While studying psychology and neuroscience as a Harvard undergrad, my guest Will Nitze became fascinated with the human brain and how it functions.
After graduating and taking a job in selling and marketing software, he found himself working long hours and feeling terrible as a result.
Realizing that his diet (or lack thereof) played a key part in his physical and mental breakdown, Will became obsessed with this idea of “on the go” brain food.
Why did such a thing not exist?
…and so 2017 saw the start of nights and weekends spent tinkering in his kitchen which led to the eventual birth of “IQBAR” in mid 2018.
If you are looking for inspiration on how to start, run and grow a business while living through a drastically changing world, then this episode is for you. Grab your paper, your favourite pen and let Will’s story inspire your own journey to quantum revenue expansion.
Ursula’s Takeaways:
Intro (00:00)
Will’s Story (4:34)
Running 2 Different Companies (11:14)
How Are You Leading Now (14:51)
Revenue Growth (18:03)
Zillion Ways To Grow Your Topline (23:00)
Connect with Will Nitze:
Website: https://www.eatiqbar.com/
Facebook: facebook.com/eatiqbar
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-nitze/
Instagram: https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-nitze/
Twitter: twitter.com/eatiqbar
About Will Nitze
My name is Will Nitze and I'm the Founder & CEO of IQBAR. I'm passionate about entrepreneurship, nutrition, and ruthless efficiency!
FREE GIFT:
Visit - https://www.eatiqbar.com/ - Use the code QUANTUM25 for 25% off!
About Ursula Mentjes
Ursula Mentjes is an award-winning Entrepreneur and Sales Expert. She will transform the way you think about selling so you can reach your revenue goals with less anxiety and less effort! Ursula specializes in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and other performance modalities to help clients double and triple their sales fast.
Honing her skills at an international technical training company, where she began her career in her early twenties, Ursula increased sales by 90% in just one year. Just 5 years later, when the company’s annual revenue was in the tens of millions, Ursula advanced to the position of President at just 27. Sales guru Brian Tracy endorsed her first book, Selling with Intention, saying, “This powerful, practical book shows you how to connect with customers by fully understanding the sales process from the inside out. It really works!” Ursula is also the author of One Great Goal, Selling with Synchronicity and The Belief Zone, which received the Beverly Hills President’s Choice award. Her Podcast, Double Your Sales NOW, is available on iTunes, iHeartRadio and other outlets.
Ursula also serves as Past Statewide Chairperson of the NAWBO-CA Education Fund and Past President of NAWBO-CA. She is the recipient of the SBA’s Women in Business Champion and a recipient of the Willow Tree’s Extraordinary Example and Extraordinary Entrepreneur Awards, the NAWBO-IE ANITA Award, chosen as PDP’s Extraordinary Speaker, PDP’s Business Woman of the Year, the Spirit of the Entrepreneur Awards Finalist and the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award from two Presidents. She has shared the stage with bestselling author Loral Langemeier, Les Brown, Tom Antion, Lisa Nichols, Giuliana Rancic and many others! Her clients include Aflac, Ebenezer and Fairview Hospitals, New York Life, Paychex and more! She holds a B.A. in Psychology and Communication from St. Olaf College and an M.S. in Counseling Psychology from California Baptist University.
Social Links:
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UrsulaSalesCoach
Instagram: @ursulaincorporated!
Twitter: @ursulamentjes
Join Quantum Revenue Expansion Private Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/quantumrevenueexpansion/
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Hey, everybody, and welcome back to quantum revenue
Unknown:expansion where you turn your annual income into your monthly
Unknown:income, super excited to be hanging out with my guest. Hold
Unknown:on. Hey, everybody, and welcome back to quantum revenue
Unknown:expansion where you turn your annual income into your monthly
Unknown:income, super excited to be hanging out with my guest today,
Unknown:will NITSA because we're gonna be talking about revenue growth
Unknown:is downstream of operational excellence. And in this time,
Unknown:it's still a very interesting time as we're recording this, we
Unknown:are in November of 2021, over like 19 months into the
Unknown:pandemic, there are supply chain issues, there's a lot happening
Unknown:in the world, things that are definitely affecting wills
Unknown:company and might be affecting you as well. So we're going to
Unknown:talk about all of those things, and how you can still continue
Unknown:to grow your company in this interesting time. So we'll just
Unknown:wanna say hello, and welcome to quantum revenue expansion.
Unknown:Thanks for having me.
Unknown:Yeah, excited to hang out for a little bit, hear all about your
Unknown:business and inspire our listeners. Before we do that a
Unknown:couple of things. If you haven't yet go to Ursula inc.co. We have
Unknown:quantum revenue expansion, the masterclass where I break down
Unknown:three areas for you to grow your business number one, how to
Unknown:create an exponential quantum revenue container. Another word
Unknown:for that is just like to x or 10x, or sales, where do you want
Unknown:to go next, we also talk about how to uplevel your pricing your
Unknown:packages and your marketing, which has been a huge
Unknown:conversation at the CEO table the last few months and our
Unknown:clients really talking about what it takes to, you know,
Unknown:increase pricing increase, you know what they know their worth,
Unknown:so they can get to that next level, but also really honoring
Unknown:their clients and customers at the highest point. And then
Unknown:finally, we talked about how to collapse time to reach your
Unknown:quantum revenue goals even faster. And there's a few ways
Unknown:to do that. And you definitely want to listen in to find out.
Unknown:So go to Ursula ink.co. And I mean, it's so easy, just go to
Unknown:the you guys know this, like go to the homepage, it's sitting
Unknown:right there, you'll find it and you can get that course. Also,
Unknown:if you want to come out and hang with us on Zoom. We're all
Unknown:hanging out these days. And really focus on to x and your
Unknown:revenue, you can come to the 2x intensive. If you're interested,
Unknown:just go to Ursula inc.co. Forward slash applies and
Unknown:dispute your details, and my team will get you all the stuff
Unknown:about the 2x intensive when it's coming up next, and how you can
Unknown:come and play. Alright, with that. It's my pleasure to
Unknown:introduce you to wil Nizza, who I've just gotten to know because
Unknown:I'm on his team reached out to us to be on quantum revenue
Unknown:expansion, I'm super picky. Well, like I have is like, we're
Unknown:researching. Yeah, I want to know about what you're up to.
Unknown:And we haven't had anyone on the show who is in the space of
Unknown:health foods I think is really interesting. Will is the founder
Unknown:and CEO of IQ bar, a Boston based brain and body nutrition
Unknown:company, after studying psychology as an undergrad at
Unknown:Harvard will became fascinated with the human brain and how it
Unknown:functions. And we're super interested in that as well here.
Unknown:Then, in his mid 20s, he experienced chronic failings
Unknown:with his own brain, including daily headaches that he traced
Unknown:back to his high carb diet. By limiting staples like bread and
Unknown:pasta from his regimen, he staged an astounding cognitive
Unknown:recovery, which I'm sure he's going to tell us about so. So
Unknown:Bill, let's, let's start there. And that's a pretty interesting
Unknown:problem that you had to solve for yourself, which led you to
Unknown:launch this company. So tell us your story, if you would.
Unknown:Sure. Sure. So I did not want to know what I wanted to do at all
Unknown:in college. But I got really, really interested in psychology
Unknown:and neuroscience. And I wanted to do something in those fields
Unknown:professionally. But I was also obsessed with startups in
Unknown:business. That was, you know, in the early 20, teens, and just
Unknown:when startups were becoming, you know, quote, unquote, cool or
Unknown:cooler. And so I didn't really know how to like, meld those two
Unknown:things together. And effectively, I couldn't figure
Unknown:out a way to do that. So I took a job in software, selling and
Unknown:marketing software right out of college, and was working really
Unknown:long hours, and just started feeling terrible, terribly,
Unknown:physically. And a lot of it was due to my diet. I soon learned,
Unknown:you know, also sleeping exercise, but a huge chunk was
Unknown:diet. And so I became obsessed with with diet and not really
Unknown:diet, insofar as I was trying to lose weight, or like get buff or
Unknown:whatever. While while a lot of people focus on diet, I wasn't
Unknown:exclusively interested in it, due to the way it made me think
Unknown:about both positively or negatively in that case,
Unknown:negatively. I read a couple books that this one book called
Unknown:Green brain was the one that like totally blew my mind which
Unknown:effectively, David Perlmutter is saying, if you eat a high carb
Unknown:diet over 10s of years stuff just starts going wrong, you
Unknown:know you on on the high end, you might just think slower and have
Unknown:more headaches and have a more inflamed brain and on the on the
Unknown:worst end you might get at neurodegenerative disease. So I
Unknown:became obsessed with this idea that a brain food like why is no
Unknown:one creating a quote unquote ready to eat brain food that
Unknown:someone can buy off a store shelf? And so yeah, I started
Unknown:tinkering in my, my kitchen at nights and on weekends. And that
Unknown:was what, what kicked it all off.
Unknown:Got it? Excellent. And so and when was that, how long ago was
Unknown:that?
Unknown:I really started doing that tinkering. In 2016 2017. The we
Unknown:launched the culmination of that was launching a crowdfunding
Unknown:campaign in December, December 17, to Jan 18. So that was and
Unknown:then we didn't fulfill our first order it really when the company
Unknown:began was when we fulfill their first order in mid 2018. Have
Unknown:it? So
Unknown:you've had the business for not for very long for a few years,
Unknown:and then the pandemic arrived, which I'm guessing has either in
Unknown:some ways, really helped your business, as we're at home
Unknown:ordering food, or, you know, really looking at improving
Unknown:ourselves in this interesting time that we're in. So tell us
Unknown:about that. So what's happened the last few years in terms of
Unknown:the business growth? And how has the pandemic impacted your
Unknown:company?
Unknown:Yeah, sure. I mean, it's, like I, the way I phrase it is like,
Unknown:there's a spectrum of ways companies got hit by the
Unknown:pandemic, there's like the worst situation, which is like a
Unknown:restaurant, right. And then there's the best situation,
Unknown:which is like, zoom, or really any, like, tech company or
Unknown:company that centers on you being in your living room on a
Unknown:computer. And then there's everything in between. And so
Unknown:I'd say we're in between, I mean, there's, there are certain
Unknown:not great dynamics, like for example, bar sales in brick and
Unknown:mortar stores really stagnated. People went towards, you know,
Unknown:more bulk items and different categories. But ecommerce,
Unknown:conversely, like exploded because everyone's ordering
Unknown:everything online, and everyone's not going to
Unknown:restaurants, and everyone's just buying packaged food. So it was
Unknown:a mixed bag, but on net net, it was it was a positive for us.
Unknown:Yeah.
Unknown:And on the front end, before we jumped on you, you hinted at
Unknown:sort of supply chain situation, is that, how's that affecting
Unknown:you? I mean, that's honestly the biggest impact, certainly a very
Unknown:negative impact on really anyone that makes any thing, anything
Unknown:tangible. You know, obviously, it's in the news every day about
Unknown:like, microchips being so short that we can't buy cars and I
Unknown:mean, it's affected everything we we buy something like 43
Unknown:inputs into our all of our skews. And so all it takes is
Unknown:one of those inputs to fail the supply chain for it to fail, and
Unknown:the whole thing blows up. And so, you know, one small anecdote
Unknown:is like, we imported rappers, and this was in May, and our
Unknown:rappers were sitting at a rail yard in Chicago since late May,
Unknown:and we just caught him last week. So if you know of rappers
Unknown:you can't rap product, obviously. And so it's just
Unknown:created like constant fires like that, that you just have to come
Unknown:up with creative solutions to so what was your creative solution
Unknown:before the rapper showed up? Or did you have I, you know, found
Unknown:someone else make wrappers basically, but it's like that
Unknown:the tricky thing about my world is everything has a long lead
Unknown:time. So and especially now, because you're getting it's kind
Unknown:of a double whammy, you have supply chains are all busted,
Unknown:because the ports are all busted. And, and then you have a
Unknown:labor crisis, right? So like, nobody can find labor right now.
Unknown:Also, I'm sure listeners have heard that in the news, but or
Unknown:experienced it personally. But so it's like, you're getting hit
Unknown:by both of those forces. And unfortunately, there's no end in
Unknown:sight. So it's just like, you know, you can fix a problem. But
Unknown:then there's like a four week lead time for that problem
Unknown:actually, to be fixed. So it's like, oh, we don't have wrappers
Unknown:like scramble, and do all these things to make this other vendor
Unknown:make it and then sit on your hands for four weeks because
Unknown:this is what it is.
Unknown:Yeah, well, I feel your pain on that. So how, I mean, it sounds
Unknown:like the company has still been able to grow, you've gotten into
Unknown:some amazing Retail, you want to talk about that? How you how
Unknown:you've expanded in that way?
Unknown:Sure. Yeah. I mean, we were born on ecommerce. And we're still
Unknown:most of our business is still ecommerce, but we're definitely
Unknown:an omni channel business. So we, you know, so in retailers like
Unknown:WalMart Kroger, Rite Aid Wegmans, and others sprouts
Unknown:market. So we have a pretty big footprint across across the
Unknown:country in a brick and mortar context. But again, most of our
Unknown:businesses still is still ecommerce. So it's almost like
Unknown:running two different companies, there's competing in a totally
Unknown:different p&l, as you know, brick and mortar revenue comes
Unknown:in chunks, whereas ecommerce is like a more reliable, like
Unknown:trickle that you can increase. It really is, like two different
Unknown:businesses, but to truly scale, and have both of them be
Unknown:synergistic with the other. You know, we found it to be helpful
Unknown:to be omni channel.
Unknown:Yeah, got it. Got Well, congratulations on all of those
Unknown:those retailers. And the I hear you on yeah, having a steady
Unknown:stream of income from your online part of your business. So
Unknown:obviously, we're talking about revenue growth being downstream
Unknown:of operational excellence, how does that show up in your
Unknown:company?
Unknown:It's a, it's a, it's a pretty simple way. If you, if you it's
Unknown:simple, I guess at a high level and complex when you get into
Unknown:the details. So simply put, if you don't make things and have
Unknown:things, you can't sell things, and it's been very hard to make
Unknown:things and, and get people to send things to dovetail with my
Unknown:earlier comments. And so just being like, excellent. The, you
Unknown:could have a wider margin for error and operations and supply
Unknown:chain excellence two years ago, then you can today, I guess, is
Unknown:a succinct way of saying it. You need to be truly excellent at
Unknown:micro pivoting, operationally speaking on a weekly or even
Unknown:daily basis, just to make the things you need to make. Yeah.
Unknown:And so from the outside in, you're like, Well, why can't you
Unknown:just just make more of something? And it's like, well,
Unknown:if I showed you the like, the the tree, the supply chain tree
Unknown:that culminated and that thing and a package at the end, and
Unknown:how every branch of that tree is like, fraught with risk right
Unknown:now. You don't you'd get it. And so we've just had to have, you
Unknown:know, a really excellent people in ops and supply chain, and
Unknown:just be like, on it like, like, better planning better
Unknown:organization. Buying stuff earlier, making more sub buying
Unknown:more inventory. Having buffers, so it's just being on top of all
Unknown:of that is the only way to continue, you know, growing
Unknown:revenue in this time. Yeah, you.
Unknown:I think you hinted at, I think you said an operational manager
Unknown:and Ops Manager, team, right. I mean, there's the supplies. But
Unknown:then there's also the people that have to lead this and make
Unknown:it happen. And we're in what some people call the Great
Unknown:resignation. And then you mentioned that as well. Like,
Unknown:it's tough time to find stuff time to find team find great
Unknown:people. So how are you leading in this time? How are you
Unknown:inspiring people to stay? To want to be in what's probably a
Unknown:really challenging time inside of your business?
Unknown:Yeah, yeah, it's an interesting topic. It's like the, I think
Unknown:we've come full circle from like, the, you know, ping pong
Unknown:table and, you know, nap pod era. And we're now in the like,
Unknown:you know, remote work, like people just care about different
Unknown:stuff. And, and, and at its core, it seems like the themes
Unknown:in the great Brexit resignation is people want a couple things
Unknown:they want. Many of them want to be remote. Like they like being
Unknown:remote. They want to live in Boise, Idaho or whatever,
Unknown:instead of like Manhattan. And that that's a big one,
Unknown:obviously, but probably even bigger is like fulfillment. I
Unknown:mean, it seems most people are just kind of like a buzzword.
Unknown:But you know, people want to feel like they're progressing
Unknown:their career knowledge, base fulfillment, happiness. They
Unknown:just don't want to dread going to work on Monday. And so for
Unknown:me, like I've never found that you, you make someone not dread
Unknown:going to work by like, you know, silly perks, but honestly, like,
Unknown:I think it has to be woven into the mission of what you're doing
Unknown:like air inherent to the mission of what you're doing. And I
Unknown:think part of that is like hiring people who inherently are
Unknown:wanting to do that and are interested in it. So like, if I
Unknown:run a health food company, like, you probably want to hire people
Unknown:who care about health food, you know, at its core, right? Like
Unknown:your odds of that person caring about business Ops is higher, if
Unknown:that is true, but also like, give people responsibility and
Unknown:let them run with things. And because it's like, you know,
Unknown:we're a small business, we can't if someone's not inherently
Unknown:interested in what are what we're doing, yeah, it's really
Unknown:hard to just like ticky tacky, add incentives here and there
Unknown:and to keep them around like, so I think a lot of that is just
Unknown:like good hiring. But, yeah,
Unknown:I think you nailed it when you talk about mission I. So one
Unknown:thing I'm hearing over and over again, is from our clients and
Unknown:our colleagues is if if people don't buy into your mission,
Unknown:they're not going to stay like it's, we're in a time of, like,
Unknown:people want to know that you're up to something. And that's
Unknown:important mission, that you actually care about what you're
Unknown:up to, so that they can be part of that. And if they think you
Unknown:don't care, they're, they're probably gone, which is an in
Unknown:like, it's a it's a massive shift, because I think people
Unknown:are way more confident right now than ever before that they can
Unknown:find the next opportunity, whatever that might be for them.
Unknown:So let's shift gears a little bit, talking about money. What,
Unknown:like, when you, you had the mission for the company, you
Unknown:wanted to give people brain food, easy access to bring food
Unknown:in it showed up in the IQ bar? So how has the revenue growth or
Unknown:just money played into you growing this company? Like, did
Unknown:you have clear goals when you said like, I'm gonna, you know,
Unknown:we're gonna hit our first six figures, seven figures,
Unknown:whatever. How's that
Unknown:challenge for you? I wish I had a more elegant response to that.
Unknown:I had no idea. I had no response. At the early outset,
Unknown:certainly I've no idea because it's just an idea. And you're
Unknown:like it, you don't even know if the idea is validated. Right? So
Unknown:we did. And you just you get better at predicting stuff as
Unknown:you get more data points. So you know, with the crowdfunding
Unknown:campaign, we sold between Kickstarter and Indiegogo, about
Unknown:$90,000 worth of product and service. Okay. You know, that's
Unknown:like almost six figures. We did that a couple months ago. Okay,
Unknown:we could, if we really executed, we could be like a seven figure
Unknown:a year business, like pretty quickly. And, and then, you
Unknown:know, once we in our first full year, which was 2019, we did
Unknown:just over 2 million in revenue, and right, okay. 2 million in
Unknown:revenue, here's our footprint, we've only exploited this
Unknown:percentage of the market. You know, we're resonating in these
Unknown:areas, like how much bigger can we be in those areas like, and
Unknown:effectively, it's that but also critically on the cash front,
Unknown:it's like, we live in a, I operate in a cash intensive
Unknown:business and inventory intensive business. So you know, bit, you
Unknown:have to bake in like, your cash on hand, all of all of those
Unknown:desires and projections and whatnot. And so it's, it's the
Unknown:coupling of like, what could we do? And then like, what do we
Unknown:have the cash to do? And that's become more and more and more
Unknown:and more important, because, again, in a tough supply chain
Unknown:context, you're buying more stuff earlier. And so you're
Unknown:outlaying more cash earlier, and every production run we do is
Unknown:the biggest one we've ever done. And so, and you're not living
Unknown:in, we're not a jewelry company, right? We don't have 90%
Unknown:margins. So if you're in like a 3040 50% margin game, and
Unknown:you're, you're buying tons and tons of tons of inventory, and
Unknown:every inventory buys the biggest you've ever done. Yeah, you
Unknown:start needing to get really creative in terms of financing.
Unknown:So, so yeah, so I mean, our rough goal is to double every
Unknown:year, top line, and so are quit and you know, that's partially
Unknown:arbitrary, partially based on just what we've been able to do.
Unknown:And, and so the question again, then becomes how do you do that?
Unknown:And more specifically, how do you finance that growth?
Unknown:Yeah, that's a great question. I'd love to know the answer to
Unknown:that, because we have listeners and some of our clients who are
Unknown:in the same boat right now. I mean, is it a combination of
Unknown:working with your working with your banks, working with Angel
Unknown:investors working with? Cool, what's worked for you?
Unknown:I mean, so at the outset, it's it's certainly investors so you
Unknown:know, we we've we raised money from angel investors, and I
Unknown:would look The closest you can get to like bootstrapping, if
Unknown:that's even a real thing, the better. And so what's like,
Unknown:right adjacent to bootstrapping, it's angel investing. And so
Unknown:Okay, find people who have money, you can write
Unknown:1020 $30,000 checks, that's like phase one of the business and
Unknown:then scale until you get enough revenue. Where I mean, honestly,
Unknown:I would say, raise from angels as, as, take that as far as you
Unknown:can and down your company's lifecycle. Eventually, though,
Unknown:your, at least in my type of business, you're going to need,
Unknown:call it 234 $5 million. But my sort of thinking has always been
Unknown:raised as little as possible to get us to the next milestone
Unknown:because you're obviously your valuation step change, you want
Unknown:to keep going up. And so each time you raise money, I'm gonna
Unknown:raise the cheapest money quote unquote, possible. But
Unknown:eventually, you get to a certain scale such that you can start
Unknown:getting more creative with with financing and non dilutive ways.
Unknown:So there's a whole boom of non dilutive financing companies
Unknown:happening right now there's like clear coat, which is formerly
Unknown:known as clearbank, wave flyer. I mean, I get an email from one
Unknown:of them every day, right? It's like this booming market people
Unknown:trying to give money to people like me, but you have to get a
Unknown:certain scale to where they'll give you the money, and they'll
Unknown:give you enough enough money. And then so it's a combination
Unknown:of like, ret, that's generally termed revenue based financing.
Unknown:So basically, they take a cut of your revenue on a weekly or
Unknown:monthly basis, and you pay down that principal of cash that they
Unknown:gave you. And then there's more traditional stuff like, you
Unknown:know, Small Business Administration loans, SBA loans,
Unknown:a bank line of credit. Those are all really tough to get as a if
Unknown:you're a company, that's if you go to Bank of America, and you
Unknown:say, hey, I want a $2 million line of credit. They'll say,
Unknown:Great, show me too profitable tax returns. And of course, he
Unknown:said, Why don't have that? And they said, well, great, take a
Unknown:hike. And so it's very hard to get traditional lending. But you
Unknown:can, if you're smart about it, you can cobble together a number
Unknown:of different other funding sources. Yeah.
Unknown:Cool. Thank you, that was really helpful I'm sure for for a lot
Unknown:of our listeners. So coming back to money. Um, when you look back
Unknown:at the trajectory of the growth of your business, did you hit
Unknown:Did you hit some income ceilings where you kind of plateaued for
Unknown:a while, or looking back, like any tips that you have on how to
Unknown:move through a plateau or an income ceiling?
Unknown:You know, we haven't really hit income ceiling, I mean,
Unknown:certainly you can hit, I wouldn't even call it a ceiling,
Unknown:because that I think there's still a lot of room to go, but
Unknown:you can sort of start hitting a ceiling in a channel. But
Unknown:there's, there's a zillion ways to grow your top line, right? So
Unknown:one way is, okay, I'm gonna make a one one form factor thing. So
Unknown:maybe I'm RX bar, and I'm just going to go all in on bars. And
Unknown:I'm going to go all in on grocery and so I'm going to sell
Unknown:the whole foods and Kroger and yada, yada, yada, right? And
Unknown:you're gonna hit a ceiling there, you're gonna saturate
Unknown:that vertical. But there's 50 other verticals, right. And so,
Unknown:now you've saturated grocery go to big box, Walmart and Target
Unknown:and Costco. Okay, we we did that. Okay, let's go to
Unknown:independence, like 10s of 1000s of independence, right? So, you
Unknown:know, in my experience, you know, what, you can saturate
Unknown:certain channels or come close to saturating or even not even,
Unknown:like coming close, saturate your growth just slows, right? If you
Unknown:want to keep a certain growth rate, you need to supplement
Unknown:that in some way. So, there's really two ways to do that. Go
Unknown:into new verticals, or introduce new form factors, or that's how
Unknown:I think of things you might say, just introduce a new product
Unknown:type and attack that same vertical, right? Or you can do
Unknown:both at the same time, right? So for us, it's, it's, it's
Unknown:actually we are kind of doing both at the same time. So we
Unknown:started in bars right now we're moving into hydration stick
Unknown:packs. And so you can go back to the well, let's say the well is
Unknown:Amazon, that's your vertical you're talking about. We'll just
Unknown:run back the same playbook with a new form factor and a new
Unknown:offering. Of course, it has to be coherent and your umbrella of
Unknown:products or services or whatever has to be coherent and make
Unknown:sense together. But if it's non cannibalizing, for example, you
Unknown:never drink a hydration drink instead of a protein bar. It's
Unknown:it's, it's all it's additive. So if it's not Whereas you might
Unknown:eat a bag of chips instead of running All right, so that's
Unknown:partially at least partially cannibalized. So our sort of
Unknown:thinking is introduce new non cannibalizing foreign factors
Unknown:and run back the same strategy in the same channels. And you
Unknown:can go pretty damn pretty damn far by doing that.
Unknown:Yeah, thanks a lot of sentience. So what? So, in the next two
Unknown:years, how many products do you want to release, so you have the
Unknown:bar you have now it's hydration, what comes next, any.
Unknown:Um, so we're trying to be like a brain and body platform platform
Unknown:is the buzzword in that context. So again, we want to create
Unknown:things that are non cannibalizing, they are ship
Unknown:friendly, they're not cold, change the shelf stable. They
Unknown:are long shelf life, minimum of one year shelf life. So we have
Unknown:a whole checklist of things. And so a third example might be for
Unknown:instance, instant coffee, right? So you never eat a bar instead
Unknown:of drinking coffee, and you never drink a hydration next,
Unknown:instead of drink of coffee. And so the goal is how do you attack
Unknown:different parts of a person's day and saturate their day? So
Unknown:when people wake up, they drink coffee. And then when they need
Unknown:a snack, let's say they eat a bar. And when they go for their
Unknown:afternoon run, they need a hydration next, right? So how do
Unknown:you kind of wedge yourself in to their whole day? And so and then
Unknown:there's like sleep, right? So like, so many people now, like
Unknown:have a sleep strategies that will take melatonin until they
Unknown:take bedtime tea? Or that they'll do something to prepare
Unknown:for, for sleep? So that's a whole other category we're
Unknown:interested in.
Unknown:Gotcha. Yeah. Got it makes sense. And I'm asking, you know,
Unknown:for our listeners to really think about, you know, how they
Unknown:expand because I think people can get Superstock really
Unknown:quickly. And I love what you said, the platform like, what's
Unknown:the platform? So for you the overall platform, it's really
Unknown:the overall health of someone and following them throughout
Unknown:their entire days. That's a great way to say it. All right.
Unknown:So final say we have CEOs from all over, right all over the
Unknown:world, and in many different stages of business, and some
Unknown:have been listening for a long time, what's your best piece of
Unknown:advice for them in this? I would say interesting time, we're
Unknown:still in
Unknown:my best piece of advice for CEOs, I mean, I get it's a
Unknown:little bit trite. And it's a little bit over simplified, but
Unknown:be product obsessed, like everything. We're talking about
Unknown:revenue being downstream of offs, everything is downstream
Unknown:of the products. So the I'm obsessed with this new concept
Unknown:of product lead growth, which is like a company like Slack,
Unknown:right? You use Slack, and then tell your friend, you're like,
Unknown:Hey, are you using this new thing? Slack, it makes
Unknown:communicating at work so much easier, or Calendly? Send them a
Unknown:Calendly. And they're like, Well, that was really easy. I'm
Unknown:going to start using, like, the product is so good that it's
Unknown:inherently viral. And people inherently want to promote it
Unknown:themselves. So I live in a world of the standard world of
Unknown:customer acquisition cost versus lifetime value, the cheapest way
Unknown:to acquire customers, is to keep them and have them like the
Unknown:thing you sold them and talk about the thing you sold them.
Unknown:And so if you're looking at places to invest time and money,
Unknown:it's like, almost always product product product is like is where
Unknown:my mind goes because everything is downstream of that.
Unknown:Yeah, that makes so much sense. A really, yeah, product centric,
Unknown:really focusing on on where it's gonna go next. I mean, it sounds
Unknown:like you know, you have a brilliant, no pun intended,
Unknown:you're a brilliant IQ bar. And it's, I can't wait to see what
Unknown:happens for you in terms of expansion. I just made the as I
Unknown:in terms of other podcasts, I think that would love to have
Unknown:you. So just where can we get it? So and I think it's
Unknown:something special for listeners if they want to get an IQ bar
Unknown:and try it
Unknown:out. Totally, totally. So our website is eat IQ bar.com ea T
Unknown:IQ var calm. And so yeah, we made quantum 25 is a discount
Unknown:code that that listeners can use to get 25% off. And we're also
Unknown:on Amazon, if you prefer to shop on Amazon, if you're near a
Unknown:Walmart or Kroger or sprouts are Rite Aid pop in there. But the
Unknown:best part is definitely our website and quantum 25 be a
Unknown:discount for you. Cool, we'll
Unknown:put that in the show notes. So go to eat, eat IQ bar.com
Unknown:Quantum 25 to get 25% off. Awesome. Well, thanks for
Unknown:hanging out with us and sharing your wisdom, your knowledge and
Unknown:we wish you an incredible rest of 2021 into 2022 and beyond.
Unknown:And we'll look for the bar out there. So thanks for being here.
Unknown:Likewise, thanks for having me.
Unknown:And to our listeners. There's everywhere we appreciate you
Unknown:thanks for hanging out if you have a guest that you'd like me
Unknown:to interview send them our way at Ursula Ursula inc.co and or
Unknown:if you have topics you'd like me to talk about alright everybody
Unknown:that's it for this week make this your most epic month yet