The Bossticks - #132: Nick Green - CEO of Thrive Market, How to Conquer Fear, Tenacity, How to Pitch Potential Investors, Raising Capital, Influencer Marketing & The Consequences of Inaction

Episode Date: August 23, 2018

On this episode we sit down with Nick Green who is the Co-Founder and CEO of Thrive Market. On this episode we discuss entrepreneurial traits, tenacity, taking the career leap, fear and overestimating fear, who to pitch potential investors to raise capital & influencer marketing. For business owners we also dive into metrics to pay attention to for new businesses, and the consequences of not taking action.  To connect with Nick Green click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by THRIVE MARKET. We use Thrive for our online grocery delivery on a weekly basis. They provide the highest quality products and ingredients delivered straight to our door with unbeatable prices.  Be sure to grab our deal by going to to https://thrivemarket.com/skinny to receive 25% off your first order + free shipping and a 30 day trial. This episode was brought to you by Third Love Third Love knows there's a perfect bra for everyone, so right now they are offering TSC listeners 15% off your first order! If you want to get your own perfect fitting bra Go to www.thirdlove.com/skinny and get 15% off your first purchase! 

The following podcast is a dear media production. This episode is brought to you by Third Love. So when it comes to a bra, I like a lot of things to check my boxes. Do you guys know what I mean here? I want the perfect fit. I want a lot of size options, no wires, quality, convenience. I'm really not a mall person either, if I'm being honest. And of course, I want comfort.

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That's thirdlove.com slash skinny for 15% off today. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

We have fear hardwired into us over like generations and generations of evolution. And that's because if you made a mistake in prehistoric times, you get, you know, eaten by a saber-toothed tiger or you get rejected by your clan and you're dead, right? Today, we're like in a video game where you have 10,000 lives. Like you mess up once and try again. You mess up again, try again. Literally, you can just keep going back to the plate. And so I think most people sort of inherently overestimate the amount of risk and overestimate how bad it is when you fail.

And as an entrepreneur, you just by definition will build up a tolerance to failure or you'll stop being an entrepreneur. Welcome back to the skinny confidential him and her show. If you are new to the show, thank you for joining. That clip was from our guests of the show today, Nick Green, who is the co-founder and CEO. of one of our favorite companies, Thrive Market. On this episode, we discuss what it takes to build and scale a business online, tenacity,

overcoming fear, how to pitch investors, and the consequences of not taking action. What's up, guys? I am Lauren Everts. I'm Michael's wife. I'm the creator of the Skinny Confidential, which is a cheeky beauty and wellness resource. And I'm Michael Bostic. I am a serial entrepreneur and business operator, most recently the CEO of Dear Media, a new kind of podcast network.

You also have a band. I do. I do? Yeah. What's the band? You don't know what the band is? Nope. Okay, we discussed this on Instagram story.

Mimi and I are having sort of this debacle. So the dogs wake up every morning at 6.30 a.m. Sometimes 7 a.m. if they're being nice. Oh, yeah. Pixie and the Pretender. No, Pixie and the Pretender's. Someone recommended pixie chicks. But anyways, Boone and Pixie play their, what would you call it? It's like a toy with a squeaker in it.

They squeak it together simultaneously. to create this band to wake everyone up in the house. It works. So we're taking names. We're trying to find out what we should call the band. I think Pixie and the Pretenders because they're pretending they're starving and they're not starving. Okay, but I kind of like Lee and the Rippers because we call Pixie Lee. I don't know.

I think it reminds me of like Jesse and the Rippers. That's dogs are shit everywhere. That's all they do. Lee and the Shitters. Anyways, welcome back everyone. We're back another episode, another Thursday episode. If you're tuning in this week for the first time and you missed the, the Tuesday episode, be sure to check that out, especially this one holds a special place in my

heart because this Tuesday I did one of my first, or actually my first solo episode for this show. And Lauren, what did you think of the episode? I heard you listen to the whole thing. Well, Michael and I kind of got into a little fight on Sunday, and I told him he could go do his own show on Tuesday. So it was perfect timing because you were already going to do it anyway. The fans have been coming out. They're saying, you know, I like the show so much better with just you. maybe a solo act, maybe not. So I don't know, you better not, you better be careful. I don't know, Michael.

I listen to your solo episode. You know, now all your people are going to turn on me in comment and say, don't do that again. Listen, just give me one episode. It was fine. You know what? I liked your episode. I listened. I took notes.

I thought it was really well done. I was still annoyed with you, though, because you were kind of a dick Sunday. But I still listened to your episode. So here we are Thursday, podcasting. We've got Nick today. Nick, like Michael said, is the co-founder and CEO of Thrive market. Very excited to have them on the show. But before we get into the interview, we want to do a him and her tip of the week. Okay. My tip actually has to do with milk. I know you love milk,

Michael. If your tips don't drink milk, then I think that's a good tip. Actually, I'm not talking about drinking it. I'm talking about bathing in it. Bathing your face in it. All right. I've heard it all. Enough. Carl Lagerfield of Chanel actually bays in the specific milk. Okay. I've done a blog post on it's on the skinny confidential. It's called the no rinse milk cleanser that Carl Lagerfield bays in. Okay. It's from France. I found it there. And what you want to do with this milk, okay? You want to take your makeup off with it. It's not like a real milk that it's like a cleansing milk. Okay, Michael, you're giving me bad looks over there. So this milk that I found from France is insane for cleansing. So I'm not a fan of overcleansing the face. In fact, I only like to

cleanse my face. But hold on. This is actually milk that you've found. This is actually milk that you fly in or this is like real milk or this is a powdered product that you put in. You really need, you need to clarify here because I'm envisioning getting like giant jugs of two percent milk and dumping in the in the bathtub and this sounds stupid as hell. Okay, it's a, it's a skincare product that you're probably going to steal from me after I talk about it. Okay, so it's a product. But it's a cleansing milk, okay? Carl Lagerfield actually bays in it. That's, that's true. Okay. I bathe my face in it. It's actually for babies, okay? It's to clean babies. Did Carl Lagerfield say this? Swear to God, there's a whole article if you don't believe me.

Why are you looking at me like that? I know that you're thinking that you want to bathe in it, okay? He did say that. Because he has beautiful skin, right? He bathes in the milk. No, he bathes in money and that's why he has beautiful skin, all right? This whole milk thing, whatever. Okay, whatever.

All right. So this is cleansing milk, okay? This solves the problem of overcleansing. And the catch is that you don't use it with water. So what you want to do is use like an organic cotton round and sort of tap it all over your face to remove your makeup with this milk. okay i like to go upward here because i don't like to pull the face down we know that this magic milk also removes makeup why this sounds so sexual michael you're gonna go use it i don't know why you think

this is so funny so i keep this right next to my oils my serums my potions and my lotions and it fits in with the whole crew it's a no rinse mix cleanser okay it's perfect for the girl who's maybe a little hungover she has a lot of black eyeliner maybe the mom who's on carpool duty anyway If you want to add this to your routine, okay? It's on the blog. All you should do is Google the skinny confidential milk and it'll show up. So after I do this, I do a good serum, maybe some facial massage, a little organic oil, vitamin C eye cream, and a little sprits.

I like a little skin mist. You can find this at French pharmacies or online. It's super hard to find online. I think I left a link on the blog post. I hope that it still works. I should also say, before I go with my milk tip, that the bottle is really. cute. It has a pink top and then a bottle of milk underneath it. And Michael, I don't want to catch you bathing in it tonight. I think you'll be fine in that. So my tip of the week, if you want some

practical tips and productivity tools that you can do that doesn't require you to fill your bathtub with milk or whatever. You don't need to fill a bathtub. I would go and check out my episode from Tuesday like I mentioned book recommendation, productivity tools, actual tools, real tools, things you can actually do and use. Check that out very easily digestible and you don't have to fly any weird powders in from France. So check that episode out. Okay, we talked about milk. So let's get into butter. Buttery soft, third love, that is. Okay. As you can imagine, I'm very, very specific about my pajama situation. Third Love recently sent me this set. Okay, it's a buttery black loungewear outfit. It's a black tea with black little shorts. They,

fall in the perfect place on the leg, and it was love at first sight. My boob job recovery, I wore third love. I've been wearing third love since my boob job recovery. It's so soft and, like I said, buttery. It's very ideal for curling up with a book or just watching Real Housewives or Nurse Jackie, which I watched a lot. Anyways, some reasons I'm a fan of Third Love, okay? The Fit. They come in half sizes and they tested millions of women in the fit department so they know their shit. there's no tags too this one's a real win for me like i said it doesn't feel like you're wearing a bra at all which is kind of trippy but amazing the fabric is buttery and soft there's no wires so there's no wires poking into your boobs there's nothing like that for bras specifically they have sizing a through

h which is amazing and then the loungeworths that i got is like the perfect size it lays right everywhere it washes well i hate when i get something and i wash it once and it gets ruined Do you guys know what I mean? With Third Love, there's nothing like that. I wash it 100 times and it's fine. They also have this badass fit finder on their site so you can find your perfect size. Also, you feel pretty. Okay? Sometimes when you go to bed, you don't feel so pretty. I have enough oil on my face like to feed a country. So I'd like to feel cute when I'm wearing my loungewear. I don't want to wear my husband's oversized creature from the Black Lagoon, 600-year-old pajamas with holes in them. You know, there's Chihuahua hair all over those too, Michael. You need to wash those. those have been washed since 1982. Third Love really knows their stuff when it comes to loungeware, and they know that there's a perfect bra for everyone. So right now they're offering TSC listeners 15% off your first order.

Go to thirdlove.com slash skinny now to find your perfect fitting bra and definitely pick up that black buttery set that I got. Okay, guys, it's the T-shirt, short sleeve, and short little shorts. I also like the pink buttery long sleeve moment too. and get 15% off your first purchase. That's thirdlove.com slash skinny for 15% off today. All right. Let's get into it with the CEO and co-founder of Thrive Market, Nick Green.

This is the skinny confidential, him and her. All right, Nick, let's get the quick background. Where are you from? Where'd you grow up? How did you get involved in Thrive? Originally I had from Minneapolis, Minnesota. So I grew up in the Midwest. Went out to the East Coast for college,

and that's where I started my entrepreneurial journey. So I had an education company that I started while as an undergrad. I sold it in 2011 and actually came out to L.A. to do an earnout. So I thought I'd be going back to the East Coast, but met my co-founder, Gannar, who had a dream of making healthy living accessible to anyone and an experience growing up on a communal farm in Ohio. He pitched me as an investor initially. By the end of that first meeting, I was pitching him on doing it together and, you know, the rest of history. So you went to school, you went to Harvard.

Yeah. Oh, no big deal. Glazed over that. And you started your first business out of your dorm. How did you have the idea to start a business while going to school? Like what were you doing at the time? Honestly, I wasn't doing anything. And my mom was giving me a hard time because I wasn't getting a summer job.

This was the summer after my freshman year at Harvard. And I didn't want to get a job. And I asked myself, what can I do for myself? And, you know, the only thing I'd really done well on outside of school was school-related. It was the SAT. And decided I'd start doing test. prep. So I was teaching classes in my hometown. I think that first summer I worked with like 150 kids. And from there, I started hiring undergrads, first from Harvard and then from a bunch of

other Ivy League schools to teach around the country. What is it like going to Harvard? It was, honestly, it was a shock on a bunch of levels for me. Like, I, you know, I grew up in, in the Midwest, middle class, public school. It was a, you know, a whole different level of kind of privilege, obviously academic intensity. But it was also a regular college experience in a lot of ways. Like, you know, great friends, awesome memories. Believe it or not, we did socialize sometimes. And, you know, set up a lot of opportunities for me. Like the first business, it was called Ivy Insiders. Like, literally it was predicated on being at Harvard. So I can't really hate on the place that much when it gave me the opportunity to build that first company.

I think that I spoke at Ivy Insiders. I'm pretty sure. Yes. I think, I think, I I think that that's what it was, right? I don't know. I don't know when this was. Explain what Ivy Insiders is. I think that it's the same thing. So we, I mean, there's, first, there's lots of companies that have Ivy in the name. It's obviously a powerful brand in education.

So it might have been something else. But our business was basically hiring undergrads from the Ivy League to go back to their hometowns and run franchises for test prep. So the idea was, you know, instead of taking an SAT class from a Princeton Review instructor who's, you know, a high school teacher. that took the test 10 years ago, get it from someone who took the test last year, aced it, and went to an Ivy League school. And so the whole model was predicated around giving kids access to kind of a role model on these tests,

making them less intimidated, and really treating the tests as a game. So we started out with just Harvard undergrad teaching the classes, eventually went to the whole Ivy League, and then eventually we went to like the top 20 colleges around the country. And the year that we sold the business, I think we had about 850 brands. ranches. So it grew really, really fast. When I was reading about how fast you scaled that, it was pretty shocking to me. It was like 43 states, over 500 locations and less than three. That's a pretty massive scale. It was crazy. And we raised no outside money. It was profitable

from day one. So it was one of those like kind of weird. It was a dream business. Right? And like started from that place where it wasn't like I had delusions of grandeur. Like I started it because I didn't want to get a summer job. And then, you know, one thing was another. So let's talk about that a little bit more. What personality trades? do you think that you have and do you think entrepreneurs need to have to be entrepreneurs? There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of talk now about, you know, do your own thing, be your own boss. And I think it's, it takes a specific personality and I think it takes specific traits to actually execute and be an entrepreneur. And what qualities think those are?

That's a really interesting question. I mean, I feel like people have a stereotype of the entrepreneur is someone that takes a lot of risk and they're sort of the, you know, swashbuckling pirate of a go-getter. The truth is, I'm pretty risk-averse. I mean, when I got to Harvard, I thought I was going to be a lawyer. As I said, the main thing I was good at was school. The other thing I was good at was the SAT. That's not exactly the makings of a rule. How good at the SAT?

I got a perfect score. Oh, my gosh. Zero relevance to real life. Wait, I have to talk about this for a second. You got a perfect score on the SAT. I got a perfect score on the SAT. Okay, wait. Do you have to prep to get a perfect score?

Like, what entails? I want to know the preparation for this. So truthfully, that was part of the genesis of my business, that I grew up in a place where people didn't prep for the SAT. You know, the first time I heard about the SAT was when I took the PSAT. And then I took the SAT, and I did really well. There's a bunch of kids in my graduating class who were as smart as I was and didn't do well. Like, why don't really know? And I got to Harvard, and you have all these kids that have been prepping since they were in seventh and eighth grade.

And so, you know, the test honestly is a rigged game. You can prep for it. it's like the more you practice, the better you get. Some people naturally do well right out of the gate. Some people who are really smart don't because they get really stressed or they don't just because it's not the way they think. So, you know, I wish I could say there's like a secret to the SAT. Really the only secret is like either happen to be good at it when you start or practice.

It's kind of like business though, right? You get better as you practice and practice and practice. 100%. Well, this is what I want to get into is like obviously you have the test side of schooling where you're taking formulated tests and you have to pass in order to progress. But when it comes to being an entrepreneur, I don't think it's as clear cut. And I don't think that path is, I don't want to say it's easy, it's definitely hard. But there's not like a test you can take to advance to the next level.

I mean, that test is life and you get your ass kicked. And so what is that, what differences did you find in terms of like schooling in that career? And then as you started down the entrepreneurial path. Yeah, I mean, it's night and day. It's what I was saying, right? Like getting a perfect score in the SAT, going to Harvard, being a good student. And like, that stuff sets you up to be a lawyer. Can't apply you.

It doesn't set you up to be an entrepreneur, right? And, like, again, if I thought about the stereotype of an entrepreneur, it's someone that takes a lot of risks that breaks rules that sort of goes forward and is really tenacious, I think about the stereotype of, like, who I was going to Harvard, it's someone who, like, follows the playbook, works within the lines and sort of checks all the boxes. And that was definitely the person that I saw myself as. And I sort of consider myself an accidental entrepreneur, right? Like I did it because I didn't want to get a real job one summer, and all of a sudden one thing led to the other.

And what I discovered, though, during that initial kind of entrepreneurial foray, was that I was very tenacious. And if I were to put my finger on like one thing that was the key, it wasn't being smart. It didn't help to have done well in the SAT. It wasn't like being good at following rules. That actually hurts you. It was, it wasn't anything that I'd done in school. It was just not giving up. It was being willing to beat my head against the brick wall until it broke.

It was not accepted. I was going to say not accepting no as an answer. Can you give us examples, like specific examples of when you really pushed through something? I mean, so when I started my test prep business, like the first thing I did, it was like, well, how am I going to market it? Like I'm going to hand out flyers. So I like went around and handed out flyers, nothing. I ended up going to my high school handed around flyers, nothing. And what I realized is the flyer wasn't enough.

People had to actually hear me pitch them on why you should prep for the SAT because in my school no one was doing that and why this prep was so much better than any other option. So, you know, I ended up actually after a few iterations of like failed marketing exercises, landing on basically going to my high school teachers asking them to give a presentation to the class. And then I would give this presentation and then I would give people a free SAT practice test that I would proctor. And the whole, like, test, like in between each of the sections, was me, like, telling them why they should date the course. So it was sort of being willing to think outside of the box, being willing to ask a question where you sort of put yourself out there asking my previous teachers for help. And, you know, again, one thing led to another.

It wasn't, there was no brilliant idea. There wasn't a thing where, like, I just had the vision. It was just like, try this doesn't work. Try this doesn't work. Try this doesn't work. Oh, there's something worked. Keep going. Well, I think it's funny because when you were talking about following rules and I was thinking about lawyers,

I've worked with a lot of really smart lawyers and businesses that have been involved with, and you need those people for sure. I mean, they're going to keep you on track. They're going to make so you don't go outside the lines. But a lot of the time also when I've dealt with smart lawyers, they've been hindrances to the business. Does that make sense? Totally. I mean, I feel like I had to unlearn. Like, everything that I'd gotten good at to get to a place like Harvard, I had to unlearn to be a good entrepreneur.

So, you know, but I think the point of that is you don't have, like, you can be naturally risk-averse in that, like, type A, nerdy student that I was, and you can still become an entrepreneur. Like, that shift is a decision that you make. I don't think it's an innate quality. It was me deciding, I want to do this, and I'm not going to give up, and making it happen. So what advice would you give to someone if they're out there and they're looking to make that transition? Where would they start?

Just do it. Just do it. Like, the hardest part is getting started. It's like when you're standing at the edge of a cold pool and you don't want to jump in, right? It's just, you just have to jump. And the moment that you do, you feel refreshing. and the moment that you do, you wonder why didn't I do it earlier.

I always tell people they can go back. Totally. You leave a job, say you're not happy with that job. You want to start something. Like, worst case is you try something. As long as you don't get burned too bad, you can always go back to that thing that you don't like. But if you don't ever try it, then...

That's so right. I mean, I think about it in like evolutionary terms, right? Like, we have fear hardwired into us over, like, generations and generations of evolution. And that's because if you made a mistake in prehistoric times, you get, you know, eaten by a saber-toothed tiger or you get rejected by your clan and you're you're dead, right? Today, we're like in a video game where you have a 10,000 lives. Like you mess up once, you can try again.

You mess up again, try again. Like, literally, you can just keep going back to the plate. And so I think most people sort of inherently overestimate the amount of risk and overestimate how bad it is when you fail. And, you know, as an entrepreneur, you just like by definition will build up a tolerance to failure or you'll stop being an entrepreneur. Your mind goes to a much darker place than it actually ever, really is, right?

Totally. I'm sure, have you read that book, Sapiens? You like that book? I've read part of it. You've read part of it. I always think about that book when people talk about evolution. So at this point on this show,

I think the majority of this audience knows all about Thrive. I mean, we talk about it all the time. But for those, the few that don't know that listen to this show, let's learn more about Thrive. Let's do the two-minute elevator pitch on Thrive. Cool. So 10,000 level, we're trying to make

healthy living accessible and affordable to anyone. So, as I said, I got pitched by my co-founder as an investor. He had grown up on a communal farm where they were doing wholesale buying of organic food back in the 80s and 90s. He had always had this dream of how do we take the commune basically and bring it to the masses. And he was a serial tech entrepreneur. I just sold my company. And to me, the vision just really hit me hard of like, it's crazy that in the 21st century, it's easier to buy processed, to find processed food than it is to find healthy food. that it's more affordable to buy Cheetos and it is to buy tomatoes.

And so, you know, that was the vision. And we started out trying to basically do Groupon for Healthy Food. We were going to do buying events, however people could pool together and then buy these products at wholesale prices. That didn't work. And what we pivoted to is what we are now, which is just a membership club for healthy and organic products. So you pay $60 a year.

You get access to all the products at wholesale price. So we don't make any money on the products. We curate the best things that you'd find in a health food store like Whole Foods, but you get them at 25 to 50% off. And then what we've really tried to do is make an experience that just makes it simple and easy. So you get on a mobile app, we've curated the best products. You're not having to pick from 40 almond butterers. You're picking from the top two or three.

We have our own brand now, Thrive Market, where we actually raise the standards even further. I just got the ghee butter. Yeah. So we're doing infusions now with ghee. We have nut butters where literally the only ingredient is the nuts, so there's no palm oil. There's coconut chips that I just got. I got the strawberry fruit leathers for Michael. I like it for me because, like you said, I don't have to go and siphon through 50 different things and figure out that I want to eat healthy.

I want to be healthy. She's always preaching it. No, it's efficient. But I don't have time to figure out what's good and what's bad. Well, it's like you're doing what Uber and Postmates does. You're selling time. We're selling time. And for a lot of people in the country, they just transparently.

just don't have access, right? Like they, like, even if you want to spend a time. Yeah, even if you want to spend the time, you can't spend 45 minutes driving to the nearest whole foods. So, you know, we solve the geography problem. We solve the affordability problem by having it at wholesale prices.

Our goal is actually to have all these products at or below the conventional equivalent. And then we solve that, like, convenience, kind of ease problem by just making it simple. It is really simple. And I want to let everyone know about my new favorites page on Thrive Market. I, okay, worked with my team to put all of my favorite products on Thrive Market on this one page, you guys. So what we did is we went through my master list. We found everything

on the master list. We added it to this Thrive Market page. Then I combed through Thrive and found all the products that I'm obsessed with that I bought that I've used time and time again. So to access my favorites page, all you have to do is go to Thrivemarket.com slash Skinny. And it's going to take you there. So you'll find things like my favorite organic apple cider vinegar that I have in my lemon water with a little bit of pink salt every morning. You're going to find my favorite kettle corn. Okay, this one is like the best. You'll find my Aztec secret clay healing mask, which is only like five bucks and you have to try it. I've used this since high school. You'll find my favorite organic cinnamon. I add this to my coffee every single day. You'll also find my favorite tortilla chips. I love these with guacamole. Sometimes I I even take the chips and crunch them up and sprinkle them on my salad. I got that tip from Melissa Wood Health. It's such a good one. You'll also find my favorite dates. I love a date.

Dates are so good. I have one a day. Sometimes I even put two in my smoothie to sweeten it up. You'll find my favorite chocolates. These are things that I eat at night. There's like dark chocolate chips that I love. I love to stuff them in raspberries. And then I have these mini dark chocolate peanut butter cups that are insane on there. You'll find, of course, four-sigmatic obsessed. things like my favorite avocado oil mayo, organic coconut milk. You guys get the picture. Basically, it's all my favorites. There's beauty products too, which we love. Yeah. And as many of you guys know, Thrive is a sponsor of this show and of this episode. And it's one of our favorites because they do offer customers 25 to 50% below retail on all items because they do cut the middleman out.

And Thrive, as always, is offering the skinny confidential him and her listeners, a special offer just for this show. and that is 25% off your first order and free shipping with a one-month trial when you go to thrivemarket.com slash skinny. Again, that's thrivemarket.com slash skinny. We've talked about it so many times. They're a long-term partner of this show. Nick is now on the show. And we wouldn't be talking about them and having founders on this show if we didn't love the brand so much and get value out of it and hope that you guys get value out of it. So again, to check out Lawrence page, thrivemarket.com slash skinny. Check it out. forget about tongue scraping. I included a tongue scraper on the page for you.

I'll never forget. What are some practical steps that entrepreneurs out there can take to start an online brand? I mean, each business is different. So, as I said, Ginnar pitched me as an investor. So for certain types of businesses, if you're going to be building inventory or going to be doing product development or formulation, or you're going to have to build a website, you need capital. So if you don't have that capital yourself, you've got to go out and pick up. pitch people. So, you know, Ginar initially pitched me. I was so captivated. I said, let's do it together. And, you know, then we went out and tried to raise capital. In our case, we self-funded the business for about six months. We failed miserably to build the first website, had to scratch it.

That original business model, like, kind of group on for healthy food wasn't working when we, when we tested that. So we had to scratch that. And then we actually got rejected by about 50 VCs when we started pitching people on investing. Let's talk about pitching. I don't think we've done that a lot on this show and it's important and it's, in my opinion, it's one of the biggest pains in the ass when you're an entrepreneur, but it's necessary. How did you guys originally start pitching and did you have certain groups in mind? Did you look to certain people? Was it individuals with high net worth families? Was it, did you go straight to VCs? Look, we were actually a little arrogant. Like our thought was, hey, both of us have started and sold companies before.

This is a multi-billion dollar space. You know, we're driven by a social mission that we think people are really going to resonate with and that we personally resonated with. Let's go to the biggest, baddest, you know, greatest VCs and get a lot of money. And that didn't work. So we got humble pie very quickly. It was like just rejection after rejection after rejection. I have a question that's very specific. I'm in the midst of doing a deck right now and I would love to know, because Michael and I are in a fight about this. How long should a deck be? It doesn't actually matter. Okay. If you're presenting the deck, the most important thing is that it has one idea per slide.

That's great advice. That's the only thing I would say in a deck. Most people pack so much information into every slide, and it gets totally stale. If you're not presenting it, you have to decide what is the purpose of this deck. Is this something I'm going to send out to somebody to read before the meeting? And then in the meeting, we're just going to kind of go ad lib and talk. Or is this something where I'm actually going to present the deck? in a more formal way.

If you're presenting the deck in a more formal way, it should have the arc of the story of problem and solution, and it should be one idea per slide. If it's like something that needs to stand on its own, then you've got to make sure it doesn't require voiceover. Okay. So it sounds like maybe you're right, not me. I get a little bit too creative,

and maybe I crammed too much on one page. We talk to a lot of creative people that have really, really good ideas. And I say when you're trying to convey that idea to someone like yourself or an investor, there's so many things being pitched, There's so many things they're looking at on a constant basis that if you overwhelm them with five different ideas on one page or too much stimulation throughout the presentation, you can't keep track of it. And so you tune out and go to the next thing. Totally.

Yeah. I mean, like I look at, and we now do investments through Thrive Market. I've done a lot of angel investing. And, you know, the average time that I'll spend making a decision of whether I continue to look at a pitch deck is, you know, under 30 seconds. Wow. And it's like at that point you make a judgment. Either this is worth continuing to look at. at or you close it down.

Yeah, that's exactly my point, though. It's someone like you that's getting a lot of things across your desk that has the ability to invest. If it doesn't capture you right away and express the idea, you moved on. That's right. And by the way, we horrifically failed at this, right? Like we tried to boil the ocean with our pitch deck.

We over-optimized and engineered everything, and we got rejected left and right. So how did you change the deck from when you first started pitching to when you actually got the investment? So there's two changes that we made. One was we stopped digging, going into the nitty-gritty details of how we were going to build the business and step back to tell a story about the vision for the business. And, you know, there are some businesses where that vision is more or less captivating.

But in our case, that vision to make healthy living accessible, that resonates with a lot of people. And so when we started having that conversation, it just was a totally different dialogue than when we were trying to explain to them, you know, how we were going to do the backend logistics and how much inventory we were going to hold. and what kind of tech stack we were building on. So that was one part of it. And then the second part for us was just talking to the right people. Like it turned out that for us, like, again, you talked about being in a bubble in L.A. Well, VCs are in a bubble too, right? Like, they have ideas of products that they think will work based on what they would use

or what they see in SF, in New York, in L.A. We're building a platform that's actually for mainstream middle-class America. Like, it's for people that are in places like where I grew up in Minnesota. And so, you know, when we pitched them, they're the big question from the VE. sees was how are you going to be with Whole Foods? And it was just like every time I have to explain to them, we're not competing with Whole Foods. It's a different model. It's a total uphill battle. So for us, what actually made the difference was talking to people who already got what we were doing. So we raised our first $8.5 million from influencers. We went to people like Jillian

Michaels, right? People like Marxist and bloggers, YouTube stars, Instagramers, you know, New York Times best-selling authors, but just people that actually cared about this cause. And what was cool is when we told the story to them, they got it right away, right? And then two, those people actually could be helpful to us beyond just investing in like a marketing capacity. They've gone to be soldiers for you. That's right. And they truly believed.

How has influencers impacted your business? Like, I know you guys are big on podcasters. How has that helped to grow the business? It's the only way we got would have gotten out the door, right? Honestly, our business, you know, if we had to be buying paid media at the very beginning, we would have run out of money. So what we did is we took all these influencers who had invested in the company

and we asked them to go spread the word for us. And we did almost $40 million in sales in our first year. We didn't spend a dime unpaid media. So it was all health and wellness influencers. And we did affiliate programs with a lot of them, but a lot of them actually took their affiliate commissions in equity. And almost all of them actually had skin in the game and it invested their own cash into the deal.

So, you know, for us it was this perfect blend of like them having skin in the game, really aligning incentives, not just with getting cash, but with the long-term equity of the business. And then having people that truly believed what we were doing, right? Like the best influencers don't want to schlock something that they don't care about. And even if they do, it's going to come across their audience, right? So I think what was really powerful for us is having those influencers, not just have good incentives, but really care. So let's talk about marrying a social mission to a business opportunity. How do you look at them both separately, but also cohesively? Yeah.

So going back to that initial conversation that Gannar and I had when he pitched me on the business, like he was pitching me on Groupon for Healthy Food. It was a terrible idea on all these different levels. But what captivated me was this mission of making healthy living affordable and accessible to anybody. And what I thought was beautiful about the idea is that you've got a multi tens of billions of dollar opportunity if we can actually succeed at doing that. and it happens to be something that is truthfully good for our country.

And so I think what I find to be really special about our business, first and foremost, is that those two things are one and the same. I think a lot of, like with mission-driven businesses, there's a dynamic tension between the business and the social mission. And sometimes it feels like the business is just doing it to just do the social mission. Totally. It's like a bolt on. It's a bolt on.

There's no synergy. I always have difficulty with businesses. Listen, there's nothing wrong with this help charity, but when they say, like, I'm creating this and we donate this to charity, it's like, that's what you're using as the hook sale. And I think that that, you know, when you look at like Tom's shoes, they were the very first example of that. But now I feel like everyone's doing like, and we add X or round up to charity. I'm like, are you doing that for a sale or because it's actually like part of the brand identity?

Yeah. And so for us, it was the latter, right? It was actually why we started the business. And, you know, we do donate a free membership for every paid member on the site. We've donated hundreds of millions of those, or hundreds of thousands of those memberships already. And we've raised in the last year through donated checkout about a million dollars of shopping budget that goes to those gives members so they can actually spend on the site as well. So we're doing a lot of that stuff. But what's actually, I think, cool about the business is that even those people that are paying for membership, that's part of our social mission too.

It's not just the gives members. It's the like middle class, middle American mom who, you know, can afford to pay six. but can't afford to go to Whole Foods. That, yes, that's a great business opportunity for us. We make money off of that customer, but it also is in line with our values because she's now feeding her family healthy when she wouldn't have been able to before.

How has your life changed from when you first launched Thrive to know? Oh, gosh. You know, I had sold that last business and basically was doing a one-year earnout with the acquiring company. And, you know, it was the first time, I was 27 at the time, or 26 at the time. And it was the first time that I had had like real time, you know,

like not been just back to back to back to back with other studies or work. And so, you know, now it's back to the grind in some sense. Like I work 80 plus hours a week and I have for the last four years since starting Thrive. But I think what's been unique about it and I had never experienced before, which goes right back to the mission, is like, and I only only have to, say I love every hour of every day, but like truly having no qualms whatsoever with the amount of time I'm committing to the project because I believe in it. What's your day to day like?

Is there not one that's like the other? Gosh, I mean, I'm back to back. I over-schedule. I think a lot of us do. And I've been trying, actually, from a... It's difficult to not. It's so hard not to. Like, I try actually to build space into my day.

So, like, one thing I do is I don't take any meetings anymore before 10 o'clock. I am. We're twins. I don't either. But I get into the office by eight. Okay. So I give myself two hours of like solid work time at the beginning of the day. I want you to do this.

You should do this. Well, it's important because you're somebody that's like back to back to back to back. Yeah, but I want you to do this. Go on. Keep going. So left to my own devices, I'm back to back to back to back to back to back. Like from the beginning of the day to the end. But building in that two hours, what I found is one, it sort of like sets my energy level

through the rest of the day in a different way, just because I'm not like go, go, go from the moment I wake up. Two, I can get some of the most important strategic work that I need done early on, which just gives you momentum and makes you feel good as you go into the rest of the day. And then three, when I do actually need to do something, I can actually fit it in, and I'm not having to scramble things at the end of the day. So that's been a good hack for me. What's your morning routine look like?

So I get up around 630. I have a 13-month-old daughter, so she is my alarm clock. So I'm, you know, changing diapers and getting breakfast ready in the morning. I try to have at least a half hour to an hour with her. I'm usually out the door by 7.30 or so. And in the office before 8. I work out only twice a week. So I've been doing Barry's boot camp for about a year now.

I heard that's hard. It's awesome. And I'm sure that a lot of other great programs, like I like circuit training just because it keeps things interesting. And Barry's in particular, it destroys you, but you feel great the rest of the day. I used to work out more often than that. I find doing twice a week for like a real workout. High intensity. High intensity.

You know, in my elder years is plenty. And then I use an app called 7 that's a seven minute extra, like, exercise. I've heard a lot of people talk about her. It's really good, actually. It's awesome. My uncle does that. And he's like, you know, he's almost 16. He's looking good. I mean, like, you know, I used to have goals around, like, building strength or, like, you know, kind of vanity goals on working out. My only goal right now is to stay healthy. So I basically do seven the days that I don't work out. I work out in the morning on Wednesday and Saturday. And then other than that, I basically had this time with my daughter and then into the office.

So as a CEO of the business now, there's a lot of different things you have to pay attention to and jumping forward. You know, there's been a lot of growth and a lot of scale in the business. What are the most important metrics that you paid attention to in the beginning that you're now paying attention to with scale? So the number one thing we were looking at the beginning, which was kind of intoxicating and I would say not healthy for the business was kind of growth for growth's own sake. So just like the vanity metrics, right?

How many members do we have? What's the revenue look like? And looking at that, like two ways that it was bad. One was looking at that to the exclusion of other metrics and the other was looking at it on two micro level. I think like a lot of e-commerce entrepreneurs will know that experience of just refreshing the revenue page all day long. We did a lot of that.

And you end up paying attention to a lot of noise and you miss other signal that is more fundamental to the business. And I think where we have really moved to is looking at starting with metrics. So what are some of the things you would miss? Well, for example, if you're looking at just the number of customers that you have, you're not paying attention to the experience those customers have. You're not paying attention to the quality of those customers. You're not looking at the predictive lifetime value of those customers. and you know, you can build a business, I call it the leaky bucket syndrome, where you're just pouring water in, but all the water's coming out, it's overflowing,

and you're not retaining those customers. And for our business, like, we don't make any money on the product sales. Like, we're passing on all the savings to our members. The only way that we will make money as a business is if those members have such a good experience that they're renewing every single year. So ultimately, you know, we can approach short-term growth by just pouring water in the bucket, but unless we have no leaks in the bucket because people are having an amazing experience, we don't win as a business.

And again, what's cool about that is that aligns our incentive with our members' incentives and with our mission because what will be good for the business ultimately is pursuing the metrics that create member value because member value drives renewal and renewal will drive our profitability. So today we're a lot more with like one of our four company values is member obsession. And all of our initials, like our main metrics that we look at, our KPOLI, that we look at on a daily basis tied to member value. I also think it's cool that it seems that you guys look at your clients as influencers too.

They'll go out and tell all the people. When I launch product, I hope that I want to look at each of my consumers as someone that is an influencer in themselves. That's so right. And the best marketing, the cheapest marketing is people, is word of mouth. It not only like build the brand. It brings in other customers who are going to be more loyal. and it doesn't cost you anything. So I think there's a tendency,

especially when you raise a lot of money, and we ultimately have, we've raised a lot of money. You pour that money into marketing, and you pour it into channels that are quote unquote scalable, and you can stop focusing on the quality of experience and the quality of those members. And ultimately, to build a real business,

you've got to have people that are talking about the business and you've got to have real value that's been delivered to them. So at this point, what would you say the number one challenge? to scale is. What is the biggest hurdle to scaling the business as you guys have grown? Because I mean you have done so much revenue now and there's so many different customers. It's a lot different than when you're operating in a small business. Now you're operating a massive business. A lot of money has been raised, a lot of customers. What does what does scale look like?

I mean, the hardest thing is just deciding, I would say two things. One is deciding what to do, right? There are so many different things that you can spend your time on. And truthfully, that's the case when you're a small business too. So being maniacically focused on the right priorities based on what's really important, understanding that growth is not the only thing that's important and starting with your customer or starting with your member

and prioritizing from there, I'd say that's the first thing. And then the second thing that is really challenging for us right now is just scaling the back end to meet demand. What's your biggest failure? Oh, gosh. Too many. Honestly, like, I said this before, but I think the, like, as an entrepreneur, you are failing

all day long. You kind of get used to it, huh? You have to, right? Or you have to stopping an entrepreneur. Just get punched in the face every week. Yeah, I mean, it goes back to tenacity, right? Like, the number one skill that you will develop as an entrepreneur is basically a numbness to failure.

And I think even going beyond that, like, you know, Nassim Telib talks about anti-fragility, right, which is that you're not just... you're not just resilient, you actually get stronger from failure, right? Like, Nietzsche, there's a whole thing that doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Like, I didn't really get that till... It's true, though. Because there's things that you used to freak out about it. If it happened now, I wouldn't even think about it.

Totally. Right? What do you think some of the biggest mistakes young entrepreneurs make are? Or even, let's just, let's say maybe not everyone's an entrepreneur, but young business people make. I think that the biggest mistakes are mistakes of inaction. I think it's like not jumping in. I completely agree with you. Not executing.

Yeah. And like even like no execution is worse than poor execution. Totally. Certainly in the early stages, right? There's a time like we're now at a scale where it's very costly to like to organizationally for us to, you know, do things wrong. But early on, as we were talking about before, the cost of failure is actually so low. And so the biggest mistakes you make is rationalizing in action and deciding I'm going to, you know, wait a way. for this or like I have to have the perfect conditions or I want to like have the pitch deck be

you know absolutely perfect before I go have conversations I think you know entrepreneurs need to just get out there and just push I find when I do stuff when I put myself out there um we did something a couple weeks ago where I had to put myself out there I can sit back reflect on it and then refine what I didn't like about it so the next experience is better I feel like putting yourself out there more and more you're able to refine it to get it to where you want it to be yeah and and And that's true with everything in entrepreneurship, right? Whether it's pitching, whether it's with your product, right? Like, lean startup, right?

It's like minimum viable product. Get it out there and then iterate. And I think, you know, so many of us, especially those, like, if you're, if you're ambitious, right, you're likely to be a perfectionist. And that's like, that's the worst Achilles heel is not putting something out there until it's perfect. I'm thinking of the young person who's listening that says, Nick, I have obligations. I don't have a lot of money.

if I take this chance, I could put myself into real trouble here. What would you tell someone who's making those types of excuses? Or reasons. It's going to get harder and harder the longer you wait. Right? Like, I am so glad I started my business, my first business when I did, because I got out there when, like, I didn't have kids, right? I didn't have to make money.

I was still living under my parents' roof, right, that summer. And I did it, you know, after my freshman year of college. So it wasn't like the opportunity cost wasn't not doing some big special internship. it was not working at the Dairy Queen. So there will always be opportunity costs. There's always going to be sacrifice. It's always going to look hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it.

But the longer you wait, the harder it gets. And at some point, it actually becomes impossible. Like when you have real responsibility, right? Like where I am right now, I couldn't start, like, I couldn't start the business with, you know, a kid and a wife and a house unless I had started back when I was, you know, 18. I mean, you could, but the stakes would just be really high because you don't want to put other people in jeopardy.

Yeah, in a sense, those are the entrepreneurs that I respect the most who are taking real risk. In a sense, though, it's kind of irresponsible. Yeah. Like, once you have real responsibility, you know. There's a real thing. I believe that true, like, I don't think they have a choice, though. I don't think they could be happy as human beings if they don't. You know what I mean?

I think, not to get too philosophical, but I think human beings are, we're creative, like, we're creative beings. That's what it means to be human, by nature. and whether your outlet is art or it's music or it's entrepreneurship, like all of that is or, you know, or Instagramming, whatever it is, right? Well, the Internet's made all of those things monetizable. Everyone's a creator, like by nature. And, like, the Internet is a reflection of our human impulses, and our impulses are to create, to share, to communicate,

and if you're doing something with your life that doesn't enable you to do that in some way, I think you're going to be unhappy. and that's for everyone. There's an article I was reading about the fund you launch Alliance for Good. Am I saying that? Yeah. Can you let this audience know more about that? Yeah.

So, you know, we started the company because we wanted to make healthy living accessible to everyone. We've been incredibly fortunate, despite lots of failures along the way, to have gotten incredible support, to have grown and scaled the business significantly, and to have created real equity value for ourselves and our investors. and around last year, I guess maybe two years ago when we took our Series B investment, we raised $110 million. And it was sort of this step-back moment to say, all right, we're buckling down to take this business to the next level.

We've been incredibly lucky, and the business is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This wasn't what we expected to happen so fast. How do we pay that forward? How do we act now in a way that's consistent with the reason that we started the business? And our answer was to commit a portion of our equity value in the business in a vehicle called a donor-advised fund basically to charity. So we didn't know what charities we wanted to contribute to. We knew we wanted them to be associated with Healthy Living Access, which is the mission

of the business. But we took a sizable portion of our equity value. It was about $14 million total between the three of us and committed it to that. And as we went through the process, it was really, really hard to do. It was surprisingly difficult to like administratively set it up, like work with the tax stuff. Took a whole other business. It took, it was like tens of thousands of dollars of expense. And we're like, this is crazy.

Like we're wanting to give our money away. Why is it so hard to set this up? And so we said, like, what if we created a structure that made that easy for other entrepreneurs? And so called it the alliance for good. We've got dozens of other entrepreneurs who are going to come in and make a similar commitment. And the nice thing is you can make that commitment with a donor advice fund before you actually sell your business. business and there's actually tax benefits to doing it that way. So it's another one of those situations, kind of like our business being the same as our social mission, where we feel like

it can actually be in the best interest of the entrepreneur, and especially if they already plan on giving part of their wealth away, and it can do a lot of good. Well, if you don't believe and thrive before, now you should now. Really quick, before we go, favorite book, podcast resource. Well, this is obviously my favorite podcast. Thank you. Favorite book. I love biography.

So do I? I think I learn more from biography than any sort of yourself. Who are some of your favorite biographies? What are some of your favorite biographies? I like, I like, I like reading about like entrepreneurs from different eras. Okay. So do I. Because I feel like when you get away, like, when you're reading about entrepreneurs, you already

know something about or they're in like businesses that you know something about, you come with all these like biases and preconceptions. You know, when you read about Vanderbilt or. or Rockefeller or Carnegie, it's like you're immersed into a whole in the world, and you get to see it with fresh eyes. Have you read Ron Cherno's books? Yeah, Ron Cherno's books. He's awesome.

He did Rockefeller's back. He'd Titan. That was actually the first big one that I read. I listened to all of them on Audible. It's so much easier. Those are thick books. He did what he did one in Washington. I think he did on Hamilton.

And now he's going to read the Skinny Confidential book because I gave him one. That is a deep biography. There we go. Is it on Audible? You have that and coconut oil lube. There we go. What more?

can you ask for. Thank you so much, Nick, for coming on. Where can everyone find you and thrive? Thanks for having me. It's thrivemarket.com. Really, really appreciate it. If you guys, use our link, thrive market.com slash skinny. Yeah, use our link, guys. Don't forget to follow along on our Instagram account. It's at TSC Podcast. We post a lot on there. You can also access our website at link in bio, and that is TSCpodcast.com. We sort of streamlined all the episodes for you so you can find everyone's favorite resources and books. And when they talk about skincare, it's all on the site. So everything's very organized.

As always, let's do a little giveaway. To win five beauty products, simply tell me your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram. I'll DM one of you in the next couple days. Thank you guys so much for listening. We will see you next Tuesday. And make sure you listen to Tuesday's episode because there were two episodes this week.

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