The Nick Bare Podcast - 054: Moving Back Into the CEO Role | A Founder’s Journey

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

In this week’s episode, I am proud to announce I am moving back to Austin and stepping into the CEO role again. I’m pulling the curtain back and telling the whole story of what has led us to this decision. 2023 was full of challenges and lessons learned, but I am more energized than ever to have BPN show up as our unapologetic, authentic self in 2024 and beyond. Enjoy! Save 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio Follow for more:  IG: https://www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/@nickbarefitness Topics: 0:00 Intro 0:32 Welcome 4:53 BPN Manifesto 8:44 Where we are now 15:05 The background story 24:23 The process we’ve endured 34:39 We got ahead of ourselves 40:31 When the deal fell through 52:15 My key takeaways 56:19 Entrepreneurship 59:35 The next chapter

In today's episode of the podcast, I am sharing my entrepreneurial journey of these last 12 months. These last 12 months have been the hardest, most challenging months of building a business since I started in 2012. And I'm proud and excited to announce that I am back in the CEO seat of Bear Performance Nutrition. You know, the main reason I want to record this, podcast is to share my experience as a founder, as an entrepreneur. Growing up and bootstrapping a business, I didn't know what was ahead of me. I didn't know what the business world, what the startup world, what the entrepreneur lifestyle truly did look like.

I thought I did, but I didn't. And with each additional year that I pour my heart and soul into this business, I learn more and more and more. And in these past 12 months, I've learned more about the business side of building a business, not necessarily brand or creative, but business business. I've learned more in these past 12 months than I have in the last, last 12 years. It has been a first class ticket, front row seat to another stage of entrepreneurship.

And I feel the responsibility to share this with you guys. It is vulnerable. It is real. It is something that would be really easy for me not to share. And to be honest, it is hard to share because it has brought some hardship and struggle. And I have felt weak in the process, but I've grown so much from it. And I want to share that with you guys, especially for these young entrepreneurs that are listening to this podcast or who follow me on social media. Because if I would have known some of this stuff or been exposed to the business side of business as I was building BPN,

I potentially could have saved a lot of time, money, energy, emotions, all of the things. And another reason I want to share this story of the past 12 months of my life, me, my family, and BPN as a whole, is because I want to set the record straight. because in this podcast episode, I am announcing that I am moving back in. I have moved back into the CEO role of bare performance nutrition, which I am extremely excited about. I'm very proud. I'm very excited.

I haven't had this much creative energy since, honestly, 2019. And my family and I are moving back to Texas. We've been in Nashville almost six months now, and we did think this was going to be our forever home. But things change. Life throws you curveball sometimes, and the only thing you can do is sit back on that right leg, wait for that pitch to come in and swing. You adapt, you pivot. That is what life is all about. So I want to share my journey and story with you guys to set the record straight because I know what could happen is I announce I'm coming back as the CEO, me and my family are moving to Texas, rumor spread, the right story isn't shared and assumptions are made.

So that's why I want to put it all on there and share with you guys. But with that being said, I am back in the CEO role of Bayer Performance Nutrition after taking one year away from that role. And thankfully, I'm very grateful and appreciative that Kat Thomas served as our CEO for that year. Extremely helpful. And again, very grateful for everything Kat has done for the business. But now it's time for me to move back as the chief executive officer of, BPN. My family and I are going back to Texas. And what's crazy is I get chills about this. On December 21st, 2003, I posted this manifesto on my Instagram account. And a few days before that,

I typed up this manifesto and I shared it with the entire organization, the employees, the staff of BPN. And on December 21st, 2003, I did not plan, anticipate, or expect to be moving my family back to Texas or be the CEO of BPN again. But the manifestation of this manifesto gives me chills because of where I'm at right now and what we're about to do and the energy that I have going into this next chapter. And I'll read this for you. Again, December 21st, 2023. 2004 is going to be different. This is the year we show up as our true, authentic, unapologetic self. It's how BPN started.

And it's how we were built. You can't buy brand, story, mission, or vision. It has to be created. It's forged through hardship. It's born by toughness. We fuel performance. We fuel individuals through training, supplements, nutrition, education, content, motivation, and by showing them how to be tough.

Real toughness is not about callous bravado, but instead about the ability to navigate difficulty with grace and an unwavering focus on what matters. We have changed lives, transformed from rock bottom. That is the power of going more. It has saved people from their lowest of lows, And that responsibility should not be taken lately. I'm not here to follow a blueprint or build a business based off of what has been done before.

I'm here to pave a path or pioneers. We lead from the front. Trailblazers. Let's take everything we learned in 2003, the good and the bad, the wins and the losses. Let's learn from all of it as we enter 2024. If you're on this team, you better be here to win. because we're not going to try and be the best. If we're not going to try and be the best,

we shouldn't be doing it at all. It feels good to win. It feels good to chase down your wildest dreams and aspirations, and it feels even better to do it as a team. If at any point you are lost, confused, misguided, or unmotivated, I encourage you to raise your hand. Ask for help. We cannot be the best by operating through independent silos.

It's time to row the boat in the same drive. direction with the support of each other to build the best brand BPN can be. Be tough. Be tough. Go one more. I get chills thinking of that manifesto I posted on December 21st, 2003 because I did not know what early February of 2004 was going to look like. But this is where I started to really regain some.

of my creative energy and juice and passion and purpose and just energy behind everything I was doing. I shared that in late December. And again, I get chills thinking about where we are, where I'm at, and what this next chapter of BPN has the opportunity to achieve. So to give a little background. I stepped down from the CEO role in December of 2022. And we announced in early January of 2003 that I was going to be moving from the CEO into a founder slash chief creative officer role with the main intent of focusing on brand amplification and awareness. And at the time, Kat Thomas was our chief revenue officer. And she was mainly focused on operations and optimization of business processes.

And Kat and I had a conversation and we decided that she was the best person to move into the CEO role of the business. So that's what we did. We handed over the CEO role for myself to Kat. I moved into a chief creative officer role and that's where I thought I was supposed to be. Now, I'll be honest with you. One of the reasons I, there are a few reasons that we decided to make this transition.

One, when Kat started working for BPN, I realized just how talented she is. From an operator to a pre-properator to a previous founder, an entrepreneur, a leader, an athlete. I mean,

cat is a stud. So it made sense when she started working for BPN that she had amazing opportunity to be the CEO of this organization.

And I also started to, I don't want to say lose trust in myself, but I lost some confidence. I, for some reason, told myself at this point that I got BPN to a certain point, a certain revenue mark, a certain level of success. But I didn't have the skill.

I didn't have the talent. I didn't have the experience. I didn't have the ability to take BPN to the next level that we were trying to get to. And I don't know why I didn't have that confidence myself, but that's what ended up happening. and I just assumed that it was time. And I think I was given some advice from some mentors who potentially misguided me,

but I was the one that ended up making the decision at the end of the day. And I thought it was just natural for me as the founder to step back, focus on other parts of the business, which is very typical for a lot of founders, hire a CEO, and then work with that CEO, to build a business. Me as the visionary,

CAT CEO as the integrator. And it worked very well for a long time. And I will tell you, the entrepreneurial journey, for those of you who are on this journey with me, alongside of me, the entrepreneurial journey is wild, to say the least.

You never know where it's going to take you. You never know exactly what's going to happen. Each day, week, month, year chapter of your organization is different. It's exciting. It's challenging. It is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. It's the most rewarding thing, or at least one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done in my entire life.

It has become most of, a majority of my life. ounce out of my family, being a husband, being a father. There are the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. And I wouldn't trade it for anything. So this past year, this past 12 months for me, has been the wildest part of this ride. And I'm about to give you a lot of context.

I'm about to bring you in to the full, of what happened in this past year. Mostly good things, some interesting things, but I'll be honest, I am nervous to share some of this because it didn't work out in the way that I thought it was going to work out.

Which is nothing wrong with that. Sometimes having expectations or sticking to strictly enrigid to a plan will leave you disappointed. Because one of my favorite things, one of my favorite quotes is that you make a plan and God laughs.

And I find that pretty funny. But before we dive into the full context of these past 12 months, I do want to thank Kat Thomas for leading BPN over these last 12 plus months as a chief executive officer of bare performance nutrition. I am so grateful, appreciative, proud of everything Kat did for BPN. But it is now time. It is now the right time for

me to move back into that position. And I'm grateful that Kat and I could have a really understanding conversation about that. And I'm excited for this next part of the entrepreneurial journey. So here we go. Let me take you back to the end of 2022. Let me just paint you a picture, provide some context. By the end of 2022, I had reached complete burnout. And I thought many times before this that I reached burnout, but in reality, I was just

overwhelmed, overworked, tired. But now in retrospect, I can say end of 2022, I was burnt out. And I was burnt out for most of 2023. I didn't necessarily slow down. I didn't stop. I mean, if you look at 2003, a lot happened. We did a lot. Competed in a bodybuilding competition,

ran the last man standing race in Pineland Farm's Maine, PR'd my marathon at CIM with a two-hour, 39 minutes, Marathon, PR, moved my family in a small team from Texas to Nashville, Tennessee, set up our office here. We relaunched the podcast under the Nick Bear podcast, which was previously the Bear Performance podcast. My daughter has reached 18 months of age. We did a lot in, in 2023.

but I was burnt out. And I was running on fumes. And even though I was running on fumes, I kept pushing and pushing and pushing. And that made me potentially make some wrong decisions or not so wise decisions that I normally would have navigated differently. But here I was, you know,

10 plus years into bootstrapping a business and Charlie was born around this time frame, which rocked my world in all the right ways. It put life into perspective. I realized I didn't want to work as much as I once was working. I also realized how much I was working. I realized how much I was neglecting my wife, Steph, from working so much.

But when Charlie was born, my eyes just opened up. to the way that I was approaching life, the way that I was approaching family. And I tried to balance full-time entrepreneur, CEO, new dad, husband, leader of an organization, leader of a family, content creator. And it just became a lot for me.

And I just, I was burning the candle at both ends and I burnt out pretty hard. And that is where I was at the end of 2022. The only way to describe is it was a really tough place. Now, relative to some of the struggles that other people in the world are going through, I understand that to put it into perspective and relative to other people's hardships,

You know, it is what it is. This was something that was self-inflicted and could have been fixed and solved, potentially in other ways, but I just didn't navigate it the right way, I guess. So I burnt out around this time. And as the founder of a company, all of your net worth is tied up in the company. and the only way to monetize in a meaningful way is through some type of liquidity event. And I didn't understand this when I first started a business.

I don't think a lot of people understand this when they start or think about starting a business. But you start a business because of pure passion in most cases or because you see an opportunity. And I identified both. I had and still had, just as much, maybe even more, passion for sports, nutrition, the supplement industry, fitness, health, helping people, mission-driven products, fueling performance.

I also saw an opportunity in the market where I could start something, which was BPN out of my college apartment in 2012, which then scaled to what it is. today. And you just put in the work, whatever is required to build over and over again, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. You just keep hammering it in. And I could do that the rest of my life because I love it. I truly love it. And to be honest, I don't have to get paid to do it because I love it that much. I'm being dead on a serious. I love building BPN. But my life did. change when I started a family and felt that responsibility and wanted to be home more,

wanted to be present when I was home, didn't want to be pulled into meetings and emails and hard conversations all the time that was distracting me away from my wife and my daughter. That's where I was. So I started thinking about the future of where I thought I wanted to be and how I could position me and my family in a way to achieve those things. Because as the organization grows, so does the demand of the people, the leadership, the founder, the CEO.

It becomes more demanding as it grows. So like I said, as a founder of a company, all of your net worth. As a company grows, the value of that company grows as well. But you can't change. just keep taking money out of the business because that puts the business in a compromised position. And just because a business and organization has enterprise value doesn't mean that is liquid.

Liquid meaning like your bank account, that is cash. That is liquid. You can take that money out. You can spend it on whatever you want. You can go buy a house. You can go on vacation, get new clothes. but when a business has a value associated with it, that doesn't mean that if your business is worth $100 million,

your business has $100 million in the bank, for example. So there's no liquidity there where you can just pull from at any given time. And the only way, as a founder of an organization, a private company, to get liquidity is to sell a portion of that company or the entire thing. You'll see people do mergers and acquisitions. Sometimes you'll hear of minority investments or majority investments, private equity, venture backed, venture funds, VCs. You may have heard of all these terms thrown out and so did I growing up.

know what any of it meant. So as I started to explore the options to get liquidity, I learned that there's a few different ways you can do it. The concepts are few, the methods are many. And after sitting down with my leadership team and some lawyers, we decided it was time to run a process. and if you've heard me in the last year talking about endure a process, what's so interesting is that as I've been talking about endure a process,

we as a business were running a process. And the way that endure the process came about is Chad Wright was on the podcast. And he talked about enduring a process. And I'm thinking as I'm talking to Chad, wow, this is very applicable to me right. now. So I'll explain what a process is. This is what we ended up doing to get me as the founder some liquidity, but stay involved in the business and take it to the next level. So we hired an investment bank. That investment bank came in and we interviewed a bunch of different investment

bankers. And we finally chose one investment bank and they help you run a process as a business. They come in, they do their due diligence on the business, gather materials, put together a data room, organize everything in the business. You do consumer studies, you clean up all your financial statements, make sure T's are crossed, eyes are dotted, you put together a bunch of presentation decks,

and then you go pitch all that information to potential investors. So we went and we pitched a bunch of private equity groups. And the goal, through this process, and the reason they call it a process is because

there's all these steps You know, you go to this investment banker, you say, I want to sell a part of my business. They launched the process. The process is long. It is drawn out. It is complicated. It feels like forever. And I've learned at the end of it, they call it a process for a reason because you got to endure it to make it through.

So we hire this investment bank. They helped us put everything together. They've been this through. the same thing with hundreds, if not thousands of other companies for years and years and years. And the goal with selling part of the business, selling some of my equity, was to bring on a minority partner, meaning that I was still going to own majority of the business, but we were going to bring on a minority partner. I was going to take some chips off the table, so to speak.

So I was going to sell part of my equity based off of a valuation that was placed on our business. And I would be able to have a liquidity event selling part of my equity and getting some money for the business that I was built. That that I built. So minority partner. That's what we were looking for. Not majority. I still wanted to own majority of the business. Take some chips off the table.

we wanted to put some money on BPN's balance sheet for growth opportunities. So when private equity or investment comes in, there's primary and secondary capital. Primary goes to the business. Sometimes when a private equity or investor comes in, all the money goes to primary, meaning that all the money goes to the business's balance sheet for growth opportunities. we wanted to put some money into primary for BPN's balance sheet and then some of that money being secondary going to the founder or shareholders of an organization. And we wanted to align with a strategic partner to help us get to the next level. So it was not just the fact that I wanted to have a liquidity event, but also all these other.

goals of we wanted a partner, a partner who had experience in direct-to-consumer and retail consumer brands that could bring in their firepower, their knowledge, their experience to help us avoid making the wrong decisions and help us or help facilitate making the right decisions to help us grow and avoid mistakes in that process. So there were a lot of goals. There were a lot of reasons for running a process with an investment bank in the hopes of aligning

with a strategic private equity partner. And like I said, they called a process for a reason. So what happens is you start working with this investment banking group. You put together all the materials. You then go and pitch or have conversations with these

these groups, these people. And it starts with a wide net and you essentially are speed dating. I mean, we went to, Kat and I went to a few meetings out in LA where you literally sit at a table the entire day and private equity groups

spend 20 minutes of time with you. And one group sits down with you. You have a conversation with 20 minutes, they get up, move to the next table. Another group comes in, sits down, talks to you for 20 minutes. They get up, move to the other table. This one day I remember in LA, we probably went through 20 groups in a day. It was a long day. And this room was freezing. And I remember Kat and I were starving midway through this speed dating round with private equity groups. and one of the groups was a no-show.

So we had like 20 minutes and we sprinted out of this room, went and found food, stuffed our faces with as much food as possible, got back to the table for the next group. I'll never forget that. And after you do this speed dating round, there's attrition in groups.

Some of these groups are interested in your business. Some are not. Some of these groups you are interested in partnering with. Some of you are, are not. So some move to the next round based off of their preference and your preference. You have more conversations. And then IOWIs come across, which is an informal bid saying this is where we value your business and this is what we want to invest. This is the amount of equity that we

want to assume. This is how we would loosely structure it. And then from there, you choose a few those groups that you are further interested in. And then LOIs come across, which is a more formal type of intent of saying, hey, we are now super serious in investing in your business. Here's kind of the structure. And you end up meeting with these groups one-on-one for one to three days. So for weeks, we were having dinners every night with these private equity groups. And we'd spend days with them getting to know them.

They would get to know us. We'd go and run together. We'd work out together. It was like that next step of dating. So, you know, that first speed dating around, I think I like you a little bit. Some fall off. Some keep going. So you take the dating to the next round and you're having dinner with these people.

You're having them over to your house. You're meeting their family. they're meeting your family. You know, it just keeps moving forward to eventually where you go exclusive with one potential partner. And there's this deep level of due diligence where they're now really diving deep into the business trying to just wrap their head around everything, the good, the bad, the ugly, the present, the past, the future.

I mean, it is like a deep dive. If they're reaching out to your old employers, your old employees, they're doing background checks on everyone in the business. They're going through the financial statements of the last couple of years. They're expecting budgets for retail and D to C in the next one, three, five, ten years out. I mean, it's deep level due diligence. And then from there, the legal documents start being drafted. So over this last 12 months, that is the process that we were in.

And what's so funny is before we went into, not funny, but what's so interesting, I should say, is when we first kicked off this process with the investment bank that we decided to work with, they warned us they said now this is going to be a long process and if it is successful at the end it will be worth it for everyone but we'll be honest with you it is a huge distraction

to the business because you as the leadership team are not only operating and building a business but you're essentially working a second full-time job which is dedicated to the process. It's meeting these groups. It's answering their requests.

It's taking the time away from the business to spend with them. And we were like, yeah, it won't be that bad. I mean, we're highly effective type A driven individuals and a strong leadership team. It won't break us. It broke us. It broke us. It was a tough year.

running a process was brutal. But I wanted to provide that context into what has kind of, everything I'm sharing is hopefully painting a picture of where I'm at right now moving back into the CEO role and my family moving back to Texas. So in the late summer of 2003, we are getting really close to wrapping up this private equity deal. And it was going to be a minority investment in the business. Like I said, some money going to primary, most of going to secondary.

We aligned with a strategic partner. It felt really good. It was on track. We were on pace. We are really pumped about the potential of partnering with a, reputable private equity group that was going to help us get to the next level. And this is where I made a decision that might not have been the smartest that I'm now owning in this current time.

I got ahead of myself. And a few weeks ago, I shared this lesson that is very applicable to this story. right here. I said, just because you endure a process doesn't guarantee a successful outcome. Just because you endure a process doesn't guarantee a successful outcome. I assumed I thought that the deal was a done deal based off of where we were in the late summer of 2003. That was the ignorance to my inexperienced entrepreneurial journey. And I should have known better because everyone told me,

deal's not done until wires are sent and documents are signed. So I was like, all right, I'm a forward thinker, backwards planner. We're going to do this private equity deal. I'm going to sell some of my equity. We're going to bring on the strategic partner. And then we're back to building and we're going to blow this thing up. We're just going to explode. So I'm already forward thinking backwards planning.

All right. What does this look like for me and my family? Me and Steph have always wanted to move to Nashville. When I met Steph in 2017, she was living in Nashville. We're both from up north. We love the seasons. We want to be closer to family. We saw this as an opportunity to make this move.

I was now at this point out of the CEO role in the business, just focused on brand amplification and awareness. So we decided to move to Nashville, bring a small creative team, and secure a foothold in Middle Tennessee. and start exploring business opportunities with BPN here, here in Nashville. I saw it as a creative reset, new opportunities, time and space for clarity in this next chapter. And to be honest, I really didn't know what it was going to look like, but I was very optimistic.

Because as I told you, the first half of 2023, I was really burnt out. And towards the summer of 2003, I started to regain some of this energy. And it's because I was out of the CEO role of the business for, you know, about six months. And I was just focused on more creative content, awareness, working with the brand team. So it felt like the right time to move to Nashville and get ready for the business. this next chapter of BPN. I got ahead of myself. And like I said, just because you endure a process does not guarantee a successful outcome.

And at this point, to give some context, back in Texas, the BPN team was doing well. They were crushing. Obviously felt the demands from not only the business growth, but in full transparent, everyone felt the demands of the process and the due diligence requests and stress of trying to get this deal across the finish line before the end of 2020. And once fall hit, fall of 2023 hit, there started to be some signs that the deal wasn't moving in the right direction based off of things that we wanted, as the company based off of things that the private equity group wanted as the investor. And we anticipated this. We were warned going to the process, the closer you get to the finish line,

being that docs are signed, wires are funded, partnership is official. The closer you get to completing that process, the harder it gets, the more stressful it gets. So people start asking for things they normally want to ask for. People start showing some of their true colors that they didn't show, maybe the weeks and months leading up to. And it gets very challenging towards the end. So days before, I went and ran the California International Marathon,

where my goal was to run sub two hours and 45 minutes. I got a call. It was a late-night call from our managing director of the investment bank that we were working with. It was around 10 p.m. And he called me and he let me know that the deal fell apart. It wasn't going to be moving forward. We were not going to get it across the finish line, at least in the near future. Potentially, we could revisit months down the road.

but as of right now, the way they was worded was pencils down back to work. So I had a long conversation with the managing director of our investment bank and then ended up hop on and call with the partners of the private equity group that we were working with very closely the last couple months. And it was a very productive, professional, and candid conversation. And what ended up happening without going to too many details is that the deal got very complex and heavily structured, not in the best interest or favor of ourselves, BPN, or the investors, this private equity group. So the deal kind of just, it fell apart. Days before I went and ran the California International Marathon.

And as I've told this story to people close to me in my life, I haven't publicly shared this. We didn't publicly share it while we were going through the process in 2023. I just wanted to have been right, fair, or professional for anyone involved. But people have asked me the question, like, how did you feel when you got that call? All the work that you and the team put in this past year through this process for all to fall. apart, especially to fall apart days before going to run this marathon. And to be honest, yes, it was disappointing.

But I wasn't angry. I wasn't sad. I wasn't frustrated because I knew based off the way that the deal was getting structured, neither party was going to be happy with the outcome that we were working towards. and what's so interesting, I find at least, is that this past year is where I've really leaned into my faith and worked on building a relationship with God. In this past year, I would argue,

has been the most challenging year of my life. So what it feels like is that I went to God and said, God, I want to build my relationship with you. I want to deepen my faith. and he said, okay, well, I'm going to test you then. I'm going to test your faith. That's what it feels like. So when I was having this conversation with our managing director, 10 p.m. at night,

I actually felt at peace. I felt at peace having faith that the deal wasn't working out potentially for a better reason than it would have, if it it would have worked out. Maybe it was protecting me from something. Maybe it was saving me from something in the future. And now as I sit here a few months after the deal fell apart, I am very happy with the outcome. I am very proud of the outcome.

I'm also very proud of all the work that we put in through this process and what we learned. Because like I said in the beginning of this episode, I learned more in these past 12 months about the business side of business compared to the previous 12 years of building BPN. It has been extremely rewarding. Disappointing that you put in

a lot of work and especially work that is a distraction to growing an organization, the business, and the people. Yes, that is frustrating in its own way. But I'm not angry about the deal not happening. I'm not angry about all the things that I was exposed to and learned through this process.

And I believe that it didn't happen for a reason. But what a learning experience. Like, holy crap. Talk about getting thrown into the deep end with, center blocks tied to your feet and ankles and then saying float and swim. That's what it felt like. But towards the back half of this process wrapping up, I mean, it became more demanding, not just on myself, but the leadership team and the business as a whole. And the schedule got absolutely wild, where when we first engaged the, the investment, banking group and then went exclusive with this private equity group, it was one call a week

to two calls a week, to three calls a week, to calls every day, to calls multiple times a day. And at the peak of the craziness, it was calls at 7 a.m., calls at 11 p.m., calls on the weekends, calls during date night, calls during dinner, calls on the way to dinner, calls during concerts, during bath time that weren't planned or scheduled. It was just very reactive conversations of fighting fires and blocking and tackling in order to move the process forward. I mean, I vividly remember being at a concert with Steph. It was shortly after we got to Nashville.

It was at the Ryman. It was a Warden Ziders concert. And we were super excited about this concert because Warden Ziders is, is actually from where I grew up in the area code being 717. So if you ever see him playing concerts and he's wearing a 717 hat, that was my area code in central Pennsylvania growing up, which is where he's from. And we're at this concert.

And while we're at this concert, it was actually the peak of not just my marathon bill, but also the process. And I was in and out of this concert the entire time because there were calls coming across from the investment bank, from the private equity group from lawyers

and I was in and out of this concert constantly and that's just how demanding the process became especially towards the end of it

so deal fell apart in my opinion retrospectively looking at this entire process and the last year as a whole,

best decision for both parties. I can honestly say that. But I went into the California International Marathon with a different type of motivation, a different type of energy. I knew I was going to run sub 245. But when I fell into a groove at a 605 minute per mile pace,

with all the things that were going on through my head this past year, the past couple days, and being on this, this road, peak marathon condition, just letting 605 miles rip felt really good. And across the finish line, under two hours and 40 minutes, given everything that happened in the days leading up to, I was extremely happy. I was extremely proud. That's why I, If you watch back some of the content that we have following that marathon, as soon as I finished the race, I just kept looking to the guys and saying,

I'm so proud of this one. I'm so proud of this one. And yes, it was because of the work that went into the marathon build and the marathon prep, but also just the challenge of what 2023 was for me and the team and the business and my family. And crossing that finish line at two hours and 39 minutes felt like so much more than just a two hour and 39 minute marathon. It was all that I experienced and learned in that entire year, not just in those 12 plus weeks of marathon prep itself.

So after me and the team kind of got together after this deal fall apart, we said, what's next? And the answer from everyone in the room was we're back to building. Next day, after we found out the deal wasn't happening and there was no liquidity event, no investors coming in, we all were like, we're back on track. The distraction from building and operating the business is now gone and we're back to building, and baby. Back to building. Now, as I mentioned, one of our goals, or a few of our goals, running a process, was to bring on a minority partner for myself to have some type of liquidity event, take some chips off the table, put some money on BPN's balance sheet for growth opportunities,

and align with a strategic partner to help us get to that next level. We didn't achieve those goals that we set out for in this process. But I learned and took away so much more than those goals that we set out to achieve. I've told the team internally of this, and I've mentioned this a few times on podcast and on social media. I have more creative energy right now than I have had in the last. four years. I haven't felt this type of passion and energy and just desire to go since 2019. And what happened in 2019 between 2019 and 2020 is we grew 400%. I feel like, and I can honestly say

this, I feel like I have the energy right now that I had in 2019 before we experienced. a huge growth season, growth chapter. And my key takeaways of going through this process are that I am more capable than I once thought and you don't have to outsource everything. We're all trying to figure it out. No one is any smarter or better than you. They may have more experience,

they may have more repetitions at doing something, but it doesn't mean that they are better than you. And I learned that I am more capable than I once thought. One of the reasons that I stepped down from the CEO role in the beginning was that I lacked the confidence in my ability to get the business to the next level. I now have that. I've gained that through this experience. Second key takeaway is to be careful who you take advice from. This is not just applicable to business, but but all aspects in areas of life. Third key takeaway is that blueprints are bullshit.

There is not one way to do something. Concepts are few, methods are many. My fourth key takeaway was that I love leading people. When I stepped down from the CEO role, and then when we moved from Texas to Nashville, there was a, a hole that I could not fill. And I tried everything and anything to fill that hole. And I could not figure it out.

Something was missing. And I started just thinking back to when I was most fulfilled in, in areas of my life in the past 10 years. And I thought back to when I was in the Army. When I was an infantry platoon leader, leading 40 soldiers and non-commissioned officers, you know, I loved serving the army, not because we got to shoot crazy weapon systems or because of all the training that we did. But it was because I loved leading people.

I loved being a part of a team of selfless individuals who were, fighting and serving for a mission, a cause, and were so bought into that mission, I loved that. That's what I loved about the Army. That's what I loved about building BPN in the early days, was finding people who wanted to join the team to fight to win for a cause, a purpose, a mission. That's what I loved in the beginning. that's what I loved about building out the team. And when I stepped down from the CEO role,

a part of me died, a big part of me that needed that leadership experience or opportunity was gone. And I missed it significantly. And the last key takeaway from this whole experience that I had a long conversation with, with my wife and the team and Kat and Josh, my brother, was that we have to move back to Texas.

We have to be close to the business. I have to put myself in a position to lead the team that I love, the business that I spent the last 12 years building. And I've poured my heart and soul into If I have learned anything from building a business, it's that entrepreneurship is all about problem solving. You're constantly trying to solve problems. That's what I've been doing since I first got started.

That's what I've been doing or trying to do in this past year. And I've made decisions that have been good decisions, right decisions. I've made decisions that have been the wrong decisions that haven't resulted in success or a win. But what we have to do is be decisive, take action, make decisions, and then learn from the outcomes, learn from the consequences,

and then pivot, adapt, try again. That's all. of what entrepreneurship is all about. That's all of what making progress is all about. And I'm here to take ownership for a lot of the things that happened in this past year. I thought, honestly, I thought that I was making all the right choices and decisions. And maybe I was.

Maybe they were all the right decisions. maybe all of the decisions that I and we made as a team have put us right here, right now, today, in this moment, for all the right reasons. But you'll never know. All you know is how to react and overcome and what decision you are making next to be a problem solver. and that's where I'm at right now. And what I knew we had to do as a family, as a team, is we had to move back to Texas. And I had to put myself back in the CEO role.

And that was a long, hard conversation with Kat. But we both decided a mutual agreement that that was what was best for both of us. And that's what was best for the business. I am so grateful again for Kat and her least. leadership and our mentorship and all the work she did with and for BPN this past year. I am so grateful for that because my ability to step away for a little bit and regain clarity and regain energy and come back ready at a energy and ability, but I haven't been able to since 2019, I'm so grateful for Kat's assistance with all of that.

But now as me and my family prepared to move back to Texas, and I'm back in the CEO role, I'm ready. I'm hungry. I'm excited for this next chapter. And here's some of the things I'm taking into this next chapter. Again, that I've learned in this past year, and that I'm going to reinforce moving into my future. One, it's trust your gut and your intuition.

The longer you do something, the longer you have been doing something, your gut, your intuition becomes calibrated. Lean into that. The second is that there's no right way to do something. The concepts are few, but the methods are many. You will hear me say that line many times over the course of this next year. Simplify, focus. For me, brand, product, people.

You know, a few years ago, actually now, I had the opportunity to stand with Ben Francis, who is the founder and CEO of Jim Shark. At one point, Ben stepped down from the CEO role and hired a CEO. And that CEO operated for a period of, of time. And then Ben jumped back in and put himself back in the CEO role.

And I had the opportunity to sit down with Ben a few years ago. And he told me something I'll never forget. He said to simplify the focus of building a business and there's three things that if you invest in, you will never go wrong. brand, product, and people. The fourth thing that I'm taking to this next chapter is at the moment you try to be something for everyone, you become nothing for anyone.

When I stepped away from an operating role in BPN for a few months, I stopped providing the vision for the team and the business that they required to be successful. I failed the team in that way. As the visionary, as the founder, it was and is my responsibility to speak vision and speak vision frequently and loudly.

And when there's no vision coming from the founder, the visionary, it is really hard for people and departments to operate with clarity, direction, and purpose. And the BPN brand started to try to be something for everyone. And in an attempt to try to be something for everyone, we became nothing for anyone. Now it's time for BPN to be unapologetically us. It's how we started the brand.

It's how we built the brand. It's getting back to that. And the fifth thing I'm taking into this next chapter is that tribes are built by shared beliefs and values, not irresistible offers. Just finished reading a book called For the Culture. And for the culture studies, brands, businesses, churches, communities. What makes them successful? What makes people want to join a tribe or a community or a congregation is not based

off of this irresistible offer. Come get this for free. Come save this amount of money. Come get this discount. Irresistible offers don't build brand. They attract sales. Building a brand, building a tribe is about identifying your beliefs, your values, sharing that with the world.

And the people, the consumers, the groups, the communities, the communities, that align with those beliefs and values will opt to join your tribe, will opt to join your brand. Brands, tribes are built by shared beliefs and values, not irresistible offers. So here I am today. It is the middle of February, 2004, after being out of the CEO seat for a little over a year, I'm back. My family and I are moving back to Texas with the team that we have here in Nashville. We're closing down the office here in Nashville, moving back to HQ. I am proud. I am excited. I am more energized than I have been in a long, long time. And this experience that I had in this past year was insightful. It was rewarding. It was challenging. It was emotional.

It was all of the things. But I needed that. I needed that to regain the clarity and focus of what I needed to do next, where the brand needed to move and go and adapt and pivot and how we're going to show up in 2024 and beyond unapologetically BPN. is our true and authentic self.