The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - How To Be Disruptive, Change Career Paths, & Identify Your Strengths & Weaknesses With DEUX Founder Sabeena Ladha

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

#499: On today's episode we are joined by Sabeena Ladha. Sabeena is the founder and creator of DEUX, a a raw cookie dough brand that is vegan and gluten-free. Under Sabeena's direction DEUX has skyrocketed and become a massively succcesful brand. On today's show Sabeena discusses how she identified a niche market, disrupted an established category, and changed career paths and how you can to.  To connect with DEUX click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit  TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential. We have a very exciting co-brand dropping tomorrow (9/27). It’s mouthwatering, healthy, PINK, and will bring back all the nostalgic feels of your childhood: Think: birthday sleepovers, pillow fights & Easy Bake Ovens, but like, with beauty benefits. PLUS it comes with a whole cheeky situation. OH AND – it pairs perfectly with your PINK BALLS and ICE ROLLER. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp BetterHelp is online therapy that offers video, phone, and even live chat-only therapy sessions. So you don’t have to see anyone on camera if you don’t want to. It's much more affordable than in-person therapy & you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/skinny . This episode is brought to you by ZocDoc With Zocdoc, you can see real, verified patient reviews to help find the right doctor in your network and in your neighborhood. Zocdoc is a FREE app that shows you doctors who are patient-reviewed, take your insurance and are available when you need them. Go to Zocdoc.com/SKINNY and download the Zocdoc app for FREE. This episode is brought to you by Dr. Dennis Gross Help correct and prevent signs of sun aging with Dr. Dennis Gross Vitamin C Lactic for firmer, brighter, stronger skin. The quality of Dr. Dennis Gross ingredients, formulation, and delivery system all add up to you seeing real results– both immediate and long-term. Use code SKINNY at checkout for 20% off your first purchase at www.drdennisgross.com. This episode is brought to you by Gravity Crave better sleep? Ready for an all-around wellness upgrade? Then you need a Gravity weighted blanket. Visit GravityBlankets.com/Skinny, use code SKINNY for 15% off any Gravity product. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her.

Aha! So we launched October of 2020. They reached out January of 2021. It was months. I was still making the product at my house. We didn't even have a manufacturing facility. So when Shark Tank reaches out, you're like, holy shit. The process is pretty gnarly.

Meeting with producers, perfecting your pitch, creating the set. You create all of that. You pay for all of that. 50% of the brands that film don't actually end up airing. So you can go through that entire process and then your episode could never air. All right, guys, welcome back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. As you know, I have been on mat leave and I put that in quotes because it wasn't like a real mat leave, for the last three months. And I have been quietly working on something for the last year with one of my

favorite brands, Doe. Presenting the Skinny Confidential Times Doe. If you don't know what Doe is, you have to go on their site, eatdoe.com. It is the best cookie dough you have ever had in your mouth. And the great thing about it is there's no egg in it. So you can just eat it raw right out of the jar. It is so delicious that Zaza got in a fight with me about it. I gave her some skinny confidential dough to try and she would not give it back to me. It was wild. I have been working with them for the last year to find the cookie dough of my dreams. So first things first, when we started this collab was I wanted to make sure we incorporated the Skinny Confidential brand in some way. And how we did that was I wanted to make it pomegranate tasting because it sort of was in line with my de-puffing

oil. I have a de-puffing oil on my site and one of the main ingredients is pomegranate. I'm obsessed with pomegranate. And so I wanted to create a cookie dough with pomegranate powder in it because it's full of benefits. There's tons of anti-inflammatory benefits in pomegranate powder. So we incorporated that and then to give it that little pink punch, we also added dragon fruit powder. So this is an antioxidant that's known for its anti-aging properties. And then we also added amazing ingredients. Every ingredient is ingredients that I eat and that I give my daughter and my husband. Think organic flaxseed, organic cane sugar, organic maple syrup, cashew butter. We added baking soda, vanilla extract, and like I said, no egg. So you can eat it raw.

Like imagine yourself in bed watching your housewives with your headphones on eating your raw cookie dough. Or you can bake it too. It's just as good when it's baked. So you could do either one. This is my favorite cookie dough on the planet. Always has been. I became a fan a long time ago when they launched.

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

cookies. You absolutely have to have it. You can use it for going out with your friends. You could use it as a little workout bag, a skincare bag. It's so cute. Or you can just buy the cookie dough for $15. This is one of these situations that I think is going to sell out quickly. It's limited edition. So go on there, get a couple of jars, $15 each. And you can also use code skinny dough. That's S-K-I-N-N-Y-D-E-U-X for 10% off. And just like a side note, you guys know how serious I am about expecting excellence in every area of the brand. I really try to make every single detail perfect for you guys from like the postcard to the unboxing, everything I have my hands in. So this one, like I said, we've taken a year to launch. I wanted to make sure it was

perfect. I tried gallons of cookie dough before this was created and this is it. I gave it to all the girls in the office. Everyone loves it. It's fucking amazing. And today we decided, and this has been a long time coming, to interview the founder of Doe, Sabina. She has an incredible story. First of all, she was on Shark Tank, which we get into, and she just shares really candidly the evolution of her business. She launched her business in 2020, and it's really inspiring to see what she's done. I mean, Doe is everywhere. They've collaborated with huge names. I know Victoria's Secret Models are a huge fan of the brand, Kristen Cavallari, Karlie Kloss. Everyone's talking about this brand, and I'm totally inspired by her and this episode. To hear everything from

all the details about venture capitalism to entrepreneurship to how she's built this brand out of a kitchen in her house and been on Shark Tank is incredible. I think you're going to love this episode. Sabina and the dough team have been a dream to work with. On that note, let's welcome Sabina Lawden, the founder of Dough, a raw cookie dough that is vegan and gluten-free, available at Air One, Whole Foods, and Target. To the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her. Have you always been this entrepreneurial since you were little? No, I'm not. I'm not the girl that used to like sell donuts on the playground. You know, you hear those stories of like, oh, I like used to buy candy and then resell it,

mark it up 50 cents at recess. And I never was that person. I didn't think I realized I was entrepreneurial until I got here in hindsight 2020. And you realize like all of the things that you did that were entrepreneurial. So when you have this career now, and it's incredible what you've built, do you look back when you were little and see little things like, oh, that makes sense? Yeah. Well, not following rules is like a big one, right? That's the number one thing that even in the corporate, like my first job out of college, even though I was a good student and all of that, I think there are many instances of where I hate red tape and I hate rules. And I think all rules are there to be broke. I think you learn the rule first. I guess that's my caveat.

And then you break it. But that was the number one thing growing up that I always got feedback on. And now I use it and it is a great benefit to us. Talk to us about the year before you get on Shark Tank and what led up to that and like how that even came to fruition. Yeah. Shark Tank is interesting because there are two ways to get on the show. So either you and I've had friends who have applied, you know, four or five times and then they finally get on or they're trying again or they reach out to you. And I think a lot of people don't know that ladder. Well, they're actually scouting for brands and they will email like the email us to our hello at eat dough account or customer service email. And you get that you get an email like that and you

look at it and you have to do it. You're like, is this real? Yeah. Like I'm like, is this real? Someone just trying to like get my information at this point because we were only so we launched October of 2020 they reached out January of 2021 it was months from when we went live I was still making the product at my house like I was making it in my kitchen we had another commercial kitchen where we had little like bakers that were students helping us make the product we didn't even have a manufacturing facility. So when Shark Tank reaches out, you're like, holy shit. But the process is, I think, again, what people don't know, the process is pretty gnarly for Shark Tank. So I probably spent a hundred hours on all the work that you've, I

mean, meeting with producers, like perfecting your pitch, like creating the set. You create all of that. You pay for all of that. And that type of work, you know, it can all go. It can all be beneficial. You know, ours, we landed an air date and we aired. But 50 percent of the brands that film don't actually end up airing. So you can go through that entire process and then your episode could never air. So that is also like a caveat. A lot of people, founders ask me all the time, like, how was it? Would you do it again? And I'm like, well, you're spending time away from your business. So that's one. And then two, you need to build a business that is not reliant on that. Because a lot of people build a business and they are like, I need to get on Shark Tank. I have to or this won't work. If that's your

mentality, then you're not building a strong business. Like, ours was it's great if it happens. But if it doesn't, then that's totally fine. Well, the same thing goes for any kind of funding, right? Like, if you're completely reliant on like venture funding or outside funding, you don't have a sound business. Without that, then it's maybe not the best business. And we're seeing, I mean, over the last few months,

we're seeing a ton of brands go under because of that. Do you think that the pandemic helped with the launch of your business or hurt it? 100% it helped. People weren't buying food online before. So that was even, you know, with Instacart or, you know, we were chatting earlier. My husband works for Erewhon. He built their kind of e-commerce during the pandemic. And that habit of buying something like a dessert or snack online was just kind of maybe you would buy it on Amazon, maybe like a bar.

But, you know, it took off like five years of the adoption of e-commerce for food. So 100 percent people were looking for it. And we launched, you know, October 2020 was at a time when people had already gone through the sourdough wine phase. Like they had already gained their COVIDough wine phase. Like they had already gained their COVID 19 pounds. Like they were like, shit, we're going to be in this for a minute. So we need to go back and swing healthier. But they wanted something like comfortable and comfort food. And so having a product like ours, which is, you know, healthy comfort food that actually hit the nail on the head with what people were looking for at that

moment. Did you have a sort of epiphany to do cookie dough? Do you remember a moment where you were like, I have to do this? You said you weren't baking cookies on the corner. What is the full history? Because I know we've been talking about this. What is the full history of how this came to be? Yeah, it's kind of funny because there's the COVID story, right? Of how it initially came up.

But I have a pretty deep, deep relationship with food and junk food specifically. So I grew up in a little town called Ulus. It's right outside of Fort Worth, Texas. And my parents are immigrants. So my dad literally like was a sailor and came off of a boat when he was traveling from Greece and he stayed in America. So he didn't have, you know. In Ulus, Texas. No, well, he landed in Chicago. He came to Chicago because there's like a small community of Indian people in Chicago. So he went to Chicago and then they were like, my parents were like, this is too fucking cold. Like, why are we here?

So then and income tax. So they, you know, they moved to Texas and he worked odd jobs. So he worked, you know, as a taxi driver. He worked in a deli. He worked in a gas station and a convenience store. And then kind of the culmination of his American dream was when he was able to save up enough money and buy this gas station slash convenience store in Fort Worth, Texas. We spent, you know, every waking moment in there that

we weren't in school. So he, you know, didn't have an employees because he was trying to make a profit. So it worked like 16 hours a day there. And we would spend, my sisters and I would spend every Saturday and Sunday there. And we would like be behind the cash register and like count change for customers. And we'd always get to pick two snacks, you know, like one sweet and one salty. And I fucking loved junk food. It wasn't in the 90s when I grew up, it wasn't as kind of like criminalized as it is now because people didn't really read nutrition labels, like at least in Texas, right? Like maybe on the coast, but people weren't reading. Not even then, same age demo. Yeah, and like, it's kind of funny.

Like we used to eat Kraft mac and cheese for dinner and Oreos for breakfast and it was totally fine. Like I played sports. So externally, I didn't look like I needed help eating, but I was eating like Taco Bell and fast food and Kraft. And then I started getting into health and wellness in college. And then my first job out of college was at Pepsi, was at Frito-Lay. And it was like one of the jobs my parents actually understood. Like they were like, what do you do for a living? And I was like,

I sell these shit. They're like, oh, OK, we get it. It's like a physical product. And then at the same time, you know, I was getting further and further away from eating that type of food. And I mean, don't get me wrong. Like when I'm on my period, all I want is like a flaming hot Cheeto puff. Like that's all I want. But like, you know, that's that's also you kind of grow out of that phase once you start to like learn about nutrition and get a little bit healthier. So I just had this dissonance at that time of I'm selling literally like I'm slinging potato chips. I was on a three billion dollar brand lays. And then in my personal life, I'm trying to get my friends and family to just eat a little bit more vegetables or eat, you know, slightly better, less processed food. Because again, like we're in Texas. And, you know, at that point I decided I was like, I don't think

this food and beverage space is, I don't think I can make an impact here. Like I think if I'm going to do it, I will have to do it on my own. But I initially was just kind of disheartened. And I was like, I'm leaving this industry. Like, I'm not doing this. And then I went into kind of consulting and venture capital and started getting into the startup landscape. It's funny because when you look at my background, it was built for this. But while I was going through it, it was so meandering to me. I was like, this is such a chaotic career.

Like, if you look at this resume, because that's what you're taught in undergrad, right? Like, this resume needs to make sense. If you look at my resume, it does not make sense. But now if you look at Doe, the junk food as a childhood, in my childhood, Frito-L align and have everything connect because and the reason i think it's a mistake is it's a very rare percentage that goes through that path and it's like this is my path it's the thing i'm going to do forever i love it right like and you learn so much and you get such a particular skill set for so long and then the problem is if you want to go outside of that particular skill set you're kind of fucked because you don't have a wide enough variety of experience to kind of go outside. I think I like it more personally having a mishmash of all these different things because then I can kind of blend into the thing that I actually like doing, especially as you get older and actually figure that out. Because I

don't know a lot of young people that know right away what they actually really want to do. Yeah. Like you're forced to choose your major when you're like 17 years old. It's interesting what both you guys are saying, because I'm reading this book by my favorite author, Robert Greene, and he wrote this book called Mastery. And one of the things of mastery is that you take all the little skills that you love doing, even if they don't make sense, and you put them together to create a career of mastery. That book, I love that book and I love Robert, but it can be a bit misleading on the surface because mastery is like honing one craft over and over. But if you actually track Robert's life,

he had what? Over a thousand different kinds of careers. Not that many, but he had literally a hundred different types of jobs throughout his life until he figured out, oh, I'm doing this thing. But he used all the different jobs that he had to create the job. And you've literally done exactly what he says to do in the book. But imagine you go through the school system like, I'm going to be a lawyer and you do that for,

what, 22, 23 years? And then you're like, fuck, I hate this. Like when you're in your 40s and then you're like, and now what? Yeah, and your resume or say you want to be in finance

and you're like, I hate this. And you have a, that's why I think it's good, especially before you figure out what you really love to taste a lot of different things.

Yeah, that's what I tell, I mean, I, we get a ton of outreach from 94% of our audience is women. So a ton of outreach from Gen Z and millennial women being like, I don't know what to do. I think I want to be entrepreneurial. How did you do this? How did you start this? And my advice is always, it might not make sense. So stop trying to force this path. Do what feels right in the moment and where you think you will get the most value. And then it will end up making sense. I didn't write this path. Going into venture capital,

people were like, huh? It does not track and you don't have that skill set and whatnot. And now, after having done that, I absolutely needed that to do what I'm doing now. So venture capitalism, when are you like, you know what? It's actually cookie dough. Well, it's funny because so I launched the venture studio at M13. So M13 is a traditional investment fund. There's a venture studio that we built kind of like an incubator. And I actually built that. So there's traditional investing. And then I was building brands. We had three brands that I built while I was there and then brought on teams to run them. And that's where I learned, because it's a very different skill set,

being able to do marketing for a $3 billion brand when your budget is $70 million. And M13 is a great venture fund, by the way. Yeah. If you were going to think about one. Yeah, it's a great one to start with. And it's there. I probably got way too much responsibility like at a young age, but learning the zero to one marketing at a three billion dollar company and marketing at a zero dollar company is very different. Like the skills

you use, the money you have, the access you have, all of that, like how scrappy you have to be like it's just a completely different skill set. So getting I had the kind of consumer skill set. I didn't have the zero to one skill set. And that's what that taught me is like, OK, how do we take from an idea to testing it, being able to kill your own babies? I killed a ton of brands while I was there. If it doesn't pass the test, you know, it's a it's a loss at that point. And then, you know, launching it and accelerating it. So what was the moment that you decided that you were going to do this full force? And do you remember where you were? Can you describe it? Yeah. I mean, I denied it for a little bit. I think there is a there is a little bit of imposter syndrome at play. So

even though, you know, we launched in October, I basically said I'm going to invest twenty thousand dollars of my own money and I'm not going to raise because I had been on that side. So I was like, I'm not going to raise venture capital. What was it? What was your hesitancy for? Because I'm thinking about people that are in your are in similar types of shoes that you were in now and you made the decision not to like what knowing what you knew. Why did you decide not to do that from the beginning? Yeah, I mean, I think and and people might disagree with me on this, but I think there are essentially two paths that you choose, right? You either choose the kind of scrappy profitability, long game, you know, it will take you 20 years to build this brand path, or you choose the venture capital, high growth, higher risk, you know, grow at all

costs and a lot of fucking, both have a lot of pressure, just in very different ways. One, you have to be profitable. So, you know, you might be paying yourself like no salary for a little while. You might have to take second mortgages out. Like it's hard. Loans, things like that. And then this other is the pressure to grow

is like nothing I felt before. So now I've taken venture capital money to caveat. I launched it with my own money, but now I've raised. So now that I'm on this, I tried to play this in between. And understanding what fits

that venture funds portfolio. Yeah. I'll tell you like a crazy story play this in between. And understanding what fits that venture funds portfolio. Yeah. I'll tell you like a crazy story quickly on a tangent. I have a friend that was in an exit scenario, huge, multiple hundred millions exit scenario, but it was misaligned with the fund's exit target. And so they shut the whole thing down, right? Because it was not aligned there.

And the reason I tell this story is I think to your point, if you're taking venture money, you have to be very cautious about what you're aligned with and what they're aligned with and what a win is for you and what a win is for them. Yeah. And how quickly they want. I mean, they want to make their money back, right?

So like they're not going to be sitting with you while you, you know, twiddle your thumbs and figure it out for 10 years because they're like, let's fucking go. Like get to 100 million, sell this shit to Nestle, right? Like we got better shit to do. We got to move on to the next thing. You said that you were teetering in the middle. What do you mean by that? So I launched it with my own money, right? And that was in October of 2020.

I was still ready to, like when I said kill my own babies, I was ready to kill it if it didn't work. And by that, I mean, I think a lot of entrepreneurs force their ideas and they, and I saw a ton of it when I was at M13 where, you know, you have a dog of an idea and it's, it's not working or there's not product market fit or consumers aren't responding. It's not, there's nothing there or, and you, you know, given, given it your best shot and founders are relentless and like founders are crazy, right? Most founders have a little bit of crazy in them and they push this idea and they keep pushing it and keep pushing it and keep pushing it. And there's nothing there and the market doesn't want it. And so my thought was,

I can part ways with this $20,000. So if this $20,000 goes away tomorrow, if there is no product market fit for this brand and this product, I will kill my baby. Like I will kill, kill this and I will move on to the next thing. So I launched with that. And then, you know, three months in December of 2020, we are bursting out of our commercial kitchens. Like we have commercial kitchens. We're making, we're also making out of my house. We're making until three in the morning. And then we're waking up at seven for, to fulfill so that we can get to UPS right when it opens and fulfill. Like we would do multiple runs of our like SUVs to get product to UPS. It was, I mean, we did that for all of December. And then I was like, oh, December was

a fluke because it's the holidays. People want to gift this product. It's very giftable. January comes. It was like 2x December. And still, again, like we're not being able to fulfill orders on time. We're making a product, you know, all day. I can't even run the business because I'm making a product. I'm horrible in the kitchen. Also, my husband cooks. I'm like, I like chop his onions. I don't belong in the kitchen. So like, why am I making this fucking I need to run the business. I'm like making this fucking product and, you know, like trying to fulfill it. I need to get a co-packer. And through literally until the end of January, I was like, this is a fluke. People just want something better for you to eat. And, you know, people want to be gluten free and vegan and eat something better for you

in January. And then finally I like woke up and I was like, no, this is it. I mean, it's happening. Like it's there's product market fit. People want the brand. People want the product. There's an obsession and this like cult following happening. And I just had to allow myself to kind of believe that. Whereas, and Shark Tank reached out around the same time. So I think that was like another confirmation of almost like an external confirmation of, yeah, there's something here. And that's when I was like, I need to start a fucking co-packer. I need to raise some money. Like this is bigger than me now. Quick thing. What were some of the triggers or some of the levers you were going to pull to indicate if it wasn't working?

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

for sure. I basically, but this is very kind of like strategic, but I basically bucketed it into qualitative and quantitative. So quantitative is, you know, revenue, it's a repeat purchases. It's, you know, your conversion rate on your Shopify. It's even followers on Instagram. It's, you know, things that you can see in the numbers. And then qualitative is, you know, influencers reaching out to you, press organically reaching out to you, Shark Tank reaching out, right? Like it's, you know, the inbound. And then as well, you kind of seeing that there's this kind of like cultural moment happening. Like people can't stop posting this. People can't stop talking about this.

Like there is this obsession in our comments, like we were going through them earlier, of them guessing what our next launch is. And that, you know, you can't pay money for that. Like that's the stuff that it's like, oh, okay, there's this kind of magic around the brand. And, you know, there's external validation, but there's also seeing from consumers that they're kind of obsessed with it. I mean, even like I would say buyers reaching out to you. Right. Like

so early we had Whole Foods, we had Air One, we had Target even was pretty early. Like they they can see that there's a gap in this category. So they can also validate because they see their they see their data all day. So I would say, one, trying to be objective with both of those things and telling yourself like this is not personal. It's not about you. If this brand or this product doesn't work, like I'm OK. I can move on to the next thing, right?

Like it's not my only thing that I'm ever going to launch. I think that's what makes you such a great founder, though, is that you have the logical side and the creative side. I tend to lean more towards the creative side, but I have Michael. You know what I mean? No, but it seems like you have both sides and you're able to be pragmatic about it and step outside of it and see it from an outside perspective. Yeah. You mentioned early imposter syndrome. And I think a lot of people who are listening have experienced that. Can you talk about how you overcame it or if you're still struggling with it? I don't know if you ever overcome it. I still get it. Yeah. I don't know. What exactly does it mean? It's almost like sometimes you don't believe that you should be the one qualified to be doing what you're doing.

Right. And I don't know if doing. Like you're tricking everyone. Because obviously there's two sides to this. You have to have some kind of confidence and a little bit of arrogance to push yourself forward to be able to take on a business and push it and believe that you're the person that's going to helm something that becomes something out of nothing. But then when you're doing it, it's almost like, am I qualified? Do I have the right credentials? Do I have the right skill set do i have enough experience if you do think you should be doing something is that narcissistic no i mean listen i've said this many times i'm probably a little narcissistic arrogant and overconfident but like and i

probably have an ego i'm all of those yeah i'm a narcissist and i have imposter syndrome but i have to be a little bit fucking crazy and delusional to be able to do things where i know you have the ability to do that to even think that you can build like this empire and like to know that like i'm unemployable meaning like i just would be terrible working and again listen i say this all the time there's a million people that make way more than many founders being great number twos threes fours and great organizations i don't have that i don't i don't know how to do anything but do things for myself i have to be a little bit of those things, but you do balance that. I'm balanced in the sense where I'm like, okay, maybe I'm being too much or maybe I don't have the skillset or maybe I don't

have the experience. Or when someone says no, you second guess, you're like, shit, am I not cut out for this? Or why did that person say no? You can't be a sane person and try to just imagine that, hey, I'm going to turn something from nothing into something that everyone's going to love it right like you have you're a little bit that too i hate to break it to you honey little arrogant little you could tell it comes with the territory she's like no i didn't say that i didn't say i'm not i wasn't saying you're not going to win the humble pie award or anything i didn't say i'm humble pie award i didn't say the humble cookie award i'm saying everybody that's been in this seat where you decide you're going to helm something, you go like you have these moments of doubt, of course.

Yeah. If you don't. And that's what it is. But they also. Anyone that says they doesn't. So I now have stopped trying to get over imposter syndrome because and this is like a little bit of a hot take. It also drives me because I'm like, fuck all of you guys.

I'm going to prove you wrong for anyone that has said no to me. So it is a little bit of like, yeah, I don't love the feeling of that doubt of like being imposter and, or, you know, I shouldn't be a CEO or whatever it is. Like, you know, the revenue is a fluke or like whatever, you know, I got into all these retailers. It's a fluke.

Like, I don't love that feeling, but it's also what keeps me going. So now I've kind of embraced it. Cause I'm like, my anxiety and my imposter syndrome is also why I have built this, right? And why I have these insanely lofty goals because now I'm like, I'm going to prove everyone that I said no wrong. It is a hot take, but I also think the exercise is also proving yourself wrong in a way where you're wrong about being an imposter, right? So yeah. I mean, people go through this too in other

areas like parenting. There's a lot of people that are like, I don't know if I'm the right parent or a good parent. If you're not doubting yourself on some level, then you're probably actually crazy. Then you're a sociopath. In our relationship, I have no imposter syndrome. I think I'm great and you're never going to get better. I think that about me and my husband too. I'm a delight. You are so lucky to have me. I told you you're not going to win the award for the most humble on the planet. Now a word from our sponsor, BetterHelp. Let's talk about innovation.

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ZocDoc.com slash skinny and download the ZocDoc app for free. Then start your search for a top rated doctor today. Many are available within 24 hours. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C.com slash skinny. ZocDoc.com slash skinny. Okay. So what advice would you give to someone if they're struggling with that? I essentially took the ownership back was when I embraced it. So I think it's like embrace it. Know when you have it and be it's almost like take your take your mind outside of yourself, almost as if you're watching yourself. It's like I don't even know how to explain this. If you're watching yourself and you're an external objective,

you know, again, it's about being objective. But if you're objective and you're kind of watching yourself, you can kind of see like, okay, you'll have these moments. But at the end of the day, as long as you're going up and to the right and you have these little moments that go down, it doesn't matter if it looks like this or if it looks like this. It's as long as it gets you there. And by the way, we're talking about very entrepreneurial endeavors here,

but this happens in creative fields too. There's a lot of people that are artists that have imposter syndrome and don't think that their work's good enough. There's a lot of people that are writers that don't think their work's good enough. This applies to everyone has imposter syndrome in all sorts of different areas. Even people in organizations get a promotion, a job, like I don't know if I'm really qualified for the job, all these things. So I think you're 100% right.

You have to embrace it at some level and speak. Okay. I think from an outside perspective, something that you've done really well is one, you've solved a problem because I remember that I would sneak cookie dough when no one was looking like, you know, like in Killsbury. Right. Because I was like, everyone's going to think I'm disgusting that I'm eating raw egg. So I would just like sneak it and like pop it in my mouth.

But now I can just fucking take my spoon and eat the skinny confidential enhanced cookie dough, which we'll get to in my mouth like no problem and i can give it to zaza and i can give it to him and i don't need to worry about the egg because it's it's vegan this stuff is all over our house it's next to the bed it's oh my god my big pet is no eating in the bed this shit's all over the bed it's everywhere it's a perfect like the bed sleepy time snack i love it i got like a breakfast tray like patricia from southern charm like the exact breakfast tray. I have my dough on there. I have my laptop. I have my big, my water. Yeah. Like my whole setup, my magazines on the side. But you did solve a problem where you can eat raw cookie dough. So you also solved a problem because you save time because you don't have to cook the cookie

dough if you don't want to. But at the same time, and why I'm attracted to the brand is you made it taste good, even though it's healthy. But you also made it aesthetically pleasing and where it's like sort of like a movement on Instagram. Yeah. Are there people who have posted influencers, celebrities that you feel like have really contributed to that? If not that, what else has contributed to this sort of community that you've cultivated?

Yeah. I mean, I think part of it is when I set out to do this, I intentionally said, I want something that doesn't look like a food brand. I want it to look like a beauty brand. And that's very unique in our space. Like, look at this. This looks like it could be like your moisturizer, like your cream, right? No. Why do you think I partnered with you? It's beautiful. It's gorgeous. And that's also what makes people post about it. Like women, again, our audience is 94% women. They're posting things that are beautiful. And that kind of shelfy, you know, aspect that has made its way to beauty has not yet made its way to food. So the more and I think I think beverage does a good job with it, right? Like they make things that are, you know, people want to hold and want to want to pick up. But food is just

far behind in it. And for me, we launched on the Internet. We didn't launch in the farmer's market. And there that's a different kind of food brand. Again, like I'm horrible in the kitchen. Like I shouldn't be in the kitchen. So like I truly set out to, OK, this happens to be food, but it looks and feels like a beauty product. Who has posted that you're like, wow, this is so cool? Karlie Kloss posted, which you I mean, and it was like a feed post of her eating it out of the jar. It was in like one of her carousels. She was interesting because she is in like she was in the space, right? Like she's a baker. She had Carly's cookies. She actually knows about better for you baking. And so having her stamp of approval of, OK, the ingredients check out, it's better for you. She is predominantly plant based.

And by the way, it's as delicious as the cookies that I make. That was a pretty great stamp of approval. Another one that was interesting that was really early on, it was when we were still making it in our home kitchens, was Kristen Cavallari. So she posted, you could barely see it, right? Like it was like hidden behind her kids that had emojis on their faces. And like you couldn't even, it was our old ugly packaging.

Like it was our first, first packaging. And you could barely see it. And all of a sudden we see this insane spike in our Shopify sales. I'm like, what's going on? Like, did someone post? I'm like trying to see if anyone's tagged us. Like I'm not understanding where it's coming from. And then finally someone sends it to me and they're like, hey, isn't this your product? And I was like, how do you even see it? It's like hidden in the background. So people, she has such a cult ball, like that people were searching the brand

because she didn't tag it. So like searching the brand in her photos and like happened to come across us. And we saw that in Shopify. So there's been kind of interesting moments like that where it's like, oh, well, like I didn't I either didn't know that that person had influence or had so much influence. Or, you know, when you when you kind of put it together of both she and Carly have kind of this affinity to food, better for you food, eat predominantly vegan, gluten-free. It does kind of make sense. Do you know that I ate 200 gallons

of your chocolate dip sauce when I was pregnant? I wasn't kidding. The shit was everywhere. Tounds is made from me tasting our samples, but also from that dip, like drip. It's so good.

I put it on sourdough toast with sea salt. It is, it really is like a healthy version of Nutella. Yeah. Well, and the first ingredient is hazelnuts and it's 50% less sugar than Nutella. I remember getting an email, I think I got an email from your assistant saying, hey, can you send Lauren like five more cases? And I was like, cases i was like sure i was like she's feeding like a family i was like hey can i have a small bite no zaza loves it i mean you can drip that in oatmeal you can put it on you can put it on ice cream on toast it's so good look how passionate she gets when she talks

about it towns is made from that. I'm not joking. When you look for ingredients, what are your benchmarks? Yeah, I mean, we've got pretty stringent ingredients. Part of it is because of our partnerships with retail. So with Erewhon and Whole Foods specifically that have pretty, I would say, strong ingredient nose. For us, we want to be able to pronounce everything on the jar. So essentially, the product strategy is take all the bad for you out. So take out the refined sugars, take out the animal byproducts, take out any sort of shit. So no BS ingredients,

and then add in good for you functional ingredients. So each different product has a different function. You know, this one, the Skinny Confidential has dragon fruit and pomegranate, which is great for your skin. So, you know, it has to be functional and give you that, you know, additional reason to buy it and to eat it. I know. And I'll talk about this in the beginning, why I wanted to partner with you guys. Did you are you specific about and I'm sure you are the brands that you align yourself with? I know you guys did a collab with Not Skinny, Not Fat, which is so good. I don't know if it's still available. That's not. Sorry, guys. That's really good. But how do you sort of choose the people that you're going to partner with? Yeah. It's kind of interesting because there are some that are

organic. So with Amanda, with Not Skinny, Not Fat, that was completely organic. So she fell in love with the brand and the product when we had gifted it to her. Again, this was very early on before we were even in a co-packer. That happened pretty organically. And then there are ones, you know, like Four Sigmatic, where I met the founder. I had this concept of, you know, they have a mushroom coffee. Why can't we take that exact concept and bring it to cookie dough? Because the flavors would pair so nicely. And we use adaptogens as well in some of our products. They're an adaptogenic coffee brand for people that don't know. We put it in our Cosmic Brownie, now called Space Brownie because I got a cease and desist. So we put it in our

Space Brownie and it was insane tasting. And so I literally sensed the founder product and it was insane tasting. And so I literally sent the founder product and I was like, hey, we have to do this. This tastes fucking delicious. And so some of it is us kind of experimenting and then some of it is inbound because we do get a lot of inbound. I would love to just talk to the audience about the way our partnership came into fruition. So basically, I feel like we connected because I want to say I found your product at Whole Foods and bought it naturally and might have tagged you guys and we started talking over DM yeah you remember it was a long time it was like it was organic yeah well and that's when those are the best partnerships when you organically love the product and you're like I need this in

my life I would partner with this brand so I think is either we gifted it or it was or, you know, you found it maybe at Erewhon. Maybe early on. Yeah, that's where it's funny. Erewhon is a place where anytime we haven't gifted to someone and someone posts that's like either an influencer or so a celebrity, it's usually because they picked it up at Erewhon, which is I call it the marketing account, which has made that. But, you know, that's it is it's truly a great marketing account because people just pick it up there. And the flavor that I first tried was chocolate chip, plain chocolate chip. And it was so good.

That's the number one seller. And then you and I kind of went back and forth for a while. It was very back and forth. We got on a couple calls. So when we decided that we would do an anti-inflammatory cookie that was good for your skin, I was like, so in. And then the aesthetics of the brand and to be able to design the packaging and this little, we have this little bag that says, honey, these are mommy's cookies. Just like the whole thing was

so much fun. It was such an organic fit. And then when I got to try all different kinds of cookie dough and we found this one, I mean, it's like this cookie dough is like, you don't even know this. I gave some to your daughter the other day. She got in a full on fight with me. Wouldn't give it back. I have the whole thing on video. She's pulling it away. You're fighting with our child over the cookie dough, Lauren. I'm like, I need to shoot that. She's two and a half years old. You can't. Christ. She's going to win. Can you talk to us about the ingredients that we chose and why I would love to go over them? Yeah. I mean, well, it's kind of interesting because when you initially, when we were going back and forth on ingredients, you said things like flax. And I was like, oh, that's already in,

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

I was like, oh, great. We already have those. Like, it's already a part of it. And then the pomegranate powder and the dragon fruit powder. Those are the superfoods that we included. So like I said, each different SKU has a different function. And here, you know, I don't know how much people know about pomegranate and dragon fruit powder in particular, but they are filled with antioxidants, filled with antioxidants. So just a little bit of these

give you a ton of skin benefits and give you that glowing skin. And you don't need a lot. I mean, we added a little bit of, you know, apple coloring and things from natural natural ingredients to make it so bright pink because when you bake them, they're like this perfect pastel pink. But the dragon fruit and pomegranate really contribute to your skin benefits, basically. And then once we decided we were going to use pomegranate, I was like, oh, my God, we need to sell a kit with my pomegranate raspberry oil by the Skinny Confidential. I was like, this is the perfect fit. Pomegranate has so many benefits in it. And so it just was like a natural synergy. You guys are going to love the taste of this.

I would love to know for the audience who's listening, they're at home, they have kids maybe, what are some ingredients that they can swap out easily? So for instance, like maybe we swap, you know, peanut butter for almond butter. What are some things that you've been, you're a practitioner of ingredients. What are some easy swaps? Yeah. I mean, I, so it's funny because I was with my sister this weekend in Austin. And again, like we grew up the same way, like the standard American diet on full dairy milk. But she, her son, who's two, my nephew, has eczema. And you see it a lot in kids. You know, sometimes don't know the culprit. Sometimes you go straight to like topical medicine, which, you know, then they're kind of dependent on that

medicine. So again, like I'm not a doctor, but my sister, I was like, hey, try taking out dairy. Try swapping his milk. He drinks so much milk. Like try just swapping it out with oat milk and see what happens. And she made the swap. So now he drinks both almond and oat milk, eczema completely gone. So there are things where I think, you know, we weren't educated on this when we were younger to test and kind of understand what food sensitivities you have. But like, you know, some people are sensitive to things like nut butters or, you know, peanuts, for example. Some people are sensitive to dairy and, you know, peanuts, for example. Some people are sensitive to dairy and other animal byproducts. But unless you start eliminating that, there's no other way

to figure it out. Okay. You have to be honest when I ask you this question. What are the disgusting ingredients that are in other cookie doughs that people are eating raw out of the refrigerator, like I used to do when I was 10? I mean, aside from straight egg, there's palm oil in a lot of them. There's partially hydrogenated oil, which is, that's trans fats. A lot of soy. And that caused, again, like an ingredient that people don't know

because, you know, soy milk was the alternative for a long time. But soy for women is tricky. And so, again, like not a doctor. Soy for men is tricky too. A little bit of estrogen. I don't want your penis to go up into the butthole. If I see soy, like not a doctor. Soy for men is tricky too. A little bit of estrogen. I don't want your penis to go up into the butthole. If I see soy, I just throw it.

It's not even close. It just happens. There's soy. There's artificial flavors. Even natural flavors are tricky. People don't know that. That if it says natural flavors on it, you don't know what the fuck that is. Like you have to ask them.

You have to like literally DM the company and say, hey, what's in the natural flavors? Because it could be shit that's, I mean, there are a lot of natural flavors that aren't allowed in Erewhon even. I also see like silicone, like weird. Like things you can't pronounce. Detro oxide. Yeah, titanium, da, da, da, da, da. And then I also see things like things that are very like bloating. I'll see Xantham gum in a lot of brands that are, quote unquote, healthy. Yeah, Xantham gum's in everything. Yeah, I just want a simple straight to the point.

There's just a lot of white sugar in everything, like a lot of refined sugar. Okay, this is a weird question, but since the audience hopefully is going to support our co-brands, how can they cook it in a way that is going to be in line with the ingredients? Meaning I wouldn't throw this on aluminum foil and cook it. Is there certain ways? Like what's the best ways, the best tips? Yeah. I mean, my favorite is air frying it, which if you haven't done that,

do you have an air fryer? No. Yes, we do. We have an air fryer and you keep putting it in the corner where I can't do it. Because it's ugly. It's like, if you have the one that I have, it's ugly.

I gotta go dust the cobwebs off the edge. It's like literally terrifying. My husband put it on the counter and I was like, get that shit off my white couch.

No, I can't have that in my vibration. It looks like an all black R2-D2. That's what it looks like. Something from Star Wars. Oh, I have seen you use that once or twice.

Air fryers are great, but I can't ever, I'm not going to go digging through that, you know, mess of a truck. Daddy Longlegs got to wisp them off. Yeah. Okay, so go ahead, air fryer. Air fryers are great, but I can't ever, I'm not going to go digging through that, you know, mess of a trot. The daddy long leg has got to whisk them off.

Yeah. Okay, so go ahead, air fry. Air fry. So throw it in the air fryer. It gets like a crispy outside and then the inside is gooey and soft and warm.

So it's almost like you're eating the raw cookie dough on the inside, but it's crispy on the outside. So I fuck with air frying it. If you want to bake it, use, I mean,

you don't even have to really like oil the pan or anything because they're so, it has enough from the nut butters that you can literally roll it into a ball, flatten it, put it on. Like we have hot pink because obviously our colors, we have hot pink baking sheets that we use and we flatten them. And it literally takes seven minutes to bake cookies. All right. I have done everything to help correct and prevent signs of hyperpigmentation trust me if you read my book get the fuck out of the sun you know this i have done everything possible but the common denominator and the thing that i see that works the most is being consistent with my vitamin c use and the vitamin c that I always go to, you know this if you follow

me on Instagram, is Dr. Dennis Gross's vitamin C lactic. You know the one I'm talking about. It's orange. Everyone has that. Everyone talks about this as a high performer. It's just a vitamin C that gives you results. You guys know there's so many products out there that you buy that don't really give you the results. His vitamin C is designed by him. And let me tell you, he is a five-star chef when it comes to skincare. This is someone who formulated his vitamin C to reduce dark spots, hyperpigmentation. It also increases the density of your skin. So you get that bouncy skin.

It prevents wrinkles. It reinforces the skin's moisture barrier, which is probably what I'm describing about that bounciness. And it also protects against free radical damage. Dr. Dennis Gross, I am such a fan of him. I always have been. He's been on the podcast six million times. And like I said, he's very strategic with how he designs his products. You have to check out his vitamin C lactic. We have a code for you if you want firmer brighter stronger skin This is the product especially if you get dark spots and hyperpigmentation like I do Before I give you the code though, if you're going to get something else, you got to get the oil-free moisturizer

I don't shut the fuck up about this moisturizer. It's the best moisturizer to lay under makeup I sometimes mix it with an oil. I'll put it on my beauty blender and it just lays so nice under foundation or CC cream. All right. Use code skinny at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. I use my own code. You can visit drdenisgross.com for more information. That's drdenisgross.com for 20% off code skinny. I am very serious about my sleep. In fact, I have a checklist. I don't care if that's weird. I do have a checklist. I like to do red light in the room. So no regular light bulbs. I like blackout shades. I like one of those machines that it's like a red light machine that tells you it's time to go to bed. And I like blackout shades. I like one of those machines that it's like a red light machine that

tells you it's time to go to bed. And I like five to eight Hertz, always frequencies. I like my magnesium powder and my Kindle. And I like my weighted blanket. And I like all of these things. I'm very specific because I know that the mixture of these things is just going to give me the best sleep ever. Last night, I went to bed at literally nine o'clock and I would not have been able to do that without my magnesium powder and my weighted blanket. The one that I've been using is by Gravity. The reason that I really like this one is because they have a cooling blanket. So I tend to sleep sometimes like I can get hot and this cooling blanket has a cover that's made from

ultra cooling eucalyptus. So it's like everything you could want in a blanket. It's a spa like experience and it gives you this feeling of being hugged, which I feel like releases the hormones and it helps you chill out and recover. This was especially helpful for me during postpartum. I'm very sensitive with hormones. And so to have this gravity weighted blanket handy really helped improve my sleep quality. And let's be honest with a newborn, sleep can be tough. So when I am sleeping, I want the best, deepest, most grade A optimized sleep I can possibly get. So if you want to improve your sleep quality and you want to feel like you're being hugged when you get into bed and you just want to go to bed quicker, you got to get a weighted blanket. We have an exclusive

deal for skinny confidential listeners as always, a 15% off any gravity product. I stocked their site too, and they have weighted robes, sleep masks, and a bunch of other cool stuff. So go visit their site, gravityblankets.com slash skinny, use code code skinny and get ready for the best sleep of your life you know what else is really good and i would love to know what you think of this the slip the oh love that it's like what is it it's called like the slip the slip knit yeah we have that we use it we use it on our like on our instagram too It's so cute. It's so cute. And my little sister, Meanie, recommended it. She said, my friend's mom is French. And she says, this is what everyone in France cooks their cookies on.

That's a great one to buy for cookies. Yeah. Well, it's good for a lot of things. Yeah. You got to leave us with what happened with Shark Tank. Oh, my God. What was the outcome? So dramatic.

Yeah, we didn't get the dramatic outcome. Maybe Taylor can cue the Shark Tank music. I did. I was the outcome? So dramatic. Yeah, we didn't get the dramatic outcome. Maybe Taylor can cue the Shark Tank music. I mean, it was a dramatic, Michael knows this because we were chatting about it, but it was a dramatic episode. It's kind of funny because I think people don't know that it's a reality TV show, right? Like they are trying to make the best TV possible. So, you know, spoiler alert, if you haven't seen it. It's not how normal investment, like when you go to a normal pitch works. work no you don't stand up there and say hi sharks i'm severe like that's it's so cheesy like that's not that's how it works so i i pitched a great way to start a pitch meeting oh hi sharks hi sharks and it's like yeah so you're a cheerleader you're so peppy

and had a great pitch my episode was was essentially like this buildup of like, holy shit, this amazing entrepreneur. The numbers are crazy. Like she is it. And then Robert gives me an offer. Obviously, you know, lowballs me. I negotiate. So I negotiated.

I say it's 1.5 times. Some people might say it's 2. I negotiated just the structure of the deal. And then he reneges his offer. And because he got mad that you renegotiated? Yeah. Because he thought it was unfair or he was just

doing reality TV? Looking back on it, I think they're trying to make a show. So, you know, at the end of the day, it was a great episode, right? Because it was like this build-up, like, this is amazing, product's amazing. And then there was this, like, downfall at the end. So, I mean, for ratings, it was like this buildup, like this is amazing, product's amazing. And then there was this like downfall at the end. So, I mean, for ratings, it was amazing. It was the after effects of

the episode. Like for me, I considered it a success. Because you got the airtime. Got the airtime, you know, the awareness. Robert said the nicest compliment I've ever heard in my life. I mean, he said, out of the 13 years that I've been doing this, you are one of the most impressive entrepreneurs that has ever walked that carpet. Like that is the best compliment I could receive from anyone. He said it on air. And so, you know, I was, I was pretty happy with that afterwards. You know, everyone says, don't check Reddit and don't check the blogs and all of that. But I'm a fucking human. So, you know, the first thing I do on Saturday morning, like my phone's like hitting my face in bed is I check reddit and there were so many comments about what I was

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

That was the headline. And I was like, fuck off. If it were a dude, which there are plenty of men who go shirtless wearing swim trunks, who wear cutoffs, who wear denim shorts, like they wear literally whatever.

And that's not common. Like you would have never had that headline. You should have gone naked with nipple clamps. Like that was completely clickbait. It was a perfectly appropriate outfit might have got the renegotiation done i know it's so crazy it was if the suit was like a brown suit no one would have cared it's that the pink is polarizing to people but it's not it was completely on right like it that's our brand it's hot pink so anyways i made a tiktok my favorite thing is these like trolls on reddit be like should have done this as they're sitting there on the internet screaming and probably sitting

like a huge crop dusting part it's like oh my god if it was me and i decided to do my own thing and go on shark tank i would never would have done this and you and you would have negotiated so like anyone who had anything to say about that like a good entrepreneur negotiates i would be a shitty entrepreneur if i did it let me get the reddit feds going if they're on reddit doing this they're never going to do that anyway they would never be in a position to do this in the first place if you have the time to sit on reddit all day and critique other people you're not somebody that's ever going to do anything yeah well now i stopped now i stopped reading them obviously people doing shit don't have time to get in these dark web blogs and whine about people and we got i mean we got double the we did about

as many sales as we did on from the episode itself afterwards from all the PR that I got from that TikTok, from Newsweek and Daily Mail and all of that virality. It literally doubled our Shark Tank sales. I can't wait for Taylor to pull the TikTok clip and implement it into our real video. We just had to scream at this guy about upping our video quality. So let me ask you this so no investment happened i think you've told me you told me this before yeah yeah so no i mean a lot of the deals also fall through after the the show so i think people don't know that come on and say that yeah yeah but no investment happened but i had already raised i think that's another caveat it's like

you had they reach out to me i had already raised one million dollars on a six million valuation i was going in there at a three million million valuation. You know, after most recently, I raised an eight figure valuation like there. You know, you you have to have that context or understand that context of like the brands that are crushing it. It's very difficult to make a deal on that show because you you dilute yourself in a way that, you know, you wouldn't outside of the show. And also my thing is you can still go talk about Shark Tank and talk about the experience and leverage it without having to take the money. Do you know what I mean? It sounds like it's still cool.

And it was still an amazing experience. I mean, it taught me how to tell my story in a concise one and a half minute pitch. That is really valuable when you're talking to investors and buyers. Game the system. But it sounds like, to your point, a big win would be to be able to get on like you did and not have to take a Shark Tank deal because it's not good market terms anyways deals, right? Yeah.

Maybe some of them are, but it sounds like the majority of them aren't. But then you get all the publicity of what the show can do, but without having to dilute yourself with those people. That's a win. Yeah. I'm with you. But they also are looking. I don't know.

I think they know that some entrepreneurs are doing that. They know people are coming in that already have some kind of funding or some kind of deal. Yeah, so they're always wary.

Anyone who's had funding or has had a lot of success in a short amount of time, they ask me a couple times, do you actually want a deal? Because it happens. I wonder, this is a tangent,

but are there stories of people that have gone on and raised in Shark Tank that are now still in the business and happy and thriving? I'm sure there are. The Glow Recipe Girls didn't take the money either.

No, they did and then it didn't happen. Like they did a deal on the show, but then the deal to a point fell through. I think my friend Natalie founded Bala Bangles

and they actually went through with it and Marisha Poveth, I mean Mark Cuban and Marisha, that was perfect for them. You know, that made a lot of sense

because that was- They just told us that story. We a lot of sense because, you know, that was. They just told us that story. We do some of it. It might be. Yeah, they're the only ones that I know that went through afterwards and have had like a really good relationship and really good experience. Tell us about dough times the skinny confidential. Who needs it?

Where can they find it? All the things. Oh, my God. Everyone needs it. Well, the funniest thing I hear is that women buy it and then their husbands or boyfriends or partners eat it. So they hide it in like the vegetable drawer or places that they won't look. Yeah, we would eat it if they would show us where it is. She's fighting with our two-year-old. Stowed away those 16 boxes of the drip that you sent me. She's not even letting our two-year-old have any of it. Towns has had more dough than you

have. God. It's only available for a limited time though. I mean, we're doing this once and there's a limited quantity. So, and when we sell out, people sometimes get annoyed at this, but when we sell out, we sell out. So get it while you can. You can freeze it up to six months. So whenever we do have these limited collabs, a lot of people will buy a few of them and put them in the freezer and you can have them later. And anyone who wants something delicious, a delicious treat that has skin benefits and looks cute on your counter, unlike a lot of other things. Unlike the air fryer that is not coming up on my counter. It tastes really delicious.

But back me, the air fryer is very useful. It just kind of looks like shit. See, that's the next business we're doing. If we can make a pretty air fryer. Don't say that too loud. Nobody's got an idea. Two things before you go. First, the flavor, guys, is pink frosting. It's amazing. We didn't say that. We didn't say that. It literally tastes like a pink frosting on, you know, those like sugar cookies that are from Publix. Hell yeah. Those Vons ones. That's like so good. Exactly the vibe, but healthy. Yep. And also we have a kit available.

Yes. Or you can buy the dough plain. Can you explain that so everyone can check out the kit first? Because I know the kits are very limited. Yeah, the kits are very, very limited. So if you if you want any part of that, then make sure you get that. But it's everything's at eat dough dot com e a t d u x dot com. The kits have a skinny confidential face oil, which like Lauren said, has the pomegranate ingredient in it as well. It's great for de-puffing and anti-inflammatory. They've also got these cute AF pink spoons. I'm obsessed with them. I almost like them more than my gold spoons that we sell. They've got a cute little bag. It's kind of like those bagu bags, if you guys know what those are. And it says, honey, these are mommy's cookies. It's adorable.

And you can use this bag for multiple things. You could use it like for the gym. You could take it out with happy hour and put your stuff in it. You could. I even gave one to Zaza. She's like using it as a purse. Yeah, it's so cute. It's this tiny little bag. You can put a bunch of little things in it. It's like a little maybe like a wrist. Good for travel, too. You can put I literally brought it here. I put jewelry and I put my serums in there. Yep. So you could totally use it as a skincare bag. So if you want anti-inflammatory benefits with all the skin benefits to pink frosting, the skinny confidential times dough is available. You guys go stock it at eat doughough.com. And there's a code. It's skinnydough, D-E-U-X. And let's do a giveaway. Can we give away a couple of doughs? Yeah. Okay. We can give away

little four packs. Okay. We're going to give away four packs, you guys. All you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram, at Lauren Bostic, and make sure you're following at eatdough, that's D-E- D E U X on Instagram. Thank you for coming on your, thank you. Incredible. Your story, what you've built, especially in such a short period of time is impressive. Thank you. And I am so fucking excited to be partnered with you guys. Maybe after this, I can get one more. Maybe I'll send you a separate one. Hide them. I'll cook you a smidge in the air fryer. Wait, don't go.

If you want to win the Skinny Confidential x Dough cookie jar, all you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode with Sabina on my latest post at Lauren Bostick and definitely follow at eatdough, that's D-E-U-X on Instagram. I hope you guys love this cookie dough. I cannot stop eating it. Saza, Michael, everyone, office. I mean, it's that good.

Be sure to use code SKINNYDOUGH, D-E-U-X, for 10% off on eatdough.com. Enjoy.