The School of Greatness - 284 Gunnar Lovelace on Creating a Thriving Company Culture

Episode Date: February 1, 2016

"Learn as ferociously as possible." - Gunnar Lovelace If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/284

This is episode number 284 with Gunnar Lovelace. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome everyone to this episode, a very special one because we have a special human being

on, a dear friend of mine that I've connected with recently who is up to a big game in life and is looking to transform the world and the health that we experience in the world. His name is Gennar Lovelace and he is a serial entrepreneur in nonprofits, technology, fashion, and real estate. But most recently, he is the founder and co-CEO of Thrive Market, which is the largest e-commerce company in LA and is revolutionizing the health food industry. He has started two nonprofits in education and environmental training as well. And in this episode, we really break down a lot of incredible things, including how to attract, nurture, and empower talent at your company, and specifically a company that is growing extremely rapidly in an early stage.

Also, how to handle your internal emotions during massive growth and responsibility, how to come up with the values that are the core of your company, how Thrive Market grew from 10 employees to 400 employees in the first year, how buying quality food from conscious businesses helps heal the healthcare crisis in the U.S., and much, much more. This is an incredible human being. I think you'll get a lot out of this, whether you're an entrepreneur or someone looking to achieve their dreams. Gennar is an incredible example of this. So make sure to dive in, get your pen and paper out, take some notes, and prepare to be inspired.

That's what this is all about. It's allowing yourself to learn, to grow, and be inspired so that you can take action in your life to grow as a human being, to grow in your health, your finances, your relationships, your spirituality, and everything. So without further ado, let me introduce you to the one, the only, Gunnar Lovelace. Welcome, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got my man, Gunnar Lovelace, on. Good to see you, man.

Hey, buddy. So great to finally be here. Thanks for being here. Now, you are the founder and co-CEO of a company called Thrive Market. You're an entrepreneur who's built companies, sold companies. And tell me what you were doing before Thrive, what your entrepreneur journey was like. Yeah, so I mean I've been around a lot of different enterprises. I started and sold a couple of software companies.

Um, then I started a jewelry company with my mom and just kind of been very fascinated in social enterprise my whole life. You know, the, the intersection of business media and technology and the way that that can have impact on the world is very exciting to me. You know, I, uh, I was a full-time activist in college and, you know, it was like the same thousand people that would show up at the rallies. And I was like, this is, there's gotta be a bigger way to have an impact. Um, and so that was right when the.com boom was starting to happen in 2000. So I dropped out of college and started my first educational software

company, teaching children how to read. And that was really the beginning of my journey for me. Why did you want to teach kids how to read? Well, I just fell into it. It was – I was really – we were the first – at that time, the first flash database company in L.A. And I've always loved education in general. company in LA. And I've always loved education in general. And we had a great client that just kept coming back on a piece of software that they wanted us to build for them. And we ended up just building out the entire software application over the course of a year. And it led to the acquisition of the company. What did the software do specifically?

It taught children how to read through interactive cartoons. Really? I could have used this. I couldn't read until college. I still have a lisp. So it was really – in the whole office, we were all doing phonemes, which is – the way we actually learned to read and learn how to speak is we actually look at the way that people's lips move. And so we were spending a lot of time in the animation sequences really making sure the lips of the characters were actually accurate to how people speak. So you were creating cartoons with this on the computer? Or was this like a handheld device?

It was pre-handheld. So it was all computer 2000. Okay. And people would just watch a cartoon show? Yeah, yeah. It was like an interactive choose-your-own-cartoon adventure that would teach children how to read. interactive choose your own cartoon adventure that would teach children how to read and it was it was like a big left turn for me from being a college activist where i was like you know i was literally living in the woods in a tree house on campus illegally you know as a full-time activist and uh and then just you know really felt like i was reaching the limit of my impact and so i

dropped out of school and ended up in this, you know, in this scenario where I was building out this software that I really loved it. So it was just, it's just one thing led to another. Which school is this? UC Santa Cruz. Okay, cool. So it's a banana slugs and they have this beautiful campus with like 10 of their mascot. That's a mascot. Banana slugs. Have you ever seen a banana slug? No. I mean, they're just like big, fat, juicy, yellow, bright slug. And you see them everywhere in the woods.

And there are just huge redwood trees everywhere. And it's just gorgeous. And I was literally living in a tree house. And I had a little hut. And there were like 15 of us that were on campus squatting in the woods. And I did that because I didn't want to pay for rent at the time because I was a full ride scholarship. And I was more interested in like doing art and the activist work that I was doing. But it was, you know, it was such a big turn for me to like drop out of school all of a sudden, start this company, move to L.A.

I'm like a country boy. You're 20 years old? Yeah, 21. Wow. And, you know I'm like a country boy. You're 20 years old? Yeah, 21. And it was a crash course. I'd always been interested in making money. I grew up very, very poor. So for me, it was always like there was a burning desire to be able to provide for myself and provide for my family. But at the same time, I recognized that money was a vehicle for doing good. And so it was a really radical shift for me. And I took a lot of shit from friends of mine that were like, wow, you're such a sellout.

You went from being like a hardcore activist and now you've entered like the corporate world. And so that was a big part. Did you lose a lot of friends in that time? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not. I've lost so many friends from just like, a big part. Did you lose a lot of friends in that time? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not. I've lost so many friends from just like going after my dreams.

It seems like you just lose friends when you do that. Yeah. It's an interesting, you know, the real ones come back. Yeah. Yeah. And at the end of the day, you know, and then like your work, you know, what you do is helping so many people. If you were like, you know, really went off into the dark side, then it would be obvious that you, you know, you were a sellout.

It's the same for me. It's not like, it wasn't like, you know, I went off and, you know, but I've had my fair share of misadventures. Sure, sure, exactly. Now it seems like it'd be a lot to learn how to create this like animation cartoon company at 21, essentially, and teach,

and then understand how to teach education at the same time. Did you have a lot of people working with you? How big was the company? It was about 20 of us. So it wasn't a big company. You started it yourself? You're the founder? Started it. And then we ended up selling the company about a year into the project, which was great. I mean, it wasn't a huge hit, but it was a great, you know, it's like 21 and I had a nice win. And yeah, I mean, for me personally, I think one of the things that has always been my orientation to life is just like learn as ferociously as possible. And it's one of the

things that I tell a lot of my other entrepreneurial friends, particularly women that I think are actually more qualified than men often, but think that they need to know more and prepare more. And I think that we often overthink what we need to do next. And instead, the most valuable thing that we can do is just put ourselves into the situation, get into the driver's seat, make the mistakes and see how, see the real world dynamic instead of try to overthink it. And that to me personally has been such a powerful learning lesson over and over and over again. Like, like I've never built a company like Thrive Market before, you know, we're 400 employees. I've never operated with 400 employees before, but you know, you just have to

like, you lean into it and you're honest with yourself and honest with your leadership team and, and make a lot of mistakes and make sure that there's a culture that it's okay to make mistakes while still being very oriented towards excellence and performance and just be willing to learn. And I think that's such – and I know you share that. I mean that's what your work is all about. Yeah. It's interesting you say that because a lot of entrepreneurs that reach out or email me and I'm sure you get the same thing. They're always asking a lot of questions. They have fears, they have doubts, concerns about putting themselves out there, creating a product or a company. And they always ask, how did you do it? And I'm always like, to be honest, I was just so ignorant about how to do it that I didn't have the fear of looking bad or looking silly. I was willing to put

myself out there and try and take a lot of action over and over and make mistakes. And a lot of people just aren't willing to make those mistakes. They don't want to look bad in their family or friends. It sounds like that's what you did. You were just willing to put yourself out there and learn as you've- Yeah, they're like learning opportunities. It is a mistake, but it's also compost for what's going to come next. It's like a fertile terrain for which the next seed will come. And it's that willingness to just fall down over and over again and pick yourself back up. And there's going to be things that really work well. And all it takes is a few things to work well. That's it. You don't have to be perfect at everything. That's right. And you look at most people that have been really successful in their lives,

they've all had similar experiences. And I think you sound like you had inherent confidence. I did not. I was really insecure. And I've always used fear as a teacher for me. So wherever I was afraid of something, I would be like, okay, I'm really terrified of this, so I'm actually going to go try to do it because I'm really scared of this. And I can tell that just became an early teacher for me. And I think, you know, to the point of the conversation, I think it's such a powerful thing just to be willing to take the

plunge, get into it. And, you know, I love the mantra, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. We are always overtraining. We're always overthinking. We're always trying to make it perfect. You know, get out there as quickly as possible. Friends of mine that are starting businesses are thinking about ideas like, is this right? Is it good enough? And you know, I need another six months to like make this perfect. And I'm just like, stop it. Stop it. Like get out there. There's nothing better than having real market feedback, real people touching it, real people giving you inner feedback about what they think about it. And that's actually the fastest way to iterate on it. Exactly.

I mean look at the iPhone. You think the first iPhone was perfect? No. It's horrendous. And it's still updating every year, right? It's still coming out with something new. But if they waited until now to launch it, they'd be, what, $50 billion less? That's right.

Or something. I don't know. That's right. Interesting. So what do you feel like was the biggest fear you've overcome in the last 10 years that you leaned into? Actually, speaking, public speaking was really – and I still deal with it. I think growing up really poor, overweight, a lot of trauma in my family, and just whatever the dynamic was, there was something – and I had a really intense year where I went from a really safe, kind of small, private school that we had at this little hippie commune that I grew up in to going to a public school in eighth grade. And I was just like completely tortured. It was like the worst year of my life. Wow. this little hippie commune that I grew up in to going to a public school in eighth grade. And I was just like completely tortured. It was like the worst year of my life.

You know, overweight, you know, last name Lovelace, grew up on a hippie commune from a small town, totally like Lord of the Flies. All day long, I was being, you know, thrashed by the kids there. And it just, it took me years to recover from that. And there was something that happened that year where a really deep insecurity around being who I am or speaking clearly, some insecurity set in there. And so I've had to do a lot of work on that. And I still do. I'll go to meetings sometimes, and I'm the most successful person in the room. And everybody there wants to work with me, but I still do. I'll go to meetings sometimes and I'm the most successful person in the room and everybody there wants to work with me, but I get really insecure. And I'll notice this really deep, latent nervous system thing that I'm still like, it's just amazing how trauma

repetitive, and we all have our versions of that. And so I think it's just a great example to be gentle with ourselves, to really recognize that we're all working with a great deck of cards. And that we all have our different challenges that are really our greatest strengths and our weaknesses as well. And so that's a really clear – and so I've had coaches and I've taken classes and I do improv acting and do things that force me to get comfortable with it. But it's still... Even starting this interview, I was like, oh, I noticed some anxiety about this. Sure, sure. Yeah. Okay. What do you feel like you've overcome in the last 10 years? There was a big fear that now you've like, I've conquered this. Yeah, I think it's a constant process.

So, you know, I think one of the big ones for me is just financial wealth. You know, because I grew up so poor, you know, there was just a lot of insecurity around that and a lot of survival concerns. And so, you know, there's,. And so it's a constant journey. And I'm in a place at this point for me where money is energy. It's not about making more money so I can buy a nicer car or a nicer house. I've done all that stuff at this point. It's more about I want to gather more money so that I can have greater impact on the world.

Guys like me and you, we're not always looking for the new car. I don't buy really things. Right. It's like I live a very simple life. Right. But it's not like I'm looking to make money myself to buy something new. It's like I wear usually T-shirts like this all day long. So it's all about the impact and how we can accumulate that and to create a better, better impact.

Um, so I liked that about you. What do you feel like you do the best at right now? I think my, uh, my biggest service, uh, in thrive right now and as a leader is actually being a cheerleader. Um, and I, I actually, for me, that's been a huge process because I used to be a horrendous micromanager. My first companies, I was just terrible. I did not understand how to set people up for success. I didn't understand about how to have like disciplined regular check-ins that create a framework but also allow people to execute on their own.

And I was just like writing people too hard and then also being critical in a way that wasn't constructive. And so it took a lot of mistakes in that area. And I've really had to learn over the last 10 years how to attract leadership and really nurture them and empower them. And my job now as a CEO, which I feel like, you know, is really more about like chief energy officer, like I'm really there conducting energy, the energy of the organization. My job is to find the absolute best people, get out of their way and make sure that they have the resources they need. And yeah, I'm like providing light strategic guidance. But by and large, my job is just to make

sure that they succeed at their jobs. Right. So how do you attract, nurture, and empower? So I think for me, the thing that's been most exciting about what we're doing with Thrive Market, where we're making healthy food affordable to everybody, is that it naturally attracts really passionate people that are interested in that topic. And so I think when one's business, when the thing that we're involved in is inherently of benefit to others, it attracts a different type of person, right? It's not going to be somebody who's just in it for themselves or just in it for money

or just in it for power. Bigger purpose. It's a bigger purpose, right? And so like your work, like your team, like what we do, like so many of these new companies that are now emerging where there is a larger purpose to the actual enterprise in and of itself, that in itself attracts a really high quality person. And so that is a really powerful virtuous cycle. quality person. And so that is a really powerful virtuous cycle. And so for me, that's a big, big tailwind that we've had in building the company. And so I took that approach when I brought three other co-founders on. And that was really unusual for me as well, because it was like

right at the beginning, I gave up a big piece of the company and I had to share power in a way that I had never done before. So why bring on three other people? Well, I recognize that the company and what we're doing, shipping thousands of health food products around the country at low margin is a really hard thing to do. And I knew we were going to grow really quickly because of all the partnerships and the value proposition, how much demand there is to be able to access healthy food for less. all the partnerships and the value proposition, how much demand there is to be able to access healthy food for less. And so it was obvious to me that if we wanted to succeed at what we're doing, there had to be much more senior people at the table from day one. And so that was a, it's still a process. Like I now have a co-CEO, you know, and he's the first co-founder that came

on, you know, when it was still an idea and helped me ideate, you know, helped me ideate on it. And really we raised the first money together and it's just a phenomenal helped me idea, you know, help me ideate on it. And really we raised the first money together. And it's just a phenomenal partner. But, you know, even yesterday we were like, you know, like we had to really process some great stuff together about our power dynamic and our communication styles. And it's a process. It's like any relationship, you know, whether it's romantic or marriage or a business partnership, it takes time.

From my perspective, it takes time and a willingness to really communicate. And the beauty is when you find those relationships where that exists and that you can really build trust that, yeah, things are going to arise, but that we share power well and that we can communicate about anything and that we're inherently approaching the conversation at all times from a place of how do we succeed together versus how do I make sure I'm right? So how do you guys – how does the day-to-day dynamics work? Who's leading the conversation? Who's saying what happens? Who's making the decisions? So we really – we divide and conquer. Because of the scope of what we do, because we have such a complex business so quickly, when we pre-launched, we were 10 employees.

And a year later, we're 400 employees now. A year later. A year later. So break it down for people. I'll have this in the intro as well, but break it down for people exactly what Thrive is and why you got into this in the first place. Sure. What sparked it? So what we do at Thrive Market is that we sell the most popular organic non-GMO food and non-toxic products that you would get at a normal health food store at 25% to 50% off shipped to your home for free.

And instead of making money on the products themselves, we charge a membership of $60 a year like a big box shopping club. Like Costco. Yeah, like that. And for every paid membership, we give a membership away to a family in need. Wow. And so for me, that's, you know, our whole mission as a business is to make healthy living accessible to everybody. And that's a very deep personal passion of mine. You know, I grew up very poor, grew up with a single mom.

We're Latino immigrants. I spent eight years illegally here in this country. So we really struggled and suffered. And I saw how hard she worked to make healthy choices. And when my mother remarried, my stepfather was running an organic food co-op out of a little hippie commune that we moved to in Ojai, California. And I got to see firsthand the power of group buying as a way to make food more affordable. And organic foods. Yeah.

And so it was for me, I always felt like as I moved through my entrepreneurial career, I've always been, I've actually been a, I'm kind of a hypochondriac. So I'm always like obsessed with death. And I'm like, so I like, I'm always been very fascinated with like my physiology and what's going on and what's happening in the health movement in general. And so I've been going to Natural Product Expo West for the last 15 years. And a lot of the brands of the companies we sell, the most popular brands, are friends of ours. And so I've always been like, God, there's got to be a way to dismediate the supply chain, work directly with the brand, ship directly to people,

make it more affordable, pass those savings along. And that's really, you know, that's what we've been doing as a business. Wow. And it's probably, I mean, the fact that you grew up unhealthy, it sounds like, or a fat kid that probably has something to play into it. You don't want other kids to experience that insecurity and pain that came from what you went through, I'm assuming. Yeah. And actually the irony for me is at that point in my life i was actually already on an organic farm really but that was i was depressed you know so a lot obviously a lot of what happens with our you know lifestyle diseases you know there's emotional emotional issues and then we're you know most people are dealing with

emotional issues and the fact that we're eating processed food i was dealing with emotional issues and the fact that we're eating processed food. I was dealing with emotional issues but eating healthy food. But still, I could see how much it was costing people and I always felt like as I moved on in my entrepreneurial career that there had to be a way to make this more affordable for people. So you had the idea and then you found the co-founder and said, how do we launch this or what was the next step? Yeah. I mean, actually, it actually started very organically which is that i started uh setting up a wholesale accounts with the brands that i love the most that i was just spending lots of money on that i you know get my green powders from or whatever it was and i would

like set up because i didn't want to pay i didn't want to pay retail gotcha and so then i would i set up these whole bunch of wholesale accounts with my favorite brands and then started offering it to my friends in my town. Like, hey, you want to buy this for 20% off? They're like, hey, I want to get those greens at 40% off or whatever it was. And so that was just very, very organic. And so then I started running little Facebook groups where I'd be like, hey, this week everybody can buy this product. And I wasn't making any money.

You created your own co-op. I was just testing it. It was like an online co-op. Yeah. Very, very informal. Interesting. And as I saw how much demand there was for that. People were buying.

Oh, yeah. I mean, they were oversubscribed. Every week it was just oversubscribed. And so it was obvious to me that there was a lot of demand to be able to access healthy food for less. And I wanted to find a way to do it that didn't take so much manual communication. Like, oh, Joe in Atlanta wants a bottle of it, and I got to deal with it. And his paperwork and process credit, it was just crazy. And you weren't making any money.

My goal wasn't to make – at this point, I realized there was something happening here. Now I was just like... I was doing an MVP. It was total prototype testing. I was just trying to gauge what products people were interested in and how much demand there was. Then you start asking people, how much would you guys pay a month for me to do

the service? I'd pay $100, $20, whatever. It also just seemed like because Costco is so successful. Of course. But millennials don't want to go to Costco anymore. We don't sell bulk. We sell everyday sizes. So it makes it really easy.

You don't want 72 rolls of toilet paper in your house. You don't want to put anywhere to store it. Unless you've got six kids or whatever. You need a big suburban house somewhere. So it was obvious to me that what we needed to do was really figure out a way to make everyday healthy food more affordable to people. Gotcha. So how does this compare to Whole Foods or Trader Joe's or your local whole market store? Yeah. I mean, on average, we're 25% to 50% off the normal retail price.

Wow. But you would get in the grocery store, any one of those stores. Yeah. So, I mean, Trader Joe's is more affordable in general because they private label everything. Yes. But relative to everything else, we're still- The brands you like. Yeah.

Like, if you were going to a normal health food store and buying your products that you want, you would save probably 30% to 35% with us. Gotcha. probably 30% to 35% with us. Gotcha. So you're essentially getting name brand quality products for the same price you would get private label stuff at Trader Joe's. Yeah, and sometimes less.

Gotcha. And it's delivered to your home for free. Right. And how long does the shipping take? It takes a couple days. We have two warehouses now on the West Coast and the East Coast. So we ship directly to our members now

within a couple days. Yeah, I made my order uh last week and had a nice box come in with everything in there all packaged up it was amazing awesome good stuff yeah i mean it's it's it's we try to make it experience you know so when you i mean that's the thing is also like how do you make the box kind of it's really cool it's like a welcome message yeah the whole all all post-consumer recycled materials and craft paper but it's beautiful and it has an aesthetic to it. I mean, I think this is amazing. Even the way it was wrapped was very intentional. It wasn't just like put in the box and let's go together.

It was very detailed, like tucked in in the corners. We've spent a lot of attention on that. Yeah, that takes a lot of time and energy. Millions of dollars and a lot of energy. A lot of people. A lot of experts. Like how do we make sure our packages consistently arrive in a beautiful state? That's hard.

Yeah. Really hard to do. We've really struggled with that one and we're finally getting it down. So how many people are in the two warehouse houses working and then how many are in the headquarters? We're finally getting it down. So how many people are in the two warehouse houses working and then how many are in the headquarters, I guess? So there's about 250 in the two warehouses and then 150 at corporate. Wow. And how did you – you started what, a year and a half, two years ago?

We started 14 months ago. 14 months. And I remember getting the deck. I don't know if you'd sent me the deck or someone because you're reaching out to like every influencer, health influencer to invest. And I remember getting this and I was like, it seems like a pretty – the deck was like the most incredible deck ever that I'd ever seen because I get offers here and there. Of course. I was like, wow, this thing looks really nice. But I just don't know if they'll be able to pull it off.

I'm like, dang it. I should have invested now. But you had so many – so much movement. I just saw it everywhere. Everyone's promoting it. And the results have been incredible for people. So are you allowed to talk about numbers of how many people, how many customers do you have? What's the retention?

What's it like? Yeah. So we're actually the fastest growing e-commerce company in the history of Los Angeles. And we've brought on 160,000 paying members in our first year of business thousand paying members uh 50 60 bucks a month 60 a year 60 a year um and we hit uh you know like 85 90 million dollar revenue run rate in our first 12 months amazing so it was really uh intense process say at least there were a lot of months where we actually had to like turn off all the marketing no way oh yeah it's gonna handle it even this month we had least there were a lot of months where we actually had to like turn off all the marketing.

Oh yeah. It's going to handle it. Even this month we had to turn off a bunch of marketing cause it was just like coming in too hot. Because you know, the thing is operations, logistics, member services, those are linear processes.

It's not like a software. It's not like a software app where like it just booms and scales like infinitely overnight. Like you have to actually have real people shipping real packages and real member services. You have to train them. You have to educate. Yeah, and we want a really high quality,

so we don't want to grow too quickly. We've grown really, really fast, but we've actually purposely, periodically throughout the last 14 months, we've purposely throttled the growth so that we didn't grow too fast. And even then, we still have had periods of time where we would get backlogged or things would go too out of stock or people would try to call our member services and there'd

be 5,000 tickets in front of them. Oh, my gosh. And that kind of stuff happens every month. We have stuff like that going on. Right. Okay. So what do you see next for the company? Are you going to have fresh meats and produce? What are those things you're going to have in the future? What do you

see happening? Yeah. I mean, there's a bunch of different things that we're doing. I mean, one is our mission is just to continue to get better at what we're doing right now. We've set a really high bar. Now we need to consistently execute on that. And if we just stay focused on what we're doing right now, we will build a multibillion-dollar business. Just execute what you're good at. Just doing what we're doing right now. Don't try to jump into everything else. We are doing other things, and that's the beauty of having a really strong leadership team and two CEOs and strong co-founders. We can do a lot and we have to make sure that we're so focused on what we're doing. Otherwise, we will lose the critical opportunity

that we have that nobody's doing what we're doing. It's our game to lose at this scale right now. So it's really about staying focused. Also, I think one of the big challenges for us, which we've been doing well at, but it's still an ongoing process is how do we make sure the culture of the company stays really intact as we grow so quickly? And what I mean by that is we've got a lot of really smart people that are passionate working together for the first time. And how do we build trust among them? How do we really facilitate a culture that's really positive, still performance-oriented, but allows people to feel safe to make mistakes,

allows for really, really good inter-departmental process and communication? And that's just starting to happen, but we have a lot more work to do there. Sure. How are you handling your own internal emotions over the last 14 months with so much scale, from 10 to 400 people and the success of the company and the pressure or the weight that potentially could come from that? How are you handling it yourself? Depends on the month. I'm blessed to have a great partner in my life and she's been really flexible and patient with me because because you know it's hard i leave at 6 37 in the morning and i don't come back till 10 at night yeah a lot of the time but

you know we have date night and day day and like i i make sure i get you know like four or five really good sweats a week like i go and get some really intense cardio and, you know, just, I just try to do like basic stuff, take a lot of probiotics and like ashwagandha and like different things that like make, keep my immune system and my stress level in check. Fundamentally though, like it was actually more stressful like five months ago, four months ago. Um, now we're kind of at a place where it's, it's, there's so much momentum and there's so many good people and so many things are breaking our way. It's really just about pacing myself and really making sure when I come into the workplace, I'm coming from a balanced place because everybody responds to leadership. It's like a tuning fork. So if I'm in a frantic space or I'm

unsettled or anxious, it just ripples down instantly and it has a really negative effect on the business. Wow. And so the most important thing for me at this point is just to – like I said, is I'm just constantly working to build process among the leadership, interdepartmental process, facilitate a positive culture, and really just pace myself at this point. Got you. What do you think is your guys' biggest challenge moving forward, besides staying focused, which I think is most on the news? It is. Yeah. I think that's definitely... There's so many shiny objects, so it's so easy to get tempted by what's the next thing. And I think, as I said, I think the other big challenge for us as we grow the business is how do we really make sure people that come in,

that we really build a culture of positivity and excellence. So like, we're just finishing an exercise of our values as a business and what the onboarding sequence is for new employees. And, you know, like simple things like, you know, I didn't realize before we started the business that how important it was that we really facilitate a culture of positivity. How do you facilitate that? And as leadership, we have to reflect it. And there's had to be hard adjustments among leadership where there was like complaining or gossiping, like great people, super talented, but just like not coming from that place. And so if some of the leadership is coming from a place of

insecurity at that level, it's going to percolate down into the company. And so if some of the leadership is coming from a place of insecurity at that level, it's going to percolate down into the company. And it was, there were some challenges that were happening there. Like that was, there was negativity and complaining and gossip and, you know,

like, you know, subplots and like that, like, you know, for me, I came back after a trip last September and I was like, this,

this just got, we cannot have that happening in the business. And so really making sure that it's safe for people to say what they think and that people feel safe pushing back. Just because I ask for something or some other senior leadership asks for something doesn't mean that somebody shouldn't push back and say, hey, this is – Speak up. Yeah, speak up. And there is a hierarchy and there's power decisions that get made.

But at the end of the day, we want to stay a really open culture and we want to facilitate that so that people feel like they're part of the process and there's authorship by everybody and alignment and enrollment. Yeah. And so I didn't realize how important it was when I started this journey with Thrive Market that really building a culture of positivity. And that's really, that starts from us as leaders. If we're positive and we're not gossiping behind people to other parts of the leadership and we're not acting in a judgmental way, but still like real performance, KPIs and metrics and excellence and deliverables, but positive and loving and authentic.

It just – the virtuous cycles that emerge from that are so unquantifiable and so powerful. And at the same time, it's hard to do. Very hard to do. It's hard to do. And you can't expect your team to do something you're not doing. That's right. You can't expect them to be loving when you're gossiping and angry at each other. That's right.

Fighting constantly. That's right. So, yeah, that's great. It takes a lot of practice. It does. And patience. It does. And awareness of what you're creating every single moment.

And there are moments where I'm just jacked up on caffeine and I'm like too sharp. And then I have to go apologize. Right. And that's like I'm not above like, you know, like saying, hey, like I made a mistake. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, hey, I apologize. There's something that you would like me to understand about the situation that I didn't pick up. I'm curious.

How did you create a value? You said you just created your value system now, right? I mean we just codified it. We've had values along the way, but we're like really, really mounted. It's like the 10 commandments of your company are up there now. So how do you create that as you're growing and evolving? I think a lot of entrepreneurs probably have this question. It's like, okay, I come out with an idea and I just start making money and then I start hiring people and then I forget about creating a value system for this company or this product or whatever it may be. So how does someone go about that? Even if they have three people on their team, 400 people, what do you think is a great process to doing that?

Well, we did, and I don't claim to be an expert in this. And we have a lot of advisors and help around this. And it's an ongoing process. What we did is we've gone out and looked at companies that we thought have do it well. And we looked at their values and we've talked to them and some of them are investors in our business. And we've gone and visited their workplaces

and looked at their onboarding sequences and really looked at the way that they have invested in that and successfully nurtured that. And Tom's Shoes is a great example and Patagonia is a great example. Those to me are like two of the best examples out there of really successful social enterprise businesses operating at big scale, but they really take care of their employees and they really invest in the culture of what they're doing. And so we basically just, and I would recommend this for other entrepreneurs, of what they're doing.

And so we basically just, and I would recommend this for other entrepreneurs, find businesses that you think are doing it well and mimic, right? No need to reinvent the wheel. And so we borrowed from a bunch of, we gathered five different value statements and mission statements. And then we just made it our own

and made what's real about our business. And for us, our business is that we're focused with passion and purpose and positivity on making healthy living accessible to everybody. And we're focused with real obsession on our members. Like if we don't make sure that we do the basic things of taking care of our members that are paying for membership, nothing else can happen. of our members that are paying for membership, we don't, nothing else can happen. Um, and then everything else stems from that, you know, personal responsibility and authenticity and, uh, being able to have a culture that, you know, is really takes care of its employees. And so, you know, that was kind of how we thought about the hierarchy of our value sets.

Gotcha. Gotcha. And did you create it as a leadership team? Did you have input from the entire company? Both. Yeah. Yeah. So we, we did, did some exercise company wide where we like asked the entire company to write the things that were most important to them. And then we distilled that through a series of leadership conversations. And now it's all the common themes. Yeah. It's all the, it's, it's, you know, it's, you know, distilling those into 10 key themes and it, it actually reflects the entire commentary of everybody, but it's all been distilled down into 10 key points. And then, you know, that's a living document for us. So it's not like it's done and it will never be changed.

I mean, I think that's one of the challenges of like the U.S. Constitution or things like that is like we get so wed to things being like the way they are and we don't recognize that, you recognize that we all learn and dynamics change. And so for us, it's a living document. We will reflect on it every year and make any adjustments as part of an interactive process. I like that. Very cool. Is there a process or a document that you sent out that you'd be willing to share with people?

A questionnaire or that we could add to this? Yeah. I mean, I could definitely get something on that. Or send me a few questions that people could use. Yeah. I mean, it was really – we did it. So we do – once a month, we do what's called our town hall. And we bring food and some beers and wine.

And it's kind of festive. Sure. food and like some beers and wine and it's, you know, kind of festive and the leadership gives an update on what's happening with the company in the last 30 days. And we take question and answer and we'll do some exercises sometimes in those. So one of the, one of the town halls we did is, you know, we, we had everybody come and just spend half an hour writing about what it was that was important to them, why they were there, what they want to see happen, what they're having challenges with. And then we really worked on synthesizing that. It took a lot of time. I mean, I think that's one of the challenges, right? Like we're so busy as entrepreneurs.

We don't think that this is an important thing. We're focused on getting results in our business, not creating the culture as much and making sure that everyone's happy and connected. And it's really hard when we're overwhelmed and we're trying to either survive or deal with the crush of growth to prioritize something that's more abstract and doesn't seem as tangible. And I really had to get my head around that. It's been a process for me too. But it's the dividends of facilitating a really positive culture where it clearly reflects the values of the entire company. It's important. It's really important. And it sets up a lot of virtuous cycles.

So half of our new employees come from existing employees. Right. Right. lot of virtuous cycles so you know half of our new employees come from existing employees right right and that's because people feel like it's an exciting rewarding uh beautiful place to work fun community yeah yeah and so we run we run a food program for example so every all the food is paid for for them for the employees um and we have a big kitchen a big long 30 foot wooden table and a cafe lunch organic the food, lunch. Organic food, all taken care of. It's simple. It's like a salad bar and sandwiches and great snacks and bars and all that and soups and just simple stuff.

But still, it brings everybody together. And it's our version of the water cooler. People from all departments that don't normally work together get to spend a few moments together and break bread metaphorically. And it creates a lot of interwoven fiber among the organization. And so I think the key thing there, what I tell other entrepreneurs is pick the areas that you're going to invest in as a business. And for us, like a food program, yeah, it costs a lot of money. Right. How much does that cost a month? It's like 50 grand a month. Right. It's a lot of money.

40, 50 grand a month. That said, when we do the analysis, even from a pure bottom line perspective, if employees don't feel like they can get food there and they're going out for long lunches and they don't build relationships with each other actually costs us a lot. They're not being as productive. Costs us a lot more. Yeah, right. Interesting. This is great.

A couple of final questions for you. What are you most grateful for in your life recently? I am most grateful for the opportunity to really just be myself. And I think, you know, we talked about this at the top of the interview and, you know, I've, I've had such a, um, you know, I've, I've really struggled at a lot of different times in my life and a lot of like trauma and suffering and insecurity. Um, and, uh, I've also been very successful at the same time. Um, you know, like interfacing with more conventional business, the more conventional business world and venture capital investors, you know, I've always felt like I kind of had to like hide who I am and that I couldn't like, just let my authentic self like fully be there. And that,

and that I was going to be seen through as like a fraud, right. You know, like these, like these, the top VCs in the country, we're going to see through finally. And then I'm a fraud, you know? And like, this was like the real stuff. Cause you know, and, uh, and, and now, you know, I like, I'll go into meetings and I'm just like, this is who I am. I grew up in a hippie commune. Like I've seen some really alternative shit in my life. I've really suffered, you know, I've had my fair share of like insecurities and fears and sexual trauma. And that's just part of my journey. And I'm practicing authentically letting that be part of my leadership style. And I'm so appreciative of the therapeutic part of it.

And I can see how it brings people more closely together. When I'm as a leader, authentically sharing my hopes and dreams and fears and vulnerabilities, it allows other people to know that they can do the same thing. I love that. Thanks for sharing that. That's great. What can we do to get signed up with Thrive? I know in the beginning, you came on as a sponsor recently, so thanks for that. Of course. It's an honor. But what can we do for people that want to get signed up with Thrive Market and get started? What can they do?

Well, I mean they go to – is it Thrive Market, Lewis? ThriveMarket.com slash Lewis. Okay. ThriveMarket.com slash Lewis. Yes. And there's a free trial and a percentage off their first purchase. Yeah. And I think the main thing is we're at this amazing moment as a species where the production and distribution of conventional food is poisoning our economy. It's poisoning our bodies and it's poisoning the environment.

And we all can see it in different ways. We spend $300 billion a year now on diabetes-related illnesses. In this country, we're bankrupting our country and future generations with lifestyle diseases. All can be changed with the way we, you know, make lifestyle choices and the food that we eat. And so to the extent that we can all work together, vote with our dollars to support conscious businesses, access healthy food for less, which is such a critical part of our everyday life, we're all participating in an incredible virtuous cycle that benefits ourselves,

benefits the economy, and benefits the environment. And so we need help. Even though we're doing really well, this movement has been built on people sharing it with other people. And so we need that support and you know we're still like yeah we're doing 100 million a year in revenue there's 400 employees like we're we're a small gnat in the industry you know and like we're up against big multi-billion dollar food companies that are not excited about what we're doing right every fast food company every i mean and and, and many like just the companies that are producing food going into retail channels. We're already in our 14th month of business. We're the largest retailer in the country selling non-GMO, only non-GMO foods in the whole country, which shows you how quickly it's come.

And that's happened because of the support that we've gotten. To your question, one, go try it for yourself. You can cancel at any time. You'll see how much money you save instantly yourself. Then if you like it, please

share it with your friends and family. There you go. Go to thrivemarket.com slash Lewis. We'll have that linked up here at the end as well. Two questions for you. Where can we connect with you online? Do you personally, are you online? If people want to reach out? It's facebook.com forward slash Gunnar Lovelace.

Okay, we'll have that linked up as well. So that's personal profile. Are you on the Instagram and Twitter as well? You know what? I'm like, I really need to. I know you took the first Snapchat photo. I'm just getting ready to start investing now. Okay, cool.

But Facebook is definitely. And then Thrive Market on Facebook too. We have a great Facebook page. Cool. We'll link that up as well. The final two questions. If this is your last day and Thrive was gone and everything you've ever created was gone,

for some reason, it just erased from time and everyone you love is that you're by your side. And they say, uh, you know, there's a piece of paper and a pen. You get to write down three truths, three things,

you know, to be true about everything you've learned in your life so far. And this is what everyone's going to remember you by. They won't have anything else that you've ever put out there. What would you write down as those three truths? That's a good one. That's a good one. Sorry to put you on this. Yeah, yeah. That's your job, right? What's coming up for you in the moment, obviously.

So for me, what's coming up is to love courageously and to really live our lives from a place of love, to do what we love, to really reach out and stay connected to those that we love. And even if, even if we're afraid of it. And the other thing would be, you know, personally, I would want to know that I inspired people to live their fullest and to encourage people to courageously live their fullest life, to encourage people to courageously live their fullest life, uh, to, you know,

courageously meet their fears and to really express themselves fully and do, do what they love at that, at that level. That's two, uh, third one. Wow. Uh,

I mean, I think I, I think that was really like those, that's it for me. Like those, those are the really, like, if I were to think about the most important things for me would be to really you know you know really live from a place of love and to um

you know really uh realize our full potential and help others do the same thing it's so gratifying when our life is about helping others you know you know if we're just constantly working to serve ourselves uh we can be very successful by conventional standards and have a lot of money, but there's an emptiness that's there. And to the extent that we can do that while having a life of service that's connected to something greater than serving our own self-interest all the time, we're going to be really, really happy. Yeah, I love that. And final question, what's your definition of greatness? Definition of greatness. For me, it is really about that is how do I realize my full potential and help others to do the same? I actually think that that in the most simplistic terms, that's the meaning of life. You know, if you look at all

life, all life is trying to get as big and healthy as possible and to share that information with its kin. You know, a plant is looking to get as big as possible and possible and to share that information with its kin. You know, a plant is looking to get as big as possible and animals looking to get, you know, how to be as healthy as possible and to have its kin do the same thing. I feel like, you know, greatness for me personally is how do I live from that place and how do I inspire as many people as possible? And I know that's what you do. Exactly.

Good on you. Thanks for coming. So much love and respect. I love what you're doing. Thanks, I know that's what you do. Exactly. So good. All right. Thanks for coming. So much love and respect. I love what you're doing. Thanks. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Yeah. And there you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed this one. Make sure to check out the full show notes at lewishouse.com slash two, eight, four. I think you're going to get a lot out of this.

Also make sure to sign up for your first month for free plus 20% off of Thrive Market. When you go to thrivemarket.com slash Lewis, I highly recommend checking it out. You're going to get a huge discount on some of the best whole foods that you can get. So make sure to check out thrivemarket.com slash Lewis for the special offer that Gennar has offered all of our listeners on the School of Greatness podcast. Be sure to share this with a friend, any friend that you think might get value from this. Share this with them, send them an email, and also post this on Twitter and Facebook so your friends can connect as well. We've got incredible guests coming up, and I hope you continue to enjoy and be inspired and moved by the guests that I bring

on and the topics we cover. Again, lewishouse.com slash 284. Share with your friends. I love you guys very much. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. 🎵 Bye.