The Bossticks - How To Build Something From Nothing & Create Lifelong Success Ft. Durana Elmi & Shahab Elmi

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

#645: Today, we're sitting down with the masterminds behind one of our favorite brands and companies.  Durana and Shahab Elmi of Cymbiotika. Today the duo are joining us for a conversation on how to build something from scratch out of nothing and turn it into a massive success. We also discuss personal growth and how to find long term success in life. The duo rounds out the show by sharing insights into their inspiring love story and what it takes to perservere through the hard times. We also dive into overcoming adversity, discovering your purpose, and leveraging your strengths to elevate a good company to greatness.   To connect with Durana Elmi click HERE To connect with Shahab Elmi click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click 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. This episode is brought to you by Tecovas Tecovas are handmade from the most premium leathers. Visit tecovas.com and point your toes west. This episode is brought to you by MWH As Melissa says herself, "Don't trust me, try me." Visit melissawoodhealth.com and use code SKINNY at checkout to get your first month free off your monthly membership. This episode is brought to you by Branch Basics The Branch Basics Premium Starter Kit will provide you with everything you need to replace all of your toxic cleaning products in your home. It's really a no-brainer. Go to branchbasics.com and use code SKINNY for 15% off their starter kit and free shipping. This episode is brought to you by Cymbiotika Cymbiotika is a health supplement company, designing sophisticated organic formulations that are scientifically proven to increase vitality and longevity by filling nutritional gaps that result from our modern day diet. Receive 15% off your purchase at cymbiotika.com/SKINNY This episode is brought to you by Primal Kitchen You can find Primal Kitchen products at Target, Walmart, or your local grocery store. Or go to Amazon and use code 20SKINNYPK for 20% off your order. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business. Go to squarespace.com/skinny for a free trial & use code SKINNY for 10% off your first purchase of a website domain.   Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode. Quick announcement before we get into this episode. Lauren and I recently launched the Morning Quicky, which is a new daily show. Think three to five minutes of daily bites from all of the best episodes that we've done throughout the years. 700 plus episodes that we've pooled the most meaningful, most evergreen, most applicable bits of information so that you can check it out daily. So whether you heard that full-length episode in the past and just need a reminder, or maybe you're a new listener who hasn't heard that meaningful takeaway, this show is for, for you. It's on a new feed. It's a whole new show, but it takes bites from this, again, three to five minutes every single day to just give you those daily reminders, motivational

tips, wellness tips, beauty tips, business tips, everything. So check it out. It's called the Morning Quickie. Go follow it now. Subscribe and review. 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 alone for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. to the skinny confidential, him and her. This is a very planned. So we have a 24-month plan from today. We just had our Q-4 meetings for the next two years.

And so everything we released was very tactical and it's designed to help people. At this point, it's so personal what we do. I'm like, if I take the time or we take the time to show up here and it's time away from our kids, then this is personal. I want to ensure that every single thing that we do, we've thought of, we've touched, because for us, the part of our customer's journey that we're in with them

is so critical. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Him and Her show. Today we're sitting down with two of our favorite people, Duranah and Shahab Elmi, the co-founders of Symbiotica. You've obviously heard us talk about Symbiotica

for years on this show. We've had Chervine on the show multiple times to talk about the amazing products. But now we get to meet the two other co-founders who are also married, like Lauren and I,

Durana and Shahab. We have become fast friends over the years. As soon as it's been heart with the brand and got to know Gerana and Shahab there, two of the most incredible people we've met, two incredible entrepreneurs and just all around great people. We've had a blast getting to know them. And we thought having them on the show, kind of the business brains and operational side of the Symbiotica brand would be incredible. So some of the things you're going to learn

on this podcast is how to build something from nothing, how to manifest a relationship, overcoming adversity, identifying your purpose and your intentions, how to keep the right mindset to keep yourself motivated, tips to scale any business, and skills that are required if you decide to go through the abyss of working with your partner or your significant other, which we talk about a lot here. So with that, Durana Shahab, welcome with the Skinny Confidential, Him and Her show. This is the Skinny Confidential, Him and Her. I am so excited to have you guys here today.

And there is so much to unpack. But first, I feel like we have to unpack our tequila, Mexican dinner that we, or lunch that we had. How did you guys meet? So first, I got to tell you, like, I was talking to Michael earlier. He goes, are you nervous? I'm like, I've done a thousand things like this. And I pause on like, but not with Lauren. And Lauren makes you a bit nervous because we hung out with you guys.

And the only reason I'm doing this is because the time we spent with you was fantastic. Because of great human beings. We were just selling some of our counterparts here, how rare it is to meet people that are actually the people they presume to be. And you guys are those guys. Well, let's get through the podcast and see if you feel the same way. Lauren is terrified though. Lauren is terrified. We were having drinks and anyways, we'll get that later. Lauren is scary. So how did we meet? So this is a beautiful story. It takes us back 24 years. I think we were 20 years old, 20 and 19 years old when we first met. And then 20 and 21 we got married. First of all, let me set back.

I told my father, I'll never, I'm never going to get married. I'm going to travel the world, enjoy my life. I don't need a wife. One night I'm at an event that Drona's cousin through, him and I were best friends. We're in the same basketball team together. And I saw her walk by and it's going to sound cheesy and corny, but it's the truth. I sort of got time slowed down. I saw her walk by and it was like a light glared on her face and time slowed. I swear to God. I'm going to slow you down right now. You keep saying the sweet stuff on the show is going to make me look like shit, all right? I'm just telling the truth, man. I get so much shit from my friends too, but it's the, it's the truth. What do you want me to do? So I was like flabbergasted. I walked over, grabbed her hand and I said, I'm Shahab. And she said, I know you who you are. I said, I'm going to marry you one day. That was a genesis of the story.

A year or later we were married and... Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we have to go back. I want the part where you're in the convertible shirt list. Done. Okay. She snatches her hand out of my hand. That was a cool part. Now here's the uncool part.

And she says something to the effect of, try that line on some of the chicken heads in here. And then she's like storms off, pissed off. And I was like, God damn. I couldn't believe I was never denied like this before. I was actually dating a Laker girl at the time. So I had, you know, reasonable game. Now, mind you, I was like six for three back then with really nice hair.

So it was a different looking guy than I am today. And the soon she was, she like storms off. And the whole night now I'm like determined to figure out how to get this girl. And ironically enough, she had arrived with one of our best friends in a two door. Remember those Honda S-2000s or like a little two-seaters? Yep. And I had just bought this new Porsche. It was a two-seater Porsche.

my friend was into her friend. So I had this whole scheme the entire night. I didn't care about the club anymore. The club was over to me. I didn't talk to anyone and grab a drink. I was fully focused on this one mission. So I told my buddy's in his van. I said, Van,

when her car pulls around, Janina is her name, and Valet, just jump in the car and go. Because, you know, at that time, everyone would go to this 24-hour Mexican spot. You wanted to get her, the friend out so that you could... Right, divide and conquer. It was a very classy spot.

It's a standard thing, Michael. Yeah. So the car pulls up and, and sure enough, Van jumps in the car, disappears and she's left with no car. Now this is before a cell phone. This is 1999. Cell phones are really brand new and everyone had one. So she has no rag. And so of course I showed up right in time. I said, well, we're going to the same spot. You should just jump in the car with us. And after like complaining and arguing for like five minutes, she agreed. And I really just show off. So I put the top down to the

converto, put the top down. We get on the freeway. It was freaking December, dude. So it's freezing. So she's cold. She's shivering. So I fairly, I'm a gentleman, so I took my shirt off and gave her my shirt. The only thing worse was a shirtless guy in a convertible Porsche. That was the beginning of the whole thing. And so the end of the night happens, I go in for a kiss and all my friends are watching, of course. And she gives her to pull away. I love a pull away.

You'd like to pull away? That's a just brutal, man. You have to work for it. But see, the thing is, you guys want to understand how bad devastating is for a guy. A pull away is like the worst thing that happened to you. And then I have 20 of your friends watch the pull away. There's nothing, you can't recover. You're obsessed then. You're obsessed. You want to get married. I keep going. I was done. I was done. Yeah, you're done. So she, she disappears. She doesn't give me your number. She's gone for the night. I don't hear from her again. A few weeks go by, I just opened a cell phone store. This is where a cell phone's kind of a big deal. So I had a cell phone store. Now, here's the story gets a little corny. Wait, to backup, do you, you, in hindsight, in a cold December night shirtless and a convertible, you like still stand by that move? I was pretty lean back then. I don't know. I thought it was the right play. I still stand by because the end result, it.

is 24 years later or 23 and a half years later. Something worked, yeah. Two kids and a bunch of companies. Yeah, everything's fine. So I had a cell phone store. Now, here's where our stories separate. For this point, we're aligned, right? We're aligned.

Do you dispute anything that just happened? No, nothing else. You're into me from the very first second. No, absolutely not. I'll try to slide that on that. Okay. Now, here's what the stories get funky. You can listen to both of our arguments.

Like, imagine you're a jury. You guys decide, and the audience can decide, who is more likely to be lying or telling the truth? Okay. Her best friend needs a cell phone. Now, apparently there's only one place to get a freaking cell phone in the entire universe. So there's two options, right? There's only one place to get a cell phone entire universe, my store.

Or Dorano was trying to re-engage somehow. No, we were like broke college kids. We were looking for a hustle. Like, who's going to give her the best deal? Well, I think there's probably truth to both their stories. But I think it's probably like, she's like, this guy's going to give me a deal, but he's also interesting. Let's go with that. So anyway, so she shows her friend comes to my store and she picks out and her friend,

her friend's family owned dairy queens. Like they're really well off. So of course she orders like the most expensive. Back then was a Star Tech. It was a little flip phone by Motorola. It opened and closed like a compact. It was like $1,500. So she orders that and a bunch of accessories, like $2,000.

And for me, $2,000 back then was like a million. That was a lot of money. And so when she came to pay for it, I said, I'll give it to free. only thing I wanted to exchange is one night, one date with your friend. And she sold out Dorano like it was nothing. She's like, yeah, I'm in. It's done. So that was like the genesis to our first date. And she came back to the dorm room and was like, you need to go on a date with him.

And I was like, you need to pay for your shit. I was like, I'm not going on a date with him. And she's like, he is the nicest guy ever. And I'm like, who did you deal with? Because he was a playboy. He was very loud about his success. And I didn't like that. I wanted like the quiet guy.

But he is the nice. nicest guy. I mean, you all are. He is. He is the most incredible human being I have ever met in my life. So then she finally concedes to dinner. So I'm stoked, right? So I get up there, I get there nice and early, pick her up from a dorm. She was at UCLA at the time. So she comes down and she's like devastatingly good looking. Like, holy shit, good looking. And I'm, I'm never nervous on days, but I was super nervous on this day because there was something different about her than anyone else I've ever met. And so we go to this restaurant at Third Street Promenade, very high-end. And I was like determined to show her who I was.

So I ordered literally everything on the menu. Everything you imagine, like 50 items on the menu. That was a dumb. No, that was stupid. But I was, give me a break. I was 20 or 21. And so halfway through the dinner, she disappeared. She goes, I'd go to bathroom.

She gets up and she leans in only like Duranica and said, I'm going to paraphrase him if I'm wrong, okay? It's been 24 years. She says something to the effect of, I want a man that can give me a something that can't buy my I can't buy myself yeah so what I said is I said thank you so much for this dinner because aqua's a very I don't know if it's still around but it was like one of the poshist restaurants and I said thank you for bringing me to this restaurant and thank you for whining and dining me but a woman of my caliber I don't want this what I want the man of the man that's

going to be with me the man of my life he's going to give me something I can't give myself right that's love and respect and for everything else I'll work hard for it so then she disappears. Five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes in the bathroom. I'm like, either this girl has like irritable balance syndrome or she's left me. So finally, like 30 minutes later she shows up and what she had done in the entire time was she called her credit card company. When you go to college, you guys remember this or not, you get a $500 credit limit on some student credit card. She was begging him for a credit card increase because she told the credit card processing company that if I don't pick up this meal, this guy thinks he's going to get

some tonight. That can't happen. So as for the check, the guy comes around and says, no, she's taking care of the check already. And I've never, I've never experienced that before. So it's just another layer of like, holy crap, Geron, own me. And after that, it was over. I was done. Well, I love this story with you guys so much and whether, and there's so much we're going to unpack here because I think to give the audience context, we have, we have a relationship now, but we've been working with you guys and loving the company you've created for so long. Are you guys co-founders of Symbiotica? And so, we have, we have, we have a relationship. And so we have a lot of context. I think from the outside, people would look at your lives now and say,

like, wow, this is an extreme success story. But what Lauren and I are always attracted to is where people come from and the struggles they've been through. And like, you know, I relate to a lot of what you're saying. You start, you're a young guy. You start to have a little success. You think that the way that you impress people is by kind of showing off some of that success. But like, this was not something that was handed to either of you. And I want to talk about that a little bit because I think people can hear these stories and like, see the success now and be like, oh, that, you know, that makes sense, but they don't realize where you came from. So maybe to back up a little bit and talk about your upbringings and then we can kind of,

we can get to where. So thanks for team that up because, you know, earlier I was starting growing, I hate podcasts. A lot of podcasts I listen to. I can't stand these freaking podcasts, a lot of them. Because it becomes people who want to pat themselves in the back, they show up on these podcasts. It becomes an hour of like, I'm the greatest guy of all time. they paint this picture of a linear life, like a straight line. And life is not like that, man. I think it's important to acknowledge that life is tough. Life has ups and downs, relationships with ups and downs.

You guys are entrepreneurs, super successful entrepreneurs. But you don't wake up one day like this. Like there's pitfalls and it's okay. It's completely okay to accept the fact that they're going to be struggles in anything you do in life. And the more you absorb, accept that and embrace that, the more successful you'll be. So don't listen to this nonsense on these other shows where everyone was like, yes, I woke up one day, I had this perfect relationship. My first business was a billionaire enterprise. It's never like that.

They're just full of shit. And our relationship is no different. Like when we started out, we're really like poor. We had no money. So there were some days, I'm not too proud to admit it. We had to shower at the, you know, 20, I think back then was LA Fitness gym because we couldn't pay for our water heater. And, you know, 90% of our meals was Durrana making, like, there was a ghetto grocery store chain.

It's still around it. thing. Called John's. So in the West Coast Vons is a grocery store chain. There's a knockoff called Johns. There's the same logo, same color scheme. We just saw it recently, though, and they changed their color. They got sued to change their color scheme.

They sold this like this ramen type of noodles, but it was 10 for a dollar and each block was for two people. So five cents a meal. And Durrana made that pretty much every night for us. That's all we can afford for a very, very long time. Did you have like a specialty of how you would make it? Chop potatoes. Ceylantros.

Tabasco. Lemon. And lemon. God bless my wife. She made, she's every, at every step that we were at, she made it the greatest thing possibly be. Like our first home, where the furniture come from? Goodwill.

And I wish more people were honest about stuff like that. Like, you have to start from somewhere unless your parents were really Uber rich, like ours weren't. No, but you know, I think like I'm listening to you talk and I have a, and you guys do too. I have a lot of single guy friends. And one of the arguments that I make to them a lot is I personally feel, and I'll say something sweet now, that in my career I've excelled faster maybe than some in some areas because I have a really strong woman by my side supporting me. And it's one, that gives you like a ton of confidence. And also when you hit hard times, which you inevitably will, especially if an entrepreneur, having that support system is worth more than anything.

But also it's completely eliminated all the distractions that I think a lot of young men, particular, and I guess young women go through in the quote unquote dating world, which, you know, listen, you're not, it's hard to find the relationships we all have. I'm not like undermining that. But I think sometimes people glamorize this kind of frivolous single life where they're not focused and they're just chasing a bunch of tail. And to me, it's like, that's all that. If you, if you do that, you're going to lose a ton of focus and you're missing out on some of the special things in life. Does that make sense? It's a truest thing ever. And it applies to me a lot. So my younger days, unfortunately, I got in a lot of trouble. And so when Daron

and I were dating, you know, my buddies and I, we were to clubs and get fights and fights almost every week, like every single, like clockwork, every single freaking week. And I'll never forget this day. We were at a club in Orange County. And Duran and I, now we're getting pretty serious. Our relationship was like six or seven months in. And we were leaving this club. I looked back at my friends that's got his big brawl. And I turned back to run to join them and she grabbed me and said, if you take one more step, this is over. And that was the last fight. I never fought again.

And a week later, two of my friends were stabbed to death, rest of a sold, Hussein and Elvis, in front of a Mexican place, Mexican restaurant, like two in the morning, which inevitably I would have been part of that group, guaranteed. Wow. And so, like, to say she saved my life, it's not conjecture. It's not, she literally saved my life. And the focus, and more important than the focus,

it's everything I do, I do for her. So, like, the level of, of drive I have now, and I happen from the day I met this woman, it changed a thousand percent. So when you have that level of focus, because you're not for yourself, it's a lot easier to do something for other people than yourself. Like, a lot of times I don't want to get out of the bed of morning. Like, I'm tired. I'm stressed. But for her and my girls, I'll do it. For me, I want to say. Let me tell you something. This is what everyone's going to do. You guys listening, you are going to play the first 10 minutes of this episode in front of the guy you're dating.

And you're going to play it while you're doing your makeup. Like, you're just, listening to the podcast casually, and you're going to subliminally manipulate them while they're in the background brushing their eyebrows or trimming their pubic hair or whatever the fuck they're doing. And they need to hear this so they know how to treat a woman. Unfortunately, when we get with a woman, we stop trimming our pubic hair on our eyebrows. That's not true. The other day I saw something in the toilet that was looking like trimming. That's my beard hair.

Okay. But listen, I don't want to sound like this sappy guy, but I, you know, I talk to at this point, like a lot of young men. and I think like they sometimes glamorize the wrong things. And they're looking for this success in life that's, I think, harder and harder to find if you're not able to stay focused. And to your point, even when we had children, like, I do, you know, want to do everything I can for my wife. But even having that extra layer of like now I'm getting up for my children, like there's no greater motivation. Nothing can stop you.

So I said this before. People think, again, it's like corny cliche thing. I really don't give a shit. I tell all my friends who are still single. I've been very fortunate in my life to do a lot of unique things in the business world as an entrepreneur. I can live a thousand lifetimes and nothing I will do will match this woman. She's my greatest accomplishment and it's not even close. And I think, you know, the Andrew takes to the world probably disagree.

But if you find the one person you're meant to find, it's an amazing thing, man. It gives you, I always have this rule. I really believe no one believed in me before. And the less they believed in me, the more I believe in myself. Until I met her, I'm like, she believes me more than anyone does. And that gives me superhero powers, I think. And from the day we met, it's been on, man. From that point on, we hand out L's all over the place. It's fantastic. Do you guys think that one of your connections is your childhoods? Because I've talked to you guys off air about your childhoods. And maybe we can start

with Durana of you telling us how you grew up. Do you think that that's, there's synergy there? I mean, I definitely think my childhood has made me who I am today. And for that, I'm incredibly grateful and you and I spoke, Lauren, but, you know, I had a very tough upbringing. My father was an alcoholic. He was very, very strict. I could never go out at nights. And so I'm, I was born in Afghanistan, left there when I was three months. I'm Afghan-American, but I was very Americanized. So I could never understand my father and his like cultural boundaries. So yes, it made me a very tough woman. And at a young age, I literally was manifesting the man who I had in my life today. And life, you know, that grit, life made me so tough that for me, I'm not afraid to fail.

I'm not afraid to work hard. I will go after anything and everything that I desire. Sometimes I talk to people who have had really hard childhoods and out of it they've sort of figured out because they've had what they don't want. They figured out what they want. Because of your relationship with your dad, what, when you say you were manifesting a guy, what were those qualities? So the first quality was. Short, buff, bald. Yes. Big personality.

True. So I really wanted a man who was going to accept me for who I am because I feel like I have a bold personality and I'm strong because of the challenges that I went through in life. I wanted someone that was going to support my dreams and not ever tell me, don't dream, this is too big. I wanted someone that was going to say, he always says to me and I love this about him. He says, you be you and I'll deal with the rest. And I love that because that means he supports me unconditionally. And so I wanted that. My mother never had that.

That was not who my father was for my mother. And so I knew that most important what I wanted is a man to love me and respect me and take me in for who I was and then to just ignite the woman that I am. You think that you're so bold because you grew up in a culture where women are like, be submissive. Be submissive. Yes. Because when I.

when I hang out with you, like I feel like you are so bold. Almost in a way, and I think you and I connected off this with masculine energy undertones, but still very feminine, do you think that because you saw women be suppressed so much, that it made you sort of the opposite? But you're bold, but you're also very warm. Yes. Does that make sense? Thank you. I mean, I hope so. I'm, I feel very girly and like a true girl's girl. But yeah, I mean, life made me really tough. And sometimes I always say, I wish I wasn't like this, this tough. I wish I could just be a little softer. But when you have a father who is physically and emotionally abusing you and breaking you down every night, the only person you have to turn to is yourself. I don't wish that for you at all.

I'm glad you're exactly the way you are. You got two little girls. I want to want to be, I want them to be just like their mom. Because the world we're headed to now is a little different than when we grew up in, like our age group. It's a tough, it's a tough world. And if you're not tough. I don't care if you're a guy or a woman. It's going to eat you alive. And this whole context of like, it's weird because these days being masculine as a guy is a bad thing all of a sudden. It's not a bad thing. It's exactly what we're designed to be. It doesn't mean the women can't be tough. Like it doesn't mean if your woman is tough, you're no longer masculine. I'm a toughest tough guy out there. But I want my wife to be who she is. Anyone has a problem with that,

they can come and see me. And I praise her for that. And I want my girls to be just like that, too. What were some things that you saw that you remember? Like you can remember when you were little where you saw a woman be suppressed. Like is there certain instances where you're like, I don't want that for myself? You really want to know. Yeah.

I remember vividly times where my father would chase after me with a knife just because he was drunk. And I remember say I would like run up to my room and I would pull the dresser so that he couldn't break through the door. And I would say to myself like, God, give me the strength to get through this moment.

and when I have this strength and when I have the power to like make my own money to get out of this environment, to get out of this home, I'm going to be fucking unstoppable. And that's who I feel I am today. I feel like now that I know who I am, now that I know my strengths, now that I can look back at my childhood and I'm incredibly grateful for it, I feel like if I was able to get through that, I can get through anything. And I hope that that can reach so many listeners out there. because I believe my story is not unique.

Everyone's been through something. Everyone has some type of adversity, some type of pain, some type of childhood trauma. So it's not what you go through, but it's what you make of it. It's the thoughts in your own head that determine your outcome. And at that age for me, I just knew that I'm not going to allow my father determine who I am. And I am going to be a powerful force. I can't wait. As a matter of fact, I can't wait to get out there.

I can't wait to be the voice. voice of the voiceless Afghan woman around the world who go through this. And I want all of them to know that at the end of the day, just get through what you're going through because you're going to determine your outcome. Why do you think so many people are committed to living into the narrative of being a victim? You know, I think it's easiest to say like, I'm going to victimize myself to my childhood. But the truth is, we all go through what we go through for a reason and for a purpose and you need to identify what's your purpose, what's your intention. And for me, when I got through it, it was like, A, I learned because I had such a strong mother, how much I love women.

I love women. I want to support women all around the world. And it taught me that we live in a world where we need to support one another. And again, don't victimize yourself to your issues. Because everyone's got some shit going on in their lives. But, you know, you have to look at your experiences, you have to grow from it. And you have to say, this is my story, this is my journey. This is what I'm supposed to go through for what's to come. What about your childhood? I actually had a really good childhood. Great parents, have great parents. It was very stable. But, you know, when you leave, you know, it's not an original story. Every immigrant can relate to this. When you immigrate to a new country, I was seven and a half, eight when we came here.

From where? Iran. From Iran. And so it's just a new, new reality, new world. My greatest parents, but they work their asses off. You know, they're blue collar workers and, you know, I respect them to death because they've always taught us about being honest and morally intact and integrity. And those are lessons that were really important to us. And but when I met Durana is like, I think my, I have two lives. It was before Durrana and after Durana. And after Durana, my life changed, man. It became, it became such an absolute level of fulfillment. I never thought it could ever exist. I tell my single buddies, until you find that one person,

like it's such a crazy thing, I'm a math guy. I'm a finance guy. And so, Everything in my world has to be one plus one equal has equal two. The crazy thing about like the four of us, if you think about the odds of meeting the one person you're supposed to find, how rare that is, but it happens all the time. Like the odds of winning a lottery is one in 350 million. The odds of starting a billion dollar company is one in 1.5 billion. The odds of finding the one person you're supposed to find is one in eight billion. That's crazy. But then it happens.

So it means it's just magic. Like there's no defined logic to it. It's not math. It's not science. It's just magic. And once you find it, once you find that person, if you just take a step back and acknowledge how fucking incredible it is that you're able to somehow, through all the noise, find this one person you meant to find, your power becomes limitless.

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when you purchase a starter kit or their new gel hand soap. And if you haven't listened to the him and her episode with the founder of Branch Basics, go listen. That is a mind-blowing episode. We talk to a lot of people on this show. And one thing that I worry about, especially in the culture that, and it's like, I feel like I've never met a couple that has all their shit together all the time. And I think the ones that we've met that are the strongest, like, they're working through that shit together. And they're basically just committed to saying, hey, it's going to get tough sometimes or we're going to solve it together.

I think, like, I see a lot of people sometimes, like, something's not perfect in the relationship and their first answers to either throw it away or step out or something. Like, Lauren and I, his relationship has gone through ups and downs and trials and tribulations all, you know, for as long as we've known each other. But I think at the end of the day, why I never worry about it is I know we're both committed to solving whatever issues we have together. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Like, it's not like a throwaway relationship. I'm like, oh, that got hard. so we're like going off and doing something else. That's not even like the 1% possible. Like it's not in our front of mind that this will ever end. Now we go out of man. We rarely fight when we do because we have fireworks. We have tough personalities.

But it's just a prequel to make up sex. So it's all good. It's also like fun to have a Broadway show. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I think Lauren does that just to like just to just. I love it. Mix it up.

You want me to have some flat boring relationship? Yeah. Sometimes she just I'm like what I love an Evan of Lowe. Yeah. She just turns. She just gets into. some shit for no reason. I'm like, oh, okay, I guess we're doing this. But to your point, the sex will be good in the morning. That's right. That's right. Okay, so when you guys were coming up

together and you're struggling and you're eating ramen and you're shopping at Johns. With cilantro. What's going through your minds and what and what are you guys ideating on to try to get yourselves into a position like you are now? That was the toughest time in our life. Like, I can pinpoint 2006. It was just like terrible time in our relationship. And like if there was any time that we would have pulled the cord, it probably would have been then and we just didn't do it, man. We just, I don't have any, there's no logic, but we just stuck together. And we got through it. And we just believe there'll be, you know, there'll be better times ahead. And I think sticking together is, that's the only feedback I can give you.

Because when you stick together and you believe in one another, amazing things happen. Well, this is what I kind of want to talk to both of you about this, at least the mindset that you were in to keep going. Because again, I think people don't realize, like you're going to hit hard times in life, even if maybe you found early success. Like there's, there's always something behind the corner. And I want to like kind of talk through, and I wish more entrepreneurs would do this, especially successful entrepreneurs. Like what was going through your mind to keep you guys motivated and keep pushing? Yeah.

I mean, for me, I knew that both of us were not afraid to work hard. So I knew that life was just challenging in the moment. And here's someone in my life who is going to, we, A, our dreams and our goals and our visions aligned. So I knew that no matter what, the tough times, the good times, like, we're going to, to get through this because A, he's not afraid to work hard. B, we believe in one another. And C, we're going to do whatever it takes until we get there. Until today, we still have that mindset. Like we have challenges in the business and we sit back and we go, okay, we just haven't identified

the answer. But it's out there. And so I always say to him, our dreams for me, I know today, we can accomplish anything because we have each other. As long as we've got each other, we've got everything. But there were times, I think, it was close to the other side too. Like really, I believe that year, it was just really tough on us. We had a bunch of stuff happened to us. It was tough. It was just something out there, man. It's hard to explain it. We just knew that we're supposed to be together. And these bad times would just go away as long as we stuck to it. What were some of the things you guys did to kind of move the ball forward during that time? Like when you're that down and out and you're struggling that hard? Like, what were some of the

things you guys did? I'm not, you know, I wasn't a big communicator back then. Daron and loves to talk about stuff to like for the end of time. And yeah. And so she really kind of forced me into just talking more. And it's weird when you start talking about your goals and aspirations and your dreams together, it gives you a sense of energy you didn't have before. It ignites something that was dormant. And we did a lot of that. In fact, one thing she did, I'll never forget, we sat down and talked about what we want to accomplish and she typed them up into this little piece of paper. And then she laminated it. Like the size of my credit card.

I put it in my wallet. It was like our three-year plan and our five-year plan. Yeah. She carried it with her. And sure enough, in three years we hit them, five years we hit them, and then we surpassed all those things. But that little exercise of putting it out in the cosmos and believing in it was really big for us because sometimes when things happen spiraled downwards, we think that it's

going to be shitty forever. And you almost have to have to turn a tide by saying, no, three years, this will happen, five years, this will happen. And they really did. It happened just like that. I would love for you guys to speak on the evolution. So where were you guys when you started, like business wise? Yeah. And then what were the stepping stones with each business that got you here? Yeah. And really walk through it because people are looking at you too. You obviously

have a beautiful marriage. You have two kids. You have all the things and all the boxes checked. And now you have this booming business. But I'm really interested on what happened before this and what the first business was that took you to the second business, to the third business. And then you. business to hear. Yeah. So that's an important story because I think people just see the end result. This is our fifth company. And we've had successes throughout. We've had terrible failures throughout. So our first successful venture was an accessory company. We made cell phone accessories called Ducky accessories. It was a side gig. We did it while we were in corporate America with AT&T at the same time. I was ahead of sales. It was ahead of marketing for specific divisions. And that went well.

When that went well, we made a little bit of money, it gave us motivation that we can actually do something of our own, that we can own something. Like the one piece of advice that I would give to anyone is go do your own stuff. Like your own stuff is the most empowering shit in the world, whatever that stuff is. The one that really kicked it off for us to the world was our cell phone stores. So we left AT&T. And you were both working at AT&T together. Yeah. Yeah. This was the toughest decision where we were made. So we had just bought a big home in Georgia. We lived in Atlanta at the time. My wife had just given birth to our youngest, Ariana. I think she was like maybe three or four months old. And we both decided that it's time because we were never around our kids. We're working

like, you know, 70 hours a week, six hours. We never see our kids. And we made the decision that it's time to go and do our own thing. And so through some contacts, we got some contracts to be able to own our own cell phone stores. And we took everything we had and we dumped it into these stores. So we left at the same time. And the way the corporate America, at least 18T did was their bonuses were three years in the rear. And they were like a vast majority of recompels your bonuses. So they lock you in that way too. If you leave, it's gone. And ours was that times two, right? So it took a lot of balls to say we're going to do that, but we believe in each other. Because you both had the bonuses accumulated. And if you both left, you've left. Bravo. Yeah. So we

lost all of it. So we made the call. We're going to lose all of it because we believe the long term of of having something of our own that we control our time. And time was the big deal for us. Because we're both really ambitious. So we left every morning at like 738, came back at 536, spent like 30 minutes with our kids, put them to bed, and then back on our laptops for the rest of the night. And we just knew that. That wasn't like scalable for the next 20, 30 years. So we started the cell phone business, open the first store, second, five, 10, 15. And I just told my wife found out about this recently in the podcast I did because I was just trying to be protective of her stress. It was getting so bad that I had to take a second mortgage

in our home. And we were like two and a half months away from being like homeless. Like we're done. And you had no idea. No. No. She was our chief operating officer and she was doing great. And so finally, we had a place where we had very little money left. And I went to Durana and said, she didn't know what the mortgage is in the home, but I said, we got to figure something out. And she made the ballsy decision of like quadripling or advertising expenditures, which typically when people are struggling, they reduce expense. She was like, no, we're going to expand expense.

We're going to go for it. And we did. And those 14 or 15 stores wound up becoming 172 and six states. And then we sold to a publicly traded company. And that was the big one. Once we got that one, we had that big nest egg and we put it away and we invested it properly. Then it was on. Then we knew that we can do bigger and better things.

And what was next? The next one was Dash Radio, which we still have. It's one of the largest music platforms in North America. We have about 25 million customers now. I think it's the third after Pandora on Spotify. I think it's third largest right now. We used to put our podcast on, Dash. We did.

Yeah. Yeah. It's actually the largest download, the mostly used app in LGM vehicles today for the last four or five years. So if you've got a Cadillac or Yukon or something, it's number one there. And that thing is still up and running. But we wanted to do something a little different. We wanted to do something. I remember I was driving to our Yasmin, eldest daughter's career day.

It was her first career day. I was thinking about what she would be proud of. And like mom and dad are really good at making money is not something that kids give a shit about. And this is where Symbatica came about. Here we are now four years later. Okay. Tell us how this became what it is. And I want like the minute that you decided you wanted to do this from like how you put together the packaging.

I want all the details. Yeah. And I think this is super interesting for this audience because they know. I mean, Shervin, I think maybe holds the record for people coming on this show. And Chervine also has come on and given us the best wellness health diet butthole sunning tips he can give us. But like, one of the reasons I wanted to have you guys on is because this will be interesting to hear. really how it started. And I'm talking about from the root of the root.

So, because Shervin and Dorana have a really interesting relationship. They're like brother and sister, and they also want to kill each other at multiple times of the year. So Shervin and I grew up together. So we're like 15 years, fortunate or 15 years old. We were friends. Hold on. What was he like? He was the same and also really different, but also very different.

So, like, he was always into the, we call the alternate health community world where, you know, he would go to the Amazon jungle and like all these crazy places and do all this stuff. the balls of the sky. That was normal. But he was also into like the normal stuff that that we all did too. We would have Vegas and party and do all these things too. But he transitioned a lot through the years, you know, when his father got sick, especially, his father is one of the top five greatest human beings ever been around. He's a great man. And I have a great deal of respect for him and I miss him. And there's a travest of the world that he's not here today. That's how great of a man he is. But that Chervines transitioned to like full on as like I said, into the space was there, was really designed to help his dad because he would try to help his dad along his life and get better, et cetera.

And so Shervina started his company, Symbotica in May of 2018. And this was around the same time that I was having this conversation with my daughter about the Career Day stuff. And I told my wife, because I promised my wife we're going to retire after this last exit, the cell phone exit, we're done. We had dash radio. That thing was cooking. And it was just time to relax and enjoy life. And so I came to her and said, I want to get back into this business. my friends started this company on Symbiotica, I want to kind of look under the hood and see

what's there. And she was adamantly against it. The backtrack it. We were living in the East Coast. We came out here to visit friends out in O.C. at Orange County. And we were, we had rented a home and Chervine came to the home. And he was like, dude, you guys are crushing it. And then that was kind of the start of the conversation. That was a genesis. So she finally caved and said, right, let's look under the hood. And what we saw was interesting. I've never seen this before in business. There was like a bizarre, unique energy around the company. Like, there was a momentum there for sure.

Like, you can feel it. And, but the, but the business itself was a disaster. Like, it was, it was, the website was like 1975. And there was no insurance. And the, the products were being packaged and sent out of a big bear, one of our employee, the one employee was a shipping all the products out of like a plastic bag. It was a disaster. There was no infrastructure to the company.

There was zero infrastructure. And there was no, 100% of sales were being driven by affiliates. There was no e-commerce. There was nothing that you would, you would categorize, this actual business, which was the craziest shit because you had insane amount of energy and momentum. Like, you can't buy that. Like, you can't create that energy. It was a unicorn.

Yeah, it was a unicorn. It just needed the right, the right leadership and experience around how to implement and scale it. So when Shervin and I met at this house, Aron, I mentioned, we decided we agreed that we're going to become partners. And January 1st, 2019, we became equal partners, Daron and I and Sherivine. And it was what we're off and running. Then we brought in a bunch of executives that we worked with in the past, like our You know, Sal, our CMO. He's been a CMO for all our companies.

We brought him over. Our chief strategy officer, our general counsel, we brought him over from other companies. We did about a million dollars that first year. We were just kind of learning the business because none of us really knew e-commerce, D-to-C health space, that very specific niche. And then fast forward this year, this is public now. We're going to do a little bit over $100 million this year. So 100X in four years.

And I think... What was the growth like for someone who's listening here is, a million dollars your first year. Yeah. What was the second year? Can you divulge? Yeah, you got a million, five million, 15 million,

41 million, and 100 million. And what was the biggest jump from the last two years? Like what did you see was so transformative in those two years that you had such a profound jump? Yeah, so 2019, 2020, we took a lot of time to figure out like the gaps in the business, not only our business, but the industry in general. And then we like settled on two things.

Like forget products because you have to have great products. Those are just table stakes. If you have shitty products, customers are smart. If you give them bad product that you can't validate, which is one of the things that we're really proud of. Well, I think it's important for you to say that because I think a lot of people now create businesses and they just rely on marketing tactics. No, no.

That stuff is that they'll take you the next level. The prerequisite is you've got to have the greatest possible product to service. Like, Deer Media provides a great product and service. There's tons of podcasts platforms out there, but they fail. Why? because the product isn't great. The product has to be what it is. And two, you've got to be transparent.

If you go to our site right now, we're the only company that posts our COA, our certificate of analysis of where the products came from. That's cool. Who tested them. So we're fully, in fact, if you're one of our competitors,

I challenge you guys to do this, go to our site and replicate our products. You can do that. We're so transparent. We've left our formulas down to the ingredients, down to where it was registered, where we got the products from and replicate them. They won't, though,

because they don't want to spend the money on And this is, they won't go replicate your products because it's too expensive to replicate their products and they won't make a big enough margin. Thank you. So one of the things I'm very proud about, so we have a product committee, development company. We have this meeting every week. So sharing leads that committee, but we have PhDs and MDs that are involved and a bunch of leaders in the company.

One of the things I'll never, ever allow is, so we have a vitamin E coming up, for example. We'll never say this vitamin E has to end up at $20 at our company. cost. Never ever. Because when you say that, here's what happens. One, either you have to go buy crappy synthetic ingredients from some God knows place in the world that no one knows what it is. Compromising the quality. Compromise the quality. Or it's the easy thing to take a red pen and just cross out other ingredients because it's cheaper, just get rid of them and then lower the efficacy of the product. We won't do that. We just won't do it. Like there's some things that we'll be flexible on. That's not one of. We'll never effing do that ever. What you scaled though in the

last two years, what were the things that you did differently? Did you, did you add product? Did you add better marketing? Did you come on the skinny confidential him and her podcast? Like, that was the main thing. It was the skinny. The skinny changed everything. I do love the glutothion. Thank you. We appreciate all your support. I think one of the things we've did is we grew our teams. We brought in all of our departments in house. When we analyze a business, we found two major flaws for everyone around this. One, everyone outsourced our marketing departments. So, like, if you go to use a digital marketing firm, you guys know a bunch of these companies. They're great. They're fantastic. But you're one of, like, each rep has like 30 or 40 different companies that are

present. So how much of your time are they really giving you? And then two, like, they can't be nimble. We want to be fast and nimble. So to Duranos point, you brought in, how many of you have in marketing now in-house? 35. 35 in-house marketing folks. And 100% of our content. So we have two studios in our office. You guys saw when you were there. We record all of our own video graphics. We do everything in house and we're nimble about it. If I could give like anybody starting a business advice, we got a lot of shit for bringing, like we do everything here internally in house. Like there's nothing really. I don't. I was impressed. I walked around. Your infrastructure is a right on. But it's like, listen, it's more expensive and it's harder to scale and it's more headcount to

manage as you guys know. But I think a lot of people when they start, they quickly outsource as much as they can to save costs, but in the long run, that, that, like, you don't have a real asset there. Right. Like, a lot of, in our world, a lot of, I think, our competitors struggle because they've given a lot of control to third parties that either do their sales or do their marketing or whatever it is. And to your point, like, they don't control any of that process. Or if they need to change something quickly, they don't, they're not able to.

How have you added feminine energy to the brand? Because that's got to be something that has to do with the scale, too. Like, it, let's be honest, there's, there's men. So you've had to come in and add your your vibes. How have you done that? So I mean, it's happened organically. A, I love women. I think, I mean, this out of respect, but women just do it a little bit better. We've got that emotional intelligence and that connection, right? So I don't know, the boss of just you read that. I just go to that for sure. So as we have built the infrastructure, the departments, grown the teams, we have a lot of women who are inquiring, who are talented out there,

who believe in our mission, who wanted to join the team. And I am willing to take the risk on them because I believe in them. We have, you know, we celebrate women in our company, which is something that I'm incredibly proud of. We do women wellness events. We do four of them annually. And then internally, I do a lot for the women in terms of spending one-on-one time with them, having lunches with them.

I like to personally get invested in them because I think that we spend so much time together that this is a very personal relationship. And I'm very invested in their success and helping them get to whatever it is that their dreams and goals are personally. So with that, I personally take pride in having so many women or that woman energy in our company. And we take the time to celebrate one another. When I went to your office, there was literally a meditation room. Yes. For, I mean, I'm sure it's for everyone, but I'm sure more women use it. But it was like dark, but like also like kind of like start. on the ceiling, like really good vibes. You've really sort of infused the office with your energy.

Can I brag about that real quick? Because I'm so proud of your honor for this. We were notified in a prior office with another corporate office. Mike and I were talking about this earlier. We had three months to get out. So our lease is expired. They were going to tear it down, build life sciences building. They said, you have three months to get out. We quickly found an office. And they said, all right, to build this new place out, it will take six months to build it up. Duranah said, no, we're going to get this in three months. She was there every day with big contractor guys until like one in the morning, two in the morning. She was out there 5 a.m. the next day. And she personally, like with the office you guys saw, that was a vanilla

shell. There was nothing there. And three months, this woman made that, made that vanilla shell into the office you saw. Yeah, it's stunning. The office is stunning. Those contractors had a rough time showing. They're terrified. The funniest thing is one of those guys that head contractor is like 6-5-250 with a neck about this big. When DeRonna walks in, he panics. You could see him like running away for his life. It's the funniest thing ever. What are some other things that you think have really helped to grow your business?

Because it's a massive business now. What are some bullets that you would give people who are listening that are looking to scale or business? Yeah, our tech. So the second thing we did was we brought all our development in-house. So like we have nine code writers, right, developed for us every day. It allows us to be really, really quick. We have nine full-time guys, gals and guys. And so when we find a gap in anything, we can make changes like that.

If you outsource something like that, they'll take you six weeks. What's a gap? What do you mean? Like a gap on the website? Yeah. So, for example, on the website, when we see conversions are low. There's something causing those conversion gaps. So then we can dig in through analytics and data, figure that out.

We actually have a software we wrote ourselves that shows where our customers go on the site and then where the pain points are. We can see where they leave the site, why they don't buy. And then we have a quick meeting with a team and we identify those areas on those gaps. The second thing is we have insane analytics. We drove, we written our own AI software that gives us data and that data goes to marketing and the marketing can make better decisions on advertisement based on that data. It's all in-house. And so if you outsource some of that stuff, you're two, three, four months behind. We're doing that stuff in real time in one day,

two hours sometimes, three hours. And also like customer experience, we brought that in-house. So every, you know, every time a customer calls in, it's a very personalized experience. Because they're like, oh, Durana, we know their health journey. From what we do versus like Philippines or India or Pakistan, it's 95% less per person to do that. Per per head. It's a fact. 95% less.

And that was Durana's decision. She said, we're going to have it in-house because every time you call, you want to ask for Michael and get Michael every time. Yeah. Good call. And then also just bringing fulfillment in-house. For us, it's such a, at this point, it's so personal what we do. I'm like, if I take the time or we take the time to show up here,

and it's time away from our kids, then this is personal. I want to ensure that every single thing that we do we've thought of, we've touched, because for us, the part of our customer's journey that we're in with them is so critical. This is their health. This is their well-being. This is how they show up for their loved ones. So fulfillment for us is really critical because when our community orders, places in order for them to get the right order, it's so important.

So like that was for us like one of the most important things. We own an operator on a warehouse and we have a second one opening very, very soon the next three or four months in the East Coast. Symbiotica is part of my everyday wellness routine. I personally, out of all their products, I'm obsessed with two. Okay. The ones that I like cannot go wrong with are their magnesium and their glutathion. They have two magnesiums. I use them both.

One is liposomal, so I'll just put it in my mouth quickly on the go. And the other one is they have this lavender spray that I spray on my body and I do it every single night before I go to bed. Sometimes I even put it on the bottom of my feet. I tell all my friends about it. It smells like lavender. It's absolutely delicious. And I like the fact that it absorbs in the body like when you spray it on. I think that's really cool.

You don't have to take it or eat it or it's not a pill. It's just absorbed right away. And then their glutathione. This is the one that I tell everyone to get. This glutathione I take every single time that I have a sip of alcohol. I just think it helps with hangovers. It helps with energy levels. And it's really, really thought out.

So their products contain no fillers or harmful ingredients. Everything science-backed. So if you don't know where to start and you're on symbiotica because they have a lot of different products, I would get their liposomal magnesium L3 and 8. I would get the magnesium spray and the glutathione. You can not go wrong. I got these for my dad for Christmas. Their formulas are great for gut health, detoxification, skin health. and premature aging. They really hit all the spots. Start your subscription today. You can save

15% off your subscription with our code skinny. Just go to symbiotica.com and use code skinny on your subscription order. There's certain brands that I just reorder and reorder and reorder. And one of those brands is Primal Kitchen. This is the move on what to get. You have to get the avocado oil. I have cut so many oils out of my diet by just replacing it with Primal Kitchen's avocado oil. The other move, and you can't go wrong with this, is their ketchup. They have the best ketchup on the planet. Once you know what's an actual ketchup, too, it's not it. Primal kitchens are absolutely delicious. It's real, delicious, bold flavor, tastes like the perfect ketchup. Many of their products are made without cane sugar, no corn syrup, no artificial sweeteners. I really like how their ketchup has no cane sugar and no corn syrup. So many ketchup do. So the avocado oil and their You can't go wrong. If you cook for your family, this is the brand. There's so many different products that they make and everything is just real. Eating right to me is so important for me and my family, especially my kids. And I don't have a lot of time because I'm a working mom. I'm sure a lot of

you guys get that. But Primal Kitchen just makes it so easy to whip up the most delicious family meals that we feel good about. And my kids like it. Kids are picky, but they love this. If you want to get some great grilling sauces, dressings, they have like a dressing that you can marinate chicken in, it's delicious. Get the ketchup, the avocado oil. You can find primal kitchen products at Target or your local grocery store. I stock up on my products at Target, or you can go to Amazon and get 20% off your order with our code 20 Skinny PK at checkout. That's 20 Skinny PK. This episode is also brought to you by Squarespace. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Squarespace, Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and

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Again, that's Squarespace.com slash skinny. I wasn't joking. We've had Chervino on the show so many times. And I think even like we're so familiar with the product. But every time he comes on, like I understand the reason why you guys are doing things and the intention behind it. And I think so many companies now, especially, you know, in this e-commerce world we all live in, it's like how many skews can I get out there, like how often, how fast.

And they don't really like give you the reason or the intention behind it. And I don't think enough companies spend enough time in storytelling. Like telling people why this exists and why they should consider using. It's just like, hey, this is another thing I'm launching. Does that make sense? No, it makes total sense. Now, we do this. This is a very planned.

So we have a 24-month plan from today. We just had our Q4 meetings for the next two years. And so everything we released is very tactical and it's designed to help people. So, you know, our home care line just came out. That was designed because Durana, about a year and a half ago, Durana took every product we had in our kitchen sink and our girls' bathroom out. We started Googling. Which was everything?

Everything. So we Googled all this stuff. And then we sent them to a lab. We had 81 carcinogens. Wow. There's some normal stuff with countertop spray, dishwashing, detergent, lawn all the stuff that we all use. And it was like, holy shit, there's 81 considered carcinogens that we're forcing down

the throats of our kids, not knowing it. Triclosin. Yes, I know. We can't be doing that. And what you guys have done with the soap, to me, feels so comfortable because not only is it good for you because it has pre and probiotic in it. Probiotics, yeah. But it also is in glass, which Chervine taught.

me. You don't want to be using an amazing soap that's in plastic, that the plastic is just like sinking into the soap. Like you really thought of every pain point. I'm busy. I don't have time. I need someone to tell me where it's to stand when it comes to my soap. I don't, I don't want to buy a healthy, in quotes, looking soap and then find out that microplastics are sinking into it. I don't understand why there's so many brands that try to sort of like half acid and like greenwash it. It's just margins. And so like I'm, I spend. a lot of times the last six months or eight months meeting with investment banks and private equity firms as we started getting ready for our first big round. And everyone just cares about gross

margins. And it's such a short-sighted view because, yes, you can make more money today, but you're going to pay for it in the long run. Consumers are smart. Eventually, they'll realize we're just selling them as crap and you'll lose them forever. Our margins are freaking terrible. I'm not, I can't sugar coat out. There's nowhere to hide it. Every time I met with an investment bank, I, I, I, I have anxiety over that line on our balance sheet. But the reality is I'm also the most proud of that same number. That number means we're doing it right. I know this.

The number sucks, but we're doing it right. And we're doing it for the right reasons. And the reason, like our customer base right now, our average subscription length is over six months. In the subscription world, if you're past like 45 days, you've done great, we're past six months and it's growing. Oh, yeah. Because people know this stuff is real.

They try it and they know they can feel it. Well, listen, look at all these public companies that go public at huge numbers and now you look at their stock and they're just like nothing. Because people, I mean, listen, I don't think they do it intentionally, but to your point, they're focused maybe on the wrong things, on the margins instead of the customer satisfaction. Yeah, I won't mention I don't want to get sued, so I won't send them with the company. But a company just like that went public. They were known to being very transparent, very high end quality. And it turned out one of the preservatives they were using in all their products was shit and it was the cheapest thing

ever, but it was a carcinia caused cancer. And their stock went down like 95%. So eventually you're going to pay the price for it. Why not just do it right from the beginning? Forget like we have, we were raised. My wife and I were very high moral and ethic codes. And our company is really known for that. Like if you come to ask one of our folks, we never make decisions that don't include two main categories.

All we care about is just two. If there's an intersect between our team members and our customers, and it benefits both of these groups at the same time, it's the right thing to do. If it doesn't, it's the wrong thing to do. I don't give a shit about the margin. I don't care how much revenue is involved. It has to be the right thing for our internal employees and our external customers.

And you can find that point right between those two. It's going to long term you'll win every single time. I guarantee it. Just do that. Dorana, how do you guys all work together, all three of you? Like, give us the juicy details. I'm the referee. You're the referee.

DeRonna and Traven try to kill one another. And I try to prevent them killing each other. Yeah, but what does each of you guys bring to the table? Like, what are you bringing that they don't have? What are they bringing that you don't have? Like, I want to hear a breakdown from like a team leader standpoint. I believe that Shahab does everything. Finance, infrastructure, the growth. He's the brains behind it all. He's the visionary. He truly is. He's the leader. He's just really humble. I like to say that I bring the people aspect, the culture, the operations. There's no business with other people. I mean, I love the people I work with. And I feel incredible.

incredibly grateful that they gave me a reason to want to show up every day. And I think that one of the things that I was going to add is that our culture is what makes symbiotica so great. You've got the most talented people in the industry who show up every day and feel supported where they have resources and tools to come and do what they're passionate about, whether it's creating content, whether it's IT, whether it's customer experience. That's what we do. Shervin works on the product side of things. But I think we've got a really good balance. Like, I'm just a really passionate person and I like to see results and I'm like a straight shooter. So if there are results there, I want to get in the boardroom and I want to know why.

Because at the end of the day, for me, we're all putting in time, right? I'm giving, it's like it's a push and pool. For us to show up every day to the office to ensure that we are successful, there's something that we are giving up. And that's time with our family. That's time with our loved ones. And so if we are dedicating time, to me, it's like just don't bullshit my time. So that's where I come from, where we sometimes can but have. I think everyone plays a very important role.

And I'm not just not bullshit talk track for your show. We have 102 people that work with us. And everyone's equally important. And I sort of got this to true. I was on a very important call with the biggest bank in the world a week ago. And they wanted them empirically to know what was the one thing that's driving this unicorn. As Lauren said, it is a unicorn now. It is.

We're going to do $250 million in top line revenue next year for sure. upside to 350 million maybe. It's just magical, man. There's no other way to put it. Like if you walk around, you guys are in office, there's something there that you can't define, and it's not created by Durana or myself or Sherving. It's a team thing,

and everyone believes in one another. And more importantly, they live the life. It's not bullshit. They live the mission. What makes a good employee? Say someone's listening and they want to get hired. Character. I think attitude and aptitude.

Yeah. Oh. Less aptitude, more attitude. What do you mean? I think you can teach most employees anything and everything, but you can't teach someone to have a good attitude. And someone that has the attitude that's like, I'm going to show up here today,

and no matter what comes in front of us, we're going to fucking win. We're going to overcome whatever it is. You can't teach someone to have that kind of attitude, to have work ethic. I think, you know, so for me, I look at someone that has a great attitude and wants to be there.

When you're looking to promote people, what are the traits you're looking for? For me, it's someone that has their head down and is all about just getting the job done, who does their work with integrity, with passion? We're the underdogs, right? So, like, it feels like we're doing great, which we are. When you compare us against the biggest, baddest companies that we compete with, we're a little bitty, bitty, bitty company.

So, like, one of the main competitors that we have out there, our main competitor, raised almost a quarter billion dollars right last year, $250 million they raised. They spent $31 million this first quarter of this year, so January, February, March, $31 million just on TV ads. That's more money that we ever spent on marketing totality. So the type of person that's to work with us and our team has to have this attitude of no matter what the obstacles are, we're going to overcome them. Well, you shouldn't have told me that. I'll just have Danielle send you a bigger bill. So I have a lot of respect for our team.

Sometimes I'm humbled by these. You know, we have a lot of young guys, young folks. and it's the best thing that's happened to us because they don't, and they're going to watch this, so don't get mad at me when I say this. They don't know any better. Like,

they don't know they're not supposed to compete with this big, bad companies with $200, million. They're so freaking smart, man, and it's so passionate. And they have ideas that, you know,

we haven't heard or seen before, just brand new. And they're not afraid of do them. So, like, that's what's kicking this company in the next level, this group of young, amazing people.

When you guys work with, with a micro influencer or a macro influencer, what are you looking for? Because maybe there's people who are listening that really want to work with symbiotica. It's a very popular brand. What are the things that are like, okay, this is synergistic? For me, it's just them truly believing in our mission and our goal, and that is to get this in the hands of everyone so that they can live longer, healthier lives. So just them being authentic to their community and them being, and just living a healthy lifestyle. My biggest frustration is, I wish we could share. our customer testimonials, the ones that are really talking about what happened to the health

or their kids' health or their parents' health or their spouse's health. We've changed a lot of lives, man. And that when you, we've had meetings where people cry, like many of us who wind up crying in these meetings because we're reading this stuff. We can't repost them when we won't. But we read the stuff and it's overwhelming that we've helped be part of this. It's incredible. Before we go, we're going to play a game.

Oh, shit. God, I was so happy. I'm like, we're almost there. Lauren, they do anything crazy. We're almost going to go have a really great Brunello and a steak. I know. Hold, please. Before we go, we're going to play a game.

We're going to go around. This is not anything sexual. Don't worry. Your mom can still watch. Suspicious still. This isn't your favorite sex position. We're going to say, darn.

Gun to your head. That's your problem. That's your problem. Now you've instigated it. What's the favorite sexual sex? She's a doggy. Oh, doggy. God guys like doggy.

No, I said darn. I said darn. Oh. My head's in a different space. Okay. But yes. Maybe your mom can't listen anymore. Gun to your head.

You can only pick one. You can't pick more than one. Your favorite symbiotica product, but I also want Michael and I to participate. I'll go first. Yeah. My favorite. I love the glutathione when I'm drinking.

But you're going to be surprised. What I'm going to say is the lavender magnesium spray. Oh, shit. I know. You weren't expecting them. It's the worst. What? No, I'll tell you.

why, this sucks for me now because this is one of the very few times, Shavring got one on me, because he's like, his record is terrible. He's like $2.7 trillion. He really pushed for that. I'm like, this is not going to do well. And it's done great. So the fact that he's going to use this now, but thank you for pointing this out. He's going to leverage this.

Here is why I like it. It's multifaceted. So I use it at night before I go to sleep, which I love because it's relaxing and it's lavender and it's like really just a nice way to go to sleep. And I like to spray it on my neck. And I just, there's something about it that like winds me down in my nervous system. And I feel like I'm getting the magnesium through my bloodstream, which is we all need magnesium. We know that.

But I also like it because I've learned so much about what's in perfume, which is fucking disgusting. Go Google it. And so the next morning, I'll wake up and I'll use it before I go to the gym or like just, or if I'm like going to the supermarket or like something like super light because it's a little bit of a scent, but it's not overwhelming and it doesn't have all the shit in it. Yeah. It's one of a highest, like a third or fourth highest reviewed products. I love it.

People use them, love them. So I'm not super surprised you said that because everyone loves that. I sprayed all my kids. Like they love it. That's my favorite. Okay. No, gun to your head. You only pick one.

We know you have a hundred. So I told you guys earlier, when I travel, I slammed the elderberry and the vitamin C over and over. I forgot I got to do the silver now. So I'm going to do that. So I just name three. But I'm really into the magnesium three in it right now because I just, I got rid of all like sweeteners in the coffees. And so I used that.

I used that. And he uses it in his macho with raw milk. Yeah. And I use the macho. Yeah. So I feel like, I mean, listen, I've talked to Chervine so many times. And I'm not joking. When I talk about your company, I feel I say I'm like the best customer, even though I have a code and I use my own code.

But you know, I have my dad on it, my stepmom, my sister. But you know, also for our children, we have a routine now where every morning they say red and yellow. And that's the B12 and the D. And they get some squirts every morning. I say who wants red and yellow? And literally my 17-month-old goes me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Oh, it's the best. Really cute.

Okay, now you guys have to say yours. Mine's vitamin C. And just, I think it's beauty from within. So I love it. I love putting it in my water every single morning. I just slam it out of the pack. Is that like, no, that's good. I mean, it's supposed to do that way.

I like to just dilute it and put it into water. Dr. Dr.in is a way of, like, forcing her to drink water and have the vitamin C at the same time. Okay. I think the best product we make is not even closer to glue thy. Yeah, it's really good. It is the best glutathine on the head. I think if more people knew about gluteion and what it really does and how powerful it is,

we sell the crap out of it. But for good reason, but I think it's by far our best product. What does it do? Just if someone's a... I mean, it's the most important antioxidant detox you could possibly do. If you drink, like we do and we're about to... Like we've been during on the show? Yeah, we've...

You should have glutathione in your diet. And we don't... There's not enough food we can eat to supplement enough glutathione. It's a natural product. Before I started taking your glutathione, I used to just get the IV, but then now I now I really don't do that much anymore. Yeah. I just do the IVs important.

I just got one right before we came. Oh, I can't look. Yeah. I'd rather just take my symbiotic. I'm like, I'm going to see Lauren and Michael. I'm like, I need an IV preemptively. It's a preemptive IV. Just preparing for you.

I have to ask one more question to Durana just because she's glowing and she looks so pretty. Sorry, this has nothing to do with you too. What before you go, because this is the skinny confidential, you have to tell us beauty and wellness tip. You got to give it. Deity and wellness tips. Well, first I would say that, I feed my soul with really amazing people around me who I believe just, I'm always happy with

the incredible friends and family members that we have around us. We have healthy sex. I'm really big on like self-care, self-love. So I do my like light therapy. I'm really big. You and I spoke about this about getting my facials, hydrophacials, and then just, you know, eating in moderation. So for me. She's so disciplined though. She's lying, right? She's got so much more than that. We'll come back from like a late night out like 132 in the morning, I want to go straight to bed. She's got this 25 minutes skin routine that she won't like, like she won't ever miss it no matter what. Like I'm on my death pitch trying to go to sleep. Everything is spinning and she'll still do her skin routine. I mean, I wash my face every single night. I double cleanse morning, night.

So yeah, I mean, there's more to it. But I think the most important thing is just like feeding your soul with good people around you and having good intentions. I'm really big on philanthropy work. So I think that's part of like just my ecosystem of who I am and part of my own happiness. And then a big part of that is just, you know, creating experiences with my best friend over here. We do little getaways. So, you know, 23 years of marriage, we have our little getaways. And I love that. And we have a glass of wine every night.

So for me, like my happiness from like you may see the outside because I've got an amazing glam team that always is doing me up. but my true happiness glows from my best friend and my family. Yeah. Well, everyone can say why we wanted to have you guys on. I mean, could have talked for hours with you guys. We're going to keep talking.

We have to go have some Bernello and some glutathion. Where can everyone find you guys? Pimp yourself out. Do we have a code for the audience? Can we do Code Skinny? Whatever you guys want. So it's neat. And then can we put together a him and her package to one winner?

You got it? Whatever you guys love that. Okay. All you guys have to do is follow at Symbiotic on Instagram and tell us your favorite takeaway of this episode on my latest post at Lauren Bostic and where can everyone find both of you to message you to say hi. Pimp yourselves out. Tell us the website. Shahab Elmi. Okay. And I'm Durana Elmi. We're going to link it out anyway. We'll do one better. Whatever you guys want, whatever contests you run, we'll do one of your unlimited symbiotic of whatever they want.

Oh, that's a big one. Wait, I'm entering. You already got it. I got you. It looks like the winner's Michael Bostic. Okay, you guys. So someone gets a year supply of symbiotica to, enter this giveaway. You know what to do and use code skinny to shop. Like I said, get the freaking magnesium lavender spray. You will not be sorry. I personally am such a fan of these two people. I'm a fan of symbiotica. I use it every single day. I give it to my children. I mean, it's literally a dream partnership. And I just am so grateful to have met both of you and to have seen the office and just been like immersed in everything you guys are doing. And now that we've had you

guys on, but don't think this is going to be your last time. You're going to have to come back. No, I know. We could have talked about a lot of other things. I want to embarrass you guys before I let you guys go. The one thing that really impressed me about you two of all the experience that we had was at the beach. Two gals are walking. The amount of champagne we had. Beyond that. Two girls were walking by multiple times. They finally came up to Lauren. I'm not going to, I don't want to give a lot of detail, but one of them had fought cancer. You guys were great inspiration. And you spent like 30 minutes talking to him and you were so engaged and that it really made me happy to see you seriously. Because when you have a platform and a bunch of people watch you guys and look up to you guys and they get to meet you and you actually, you're organic and spend time and energy with them, it was freaking awesome to see. Well, we just normally we have a big stick and we hit them when they come near.

Yeah, I was expecting that. And then all of a sudden it was different. I mean, listen, I think like, you know, well, thank you for saying that. But I think Lauren and I like realized like we have this platform, but like we were given this platform by people that are interested in hearing what we have to say and who we have to talk to. So it's like it's not lost on us that this is not like, you know, there's a participation from us, but this was given to us by people that, you know, have decided that they want to put their trust in what we're saying. So we appreciate it. I also think what Shab's saying is amongst the success you guys have had, you guys have never lost who you are. Like you're still authentic to the day one,

Michael and Lauren. Yeah, what's what's really cool for us to see is we meet a lot of people and we're just like, you know, it's like at the end of the day we're all still human beings, right? That's like the connection that we all have. People, Lornell says, like, you never want to read your own press clippings. And I think that's very true. Because I didn't say that. But yeah. I adhered to that.

But it's true. You can't read. By the way, negative or positive. Also, you know, and you guys know this, I think as soon as you start believing the hype is when you're going to start to slow it down. It's a wrap. It's a wrap. It's a wrap. Yeah.

It's a wrap. Yeah. Guys, come back anytime. I can't wait to see what you guys are going to do in the future. It's going to be a real fucking roller coaster. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. Appreciate.