Brainstorming $100M Ideas with the $1B+ King of Brands

0:00 So We have. With us today, the King of Commerce. The Titan of Target. The big man of the brand, Eric Ryan is here.

0:09 I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I'm putting my all in it like my day's off on the road, let's travel never. Sit on a lot of people's shelves. There's some in my kitchen right now. Method soap, uh, Ollie Gummies that my kids have every day. Uh Welly Band Aids and then your investor and a whole bunch more. So You are here and you're kind of

0:35 Uh the magic man when it comes to reinventing consumer categories. So When we did our call before this. We agreed to do two things. I said, I want to know your playbook. How do you do this? How do you go into the category and figure out which product to select and how to disrupt it? And you have this like four step process or whatever you outlined to be.

0:53 And the other thing is we agreed that we would each bring A couple of ideas. of kind of half baked ideas of brands that we think an entrepreneur could go do and we're gonna kinda pitch them back and forth to each other. We didn't tell each other beforehand. And so we'll see what what we came up with. How's that sound?

1:09 Amazing. That sounds great. And that is way too kind of an introduction. So thrilled to be here and I way too kind. Thank you. How how how big were some of these businesses, just so we understand the uh the magnitude here. They are they're both probably getting close to billion dollar brands now. But Would you go in and see like even ten million of

1:30 soap or vitamins sitting in a warehouse. That's what always blows me away of like how many units we actually move of these products in that are sitting in people's homes today. And I've been looking forward to this because I remember Sam used to host this conference called HustleCon. And he would invite founders, entrepreneurs to come speak. I didn't know your story at all. I was sitting there in the crowd. And I remember you got on stage and you talked about how you started method. How you started Ollie, how you started Wellie.

1:55 And you had all these little phrases you were like, I walk through the aisles. And I look at the For and I saw just a sea of sameness. And you had a picture of the soap aisle or the dish soap aisle, and it was like Every single one was green. And looked like a you know, uh green packaging and looked just like a uh old school, like my mom's cleaning product.

2:14 And then you had this like totally different shape of a bottle. It was like, you know, blue or purple or whatever. And it was and and it stood out. And the I remember the way you talked about it. I really had never thought about how much thought goes into Which category to go into. How do you actually bring something fresh and new to the table? And then how do you hustle to get it off the ground? You had a great talk that day. And so I know that was like whatever, a decade ago. But if we can get even close to that, this will be a success, uh, from my perspective.

2:42 And you said it in passing just now, but method is, you know, uh probably a billion dollar brand now. Ollie gummies is also um Uh the Ollie the Vitamin Company is is also probably half a billion to to to a billion dollar brand. And so that's

2:57 Pretty amazing. And I I think like One of the other uh claims to fame is Target loves you. Don't they? I feel like t somebody told me this, they go Target loves that guy. Well, I love Target, so it's a mu it's a mutual love affair. You've like launched brands with them, like even from the start, right? You have like a kind of a unique relationship with them, is that right? I do. I mean what we did back in oh god two thousand two when we pitched this idea of designer commodities, like

3:21 No, it it was at a time where no mass retailer work was startups. And so uh through a lot of Hail Mary passes and some some good luck, we were able to be the first to kinda go in there and it's just it's been an amazing partnership ever since. So can we do your your process before we brainstorm the ideas? I wanna hear the the process you outlined. And I took a couple of notes so I can kind of Prompt you. But you basically had told me these four three or four things that you do when you go go in,'cause I was like, You've done this not once. Not twice, but three times.

3:49 And I was like, Can I nerd out with you a little bit? Yeah, and as you're gonna hear, I'm really annoying to go to a grocery store with. Um to me, it's like the Super Bowl of commerce. So every time I'm in a mass retailer or a grocery store or a drugstore, I'm always hunting. So I came out of Uh, I have a really simple model and it was built off of this idea of what I learned in advertising, which is how do you take a really deep consumer insight and translate to great creative execution. So my kind of core thesis as an entrepreneur is to look for these, you know, like you said

4:18 These kind of white spaces where um there's a sea of sameness and it just kinda smells ripe to go in and do different. And what I do is I look for A cultural shift or a big macro trend that that That category is missed. And then in between that and where the category is is the business opportunity. So in the case of method,

4:38 There was like two big culture shifts. I found it. Um one was this idea of lifestyling of the home. You know, the this is back in two thousand two. You, you know, you look at a dish soap more than you use it, but nobody thought about these products as part of like the emotional connection to your home. And you know, making decorative. Basically looking good on your sink. So like I keep my method soap next to my my faucet. So just like looking good when it's on my counter.

5:01 Exactly. Which is'cause you look at it more than you actually use it, so it's it's a pretty meaningful part of the experience of buying a dish soap. At that time did you see what what else did you see where you're like, Oh, that's new, that's new, but and then you you applied that to dish up. So what what else were people doing that you sn where you noticed the shift before you did it? was really in personal care. And so a lot of like I'm I always say like I'm a bit of a thief too. Like I don't steal from our competition, but I try to steal from as far away as possible. So in method there's two areas I stole. I stole from personal care.

5:32 So if you looked at the colors, the fragrances compared to like how home care, which was these like really toxic um cleaners at the time. So I brought a lot of that personal care approach over to home care. And I also stole from the housewares. I would always say like I go to a department store, I'd look at the beauty aisle and then we'll look at the uh housewares aisle up top. And so we stole like all these beautiful vase shapes.

5:54 And so we wanted these things to look like little objects of desire, you know, sitting on your countertop. Okay, so first thing you said was You look for a cultural shift that's happening. That a category has missed. So it's happening and it's maybe happening elsewhere'cause what do they say about the the the future

6:11 The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed. So the shift has started to happen, but maybe it hasn't hit in in the home care aisle yet. Oh I got I can steal that from you. That's great. Uh that's not an original. Uh that's uh bunch of VCs like to say that one. All right. So so that's the first thing you do. And are you looking for A new category or you looking for a pre existing big category? What what do you like to do? So like some people would say Oh, that's already done. It's already saturated. I need to go find something that doesn't exist yet. And they're making bets on what doesn't exist. And seems like what you did was you went into things that already existed. And you weren't scared of the saturation or that it's already been done for fifty years.

6:54 No, that's right. I I think it's much easier to make money by creating an iteration off of something already exists, because then you don't have to drive all the consumer education. to educate and explain something that's wildly new. And I was living in uh in London in the 90s, I was super inspired by Richard Branson, as as many entrepreneurs are. But what I liked about he he had a model. And I think that's what inspired me to create a model. His model is an entertainment model, right? So we'd go in these really unsexy industries like airlines and we'd apply his entertainment model Um that he really understood well. And so I was always inspired by this idea. And I looked at the you know, if you looked at any successful serial entrepreneur they typically had a model. But what I also loved about Richard did is he went into like really well established categories that were easy to understand and just put his twist on it.

7:40 And so that very much became a lot of the way I thought about um how I would approach entrepreneurship. And then you talked about being a thief. Can you can you give a couple examples there? So you said I go to a big category, I walk through the aisles. I look for the sea of sameness. I look for a culture shift. Oh, sorry, you told me one other thing that was great. Uh you go You said something you go

8:00 Have they made it unnecessarily over over overcomplicated? And you go, I think they're hiding something. There's an insecurity there. If they've made this product category feel overcomplicated. And that they take themselves and and another one was the taking themselves too seriously. Can you talk about those two attributes also? Yeah, so I think any type of category is taking themselves too serious, as you said, they're they're probably hiding something, right? There's like an insecurity there. And so a lot of my model too is going into these categories that are unnecessarily complicated. Can I really simplify it back, make it easy for the consumer.

8:33 And also I love categories that take themselves way too serious. And so I love to bring almost like an inner child approach into the categories that are create. So If you look at method, it's it's kind of like what a kid would use to clean the kitchen. If you looked at Ollie, like I got adults to take gummy vitamins, uh, you know, in masses. That didn't happen before. With Welly I got adults to wear, you know.

8:56 bandages with patterns and colors on it versus just the The nude ones that are supposed to hide away with your skin, but never really do. And um You know What I I try to do with that the idea of a culture shift, so if you look if you look at method

9:09 It was built this idea of lifestyle of the home, but also at the time You know you're asked to pollute when you clean or use poison to make your home healthier. So there's this other big macro trend of health and wellness is sustainability, but to your point You know, it was showing up some categories, but it was yet to show up here. So it's really connecting the dots on those trends and bringing it to new spaces that I I find is It's kinda core to my model.

9:32 I saw that you um you said that one of your favorite w ways to come up with ideas is to travel abroad We had this guy named Kevin Ryan on the podcast. Kevin has founded this thing called MongoDB, which is like a thirty billion dollar software business, but very interestingly, he all he also started Gilt. Which is you know, guilt group, the the women's clothing thing. And he was like, I got the idea for guilt when I went to France and I think I saw this thing called the Vendi, I think it I think it was called, where it was um basically like flash sales for clothing. And so he would t he talk about that as well of going abroad. When you go abroad and you like to travel, do you like Are you are you going on trips just to find ideas?

10:09 Yeah, totally. It's a I I think by far For me it's where I get my best ideas for a couple of reasons. One, I just think better when I'm in motion. So, you know, walking retail. Um, with a cup of coffee in your hand, just ideas flow better than ever sitting at a desk.

10:26 Two is we do these like trend trips where we also take designers with us. And so our goal is not only to spot ideas, but translate it immediately into a design idea that we can bring back. But also when you're you're in a f you know, a foreign country. Um you're jet lagged, which means nobody's Bothering you. Um, I think you see when you're when you're jet lagged too, you look at things a little bit more fuzzy, which can be a good good thing.

10:49 But also just opens up new pathways where you're you're walking retail where everything is foreign, you don't understand the language. And for me, like trying to connect the dots between seeing what somebody's doing in one category Can we apply that to another space? Um is so much easier to do when you're out of your home market. So what's an example? So where would you go and what's an example of maybe an idea you had while you were

11:11 on one of these trend trips. That turned into like A a success with one of your brands. Yeah, I mean some of I think one of my most favorite was and this was like twenty years ago, so this was before collaborations became such

11:24 you know, mainstream part of building any brand. But we got Orla Kylie, who is really known for very expensive handbags to do a collaboration with us at Target, which As far as I know, is the first ever designer collaboration. And somebody who is known for very expensive items being able to bring those patterns into a product that sold for three dollars. And was the first time I think Target ever did a design or collaboration, like at that price point.

11:47 So that was out of London was a was a huge success. Uh there was a building we saw in Japan that we absolutely love the way it was skinned. We turned that into a hand wash design. The shape of the building or what do you mean? Yeah, it was like the texture of the building had this uh it was in Tokyo and just had this incredible kind of like pillowed on texture on the outside of it. We turned that as inspiration into a bottle.

12:10 And you're saying that like really simply like oh we We saw the texture of a building in Tokyo and then it turned it into a hand wash. Like that doesn't even uh those dots seem really far apart. Can you describe your actual process? So you you go to Japan. Presumably, right? You're then gonna do what? You just do an easy round and drink whiskey.

12:32 He said the texture of the building. That's like when you when you're like on drugs, you're like Can you feel this building? Wouldn't it be great if that was a bottle of soap? Okay, so I try to design everything like an object. Because it's all about creating these like little objects of desire, especially when you're doing it in a category like soap that you have to buy and you're trying to turn it into something you want to buy. So I look at everything kind of through this idea of it's an object. So I looked at a building, the building looks like an object.

13:00 And it was easy for me to think about like oh my God, that pattern, that shape, that texture is amazing. What if that little object was sitting on A shelf at a store versus in the ground as a building. So it's like trying to look for those types of patterns.

13:16 Or um the original method bottle was this camping fuel bottle I found in Norway. And I just love the shoulders on that that That bottle so we translated that into our first our first ever product'cause we couldn't afford a dust for designer at that point, so I had to find something we could just uh riff off of. Hey everyone, really quick. I can already tell that this is an episode that you guys are gonna be taking a lot of notes on.

13:39 And that's kind of a pain in the butt to do while you're either watching or listening to this. And so we actually made it really easy. We made the entire episode uh into a downloadable PDF. So you could actually download the transcript, look at the notes. And this way you could just sit back and enjoy the podcast right now and get the notes later. So the link is in the description below. Click it if you want those notes. Now back to the episode. You told me something that I loved. You said My favorite question when I'm doing these

14:07 Trips is What if this but for that? And you said something, you go, you know, I'm trying to take one dot over here and then say, What if that was connected to this dot over here? And he said something cool, you go The further apart those two things are.

14:22 The more powerful the potential idea. Like it's not always gonna work, but like If you just look at your competitors and you say, Oh, we could do that too, that that's not a very powerful idea. But if you take something from a whole different country or industry or like Different genre. And you bring it to your genre, all of a sudden you have something I I by the way an example that just came to mind, I got a little kids.

14:43 And the most popular show right now on Netflix is K pop Demon Hunters. And they basically did like K pop. Music. But then like kids cartoon k American kids' cartoons, which like wasn't what people were doing before. Like you were doing cocoa melons like a baby singing American nursery rhymes.

14:59 And right now the most popular songs for like, you know, five to eight year olds Half the lyrics are in Korean, but they love it. And it worked. They you know they connected two different dots that seemed far apart. But it created a pretty powerful idea when it works. Yeah, and first of all, you make me really miss being able to watch cartoons with my kids because they're all older now. I love that show. And it I think what you're describing is really it's about creating creative tension.

15:23 And the more two disparate ideas are that come together, the more creative tension. So Method was really the first to do ego chic. So we brought together high design and deep sustainability. Those were really two opposing ideas. But by bringing it together it create this this creative tension. And I still would you have creative tension, you create a deeper experience that also drives much more loyalty and people stay um within the brand. So that that's exactly right. So I try to look for the most two disparate ideas that could come together.

15:51 The other part that that unpacks is this idea of of of Finding something that lives at that intersection of familiar and novel. So if it's too familiar, right, it lacks complete differentiation. If it's too novel, it's incredibly foreign and it becomes harder to get somebody to try it. So I look for those those ideas that bring together exactly what you just said of this creative tension, but there's enough

16:12 familiarity in it. You can jump into it. But there's enough novelty to it that it makes it a new experience. Um and there were you know, it's easy to say, but it's hard to find that's the art form, I think, of finding those intersections. I'm not sure what percentage of wellie or um

16:27 method soap, you would say, was to just the fact that it was a different colored band aid or a different shaped bottle. But if it's a high percentage, it's sort of insane. That's sort of that's kind of a that's kind of a hard You're like this. Th it's almost like this seems too easy. A little bit, right? The more I try to innovate

16:47 The less successful I've been, where I've moved more into that. space of being too novel. I think I feel more times by being too novel than being too familiar. Like our lo we launched the most amazing laundry detergent years ago. It was 10X concentrated. So it was the size of a shampoo bottle for fifty loads of laundry, but because it was so small

17:08 This was an idea I got out of Japan too, where I saw they had bigger laundry detergent, but they would use these Almost like the axe m uh mouthwash where you squeeze it, pre measures it. But we turn it into where just pump it a pre-measure dose. But it was So hard to get consumers to believe that something so small

17:25 could be so effective because they've been trained forever that, you know, a giant jug of laundry turgen is what you need to get your your clothes clean. But yeah, I've I've always usually over innovated when I failed and under innovated. It's I I think I saw a quote with you and Simon Sidek uh with with his on his podcast who said if it's hard, it's probably wrong. And then he said, I know I have a good idea when I can't believe others aren't doing it. And I think that when a lot of entrepreneurs want to grow their companies or start a new company, I know I fall victim to this all the time. I somehow think that

17:56 there's a correlation between This sounds controversial, but there's a correlation between how hard I work or how hard something is and how much value a customer will get and or how valuable my business can get. Yeah, there's kinda this golden rule and this came out of a lot of apparel and fashion, which is If you change one thing, like if you do you know one iteration off of the the core, you have a higher probability of success.

18:19 The second you change two or three things Um you're most likely gonna fail. It's almost like an advertising we used to say, if you throw a consumer an egg, they're gonna catch it. If you throw'em two or three eggs, their chances are they're gonna drop it'cause you're throwing too much change at them too fast. Whether that's communication or a product. But I also I think

18:37 It's such a It's we live in such a surplus world, right? Of like endless ideas and choices. that I think it creates this pressure to really sometimes over innovate to be Two different things. And to your point of like, if it seems so obvious, then I would always get tripped up of like well why has nobody done this before?

18:55 If it's this obvious to me. That's a really good insight. That's a really good insight about the to you know, just change one thing. Do you think that that applies across software companies or internet companies, or is that just commerce or or fashion, like things that are um More consumable and that I touch and feel and wear. I think it applies to everything. Whether you're launching I mean, even if you're you know, within a B to B business

19:19 Arguably you're just as distracted as a consumer as you are when you're, you know, I think I guess a real consumer. And I don't know that world as well, but I would imagine again just creating simple iterations off of a successful model is way more likely to to succeed. than trying to create something radically new from scratch. Or when something radically new from scratch has started.

19:43 I mean, think about like in the social space of you know, my space friends are It was really the third that got it right. But it's just kind of simple iterations off of that first model. I did a call the other day with um An AI company that's raised a ton of money.

19:57 And they have this huge valuation. Closer. And they initially grew because in AI А со ха, де сомач.

20:08 that people were willing to try a bunch of things, but now they're like, Hey, how do we grow from here? So they're like, Hey Really respect your uh growth ideas. We want to do a growth session. I was like, I don't know, guys, it's not really my you know, like I don't know if I can solve your problem, but cool, I'll jump on a call. And we get on the call. And they start telling me all about this all the stuff. And I just kept asking the same question and I was like, Cool, so why would somebody choose to use you? Like why

20:31 'Cause most people today are using tool A. You want them to switch to tool B. And I was like, awesome. So like why is tool B better than tool A? And then they were like, Oh, it's way better, like in all these other all these different ways. I was like, Awesome. So just like tell me the one that like is the biggest one that would immediately convince me. And they were like Well

20:51 Well, there's not really like one and I was like cool, okay, so let's say there's three. Just tell me one of them first. They were so focused on we're better that they forgot to say we're different. Like how are you better in a s and like they were trying to throw four eggs. And I was like, none of those eggs were very convincing, and they all just cracked on me, right? And I I wish they had just thrown me one egg that said Listen, for this type of person, here's the problem with the tools that you're currently using, and we can do we do it this way instead.

21:16 And I say I you know, that that would resonate. That would be obviously the ideal scenario. So I definitely think this applies to not just consumer products. The way I think that comes from is just pure ego. I think a lot of entrepreneurs like their ego gets in the way and so they want they uh almost intentionally overcomplicated it to show how special the product is, therefore how special they are. And the best entrepreneurs I've always met are the ones who take incredibly complex ideas and simplify it down and it then it's easy for consumers to get it, for their teams to execute.

21:46 that that art form of simplification is the the biggest hack in entrepreneurship. And yeah, the sec the number of pitches I sit through and like Yeah, I'm like you're intentionally overcomplicating this to to to justify evaluation or justify your specialness. I I think it is ego, but there is something strange. I think that like it's easy for you to think this because you've done it so many times, but there is something strange where it's like Wait.

22:11 So if I just change the color of the band-aids, it's gonna win. And that's obviously you've done you've done a lot more than that. But like within my company, I I run a c uh within within within my company with my employees, they'll be like, We have to do this, this, this, or this. I'm like But what if we just Like don't do any of that and just make better ads or you know, like you just like just do one thing. But for some reason that's hard to conceptualize that like just a minor change on one thing can create a significant amount of value because you think to yourself, I have to work one billion dollars worth of work or put one billion dollars worth of effort in order to have a one billion dollar idea. But it's oftentimes it's it's that's not the reality. Can we do an example here with uh you talked a little bit about method. I wanna talk about Ali.

22:51 Uh I maybe it's because I take it every day, maybe my kids take it. So it's like very like in my life. And um You went into the vitamins category. So let's imagine just take you back. I don't know what year this was. You walked into the vitamins category, you're looking there and you see Um you know. A bunch of sort of nature made type of looking things. You got maybe Flintstone vitamins just still hanging on for deer life.

23:12 And You saw an opportunity. I just want to give you one prompt, which is he said something on the pre-call that was hilarious, Sam. He goes I went into the aisle and I saw, okay, cool. Um first thing I observed, all of them are round. So I thought, Okay, I guess we're gonna have a square packaging. And I just thought that's literally the funniest, like the funniest way of like, well, I guess that's that then. Everybody's round, so we must be spare. If everybody was squirming, then we would have been round. Like it's as simple as that. There's no focus groups. There was no it was like Okay, they're all they're all Round so we had no choice but to be square.

23:41 That's awesome. And the other thing I remember was Vitamins used to be like a uh a a game of inference. So you would it would say You know, whatever, uh, vitamin D, but you don't know what vitamin D does. Right. You'd have to then know what is the purpose of vitamin D, or what is the purpose of melatonin or what is the purpose of I don't know, whatever the thing that puts you to sleep. But you guys just wrote Sleep. And he wrote like you know, immunity, right? Like you just wrote the benefit instead of the the feature. And I was like

24:08 Oh that was also quite Simple of a of a change to make. Uh can you talk about take us back. You go you walk into that aisle or I don't know how it actually started, but Yeah. So I we'd I sold method, um But I still involved. And I I w first of all I like I had for the first time I like I'm I'm pretty optimistic happy. by default person, but for the first time in my life I felt a little wireless. I was like, I'm an entrepreneur and suddenly I I was

24:32 Did not feel like an entrepreneur anymore. I was working for somebody else. And I was also doing a project for for Target to create what we call Made to Matter and the and the goal was to get them to have credit for having all these natural brands. And so We were looking for these uh brands that connected with millennial moms and we couldn't find any w we couldn't find one for the vitamin category.

24:53 So I just went and literally walked the aisle and first thing I noticed was people stressing out trying to choose something that was healthy for them. Since I think I was studying the aisle, people assume maybe I knew what I was doing. And so like people would just randomly ask me, like, Do you know what magnesium's for? Um standing here staring at us. Just lost people in that aisle. And it was a dog's breakfast. It was really hard to shop. The brands were super inspiring. The packaging was terrible. So that was the clue dig here. And so the first thing I try to figure out is like all right, what is you know, kinda going back, what is that big cultural shift this category is missing. And what I figured it out was um it was really millennials view health and wellness as a lifestyle pursuit.

25:36 And w the clue for me and kinda what you said earlier of like you start see these trends in one area The the clu is really soul cycle. In the way that Soul Cycle had been had repositioned Um Fitness.

25:49 Into something that was almost spiritual. But I love the branding of Soul Cycle, the name, the whole identity. And so my inspiration a little was like all right, what would the soul cycle of vitamins look like? And if we reimagine a vitamin as a lifestyle product.

26:03 So then to your point, it's like all right, well it's gotta be a square pack. And then I I always wanna design everything to have like a So again, it it's really designed as a product, not a package. So I wanted to design it like a jar, something you would want to leave out. Um,'cause if you left it out, you most likely remember to keep taking it. But also like it actually had like intrinsic value.

26:24 And then I realized, okay, well we have to put a giant cap on it, so we might as well make the cap the logo. So then the whole idea and this flowed really within a matter of probably days. The idea that it would be a square jar with a white cap and that's what would make it iconic. And then it just started quickly from there of like, well everybody else is selling, like why sell bioten?

26:44 W why not just sell beauty? Why sell melatonin? Why not sell sleep? They do these really unique blends. And again, it was all the spirit of really making this thing easier to understand, but almost uh you know, again a turning in a in uh A vitamin. And it's something you have to buy, and it's something you want to buy, and this little like object of desire. Today's episode is brought to you by HubSwat.

27:06 Being a know it all used to be considered a bad thing, but in business, knowing it all, it's everything. Because right now, businesses are only using about 20% of their data unless you have HubSpot. That's where they take data that's buried in emails and call logs and meeting notes. They become insights that help you grow your business because when you know more, you grow more. You see, being a know it all isn't so bad after all. Visit hubspot.com to learn more today. We didn't talk about the hustle that it takes to make them happen.'Cause there's like the artist brain that you're talking about. You're like So then. I took the The roof of the Japanese

27:36 H you know, Hut I was staying in and that became the lid and then I did this and I did that. But now you just have a Product idea at that point. But like you know, the cool thing about it. The best the best box. Best box. People love this box. So you But you know, the all entrepreneurs they're they're they're typically not like

27:56 The best in the world at a single thing. But they're like pretty damn good at a couple of unrelated things. So you know Maybe there's better designers than you or Proct product product designers than you. But you also had the entrepreneurial hustle to be like, I'm gonna go now, stand outside of this natural grocery store and pass out samples, or I'm gonna go do a thing that's like

28:17 I'm gonna keep showing up. In some way that like other people would have given up five days ago, but I was still here and that was the thing that gave me the break. You know, your top twenty percent In two different things rather than being top one percent or top point one percent in a single category. I'm just assuming that. Is that true? And are there any stories of the hustle that it took to get to get into the stores actually get the momentum. Yeah, super true. It is funny. It's like I as an entrepreneur, I think a lot about energy flow.

28:41 And when I'm working on something, if it's giving me energy back Then I know it's right. And to your earlier comment of if it's hard, it's wrong. That's a lot of the way. And I'm working on a concept right now that I've literally been pushing water uphill. It's been painful as far as trying to it, but but last week it broke. I'm like, Oh, there it is. Now now it's flowing re Like I can't stop working on it right now'cause it's energy giving, it's flowing. the narrative is like beautifully coming together, each insight's unlocking the next. But in that case, like I had to push water uphill for like the last six months on this concept.

29:14 trying to get it to a place where suddenly like I can see see it now. And then hopefully other people will see it. But to your point of execution, like at the end of the day, like ideas are are easy. Like execution's the hard part. So with method I think That was where we had because we had, you know, we're Adam and I were two guys in a dirty flat in San Francisco with like zero no you know, zero experience on how to make or sell anything. And um I think where that persistence really paid off is we had to sell it into these you know local San Francisco grocery stores where the manager made the decision.

29:46 So we would just show up at six AM and you like the you know we grumpy manager and you gotta You know, quickly you've got Literally three minutes to like pitch your idea for this new premium. Cleaning uh uh Uh cleaning brand.

29:57 And I realized a lot of ways selling was just really this transfer of emotion. Like I don't think he ever believed in the product that we're selling. But you gotta get them to believe in you. And in in some cases believe that you're gonna keep showing up until he says yes to that persistence. But it's it's really that emotion, that energy that's contagious. And it's finding it first in what you're building that you love. So then you can share that with other people.

30:22 And have the energy to keep going when things get hard, which of course they will. Do you look at a company like a project, like this is my art project and I'm gonna jump from thing to thing to thing? Do you acknowledge like or or are you more of a are you more operational I I'm both. I I'm a project guy at heart. I love the start, middle, and finish of creating something. But also to build great companies, the operating side of it is is so important. The kind of my kind of core philosophy of building companies is this idea of artists and operators.

30:51 So I want to build companies that have incredible imagination, creativity that can innovate. But also run a really good predictable business with great supply chain finance controls. In doing both, like if you think about it, there's so few companies in the world Apple, Nike. that do both really, really well at scale.

31:11 And so I try to build teams and cultures that have this idea of being great artists and operators. Um, but I do, you know, at the heart of it, I do love You know, I I heard Tim Coogle who was on my board. say once he referred to Yahoo as a project, you know, which he started as employee number six, the CEO. scaled it through an IPO and beyond. And when he referred to Yahoo as a project, I thought that was pretty cool.

31:34 Do you have like an op an open check from Unilever or Target and they're just like Whatever you got going on, uh, get after it and come see us in two or three years and we'll look at the traction and we'll just buy your company. I wish I'd like to have easy, but no. In his chair with a cat on his on his arm, right? I mean, we've had a lot of success, we've had a lot of failures as well. It always like every

32:00 Every one of them is hard and h and hard in their own way. I do, so I'm moving over. I joined Greycroft and we're launching a new uh Greatcroft Consumer Brands fun. So I'm moving into the the VC space. And kind of what you're talking about too, it's I realise I my super power of working with entrepreneurs is that T. To help infuse them in energy.

32:20 Because Yeah, I I've sat in their shoes so many times, understand how hard it is. And so I I love now not being the the quarterback on the field always throwing the passes, but actually being the coach on the sidelines and like coaching these These young founders. And um it's it's just a a thrill to do that now.

32:38 You told me something kind of amazing. He said that You went on your trend trips, let's say to Tokyo or wherever you're going. And you took Some people from Target with you.

32:47 During this kind of like brainstorming phase, but did y you had this The system that was kinda like gonna wow them. Can you tell the story about how you you the twenty four hour cycle that you had that would like wow them? Yeah, I mean a lot of people, you know, trend trips are quite common within consumer, especially among retailers. The problem is you come back with all these amazing photos and then you're buried in your inbox and meetings you've missed and usually it goes nowhere. So the process that we found worked really well is we'd kick off every trend trip with like, Okay, here are you know, ground ourselves, these are the big macro trends.

33:19 And then we'd hire somebody on the ground where for Asia or Europe Um and we would go to all of like the most influential retail that was occurring in that market. But Everybody had uh almost like a scavenger hunt. You had an assignment by the time we got to that pub at five o'clock To sit down for for a happy hour.

33:38 Everybody had to have multiple ideas that they were excited about while being in the field. And then we would talk about it. We would pick a couple. And then as we're going to dinner, I would call it into our creative team who's sitting in San Francisco where it's morning. And then they would have all day to work on the brief that we just gave them.

33:56 They would send it at the end of their day. We would wake up and then at breakfast we would present like what looked like polished products ideas to Target. And so by the time we got on that plane to go home, we actually had sold in. uh new products. That's like how South Park makes an episode. Have you guys seen that? Where like Matt and Trey will like write all day and then they'll like send it to their Korean editored editing team. And then the next morning they like, Oh, cool, thanks.

34:20 And they like run with it. I saw the podcast version of this, Sam. So we we do a thing where uh Whenever we have a guest on or like especially when we do them in person. We will bring a gift. And I cause I was just like, Oh, you know, like this person took time another day, they did this. Like, I want this to feel like a great experience. Like, what makes a great experience when you When you have s when you when you

34:39 Or with somebody, I think giving a gift is a nice thing, right? Steve Bartlett, who's uh another podcaster. He he was on uh Jimmy Fellow the other day. And Jimmy was talking about how his his experience on the show he goes, You guys do this incredible thing. I did the podcast with you and when we got up and the episode was done. Somebody from your team came and handed me this And it's a photo book.

34:58 A printed photos. From the podcast that they were just doing like moments earlier. And he was like, I've never seen anything like this. And this guy's been doing TV production with Hollywood stars for for years, but like The creating like going the little bit extra to create a wow. And in that case, it's the speed of the turnaround, similar to what you were saying with your the speed of the turnaround. I'm sure a lot of people will Come up with mock ups or product ideas.

35:21 Two weeks later. At a follow up meeting, but the emotion's gone and the and the wow factor's gone at that point. Doing it in the twenty four hour cycle is is that little extra, that entrepreneurial juice that like I think most people wouldn't wouldn't even think to go. They wouldn't they would think that's imp that's the there's an invisible fence that you can't do that. Well, significantly that state of make, and also I love that line by Steve Jobs uh of uh I trust people, just not in groups.

35:46 And so it allows you to keep a really small team that's agile, that isn't overthinking things. And just living in that state of make, and that's that's where magic and I'm I'm such a huge student of SNL. And how Saturday Night Live, their entire creative process, any any of the former actors on it that's written an autobiography. I've listened to I think I think I know it by heart now of like what they do Tuesday morning through. But there is something so powerful about being in that state of make. And now that we have between AI and digital tools

36:16 where we can build and make things in such real time, I think it's even more powerful. And it's also where you see real talent. Um versus people who Who don't know how to actually do anything. They know how to manage. And so it's a place where like builders and doers really thrive and managers kinda just get in the way.

36:32 I don't I don't I don't know if we should do it right now, which maybe have a a part two, but it would actually be awesome. I never realized uh for like you know, Sean has a an econ brand and um for all the people who are in the in the more physical space, it would be really fun to see how you use AI to ideate. Uh, that that would be really interesting. I've never thought about about, you know, folks making physical products being able or not being able to use it. Oh, I'm use I'm so bad with J G P T right now. Like last night just I use it as a whole creative team and partner. It's It's absolutely amazing what you can do now. I wanna get to the brainstorm. So we did th we did promise. I basically said outline your method and then let's use the method.

37:09 to try to come up with some ideas, which I think is fun. Living in the state of make on the podcast too, right? Because How many podcasts would actually try that? Okay, so you just to outline, your your process was Find a big category, ideally an already big category, so you don't have to educate the consumer about something new they haven't thought about buying. You wanna find a sea of sameness where everybody's kinda doing the same thing. You wanna look if there's a cultural shift elsewhere that hasn't applied to this category.

37:33 Ideally it's something that's overly complicated. They're taking themselves too seriously. Then to come up with your idea. You be a thief? You find unrelated things, you say, What if we did that over here? And you're trying to come up with a single stroke that cuts through the noise. That might be your packaging or your your colors, your positioning, whatever it may be. This the square bottle when everybody else is round.

37:52 Um, and then you gotta hustle to get the momentum going. All right, so I came up with a couple of half I'm calling these half baked ideas. I don't think they're I think one might be good, but the others are are uh are pretty tough. Uh, did you have a chance to come up with some and if so, let's we'll go back and forth. Yes, yep, I got a couple. Okay, I'm gonna pitch you one.

38:09 And then I want you to to, you know, give me the The the thumbs up, the thumbs down. Uh feel free to be brutally harsh. It makes for better content. All right. All right, I think this this first idea I think is genuinely good. The other ones I don't really have a lot of faith in, but this one I genuinely believe in. All right, so I think about products that my mom takes that I'm gonna take because humans are not if like the world sh you know feels like it's changing really fast, but biologically we're not changing that fast, right?

38:34 And so when I see my parents I'm seeing a future window into what I might look like or things that they prioritize that I don't really think about today. And my mom was just over at my house, and one thing my mom takes religiously Is Fiber.

38:48 She drinks fiber every single day. And I've you know, I'm in a world where I hear about gut health and microbiome and fancy stuff. But she's like I need to take this Okay, so that's what I'm gonna do and I need to take this to put you got that? I'm like, Yeah, that's simple enough. And so then I looked I looked at the brands that she's using and I walked through the aisle. So preparing for this podcast, I went to the grocery store.

39:09 And I walk through and I see metamusile, which to me sounds like a disease. I see Ba fiber, which sounds like an Obamacare. Yeah, spin off. And I just thought the brand the leading brands in the fiber category, I think are completely outdated. But I do think that there's something. familiar about fiber. So like I get pitched a lot of products that I don't really know if they'll work or not.

39:30 But if somebody said, hey, this increases the fiber in your diet, I would personally have pretty high conviction that that's like good for me. I just don't wanna take a grandma product, right? Because that's not really That wouldn't f I would feel unhealthy taking the product. So I want a fiber brand. That I feel like I'm in the same way when I take, you know

39:50 uh protein or amino acids or something something that's like Yeah, I'm at I'm trying to be peak performance right now. And so I want to reinvent the fiber category. That's the point of view. And I have an idea for how to do that, which is to to get out of this kind of grandma product category. And do a fresh take on fiber.

40:07 Sharks. Where do where's that land with you? Well let's start with the space. Because it's If it's the wrong category then

40:13 There's it's pointless to go any further. I I think he found great white space. Like I agree. Fiber is the new protein. As Protein gets more and more saturated in the record, you know, uh we're we're seeing huge growth across all all areas of higher fiber. If you the place I would look is if you walk Costco.

40:34 and what fiber products are available there. And you're right, it's the legacy brands. Nobody's really put A fresh spin on it. You could do it, like where would you steal from? I would steal from juice bars. of like a wellness Appetite appeal, like a green G like what is a green ju a modern green juice.

40:53 look like as a fiber product. And then you can innovate on flavors around it. Um and the other thing is it's a really great margin category. Right. We uh I have this friend do you guys know what Kegel exercises are for men?

41:08 I don't know how to do it. You're supposed to like squeeze something inside, but it's like what anyone The few women who listen to this, they know what that is, but for men. For for the men, people apparently do Kegel exercises so don't like premature ejaculate, basically during sex. I I think that's the main thing, but they're but I have a I've got a buddy who who made a That's commitment, by the way. Well I've got Yeah, yeah. Like you must you really need it. And I have a friend who created a Kegel exercise app for men. And he was like promoting this and I was like Man.

41:43 I see why young or any man wants this. That's great. It sounds like you're doing great for the world, but My honor costs too much. I don't want to be a an influencer or a promoter for this. And I wonder if there's like a little bit with fiber where it's like I don't know if I want to talk about it. Like, you know, pooping more. So I did think about this. And I have two possible angles.

42:02 We either lean in Or we swerve out. Okay. Lean in, here's the lean in pattern. The lean in path is gonna be Look. Poop is

42:11 Yeah, poops. Soup, poop. It kind of could be funny. And so I actually pitched this to our friend who came on the podcast, Hassan Minhash. I said Listen, I got a product for you. 'Cause I was like, this guy's so funny that like his ad creative would be

42:23 Like would perform better than anybody else's ad creative. And it's almost like You know Any celebrity who hawks a product, there's a little bit of a sellout nature and so it's almost funny to sell out for something that's like

42:36 So cl like so clearly silly and in that way that it might actually work for him. Like he's gets a license To like promote the product because it's kind of a a silly product. Um so one I one way is to lean in and actually have a comedian who you kind of uh have as a face of the brand that actually You can be the dude the dude wipes

42:56 Right. All right. So then there's the swerve out path, which was You're right. Maybe it's not about Maybe it's not about uh maybe the framing is a little more on metabolism. Or digestion. Can you word can you use a different word?'Cause I don't know anybody that likes metabolism. Yeah. Like cleaner system. And I've never heard really of that many products that like

43:16 Talk about like this this improves your metabolism, right? And so you get away from the sort of like The the lower intestine area. And you you sort of like you move up towards more like the stomach, and you get a little away from the gross stuff and you talk about metabolism. So those are my two ideas. I love it. And I what I would do if I were you and I would then create Two very different concepts around that. So I would do like like poopy like Dude White Popery approach. That just comp

43:41 unbashfully claims that that function. And then to your point, then I would go to a really elevated, almost like beauty like Approach. And then what would you do? Would you test those in some way, or you just look at it and feel which one feels right? Like what would you do once you come up with the two?

43:58 Very disparate concepts. So I I like to solve the work in the creative. And so I take those two concepts. I'd work with with a designer, creative team. really bring him to life. And then first I'd be like, what one am I most excited about? Back to that idea of energy. Like which one am I like personally excited? I would share with friends and family. Cause if they don't like it, why would anybody else? And then if I was really torn, I'd do consumer auditions, not for the consumer to like choose A versus B. But just so I can hear feedback from consumers like in a qualitative focus group.

44:28 to help kind of guide my decision of which direction I want to go. And then I would also put it in front of retailers. I don't ask the buyers. I think most people go into buyers with the intent of like, I'm going to sell to you. I'm here to prove myself versus I'm here to improve myself. And when I sit down with buyers, I always try to go into improve and and really invite their feedback. into the process. That's interesting. Consumer auditions. I never heard that. That that sounds good. I like that.

44:52 That sounds way cooler than focus groups. All right, rookie. Uh what do you what do you got to pitch, Eric? Let's hear it. So I would have pitched Arguably one of the most important institutions in America, and arguably one of the lost institutions of America.

45:07 And that is The American Diner. At one point these beautiful, you know, silver and It was really the th you know, the first third place before Starbucks. And in a world where more and more

45:22 I think we'll see a backlash to AI of understanding what is real and what is not. We're gonna want these places of human connection. And just deep authenticity. And there's also no better place than to really start your day. So my pitch is I'm gonna go back to Soul Cycle again.

45:39 I would create the soul cycle of the diner. It would only be open from morning through lunch. So it's one shift, so it's a really good academic. But when you walk into it, it feels incredibly vibrant. So I would do probably like

45:55 The entire thing would feel almost like a modern barn. of like white be board. With yellow accents. I would have a standalone grab and go juice bar, coffee bar. Uh, but the rest of the restaurant would be how a diner is set up where it's all stool bar seating.

46:12 But I would have it so it moves throughout. Yeah, so the counter there's no separate tables. the counter of kind of flows, so you can get everybody around the counter for that communal. But also so it's really efficient for the staff too to move through it. And then when you pop it at seven A. M. like it's popping. Like it's got great, great energy.

46:32 It's just a place you would want to start every morning. Uh with that level of opposition. So the seating is kinda like those sushi bars where you where you where they wrap around like the the the you know, those conveyor belt sushi bars. You're sort of stealing from that, but applying that to the American diner. Yes. There's that uh I forgot the name of it, that uh Parisian restaurant that um Where the entire restaurant is built like a country, but the counter kind of meanders so you have a full view of the kitchen. And no, it's very communal. It's in and out. You don't have to seat anybody.

47:02 And it's all also about creating this amazing energy. So what I would want to do is take on Denny's and IHop with that model. That's awesome. I have a um Since we're gonna create a brainstorm here, I got a what if for you. I got a I got a how might we for you. You know what I mean? I feel like I need I feel like I need a hacky stack or something creative with me here.

47:23 In mobile gaming. Uh, I tried to make a a mobile game once. And so before I even made the game, I went and talked to a couple of guys who made really popular mobile games. And I sat down and I showed them a prototype. And they go. Oh dude.

47:37 You have a T TF problem. And I was like, I don't know if that's a STD, I don't know what you're talking about, but I I don't want to do it. But I'm sure I'm absolutely certain I have one based on the way you just he was like disgusted with the Oh thanks. Like I worked really hard. Do I have too much or too little? So he was basically saying. The most important um metric in a mobile game success is TTF, time to fun. So basically from the moment I click the button to open the app, how long does it take for me to have some fun? Um, because I was like, Cool, open the app. Registration screen, sign up, give me your email address, how about your phone number? Would you like push notifications? Would you like me to remind you it's like you haven't even tried the app yet, right? You're like how you're like, What's my TTS? You're like never.

48:24 The funny thing. It was no fun. And he was showing me like, you know, if you open up like Mar Mario is one of the the classic examples of this. Like if you start Mario first level There's no tutorial, there's no nothing. But like Mario starts. And a small Goomba starts walking towards you, uh the easiest enemy to defeat, and if you jump on his head, you get a satisfying like Yeah, I squashed that bug. And then the next thing you do is there's a brick above your head you

48:46 Jump up, you punch it, and you get a coin. You jump and punch the next one, you think it's a coin. No, a mushroom comes out. You're like, Oh my God, do I want this? And you go get it and you grow. And so in the first fifteen seconds of Mario, you have learned all the controls, you've defeated an enemy, you've gotten money, and you grew bigger and stronger. And it's like The greatest fi first fifteen seconds of your life. So I have an idea for you because I went to a diner this weekend. Where hold on, can we use like a time time to fund? Like that's a new metric I'm gonna use for everything now. Whether you're like

49:14 It is like getting a restaurant, airline, my marriage. Like Sonio Time to Fun is off right now. But it's like yeah, removing all the friction to get to that experience. Time to fun. Okay. Front load a little bit of the fun. Right. I'm not gonna give you all of it, but can I get a piece of it here now? Because I need to, you know, hook you. And so I thought I went to a diner this weekend and

49:36 From the time we got there, and we were all excited to get there, and and my kids wanted pancakes and all this good stuff. The time we actually had Anything fun, like any food or drink on the table. It was like twenty two minutes and I get it. They were totally busy. But I wonder if there's some way where right when you walk in

49:52 There's something because Th right after the diner we went to Costco. And right when we walked in, there was like a Costco sample person, and my kids got something, and they were like, Hey, what is this place? We like this place. Uh, because they instantly got like a cracker when they walked in. And so I just wonder if with the diner you could do one thing which is like Eliminate the weight and bring that T T F

50:10 Down. Which is what we want. We want low TT. I love that. Okay. So what I think is like You know like Dunkin' Donut Munchkins? We do like a really great Like Gourmet, cinnamon, munchkin. So when you walk in, like it's almost like a sample, you grab a munchkin.

50:25 As you walk in to go sit down. So you get that first like little taste. Did they have a smell too?'Cause that would be nice. Double to get to get two senses. But you could do a smoothie shot next to it. So it's a tray of smoothie shots and munchkin. So so it gives you that little and also takes the edge off your customers while they're waiting as well. So the wait time will never feel like culinary steals, maybe. Okay, one other steel we could do. Five guys, they have the barrel of peanuts, which I think is kind of what you're talking about, right? You go in and there's just free peanuts you could scoop. Again. I I love that. Who doesn't love that?

50:59 My first business was a sushi restaurant. And w and a sushi restaurant sushi restaurant, when you walk through the door. The entire kitchen staff, they don't Turn to you, but they hear the door chime go. And they go, Irashe. And like the whole crowd, like the whole crew is like, Oh, what's up? It's basically like the Japanese what's up. And it basically means like a customer is here, like hey, like pay attention or whatever, or welcome. I don't even know what Irashe means, but like that's what they all say. I think you could also like kind of if you talk about soul cycle.

51:28 I think there's a way to make the experience of the customer Interesting when you walk in, like I just wonder what ritual we could have when somebody walks through the door. That would be welcoming and unique and interesting, um, as well. We're just such ne we're we're so ne we' we're Neanderthals. Like, you know, we're gonna talk about like Aristotle and the philosophy philosophy of life and all this stuff. And it turns out you just gotta throw a bunch of nuts at my face when I walk in to get a burger. Like Dude, I love a good high five. Yeah. You just gotta say what's up in Japanese and like I'm good.

51:57 I mean you can picture the playlist in this place, right? Of like the best morning music, and there's something of Like they hit something and like a good morning, good morning comes over as people walk as each time somebody walks in the door. Right. I love that. Time I'm so fascinated with time to find out. I think about like vacations. Like going skiing, time to fun could be really low. Slopping to get to the hill.

52:23 Everything now I'm gonna measure in TTF. Well like you know, you g you arrive in Hawaii and they give you the lay. Right when you get out the door, right? Like a hotel check in process, right? So that normally you the fun is when you get to maybe your room. And Hawaii, as soon as you get out of the door, lay blue drink. Fun instant. Sean, do you just have like a notepad of like all load like do you have a ranking of lower trial? So it just you know what I mean? Creative. My boyfriend always say there's nothing better than arrival drinks.

52:51 Yeah. Like that's the best moment of a vacation. Would you ever get into a non I mean, you've done the same uh category forever. Would you ever get into a uh a restaurant business or something that's not what you've done? Well I just tried building a retail business and um was I I think what we built was amazing and I was super proud of it. And it was working with the consumer. It was just impossible to fund in this uh in this current capital cycle. So what I try to do is reinvent the American jewelry store. And my theory was

53:20 I always wanted to do retail record, you know. Geek out on every expression from the playlist to the scents, which we did. And even the way you're greeted. Um, and I I'm a huge uh student of like Danny Meyer and the way he thinks about at each restaurant, like fifteen seconds right to be greeted. And And even the service manual of where does the salt and pepper go and how do you think every th every detail through But when you walk into a jewelry store, I found it to be like

53:44 the most intimidating experience, like you never felt like he belonged there. You had to like ask for the world's smallest price tag to be turned over, and then you have to give a reaction to something you thought was five thousand, but it's actually fifty thousand. And the insight there was women self purchasing is driving growth and fine jewelry, but nobody was really creating a experience for them. So we create this brand called Cast. Um We opened up three stores in the Bay Area. And I wanted like, you know, Willy Wonka pure imagination to play in a consumer's head when they walked in and and feel like a kid in a candy store again.

54:15 Um but Again, get being able to sign leases uh build out stores omni channel we had incredible partnership with Nordstrom who put capital in the business But it was so capital intensive that like a path to profitability And then raising capital in this market was just incredibly, incredibly difficult. So

54:34 That's where those one of those situations you're like all right, I'm sitting at the wrong uh Tony Shea would say sometimes you gotta move poker tables. And just I'm at the wrong table and you know, gold pricing was spiking, diamond pricing was crashing, you couldn't sign a lease in these A class because L V Mate should Eat up so much of the uh these these leases. Um so I realized like it was just back to like if it's hard, it's wrong. Uh it was a hard on until you were like all right.

55:00 It's it's it's dead. I worked on it from launch to it's dead, uh Yeah, three three to four years. Oh, a lot. A lot. Yeah. No, we were we worked we worked out hard at it. It was a fun business, like designing jewelry and our tea, you know, credible culture art team. East of Bray was part of it.

55:18 And uh we're on the white you know, white lotus season two. Um the cast was wearing our product. We had a you know, we had a profound mark on the industry in a very short amount of time. But it just was A business that Nobody wants to put capital into, unfortunately. And there's not really creative. Like, okay, so how are you an AI company? Uh yeah. I mean it's not like very appealing. You know he has like great phrases. He had one on on this when he's telling about the jewelry shop. He goes

55:46 It was like a plane made of gold. Like I love like it was a great idea, but it was like a plane made of gold. You couldn't it couldn't get lift off. It couldn't get off the ground. It's too bad. And then a Hall Fantasy went down the runway. And uh but if you look at it it's cast jewelry, our store I mean, I was super proud of what we built, but um I picked uh I picked the wrong space to try to innovate in. All right, let's take a quick break because I gotta tell you a story. Let me tell you about the first time I tried to run payroll for my team. I was using a traditional bank and you know the type. It's got a janky interface. It's built like a two thousand and two tax form.

56:20 And it was open only during business hours. And I hit send. And it froze. They flagged the transaction, they locked my account, they put me on hold for 45 minutes, and then they told me I gotta visit my local branch. And that was the day I started looking for a new banking solution. Uh, after asking a few founders what they were using, I found out about Mercury. And so now my payroll is two clicks. I can wire money, I can pay invoices, I can reimburse the team.

56:40 All from one clean dashboard. That's why I use it for all of my companies. And so do two hundred thousand other startup founders. And so if you're looking to level up your banking, head to Mercury.com and apply in minutes. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, call them NA, and Evolve Bank and Trust members at BIC. Do you wanna tell them more of your horrible ideas or Okay.

57:04 You th you think I had one bad idea? No, your first one is a great idea. I would invest. Thank you, thank you. All right. So now here's uh th it's about to fall off a cliff here. Okay, so Uh I walked through the grocery store looking for that sea of sameness and honestly like You know? Shout out to the grocery store. There's a there wasn't a whole lot of categories that I saw. One that stood out to me because I'm looking for everyday products. I'm looking for repeat purchase. I'm looking for

57:29 Everybody buys this. But I'm looking for something where there's not a brand I don't have a favorite brand. I don't have even like I don't even couldn't even tell you the name of four of the brands in the category. That's kind of what I was looking for. So I'd like you like to introduce you to my uh company, White Label Chicken LLC. And white label chicken LLC is getting into the chicken game. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna white label someone else's chicken.

57:52 So we're gonna take chicken from somebody else. We're not gonna get into farming. But we're gonna Put our own brand on it because they're I like Sam, what's your Top three favorite chicken brands. I don't know.

58:03 Oh no. Eric, you got a favorite chicken bread. We're talking about like packaged chicken. Packaging like Star You're gonna go buy like breast beat or whatever. It's like nine bucks for the the little mini tray. Yeah, that's a real that's a we're inspiring name. Well, we're not gonna the front facing brand is not white labeled chicken. It's a it's a working title. And so we're white labeled chicken L C. And so then I I don't even know the angle yet. I all I knew was

58:26 I can't believe there's no like Chick there's no oatly for chicken. No, you know what I mean? Like There's there's no there's no I can't believe there's just not a fave like not like Distinct chicken brands.

58:37 That stand for something and mean something, like whether it's Whether it's about the flavor or pre season, whether it's about like This is man's chicken and like you're gonna get your protein from this meal. Like this is what we do. We we give you a little extra. I don't know what it is. But I just kinda saw that white space and I wanted to open the floor to you gentlemen to help me kind of workshop this. Point this is where it goes like familiar and uh novel. So this is very familiar. So how do you add novelty? It's interesting. You're right. As soon as it gets like

59:06 put in a dinosaur shape and bread crumbs around it, it becomes, you know, dinosa like it becomes dinner nuggets becomes incredibly well branded. Or it gets served at a restaurant as a a a sandwich, chick fil A. But The the the chicken itself. I mean there's fought like Foster Farms did a pretty good job of this. Um, I'm Cal out of California, but it was really not the product, it was just their advertising was so good.

59:32 Right. That Goodbye did years ago. Okay, so I think you gotta go back. I would sell I would turn it into an origin story.

59:41 I wouldn't sell the chicken, I would sell the farm. And I would That sounds like Smart. Don't sell the chicken, sell the farm, maybe. I might say that to my wife later today in any context.

1:00:01 Eric, do you have like a pack of cigs that you could light up right now? If you took out a cigar right now, you would be the coolest man I've ever met in my life. Put your feet up, smoke a cig and and tell me about sell the farm, not the chicken. Because It did. 'Cause we don't want to think about the chicken because we murdered it.

1:00:20 Right. Before it was killed. Right. That's gonna make us feel good about the quality of the chicken. It's gonna make us feel good about the chicken's short life.

1:00:32 And so I would build the whole brand around This heaven this heavenly farm for chickens. What if we create an Instagram account? We actually pour all our energy into the Instagram account of this incredibly aesthetic farm. And it's Like Truman show. It's just totally a set. Uh because again, we're white labeled chicken L C. So uh th I'm starting with inauthenticity here, but like I'm just thinking, what if we

1:00:57 What if you started with the the social and you just made everybody's favorite farm? And then from there you're like, Of course, if you're gonna buy chicken, you'd buy it from your favorite farm. Dude, I have a um I've got a friend that exited a um a multi billion dollar consumer brand. And I was he's Yeah, he might cu he might use the away A word, ac acquaintance. And I use you know close friend. Yeah close friend. Yeah. We're a little bit different. But we uh he was like telling this idea for his new business, and presumably he's very smart because of his previous success, but he was like

1:01:34 Do you know what free range means? Like free range chicken? And I was like, I guess that means they're they're running around a farm. And he was like, No, the definition is like they've got like a cage the size of like five by five. It was I I forget the exact definition, but it was like shockingly small. And he's working on this thing where he's putting RFD is it called Rf D tags? Is that what it's called? Uh the the Is that what it is? He's putting them in cows and in chickens. And as they are scan so the whole farm has like the the um technology to see how far away they're running and as they go to the kill, you know, the kill bin or whatever they gotta go to, their their RFD thing is scanned. And so a consumer can on his chickens, this is a real thing that he's he already built, can you can see how like what radius they were running around. This is his whole premise is that people which It kind of that could maybe that that actually might be interesting. But you could actually see it's just truly free range chicken or were they just like in a small pen where they're just in their own feces, like you know, like'cause there's like a a correlation between now how how like healthy the farm was and how if they actually followed the rules.

1:02:37 Yeah, and I think uh to build an area too, I always say the framework of like you gotta find the intersection of altruism and narcissism. So the case of method, you bought it for very narcissist reasons. You love the fragrance, you love the design of it, but the ultrasm, it's good for me, good for the planet. Brought you coming back. And if you can deliver on both, I think is real power. We try to do that in all of our brands. So in the case of our chicken farm here.

1:03:00 We need to sell the nurses on that this is the most organic, good for you, great tasting chicken. But the ultra is on that you can feel good that this chicken, while they had a short life, it had a really good life. And I think it's right. It was a great six weeks. Yeah. You know, it's almost like you you you steal from children's books.

1:03:20 So you you the you do the whole branding like it's a children's book of this magical farm. And even like You make the farmers who work there kind of Yeah. part of the overall like iconography of the brand and you make them heroes in it as well.

1:03:34 Old McDonald had a farm. It's called Bingo Chicken. Is all the channels available? Old McDonalds would be great. Old McDonald's, if that's available. Does anybody own that? I think'cause McDonald, you'd have to be like old, you know.

1:03:51 McDonald. You have to like do something weird with the spelling. Do you guys ever buy these eggs? Yeah, all the time. Yeah. So like yeah, they're in my fridge right now. This is like what you're talking about of like the sea of sameness or like the commodities that they made. Like look at the bottom here. Medium brown egg is literally the name of the product. It's like a transparent medical packaging, like sterile packaging. And you just see these eggs. And then this vital farms thing on top.

1:04:15 Because they literally draw like Flowers and like You know, hay or whatever on the thing, I'm like, Oh Farm. Good.

1:04:22 Onto table. I'm doing good. Now that he says see a sameness, I'm like, Oh, I do this all the time. Like I I the other day I bought yogurt the other day because instead of Greek yogurt, this yogurt was Icelandic. Right. I don't know like I do know what that means, but I'm in. Yeah. For some reason it's all Greek. And this is from Iceland. And do you have a theory on naming?'Cause like you've named your products extremely well.

1:04:47 Um how what how do you come up with names? Uh so The holy grail of naming is one word four letters, if you could do it. Not all really, really hard. Naming a brand is the most

1:05:00 difficult part of a startup because everything is taken Do you use like an agency? Do you just sit there and think? It's all different. I'm not good at naming, but I'm good at spotting a name. So method was Adam was literally my co founder, we were literally brushing our teeth at the same time. And he's like, What about method? I was like, That's it. Lawyers like you never can get method, it's like way too generic.

1:05:20 Then I asked my lawyer uh while he wasn't working over drinks, I was like, if if you thought this meme was really important to your success. What would you do? He's like, Hey, I'd go for it. 'Cause lawyers never want to be wrong, but they don't need to be bright. Um Uh Ollie came from I was working with Alan Dye, who was helping me, who's creative director at Apple, and we came up with Ollie Slate, like

1:05:41 Ali for friendly. I wanted the name with each case I come up with a jumping off word. So for method, I want it to represent technique, right? So if you're in the gym. You use good technique to get force, because this was gonna clean without force. So I was like, We want something that represents technique and he's like, How about that then? I was like, That's it. Um with Ali

1:06:00 Everything in the category was pseudo science, like uh Uh oh centrum. Or was very folksy like nature's Yeah. So I wanted a name that just sounded friendly. So he came up with Ollie Slate and then we realized Ollie would just we were able to get it on its own, so we didn't need the slate part of it. You're like ripping through the story and it's like

1:06:20 Insight, insight, insight. And like you you you you make it you you have what I call the knowledge, like the curse of knowledge, which is you think that this is you're like oh yeah, I just did this and then I just did that. Like I don't think you can even tell us that. And that was so interesting. What if we hadn't asked the question? We wouldn't have known that. Like how many more of those you got? Uh you're like oh well I just do this, of course, as one does. You pick a jump off word and then you yeah, I was like, Oh, I don't do anything like that. I just But like you're you know someone's a master when they f when they're fluid. They're fluid with this. And and and and it's incredibly clear when you describe the simplest things that you are. Jumping off word for uh for Welly. So for Wellie was uh I wanted something about healthcare.

1:07:05 And so we actually came up with Nightingale. So Nightingale'cause of the idea of like Nightingale is st like she is like this icon. And it's all about caring for you. And uh uh Anthony Spidutie and Paris and Spade came up with Wellie. And it was like Yeah.

1:07:21 Done. Most every time I've never every name like cast we came up with for jewelry for again, each time we I I saw the name. It was like no debate. It was like that is it. And then it's all hands on. How do we secure this name? Amazing. Do you have uh another idea? One of my favorite foods, and I watched my kids go through it, is packaged cheese.

1:07:42 So I think craft singles Mozzarella sticks. I have Never seen anybody do anything really. So there's this big delta in cheese too. You go to like the artesianal cheese. Uh counter, right? It is it's art for.

1:08:00 And we have this place, we live on Shelter Island in summer, and this guy, Andrew, runs the cheese wagon. It's literally a wagon. And my wife and I will go there every few days just because we'll sit there and taste the cheese with Ab, and it's like wine. He just romances it. So the the gap is if you look at all the categories that have have Take it a more artesian approach. And then you go shop packaged cheese, it's the same thing it's cheddar like

1:08:25 Montserella, it has not changed. And I love my favorite packaging forum in the world are those baby bells. Right in the wax, like little pack bands that you split apart. So my idea is I want to create a line of gourmet cheeses. End of end of

1:08:42 You know, in the pre package. In those baby bell wax forms. but do really like take what they've started and go super gourmet with different flavor profiles in it. And make that that packaging form. I'd make it slightly bigger too, different colors.

1:08:58 Um but I would I would uh build a whole line of gourmet cheeses around it. And if anybody wants to do this, please reach out to me. Sorry, this is this for k you say it's for kids or it's not for kids. You're just saying I wanna do The gourmet cheeses, but in the in the in the this new packaging and in that aisle. Yes. Like my my boys love the baby bells.

1:09:18 I want to do that for adults. Again. Taking something that's a kid product. but then elevate it as an adult product. And there's just something so fun about opening up that little wax. Very sad. Sam, you're a man, child. Where does this land with you?

1:09:31 Dude, I had three of these. So I do what I do what I call redneck fitness food. So last night I just had three baby bells for dinner and I wrapped it in salami and just piled them in my mouth. I call it balls of fun. Uh and so time to funds really fast on the telling this name to that. Sam's mouth surprise. I don't know. We're still working shopping it, I'm not sure yet. Uh but but you can even square a little mustard at this uh this ball. Uh, but yeah, this is great. I love those cheeses and I think they only make Gouda and like the normal one. What is it about that packaging? Does it actually'cause it's kinda softer inside, right? Is it Is that because of the type it's used or does the does the packaging do that?

1:10:16 Well I think it's already like that, but you can just like grab it. It's just like I'll grab'em and I'll literally put it in my pocket and like as I'm walking. Oh it's a grab and go cheese. Okay, gotcha. And it's a single serve. It's a single serve. So like it's like super easy. Uh but yeah, it's definitely a convenience thing, not necessarily a it's better tasting thing. But I think there's something very primal too about opening it. So it feels naturally back the wax, like opening an orange, like you feel like a little monkey just getting into your snack. And so it's in a time to fun on that is three seconds. Yeah, it's oddly it's oddly satisfying whenever I peel back that wax. And then when you peel back the wax, Sean on if you've ever done ever done it, the two things open up. And like the top part doesn't fall off the bottom part of the wrapper. Yeah. Everything here.

1:10:57 Have you yeah, it's like an oyster. Have you guys seen those new Coke bottles where you twist the cap off and then it peels back and the cap stays on the bottle? Uh no, I haven't seen that. Oh man, it's kinda like that. I love that. Just delightful. Oh, is that so you can fully recycle the bottle then because the caps usually don't get recycled. Now we might be breaking the laws of physics here, but one of the most satisfying food experiences in the world is cracking the the top of a Coke can, the sound. And the like literally it's like like an iconic sound of of the tab Um I wonder if there's a way to like create some sound or satisfying uh crack here, but I but I I think I'm I think I'm making a good idea bad here.

1:11:32 You've overinnovated it. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Blue bell or baby bell, whatever it's called, but fancy cheese. I also had an exact idea. So great minds think alike. I also had a cheese idea. Yours is better.

1:11:46 But I'm just gonna say mine out loud in case there's something you wanna steal out of the carcass of this idea that I'm about to give you. Um, this is like a dying idea I had. But um So my mother in law came over. And she's great. But uh, you know, she's got mother in law itis a little bit where she's like, Well, I know the answers to the test, and you're still trying to figure out the answers to the test. So like

1:12:06 Let me just tell you what to do. And so for example, it'd be like Oh. He'll love this rice. Kids love rice. She'll just say these generic things like kids love rice. So your kids gonna love rice. I'm like, No, no, he doesn't eat rice, doesn't like rice, blah, blah, blah. Or You know, milk. Like one of our kids wasn't really drinking like milk from like a milk Uh like a gallon of milk or whatever.

1:12:24 And she was like, All kids love milk, your kids gonna love milk. And we're like, You can try Be my guest, but like this kid doesn't drink milk. And I was waiting for like the satisfaction of being right. And then five minutes later She's like, Oh, he loves it. And I'm like, No way. And I go over

1:12:42 And basically what she did was she would pour the milk into the top of the cap. And give'em like t you got to have a tiny mini cup. And he was like into that. And so he was like, Oh, like taking shots of milk like a like a you know, like a spring breaker, basically. And I couldn't believe it. And she was like, change of presentation. And so now this phrase change of presentation has become a big deal. So anytime there's a food my kid doesn't eat

1:13:04 It's not a question of do they like it or not, it's what is the change of presentation we need to do to get them to eat it. So for example, bread was another, didn't want bread. My wife takes a cookie cutter, like a like the star shape or whatever, and he gets to stamp out the bread. And now he likes that. And we're like, Oh my God, change of presentation. So my and now your mother in law's the man of the house. I think she already was and I just was in denial for a period of time. But I too have now bent the knee like the tech CEOs like sucking up to Donald Trump, basically. Like that's me now, or I'm like, yeah. Love you. Um so basically.

1:13:41 My cheese idea is basically instead of just slices of cheese, you include a stamper. And the stamper is like shapes that they can stamp the cheese into so they can play like Plato, stealing from Plato. And you basically get the Plato shape cutters, but you apply it to cheese and you sell it together as a little pack, basically. I think my kids would love that. I don't know how scalable that is.

1:14:03 That's the problem. I don't know how you're gonna be my mother in law, did that come through? Was the audio good on that? I don't know if we can afford the operations. I agree with the insight of change your presentation. I don't know if I agree with the application of it there. Turning it into a toy. So like giving'em a a little thing. That they can do to the food. I like that idea. That I like as well. Again, it's like it it could be a durable, I it's to your point of like how do you make it a consumable so it's an annuity so people keep buying it.

1:14:42 See, he's in the cheese, but he's a competitor now, so he doesn't like this idea'cause he's like all about his like artisanal cheese. I'm gonna do this. Yeah, the hater said it wasn't scalable. Craft singles that come with a cookie cutter. Exactly. I think he overcomplicated it. The story is key to the understanding of the idea. In fact, the label is going to include the entire story that I said. In verbatim and f size eight font. And instead of buying the chicken to support the chicken, you know, or like the good a good farm, we're gonna be supporting Sean to stick it to his mother on this. What happened to the safe space where there's no bad ideas? You're like, Watch what I do if you bring a weak wimpy idea in here. I'm gonna give it a wedgie.

1:15:38 So I wanna leave you with a big picture question. You've you've obviously done it. You've proven yourself. So that's good. You've made money doing what you have. You know, you're financially You know, s secure and free and all that. What is like the end of the story for you? Like what are you trying to Dude, do you have somebody in mind like a hero you're like oh I kinda wanna be like them. Do you think like thirty years down the road like I wanna have Done XYZ. Do you not think about that at all? Like

1:16:02 How do you think about your life?'Cause like you could just keep doing this. Sounds fun. Uh is there a big picture? Yeah. No, I'm a I'm a planner, so there definitely is a big a big picture for me. I at the heart of it, I love building and creating. And if I wasn't doing that, I think I'd be really miserable.

1:16:20 But what I don't want to do any more is um You know, be a CEO. Were you the CEO before? I've been CEO of my previous companies, yes.

1:16:30 And I love like being in it with a team and building it every day. Uh in in the trenches with your team. and helping steer the ship. Like I I absolutely love that as well. But I'm at the stage of my career that, you know, the pressures of raising capital and being able to answer to that capital. I want to be able to work, you know, going back to projects, work across more things. So I'm splitting my time between, you know, continuing to incubate new ideas, but then I hire CEO and team and I work alongside that team.

1:16:57 And then moving over to join Greycroft to to launch just the consumer brands fund. Really now being able to, you know. be more of a coach and and help work with entrepreneurs. We've had a bunch of people come on here with that um The the the the dream to have your cake and eat it too it's like I wanna be part of the idea.

1:17:14 And like the start. But then like the grind for 10 years, like I really want an operator to do that part. And some people have come on here and told us how they do that well. So other people have been like I don't know how to I can't incept my idea and my energy into somebody else. That's a really hard tr transfer to do do. Do you have like a talent sh like How do you in how do you get the CEO to then like run your thing? Do you have a strategy around that or is it It's hard.

1:17:36 And that's what I've been doing. I've been doing more of an Acubia model my last few startups where I've not been the CEO running it, but I actually, you know, create the team. Um so really what I love doing is like create the concept, pull together the team and the capital. But the part of that that has been really hard is actually finding those leaders. And you know, the reality of being an entrepreneur, it's iterative. Right? You try something, it wor it works or doesn't work. You you're constantly

1:18:00 iterating your way to success in those early years, which means you're running up against roadblocks and things that worked and what didn't work. And what I found is There's a certain personality that can live in that uncertainty of a startup and stay committed to it. So when something doesn't work instead of panicking, they quickly start taking the clues, figuring out, making adjustments. keeping the team confident and bringing along with them. That that's the art of entrepreneurship that is really, really tough to hire for because the ones who are good at it want to create

1:18:27 They probably have their own idea that they're working on. And what I found is I would hire very accomplished people, but their entire life had been fairly linear in their careers, where like I, you know, I get good grades. It unlocks getting in this good college. I do really well at school and I'm not getting the right into like Each thing unlocks the next step for them and that's always work'cause they're incredibly smart, talented people. But that's not the reality in entrepreneurship.

1:18:50 And so when I saw a pattern of like I would hire these incredibly accomplished CEOs And then as soon as things would start going wrong, which they always do in a startup. they would really struggle to the mental games of that. That's the hardest part of this model.

1:19:05 Mm-hmm. You're amazing. You know, every once in a while we have episodes that we're like we have to have a part two, and sometimes a part three and a part four, and hopefully that will be the case with you. No, let's do it. I would love to and I feel the same. I'm walking away on Monday morning here with more energy. Um, so I really appreciate it. This has been such a fun conversation. And if anybody loves our ideas out there. And wants to pursue it, please, uh please reach out.

1:19:28 Where the Eric Ryan dot com and then there's like a contact button, is that right? Yeah, you could go to uh um uh gabstot.com, G O B S T O P dot com. It's for this idea that I try to build these everlasting gobstoppers. And brands that continue to be able to refresh themselves and stay on trend and like you try to bake that into the into the center when you create something new. You're a ridiculous human being. You're awesome. Like you have like silly crazy ideas and yet you've been able to make h potentially hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars off it. I mean, that's the dream. So thank you so much. You're the best.

1:20:04 Uh you guys are great. Thanks for a lovely conversation. I feel like I could rule the world, I know I could be what I want to. I'll put my all in it like my day's off. On the road, less travel, never looking back. This episode is brought to you by HubSpot Media. They have a cool new podcast that's for AI called The Next Wave. It's by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lands. And they're basically talking about all the new tools that are coming out, how the landscape is changing, what's going on with AI tech. So if you want to be up to date on AI tech, it's a cool podcast you could check out. Listen to the next wave wherever you get your podcast.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 10 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.