The Bossticks - How To Be Disruptive, Change Career Paths, & Identify Your Strengths & Weaknesses With DEUX Founder Sabeena Ladha

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

#499: On today's episode we are joined by Sabeena Ladha. Sabeena is the founder and creator of DEUX, a a raw cookie dough brand that is vegan and gluten-free. Under Sabeena's direction DEUX has skyrocketed and become a massively succcesful brand. On today's show Sabeena discusses how she identified a niche market, disrupted an established category, and changed career paths and how you can to.  To connect with DEUX 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 The Skinny Confidential. We have a very exciting co-brand dropping tomorrow (9/27). It's mouthwatering, healthy, PINK, and will bring back all the nostalgic feels of your childhood: Think: birthday sleepovers, pillow fights & Easy Bake Ovens, but like, with beauty benefits. PLUS it comes with a whole cheeky situation. OH AND – it pairs perfectly with your PINK BALLS and ICE ROLLER. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp BetterHelp is online therapy that offers video, phone, and even live chat-only therapy sessions. So you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to. It's much more affordable than in-person therapy & you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/skinny . This episode is brought to you by ZocDoc With Zocdoc, you can see real, verified patient reviews to help find the right doctor in your network and in your neighborhood. Zocdoc is a FREE app that shows you doctors who are patient-reviewed, take your insurance and are available when you need them. Go to Zocdoc.com/SKINNY and download the Zocdoc app for FREE. This episode is brought to you by Dr. Dennis Gross Help correct and prevent signs of sun aging with Dr. Dennis Gross Vitamin C Lactic for firmer, brighter, stronger skin. The quality of Dr. Dennis Gross ingredients, formulation, and delivery system all add up to you seeing real results– both immediate and long-term. Use code SKINNY at checkout for 20% off your first purchase at www.drdennisgross.com. This episode is brought to you by Gravity Crave better sleep? Ready for an all-around wellness upgrade? Then you need a Gravity weighted blanket. Visit GravityBlankets.com/Skinny, use code SKINNY for 15% off any Gravity product. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. 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.

So we launched October of 2020. They reached out January of 2021. It was months. I was still making the product on my house. We didn't even have a manufacturing facility. So when Shark Tank reaches out, you're like, holy shit. The process is pretty gnarly. Meeting with producers, perfecting your pitch, creating the set.

You create all of that. You pay for all of that. 50% of the brands that film don't actually end up airing. So you can go through that entire process and then your episode could never air. All right, guys, welcome back to the skinny confidential him and her show. As you know, I have been on Matt leave, and I put that in quotes because it wasn't like a real. mat leave for the last three months and I have been quietly working on something for the last year with one of my favorite brands.

Doe. Presenting the Skinny Confidential Times dough. If you don't know what dough is, you have to go on their site, eat dough.com. It is the best cookie dough you have ever had in your mouth. And the great thing about it is there's no egg in it. So you can just eat it raw right out of the jar. It is so delicious that Zaza got in a fight with me about it. I gave her some skinny confidential dough to try, and she would not give it back to me.

It was wild. I have been working with them for the last year to find the cookie dough of my dreams. So first things first when we started this collab was I wanted to make sure we incorporated the skinny confidential brand in some way. And how we did that was I wanted to make it pomegranate tasting because it sort of was in with my depuffing oil. I have a depuffing oil on my site and one of the main ingredients is pomegranate. I'm obsessed with pomegranate. And so I wanted to create a cookie dough with pomegranate powder in it because it's full of benefits. There's tons of anti-inflammatory benefits in pomegranate

powder. So we incorporated that and then to give it that little pink punch, we also added dragon fruit powder. So this is an antioxidant that's known for its anti-aging properties. And then we also added amazing ingredients. Every ingredient is ingredients that I eat and that I give my daughter and my husband. Think organic flaxseed, organic cane sugar, organic maple syrup, cashew butter. We added baking soda vanilla extract and like I said, no egg. So you can eat it raw. Like imagine yourself in bed, watching your housewives with your headphones on, eating your raw cookie dough. Or you can bake it too. It's just as good when it's baked. So you could do either one. This is my favorite cookie dough on the planet always has been. I became a fan a long time ago when they launched. And when they

presented this partnership to me, I was like, this is genius. I just want the dough to taste so good. I want the ingredients to be legit. And I want to have that nostalgic feel to these cookies. So think birthday sleepovers, pillow fights, your easy bake oven. But I wanted beauty benefits. And so that's what this is. It's a cookie dough with beauty benefits. It tastes good. It's good raw. You can do all the things. And we also have a kit available. You can get the kit for $85. It comes with my skinny confidential oil and three jars of cookie dough. It also has this little bag. It's like a wristlet that I designed that says honey. These are mommy's cookies. You absolutely have to have it. You can use it for going out with your friends. You could use it as a little workout bag. A skincare bag. It's so cute.

Or you can just buy the cookie dough for $15. This is one of these situations that I think is going to sell out quickly. It's limited edition. So go on there, get a couple of jars, $15 each. And you can also use code Skinny Doe. That's S-K-I-N-N-Y-D-E-U-X for 10% off. And just like a side note, you guys know how serious I am about expecting excellence in every area of the brand. I really try to make every single detail perfect for you guys from like the postcard to the unboxing, everything I have my hands in. So this one, like I said, we've taken a year. year to launch. I wanted to make sure it was perfect. I tried gallons of cookie dough before this was created. And this is it. I gave it to all the girls in the office. Everyone loves it. It's fucking

amazing. And today we decided, and this has been a long time coming, to interview the founder of Doe, Sabina. She has an incredible story. First of all, she was on Shark Tank, which we get into. And she just shares really candidly the evolution of her business. She launched her business in 2020, and it's really inspiring to see what she's done. I mean, dough is everywhere. They've collaborated with huge names. I know Victoria's Secret Models are a huge fan of the brand. Kristen Cavalary, Carly Klaus, everyone's talking about this brand. And I'm totally inspired by her and this episode. To hear everything from all the details about venture capitalism, to entrepreneurship, to how she's built this brand out of a kitchen in her house and been on Shark Tank is incredible. I think you're going to love

this episode. Sabina and the dough team have been a dream to work with. On that note, let's welcome Sabina Lawden, the founder of dough, a raw cookie dough that is vegan and gluten-free, available at Airwan, Whole Foods, and Target, to The Skinny Confidential, him and her show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. Have you always been this entrepreneurial since you were a little? No, I'm not, I'm not the girl that used to, like, sell donuts on the playground. You know, you hear those stories. of like, oh, I like used to buy candy and then resell it, mark it up 50 cents at recess. And I never was that. I didn't think I realized I was entrepreneurial until I got here in hindsight's 2020. And you realize like all of the things that you did that were entrepreneurial.

So when you have this career known, it's incredible what you've built. Do you look back when you were little and see little things? Like, oh, that makes sense. Yeah. Well, not following rules is like a big one, right? Like that's a number one thing that even in the corporate. like my first job out of college, even though I was a good student and all of that, I think there are many instances of where I hate red tape and I hate rules. And I think all rules are there to be broke. I think you learn the rule first. I guess that's my caveat. And then you break it. But that was the number one thing growing up that I always got feedback on. And now I use it. And it is a great benefit to us. Talk to us about the year before you get on Shark Tank and what led up to that. And like,

how that even came to fruition. Yeah. Shark Tank is interesting because there are two ways to get on the show. So either you, and I've had friends who have applied, you know, four or five times and then they finally get on or they're trying again. Or they reach out to you. And I think a lot of people don't know that ladder. Well, they're actually scouting for brands and they will email, like the email us to

our hello at Edo account or customer service email. And you get an email like that and you look at it and you have to do a doll. You're like, is this real? Yeah. I'm like, is this real? someone just trying to like get my information at this point because we were only so we launched October of 2020 they reached out January of 2021 it was months from when we went live I was still making the product on my house like I was making it in my kitchen we had another commercial

kitchen where we had little like bakers that were students helping us make the product we didn't even have a manufacturing facility so when shark tank reaches out you're like holy shit but the process is I think again what people don't know the process is pretty gnarly for shark tank So I probably spent a hundred hours on all the work that you've, I mean, meeting with producers, like perfecting your pitch, like creating the set. You create all of that. You pay for all of that. And that type of work, you know, it can all go, it can all be beneficial. You know, ours, we landed an air date and we aired. But 50% of the brands that film don't actually end up airing. So you can go through that entire process and then your episode could never air. So that is also like

a caveat. A lot of people founders ask me all the time. Like, how was it? Would you do it again? And I'm like, well, you're spending time away from your business. So that's one. And then two, you need to build a business that is not reliant on that. Because a lot of people build a business and they are like, I need to get on Shark Tank. I have to or this won't work. If that's your mentality, then you're not building a strong business. Like ours was it's great if it happens. But if it doesn't, then that's totally fine. Well, the same thing goes for any kind of funding, right? Like if you're completely reliant on like venture funding or outside. funding, you don't have a sound business without that, then maybe not the best business.

Yeah. And we're seeing, I mean, over the last few months, we're seeing a ton of brands go under because of that. Do you think that the pandemic helped with the launch of your business or hurt it? 100% it helped. People weren't buying food online before. So that was even, you know, with Instacar, or, you know, we were chatting earlier. My husband works for Airwan. He built their kind of e-commerce during the pandemic. And that habit of buying something like, a dessert or snack online was just kind of, maybe you would buy it on Amazon, maybe like a bar. But, you know, it took off like five years of the adoption of e-commerce for food. So 100% people were looking for it. And we launched, you know, October 2020 was at a time when people had already

gone through the sourdough wine phase. Like they had already gained their COVID-19 pounds. Like, they were like, shit, we're going to be in this for a minute. So we need to go back and swing healthier. but they wanted something like comfortable and comfort food. And so having a product like ours, which is healthy comfort food, that actually hit the nail on the head with what people were looking for at that moment. Did you have a sort of epiphany to do cookie dough? Like do you remember a moment where you were like, I have to do this? You said you weren't baking cookies on the corner selling lemonade.

What is the full history? I know we've been talking about this one. What is the full history of how this came to be? Yeah. It's kind of funny because there's the COVID story, right, of how it initially came. came up, but I have a pretty deep, deep relationship with food and junk food specifically. So I grew up in a little town called Ulyss. It's right outside of Fort Worth, Texas.

And my parents are immigrants. So my dad literally, like, was a sailor and came off of a boat when he was traveling from Greece. And he stayed in America. So he didn't have, you know. In Ulus, Texas. No, well, he landed in Chicago. He came to Chicago because there's like a small community of Indian people in Chicago.

So he went to Chicago, and then they were like, my parents were like, this is, too fucking cold. Like, why are we here? So then, and income tax. So they, you know, they moved to Texas. And he worked odd job. So he worked, you know, as a taxi driver. He worked in a deli. He worked in a car station and a convenience store. And then kind of the culmination of his American dream was when he was able to save up enough money and buy this gas station slash convenience store in Fort Worth, Texas. We spent, you know, every waking moment in there that we weren't in school. So he, you know, didn't have an employee because he was trying to make a profit. So it would work like 16 hours a day there and we would spend, my sisters and I would spend every Saturday and Sunday there. And we would

like be behind the cash register and like count change for customers. And we'd always get to pick two snacks, you know, like one sweet and one salty. And I fucking loved junk food. Like it wasn't in the 90s when I grew up. It wasn't as kind of like criminalized as it is now because people didn't really read nutrition labels like at least in Texas, right? Like maybe on the coasts, but people weren't reading. Not even then. Same age demo. Yeah. And like it's it's kind of funny. Like we used to eat Kraft mac and cheese for dinner and Oreos for breakfast and it was totally fine. And like I played sports. So externally, I didn't look like I needed help eating, but I was eating like Taco Bell and fast food and craft.

And then I started getting into health and wellness in college. And my first job out of college was at Pepsi, was at Frieda Lay. And it was like one of the jobs that my parents actually understood. They were like, what do you do for a living? And I was like, I sell these shit. They were like, oh, okay, we get it. It's like a physical product. And then at the same time, you know, I was getting further and further away from eating

that type of food. And I mean, don't get me wrong. Like, when I'm on my period, all I want is like a flaming hot chito puff. Like, that's all I want. But like, you know, that's also, you kind of grow out of that phase once you start to like learn about nutrition and get a little bit healthier. So I just had this dissonance at that time of I'm selling literally, like I'm slinging potato chips. I was on a $3 billion brand lays. And then in my personal life, I'm trying to get my friends and family to just eat a little bit more vegetables or eat, you know, slightly better, less processed food. Because again, like we're in Texas. And, you know, at that point, I decided I was like, I don't think this food and beverage space is, I don't think I can make an impact here. Like, I think if I'm going to do it,

I will have to do it on my own. But I initially was just kind of disheartened and I was like, I'm leaving this industry. Like, I'm not doing this. And then I went into kind of consulting in venture capital and started getting into the startup landscape. It's funny because when you look at my background, it was built for this. But while I was going through it, it was so meandering to me. I was like, this is such a chaotic career. Like, if you look at this resume, because that's what you're taught in undergrad, right? Like this resume needs to make sense. If you look to my resume, it does not make sense.

But now, if you look at dough, the junk food in my childhood, in my childhood, Frida L.A. and then McKinsey and Consulting and then Venture Capital and startup, it makes complete fucking sense. I think it's a mistake that they tell especially people going through the school system is like you have to kind of align and have everything connect. Because the reason I think it's a mistake. is it's a very rare percentage that goes through that path. And it's like, this is my path.

It's the thing I'm going to do forever. I love it. And you learn so much and you get such a particular skill set for so long. And then the problem is if you want to go outside of that particular skill set, you're going to fuck because you don't have a wide enough variety of experience to kind of go outside. I think I like it more personally having a mismash of all these different things because then I can kind of blend in for the thing that I actually like doing, you know, especially as you get older and actually figure that out.

because I don't know a lot of young people that know right away what they actually really want to do. Yeah, like you're forced to choose your major when you're like 17 years old. It's interesting what both you guys are saying because I'm reading this book by my favorite author, Robert Green, and he wrote this book called Mastery. And one of the things of mastery is that you take all the little skills

that you love doing even if they don't make sense and you put them together to create a career of mastery. But that's a book, I love that book and I love Robert. But it can be a bit misleading on the surface because mastery's like honing one crowd. over and over. But if you actually track Robert's life, he had like what? Like over a thousand different kinds of careers. Not that many. But he had like literally a hundred different types of jobs throughout his life until he figured out like, oh, I'm doing this thing. But he used

all the different jobs that he had to create the job. Yeah. And it's you've literally done exactly what he says to do in the book. Yeah. But imagine you go through the school system like, I'm going to be a lawyer and you do that for what? And then you're like, I hate this. And then you're like, when you're in your 40s. And now what? Yeah, and your resume or say you want to be in finance. I hate this. And you have a, that's why I think it's good, especially before you figure out which you really love to taste a lot of different things. Yeah, that's what I tell. I mean, we, we get out a ton of outreach from 94% of our audience as women. So a ton of outreach from, you know, Gen Z and millennial women being like, I don't know what to do. I think I want to be

entrepreneurial. How did you do this? How did you start this? And my advice is always, it might not make sense. So like stop trying to force this path. do what feels right in the moment and where you think you will get the most value. And then it will end up making sense. Like you don't, I didn't, I didn't write this path. I literally, going into venture capital, people were like, huh, that doesn't even make, like, it does not track. And you don't have that skill set and whatnot. And now, you know, after having done that, I absolutely needed that to do what I'm doing now. So venture capitalism, when are you like, you know what? It's actually cookie dough. Well, it's, it's funny because so I, I, I, I,

launched the venture studio at M13. So M13's a traditional investment fund. There's a venture studio that we built kind of like an incubator. And I actually built that. So there's traditional investing and then I was building brands. We had three brands that I built while I was there and then brought on teams to run them. And that's where I learned, because it's a very different skill set being able to do marketing for a $3 billion brand when your budget is $70 million. And M13 is a great venture fund, by the way. Yeah. If you were going to think about it. Yeah. It's a great to start with. And it's there. I probably got way too much responsibility like at a young age. But learning the zero to one, marketing at a three billion dollar company and marketing at a zero

dollar company is very different. Like the skills you use, the money you have, the access you have, all of that, like how scrappy you have to be. Like it's just a completely different skill set. So getting, I had the kind of consumer skill set. I didn't have the zero to one skill set. And that's what that taught me. It's like, okay, how do we take from an idea to testing it? Being able to kill your own babies, I killed a ton of brands while I was there. If it doesn't pass a test, you know, it's a loss at that point. And then, you know, launching it and accelerating it. So what was the moment that you decided that you were going to do this full force?

And do you remember where you were? Can you describe it? Yeah. I mean, I denied it for a little bit. I think there is a little bit of imposter syndrome at play. So even though, you know, we launched in October, I basically said I'm going to invest $20,000 of my own money. and I'm not going to race because I had been on that side. So I was like, I'm not going to raise venture capital money. What was your hesitancy for? Because I'm thinking about people that were in your, are in similar types of shoes that you were in now.

And you made the decision not to, like what, knowing what you knew, why did you decide not to do that from the beginning? Yeah, I mean, I think. And people might disagree with me on this, but I think there are essentially two paths that you choose, right? You either choose the kind of scrappy, profitability, long game. You know, it will take you 20 years to build this brand path. or you choose the venture capital, high growth, higher risk, you know, grow at all costs,

and a lot of fucking, both have a lot of pressure, just in very different ways. One, you have to be profitable. So, you know, you might be paying yourself like no salary for a little while. You might have to take, you know, second mortgages out. Like, it's hard. Loans, things like that. And then this other is the pressure to grow is like nothing I felt before. So now I've taken venture capital money to caveat.

I launched it with my own money, but now I have raised. So now that I'm on this, I tried to play this in between. And understanding what fits that venture funds portfolio. Yeah. I'll tell you like a crazy story quickly on a tangent. I have a friend that was in an exit scenario, huge, multiple hundred million exit scenario, but it was misaligned with the fund's exit target. And so they shut the whole thing down, right?

Because it was not aligned there. And the reason I tell this story is, I think to your point, if you're taking venture money, you have to be very cautious about what you're aligned with and what they're aligned with. And what a win is for you and what a win is for you. what a win is for them. Yeah. And how quickly they want, I mean, they want to make their money back, right? So, like, they're not going to be sitting with you while you, you know, twitle your thumbs and figure it out for 10 years. Because they're like, let's fucking go. Like, get to $100 million. Sell this shit to Nestle. Right. Like, we got better shit to do. We got to move on to the next thing. You said that you were teetering in the middle. What do you mean by that?

So I launched it with my own money, right? And that was in October of 2020. I was still ready to, like, when I said kill my own babies, I was ready to kill it if it didn't work. And by that, I mean, I think a lot of entrepreneurs force their ideas. And I saw a ton of it when I was at I'm 13, where, you know, you have a dog of an idea and it's not working or there's not product market fit or consumers aren't responding. It's not, there's nothing there or, and you know, giving it your best shot. And founders are relentless and like founders are crazy, right? Most founders have a little bit of crazy in them. And they push this idea and they keep pushing it and keep pushing it and keep pushing it

and keep pushing it, and there's nothing there. And the market doesn't want it. And so my thought was I'm going to, I can part ways with this $20,000. So if this $20,000 goes away tomorrow, if there is no product market fit for this brand and this product, I will kill my baby. Like I will kill, kill this and I will move on to the next thing. So I launched with that. And then, you know, three months in December of 2020, we are bursting out of our commercial

kitchens. Like we have commercial kitchens. We're also making it out of my house. we're making until three in the morning and then we're waking up at seven to fulfill so that we can get to UPS right when it opens and fulfill. Like we would do multiple runs of our SUVs to get product to UPS. It was what, I mean, we did that for all of December. And then I was like, oh, December was a fluke because it's the holidays. People want to gift this product.

It's very giftable. January comes. It was like 2x December. And still, again, like we're not being able to fulfill orders on time. We're making the product all day. I can't even run the business because I'm making the product. I'm horrible in the kitchen also. My husband cooks.

I'm like, I like chop his onions. I don't belong in the kitchen. So I'm like, why am I making this fucking, I need to run the business. I'm like making this fucking product. And, you know, like trying to fulfill it, I need to get a co-packer. And through literally until the end of January, I was like, this is a fluke. People just want something better for you to eat. And, you know, people want to be gluten-free and vegan and eat something better for you in January.

And then finally, I like, woke up. And I was like, no, this is it. mean, it's happening. Like, it's, there's product market fit. People want the brand. People want the product. There's an obsession in this like cult following happening. And I just had to allow myself to kind of believe that. Whereas, and, you know, Shark Tank reached out around the same time. So I think that was like another confirmation of almost like an external confirmation of, yeah, there's something here. And that's when I was like, I need to start a fucking copacker. I need to raise some money. Like this is, this is bigger than me now at this point. What were some of the

triggers or some of the levers you were going to pull to indicate if it wasn't working? Like, What was a signal you were going to, I mean, outside of maybe not selling nobody paying attention? Yeah, yeah. Or maybe things you saw in your venture days were like, okay, this is not going to work. Because I think you can save a lot of people some time here and some energy. My whole thing with people is, you know, just because it's your first thing doesn't mean it's your last thing. Like you just keep going and going and going. Most successful entrepreneurs have had a couple of failed businesses.

Yes, for sure. I basically, but this is very kind of like strategic, but I basically bucketed it into qualitative and quantitative. So quantitative is, you know, revenue. It's repeat purchases. It's, you know, your conversion rate on your Shopify. It's even followers on Instagram. It's, you know, things that you can see in the numbers. And then qualitative is, you know, influencers reaching out to you, press organically

reaching out to you, Shark Tank reaching out, right? Like, it's, you know, the inbound. And then as well, you kind of seeing that there's this kind of like cultural moment happening. Like people can't stop posting this. People can't stop talking about this. Like there is this obsession in our comments. Like we were going through them earlier of them guessing what our next launch is. And that, you know, you can't pay money for that. Like that's the stuff that it's like, okay, there's this kind of magic around the brand. And, you know, there's external validation, but there's also seeing from consumers that they're kind of obsessed with it. I mean, even like, I would say buyers reaching out to you, right? Like so early we had whole food. We had Airwine. We had Target even was pretty early. Like they, they can see that there's a gap in this category. So they can also validate because they see their, they see their data all day. So I would say, one, trying to be objective with both of those things and telling yourself, like, this is not personal. It's not about you. If this brand or this product doesn't work,

like, I'm okay. I can move on to the next thing, right? Like, it's not my only thing that I'm ever going to launch. I think that's what makes you such a great founder, though, is that. that you have the logical side and the creative side. I tend to lean more towards the creative side. But I have Michael. You know what I mean? No, but it seems like you have both sides and you're able to be pragmatic about it

and step outside of it and see it from an outside perspective. Yeah. You mentioned early imposter syndrome and I think a lot of people who are listening have experienced that. Can you talk about how you overcame it or if you're still struggling with it?

I don't know if you ever overcome it. I still get it. Yeah. I don't know if you do. What exactly does it mean? It's almost like sometimes you don't believe that you should be the one qualified to be doing what you're doing. Right? And I don't know if that's like you're tricking everyone. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like because obviously there's like two sides that you have to have some kind of confidence and a little bit of arrogance to push yourself forward to be able to take to be able to take on a business and push it and believe that you're the person that's going to helm something that becomes something out of nothing. Right. But then when you're doing it, it's almost like am I qualified? Do I have the right? credentials. Do I have the right skill set? Do I have enough experience? If you do think you should be doing something, is that narcissistic? No, I mean, listen, I've said this many times. I'm probably a little narcissistic, arrogant, and overconfident. And I probably have an ego. I'm all of those. I'm a narcissist and I have imposterous. But I have to be a little bit fucking crazy and delusional

to be able to do things where I know. You have the ability to do that, to even think that you can build this empire. And like to know that like I'm unemployable, meaning like I just would be terrible working and listen, I say this all the time. There's a million people that make way more than many founders being great number two, three, fours, and great organizations. I don't have that. I don't know how to do anything but do things for myself.

I have to be a little bit of those things. But you do balance that. I'm balanced in the sense where I'm like, okay, like, maybe I'm being too much or maybe I don't have the skills that or maybe I don't have the or when someone says no, you second get, you're like, shit. Maybe it is a bad idea. Yeah, like, am I not cut out for this? Or, you know, why do that person say no? You can't be a sane person in trying to,

trying to like just imagine that hey I'm going to turn something from nothing into something and everyone's going to love it right like you how you learn you're a little bit of that too I hate to break it to you honey little arrogant little it comes with the territory she's like no I didn't say that I didn't say I'm not he wasn't saying you're not I wasn't going to win the humble pie award or anything I didn't say I'm humble pie award I didn't say the humble cookie award I'm saying everybody that's been in this seat where you decide you're going to helm something you go like you do have these moments of doubt of course if you don't And that's what it is.

But they also. Anyone that says they doesn't fly. So I now have stopped trying to get over imposter syndrome because, and this is like a little bit of a hot take, it also drives me because I'm like, fuck all of you guys. I'm going to prove you wrong for anyone that has said no to me. So like it is a little bit of like, yeah, I don't love the feeling of that doubt of like being imposter or, you know, I shouldn't be a CEO or whatever it is. Like, you know, the revenue is a fluke or like whatever.

You know, I got into all these retailers. It's a fluke. Like I don't love that feeling. but it's also what keeps me going. So now I've kind of embraced it. So I'm like, my anxiety and my imposter syndrome is also why I have built this, right? And why I have these insanely lofty goals because now I'm like, I'm going to prove everyone. Yeah.

And I think it is a hot take. But I also think the exercise is also proving yourself wrong in a way. We're like you're wrong about being an imposter. Yeah. Right. So, yeah. I mean, people go through this too in other areas like parenting. There's a lot of people that are like, I don't know if I'm the right parent or a good parent.

If you're not doubting yourself on some level, then you're probably actually crazy. Then you're a social. In our relationship, I have no imposter syndrome. I think I'm great and you're never going to get better. Oh, I think that about me and my husband, too. I'm a delight. You are so lucky to have me. I told you.

You're not going to win the award for the most humble on the planet. Now a word from our sponsor, BetterHelp. Let's talk about innovation. So many things that we do and so many different practices that we engage with have needed and updated. They've needed innovation. and that's why I love BetterHelp so much. What is Better Help?

Better Help is your answer to online therapy. Long gone are the days of having to get in your car, drive across town, sit in a waiting room, wait on a doctor, interview that doctor, see if it's right for you, and then get in your car and leave. It's just a big time waste. Also, it's not so comfortable to have to get in your car and go and share all of your innermost feelings and thoughts, which is why I love this platform so much. It's no secret.

Lauren and I have had so many different therapists on this show to talk about how important it is to share your feelings, get your thoughts out of your head, talk about any issues, problems, or even just talk about life, especially in moments of hardship where you feel like you're lost and don't have the answer. Just being able to talk to someone, a professional is so important. So maybe if you've been on the fence about therapy and you've been wondering, okay, how do I get into it? This platform could be your answer. You go online, you find therapists that are registered professional. You can interview each of them and then you can do it all online from the comfort of your own home. You don't have to worry about going out in person.

You can save all this time. And you can talk to somebody that can really help you work through any issue that you're facing. So many high performers come on the show. And one of the common denominators is that they get out there. They share their feelings. They talk to professionals. They talk to people. And they're able to work through those problems with someone who can talk them through

in a professional matter. So instead of just talking to your friends and family who might not always have the answer, go and talk to a registered health professional. Like I said, it's convenient, accessible, affordable, and entirely online. When you want to be a better problem solver, therapy can get you there, visit Better help.com slash skinny today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help.com slash skinny. Betterhelp. com slash skinny. Keeping up with the theme of convenience, I love convenience. I love efficiency, which is why, again, I love this platform I'm about to talk about Zoc Doc. Zoc Doc is a free app

that shows you doctors who are patient reviewed, take your insurance, and are available when you need them. Long gone are the days when you just go on Google and find the nearest doctor closest to you and then say, okay, that's my guy or that's my girl. Zok doc, you can find every special. under the sun, whether you're trying to strengthen those teeth, fix an achy back, get a mold checked out, anything Zoc Doc has you covered. Again, I love these efficiencies that we're starting to experience in this modern day and age because you're not limited to your options. You have so many options now with all these modern platforms. And Zoc Doc gives you one of the most important resources to find one of the most important people that you're going to have in their life, your doctor.

Zocdox mobile app is easy as ordering a ride to a restaurant or getting delivery to your house. Search, find, and book doctors with just a few taps. Find and review local doctors. verified patient review so you can see what other people in your area or other patients are saying about these doctors in real time. And you have a ton of different options, which is so important when it comes to health care. Every month, millions of people use Zockdoc.com. So go to Zock.com slash skinny and download the Zockdoc doc doc app for free. Then start your search for a top-rated doctor today. Many are available within 24 hours. That's Z-O-C-D-C-com slash skinny. Zocdoc.com slash skinny. Go to Zocdoc.com slash skinny and download the Zocdoc-doc app

for free, then start your search for a top-rated doctor today. Many are available within 24 hours. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C dot com slash skinny. Zocdoc.com slash skinny. Okay, so what advice would you give to someone if they're struggling with that? I essentially took the ownership back was when I embraced it. So I think it's like embrace it, know when you have it and be, it's almost like take your, take your mind outside of yourself, almost as if you're watching yourself.

It's like, I don't even know how to explain this, but like if you're watching yourself and you're an external like objective, you know, again, it's about being objective. But if you're objective and you're kind of watching, watching yourself, you can kind of see like, okay, you'll have these moments. But at the end of the day, as long as you're going up into the right and you have these little moments that go down, it doesn't matter if it looks like this or if it looks like this. It's as long as they get to there. By the way, we're talking about like very entrepreneurial endeavors here, but this happens in creative fields too. There's a lot of people that are artists that have imposter syndrome and don't think that their work's good enough. There's a lot of people that are writers that don't think their works good enough. This applies to everyone has imposter syndrome in all sorts of different areas. Even people in organizations, you get a promotion, a job like I don't know if I'm really qualified for the job, all these things. So I think you're 100% right. You have to embrace it at some level and it's like, okay. I think from an outside perspective, something that you've done really well is

one, you've solved a problem because I remember that I would sneak cookie dough when no one was looking like, you know, like pillsberry. Right, because I was like, everyone's going to think I'm disgusting that I'm eating raw egg. So I would just like sneak it and like pop it in my mouth. But now I can just fucking take my spoon and eat the skinny confidential enhanced cookie dough, which we'll get to in my mouth, like no problem. And I can give it to Zaza and I can give it to him and I don't need to worry about the egg because it's vegan. The stuff is all over our house.

It's next to the bed. It's no eating in the bed. This shit's all over the bed. It's everywhere. It's a perfect like sleepy time stack. I love it. I got like a breakfast tray like Patricia from Southern Charm. Like the exact breakfast tray.

I have my dough on there. I have my laptop. I have my big, my water. Yeah, like my whole setup. My magazines on the side. I've obsessed. But you did solve a problem where you can eat raw cookie dough. So you also solved a problem because you save time because you don't have to cook the cookie dough if you don't want to.

Yeah. But at the same time and why. I'm attracted to the brand is you made it taste good, even though it's healthy. But you also made it aesthetically pleasing and where it's like sort of like a movement on Instagram. Yeah. Are there people who have posted influencers celebrities that you feel like have really contributed to that?

If not that, what else has contributed to this sort of community that you've cultivated? Yeah. I mean, I think part of it is when I set out to do this, I intentionally said, I want something that doesn't look like a food brand. I want it to look like a beauty brand. And that's very unique in our space. Like, look at this. This looks like it could be like your moisturizer, like your cream, right? No, why do you think I partner to do? It's beautiful. It's gorgeous. And that's also what makes people post about it. Like women, again, our audience is 94% women. They're posting things that are beautiful and that kind of shelfy, you know, aspect that has made its way to beauty has not yet made its way to

food. So the more. And, you know, and, you know, I think beverage does a good job with it, right? Like, they make things that are, you know, people want to hold and want to, want to pick up. But food is just far behind in it. And for me, we launched on the internet. We didn't launch in the farmer's market. And that's a different kind of food brand. Again, like, I'm horrible in the kitchen. Like, I shouldn't be in the kitchen. So, like, I truly set out to, okay, this happens to be food, but it looks and feels like a beauty product. Who has posted that you're like, wow, this is so cool. Carly Clause posted, which You, I mean, and it was like a feed post, too, of her, like, eating it out of the jar.

It was in, like, one of her carousels. She was interesting because she is in, like, she was in the space, right? Like, she's a baker. She had Carly's cookies. She actually knows about better for you baking. And so having her stamp of approval of, okay, the ingredients check out. It's better for you. She is predominantly plant-based.

And, by the way, it's as delicious as the cookies that I make. That was a pretty great stamp of it. approval. Another one that was interesting that was really early on. It was when we were still making it in our home kitchens was Kristen Kavallari. So she posted, you could barely see it, right? Like it was hidden behind her kids that had emojis on their faces. And like you couldn't it. It was our old ugly packaging. It was our first first packaging. And you could barely see it. And all of a sudden we see this insane spike in our Shopify sales. I'm like, what's going on? Like did someone post? I'm like trying to see if anyone's tagged us. Like I'm not understanding

where it's coming from. And then finally someone sends. it to me. And they're like, hey, isn't this your product? And I was like, how do you even see it? It's like hidden in the background. So people, she's such a cult ball like that people were searching the brand because she didn't tag it. So they're like searching the brand in her photos and like happened to come across us. And we saw that in Shopify. So there's been kind of interesting moments like that where it's like, oh, whoa, like I didn't, I either didn't know that that person had influence or had had so much influence. Or, you know, when you when you kind of put it together of both she and Carly have kind of a infinity food, better for you food, eat predominantly vegan, gluten-free. It does kind of make sense.

Do you know that I ate 200 gallons of your chocolate dip sauce when I was pregnant? I wasn't kidding. The show is everywhere. Tounds is made from me tasting our samples, but also from that dip. Like drip. It's so good. I put it on sourdough toast with sea salt. It is, Yeah. It's, it's, it really is like a healthy version of Nutella. Yeah. Well, and the first ingredient is hazelnuts and it's 50% less sugar than Nutella. I remember getting me.

I think on email from your assistant. Hey, can you send Lauren like, five more cases? And I was like, five cases. I was like, sure. I was like, she's feeding like a family. I was like, hey, can I have a small bite? No. Zaza loves it.

I mean, you can drip that in oatmeal. You can put it on, you can put it on ice cream on toast. So good. How passionate she gets when she talks about it. Towns is made from that. I'm not joking. When you look for ingredients, what are your benchmarks? Yeah.

I mean, we've got pretty stringent ingredients. Part of it is because of our partnerships with retail. So with Airwant and Whole Foods specifically that have pretty, I would say, strong ingredient knows. For us, we want to be able to pronounce everything on the jar. So essentially, the product strategy is take all the bad for you out. So take out the refined sugars, take out the animal byproducts, take out any sort of shit. So no BS ingredients.

And then add in good for you functional ingredients. So each different product has a different function. You know, this one, the Skinny Confidential, has dragon fruit and pomegranate, which is great for your skin. So, you know, it has to be functional and give you that, you know, additional reason to buy it and to eat it. I know, and I'll talk about this in the beginning, why I wanted to partner with you guys. did you, are you specific about, and I'm sure you are, the brands that you align yourself with. I know you guys did a collab with not skinny, not fat, which is so good. I don't know if it's still available. That's not. Okay. That's all about. Sorry, guys. That's really good. But how do you

sort of choose the people that you're going to partner with? Yeah. It's kind of interesting because there are some that are organic. So with Amanda, with not skinny, not fat. That was completely organic. So she fell in love with the brand and the product when we had gifted it to her. Again, this was very early on before we were even in a copacker. That happened pretty organically. And then there are ones, you know, like foursigmatic, where I met the founder. I had this concept of, you know, they have a mushroom coffee. Why can't we take that exact concept and bring it to cookie dough? Because the flavors would pair so nicely. And we use adaptogens as well in some of our products. They're an adaptogenic coffee brand for people I don't know. We put it in our cosmic brownie,

now called Space Browning because I got a cease and assist. So we put it in our Space Brownie and it was insane tasting. And so I literally sent the founder product and I was like, hey, we have to do we have to do this. This tastes fucking delicious. And so, you know, some of it is us kind of experimenting and then some of it is inbound because we do get a lot of inbound. I would love to just talk to the audience about the way our partnership came into fruition. So basically, I feel like we connected because I think, I want to say I found your product at Whole Foods and bought it naturally and might have tagged you guys and we started talking over DM. Do you remember? It was a long time. It was like right when you launched. Yeah. Well, and that's when those are the best partnerships. When you organically love the product and you're like, I need this in my life, I would partner with this brand.

So I think is either we gifted it or it was or, you know, you found it maybe at Airwan. Maybe it was early on. Yeah. That's where it's funny. Airwan is a place where anytime we haven't gifted to someone and someone posts that's like, either an influencer or a celebrity, it's usually because they picked it up at Airwine, which is, I call it the marketing account, which my husband hates that. But, you know, that's, it is, it's truly a great marketing account because people just pick it up there. And the flavor that I first tried was chocolate chip, plain, chocolate chip. And it was so good. That's the number one seller. And then you and I kind of went back and forth for a while. Like, it was like very back and forth. We got on a couple calls. So when we decided that we would do

an anti-inflammatory cookie that was good for your skin, I was like, so in. And then the aesthetics of the brand. And to be able to design the packaging and this little, we have this little bag that says, honey, these are mommy's cookies. So cute. Just like the whole thing was so much fun. It was such an organic fit. And then when I got to try all different kinds of cookie dough and we found this one, I mean, it's like this cookie dough is like, you don't even know this. I gave some to your daughter the other day.

She got in a full on fight with me. Wouldn't give it back. I have the whole thing on video. She's pulling it away from it. You're fighting with our child over the cooking. I'm like, I need to shoot that. She's two and a half years old. You can't, Christ. She's going to win. Can you talk to us about the ingredients that we chose and why I would love to go over them? Yeah, I mean, well, it's kind of interesting because when you initially when we were going back and forth on

ingredients, you said things like flax. And I was like, oh, that's already in, you know, that's already in our product. And so our product is already, you know, it's good for your gut. It's, you know, people who have, people who have, people who have IBS honestly reach out to us all the time. And they're like, this is a safe food for me. Like, this helps me. It doesn't bloat me. It doesn't make me crash. So a couple of the ingredients that you actually started with, which were, I believe there

were nut butters and flaxseed. I was like, oh, great. We already have those. Like, it's already a part of it. And then the pomegranate powder and the dragon fruit powder, those are the superfoods that we included. So like I said, each different skew has a different function. And here, you know, I don't know how much people know about pomegranate and dragon fruit

powder in particular, but they are filled with antioxidants. filled with antioxidants. So just a little bit of these give you a ton of skin benefits and give you that glowing skin. And you don't need a lot. I mean, we added a little bit of, you know, apple coloring and things from natural ingredients to make it so bright pink. Because when you bake them, they're like this perfect pastel pink. But the dragon fruit and pomegranate really contribute to your skin benefits, basically. And then once we decided we were going to use pomegranate, I was like, Oh my God, we need to sell a kit with my pomegranate raspberry oil by the Skinney Confidential. I was like, this is the perfect fit.

Pomegranate has so many benefits in it. And so it just was like a natural synergy. You guys are going to love the taste of this. I would love to know for the audience who's listening. They're at home. They have kids maybe. What are some ingredients that they can swap out easily? So for instance, like maybe we swap, you know, peanut butter for almond butter.

What are some things that you've been, you're a practitioner of ingredients. Where are some easy swaps? Yeah. I mean, I, so it's funny because I was with my sister this weekend in Austin. And again, like we grew up the same way, like the standard American diet on full dairy milk. But she, her son, who's two, my nephew, has eczema. And you see it a lot in kids, you know, sometimes don't know the culprit. Sometimes you go straight to like topical medicine, which, you know, then they're kind of

dependent on that medicine. So again, like I'm not a doctor. but my sister, I was like, hey, try taking out dairy. Like, try swapping his milk because he drinks so much drinking milk. Like, try just swapping it out with oat milk and see what happens. And she made the swap. So now he drinks both almond and oat milk. Eczema completely gone.

So there are things where I think, you know, we weren't educated on this when we were younger to test and kind of understand what food sensitivities you have. But, like, you know, some people are sensitive to things like nut butters or, you know, peanuts, for example. Some people are sensitive to dairy and, you know, know, other animal byproducts. But unless you start eliminating that, there's no other way to figure it out. Okay, you have to be honest when I ask you this question. What are the disgusting ingredients that are in other cookie doughs that people are eating raw out of the refrigerator like I

used to do when I was 10? I mean, aside from straight egg, there's, there's palm oil in a lot of them. There's partially hydrogenated oil, which is, that's trans fats, a lot of soy. And that caused, again, like an ingredient that people don't know, because, you know, soy milk was the alternative for a long time, but soy for women is tricky. And so, again, like, not a doctor. Sore for men is tricky, too. A little bit of estrogen. I don't want your penis to go up. If I see soy, I just throw it. It's not even close. It just happens. There's soy. There's artificial flavors. Even natural flavors are tricky. People don't know that. That if it says natural flavors on it, you don't know what the

fuck that is. Like, you have to ask them. You have to like literally DM the company and say, hey, what's in the natural flavors, because it could be shit that's, I mean, there are a lot of natural flavors that aren't allowed in air want even. I also see like silicone, like weird. Like things you can't pronounce. Detra, um, oxide. Yeah, titanium, da, da, da, da, da. And then I also see, see things like, things that are very, like, bloating. I'll see Xanaic, uh, Zantham gum. Zantham gum in a lot of brands that are quote unquote healthy. Yeah, S anthem gum's and everything. Yeah, like just, I just want a simple straight to point. There's just a lot of white sugar and everything, like a lot of refined sugar. Okay, this is a weird question, but since the audience hopefully is going to support our co-brands,

how can they cook it in a way that is going to be in line with the ingredients? Meaning, I wouldn't throw this on aluminum foil and cook it. Is there certain ways? Like, what's the best ways, the best tips? Yeah. I mean, my favorite is air frying it, which if you haven't done that, do you have an air fryer. Do you have an air fryer? No. Yes, we do. We have an airfare and you keep putting it in the corner where I can't do it. It's ugly. It's like, if you have the one that I have, it's only go dust the cop. It's like literally terrifying. My husband, put it on the counter and I was like, get that shit off my white couch. No, I can't have that in my vibration. It looks like an all black R2D too. That's what it looks like. Oh, that's the Air Force. Oh, I have seen you use that once or twice.

Airfires are great, but I can't ever, I'm not going to go digging through that, you know, massive of trial. The daddy long legs got to whisp them off. Yeah. Okay, so go ahead, air fry. Air fire. So throw it in the air fryer. It gets like a crispy outside. And then the inside is gooey and soft and warm. So it's almost like you're eating the raw cookie dough on the inside, but it's crispy on the outside. So I fuck with air frying it. If you want to bake it, use, I mean, you don't even have to really like oil the pan or anything because they're so, it has enough from the nut butter that you can literally roll it into a ball, flatten it, put it on like we have hot pink because obviously our colors. We have hot pink baking sheets that

we use and we flatten them. And it literally takes seven minutes to bake cookies. All right. I have done everything to help correct and prevent signs of hyperpigmentation. Trust me. If you read my book, get the fuck out of the sun, you know this. I have done everything possible. But the common denominator and the thing that I see that works the most is being consistent with my vitamin C use. And the vitamin C that I always go to, you know this if you follow me on Instagram, is Dr. Dennis Gross's vitamin C lactic. You know the one I'm talking about. It's orange. Everyone has that. Everyone talks about this as a high performer. It's just a vitamin C that gives you results.

You guys know there's so many products out there that you buy that don't really give you the results. His vitamin C is designed by him. And let me tell you, he is a five-star chef when it comes to skincare. This is someone who formulated his vitamin C to reduce dark spots, hyperpigmentation. It also increases the density of your skin. So you get like that bouncy skin. It prevents wrinkles. It reinforces the skin's moisture barrier, which is probably,

what I'm describing about that bounciness. And it also protects against free radical damage. Dr. Dennis Gross. I am such a fan of him. I always have been. He's been on the podcast six million times. And like I said, he's very strategic with how he designs his products. You have to check out his vitamin C lactic. We have a code for you. If you want firmer, brighter, stronger skin, this is the product, especially if you get dark spots and hyperfigmentation like I do. before I give you the code though, if you're going to get something else, you got to get the oil-free moisturizer. I don't shut the fuck up about this moisturizer. It's the best moisturizer to lay under makeup. I sometimes mix it with an oil. I'll put it on my beauty

blender and it just lays so nice under foundation or CC cream. All right, use code skinny at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. I use my own code. You can visit dr. Dennisgross.com for more information. That's dr.denessgross.com for 20% off. off code skinny. I am very serious about my sleep. In fact, I have a checklist. I don't care if that's weird. I do have a checklist. I like to do red light in the room. So no regular light bulbs. I like blackout shades. I like one of those machines that it's like a red light machine that tells you it's time to go to bed. And I like 5-28 hertz, always frequencies. I like my magnesium powder and my Kindle and I like my weighted blanket and I like all of these things. I'm very specific because I know

that the mixture of these things is just going to give me the best sleep ever. Last night, I went to bed at literally 9 o'clock and I would not have been able to do that without my magnesium powder and my weighted blanket. The one that I've been using is by gravity. The reason that I really like this one is because they have a cooling blanket. So I tend to sleep sometimes like I can get hot and this cooling blanket has a cover that's made from ultra-cooling eucalyptus. So it's like everything you could want in a blanket. It's a spa-like experience. And it gives you this feeling of being hugged, which I feel like releases the hormones and it helps you chill out and recover. This was especially helpful for me during postpartum. I'm very sensitive with hormones. And so to have this gravity

weighted blanket handy really helped improve my sleep quality. And let's be honest with a newborn, sleep can be tough. So when I am sleeping, I want the best, deepest, most grade A optimized sleep I can possibly get. So if you want to improve your sleep quality and you want to feel like you're being hugged when you get into bed and you just want to go to bed quicker, you've got to get a weighted blanket. We have an exclusive deal for skinny confidential listeners, as always, a 15% off any gravity product. I stock their site too and they have weighted robes, sleep masks, and a bunch of other cool stuff. So go visit their site, gravityblankets.com slash skinny, use code skinny, and get ready for the best sleep of your life. You know what else is really good. And I would love to know what you think of this. The slip.

Oh, love that. It's like French. It's called like the slip. The slip knit. Yeah, we have that. Yeah. We use it. We use it on our like on our Instagram. It's so cute. It's so cute. And it's my little sister, Mimi recommended it. She said my friend's mom is is French. And she says this is what everyone in France cooks their cookies on. That's a great one to buy. for cookies. That's great. Yeah. Well, it's good for a lot of things. Yeah. You got to leave us with what happened with Shark Tank. Oh my God. What was the what was the outcome? So dramatic. Yeah, we didn't get the dramatic outcome. Maybe Taylor, thank you, the Shark Tank music. I did. I mean, it was a dramatic. Michael knows this because we were chatting about it, but it was a dramatic episode. It's kind of funny because I think people don't know that it's a reality TV show, right? Like, they are trying to make the best TV possible. So, you know, spoiler alert, if you haven't seen it.

It's not how normal investment, like when you go to a normal pitch works. No, you don't stand up there and say, hi sharks. I'm severe. Like, that's so cheesy. Like, that's not how it works. So I pitch. Be a great way to start to pitch me to know, hi sharks. High sharks.

And it's like, yeah, so you're a cheerleader. You're so peppy. And had a great pitch. My episode was essentially like this buildup of like, holy shit, this amazing entrepreneur. The numbers are crazy. Like, she is it. And then Robert gives me an awesome. offer, obviously, you know, low balls me. I negotiate. So I negotiated, I say it's one point five times.

Some people might say it's too. I negotiated just a structure of the deal. And then he reneges his offer. Because he got mad that you renegotiated? Yeah. So it's kind of interesting. Because he thought it was unfair or he just was just doing reality TV. Looking back on it, I think they're trying to make a show. So, you know, at the end of the day, it was a great episode, right? Because it was like this build up, like this is amazing, products amazing. And then there was this like downfall at the end. So, I mean, for ratings, it was amazing. It was the after effects of the episode. Like for me, I considered it success. Because you got the air time. Got the air time. You know, the awareness. Robert said the nicest compliment I've ever heard in my life. I mean, he said out of the 13 years that

I've been doing this, you are one of the most impressive entrepreneurs that has ever walked that carpet. Like that is the best compliment I could receive from anyone. He said it on air. And so, you know, I was pretty happy with that. Afterwards, you know, everyone says, don't check Reddit and don't check the blogs and all of that. Don't check Reddit. But I'm a fucking human. So, you know, the first thing I do on Saturday morning, like my phone's like hitting my face in bed is I check Reddit.

And there were so many comments about what I was wearing and that I shouldn't have negotiated and that I was inappropriate. Isn't it interesting though if you were a man that no one would have commented? once on what you were wearing? I got to go back and watch it now, especially with all this. But what were you wearing that was that they didn't like? It was a hot pink suit. And it was hot pink blazer and hot pink shorts. So I was wearing shorts. But they were long. They weren't like shorts. They were like booty shorts. They were long. And I was one headline. And I made a TikTok that went viral and then it got picked up by a ton of PR. But there was a headline that said, woman in hot pink suit and kitten heels pitches to Mark Cuban.

That was the headline. And I was like, fuck off. If it were a dude, which there are plenty of men who go shirtless wearing swim trunks, who wear cutoffs, who were denim shorts. Like, they wear literally whatever. And that's not common. Like,

you would have never had that headline. You should have gone naked with nipple clamps. Like, that was completely clickbait. It was a perfectly appropriate outfit. Might have got the re-negotiation done. I know it's so crazy. It was,

if the suit was like a brown suit, no one would have cared, it's that the pink is polarizing to people. Yeah. But it was completely on, right? Like, that's our brand. It's hot pink. So,

is I made a TikTok. My favorite thing is these like trolls on Reddit be like, should have done this as they're sitting there like on the internet screaming. He's like probably sitting there like a huge crop dusting part. It's like, oh my God. If it was me and I decided to do my own thing and go on Shark Tank, I would never would have done this. And you would have negotiated.

So like anyone who had anything to say about that, like a good entrepreneur negotiates, I would be a shitty entrepreneur if I did it. Let me get the Reddit feds going. If they're on Reddit doing this, they're never going to do that anyway. They would never be in a position to do this in the first place. If you have the time to sit on Reddit all day and critique other people, you're not somebody that's ever going to do anything. Yeah.

Well, now I stopped. Now I stopped reading them, obviously. People doing shit don't have time to get in these dark web blogs and whine about people. And we got, I mean, we got double the, we did about as many sales as we did on, from the episode itself afterwards from all the PR that I got from that TikTok,

from like Newsweek and Daily Mail and all of that virality. It double, it literally doubled our shark tank sale. I can't wait for Taylor to pull the TikTok clip and implement it into our real video. We just had to scream at this guy about upping our video quality. Yeah. I got it. So, let me ask you this. So no investment happened. I think you've told me, you told me this before. Yeah. Yeah. So no, I mean, a lot of the deals also fall through after the show. So I think people don't know that. Yeah. But no investment happened. But I had already raised. I think that's another caveat.

It's like, you had some. They reached out to me. I had already raised one million dollars on a six million valuation. I was going in there at a three million valuation. You know, after most recently, I raised an eight figure valuation. Like, they're, you know, you have to have that context or understand that context of like the brands that are crushing it. It's very difficult to make a deal on that show because you, you would dilute yourself in a way that, you know, you wouldn't outside of the show. And also my thing is like you can still go talk about Shark Tank and like talk about the experience and leverage it without having to take the money. Do you know what I mean? It sounds like it's still cool. And it was still an amazing experience. I mean, it taught me how to tell my story in a concise one and a half. minute pitch. That is really valuable when you're talking to investors and buyers.

Game the system, but it sounds like, to your point, a big win would be to be able to get on like you did and not have to take a Shark Tank deal because it's not good market terms anyways deals, right? Maybe some of them are, but it sounds like the majority of them aren't. But then you get all the publicity of what the show can do, but without having to dilute yourself with those people. That's a win. Yeah, that's a win. Yeah, it's a win. But they also are looking for that. No, I think they can, they know that some entrepreneurs are doing that. They know people are coming in that already have some kind of funding or some kind of deal. Yeah, so they're always wary. Anyone who's had funding or has had a lot of success in a short amount of time,

like they asked me a couple times. Like, do you actually want a deal? Because they, you know, it happens. I wonder, like, do is, I mean, this is a tangent? But are there stories of people that have gone on and raised in Shark Tank that are still in the business and happy and thriving? I'm sure they're all right. The Glow Recipe Girls didn't take the money either. No, they did and then it didn't happen. Like, they did a deal on the show, but then the deal to your point fell through. Yeah. So I think my friend Natalie founded Bala Bengals and they actually went through with it with and Marie Sharpe, I mean, Mark Cuban and Marisha, that was perfect for them. You know, that made a lot of sense because, you know, that was. They just told us that story. We do

something. It might must be. Yeah. There are the, there are the only ones that I know that went through afterwards and have had like a really good relationship and really good experience. Tell us about Doe times the skinny confidential. Who needs it? Where can they find it? All the things. Oh my God. Everyone needs it. Well, the funniest thing I hear is that women buy it and then their husbands or boyfriends or partners eat it. So they hide it in like the vegetable drawer or places that they won't look. Yeah, we would eat it if they would show us where it is. If they'll let you. She's fighting with our two-year-old. Stowed away those 16 boxes of the drip that you sent me. She's not even letting our two-year-old have anywhere. Towns has had more dough than you have. God.

It's only available for a limited time though. I mean, we're doing this once and there's a limited quantity. So and when we sell out, people sometimes get annoyed at this. But when we sell out, we sell out. So get it while you can. You can freeze it up to six months. So whenever we do have these limited collabs, a lot of people will buy a few of them and put them in the freezer and you can have them later. And, you know, anyone who wants something delicious, a delicious treat that has skin benefits and looks cute on your counter, unlike a lot of other things. Unlike the air fryer. But use the air friar.

It tastes really delicious. But back me, the air fryer is very useful. It just kind of looks like shit. See, that's the next business we're doing. If we can make a pretty air friar. Don't say that too loud. Nobody's your idea. Nobody's good.

Two things before you go. First, the flavor guys is pink frosting. It's amazing. We didn't say that. We didn't say that. It literally tastes like a pink frosting on, you know those like sugar cookies that are from Publix? Hell yeah.

Those Vons ones, that's like so good. Exactly the vibe, but healthy. Yep. And also we have a kit available. Yes. Or you can buy the dough plain. Can you explain that so everyone can check out the kit first? because I know the kits are very limited addition.

The kits are very, very limited. So if you want any part of that, then make sure you get that. But it's everything's at eatdow.com, E-A-T-D-E-U-X.com. The kits have a skinny confidential face oil, which, like Lauren said, has the pomegranate ingredient in it as well. It's great for depuffing and anti-inflammatory. They've also got these cute A-F pink spoons. I'm obsessed with them.

I almost like them more than my gold spoons that we sell. they've got a cute little bag. It's kind of like those bagu bags, if you guys know what those are. And it says, honey, these are mommy's cookies. It's adorable. And you can use this bag for multiple things. You could use it like for the gym. You could take it out with Happy Hour and put your stuff in it. You could, I even gave one to Zaza. She's like using it with her bars. Yeah. It's so cute. It's this tiny little bag. You can put a bunch of little things in it. It's like a little, maybe like a wristlet. It's good for travel too. You can put, I literally brought it here. I put jewelry and I put my serums in there. Yep. So you guys. You can put. You can put a little. You can. You

could totally use it as a skincare bag. Mm-hmm. So if you want anti-inflammatory benefits with all the skin benefits to pink frosting, the skinny confidential times dough is available. You guys, go stock it at eatdo.com. And there's a code. It's skinny dough, D-E-U-X. And let's do a giveaway.

Can we give away a couple of doughs? Yeah. Okay. We can give away little four packs. Okay. We're going to give away four packs, you guys. All you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram at Lauren Fostick.

and make sure you're following at Eat Doe. That's D-E-U-X on Instagram. Thank you for coming on. Thank you. Incredible. Your story, what you've built, especially in such a short period of time is impressive. Thank you.

And I am so fucking excited to be partnered with you guys. Maybe after this I can get one more. Maybe. I'll send you supper one. Yeah, yeah. I'll give you. Hide them. I'll cook you a smidge in the air fire.

Wait, don't go. If you want to win the Skinny Confidential Times Doe cookie jar, All you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode with Sabina on my latest post at Lauren Bostic. And definitely follow at Eat Doe. That's D-E-U-X on Instagram. I hope you guys love this cookie dough. I cannot stop eating it. Saza, Michael, everyone, office.

I mean, it's that good. Be sure to use code Skinny Doe, D-E-U-X for 10% off on Eat Doe.com. Enjoy.