big business. And then I lost myself, right? Retired from playing, became an unexpected dad, completely lost myself, sold the business. And then I had to go through that.

I had to go through that low point to build myself back up in the right way so that now I deserved it all back again. And then I could actually take care of my kids, take care of my family, and now take care of all these millions of other guys and other people around the world and help change their lives just like you changed my life. Dude, I love it. The passion, man. I can feel it. Got tingles down my spine just hearing you talk about it. Like, you know the the fact that uh

you know your your product not only are you changing the lives of others but it's impacting your own in a drastic way man i i and that's part of this that's part of the story there chris like you talked about with brand right this isn't just some because a lot of a lot of guys out there go oh cool i want to make a lot of money great I'm going to pick a product that can make money on you. Reverse engineer it. Right. This isn't that. This was a brand built out of this personal journey.

And so that's also why I think it's so powerful is that nobody can replicate what I went through to get to here to build this brand that has such authenticity behind it, while it's also solving a serious problem because a great business solves a problem, a serious problem. And we've now created this amazing brand that solves a serious problem. And it's also really cool, really polarizing. Get your attention.

Yeah, no, I love it. You know, and I know you're on track to do millions of dollars in this product just two years into the business, which is absolutely fantastic. So walk us through. So four years ago, you read this book, you launched this business two years ago. What was the bridge between deciding like, okay, this is something that has traction. Like how did you test market

it? Like, uh, at what point did you name it hostage tape? Was it originally named hostage tape or did later the light bulb turn on and be like, man, I gotta, I gotta go and do something like really polarizing. I know there's a lot of questions in there, but you're kind of that whole bridge. So let's, let's jump in the DeLoreanorean we'll go back in time right yeah yeah one of my favorite movies so i think that's why i love the cyber truck you know the tesla cyber truck i'm totally on the list to get one i think i love it so much because it reminds me i get my next week i get my i was in my aunt's basement and i started mouth taping there was a little bit of a period where i i had doubt like like any new business that you're going to start you always have a doubt And I doubted that I could take a commodity and actually sell

it and make a big business out of it. So there was probably a few months there that went by of me just massaging the idea, sitting on it, really thinking about it. And then when I finally went hostage tape, that's it brand, because I was really into shout out to my first million and Sean and Sam. Um, I was listening to their pod and they really inspired me to think about starting the business. Um, my second business, and i felt like i was listening to all these other pods all these other people and they were helping inspire me to to get moving and to get started so it was like i had my five people you know you know they say the five people that you interact with most is kind of who you become and so i felt like the pods i listened to the guys that i was listening to were the guys that they were my crew even though they were podcasters and they were inspiring me to do it

so they just kind of helped me inch forward and on the balls to actually get into e-commerce because i'd never done e-commerce i was in sass i was 16 years a bootstrap sass founder which is completely different than doing e-commerce. And so then when I came up with that name, I knew I needed a business partner that I could own the media part in it. I wasn't going to hire an agency to do paid media. I wasn't going to hire an agency to make media, right? It's kind of like, you know, you hear Gary V. He's talked about it for years of you got to make content, make content, make content, make more content.

So I knew in this day and age of social media that I was going to be doing Facebook ads, right? Meta ads. All right. That's all I was going to be doing out of the gate for the next few years until maybe we had a chance to get into retail. And so my biggest two expenses were going to be paid media, Facebook ads, and they were going to be inventory. So I knew, all right, I got to own all that. And so I went to the guy, he's my

business partner, Ben. In fact, if you go to the website now and you see the guy with the beard, that's him. That's Ben, my business partner. And he's the creative brain behind the branding of everything. And he actually was the creative buying my first business that we had just kind of hired. My first business was a family business. So disclaimer, yes, probably not a good idea to get in business with your family. I did it. that rule uh fortunately it worked but he was a friend of my brother's and so i went to him i went to ben i said all right ben i got this crazy idea you're gonna think it's nuts and it's mouth tape and i want to call it hostage tape and he went dude i just ordered mouth tape on amazon and i've been experimenting with it myself. And the mouth tape you buy sucks.

And we were like, whoa, this, this is like karma, like throwing it together in this moment. And so, and he loved the idea of hostage tape just because he's a creative, he's a creative brain.

So he knew, I love it. I love this idea. And then I said, all right right make up some logos create some stuff he made it and really one of the first logos he made was this was the original logo that we came up with it's it's evolved since this one so it's a little bit different now but i'm like that's that's so it it's very rugged almost military in a way but i knew that a target was me it was a guy that's middle-aged i'm 44 that needs to get better sleep

right and needs to to be inspired to be a part of something that's cool not medically i didn't i didn't want to look like a band-aid company selling band-aids i didn't want to look like a company that was selling a medical product in any way because that wasn't inspiring 3m tape doesn't inspire you to buy it to mouth tape absolutely it's not cool not right no even a breathe right right you're seeing that i'm wearing a no strip even breathe right it's pretty pretty boring now they've done some they're trying to i think because of us they're trying to refresh their brand a little bit and be cooler but they've been boring they look ugly and so we said let's take a breathe right and make it look cool that's what we did with with this piece but we also knew that people were asking for what about my nose what about my deviated septum so we thought well

all right well let's add value let's increase order value let's add a cross cell with a nose strip makes perfect sense so we did a black one and and we're making it look cool and now andy he's really bringing the nose strip into, into the, like the mainstream focus of everybody, because it's, it's easy to have a nose strip on with everything he's doing. And now you're going to see even more the, all the stuff that he's doing. He's going on stages now, always wearing the nose strip. It's crazy. So, so when you, when you launch this, um, I mean, whether it was the nose strip or whatnot, were you running anything with patents? I mean, where are there patented items that are involved here? Did you have to do a patent or was it all just kind of fair game? Yeah. So certainly there

are some things like some competitors like breathe, right. Has a patent on the way there. It's more of a design patent though. It not like a functional patent um so they have a design patent on their design and so we just made our own design and and have a patent on it right and then the same goes for the mouth tape like you can't really have a patent on what that is but we created ip around it so we own trademarks around the shape the color so we own the shape and the color so anybody that's out there that's actually doing mouth tape that looks just like ours like they're trying to copycat us which always happens it's illegal because we actually own all the ip around it but so we tried to i hired a top-notch ip firm to just basically get everything that I would need to be

able to give me a big enough moat so that nobody could, you know, hurt us in any way or try to infringe on us or do anything. And part of that was hostage. Like the word hostage. I own it. Hostage. That's awesome.

Right. You trademarked hostage. I own hostage. Like how, how's that? how's that even possible there was nobody named yeah they had the trademark chris who wants to touch the word hostage nobody wants to touch that right it's like it's like it's like uh trademarking the word slavery or you know something maybe yeah i mean you know just like controversial not necessarily a bad word, but still controversial. Yeah, that's crazy. So you're able to go and trademark this name.

Basically, nobody wanted to touch it. And that makes perfect sense. It's kind of like one of those social. And it's also too, like when you think about it, like we didn't know at the time, but now that the brand has evolved, where it's actually heading is... So I bought a couple months ago, I bought hostage.co. Knowing that the brand is actually evolving into don't let fill in the blank hold you hostage. Don't let life hold you hostage. So you start to think

about all these possible products that we could be selling and providing to people that generally just help solve something for you that you can break free of life and not be held hostage anymore. Even merch, you know, like people love all the the merch and the shirts that we wear when we go to events people are always like man that shirt's awesome where can i get one so i'm like well i guess we could start doing what liquid death does and we could start selling some cool merch so are you guys shifting into that well we've got some so i do it is on the website when you go there you can go down to the bottom and you can you can see the merch area i've just got like a hat a couple of variations of shirts and like a a hoodie yeah but uh it's not a like until we get to be the size of of liquid death then i'm not

gonna put too much too much in the merch right other than just for like my team. I can, I can imagine like somebody that's willing to use a product like host that has a name hostage, right? Like they're going to become a brand fanatic, right? Like, because I mean, that's, that's the only reason you buy a product like yours is like, I love the brand. I love, I love what it stands for versus like, you know, I could just like, like you said, I can go and make my own with some medical tape or whatever else. Right. But like becoming someone that's like, hey, this is a it's more of like a movement that I'm a part of. And and so, like, have you seen that quite quite a bit? Like people that are like getting behind it? It's more more of a movement. Dude, it's exactly that. And in fact, when I met Andy Elliott, so funny story about when I met Andy was we seed a lot of product. In fact, one of the early strategies that I used to really help implant us into this industry and just scale was I used to send a product out to everybody, meaning I would find the guys that I knew needed to have it

or people around them needed to have it. And so early on, it was Mark Bell. Mark Bell is huge in the weightlifting community, and he would have on all these other health influencers, the Hubermans of the world, the Ben Greenfields of the world, the Peter Tias, all those kind of guys and so then all these other people were getting it they were talking about it they were telling other people about it and and then we would send product to other people right other organizations and his whole team and his trainer aaron were using hostage

tape and then any jack would be in the office like what the hell is everybody wearing what is all And his whole team and his trainer, Aaron, were using hostage tape. And then Andy and Jackie would be in the office like, what the hell is everybody wearing? What is all this? Take that off. And then they invited us to come to one of their events. So they do these monthly events where everybody comes out, you do a workout, and you see the videos of being in the parking lot doing like you know workouts and stuff different you know different things and very crossfit level type stuff and then the next day they go into his headquarters and they do sales training right right and when you're in this environment of what they do it's really really fascinating just to to be when you're in a room with 600 people

all with the same mindset there's an energy in the room that you can't replicate it's like going to a tony robbins event there's an energy there that's just like wow so we went there we set up a tent and you know we were giving everybody samples and and all that and then one of my guys was like dude andy's in the cafeteria by himself and i hadn't had a chance to actually really meet him yet so i beeline it right for the cafeteria i walk up he turned around i'm like hey andy my name is alex i'm the founder of hostage tape and i'm just like this i've got my hostage stuff on he looks at me and it was like we had this moment where we both kind of knew

it's like whoa because if you actually hear andy's backstory it's very similar he and i have a very eerily similar backstory and what happened to our families and how we both failed as men and then we rebuilt ourselves back up and it was from there boom something clicked and then it just started and he was like the first time i met you and i saw your logo and your branding i loved it because it fits so well into his elliot army right and i love your branding i love your logo i love the word hostage i love what it stands for. And he's always been, this is a movement. This is something to be a part of.

This is something to inspire people. It's not just tape. It's a movement. And so that's where you're seeing a lot of what he's doing, too, is helping create this movement of hostage tape army, you know, people that are changing lives. So, so yeah, I think any successful brand does a, does a phenomenal job of creating a movement. And a lot of that is like the look, the feel, the like, uh, many times, you know, so one, one of the things that I have always been best of class is creating culture with the employees and the end users and everything like that.

And a lot of that is usually driven around having a mission and something that everybody is bought into and the core values that we hire, fire. And how would you say those type of things have played into building your business yeah 100 so being being an entrepreneur myself before this right bootstrapping my own company for 16 years but where i really learned something was when i got acquired okay because every entrepreneur that gets acquired by a bigger company all of a sudden gets injected into this completely new corporate culture so for me being a we're a virtual company right we all worked from home like the whole experience of covid and and everybody working from home and being on zooms all day like that was my life for over 10 years so when that happened i'm like welcome to the

show everybody i've been used to this for a while and because that was just status quo so going into a big company culture was a shock for me because i never really i mean look i was an athlete i was a pro athlete and then i started company. So I'd never truly worked and been a part of a big company. So it was looking at all the politics that happened, the way they hired, the way they fired, the way they treated employees made me go, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. So it gave me a great perspective on how I'm going to do things of what not to do

right what not to do and how i needed to lean into the things that i was really good at and yeah any my any of my team members will tell you that i have what what i call delusional optimism right where i am from the same one of the most optimistic persons or people that like you've ever met because like when we started this company it was just the two of us ben and i you're like okay how long are we gonna have a like under one row as, and this is going to work. Right. And I'm like, dude, you just got to trust the process. I, I have this mapped out because whenever I create a business, I create a two-year P and L. So I know what the two years are going to look like. So I knew, even though maybe we had an under one row as for the first six months, I knew it was going to start to stack. Things were

going to start to change. And once I really cracked the code with the Facebook ads, knew it was going to start to stack. Things were going to start to change. And once I really cracked the code with the Facebook ads, then it was going to start to turn. And it did. Right. And so, but I'm also a big believer in manifesting and actually the law of attraction. And I get up every day and, and I visualize exactly what I want, where I'm going to be, you know, and I feel it. And so I just knew I had this delusional optimism of believing that this is who we are, this is where we're going to be, and this is where we're going. And so with that in mind, those are the kind of people that I try to bring to my team. I want an optimistic personality that is somewhat of an entrepreneur themselves.

So most of my guys, most of them are guys who want to start their own brands. They might have a brand on the side that I encourage them, yeah, have a brand on the side, work on it. Like have another passion outside of this, something that I can teach you because you're not going to be with me your whole life. Maybe in three, four years, I can help you go branch off and then build your own $100 million brand. And those are the kind of guys that I want to attract because those are the best guys, right? Not the ones that I literally have to watch after and try to train from nothing. Although, yes, some of these guys don't know anything but you can see

potential in them you know that this guy's got something he's got it and i don't need to motivate him he has his own motivation his own internal you know drive that then all he needs is to be in the room and watch me while i negotiate a deal with UFC. You know, you know, those kinds of experiences that you're not going to get anywhere else. You know, it's interesting. So I've, I've studied a lot of different brands, right? Interviewed hundreds of entrepreneurs, uh, studied from many different books, spent over a million dollars on my education, uh, identified different common principles across different businesses. And the principle that you're speaking to is what I call trust,

not loyalty. And where in a business, a common denominator of great brands, great businesses is that they create trust, not loyalty from the standpoint of like you are providing value. And in turn, they are providing, they are bringing value, but there is no expectation of you're here forever. And I own you, right? Like that's, that's a slave master mindset, which too many businesses have. And they expect that this, this business owner, this employee is going to be with me forever. And so then they create this fear type of feeling. And so then when they do have an opportunity, whether it's an offer or a business to go and start, they leave in the middle of the night, right? They don't ever actually bring it up versus when you create

a culture like what you're doing. and I strive to create the same type of culture, right? It's the expectation of, look, I don't like you could be here six months. You could be here six years, whatever it is. I want you to take the most value you possibly can and build off of it. If I can continue to provide an opportunity for you, then you will be a great fit. And there will be this trusting relationship in which an exchange of value. Right. And, and like if more entrepreneurs and founders would understand this one principle, they would create an incredible teams. And like the fact that you bring that up and like, we haven't even discussed this, like makes me just like reinforces that this is like

a true principle of like a successful culture and a successful business so i'll tell you i'll tell you why i learned it so i actually learned it from football coaches so when you watch the great nfl coaches we're talking the bill walsh's of the world we're talking to bill belichick's we're talking um mike holmgren like all of those great coaches they all say the same thing they all say look it's my job to bring in these guys and prepare them to be able to go become their own head coaches someday and so i'd always latched onto that idea of as a business owner i need to take the same approach because then you're attracting the right kind of guy or girl or woman. You're attracting the right kind of person

into your organization. That's truly going to be amazing. And then you're going to continue to attract more amazing people because they want to be a part of what you've built. Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. think you know because as a visionary which you know clearly you are right like that's that you you get people to like buy into the vision buy into like man this guy really believes in what he's doing believes so much that he does even like like he doesn't he doesn't want to hold me here like Like he believes in me, believes in the opportunity. You know, there's just so much value to that, man. And once again, I think more business owners just need to understand that.

And I think that, so going back to the big company, I saw the other side of it. What you just described of big company culture acts the other way. They act like I own you you you can't do anything else you do what i say or else you sound like this awful like these people hate it here they hate their bosses they hate the people they report to they just they work out of fear and then as a result they do the bare minimum just to not get fired, you know, or they don't speak up. They don't actually do go above and beyond to make the company great. They just do what they need to do to not get fired. Right. Yeah. Which, which goes back to like, you know,

the five dysfunctions of the team, right? Because there's a lack of trust. There's a lack of willingness to conflict over certain situations. And if they don't conflict over certain situations, they don't buy in to the commitment and they're, they have inattention to results and details. It's, it's crazy. Like what that, you know, when, when you don't establish on a foundation of trust, what that, how that breeds into our cultures. So man, um, I'm excited. What, what's the vision? Like you said, billion dollar, billion dollar brand. Like, I mean, how long are we talking? So here's, here's, here's the ultimate vision, the ultimate vision of this. So if, if I learned anything from my first business and selling it, it's, I don't want to sell this company for a billion dollars and ride off into the sunset on a beach. It's not what I want to do. Because I've learned that I need a purpose.

I need something that I love doing and I love building. I love building these companies. So I actually created a holding company. So Nice Media is the hold company that owns Hostage Tape. And the idea is we're going to continue to build other brands. And so I do have another brand called QB Grip that's related to quarterbacks, grips, something interesting. We haven't launched the product yet, but we will within another year or two. So that idea is, all right, let's say my CFO reminds me of this all the time, but let's say that CBG company or private equity, somebody comes to me in another year or two and says, Alex, we

want to buy Hotch's tape, or we want to do a deal of someone. Right. And then my CFO is like, Alex, if a company comes to you and says, we're going to offer you $750 million, you owe it to take that seriously and seriously consider it. You have a financial obligation to you and your family to take that seriously. But the goal is not to do that. My goal isn't to build this to exit. My goal is that this is going to be a billion-dollar brand. It is. I know it is. I can see it. I see where it's going to be. And I know what the TAM is. I know what the opportunity is. And so the idea is we just want to continue to have it, to run it. It's a great cash flowing business. And there's so much opportunity, not just in the

US, but globally. And I don't want to get rid of it. I don't want to sell anything of it. And then we just keep building other brands. I mean, the reality is, Chris, like this could be a $5 billion brand when you really think about it. When you actually do the numbers and you look globally, this could be even bigger than that. But realistically, I realize that there's always a ceiling to everything,

regardless of what the TAM is. Maybe maybe it's a billion maybe it's more i don't know but either way like it's it's amazing to think that we've taken this this product this kind of niche product that nobody was really ever giving the time of the day and we've now thrust it into the mainstream and we are the largest mouth tape company in the world. It's not even close. Outside of 3M that makes tape, we are the largest mouth tape brand in the world. And we will be the first mouth tape brand

in big box retail. I love it. Dude, man, you're speaking to my soul, you know, having sold a business and feeling the loss of purpose. Right. And so, you know, I know exactly where you're at as far as wanting to stay with it from a longevity standpoint. Do you ever see yourself taking it public? I don't want to take it public.

I don't think that's... In my eyes, you take a company public because you want the payday. You're trying to probably exit it. And because of the nature of what the company is, I don't think it makes sense. And I would rather not. But here's the deal. Never say never.

Yeah. When you finally do get to a certain point, your whole perspective changes. And right now I'm just, I'm down here and I, and I know we're going there and we're going to be there. So once I'm finally there, I'm going to have a whole new perspective and I could, I could have a completely different answer at that point. Yeah. Yeah. Do you, do you ever see yourself doing like, like an ESOP or anything else? So in my mind, like the perfect, the perfect plan for somebody that doesn't want to exit, but potentially wants to take some money off the table and incentivize everybody around would be

like, would be an ESOP, esop right like essentially you know the employees buy back a good chunk of the business and you're in it together i think the only thing that i'd be open to would be because there's some other brands that i know that have done this where let's say let's say there's a strategic company whether it's again cpg or may okay let's just imagine for example that there was a a company that that scoops up liquid death right that owns manscape that owns all these other like types of brands and they say alex we want to roll hostage into this collection because it just fits right right strategically okay cool that might make sense and they might say all right we want to buy 49 of it okay and

then you'll own 51 and you're still gonna run it that way then i can take chips off the table still gonna run it we've got a bunch of cash in the bank that then i can use and you know build a bunch more other brands yeah yeah. Well, dude, uh, it's always fun, like dreaming about the future. I don't know about you, but, uh, as a visionary myself, I love just imagining it for you and, and like, you know, trying, trying to imagine myself in your place and what you're, what you're building, man. Uh, it's, uh, it's exciting. It's exciting. And obviously upward trajectory is, is fantastic. And, uh, man, what, uh, what would you say are like some of the biggest books that have like influenced you in building businesses that you could share with some, with our audience? So shout out to Chris Voss,

never split the difference, hands down the most influential book I've ever read. And it's a book that I make all my employees read. And for any of the listeners out there that haven't read it, the reason it's so amazing is you might look at it and think, oh, this is just a book on negotiation. But it's so negotiation, whether it's how to negotiate for your salary, whether it's a conversation with your wife, whether it's a conversation with an employee. Every difficult conversation could be whittled down into the fundamentals that Chris talks about in this book. And then you can apply it everywhere in your life. So hands down, Chris Voss, never split the difference. Love it. Appreciate the recommendation. Alex, where's a good spot that our listeners can follow or reach out? Because I mean, you got a cool track record and everything else. I'm sure people want

to tag along and watch the journey. You got it. So I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter and Instagram as myself, Alex Neist. So at Alex Neist. And then if you want to follow the brand, it's at Hostage Tape or hostage tape.com. I love it. I love it. Who owns hostage.com?

Somebody, some nameless face owns it. Some X rated, uh, honestly, I don't need it because I own hostage.co. So it's like, why, why would I pay an extra eight figures for the, for the M right now? It's, it's beautiful. Cool, man. Well, Alex, thank you so much for your, your knowledge, your wisdom, sharing your story today. It's absolutely transformational and just bringing us along for the journey. Super excited. Wish you the best of luck as you go and build this billion dollar brand.

Appreciate you. Until next time.