Trading Secrets - 171. Bravo’s Kyle Cooke on navigating hard lessons when friendship and love meets business, importance of transparency, landing a $4.2M SBA loan, and the truths behind entrepreneurship

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

This week, Jason is joined by reality TV personality and entrepreneur Kyle Cooke for the second time!  Kyle was last on the show two years ago to talk about his sparkling hard teas and canned cocktail company Loverboy in addition to his experience being on Bravo’s hit show, Summer House. In more recent news, Kyle has been in the hot seat for some recent drama regarding his friend and Summer House co-star Craig Conover partnering with a competing brand of Loverboy. Kyle gives insight to the conflict between Loverboy and competitor Spritz Society on Watch What Happens Live, what he would do differently looking back in hindsight, the behind-the-scenes of the business of Loverboy, how he found out about the collaboration from Craig and the conversation they had, the importance of honesty and transparency, and how the situation is more gossip than an actual business case. Kyle also reveals what really goes into entrepreneurship, qualifying for an SBA loan worth millions, clearing up the truth and falses between business and pop culture, and how he balances his relationship and his business. Who has equity in the business? How much did he raise initially?  Kyle reveals all that and so much more in another episode you can’t afford to miss!  Host: Jason Tartick Co-Host: David Arduin Audio: John Gurney Guests: Kyle Cooke Stay connected with the Trading Secrets Podcast!  Instagram: @tradingsecretspodcast  Youtube: Trading Secrets Facebook: Join the Group All Access: Free 30-Day Trial  Trading Secrets Steals & Deals! Monarch Money: Unlike other personal finance apps, Monarch's simple, intuitive design makes it so easy to set up, customize, and use. Monarch has built-in features to collaborate with your partner, family, or financial advisor. Go to monarchmoney.com/SECRETS for an extended 30 day free trial. Hims: Hims is changing men's healthcare by providing access to affordable sexual health treatments, from the comfort of your couch. Hims provides access to doctor-trusted ED treatment options such as chewable Hard Mints, brand-name treatments like Viagra, or generic alternatives for up to 95% cheaper. The process is simple and 100% online. No uncomfortable doctor's visits. Start your free online visit today at Hims.com/TRADINGSECRETS DeleteMe: DeleteMe is a subscription service that removes your personal info from the largest people search databases on the web – and in the process, helps prevent potential ID theft, doxxing and phishing scams. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for DeleteMe. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan by texting SECRETS to 64000.  *Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details.

Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. I'm your host, Jason Tartick, and welcome to the pre-market trading segment, where I'm going to tell you a little bit about our guest today, an update from the market and stuff going on in my personal life. Then we'll get to the main segment and then, of course, the recap. If you're new to trading secrets, make sure you hit follow. Check us out on YouTube. Check us out on Instagram. You can watch the full episode on YouTube. Every week we do two episodes. We have trading secrets that goes live Monday. And we have more than money that goes live Thursday. You'll need to know that because later and at the

end of the episode, you'll understand why the more than money episode is so pertinent. But let's get into our guest today. Kyle Cook, he is very familiar to the show. He's been on two years ago. It's from Summerhouse. And so two years ago, we talked all about lover boy. His equity position, his investment, the dynamic with consultants, employees, and even his wife. We got into everything two years ago, so I reached out to Kyle because I've seen so much shit on Summer House about his business, about deficits, about misconceptions, about false narratives. And I reached out to Kyle, said, Kyle, we got to get you back on the show, do a state of the union because I think so many people hear one thing from a TV show and then think they know what

they're talking about when it comes to your business. That's not the case. There's no better place to do it than here on Trading Secrets. he agreed. Well, we had the interview scheduled for last Friday, and of course in the last week, a lot of action happened with Kyle, his company, lover boy, and an interview with Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live. If you're unfamiliar with this situation, the quick and dirty breakdown is that Kyle and Craig Conover are good friends and long castmates from Bravo shows, and Kyle owns a canned cocktail called lover boy.

Well, Ben Sofer, who is boy with no job, who has been on this podcast, husband to grow with no job, Claudia Oshry. They own a company called Sprit Society. The drama comes to fruition when Craig takes equity in Ben's company and doesn't do a deal with Kyle. Now, there are so many moving parts to this, and you're going to hear it in this episode. here's what I want to make clear. Ben, Claudia, Kyle, Craig, all friends of mine. All have been on this show. I have respect for each of them, especially when it comes to business and entrepreneurship.

Claudia, what she's done and what she's built with her empire is like no other. She has a community of toasters that is greater, wider, and deeper than almost any community on social media. Ben is a hardworking, intelligent, networking animal that is just an incredible entrepreneur. Kyle, Kyle, this guy moves 100 miles per hour, is so competitive, is so hardworking, where so much pride in what he does and his ingredients and how he manufactures in every little detail. And Craig has built an unbelievable business sewing down south. and has done amazing with this brand work. So these are four people that I have incredible respect for as it relates to business,

that are all friends, and that truly I think are all good people, that I think their intentions are great, that they care about the happiness of people, the success of their business, and they're not people that really stir up controversy. So I want to make it clear that in this podcast, what I'm trying to do is get the facts, and then on top of getting the facts, what I'm really trying to do is give a very unbiased opinion, where it's not just because Kyle's on this show, and it's not because I'm good friends with Claudia or Ben, it's because it's from my business brain. That's what I'm thinking,

and you'll hear more about that in the recap. But this is an intense episode. There's a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of drama, and there's also a lot of business facts. But in this podcast, you will get to hear the business facts behind all the other BS, I think, that's out there. And why I say that, what I'm saying is in shows like Summerhouse, they're only going to clip one thing. Leverboe's failing or $1.5 million deficit. But we're going to explain it all here. Something you know about the market. Why not talk about the ready to drink can cocktail market? So the RTD can cocktail market is expected to thrive at a a 6% increase from 2023 to 2033. So according to projections, the ready to drink can cocktail market

is estimated to increase from $18.2 billion in 2023 to $33.3.2 billion in 2033. Now, some of the strong points in this market, convenience is in high demand. There are numerous flavor options that obviously connects to this episode. You'll hear about that. But some of the weak points, price sensitivity, and inadequate brand loyalty, which is massive for this discussion. Opportunities, fresh marketing possibilities, expanding clientele, and threats, increased rivalry and regulatory adjustments. What I just did right there is called SWAT analysis. We talked about strong points, weakness, opportunities, and threats. Obviously, strong point starts with an S, weekpoint starts with a W, opportunity starts with an O, threat starts with a T.

That's called SWAT analysis. That's what we just did. Little update from my life. I was in New York doing some podcasting, Long Island this weekend. My God, it is beautiful, all the way to the Hamptons. Have a morning show today, Monday. Have a couple more podcasts today. And then heading back to Nashville for CMA Fest this upcoming weekend.

Oh, man, it's going to be Bachelor Nation reunion. So definitely check out my Instagram. there will be some familiar and fun faces that will be out and about for CMA Fest coming up this weekend. But enough of CMA Fest, Long Island, New York. Let's get into the reason why you guys are here today. And it's to break down for the first time ever since making his comments on watch what happens live. With Andy Cohen, Kyle Cook has come to trading secrets to tell us everything, anything, and of course, all the numbers. Lover Boy in the recent drama.

Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today we are joined for the second time by reality TV personality and entrepreneur Kyle Cook. We last spoke with Kyle two years ago about his sparkling hard teas and canned cocktails company Lover Boy in addition to his experience being on Bravo's hit show Summerhouse. More recently, Kyle has been in the news for some recent drama regarding his friend and Summerhouse co-star Craig Conover. partnering with the competing brand of Loverboy.

We are going to discuss all the behind the scenes of what went down between the two of them, how he expects his business to be impacted and where the two of them go from here. Kyle, thank you so much for being back for the second time on Trading Secrets, almost two years later. All right, let's give people context, too, because that intro had to have some serious changes in the last 48 hours. I called you what? It was about a month ago. I sent you a message. I was like, man, it's been two years since we've talked about Lover Boy, and I'm hearing some things on

line, and this is a great place where pop culture meets finance, let's talk about the facts of the company, right? Because you've talked about deficits and stuff. Then all of this stuff, this stuff comes up. So, unfortunately, as long as you're willing to do it, let's at least step into the business facts and not as much as the gossip. Yeah. No, that's my MO, and I figured what better place to do it? You know, I've been, people have been wondering, am I going to, am I going to comment? Am I going to reply? You know, quite frankly, there's a side of me that just wanted to let it fade away. But there's just so many different things. I feel like need to be corrected that I'm happy to.

Okay, let's correct them and we'll talk business. I have my notes here because I'm trying to take the emotion and the feelings out of it. That's what wound me up, you know, wound up getting me in trouble in the first place. Yeah, and I think, I mean, we'll get into the numbers. You know, I'm better than me, but coming into this, I looked, you know, the canned alcohol beverage business, right, over $14 billion market cap. It looked in 2022. And I think what's interesting is it's fascinating how tea,

and especially smaller communities in very niche areas can make it seem like there are only two canned cocktails in the world. That's obviously not the case when you're getting at a $14 billion market. So we'll talk about the business. But here's what I want to get into it. Watch what happens live. I had never watched an episode of Watch What Happens Live until I went on as a bartender to promote my book about a month ago.

I could not believe that show. It is like if you imagine the hardest like Us Weekly or People interview you get, it's 30 minutes, full blitz, no fluff, boom, boom, boom, click. It's like, you don't even remember what you say. No, I mean, I was sitting there and all of a sudden he's like, so, Jason, we heard about your, and it wasn't even like a hello. It's like, we heard about your accent. She's rather shave her eyebrows off than be with you.

What do you think about? I'm like, holy shit. Hi, mom, you're in the audience. I know you're happy. So it comes in hot. So how about the book, though? Yeah, how about the book? That's why I'm here.

So I want to give that, like, for someone who's very removed from it, but was in it to a certain level at a distance, it's hot, it's heavy, it's hard to manage that. Yeah. I want to address the conflict between the lover boy and the competitor sprit society with what happened. I'd watch what happens live. What would you say regarding that entire situation that just unfolded? Yeah. So, I mean, as you can relate, you're in the hot seat. And the one thing I've learned is I've been on there over 15 times is like, you can't not answer. That just does not fly. You won't be asked back if you don't answer his questions. And I'll be honest, like, he caught me off guard.

Andy Cohen. Like, I was ready to talk about Summer House, and I hadn't thought about this in a while. And I let my emotions get the best of me. And in that moment, you can actually, like, Andy sees that. He sees that I'm hurt. And what's he do? He digs deeper. And, you know, up until then, I had very consciously decided not to comment via the various

press requests about Craig's involvement in this competitor. I was very much focused on keeping this a private matter until I made it very public on watch what happens. And that was not my intention. You know, what said was said, but, you know, I'm friends with Paige. I'm friends with Craig. I, you know, last thing I'm trying to do

is make it awkward for any of us. Okay. So I want to get into some of the investor talk that happened there. But, you know, you look back at the interview and when you watch it, Is there anything or what specifically would you have said differently or what would you have not commented on? I think from a choice of words perspective, I wish I wasn't so reactionary. You know, at the end of the day, I don't really think anything I said was not true, but I could have handled it better.

And I think that's a constant theme in my life on camera. You know, sometimes I'm right, but it's my delivery and it's my tone and my temper. they make me dead wrong. Yeah. And like, I wish I could say I was a faster learner. Yeah, but. Okay. Well, here we are.

We're all getting there day by day. And it's wild how all, there's so many small circles, right? Like, I've done business with, and Claudia, they're friends. I've done business with you and Amanda. You guys are friends. We're sitting literally in Hanna and Pages. I know. I recognize these wood slats.

I recognize these wood slats. There's a lot of moving parts here. It's a small world. It's a good perspective. have a good change to actually get into the business. So there was obviously a lot of investor talk. Let's talk about it. There's been a lot of talk.

Who are the investors? Like, what's the investor situation? Let's break the business down to the investor pool and what it looks like. Right. So, I mean, I don't know what got lost in translation because it wasn't, I mean, if what I said on watch what happens just had, you know, if it stopped there, that'd be one thing. But obviously, there was a lot that unfolded on podcast since.

And I don't know what got lost in translation. But as we talked about two years ago, as I very publicly filmed and talked about lover boy has investors we've had investors since 2019 I value them immensely I've had lots of them texting me saying what in the heck is going on you know I could not have done it without them and from an ownership standpoint I gave all my employees all of my consultants all of my partners in the business equity in the company so no I am not a sole owner you know I want to make that very clear like we we were actually fundraising. I was very vocal about this with my close friends, Craig included, during Winterhouse

too. I was busy raising around of financing. It's like this is not a secret. Yeah. Okay. So two years ago, you had made a statement that you wanted to build it from scratch. You raised before you went to friends and family to raise capital. Right. And you said you owned 100% of it. And on this show, you said you put in about 100k of your own money to get it up and running. Once you went out to friends and family, how much did you raise at that point? Yeah, so, and again, this kind of points to the stress of running a company. You get a lot of people, you know, counting on you and wanting this thing to be successful. So for the first year, from 2018, 2019, I funded the business.

That's about that $100,000. That was, you know, Amanda was working a full-time job. So she wasn't even a position to do all the design work. I had to hire a design agency, and then she provided the creative direction. I had to- Because she, last time, and sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to make clear, before she started working with you, you had said last podcast two years ago, she was working full-time in corporate world and filming, correct? Yeah, which, like, I probably said it back then, but I'm so proud of, I mean, I don't know of anybody that's gone three, four years on TV while working a corporate gig, like a nine-to-five desk job. And what else though you had?

Because I listened to the podcast back, of course. You also actually said that at some point, when she was unwinding, you had called her lazy. but in the podcast on Trane Secrets, you would say that that is one of the biggest regrets you had ever had. It still haunts me. It still haunts her. You know, as you'll see actually on this coming summer house reunion, you know, there's a lot more to it.

I don't think I understood some of the things that she struggles with when I call it that. And at the end of the day, regardless of any, like, mental health struggles, like most people want to come home from work and not work. Yeah. I'm wired differently. And so look, like this was, you know, still in the kind of early stages of our relationship, all things considered. And yeah, you know, that 100K not only provided, you know, some capital to, you know, help with some of the design and packaging grunt work, but it was the samples in cans that I got onto the show, season three to get my friends to try it.

It's legal. It's all this stuff. But fast forward a year in 2019, season four, we launched the damn thing. Now, what did it take to launch? I was told in beverage that you want to raise at least a million dollars. And I was like a million from friends and family. Like I'll maybe get five grand out of my parents. Like where's the rest come from?

And so, you know, but beverage is really, really capital intensive. So much to my surprise, I filled it in a month. And actually I oversubscribed the friends and family around. I actually raised almost $1.3 million. Wow. And I was like, all right, fine. I got a little buffer from what was recommended. you know from there we actually did kind of the unthinkable in food and beverage we were profitable

for our third our first three years most brands are losing five 10 15 million dollars if you can believe it or not they're at a national scale at our level yeah and they've had to raise 30 40 50 million to do that sure so we were kind of an outlier and i'm really proud of like what we've been able to do it's pretty impressive and we'll talk about the deficit but obviously that comes with uh you know you're competing against some of the biggest people in the world like, you know, A, B, you know, AB, InBev, like all those players. We'll get into that. And we'll also talk a little bit about Craig's involvement here on the investment side. But what I want to get into is you had mentioned last time on the podcast, so you had 17 to 18 employees. You mentioned that contractors employees have equity.

Also last podcast, I think you had mentioned that your wife didn't have equity and there was a play to possibly gift her equity because there wouldn't be tax liability. associated with it. What's the update on that, given the fact that you said employees do have equity? Yeah, I mean, look, like any company, if you're only here for a couple months, you're not going to vest the options, not to get too too technical. But most startups, if they are offering full comp packages that include equity, that equity vests over four years.

And there's a one-year cliff, meaning if you leave before one year, you don't get anything. We took the literal template for startup, full comp packages that include equity, and gave that to everybody. And as for Amanda, yeah, I was all set to give her equity. I think it was like when she joined, I think it was like when she kind of became full-time, sometime in 2020. And I looked into it.

I'm like, hey, we were already engaged. We're supposed to get married. And there's a ton of tax benefits if I just waited. Yeah. And so that's exactly what we're doing. I actually had my legal team finally draft up everything like eight months ago. And so that, you know, that was essentially a benefit that you get being able to gift your spouse unlimited amounts of assets tax-free.

Okay. So that took me about a year to figure out. Okay. So then there's a misconception. You don't own 100% of it. No. If Carl's got a piece of it. Like, yeah, this is like I could not do this by myself.

Okay. All right. So then enters in this whole Craig drama, right? So there's comments out there that Craig expressed interest to be involved. You said, I believe that that wasn't the case. Was Craig involved? Did Craig want to be involved? Did you give Craig the opportunity to be involved as an investor?

And even looking back on it when you take a step back, whether Craig's involved or not, does that really influence things for you? Like, what does that mean to you? No, I mean, look, first and foremost, all my friends that I film would know that I've raised money. Mm-hmm. The only person that ever expressed interest was Carl. I never pushed this on anyone because in a filming environment, I want people drinking Loverboy because they want to drink Loverboy,

not because they're an investor, not because they're my friend, because it tastes great. Sure. Granted, I hope they respect what I've done. But I never pushed this on anybody, Craig included. And Craig, to answer your question, Craig never expressed interest. He never once asked to invest in Loverboy. and, you know, I guess I'll address specifically what was said on another podcast.

The way it all kind of unfolded, in early February, Craig and I got drinks. He was coming to town. He made a point of reaching out. I thought it was just to catch up. Okay. And it wasn't up until like the last 10 minutes before our friends got there is actually Schwartz was in town. He was filming watch what happened. So we were just killing time. It wasn't until like Schwartz was 10 minutes away that Craig kind of sprung this, this, you know, collaboration on me. And I was just trying to process it, quite frankly. And then, boom, our friends are there.

And it sounded very much like, you know, the offer on the table was, you know, he was being given equity. And then boom, like, then, like, he actually left early and that was it. And so the next day, I texted on, like, hey, man, I can't, I've been given a lot of thought to, you know, what you said about this, this opportunity you have. And please, like, hold off from. I'm signing anything, you know, I'd love to put an offer on the table to kind of counter

it. And the irony is I had actually talked to him a month prior to this because we're coming out with a THC soda, which would be a completely different opportunity. So I'm like, all right, let's just talk about the full package then. Sure. You know, and again, not to get too into the weeds, but after a back and forth, Craig essentially said it was too late. And that was that. And was I disappointed? Absolutely. Like, here's a good friend of mine. You know, I just figured he'd at least give me an opportunity to, like, hear me out. And, and yeah, you know, to be honest, I kind of feared that this was impact our friendship because, you know, this has been my blood, sweat and tears for the last five years. And, you know, maybe, you know, call me a sensitive guy. Call me to, you know,

the industry's too big to be concerned. Do I really need Craig involved? No, but I just didn't think one of my good friends would go hop in bed with a competitor. And so, you know, that's it. That's, that was the extent of our conversation. So in the perfect scenario, though, what would it have looked like that Craig came back to you to benchmark the offer to give you a last look? Like if you had to paint the perfect scenario, Craig's at the table here. Craig, this is what ideally I would have liked to happen. Given the fact that you got to do your thing, you got to go make money, you got to invest in businesses. I have consideration for that. This is what I would have like to happen. But what would you have liked to have happened? What I would have liked to happen

happen was what was said on a podcast. Somewhere online, someone said, you know, Craig gave me the opportunity to reconsider because I had not given him opportunity to invest in Leverboy, which is not true. He just never asked. I would have loved for him to do exactly that. Hey, before I go down this path, like you said, I'll hold up from signing. Let me hear you out. And let's just have you know, a business-to-business chat. That just never happened. Interesting. Okay, so I'm going to play the role of Craig for a second.

So I'm Craig. I got sewing down south. I'm, I got podcasts. I'm doing well with the show, making money off social media. I want to diversify into the beverage space. And my friend, it's my really good friend. He's never even approached me. Everyone thought about it.

So when another friend approached me, I was like, all right, sure, let's do it. It helps me hedge and diversify more portfolio, and it's kind of cool. Who knows what it will go? What's your response to Craig? if that's what he says to you. Like, Kyle didn't reach out to me.

Like, I didn't, like, I was just, you know, sure, I'll do a, I'll do, I'll do a deal just like, you know, another friend gets an approach by White Claw to get a $100,000 paid deal. That's not what this was. Yeah. This is, I'm just trying to think. And, again, like, I thought we were good friends. And I thought he could kind of see firsthand, because I've known him since 2018. Yeah.

When I started this, how much. of a freaking grind it is, how hard it is to break through, the level of effort. Like, I don't have business partners that run Loverboy when I'm filming and on the road doing meet and greets. I have all this stress, all this burden, that's on me. And he knows that. And I just kind of, I would have liked to think. And again, maybe this is just wishful thinking, that there was at least an opportunity

for him to hear me out before he went down this other path. Okay, got it. Now, there's a conversation about that there was a dinner. I think you and Ben went to dinner, right? So he was the founder and owner of the competitor. And my understanding too is that you, like, Ben also wanted to like kind of do like more collaboration stuff with Loverboy as opposed to like competition stuff. Is that the case? Did you go to dinner? What's the truth there? Again, this got twisted. I wasn't like begging him to come to dinner to me with me. He had DM me when we were both at an industry conference. in January and like per the timeline his wife laid out like he was already in talks with Craig. I didn't see it. I was actually leaving the conference early. I bumped into him on the way out. He introduced himself and then suggested we like grab dinner in the city.

I said, sure. Responded to his DM. We exchanged numbers. We set up the dinner. This dinner ended up taking place about two weeks before Craig and I got drinks. Okay. So I think since, like, talking like receipts and timelines these days, the dinner was February 7th. Okay.

I really enjoyed the conversation. It's not often I get to sit down with a fellow entrepreneur in the same exact space where we are, you know, in the trenches, fighting the big guys. And, you know, it got to a point where, like, yeah, he was, hey, maybe we could collab and, like, throw a party, kind of cross-pollinate our audiences. Sure. And, you know, fast forward the next day, I see he's. with Craig. And he never mentioned that, which is, which is fine. I didn't know at this time that him and Craig were talking about a collab. But do you, I wonder, do you think he had any idea that? Well, yeah. He knows Craig and I are friends. And I just, what I just should have said on,

watch what happens instead of using the words that I did, which I think I used the word shady. If Ben was spending like three hours with me and three hours of Craig in a 24-hour period, he didn't tell me that he was talking to Craig and he didn't tell Craig he had dinner with me. Okay. And I just found that odd. And I just wish he was a little more transparent with his intentions instead of like a, it kind of felt like when they announced it was like supposed to be like this, I got you a moment.

Yeah. And maybe that's me reading between the lines. You know, again, I put everything into this. And I'm super passionate about my business. And so, you know, maybe I overreacted or I'm like too dramatic. You know, I don't know. But like at the end of the day, yeah, I just found it extremely odd that he wouldn't mentioned hanging out with either one of us.

Yeah. So let me ask you this. So business, entrepreneur to entrepreneur, you know, business case to business case. Let's go to the very top. Let's go to like a Bill Gates and a Steve Jobs, right? Like those guys had a lot of respect for each other, clearly competing. And I think when each of them made moves, they're kind of like, fuck, hats off. Like in the game of business, I don't know if him saying, hey, I want exposure to Bravo and then picking.

Craig is an opportunity. Is that more of just like a business strategy play than like a shady thing, right? They're trying to build their brands and they need to go tap a different audience. I guess my point is even in those fierce competitive worlds, like I know plenty of people in this space. I purposely don't poach employees from brands where I'm friendly with the founders. There's a level of respect because guess what? This is an extremely, extremely small industry.

Yeah, yeah. And so there's just like certain lines, you know. you try to avoid and if you're going to cross them just be honest and transparent about it and so look at the end of the day like I think that it's really not about us versus them you know we it's really like David versus Goliath right right because we're 14 billion dollar industry yeah and probably more so at this point because that's that number's old yeah that was 2022 number right I think it's almost double so you know I guess that's where I'm I'm pretty bummed about how everything went down.

Yeah. Just because that was never my intent, you know, I'm focused on, you know, trying to fend off competition from massive, massive conglomerates that have endless amounts of resources. Like a lot of people don't know because, like, whether you want to say my competition's hard-seltzer or spirit-based RTDs or canned cocktails, like a lot of people don't know where these big brands come from. White Claw is owned by Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Of course. Truly and Twisted are the same, you know, parent company, Boston beer. They're publicly traded, you know, $10 billion company. A lot of people, like, think Barstool owns High Noon. It's actually owned by the Gallo family. The Gallo family's been around for 100 years. They are the world's biggest wine producer. Yeah.

Like High Noon was like a little pet project. They're a little, like, Constellation Brands. I mean, these are just like little. People don't understand just... That's why, like, I really think it's kind of unfortunate that we weren't in a position to work better together

because it's... small companies need to create like a rising tide to fight the big guys because the big guys can just outspend all of us. They have thousands of employees and alcohol is logistically challenging. There's regulatory things to take into consideration.

And so it's just not startup friendly. Like, I've worked in healthcare, real estate, finance, tech, nothing compared. as to this industry. Yeah, but I'm trying to understand. So we got a $30 billion industry, okay? And now you're expanding.

You obviously have teas which don't compete. And now you're going with the THC soda. It's the THC. Yeah, we're doing zero sugar. Okay. So you're diversifying the portfolio. It's like Poppy meets THC. So here's my question to you is like when you see this big picture and the strategy

of exiting, which is what you talked about two years ago, I don't mean to take a shot here at Craig. but how much is Craig impacting numbers when you're looking at the long game whether he goes with you or whether he goes with the competitor in the space in which you have different even products at some case?

Like is this really a business issue at any standpoint? Look, look, at the end of the day, this is more about our friendship if I can be honest. That's what it feels like because it doesn't like to move the needle. And that's why I really hate

and like I'm beating myself up for letting my emotions get the best of me. I was just committed to just kind of like pushing forward and, you know, chalking it up as like a miscommunication or a missed opportunity or maybe he was just too far down the path with this, you know, with this team to kind of course correct. No, I mean, like, look, like I said, I'm focused on basically trying to keep up with the guys that have tons of resources. Yeah. Like, you know, a lot of people don't understand how easy it is for the big guys to

create a really crappy product but get exponentially more distribution overnight. And in alcohol, it's like the quality of the product almost is like out of say out of mind. It's like how cheap can we make this

and how wide can we go to push out the competition, to push out the small guys. And so, I mean, look, I, in all seriousness, if I, you know, I hope to have a chance

to talk with Craig. You know, I want to squash the beef. Like, what's done is done. Like, I tell them straight up. Like, I'm sorry for being reactionary and wash what happens. Like, you know, the irony here is it's really not about two startups competing against one another. It's trying to stay relevant in an industry that is really good at keeping the startups small.

Yeah. Because it feels like, yeah, the business case here feels like if you put on the Kyle Cook, like, grind entrepreneurial mindset and you just throw those emotions to the side for a minute. I feel like there's so much good that can come from this, right? Okay, Craig can go with the competitor. Maybe you can start to work with Bravo and put like a non-circumvent place. Like, hey, I bring a lot of value here. We can't have competitors working with people on the show. Like there's ways to like strategize to avoid this.

And in a world that this competitor and with Ben's company and you and your competitor, you guys can continue to like push your markets, build your brands and somehow even get over this Craig thing, create a mutual understanding and put this all behind you and both grow. I mean, like in all, seriously, in this case, it seems like it's, easy fix. We a lot more in common than you'd think. I know that they know firsthand how stressful

it is financially. We're dealing with the same stuff. Like I said, most beverage companies, particularly ALC, are either losing money up until they get acquired or they just run out of money and they go belly up. In fact, a lot of...

I started Loverboy several years before and started his company. A lot of the companies that started around where I did, 2018, 2019, 2020, like that vintage, where they're heavily venture-backed, they are out of business. Yeah.

Because if you were so reliant on investors, in this new high interest rate era, you can't raise capital. You're done. You're done. So more often than not, the small guys that I used to be at the industry conferences on sharing a stage, again, as competitors,

but in this together, they are disappearing. Yeah. Like, bye, bye. Yeah. I know there's a lot of people out there that are talking about the gossip side of this. And that's why I wanted to bring up that last point I brought up,

because this feels like, of course, it's a friendship to you. It's near and dear to your heart. This does feel more gossip than an actual business case that is having massive ripple effects. Because it does feel like there really won't be much movement in regards to numbers as it relates to this specific scenario. I think you agree with that. So then let's go to the friendship.

Obviously, it's a big part of your show and a part of your livelihood, too. Like, Craig, I think you said you wanted to squash it with him, but like, where does it go? Do you just say, okay, hey, I understand. You have ownership there. Let's put it behind us. How do you overcome it? I mean, at the end of the day, now that's the only choice. Yeah, it became a very binary outcome.

Yeah. I'm not going to let this hopefully interfere with our friendship. I think that, you know, I just wish the friendship was taken into a little more consideration. or maybe I have a different interpretation of what our friendship is. I don't know. All right, let's just talk about this. Obviously, we're talking about competition.

In general, how does the competitor landscape you've already alluded to a little bit? Right. But how does it keep you up at night? When you look at the deficit that you've talked about on the show, the 1.5 million, has competitors played a big part of that, which is why you're triggered by this?

Talk to me about your overall vision of the competitor landscape as it connects to this specific situation. From a competition standpoint, I know, and this is why I buy all my competitors' products. I know that we can use better quality ingredients to make a better tasting better for you liquid, as we say in the industry. What keeps me up at night is the big guys can make cheaper alternatives, but push it out faster and basically demand the attention of our wholesalers and retailers. Right.

Because we're all fighting for the same spot on the shelf. It's just distribution. Yeah, it's distribution, you know, and just the main. manpower it takes to stay top of mind with our wholesalers and retailers is colossal. Like, we're not even close to having a big enough team based on how big our distribution network is. That's, like, the competition can always demand their attention better than me because they're way, way bigger.

That's what keeps me up. Let's talk about this then. So people that watch the show that are listening to this that can somewhat connect to it, because we're not going to get into statement of cash flows and balance sheet and everything else. But let's get into stuff that they can understand, right? You put $100k your money into it. You have a $3 million loss.

Talk to me about personally, like was the company ever at a point in which there was a burden rate you saw the end? Like it was going to possibly go out of business. And if so, for the people that are listening to this, I only see two seconds on the show, what type of impact does they have? How much do you lose? Do you have an SBA structure in place where you have a guarantee with the bank?

What does it mean to you with the numbers that are happening when you have a $3 million loss, given what you've put in and what you've raised, so that people back home that don't know all the intricacies can have a connection to the stress you're enduring. So I think this is why entrepreneurship, it sounds sexy and it sounds cool because you're independent, you're your own boss. But like when all of a sudden you're dealing with a complex industry and a complex business model, I don't care how hot your brand is.

Like in 2020, we almost went out of business twice. why because the pandemic slowed down our production so we put all this cash to running these big production runs of our sparkly hard teas that's the only thing we were selling back then actually know we launched our TDs too that's when we launched a spread so we had all this cash going out yeah and then because there were delays and because our distributors were delayed because they're dealing with their own cash flow problems it was taking longer to get paid it was longer, it's taking longer recoup our investment. So on two different occasions, one of our investors gave us a quarter million dollar

line of credit that allowed us to keep the lights on. Because was there a point your current ratio? I'll explain what a current ratio is in the recap. Your current ratio was below one. It's where your current liabilities were greater than your current assets. Yeah, I mean, back then, we'd, like, keep in mind, we'd only raised about a million three. Okay. And so, like, just strictly from a cash flow cycle, yeah, things were out of whack.

Wow. And so, I mean, that's a perfect example of why these inventory-based businesses are, I mean, a nightmare. I remember back in the day when I was at Bird Dogs, we were on Shark Tank. I couldn't film because of my contract. But we ramped up production thinking it was going to be amazing. And my friends kind of made buffoons of themselves. And it wasn't a very good day from a sales perspective. And that alone almost put the business out.

Wow. Out of business. Wow. So it's, and that was 2020. I mean, here it is 2024. So, I mean, just dealing with the constant ebbs and flows of like cash coming in, cash coming out and the need to staff up because you've expanded, it doesn't matter how good your product is, like, particularly in alcohol.

Once you launch, you're like, you're only that shiny new toy in a wholesale or retailer's portfolio once. Yeah. And then you need, I mean, honestly, what fans can do. and our customers can do is continue to ask for Loverboy. If you go to a store that no longer has Loverboy because there's been an onslaught of competition from the big guys, just keep asking for it.

Yeah. You know, it's little things like that. But yeah, I mean, you know, every day is a new challenge. So I want to put that perspective for people back home that don't own a business. Essentially, just imagine your mom or dad keeps giving you money and money and money and you keep spending it and spending it and spending it.

And your mom and dad are like, what, where the hell's happening? And you're like, trust me, it'll work out, it'll work out. And you keep spending and spending and spending and you don't have any more. And then you're filming a TV show and your friends and your relationships and all these people are putting pressure on you. You're continuing to run this deficit on money that's being handed to you to perform. And so the stress of that is massive, especially when you have employees that are relying on paycheck.

I was a sole owner. Yeah. And it was just me. You wouldn't be all rattled the way you are. have, you know, 10,000 retailers and 180 wholesalers and 30 employees, like, my God, that would be amazing. That would be amazed. So I'm just trying to give perspective to people that don't have it, how intense it could be. That's a good transition. We're talking personally, there's rumors out there that there was also personal debt, which, of course, is much different than any type of investment

to the company or SBA lending. What type of personal debt do you have? Is that true or false? Yeah, I'm not sure why personal loans was brought up in a podcast. Like, I'm not really sure why a lot of things were, but at the end of the day, no, I do not have a personal loan the way it works because we were profitable, which again, unusual beverage. So I don't expect other people in this space to understand how we did this. We qualify for a small business loan. It's backed by the government. It's called an SBA loan. And it's usually, you know, easier to secure that type of loan when you have a heavy asset business like real estate or, you know, machinery or stuff like that. So we qualified for an SBA loan when I was filming Winterhouse 1. I remember like jumping up

and down. How much was the loan for? 4.2 million. That is huge. Yeah. So the max you can do is five. So we we put together a very compelling business case why a community bank backed by the government would lend us $4.2 million. And a big part of that was we were profitable, wildly that deal got approved. Yeah. I want to give people respective SBA loan. right? So this is what's funded literally the entire small business initiative in America. Think about like a Chabani yogurt. You see it everywhere. It crushes it. They started with like a $100,000 SBA loan. So it's a way to take a high risk business and have the government back it because we need small businesses to run the country. A $4.2 million dollar SBA loan for anyone

that's listening is asinine. I worked in SBA underwriting, right? I used to underwrite these deals. No one gets a 4.2 million. So that is a testament to where the company was at. That's unheard. of. Right. And so, yeah, when you can raise 4.2 million at 6% over 10 years, you're not going to VCs. No. That would be the least savvy thing to do as an entrepreneur and founder, you could imagine, right? And so it's basically the equivalent of free money versus giving away a huge stake in your business to an investor. So we qualified for that loan. And the way SBA loans work, Like you said, it's what's literally made the U.S. so founder and entrepreneur-friendly. It's the SBA program.

And it requires every single person that qualifies for their business to personally guarantee it. So, and that's the daunting thing. You saw, I don't know if you remember. That's a different stress level. Right. So, listen, that's a lot. So here's this scoop. In a world where you have a business loan that you don't have a personal guarantee,

If your business goes out of business, your business goes bankrupt, it's handled in court, they try to sell off the assets, you kind of wash your hands, and then you start over. I think SBA loans, the easiest comparison would be like student loans. You're never getting away from that debt, no matter what happens to your business, what happens to your career. And so when I was filming season six, and I slapped my hand on the table, And I'm like, I'm dealing with a little more substantial, you know what. You know, we were again dealing with some of the stress that I've talked about today.

And now it feels like the stakes are higher than the previous year, season five, because I had this SBA loan where I had to personally guarantee it. And so you all, and just for everyone back at home, if you don't know, a personal guarantee is, what that means is essentially every asset you have that exists under your name, it can go immediately to the bank and the SBA if you cannot repay this loan. So your home, your jewelry, your cars, anything that you have, that essentially the government and the bank can come take it, repo it, and you're pretty much life's over if you don't repay that,

which is a whole different added stress. But when you're a founder applying for an SBA loan, there's a good chance you've already put all of your assets into the business. Correct. And you're like, so what? What do I have to lose? And that's where you run into trouble. Well, SBA lending, when I was underwriting, you had to put 20% down.

Does that mean you had to put 20% down? Okay, did you have to put any percent down? No. Okay. There must have enough equity in the business then. Yeah. We had enough collateral to satisfy those requirements. Okay.

But yeah, you know, the bank is only on the hook for anywhere between 10 and 30% of that loan. And then it's the government backing up the rest. So, you know, not to get too complicated, But, yeah, there's definitely a sense of fear that in a worst-case scenario, here I had this successful business, but we grew too fast or, you know, we ran, you know, we didn't manage our supply and demand or the cash flow, and it could wipe out everything I've worked towards. Yeah. And the other thing I want people to listen to back home is I'm not excusing some of your emotional

reactions. But what I am giving context to is you're talking about a ton of severity. If this business fails and you are on the hook for a personal guarantee and you're a public figure, which they will make an example of, you will be signing your Bravo checks over to those banks until it's paid for the rest of your life. And I don't know of another beverage startup that has an SBA loan. So I'm in a world Oh, I've never seen that. Yeah. And it definitely hits me sometimes. And so when you see me freak the freak out, just know that, A, I'm not trying to make excuses.

I'm actually completely embarrassed year over year over year about how I handle myself. Again, it's, I'm actually finally in my own therapy working on my outburst. Good for you. But I'm-financial therapy, by the way. That might be a perfect day for it. But yeah, no, look, and again, I. I am proud of how other people have leveraged this platform. I do envy my friends where they make a ton of money

with a way less sophisticated business plan. Look, the stakes are higher, right? With risk comes reward. It's pretty damn real when you have a $4 million loan in your name. It's no joke. Again, that's where maybe I got, I misled people thinking it's a personal loan. it's a $4 million loan that I've guaranteed.

Yeah, that you've guaranteed, and it's backed by the government. It's typically loans, and we could talk more about it in the recap, it's typically loans that the bank wouldn't finance on their own because the risk might be too high. So the government says, hey, bank, go give that loan out, and if it doesn't work out, we will pay you bank so you guys don't go belly up. The one thing I'll make clear, like, this was not a COVID loan. No, no, no, no, not even close.

You'd be surprised. people, people like have dug this up and think that I try to be some like, you know, one of those businesses that took advantage of the PPP and then runs. Exactly. And I know some of those. They literally took millions of dollars and closed their doors. Yeah. It's ridiculous. Like that's not what it was there for. This has nothing to do with that. The SBA loan's been around. I don't know. You probably know better than me. It's probably been like 30, 40 years. It is as legitimate as legitimate gets. You said it's easy to get approved. I think it's a much more harder loan to get approved because the paperwork is this big.

Yeah, let me take that statement back. If you have like a motel, a cash flowing hotel or like a golf course. A landscaping business where you own a ton of like trucks and machinery, those are easy assets to be collateralized by a bank and so you can qualify. So for anybody listening that's looking to buy a small business, don't think that you got to go, if it's a million bucks, and there's actual real collateral on assets there and it's cash flowing and this, this and that, my God, go check out the SBA loans.

You can fund that thing and only those are probably instances where you do it to put money down when you are acquiring something, but we're talking 10, 20%. Correct. Fact and fiction, SBA loan, very, very different than any type of COVID back loan. Everyone should know that. It's extremely legitimate. And majority of the companies you see out there today that started from small business started from an SBA loan. So let's give that a deathful fact. Now, as we transition into facts, I do have a round of rapid fire for you because I'm just curious about some of the, true false narratives out there that connect business and pop culture. So let's do this. First one, Bravo. Are they connected at all to Lover Boy? Do they get any type of dividends? Do they have any type of cahoots with you in the business side? They give you a lot of exposure. They talk about it often. What's it look like? No, they're not in cahoots. Technically speaking, they'll get a piece of my takeaway. If there is some type of acquisition and I'm still on air, that's like what people

called the Bethany Frankel Clause, but by no means, I mean, I've seen people suggest that Bravo must own lover boy because all the exposure they give me. If anything, they tell me to tamper it down. They're like, Kyle, please take off the lover boy shirt. And I'm like, what do you mean? That's what I do. I wear my merch. Like my wife designed it. Hey, can you, can you put, you know, those drinks in cups? Yeah. You know, so if anything, they don't want it to look like an infomercial because they don't want people thinking we are in cahoots. So it's quite frankly the opposite. They also could get brand opportunity for placement

in which they would get paid and be in cahoots if this wasn't there. So, I mean, they're probably incentivized to not be in cahoots with you, quite frankly. Yes. Yeah, they, and they would never be in cahoots with one big brand because then it rules out the opportunity for others to advertise.

Right. So that's why you'll never see one particular of mass produce, like alcohol, just all over one show, because alcohol is arguably one of the biggest buyer of ads on Bravo. Yeah, and they got huge dollars. Let's go to this. We're talking big Bravo.

Now, individuals within your show, you know, $10,000, $15,000 ads are big, right? Do you force it upon your castmates? Do you put the lover boy in their hand? Do you make a suggestion? Everyone has to be drinking it? What does that look like? So in other words, true or false, do I make my friends drink lover boy? Essentially, yeah.

Not false. So look, like I said before, I'd never push this on anybody. Yeah, do I hope that they wouldn't bring my competitive products into the house? Sure. Keep in mind, we pay for all of our groceries, alcohol included. Oh, on the show you do. Yeah, yeah. Interesting.

Over the years, I actually just added this up because I saw this, I saw someone, or maybe it was because of this podcast, you know, debacle. I've given the house about $100,000 worth of, booze over the years. That's for us. That's for our friends. That's for parties. I'm sure the show doesn't pay for that. Not a dollar. I'm surprised by that. No. So early on, my friends were like, oh, sweet. We're no longer having to like use split-wise or Venmo to cover the cost of alcohol. Now we just have to pay for our groceries. Now, if we go to a restaurant, they'll have like, you know, a $50 per head type thing. Because that's them

asking us to go to dinner or whatever it might be. But no, I never forced my friends to drink it. I always wanted my friends drinking it because they want to reach for a lover boy. And then you see it. Like there's been plenty of times this season where I wasn't even in the house. People arrive and they grab a lover boy. Okay. There you go. There you hear it.

Now I've read a comment out there. I think I know the answer to this one. But Amanda put up the money to pay the bills and start lover boy. True or false? False. I think there was just like a miscommunication between Amanda and Paige. Paige kind of went on air saying she not only was paying the bills when I was starting this because I didn't have a source of income,

but she also like put up her own cash for that initial pre friends and family capital required to start the business. No, what she did do so graciously was put in her time to help me nail the branding. I've always had multiple sources of income. I personally, like I said, funded that first 100K while continuing to pay our bills, you know, and but I couldn't have done it without Amanda. Like, she, she had such an impact. Her fingerprints are all over the original branding and are still today. Okay. Another rumor, and we'll end with this one, there are rumors out there that you're actually a producer of the show and provide casting and story direction in the show and almost have like an EP title, true or false? No. I know there's still people that think I got

Hannah fired. It's actually quite the contrary. I told producers that I would film with her. And I have zero input on casting. I helped cast season one. That's why I feel so proud of this show. I put in hundreds of hours making season one happen. Yeah. Because there was a very good chance. This was never going to happen, period. So I cast season one. I literally everybody, but Stephen, I helped bring in. I think Lindsay brought Stephen, but I brought Lindsay. And that's it. Like, sure, Winterhouse was built, built on pictures of what I called Stopalooza. Yeah. Like, that was a trip I was doing with friends.

Yeah. Similar to, like, Summerhouse, that was what we were already doing with friends. But, no, I have no producer credit. Okay, so no producer credit. All right. I want to transition while I still got you to loving money. That's what my second book was about, talk money to me. You've talked about Amanda.

She was part-time. She was full-time. She scaled back. There's been some disruption with your around. relationship because of business. You've talked about it openly. This was a clip I was listening to, and this was when we podcast. It actually impacts both of us.

So I'm going to just play it and get your overall takes. It's two years ago. Gift your percentage of equity. Got it. Any recommendations or advice for couples that work together, like professionally? Like literally for the same company. You guys will own equity together. Any thoughts or advice for people?

I think initially Amanda's like, well, we're going to draw a fine line. Like at night, at dinner. or in bed, no talking of business. She quickly realized once we moved in that that's impossible for me. Me too. This is probably one of my biggest issues in our relationship. She's like, turn it the fuck off.

Yeah, I'm like, that switch does not exist. I can't. Find the switch for me and do it yourself because I can't. So I think that there's all sorts of like case studies in history of, you know, it's not easy to like live with date and marry like an entrepreneur. particularly if you're trying to build something not just like a small business but something that actually scales and you're dealing with investors and you're dealing with employees and employee you know like all the high stakes you know i think it so that's what you said two years ago it's

wild how that literally manifested it's exactly what we talked about today what's your overall take now like is a healthy marriage possible and by the way at this time i was engaged i told you i couldn't turn it off i'm no longer engaged so i know i know think it's probably Like, what's your overall take between mastering the business and trying to master your relationship, or is it almost impossible? Look, like, as painful as it was to, you know, I felt like I almost got, like, interrogated by Paige and Sierra when they were riding hard for Amanda, which I'm, like I said, I'm so glad she has, like, those types of friends.

I think I was really struggling to kind of cope, you know, last summer, she'd already taken a step away. I don't think that was very clear to her friends, but she'd already taken a big, step. And I, she's so good at what she does. I was so worried that her involvement would just continue to taper down to essentially nothing. And I feel like she's like Wonder Woman when it comes to branding, when it comes to merch, when it comes to our packaging, when it comes to our brand voice and messaging. And, you know, look, I know I've criticized like her work ethic, but now that I better understand her, I know that's not what I should be focused on.

And at the end of the day, like, I want to support her. I want to make her happy. A lot of what drives me is this desire for financial freedom, independence, the ability to provide for a family. You know, there's been times of the years where my crazy work hours gets used against me either by Amanda or some of my friends. But like, I think what now I've realized is that I just need to be more in tune with with like Amanda's needs.

So if she needs to take a step back, I can't hold her and like make her stay. Like, you know, I think that in a work, the thing about like, when we have kids, she's not going to have as much time

to focus on whatever she's focusing on, whether it's lover boy or her own ventures. And so I think I've just come to realize, okay, Kai, you're an idiot. There's no steady state. Things change. Things evolve. It ebbs and flow.

maybe she's completely not involved except at a super high level or maybe like in six months she's back to full time yeah i just have to be more accepting and and an understanding of like what she needs and what's going to make her happy it might be different from me yeah i think what's interesting is as a CEO founder and entrepreneur you're going i think i'm observing that you're going through these hard lessons of when friendship and love meets business because you as a hardworking, dedicated, committed person who puts literally what we talked about today, your entirety of your life on the line. You have expectations for others, for castmates, for good friends, and for even your wife, that at times just aren't met, right? And it's like

at some point, I think it's almost like how, as a leader, do you almost find workarounds given that expectations are constantly not being met? Right. I think I need to be more compassionate it and like look like I don't expect our castmates my friends like Craig or even my wife Amanda to understand you know what it's like to walk in my shoes and I I can't and when I try to explain I almost like give off this like I'm better than you I'm running a more complex business I'm holier than you know whatever it might be and like I've really just got to work on my delivery and just understand that like I need to need to be more compassionate that like they don't need to understand. It's not their problem. It's not their problem to understand,

right? Or it's how do you implement things so that your problems then get solved, right? I think about like whether it's the podcast, whether it's the agency, like I see competitors all the time doing things. I'm like, shit, like good get. Yeah. It did me. I need to think better. I need to put contracts in that place. Like I need to go get those people, right? Like what did I do wrong? And I think I wish, like, my world is more like podcasting. Like, podcast, if I started a podcast, you'd come on, I'd come on. You're, like, you can kind of, like, build off of each other. Yeah.

But in the agency, right? Like, I want to sign the next person. Right. And then the person that I'm like, I literally, that owns the next agency and we're friends and we do deals. And they cut me right at the Lex. And it's a doggy dog. But I'm saying, I don't, my take is what I've learned because I've been so disappointed

to having expectations. Like I thought we had a handcha agreement. My handcha agreements are done. And so what I've learned from getting burned left and right is I don't have expectations of other people. I think how can I be a better business leader? How can I put a non-circumventant in place with someone that I worked with so they can't go work with Nike tomorrow if I got them that deal? I think about that. And I feel like as personal relationships continue to come in to your business life and your expectations aren't being met,

whether it's someone accepting a competitor deal or going somewhere else, I think there's things maybe that contractually you can put in place or strategies that can say, I don't have to worry about my expectations anymore. Yeah, I mean, look, like every industry is wildly different. Like here I was thinking about podcast and we're talking about your agency, right? So, I mean, talk about like polar opposites in terms of how those ecosystems work. One is every podcast helps the next podcast. And the other is every man for himself. Yeah, literally.

So I think that's, again, a lot of people don't understand. Like, there's just so many nuances to every single. industry every single business and I'm sure as heck not going to articulate that on a on a bravo show. Or get the edit that they're going to put together. Oh my God. Actually, that was one of the things that I was the most upset about and I text the producers. I'm like, yo, when I blurted out that lover boy is tanking, talk about, you know, something I regret. I was trying to make a point. Like what I was trying to get at is Like, it is stressful.

Like, we could go out of business at any moment. Like, that's just the, the high risk, high stakes situation I'm in as a company that decided to expand nationwide. And, you know, obviously, taking on its own, it's like, oh, shoot. Yeah, is Loverboy tanking? The irony is we filmed multiple scenes with my C.O. that went into detail about our financial position and why I was stressing out, none of that made the air.

The only thing that made the air was three seconds of a 30-minute download that I was giving to Amanda. So she's a little more informed. Because Amanda doesn't even know the intricacies of our financial situation, right? And it dawned on me last summer, I'm like, I need to tell her.

Yeah. So I went to great lengths to try to help people understand. none of that made the edit. Interesting. I get it. It's not a business show. Yeah, it's not a business show.

They're not going to talk about that. But what makes the edit? Loverboys tanking. Yeah. And that's the only thing people are stuck with. Yeah. And I'm like, look, I'm really proud of what we built. We're a small company.

Like, we're doing a lot with a little. Yeah. And, you know, we've got a lot of momentum behind us. You know, I'm really proud that, like, you know, we accomplished what we did, having raised less than 5 mil. I always I always think about when I think about like if I were to invest in a company I'm like you know for every dollar you've you've raised how much can you generate from a revenue standpoint like that to me is one of the most it's the capital raise to revenue ratio yeah we're 10 to

one wow so for every dollar we've raised we generated $10 of revenue so the business is far from tanking right now yeah look like we have a lot going for ourselves but we're still in that David versus Goliath fight. So, like, every time someone's looking at the shelf, they see Loverboy versus some competitor that's a dollar cheaper or, you know, made with crappier ingredients, or they don't have Leverboy and they ask for it. Like, it helps. Grab the Loverboy, ask for the lover boy. Like, otherwise you're just supporting some mass marketed conglomerate that cuts corners. How about this? So we've talked about some of the business financials. Personally, you and Amanda,

I mean, you're making six figures plus from the show. You're making, I assume, a shit done from social media influencing, you have other streams of revenue. I'm sure I would imagine you're paying yourself some sort of salary, both you two. Like financially, when people are thinking about your company taking in three lines or three million dollars of deficit, financially you two are off pretty good. My right or wrong? Well, you know, in that outlier instance, where Loverby were to go bankrupt, because we mismanaged something horribly, I mean, all that gets gone, that's true, taken out by the SBA personal guarantee. So that aside, yeah, no, I'm not like stressing out about like keeping the lights on. Yeah. But considering I've got,

I'm five years into this and we've gone through a pandemic, we've gone through supply chain challenges. Now in the last two years, the number of products that come to market that I compete with has multiplied by maybe four or fivefold. It is, it is fiercely competitive. And so I, I don't take anything for granted. I'm still working just as hard as it was when we first started. I love it. All right. Let's see if we can end with this.

You've mentioned the concerns with Craig. You've put it out there. You've rectated and taken some self-awareness. Some of those things you would take back. Knowing what you know now, knowing where the company is, is Craig being aligned with the competitor behind you? Or is it still something that you're holding on to? If I can be completely frank, like when it was announced,

on social. I already obviously knew he was coming and it was kind of out of sight and out of mind until Andy asked me about it. Because I haven't talked to Craig since. Okay. I haven't talked to Craig since he more or less said it was too late. Would you be willing to talk to

him now? Yeah. I mean like, this all happened so fast. I've been traveling, you know, since that watch what happens episode a week ago. I'm about to travel some more. You know, due to the amount of like misleading and, like, incorrect things that were shared on said podcasts,

I would have loved to hear from him because I think the only thing that was true was that, yes, I bought Spriss Society. I buy all my competitors' products. How else do I make sure I'm making the best possible thing that we can make? Sure. But aside from that, I was a little heartbroken in terms of, you know, what was said and the inaccuracies, but it is what it is. So whether he reached out to me or I reached out to him, like, I'm sure we'll patch it up.

I hope you guys do patch it up. I think especially when you look at the business case, obviously, you know, it hurts. There's some emotion tied to it. But I don't know, I just don't, I don't see it moving numbers dramatically. But, and I think there's processes, procedures you can put in place to make sure things like this don't happen again, right? Like, so. Yeah. Or I just need to be more proactive.

Like if, if Craig wanted an opportunity to invest, hey, let me know. Yeah. Or better yet. Or wait, wait, wait, wait. You go get them. Yeah. You go get them. You know, so it's kind of like, hey, maybe some of our newbie cast members,

maybe I take the opportunity to get them involved earlier than later. So they don't get tempted by some inferior, you know, like big conglomerate come and knocking on their door with a big paycheck. So there's ways to handle it. Every industry is different. Every entrepreneur has their own thing. And I'm not saying at all what I'm doing is right. Some ways that I'm a little bit different.

I actually like competitors, I want them to be my best friends. So, like, I have a competitor who's not even in the agency space, but they're their digital marketing company, so they're full service. I'm writing a check to invest in them. I'm going to sit on their board. Like, the competitors, the more information, the more I can be, like, be friendly with them. For your industry, it's such a big industry. I'm in the same, like, mindset.

That's why I took the dinner with Ben. Right, right. It's good point. Okay. Like, I was right there with you. Yeah. I just, again, I got taken by surprise. And, you know, I'm just still trying to, I'm just dealing it, dealing with it a little more publicly than I wanted.

I hear you. Well, we're talking lover boy. We're talking summer house. We're talking your career, your personal life, anything else when it comes to the business, finance, or money side of those things that you want to make sure we address in the second state of the union with Kyle Cook two years later. No, I mean, look, I feel like we've heard a lot of ground. You know, I think for people listening, that they'd have that entrepreneurial itch. I think there's this huge emphasis on some kind of crazy risky business that requires venture capital and, you know, it's one in a million type thing.

Look at businesses that can be funded by an SBA loan. It might be harder to do beverage now than it was a couple years ago, if I can be honest, because obviously lending guidelines change with the market. But look, you don't have to be working for somebody else and you don't need a million dollars to pull that off. to pull off your dream. And so, you know, I just encourage everybody to don't get, don't get misled to thinking that every wealthy entrepreneur

started with some crazy venture back tech startup. No, like the wealthiest families in this country probably do something way less sexy than you'd ever imagine. And their business today could have probably been funded with like an SBA loan. Yeah. And I think another good thing that people should think about, if you go to pursue an SBA loan and you get approved, that is a natural indicator that your industry, that your experience, that your management team, that historical financials are in a

pretty good spot. Because you're getting money cheap that the government is literally willing to stamp for approval saying we will back it up. And so I also want to give you credit for locking up a $4.2 million SBA loan, which is nowhere near anything connected to type of COVID lending. That is a huge testament to your financials, to the management team. team to everything because those things don't get approved easily. And it's an indicator that you're in a good spot to repay that and to continue to do well. So thank you, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate having you on two years from now. Hopefully we're talking exit. We're not talking drama. Yeah, my God. Now I'm like, I'm going to just wash my hand. I'm just kidding.

We'll do the third state. Every day's a new day. We appreciate you dressing the business, pop culture, finance, and money discussions. And where can everyone find everything happen with lover boy and yourself. Yeah, yeah. So lover boy, drinkloverboy.com at drink lover boy on socials. I'm Kyle Cook is my handle, literally, like the letters I am. I don't know why it shows up back in the day. But yeah, thanks everybody for the support. Awesome. Cheers. Thanks for being a eye. Ding, ding, ding. We are closing in the bell to the Kyle Cook episode with the one and only the curious Canadian. Now, as you know, Trading Secrets episodes come out every single Monday. I do my intro. We have our guest on. And then we do a

recap where I bring the curious Canadian on and he'll ask me the breakdown of all the business things he did not understand in the episode. And then of course give me an unbelievable opinion on what he thinks about all the moving parts. And he loves to get down and dirty. So I have David with me right now. However, this is going to be an episode like no other. We have too much to talk about David. I saw your list of questions when it comes to business. I saw your opinions on the gossip. I saw devil's advocate. You want me to play. Not only for Ben, not only for Kyle, but for Craig and Claudia. So you want me to get back in the devil's advocate chair. That's a whole lot of action. We don't have enough time for it. So this Thursday,

more than money episode. As you guys know, we have two episodes every week, trading secrets on Monday, more than money on Thursday. This week's more than money episode will be David and I recapping the entirety of what you just heard are opinions, definitions, and all the things you got to know, David, you want to tease anybody with what you think is going to happen in this recap come Thursday? Listen, we're all busy in our lives. It's summer. It's a Monday.

You're listening to this. You can't sit in the car for two and a half hours. You got things to do. You got errands run. You get kids to feed. You got jobs to try and accomplish. We're trying to get that summer body going to. Maybe you need to.

we can't have you for two and a half hours we can't do it people this episode was the perfect blend of trading secrets it was pop culture meets finance meets j and david's banter on our opinions on the personalities involved and the businesses involved as much as we would love to we can't we can't hold your hostage for two and a half hours tune in on thursday more than money you'll get all of the things that you're used to seeing on the recap and more because we add a little banter flare on it. It'll be worth it. I promise and appreciate you for tuning in and listening to this episode and Thursday's episode of More Than Money. A lot of facts for dropped in this episode on this Thursday more than money. You will hear a lot of opinions. But we'll end with this

fact. Ben, Claudia, Craig, Kyle have all been on trading secrets and are all friends. And we have respect for each and every single one of them. In this scenario, we're going to break down each of our thoughts on the whole scenario and all the opinions will be coming from David and I this Thursday. Make sure to tune in to this episode of More Than Money. And don't forget, we are finalizing our focus group. We're putting 50 listeners from the Money Mafia together to create a focus group so that we can touch base with you and hear all the recommendations you have for the show, for our other businesses attached to the show, for our future live shows, et cetera. So if you want to be part of that focus group, give us five stars,

and then put your email in the comments. We will see you this Thursday for an unbelievable episode of More Than Money, and we hope this episode of Trading Secrets was one you couldn't afford to miss. Making that money and money, living that dream. Making that money, money, money, pay on me. Making that money, money, living that dream.