The Rich Roll Podcast - Shattering Wellness Elitism: Gunnar Lovelace’s Mission to Make Healthy Food Affordable For Everyone

Episode Date: November 2, 2015

Who has time for ‘wellness'? I'm just trying to pay the bills. I would love to eat healthy, but I simply can't afford it. When it comes to great food – plant-based or otherwise — the common refrain is that its either too expensive, inconvenient or simply unavailable. Often it's all of the above. Although I often rebut several myths that swirl around these arguments, it’s undeniable that there is much truth in these assertions. Whole Foods has earned the moniker Whole Paycheck for a reason. If we want to truly redress our health care problems, we need to lay ruin to the elitism that so unfortunately undermines populist accessibility to optimal nutrition. In order to achieve this end, we must disrupt traditional supply chain methods. Combat special interests that entrench the status quo. Eliminate overpaid middle men. And leverage forward-thinking innovation to improve access, convenience and affordability to healthy food beyond the well healed for those who need it most — everyone. Gunnar Lovelace to the rescue. Yes, that is his real name. A life-long wellness advocate reared on a true-to-life commune by a single mom, Gunnar inherited his passion for health, yoga, mindfulness and expanded consciousness at birth — long before it became a zeitgeist thing.  Gunnar and I go way back. Years before my personal transformation. I still vividly recall our initial meeting when he walked into my law office in 2000 to discuss representation of his venture of the moment, GoodLife – an early internet socially conscious Yelp. On his feet were sandals. In his hand? A large mason jar filled with a mysterious and murky green sludge. What is that? Who brings something like that to a meeting with a lawyer? My very first glimpse of what I did not know at the time would later become a staple of my life. Well ahead of its time, GoodLife fell victim to the dot-com bubble of the early aughts. But a long-lasting friendship survived. A serial entrepreneur, now Gunnar is back and on to something big — very big — as the founder and co-CEO of a new business that represents a seismic shift in affordable access to healthy food — Thrive Market. The digital love child of Costco and Whole Foods, Thrive is a direct to consumer, online shopping club platform that offers over 4,000 of best, healthiest, most popular natural and organic food brands in the world, but at a staggering 25-50% off typical retail prices, shipped anywhere in the United States for free. How do they do it? By eliminating all the aforementioned middle men — the brokers, slotting fees and pay-to-play that is endemic in the food industry — and passing that savings along to members. In addition, for every paid membership to Thrive ($60 / year), they give a free membership to a low income family, a teacher, or a military vet. Although founded less than two years ago, Thrive is growing incredibly fast. Beyond notable seed investors like Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra, this past summer they closed a $30M Series A round of venture funding led by Greycroft with participants like John Legend, Toby Maguire & Demi Moore. These funds are already hard at work fulfilling Thrive's mission statement, which is to make healthy living easy and affordable for every American family. Good news for everyone. Not your typical startup founder, Gunnar's keen business acumen inhabits the ethos of a yoga teacher. He's got a huge heart. He's one of the good guys. And I am super proud of what he is building. Enjoy! Rich

The intersection of this incredible food crisis and the awakening of a conscious mainstream consumer that wants to vote with their dollars has created this huge movement now that is starting to work to address those needs. That's Gennar Lovelace, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. What's happening, wellness warriors, fitness freaks, self-improvement enthusiasts, mindfulness devotees, nutrition junkies, positivity fanatics? Welcome one, welcome all. My name is Rich Roll. I'm an ultra endurance athlete, bestselling author. I'm a husband. I'm a father of four kids and two dogs. And this is the podcast where I deep dive with the paradigm shifting outliers,

the big forward thinkers across all categories of positive seismic culture change. The goal to help all of us unlock and unleash our best, most authentic selves. So today on the show is a really great conversation with my very good friend, Gennar Lovelace. We've known each other about 15 years. Gennar is a lifelong wellness advocate, an incredibly socially conscious serial entrepreneur, and more recently now, he is the founder and CEOo of a company called thrive market what is thrive market who is ganar lovelace is that even his real name well more on all that in a second but first all right today's show ganar. By the way, yes, that is his real name. Again, Gennar is a successful and very socially conscious serial entrepreneur,

a guy who has had ongoing interests in everything from nonprofits to technology, fashion, and real estate over the years. And most recently, he is on to something big, really big, I think, as the founder and co-CEO of a new business called Thrive Market. Let's take a step back. When it comes to healthy eating, plant-based or otherwise, the common refrain is that it's too expensive. It's too inconvenient. Healthy foods are unavailable where I live. Healthy foods are unavailable where I live. And although I often counsel on the many myths that surround these arguments, it's undeniable that there is much truth in these assertions.

I mean, look, Whole Foods is called Whole Paycheck for a reason, right? And we do very much need to find better ways to provide healthy food in a convenient and affordable way for everybody. And that's where Thrive comes in. and affordable way for everybody. And that's where Thrive comes in. Thrive is basically like this crazy digital love child of Costco and Whole Foods. It's a direct-to-consumer online shopping club platform that offers all the 4,000 best, healthiest, most popular natural and organic food brands in the world.

The kind of stuff typical of a high-end natural foods grocer, including tons of plant-based and vegan foods, of course, but at 25 to 50% off retail prices, shipped anywhere in the US for free, which is really amazing. Plus, for every paid member on the site, the company also sponsors a free membership for a low-income family, and I really like that. These guys are growing incredibly fast beyond some pretty amazing original investors, guys like Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra. This past summer, they closed a $30 million Series A round of VC funding led by Graycroft with participants like John Legend, Tobey Maguire, and Demi Moore. And this funding is going to go a long way towards fulfilling their mission, which is to make healthy living easy and affordable

for every American family, which is enormous, right? So I met Gennar about 15 years ago when I was a lawyer. I was his lawyer, in fact. I represented an early internet venture he founded called Good Life, and we talk a little bit about that in the podcast. And Gennar and I have been good friends ever since. And I will say this, Gennar is not your typical startup founder. He's more like a yoga teacher, a yogi. I mean, the guy grew up on a commune who happens to also have an incredibly keen business acumen. He has quite the expanded consciousness. Gennar has an enormous heart, and I'm so proud of what he's building. Not just excited to see him doing so well, because he truly is one of the good guys, but for what I think Thrive can do to truly change the socioeconomics of healthy eating

for all of us. Really quickly, what this is not. This is not a paid advertisement for Thrive. I just really like and appreciate what Gennar and his team are trying to do. And like I said, Gennar and I go way back and I've been wanting to get him on the show for some time. What this is, is a great conversation about entrepreneurship, productivity, daily routines, social responsibility, conscious capitalism,

the current state of health in America, and how we can collectively and together solve this problem of providing easy and affordable access to healthy food for everyone. I really love this guy. I think you will, too. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, Gunnar Lovelace. So good to see you, man. You too. There are so many miles on the road in our relationship. You know what I mean? As I was driving down here, I was reflecting back on the first time that we met

and how our lives have diverged and yet like a dna strand keep wrapping upon each other you know what i mean you're a high-flying uh lawyer entertainment lawyer and i i was uh launching another startup that uh belly flop well it's it's a it's actually a really funny story so i was law. I had that little law firm with a couple other guys. And I think the introduction was originally through Colin Hudon, who has stayed in our lives. And I'll get into that more in a second as well. But you, Colin, and Jared Krause, and Compton Rombata, who's also been huge in my life, were starting this little internet company called Good Life.

That's right. Right. And it was a little bit ahead of its time, I think. But what was the concept? Well, I mean, it was basically a socially conscious Yelp. So there just weren't enough of those businesses and enough of those people out there. But it was working to create a directory of the most conscious, eco-friendly businesses and services out there.

Right, right, right. And so I kind of came on board as corporate legal counsel, and we had lots of meetings. I remember with everyone together. In your beautiful house. Yeah, you guys came up to the house, and there was a lot of big big aspirations for this uh for this company that it didn't quite make it but the interesting thing is that uh is that you guys all remained in

in my life and i've had like hundreds and hundreds of clients you know most of which come and go i don't stay in touch with them but for some reason like know, you guys are always have always been around, you know, like Compton goes on to be like really instrumental in my life and like my earliest nutrition mentor who like really taught me so much about how food works. And I mean, he was teaching me about the microbiome years, you know, now it's like zeitgeisty and everyone's talking about it. But like in 2006 or whatever, when I first met him, he was talking about it but like in 2006 or whatever when i first met him he was all about it and uh and and so he really helped change my life and i remember that you would come to these good life meetings with a mason jar with like some kind of green drink green sludge yeah green sludge and we would all make fun of you and like like now everyone does that. But like, you know, that was still, I mean, it wasn't that long ago, but yet that was still kind of like a radical thing. So you were years ago.

I know you were on the tip. Like you were way ahead of the curve on that kind of thing. In the same way that good life was straight straight off the hippie commune. I know. Right. So and we're going to get into that too um and then colin uh becomes this sort of tea master tea entrepreneur opens up this tea shop he's the one who introduces us to wuda who's been on the podcast twice and now he's a chinese medicine doctor and he's our acupuncturist so

he's very much in our life and it's very close with julie and the boys too tyler goes and sees him all the time. It's beautiful. I haven't seen Jared so much lately, but he started, what was that? It's a trade, yeah. A barter platform. Right, trade, yeah. Which is, is it doing well?

I know it was doing really well a little while ago. I haven't checked on it recently. I think it's been up and down. Has it? Yeah. So whoops, the levels are a little bit weird here. I just wanted to bounce that out. But it is amazing that everybody's been around.

I reflect back on good life. And if I had that business now, because we were actually booking $100,000 in sales pre-launch, I could have easily raised $10 or $20 million in this market with that business. But 2008 just wiped us out. The recession just totally took us out so but it's all good it's all compost and learning experiences of course man i mean i i would imagine you you must look back on it with gratitude because it's a it's an experience that just

informs what you're doing now which is extraordinary right but let's bridge the gap between then and now i mean we're going to get into life. I'm going to get into your hippie compound, oh, hi, life as well. But as a serial entrepreneur, like after good life, like what did you then, you know, there's these years where I'm not quite, I mean, I would run into you occasionally. I saw you at Saul's wedding, you know, and stuff like that.

But I wasn't really totally clued in as to what you've been up to. Well, I basically retrenched after 2008 and just focused on my jewelry business, Love Heels, which has been great. It's been, you know, we have 200 employees in Bali. It's a fair trade, social enterprise business. We've planted over 2 million trees through the business. But it's, you know, it's been, it was just a retrenching, studying what happened,

waiting for the market, thinking about what's next, and just generally passionate about health and wellness. So trying to figure out how to enter back into the market and what was the real problem that I could address and solve. And so were there a couple fits and starts with other companies in the interim along the way or before thrive or no i mean i i basically just re-transferred the jewelry business grew it to you know a thousand stores um it's you know that's a business that you run with your mom right yeah yeah so my mom and i run it she's she's you know bohemian hippie right artist that was you know making jewelry all over the world your mom wasn't like a wall street executive exactly uh so yeah so it's uh it's still running it's a beautiful little

business and uh just been really in general uh you know like like all of us you know we want to apply our lives to something that has personal meaning and high impact and you know your your journey from a entertainment lawyer to where you are today as a thought leader is very much you know the hero's journey right and so we all we all go through that in our own way and that has a a retrenching process it has its dangers it has its challenges well the critical aspect of that whole hero's journey is having the dark night of the soul right so did you i mean did you have a dark night of the soul i mean what was your yeah i mean look 2009 january when the economic crisis was in full force i remember doing a trade

show in new york and you know normally that i would book a couple hundred grand in three days in sales for for my jewelry business and it was like three grand in sales. And the airport normally would be full of people. And there were like 95% less people. And the people that were on the airplane were like wearing masks. It was very apocalyptic, the whole circumstance. Do you foresee a bubble happening right now as an internet entrepreneur? It's pretty interesting.

foresee a bubble happening right now as an internet entrepreneur. It's pretty interesting. There's a pretty compelling article in the latest issue of Vanity Fair on the subject of whether we're on a bubble or not. By Nick Dalton, who writes for the New York Times. There's definitely bubbles and there's businesses that are being capitalized at super high valuations that that you know shouldn't be rationalized i mean the beauty of our business is that we're actually we have real sales real revenue real assets uh it's a real business i mean we're we're in our 11th month in business on 80 million uh revenue run rate so it's it's a it's a it's crazy yeah i mean it's the the previous sort of uh catchphrase for it would have been that it really is a bricks and mortar business but

it's kind of more than that it's it it falls into in my mind that category of business that's that's that's super successful online right now which is really um about as much as anything else it's about effective distribution right whether it's uber like getting cars to go where they need to go, yours is about getting healthy foods where they need to go at a price point that makes sense for people. It's a disremediation, right? I mean, I think there's this incredible moment in the 21st century where we can use the internet to go direct to our audience,

just the way that you are with your audience. That's such an exciting opportunity where we're no longer at the service that we're subservient to intermediaries and we can use the internet and all the technologies that have emerged and new media to really have a direct conversation with the world at scale and whatever the thing that is that we're passionate about, if it's solving a real problem or it's addressing a real issue that people have a resonance around, it's going to scale very quickly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, some of my favorite companies that have come on board to be

podcast sponsors are those disintermediary kind of disruptive businesses like Warby Parker or Casper or Harry's where they're just cutting out the middlemen and they're able to provide like the high quality product at a fraction of the price that you would find in the store because you're not dealing with all the nonsense. That's right. Yeah. And that's exactly what we're doing with health food. So it's, it's, it's cutting out all the, the middlemen and eliminating the retail markup and then passing that along to our members and that's you know for us i mean the thing is it's such a direct extension of you know my personal experience growing up on a hippie commune where we had we ran a food co-op for the last 30 years let's go let's like let's park it there though uh and let's go back to you

know life as young ganar in in ohai running free on a farm i mean what does that look like i mean it sounds like you really did i mean people talk about like oh i had a hippie growing up experience but like you really did right yeah definitely i mean i mean were you homeschooled or like we we ran a school off the property but i mean even even prior to that you know i was you know born of uh two two hippie of two hippie parents that were unmarried, had a love affair in Ibiza, Spain, then immigrated here to the U.S. That relationship didn't last. And so then I ended up living here with my mom as a single mother for a number of years. And just the impression that that left upon me, seeing her.

There were months at a time where we would just live off of rice. I mean, it was really humble times. So it sounds... Were there a bunch of people living on this? Is it the same property? This is even prior to us moving to... So when I was like seven years old, my mom met my stepfather. And so he was the one running this organic farm and this food co-op. And so they fell in love and we moved to this hippie commune, which was really a very, very humble circumstance.

Five acres, a stream uh and we've you know over the last 30 years we've you know planted 500 fruit trees and built built built the house and the main kitchen where everybody eats and lots of cabins and just kind of you know i've been through the whole gamut of that that experience but you know it sounds very idyllic um at some level uh on other levels yeah there's i was i was a pretty traumatized little boy there's a lot of emotional toil well there's that like romantic idea of you know the unicorns and rainbow idea of like growing up hippie with all these people around to sort of you know sub parent you and then the reality of like i just want to like take a shower and go to the bathroom and like eat like

a decent meal or you know what i mean right and and it got more idyllic later on um you know probably that was mostly after the trauma yeah yeah fully lodged yeah exactly exactly uh but you know i mean it it is it is uh it was a real eye-opener just seeing the benefit of you know like i have you know 50 aunts and uncles um you know, like I have, you know, 50 aunts and uncles, um, you know, one taught me computer programming, one taught me bike riding, another taught me nonviolent communication. So that was, there was definitely a lot of really interesting educational exposure that emerged out of that type of, out of that type of, uh, and you never went to like normal high school. No, no, I did. I did. so we ran a school out of the property uh up until

junior high and so then after that i went to the public school which was actually the like the most challenging year of my life going from you know a school of like 15 really sweet like sensitive people to a thousand people and you know last name lovelace right in in a thousand person school that you know i was fat overweight kid with a last name lovelace from in in a thousand person school that you know i was fat overweight kid with a last name lovelace from the hippie commune so it was like lord of the flies that was that was not good not not not a good not but it gave me a lot of compassion for people that don't fit in so i i work with that uh sense of compassion and empathy every day and so from there did you did you go to college after that?

Or what was the next thing? So I actually ended up going to UC Santa Cruz. Had a great adventure there. Of course. There's no other college for you, right? That's right. Where else are you going to go? That's right. And three of the four years that I was there,

I was living in the woods in a tree house behind campus. So I had a really as much as you're trying to escape the commune you're finding yourself creating your own i wasn't actually trying to escape those are your words all right yeah you're right you're right you're right i don't mean no no that's fine i actually i did i did end up reacting to it later on um so i dropped out of school and out of college and started my first software company and was really successful with that, quickly sold that business in a year. And then I ended up finding myself in a pretty dark circumstance in L.A. where I was working for and serving people that really didn't have high values. And that was a really amazing experience that was

very informative. And, you know, I remember waking up one morning, you know, 25 years old, I was, you know, cheating on my girlfriend at the time. I was like in a very like terrible place in my life. And, and I just like, like, recognition that I couldn't proceed with that life hit me with, like, this, like, total visceral force. And spontaneously after that, this unconditional love for George Bush and Dick Cheney, like, emerged. And I was like, whoa, because these guys have been, like, the epitome of evil for me up until this point in my life and i realized that you know it's no wonder men do what they do growing up in houses of fear the way that that you know we're you know power is trained and passed along um from father to son and the way

that power and wealth concentrates at this point in our in the evolution of our species and you know we're we're we're modeling behavior that is given to us. And so in a culture that rewards profit and greed above all else, it's no wonder that we end up doing what we do. Well, that's a pretty profound epiphany as a young man. And of course, there's no reaction without the action that incites it, right? Everything is rooted in a reason that precedes it. And in the Buddhist idea of there's no part without the whole and no whole without the part. But to be able to kind of have that realization, that's a powerful thing, man.

Yeah, it was. So did that empower you to immediately change your circumstance? I immediately shut that company that I had running and actually started my jewelry business with my mom. That was really the beginning of that. Love Heels. Is that the genesis of the name Love Heels? I mean, partly. It was definitely an interest in creating a brand and a business that was more than just an individual,

but stood for an idea of a more holistic way of, you know, being in the world. Right, right, right. You know, the sun does not discriminate in where it shines. That's right. You know? That's right. So, all right, well, let's, let's, let's fast.

We already went through kind of good life and all of that. So where does the kind of kernel of, of the idea for thrive start to crop up i mean was this your idea or how did this whole thing come together yeah yes i mean i mean as much as anything is our ideas right but we're all we're all cumulative summation of everything that has come before us i just made that point right so yeah we take possession of them as our personal identity but uh well in an epigenetic sense it goes back generations right that's right so we can't take credit for anything but but uh yeah so i think actually what what actually ended up

happening is um we i was organizing a group of people going to burning man and we set up a bunch of wholesale accounts with the brands that i really love and and then when we we went through that exercise and started to receive understand the benefits of having wholesale access. And then coming back from that experience, I started running some shopping events with friends. I was like, hey, who wants to buy Health Force this week or whatever the brand was. And those shopping events were so oversubscribed and there was so much demand for it. And I'd always known that people were interested in being able to access healthy products for less,

but the intensity of the demand was so extreme that it led me to try to think about how we could create a platform that harnessed that energy, facilitated that in a way that was really scalable. And that really was the genesis. And at that point, I started to apply myself with singular focus on Thrive Market, creating a scalable platform that really leveraged the best of a co-op model in a 21st century context that stripped out the hippiness,

kept the heart and soul, but made healthy food available to everyone at lower prices. Right. I sort of conceptualize it and tell me if this is fair or unfair. It's sort of Costco meets Whole Foods in a direct-to-consumer internet model. That's right on the commerce side, but we're investing heavily in media and content. So that's exactly the analog in terms of the online commerce component. But then the general thesis is that health and wellness is now a lifestyle trend, and it's like fashion. And health and wellness is a fundamentally very scalable organizing

principle that transcends ideology. Whether you're liberal or conservative, everybody wants to feel healthy. Everybody wants the same thing for their children. And there's a lot of education and information and questions around how to do it. There's no one way of how to do it, but everybody wants to digest media and content like your podcast and have a connection and understand and be guided through the process. And so simultaneously with the commerce, we're investing heavily into content media. Yeah, that's cool. I like that idea very much.

You know, it is. I mean, how do you what do you attribute to the sort of explosion of this interest in this trend of, you know, intrigue around all things wellness. I mean, you know, it, it's not, it's not the purview of the hippie commune in Ohio anymore. This is a mainstream concept. It, it is very modern. Uh, it's confusing, you know, there's all kinds of craziness on the internet and it's easy to kind of go down some, you know, like black hole of nonsense. But I think that the level of average modern family consumer interest in living healthier and getting good foods and all of that is unprecedented. Yeah, I mean, I think it's so exciting to me at that level. I've been looking for an organizing principle that can bring people together in a really powerful way that transcends the normal divisions. And so I feel like I get to be part of a conversation that

is so powerful and so universal. I mean, we were at with one of our investors, Dr. Mark Hyman, who, you know, self-identified, self-identified Pagan. We're at Saddleback Church, which is the largest mega church in the country. Pastor Rick Warren, he's designed a meal plan and a health plan with Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Daniel Amen with Pastor Rick Warren. And I'm in the congregation. It's being syndicated to hundreds of churches, thousands of people in the congregation live, and they're talking about the health plan. And it's like avocado, cacao pudding, and quinoa, and coconut oil is the center point of their dietary recommendations as healthy fats. I almost fall out of the chair, as I'm like, this is the conversation that we'd have in the hippie commune 10 years ago.

Right, right, right. This is what's in your green sludge that you're bringing to the meeting have in the hip the hippie commune 10 years ago right right right here this is what's in your green sludge right bring you to the meeting this is this is mainstream you know christian conservative america having a conversation around uh avocado cacao pudding and quinoa and coconut oil and um to your point this is now a mainstream movement but why now like what do you think it like in kind of a meta you know perspective of you know culture it's a food crisis right i mean it's just the generally i mean i think i think we're now faced with a hundred billion dollars a year spent on diabetes and obesity related illnesses um there's a real awakening among consumers of all types where they want to vote

with their dollars and of course they want value for themselves and they're motivated by self-interest. But at the end of the day, all things being equal, they want to put their dollars towards something that actually speaks to their values in a really direct way. So the intersection of this incredible food crisis and the awakening of a conscious mainstream consumer that wants to vote with their dollars has created this huge movement now that is starting to work to address those needs. Right. It's such an interesting time because there really are two Americas. Like you have, you know, the, you know, Rick Warren's, you know, massive church and people talking about healthy foods. You have people like you and I, you have this low-hoss movement,

this massive, you know, interest in wellness. And yet at the same time, there's another America where one out of every three people dies of a heart attack. Seventy percent of Americans are obese or overweight. Fifty percent of Americans are diabetic or pre-diabetic. And at some point, these two worlds have to wrestle with each other, and we have to reconcile that. And they are. They are right now. We're in that battle. That's you know what i mean and i think one of the impediments towards the wellness side winning is has to do with socioeconomic constraints it's the common joke like it's not

whole foods it's whole paycheck like who has the amount of money to go and spend what it takes to create cacao chia seed put it you know it like, I can't afford these superfoods. Like who can, you know, like it's just easier to go to McDonald's and buy subsidized beef, get, you know, feed my family for four bucks. That's right. Well, you just hit on it, right? So it's, it's why do products with lots of chemicals and processing costs less than ones with no chemicals and processing.

It's subsidized. It's economies of scale and crony capitalism. So we've, we've, we're at the intersection of a very efficient industrial agricultural It's subsidized. war two holdovers of converting a world war two military economy into pesticides and corn subsidies which have now you know arrived at this perfect moment of highly processed food that we've been sold over the last 20 years that a low fat low calorie diet of complex processed carbs is somehow good for us which has given birth to the you explosion. Yeah, and so here you are, Thrive Market, here to provide a direct-to-consumer solution, right? So essentially the idea is that anything that you would get at Whole Foods,

you can get at Thrive. It's just mailed to you instead, and it's at a fraction of the price. I don't know. Is there like a statistical? It's 25% to 50 off on average it's like 34 34 off of a normal health food retail price and like costco it's like a membership model like you buy a membership right so it's at 60 a year for a membership to thrive market that gives you access to the catalog of products it's everyday sizes so it's not 72 rolls of toilet paper but for the first time you can buy

you know 70 loads of non-toxic laundry detergent for the same price that a big box shopping club is selling 70 loads of toxic laundry detergent with hormone and endocrine disruptors and it's literally that but that's specific yeah so that's to me that's really exciting where we're you know we're we're offering these products in the normal everyday sizes that people want them. So you're not having to deal with the storage issue. It's free shipping to people wherever they are nationally. They're able to access the products for the same price as conventional equivalents for the first time in history. And it's through a membership community.

And then part of our social mission is for every paid membership, we give a membership away to a family in need. So if you can't afford the membership, we want to find a way to get you one anyway. Oh, cool. I like that. The SEVA aspect of it, right? Definitely. And so from an entrepreneurial kind of businessman perspective, I mean, the model here, the sort of monetization profit model is you guys make money off the memberships and you're selling these products at at their wholesale price you're not really making money on products you break even on that right so i got you yeah it's great it's amazing somebody didn't do this sooner well people have tried right well the thing is actually existing retailers in the health food space and i'm not going to name names we're holding the

market back they were basically saying if you sell to natural They were basically saying to natural product brands, if you sell to a value channel, we'll pull you from the shelves. And what actually created the opening for us was Costco. Costco emerged as an alternative retail channel where it became a fair rationale for the brands to be able to say, hey, I'm selling into a membership community so I can rationalize a different price than my normal existing retail community. And because natural products is the fastest growing segment of Costco's business. I think they're the biggest organic retailer in the country. Kroger's actually now the biggest, but they're the biggest club retailer. And so friends of mine that now sell to Costco

and the other obvious big ones, they're getting $30 and $50 million a year POs in aggregate from Costco, which is now equal to or greater than they would get from, say, a Whole Foods. And so when there's pressure put on them, they now have the leverage to say, look, you know, you need my business as much as, you know, I need you. I'm getting more business from alternate channels. And this is a different model selling into membership. And that created the opening for us. So that's really in the last two years. We couldn't have started this business even three years ago. Interesting, interesting.

I mean, just as kind of a primer course on how all this stuff works, I think people would be very interested to you know kind of hear about the elementary steps of what is entailed for example if you're like a small food producer let's say you have an organic cookie company right like you're new right and obviously the prize the goal is like oh if we could just get on the shelf at whole foods and you know just because you write a book doesn't mean that it ends up in barnes and noble right there's thousands of books that get that get written every year just because you have a food product doesn't mean that it ends up in Barnes & Noble, right? There's thousands of books that get written every year. Just because you have a food product doesn't mean that it finds its way onto the shelves at a place like Whole Foods. In fact, there's a whole auction bidding process that goes into that.

And my understanding from being kind of arm's length away from it is that when you're a player like Whole Foods, you hold all the cards, you have all the leverage, and you can compel a small producer like that to say, well, we like it, but it's got to be at this price. And it's a price that the food manufacturers, not only are they not going to make any money off it, they'll probably lose money off it.

But it's so prestigious, it's sort of like an ad buy. It's like having a billboard. Just say I'm in Whole Foods. They'll do that deal anyway, even though they're losing money. And as a consumer, you see their product on the shelf and you think, oh, well, they must be doing very well. But the economic reality of that is quite often very, very different. Yeah. So it's really rare that you get an entrepreneur that has the ability to create a really unique product and actually raise the $5 or $10 million that you need to break through that initial painful phase. And it's not only Whole Foods that do it.

All the major grocers, they play that same game. And so there's a whole science to where on the shelf it is and how many in a row and all that kind of stuff. That's part of the intermediation, right? So you've got the manufacturer of the product and you've got the distributors and then you have the've got you know the manufacturer of the product and you've got the distributors and then you have the brokers and you have the slotting fees and then you have the retail game how many middlemen are there all of that that just slices and kills the the food

manufacturer and so you've got a product that you know they themselves want to see their products be accessible they themselves feel raped by the current distribution retail paradigm. And so that's part of what has made our model work so well as we've got such deep partnerships with the brands because they share the mission of making their products accessible. They don't see that retail markup. That's going to all the intermediation. And so what's exciting about a platform like Thrive is we can tell the story of those brands and their products in a really direct-to-consumer format, beautiful videos, great written content about their products, about their supply chain, what's unique, and then also pass all of that intermediate savings along

to the member while making more money for the brand themselves. for the brand themselves. You know, I can't have this conversation without thinking about kind of the recent history surrounding Hampton Creek and Just Mayo and what Josh Tetrick is building there. And, you know, kind of what happens when you are this maverick

kind of upstart who's disrupting, you know, the kind of predominant paradigm that surrounds, you know, the food industry by offering this healthier product at a more affordable price. And that's all fine. And in this sort of utopian idealistic world, but as soon as that starts to infringe upon the profit margins of Unilever, you know, that makes Heilman's man age, then it's a different story. And then they start fighting back and it becomes very dark

and, you know, all kinds of craziness is going on. So for those that are listening that aren't familiar, just Google Hampton Creek and you'll find out like kind of the story of this lawsuit. And I've talked about it before on the podcast. So my question really is, have you come up against any of that kind of predominant paradigm resistance?

Like, hey man, who do you think you are? Like, this is the way we do it. You know, we're Kroger, we're Safeway or whatever. Like, you can't do what you're doing. Yeah, definitely. I mean, that's emerging where brands will call us that were really excited in the beginning and they won't say names, but they say,

hey, like, we're under pressure now from other retailers really excited in the beginning and and they won't say names but they say hey like if i do this like we're we're we're under pressure now from other retailers because the price that you're offering to your membership um and so yeah i mean i think you know we've had a little bit of fallout there um you know we really try to uh keep a really aspirational focus to the business um i obviously come from like a hardcore activist background, so it's really easy for me to get all punk rock. But I've got great co-founders that keep me in line on that and really like keeping the eye on the prize.

This is a mainstream movement. Plunk and our love heals, remember? That's right, love heals, the revolution. Exactly. So, you know, we're really focused on positive solutions that really solve people's problems in a really scalable way versus getting into a reactive place. That said, you know, we'll take real stands on issues. We're the largest retailer today in the country that offers only GMO-free foods. So, you know, we're taking real stands on specific areas. Um, but

we're very careful about how we do that in a way that doesn't alienate people and create extra conflict and friction in our business. Right. I mean, have you ever, have you ever met John Mackey or had any conversations with people at whole foods about what you're doing? Yeah. I mean, they're great people. I love, I love, you know, I think, I think they've really helped the movement in a really powerful way. They created standards. They created economies of scale. Like, I would not want someone to think that I think Whole Foods is evil. I think, you know, it's symptomatic of a momentum of a business model that is basically under assault in general across the board. The idea of just shopping in a store a physical store just the retail store the expense that it requires the the distribution system that has emerged to to create and support that it's very very hard for them to change their their ship overnight and which is you know you can see

like they're trying to create 365 now which is a chain of curated millennial focused brands, a store retail concept that's, you know, value channel. That's going to be very, very expensive and very, very difficult. The beauty of an internet model is the efficiency of capital for us is so high, you know, with the $30 million we just raised recently, we get such leverage off of it. We get such scale off of it right from day one. We're offering a solution from day one that reaches every American and doesn't take five years to build out 50 retail stores that is only still reaching 2% of the US population.

Right. So, I mean, one of the things that you share in common with John Mackey is this philosophy of conscious capitalism, right? And he's certainly a pioneer of that idea. He wrote a whole book about it. And I know that you've spoken publicly. You've given talks on this subject matter as well.

And it's a subject that I've devoted quite a bit of thought to. And by kind of way of contrast, I had Daniel pinch back on that podcast a while ago. Do you know Daniel? I'm sure. Of course you do, right? We've gone to Burning Man together.

Fellow Burning Man person, right? And Daniel, as you know, is sort of a brooding deep thinker. Brilliant guy. Yeah, very, very smart. Perhaps not as optimistic as you. And he had a very interesting perspective on conscious capitalism which is essentially uh at its root he's like i think it's bullshit like i don't it's just a it's a marketing spin on capitalism that's designed to make people feel good about

that you know what they're purchasing but in reality if there wasn't a sort of profit motive built into it um it wouldn't exist at all. So I'm interested in your, especially since you know Daniel, like what your sort of perspective on that idea would be. In terms of conscious capitalism being bullshit? Well, just your philosophy of conscious capitalism and perhaps your retort to Daniel's perspective. I mean, I love Daniel.

So I probably wouldn't get into retorting his perspective, but I think that, you know, look, fundamentally, the realization that I've had is instead of fighting against an obsolete system, the imperative that I can apply my God-given gifts and talents is to build a new model that is sexy and compelling that solves real problems that naturally attracts people and naturally in a very rapid fashion makes the old model obsolete. And I think that now you're just crazy talk. No, that's, but that's actually very practical. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I'm being ironic. Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. You're playing the devil's advocate here. Look, I think, I think there's a lot of greenwashing out there for sure.

And it's a very delicate, I mean, like I see that even in our own business as we scale and how do we message and what's this? That just happens as a business grows. this huge emergence of conscious companies with ethical supply chains offering healthy, natural, non-toxic products to consumers in a direct-to-consumer format, that is a paradigm shift that is going to ripple in such profound ways. And it's infecting the culture and the way that people think of the way they run their businesses and the way they vote with their dollars. And the systemic effect of that is

profound. Yeah, interesting. How does your spiritual cat, right? You just got back from Burning Man. By the way, how was Burning Man? It was great. I brought my dad, my girlfriend, my sister, my brother, four aunts and uncles. We were there for a cousin's wedding. It was a beautiful family affair. That's so hilarious. how many times have you gone to burning man i've gone like 12 times have you but we still haven't gone we did a very we had six motor homes and we had a beautiful organic food program and it was great it was very very very sweet simple it wasn't like lots of drugs and craziness it was like babies and family and very healthy. Uh-huh. Do you think Burning Man has been able to hold on to its kind of ethos? Yeah.

Or has it become. Yeah. Yeah. I know, I know Daniel is pretty, pretty upset about that. I just read it, read an article from him about that this year.

That was another thing that he. He was, he was, uh, lambasting. I actually am. I, I,

I play with all the people that he's critical of. Um, I became really good friends with, uh, you know, management of Burning Man. Uh, I, I, you know, I, of. I became really good friends with the management of Burning Man. I work in the same circles of a lot of the top tech entrepreneurs. There's an awakening happening. People with a lot of money and resources and access are wanting to apply those resources in conscious

ways. Sure, there's a lot of glitz and frill that goes along with that at times, but the fundamental thing that people are waking up to in that community is that they're here to serve something else than their own self-motive. And it's not pure profit. There is actually a real generous spirit moving through. And people are asking the hard question of how do I apply the incredible resources that I have available to me to something better and greater that facilitates community and facilitates a sustainable future. It's real, right? Like, I feel like that really is real. It's real. And I feel like that that is the defining characteristic of the generation below us, right? Like, it's easy to throw darts at millennials. Oh, they're entitled, they're lazy.

But I really do feel that they have an appreciation for giving back and their priorities are much more kind of morally aligned than the way in which or the culture in which I was raised. And I find that to be very inspiring and optimistic. And I don't think that it's lip service. I really do feel that there is that sensitivity to a greater good that runs through the central nervous system of most young people that I come across. Now, I'm in the wellness community and I seek out young people to be on the podcast.

So it's like, I'm finding those people. I'm not finding the neckbeard guy in his mom's basement playing video games all day or what have you so perhaps it's a tainted uh uh you know value set or whatever but but i feel it in the air and i feel it in the culture and i think when you see people like yourself and other business leaders particularly um you know kind of thought leaders in the tech world who make a point of going to Burning Man to have this kind of Vulcan mind meld experience, like that says something.

You know what I mean? It's powerful. Like the Vanderbilts and the Murdochs were not like sort of getting together under those kinds of circumstances. They were doing it in cloistered mansions where nobody could see what they were doing and God knows what was going on.

That's right. You know what I mean? This is a very different era. Yeah, and there's a real conversation about, in general, aside from Burning Man, there's a real conversation about how do we apply the resources we have towards creating a world that is sustainable and equitable for more people, more stakeholders. And I think the whole conversation around externalities is such an important one because to Daniel's critique on the capital market is that it creates such specialization and abstraction

from the supply chain that we don't see the toxins from the color dyes that go into the river from the sweatshop labor in Southeast Asia that are poisoning children. We don't see that. Not only do we not see it, we're purposely deflected away. There's all sorts of smoke and mirrors to prevent us from being able to see it, even if we want to.

I'm not that cynical about it. I don't actually. There's definitely smoke and mirrors that happens, but I don't think it's actually that. I don't think there's that much central power. I think people are basically fundamentally playing to their own self-interest. And that collides into a macroeconomic system where we're just abstracted from what's happening on the other side of the world where our products are being produced. Yeah, but I think it is pretty dark in certain respects. Whether it's the factory where your iPhone is made know the pig farm where your bacon is made like these are these are dire

desperate situations that you know we just don't even want to look at right and when you look at sort of the politicization you were talking about greenwashing like look what's happening to simply organic certification like because these big food companies are so powerful it's been watered down because they know that they can make more money and charge more if they get that certification so it doesn't quite mean what it used to mean and you know i'm sure that you see that kind of thing happening all the time yeah i wouldn't dismiss the darkness there there's a lot of i mean we're in the myths of the sixth largest extinction in the history of the planet so there's a lot going on yeah at the same time and kind of getting back to the history of the planet. So there's a lot going on here. Yeah, at the same time,

and kind of getting back to the optimistic vein of all of this, and specifically with respect to millennials, there is a demand for transparency that is unprecedented, right? That's right. It's expected. And a company that's not willing to be transparent

in terms of its sort of chain of title over its product line and manufacturing and distribution, etc., just ain't going to cut it anymore. Well, I think for me, money is energy. It's literally that simple. We think of money as this monolithic thing. It's literally energy. It's just a currency of exchange.

And so the question is, who's behind the money and what are they motivated by? And so if somebody is motivated by fear and greed, which is the traditional human software paradigm that has been running us for a long time, it's going to be more of the same. If we're motivated by a sense of service and willingness to contribute our lives to something greater than our own self-interest, then the money and the concentration of that wealth is going to be put to great effect. So young people have an upgraded operating system. We just have to download the upgrade.

I think we're in the midst of upgrading our operating system in general. But it's a little tweaky and buggy right now. Very tweaky and buggy. Yeah. So, I mean, what does the future hold, Gennar? Look into that Ojai crystal ball and tell me where this is all leading. Well, I think we're clearly at a crossroads i mean we're we're we're at a place in our species where there's more than seven billion of us on

the planet and that that explosion in our population from you know over the last 200,000 years i mean you know world war ii there were two billion of us on the planet and so in the last three and a half generations three generations we've gone from 2 billion to more than 7 billion. And that has been facilitated by the agricultural revolution. It would not have happened without the industrialization and scaling of agriculture. And so the production of food and distribution of food is absolutely primary to why we've been so successful as a species. But it's also now primary to the challenges that we face as a species. And so it's absolutely incumbent upon us to envision a world

where we produce food that is good for the planet and good for our bodies and is affordable for everybody. And if we can do that, we will pass a world along that is regenerative, it is sustainable, and it is equitable. And that will cut across so many different supply chains if we don't do that we're going to pass along more extreme versions of what we're seeing with intense you know climate change disease war you know that this somebody was pointing out one of our investors was pointing out uh the other day that the syrian war is the first climate change war. It is intense drought that drove the rural agricultural community in Syria into the cities. The cities could no longer provide the services,

and then ISIS came along because there was disruption in the services that were being provided. And we now have 11 million people in Syria that are on the move because of the first climate change war. And so that's a really interesting reframe on that circumstance. And so we're, you know, we all see it. We all feel it., is there really is a sense of hopelessness out there. And how do people engage? You know, Barack Obama sold the country on a very aspirational message. And in matter of fact, the actual result of that has been very, very diluted. And there's so many instances of these great things that have been sold to people

that tap into that sense of hopefulness and aspiration and possibility. And then the actual result of them is very watered down. Right, and when it doesn't play out, you're like, well, if Barack couldn't get it done, like it ain't happening. Right. You know what I mean?

So it's easy to just sort of like say forget about it. That's right. You know what I mean? I love that monologue that you just gave. It was amazing. That's why I gave you a copy of Cowspiracy because it's completely on that tip. By 2100, they're predicting

that population could swell to 11 billion. That's right. It's like our current paradigm for feeding the planet is broken, it's wasteful, it's unsustainable, and it's killing the planet is broken it's wasteful it's unsustainable and it's killing the planet and you look at any category from ocean pollution to land use to water use to amazon destruction to species extinction to you know the the the algal blooms and i mean it's just ridiculous across the board and we just cannot continue to you know walk through this crisis with blinders on we're at the tipping point if not beyond it and you know the truth is is that we can solve this problem

using the entrepreneurial ingenuity that people like you are leveraging so it's exciting you're part of that i actually one person at a time that's right like you know what i mean like this podcast is me giving out the flyer at at santa cruz it's the only thing that i can do well but That's right. I think even in parallel to conscious capitalism is actually a much more fundamental piece, which is personal empowerment and personal transformation. If we're ruled by fear and self-doubt and self-limiting beliefs, we will never be able to express ourselves to our full potential. And to me, that is the fundamental software upgrade that we have to go through as a species. We have obsolete biological technology that is based upon fight or flight response. And that's been a very successful evolutionary technology that has gotten us to where we are.

But unless we can rapidly shift that orientation in our awareness and our consciousness and how we make decisions, we're not going to be able to make the critical jump that we have to make. But you're optimistic that we're going to be able to do it yeah there's an awakening happening on all fronts definitely i mean i'm an optimistic human being so like i i've never seen the way through any love heels man i've never seen the way through any any solution that i've tried to apply myself towards but i you know i i move personally from a place of like at the end of the day even

if it's all going to turn into a crazy madhouse i would rather live in a world where i feel a sense of hopefulness you take it to the grave like i wish i'm gonna take it to the grave yeah so what's a day in your life look like right now? It's got to be pretty crazy. It's crazy. I mean, how many employees do you guys have? We're at 250 employees. Wow.

The fastest growing e-commerce. You just opened some giant warehouse somewhere too, right? Yeah. Lay it out. What does the infrastructure and kind of a day in the life of Gunnar Lovelace look like? It doesn't look like what what it looked like uh on the organic farm up in ohio anymore no we we have uh two big distribution centers now east coast west coast we're we're shipping you know two days to 90 of the u.s population um that's been just

just getting you ship everywhere in the continental u.s al Everywhere. Alaska and Hawaii? No, just continental U.S. right now. So really for us, it's been about implementing low-carbon, fast shipping to our membership community so that we can reach 90% of the U.S. population cost-effectively. So that's on the infrastructure side. On terms of the actual build-out of the business, the key to any business or organizational success is great people. So I brought in three other amazing co-founders. We have an amazing leadership community in the company. Everybody who's in the company is passionate about health and wellness

and is giving themselves to excellence, passion, goodness. And so, yes, it's super intense. I'm working 16 hours a day, six or seven days a week. I'll have 15 meetings a day. I'm sprinting from, you know, one meeting to another. That isn't all that sustainable long-term, but I love what I'm doing. And I, I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to be able to apply my life in that direction. Right. So how do you maintain your kind of mindfulness

in the midst of the eye of this chaotic storm? Well, I view business as a form of creative yoga. So for me, it's like I'm in a meeting. I like that. I just sit up. I make sure I'm trying to get good posture. I'm staying mindful of my breath, trying to eat a low-sugar I'm trying to get good posture, I'm staying mindful of my breath, trying to eat a low sugar diet, trying to get enough sleep, making sure I get four or

five times a week a really vigorous sweat because otherwise I turn into an asshole. Just really basic guardrails that provide a foundation of support. Right. So there's no like, do you have a morning routine? Do you have a meditation routine uh do you have a meditation practice that you lock in like what is the you know do you bring your green smoothie to the office like what are the tactile kind of like takeaways for somebody who's listening like because you're an interesting you're you're you're an interesting conundrum in the sense that you

don't quite fit that like the typical silicon valley you know like technology entrepreneur like you're coming from this holistic wellness perspective and it's the merging of these two worlds so i'm interested in you know kind of like the actual like you know brass tacks of what that looks like and how you practice that yeah so sleep getting enough sleep is front front and center i can do anything else meditation and lots of exercise if i I'm not getting enough sleep, I just totally implode. So like I, because I have so much on my mind, I really try to take care of myself right before I go to bed. I have a, I have an unwind, you know, sequence that I run through. Like I roll around my back for 20 or 30 minutes and just bring my energy down. It's a very meditative place. I'll take Mag Calm right before I go to bed.

Magnesium. Yeah, just a lot of magnesium. That's a staple in our house. That just brings me right down. And so getting enough sleep is absolutely primary for me in this kind of place of super high intensity. And then, you know, really low sugar diet. Like a low sugar diet, lots of probiotics.

I take probiotics probably four to eight times a day. And for me, that supercharges my immune system. People get sick around me all the time, and I don't get sick very, very, very rarely. And that's because I'm taking a lot of vitamin C. What kind of probiotics? I like temperature-stable probiotics as I'm on the move. So Dr. O'Hara's is a great one. It's a lot of efficacy.

So we sell that on Thrive. I love it. Right. You have no shortage of access to healthy food products with what you do, right? Totally, totally. But, you know, still, it's like it doesn't matter what you put in your body if you're in an unstable place. And we all have our different parameters of what that is sleep is the critical thing for me so you know sleep and a low sugar diet um with lots of probiotics that that powers me through the day and uh and uh what's next like

what's the big the the kind of problem that you're trying to solve right now to get to the next level like what's going on yeah Yeah, so I think the, so a couple of the challenges. One is, you know, we see, our mission is to make healthy living accessible to everybody. We see access as a function of price, geography, and education. And so we've got a really strong core offering

around price and geography. We're shipping healthy products for less anywhere nationally, but we're still not doing what we can do on the education side. And that's really the investment in content. We just shot a 20-part video series on healthy hacks on a budget. And just demystifying health.

Like, how do you read a label? How do carbs turn into sugar? Why you should care about toxic ingredients in your cleaning supplies? Creating short-form content, video content, written content, that's given away with the membership. It's all about healthy habit formation. So if we can help a family that's buying processed toxic food at a local convenience store understand that they can access the natural alternative to that for the same price for the

first time in history and couple that with educational material and we give them a roadmap to be able to make their first two or three purchases, we have a real impact of changing their life and impacting their children's lives in a very, very real way. Yeah, the education is huge. In our cookbook, The Plant Power Way, the idea behind it was to introduce mainstream modern American families to the idea of eating plant-based and to demystify it in many ways and sort of position it and present it as a modern, accessible, and kind of aspirational way of living. And we tried to use, you know, ingredients that you could find no matter where you live, but there are certain things that are like, okay, but if you want to get more exotic and you want to get into the cacao powder and the chia

seeds and you know the ground flax seed and the hemp seeds and all that kind of stuff that look if you're living in venice california that's like you know on the tip of everybody's tongue but if you're in the bread basket of america people have never heard of that stuff it's brand new and and uh and you'll get pushback people will say well you know i say, well, I can't get that stuff. I'm like, it's 2015. If you did a Google search, you could find a place that would ship it to you

in a day and a half. That excuse doesn't hold water anymore. You can't hang your hat on, well, I would do that, but I live here and I can't get that. You can. Forget about Thrive Market. Even if Thrive Market didn't exist,

I'm sure you could find a place to ship you whatever kind of weird ingredient. Amazon, everything has it. So now there's Thrive Market that makes it even easier and more affordable because that's the other argument. While it's too expensive, I can't do it. To be able to do that, like really dilutes and takes all of the kind of energy

that surrounds those those rationales that are so common uh that that crop up around like why i can't access a healthier lifestyle yeah and there's a lot of different demographic segments like there's this whole population of americans that are on food stamps right and so we're we're in conversations with the white house and the the usda to be the first to accept food stamps online early next year. Oh, wow. That would be cool. You cannot use food stamps today online.

How crazy is that? That is crazy. You drive across Los Angeles and you see five fast food joints that now say accepting food stamps and EBT. It's insane, right? That is wild. So that's a major initiative that we're working on. Wow.

I didn't even know that. It's incredible. So that's a whole community that just, no how affordable it is they're on food stamps if they can't use their food stamps to buy natural non-toxic products for the first time as conventional equivalents it's just they're never going to get at it yeah you're further entrenching the socioeconomic problem and making it worse yeah and it's it's it's you know you look at different demographic segments you know what's so so tragic and sad about the current situation is that you've got, you know, very, very low income communities that are overfed and undernourished. And, you know,

you look at obesity and diabetes, it's really heavily concentrated at the lower levels of our economic demographic groups. And it's, it's because processed food is so cheap and the amount of calories you get per dollar is so, so high that it's just- It's impossible to say no to when you're on that kind of a budget. So yeah, I have great empathy for people that are stuck in that situation.

It's a terrible situation. So I think to your point, to your question of what's next, we're building our core business and that's scaling really, really passionately. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation just put half a billion dollars into food issues. So we have a model that we're creating where we can raise money from foundations that provides the first three purchases to a family, coupled with educational material that we develop together, coupled with the free membership that we give away to families in need. And we have an opportunity to really support healthy habit formation at scale

to a whole segment of the U.S. population that just would never be part of this conversation otherwise. Right. I feel like part of your challenge is to be able to effectively, you know, communicate with and penetrate that lower socioeconomic community because, you know, as we're, you know, on the West side of LA, like we all know what's going on at Silicon beach and like, we know, Oh, thrive market, they're happening. You know, that's what's going on right now. People in that community or in that upper kind of the upper, you know,

financial echelon, like we're aware of what you're doing, but is, you know, the bus driver, does he know what thrive market is? Like how are you going to get the message out to the people that actually can benefit the most from the service that you're offering? Yeah, that's exactly right. So I think what's really exciting to me is there's this huge community of influencers that are emerging that care about this issue.

And so we've been very, very thoughtful about how we capitalize the business. We didn't take passive institutional investors. Every single investor that we have in the company is strategic and actually passionately engaged, is interested in this and is working with us on it. And so we have literally 150 influencers as investors in the company. And that was one-

Yeah, you have some really, I mean, all the people are all people you've heard of. They're great people. So they're working with us to build content that speaks to their audiences at scale through social media in a way that's super high impact but very low cost and so when we think about the you know the emerging consumer behavior it's social proof right so if you've got an influencer that you look up to and they're sharing authentically about what it is that they're passionate about and being able to access healthy food for less through this

new platform, it's going to resonate to that community that identifies with that influencer. And that's an extremely high impact, low cost way of scaling into a lot of different demographic groups. And so we're working with, you know, the bloggers and, and then we're working with a list actors and then we're working with A-list actors. And then we're working with A-list sports stars.

And each of those people speak to communities in a different way. And so our job is to be really intelligent about creating content that is authentic to them and speaks to those audiences in a way that's actually going to help them understand that this is an available solution for them. All right, man.

I love it. Our time is up. Really appreciate it. You gotta get going, man. an available solution for them. All right, man. I love it. Our time is up. Really appreciate it. You got to get going, man. So much appreciation for you. I love you, buddy. I'm so proud of you and so excited to see this whole thing just exploding around you like a giant mushroom cloud of awesome.

We're going to find a lot of ways to work together. I love it. And really, really grateful for your audience that is organizing around this conversation and just the way that you made a shift in your own life from a very traditional high powered entertainment lawyer to not so high powered, some, some, some, some to a much greater platform that you're creating. So it really feels good, man. You knew me, you knew me before the transition, right? So you can attest to the difference and the change. And it's just been amazing to kind of observe this arc in your own life and to see what you're building, you have built and continue to build that's helping millions of people.

We're going to be friends and allies for the rest of our lives. It's all good, man. I love it. Absolutely. Have a beautiful day. Big love. Love heals. And I look forward to it.

Dude, we've got to do this more. Will you come back on the show? Absolutely. I feel like you could be my co-host once in a while. I love this stuff. There's a good energy here. Good rapport here. You know what I mean?

Totally. All right, so for people that are listening and they're digging on Gennar and want to learn more, the best place to go is thrivemarket.com. That's it. And you're on Facebook and Twitter and all the local places.

So Gunnar Lovelace, Google him. You'll find him. And anything else coming up that you want to point people to? I think, you know, do what you love. All right. Awesome, man. Peace.

See you later. Plants. Hey, did you guys like that? I like that. I think Gunnar is super cool. I can't wait to see where he takes Thrive and his mission. Don't forget to check out the show notes at richroll.com for additional articles, background, and other materials and resources related to today's conversation. Again, I put a ton of time into compiling these, so make a point to check them out.

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Plants. Thank you.