In the summer of 2009, brothers Dave and Mike Radparvar decided to quit their jobs in the heat of the recession to go all-in on their passion project — Holstee, a functional and sustainable t-shirt company they had started with their friend Fabian Pfortmüller.

Since then they’ve pivoted many times. Though what they’ve done and how they’ve done it has changed, why they’re doing what they do has always remained the same.

And it all stemmed from the manifesto they first created when they launched their company.

It’s a manifesto that’s caught the imagination of people and companies around the world and has been viewed millions of times and translated into over 14 different languages.

Holstee is about helping people live lives full of purpose and meaning. They sell a range of physical products as well as the Holstee Membership, Reflection Cards, and a recently-launched Reflection.app.

In this episode, Carlos and Laurence talk to Dave about how the company was started, how its evolved and what it means to live a meaningful life.

If you’ve ever come across the Holstee manifesto, bought any of their products or have a wish to build a business that scales its impact through its values and not just by selling lots of products, then listen to learn from Dave’s story.

Links

• The Holstee Manifesto
• Join the conversation live
• Become a member of the Happy Startup School
• Join the next Vision 20/20 cohort

so yeah.

Thank you very much Dave for spending some time with us today.

I see you have a, uh, Holstee member joining us as well.

Ratika, and so on that actually, what would be useful for, for those of our listeners who, whether listening live or on the podcast who might not know Holstee, and what you do at the moment.

Maybe you could start by just talking a bit about, what Holstee is now.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, my name's Dave and I started Holstee with my brother Mike about 13 years ago.

And Holstee provides inspiration, tools and a community to help people live a more meaningful life.

our newest offering is reflection.app.

It's a journaling app, which very much, uh, kind of works full circle with a lot of the work that we're doing at Holstee.

So Holstee started over a decade ago, and we started as a t-shirt company.

That's where the name Holstee comes from.

It was a holster pocket on a t-shirt.

And the idea was our jeans were getting tighter, we needed, our phones were getting bigger, and we needed a place to, we want a little storage on our shirt.

That was really, as silly as that sounds, that was really the initial, uh, idea.

And as we got into looking at how to make a t-shirt, um, we started learning about the environmental impacts of apparel production, and then it became very clear that in order for us to create a product we were proud of, we had to, um, go further back in the supply chain and learn a lot more about that.

And so, um, we started learning a lot more about how fabrics are made, uh, about the different options of where we could manufacture them.

And we ended up making a t-shirt that was made from a hundred percent recycled materials in North Carolina, within a hundred miles of where the fabric was being milled.

And that was a bit of a case study for us in apparel manufacturing.

And we were, yeah, learning on the go really.

And the t-shirt was pretty expensive, at least for us at that time.

We were in deep Startup mode.

We definitely would not be able to afford our own product.

Um, I think it was a $40 t-shirt.

And not many people were buying the t-shirt.

Uh, but along this, around the same time that we made that first t-shirt, we also realized that we had made a big life decision.

We had both had jobs previously to starting Holstee, and we both decided to quit them actually on the exact same day.

Um, and it was a big turning point for us, and we didn't have that much savings, so I didn't have any savings.

My brother had some savings that I was living off of along with him.

And, um, we realized we're making a big jump and so we wanted to capture that essence of why we were doing that.

And, and the words that came out of that exploration were, were the Holstee Manifesto, uh, the words of the Holstee Manifesto.

And that became a guiding light for us and a reminder for us of why we were doing what we're doing.

Um, there's some kind of key lines in there that keep coming back for us.

So life is short.

Do what you love.

Do it often.

Life is about the things you create and, uh, oops.

Life is about the things that you create and the people you create, uh, them with.

Um, I'm blocking up the own, our own manifesto, but, um, just the importance of working with people that you love and, uh, working on things that you're passionate about.

And a reminder about, uh, our own mortality and how so much of our lives can be made up by work.

Um, and how important it was for us because of that, to do things that were meaningful for us.

And so that was, uh, got us to the manifesto, which was the next kind of turning point for Holstee.

So the manifesto really took off online.

Um, back then it was Tumblr and Twitter and just getting shared all over the place and it didn't even actually have the word Holstee on it.

So it became a bit of a, uh, a chase for people to find out who wrote this, these words.

Um, and eventually someone would comment, Oh, it's Holstee, and we started getting a bunch of traffic to our site and no one was buying t-shirts.

Um, but people were really loving this image.

Uh, it was just a jpeg image on our site in the manifesto.

And at the time we had a friend, uh, his name is Jan, really smart guy, and he was looking at our analytics, uh, because we weren't at that time, and he said, Hey, um, nobody's buying your t-shirts guys, but everyone is coming here for this manifesto.

And I really think you should make a poster of this manifesto.

And we hemmed and hawed honestly, we're like, yeah, but we're a t-shirt company.

We really gotta focus.

Focus is very important for business.

Um, if we start just printing, you know, our manifesto, what does that mean about us as a company?

And eventually we, we turn, we came around to it, we're like, you know what?

If this is what's providing the most valuable for people, um, this is possibly where we could have a great impact.

But if we're gonna make a poster, we wanna make it in the best way possible.

Having learned a lot about supply chain through apparel, we started learning about the supply chain of paper and printing, and we found a great printer.

Uh, we decided to letter press print.

There's of course, many ways you can print something.

We found letter press to be one of the most beautiful, still very craft based production method.

And there's, it leaves a, an impression quite physically on the paper, which is really nice.

And we found, yeah, great printer called Aardvark based in la They do some incredible work.

It's a family run business for many decades.

Should look them up.

There's some really cool videos on Vimeo about, um, the family behind Aardvark.

We're still printing with them, um, over a decade later.

And, that was kind of the start of, I guess the first pivot for Holstee.

So we went from a t-shirt company to printing paper.

I like what you said at the beginning, the both you and your brother have grown over the time of being doing a business and how that's, I assumed influence as well, how you want to run and your business and the kinds of things you want to do.

And so I'd like to follow on with that and, and continue the journey of how Holstee has evolved.

Well, I thought it was going to sort of bring it to Laurence cuz you, you are the person who, you know, you, you discovered them the first time around when we were, um, thinking about starting the Happy Startup scores.

Do you remember how you discovered them and what is it immediately attracted you to them?

Oh, yeah, I wish I could pin a moment to it.

I think it's like a lot of these things, it's like these kind of things disappear, right?

Serendipitously appear in your, in your world.

I do remember being on the lookout just for interesting brands and ideas.

And I think it was just, maybe it was the manifesto.

Um, but I think the key thing that stuck out for me and still does to this day is just the, the emotional quality of, of, you know, the words, the way you communicate the design, the care and attention.

Like just talking about the way you think about the supply chain and printing and those sort of things.

So there must have been, I think it just stood out, you know, for whatever reason it stood out.

And, um, and I think also just the words in the manifesto were so core to what we were about too, in terms of just, I think at that time, certainly, um, having lots of people around us who were either wasting time creating the wrong businesses for them because they just didn't seem happy and were certainly, uh, uh, not creating great products or work because they just weren't aligned.

And, and also just lots of people in jobs who we, who would, you know, come to us and find us and just feel a bit disillusioned by, by work and, and that rubbed off into the rest of their lives.

So, um, I think it just felt like a real alignment on mission.

That was the key thing, um, as well as things looked and sounded, it was that, um, yeah, real core sort of deep, uh, connection that I could feel from the way you communicate.

Oh, nice.

Thanks.

It sounds, you know, from what reading, uh, sort of the bit of this founding story and millions of people have been sharing this manifesto and so it seems to have captured or hit a nerve or, or, or captured something in people of the time.

Is there, you know, from your perspective, Dave, was there anything that you felt like actually this was needed right then?

Or was there something that you spotted in, in the way people were thinking about work that somehow it was some serendipitous timing?

Or was it, yeah.

What do you think it was?

It was something that we were feeling, uh, very strongly at that time.

I think we were really, uh, the words in the manifestor were things that we were deeply feeling in that moment.

Um, kind of the desire to travel and the desire to experience the fullness of life, um, were things that we were, they were very present for us.

Um, in thinking there were certain lines of festivals resonate with me today more than they did back then.

Um, and it's continuing to evolve, of course.

Um, but I think, yeah, it was, it was very present for us at that time.

And I, and I think for a lot of other people, I think there was, uh, a recession that happened in 2008 and it affected a lot of people's work and life in many similar ways that the Pandemic has right now, um, and making people, allowing people to pause, reset, and reflect on where they want to go in life.

One way that we like to talk about, uh, work and business, um, at the Happy, Startup School is kind of this insight out approach.

Uh, and on one hand, um, from our experience of being a startup studio and, and building products and, and trying to teach our clients how to build products, it's, it's about looking at the outside, you know, discovering problems, validating assumptions, seeing, you know, what are the problems we're solving, et cetera, et cetera.

So kind of a data-driven approach, and the whole idea of pivoting or persevering and iterating.

And it makes all logical sense, you know, people have written very popular books on this conven approach.

But in practice we also seen that some people can just get very confused and just go round and round the circles, or they start building a business they don't really enjoy, and and they get maybe trapped in a successful business, um, that isn't actually what they wanted in the first place.

So I, I'm curious about, you know, your take on, on the way you've sort of started.

Um, so firstly is like, you know, you, you start off with a t-shirt idea.

It's like, was that the only idea or did you have other ideas?

And then maybe talking more about your philosophy now, maybe around business and, and how you see it working.

Cause there's a much more, it's less about the money.

There's, there's something deeper here for you.

Mm-hmm.

Um, it's funny, as you mentioned, there actually were other ideas before we started Holstee, but they were so all over the place.

So prior to Holstee it started kind of a collective with some friends called Incubaker, um, which was where we come up with new ideas, uh, freshly baked ideas, some, some kind of tagline like that.

And at the time there was kind of three ideas we were playing with.

One of 'em was this idea of, uh, It was like a big face wall, um, of tiles for that you could show your support for a certain cause.

It's called My Heart Beats for something like that.

And yeah, that was, uh, kind of more of like a social idea, uh, and then there's another ideas very different called a Blue Moon butter company.

And we were experimenting with flavored butter, garlic butter, cinnamon butter, cilantro butter.

And that was just kind of for fun.

And there was a handful of other ideas.

I mean, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

We were all over the place.

But Holstee was, uh, the furthest along.

We hand made a prototype t-shirt.

And, uh, my grandmother made it.

She made the second prototype, I should say.

Me and another friend of mine, Tian we made the first prototype.

Uh, but my grandmother made the real, she, she's a very, she was a very good.

So, um, and so she made a really beautiful, uh, prototype for us.

One of the things that we like to talk about, uh, in our community's about thingifying your thoughts, and actually turning things into things.

Until you have an object in your hands a lot of the time or, or something that people can see and touch, it's, it's hard to really communicate what it is that's going on.

And sometimes there's a fear of doing that.

Mm-hmm.

A fear of like, oh, you know, I make this, and, and some people are gonna be, you know, reject it or criticize it.

Mm-hmm.

Did you experience any of that at the beginning when you were thinking about your ideas?

Oh, uh, most definitely.

Um, you know, especially, you know, I think with the t-shirt company in particular, I think we got, um, we faced some criticism, uh, early on.

It, it's a difficult business to break into.

Um, uh, I think the margins are difficult and, uh, the fashion world is fickle and, uh, there's many reasons why it's a very challenging industry to break into.

And those are feedbacks that we accepted but didn't totally internalize at the time.

And I think we learned it at our own pace.

It was a very difficult business.

But I think we needed to take that first step to just learn a lot and no regrets about how we start our business and the changes we've made over time.

And, uh, it's been, it's been a learning evolution, honestly.

And we're still learning um, what we want to create in a business and the type of environment we wanna create for our coworkers and the types of relationships we wanna build with our vendors and the types of services and the products we wanna offer to our community.

It's an evolution, it's a conversation.

And I think that's the beauty of having a small business like this, is that we can be very involved in running yeah, a business that is true to ourselves.

It's authentic to our values, um, and our values are changing.

And so it's natural that our business would as well.

With, so the, with the t-shirt, it felt like, okay, you, you know, you were able to create that first prototype and, and thanks to the skills of your grandmother, something it feels like a bit more refined.

And you, the challenges of launching a physical product, you know, this sounded quite clear.

I'm wondering with the manifesto, was there any fear or doubt about releasing that and sharing that with the world?

You know, it wasn't, uh, it wasn't a big decision at the time.

You know, at first it was just texts on our site and people said, oh, I like this text.

And then we thought, okay, we reached out, we put a post to our community, anyone in our community wanted design this, and this is, these are just some words.

And someone reached out and, uh, her name was Rachel Bresh, really talented designer, and we worked with her, um, made the design and it came out beautiful.

And then we put that on our site.

We didn't also think about it all too much either.

Um, so that was very natural and organic.

And I think there's something there.

One thing that's become clearer over the last decade or so is the things that happen with the least amount of friction are typically the things that bear the most fruit, both in terms of impact and in terms of, um, helping our business grow.

It's funny, I think was it either posted a question in the community the other day about It, it wasn't like, what does success look like?

But something like, what does success like feel like each day?

And, and it was for me, that feeling of everything's working without me trying, which I think, yeah, I totally agree with this.

That sort of part of least resistance isn't, it feels like, yeah when certainly with me, every time I try to achieve a goal, it never seems to work, but every time I stop or go the other way, it seems to sort of fall into place.

Um, which is really annoying if you wanna get something done and you, you feel like working hard isn't actually solving a problem.

And same with us.

Some random things we've done seem to have caught light and other things that we thought would work or, you know, we tried hardest on haven't.

So yeah, it's, it's just, uh, the unknown, isn't it, by putting things out there, you find these things out.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, the word authenticity and, and channeling springing to mind.

And, and there's a book that I'm remembering called The 15 Commitments of a Conscious Leader.

One of the gist I remember from this book is this, uh, this, uh, relationship to the world.

Mm-hmm.

And at one level, at the base level is the world is happening to me.

So it's nearly like a victim level.

You know, I have no autonomy or agency.

Then there's this like, striving aspect, energy.

The world is happening by me.

I'm like making things and I'm doing things and I'm, you know, I'm molding the world around me.

And then what I hear now when we think about this effortless approach is the world is happening through me.

Mm-hmm.

Basically, I'm not forcing, I'm not striving, I'm, I'm just channeling

Mm-hmm.

What it is that's already inside me and just letting it out

Mm-hmm.

Into the world.

And then how on one level, that can feel really vulnerable because you're, you know, this could be just stuff that's very dear to you, or, you know, again, when we talk about this inside out approach, this is like something that I just want to create this just coming through.

Mm-hmm.

But then another level, it's, if you can let go of the fear, it is effortless.

Mm-hmm.

Because it just, you know, it just gets created and, and you know exactly what to make and what needs to be done and how, and who to contact.

And the people come to you in the sense to help you in that sense?

I remember reading that in the book.

It was the, to me, by me, through me.

And I just loved the, that kind of like easy way of remembering it too.

And it resonated a lot.

And you know, sometimes when I think about tension, um, I always think about the, uh, finger trap.

You know, that those little bamboo finger traps.

Um, I haven't seen one in a long time, but I remember as a kid I had one.

And those finger traps, when you pull, they just get tighter.

And when you kind of put your finger in and you just go out really slowly, then you can pull your finger out.

And it just reminds me, like, for tension to exist, you have to pull, you have to like really pull hard.

Um, and the tension doesn't exist if, if there's not tension on both sides, if there's not a force on both sides.

And so I'd like to think about that when there's stress in my life or when there's things that are, are friction full of friction, it's typically because something is on the other side pulling, um, and it's not coming naturally or, or that I'm pulling too hard.

And that if I give a, a little bit of leeway, it creates space.

It creates more abundance for everybody to kind of flow, flow through.

So there's a question that, um, has been on my mind for many years and I can remember we posed it one time in, in one of these events that we do called Ideas Cafe, where we have these little group discussions.

And it's along the lines of, can you be happy and ambitious?

Mm-hmm.

When you're talking about the tangent, like, I'm gonna make something work.

Yeah.

But then, because I want to be somewhere else, or I want to create something.

Well, you know, if you're happy, you don't really do anything.

That is the biggest question that's emerging for me over the last couple years, and my brother and I talk about it all the time.

It's the, the tension between ambition and contentment.

And actually last night we were actually talking about it again.

And the way I, I, uh, cause I had this realization, uh, yesterday I was feeling tired and I was at a crossroads.

It was in the afternoon.

Do I take a nap or do I have a coffee?

And I was like, nap or coffee.

That is like the precise metaphor for ambition versus contentment in my life.

Um, and uh, yeah, that's continuously arising for me and, like so many things.

What did, what what did you choose?

Yesterday I took a nap.

Um,

Okay.

And it was great.

I felt so good, um, after.

I, I never regret taking a nap, though.

It's always feels like the most luxurious decision I could ever possibly take in that moment.

But I've never, never regretted taking a nap.

And it's not to say that I always nap when I feel that tension.

I often, more often than not take, take the coffee route.

And, um, I've just come to appreciate that the balance between those two things is just that it, it's a balance.

And I'm not always gonna take the coffee.

I'm not always gonna take the nap.

And I have to kind of trust my instinct and my intuition and go with the flow a little bit.

Um, and, uh, Yeah.

It's just becoming more and more clear to me how much everything in life is a balance.

Um, and it, it's not a balance.

Like, oh, run a tightrope and we could fall off and it's horrible.

It's a balance of more like a dance, like, can we, can we flow into this motion?

Can we flow out of it?

And, and that's totally, that's totally fine.

That's how life will probably always evolve.

Um, and unravel for me.

Those words unraveling and flow seem to just resonate for me.

Around the flow piece.

This kind of counterpoint tension, like really grasping onto something or trying to make something happen.

But still with the flow, there's still movement, there's still energy.

Mm-hmm.

And what it reminded me of is there's, I can't remember if I saw this or I was watching it.

There's this game where basically each person has this headset on that tracks their brainwaves.

Okay.

And it's supposed to be like, you're supposed to clear your mind or just stop thinking the less you think the brainwaves, less brain waves, these things track.

And what you have is a ball in the center.

Mm-hmm.

And you're in an electronic ball.

And the idea is to push the ball towards your opponent.

Hmm.

But the more you think, the more it pulls you, pulls towards you.

And so you are supposed to try not to think, but you're also trying to win the game.

Is that a real game?

I saw this.

Yeah.

Is a real game based on Yeah.

And it is bizarre because I think it's connected to mindfulness and meditation and relaxing.

Mm-hmm.

And so I think of this, we need to be unattached or less, you know, tense with our thinking in order to progress.

But then the more we think about trying to be relaxed, the more tension it comes in.

And so I think of that in terms of this, you know, the, the work, I assume the way we're trying to do our work, In terms of, there's an an aspect of we want to create impact.

Mm-hmm.

We want to do things that actually help other people in the world, but we also want to do it in a way that doesn't burn us out.

Mm-hmm.

Or compromise our own wellbeing.

And so yeah, it's, it is curious thing.

There's a bit of a tension, like you said, the coffee or the nap and, and, and there's this dance that we always have to play what's right in the moment.

I dunno how you, you know, you talk about the dance, you talk about the balance.

Do you have a practice to help you with that?

How, you know, you talked about this growth journey you've been on with your brother, with building the business.

How has that, or have you evolved any kind of ways of thinking about the work in order to make that less painful?

One better.

One thing that just comes to mind now is there's moments when I am feeling really ambitious and my brother's feeling the contentment, and there's moments my brother's feeling really ambitious and I'm feeling really content.

And that's been very helpful and I feel really grateful to have, to be able, I feel grateful generally to work with my brother and someone I'm so close with, but also someone who we can bounce off energy-wise.

And so I'm very lucky to have, uh, someone I, I work very closely side by side with, and of course our whole team that supports everything we're doing.

But it allows us to individually lean into what we're feeling in the moment and not feel the pressure to do something that doesn't feel right for us at that time.

So I think just giving ourselves a little bit of permission to realize, oh, this is, you know, for lack of a better word, the winter of my energy level.

And, oh no, this is the spring and I'm feeling it.

Let's go full energy.

So I definitely felt it this winter.

I was really, um, physically and mentally I was just kind of, uh, I was sick a lot and I was kind of at my limit, and then I came back into the spring really full of energy.

So, um, I think that feel lucky to be able to follow that natural flow.

Well actually that springs to mind this idea of natural flow versus, oh, let's put it this way, the emergent approach versus following the plans and how that, how you balance that.

Because on one hand it's like, okay, we might have targets to hit, we want to, you know, get to a certain point in the business, and then there's following the, um, the energy as I'm hearing it from you.

Mm-hmm.

Um, do you, do you battle with that or do you have, you know, do you have targets?

Do you have kind of, uh, objectives that you want to set, but at the same time?

Yeah.

And then how does that, um, marry with the need to also pay attention to your energies?

Hmm.

Yeah, that's a great question.

I think, uh, we definitely have targets as a company, as a business.

And I think what you're mentioning now also is, brings up something else for me, is this idea between the difference between what we need as individuals and what our company needs, um, are two separate things.

And that decoupling has been very important, um, for me to realize.

I think having been so deeply involved in Holstee for so long, it's very easy to wrap up my own identity, but also my own Happiness level with the success of the company.

And decoupling that has been very important.

And so we definitely have, um, goals as a business that we strive for to achieve in terms of being able to create a work environment for people on our teams that is, um, rewarding and fun and delightful and revenue numbers in terms of kind of growing our business and, uh, kind of new product launch metrics.

So we, we definitely are, are tracking those sort of things.

But I track them, or at least I try to track them, uh, external from my own personal metrics for what I need, um, for how I define success and what I'm striving for in life and my path towards a meaningful life.

Yeah, that's helpful to know I think for those people, particularly at the beginning of the journey where the business is them and, and how much they can get wrapped up in, in the, how much their self worth is dictated by a very basic level, how much money the business is making, for instance.

And, and particularly at early stage where, where money might not be flowing as easily, how people can then get really disheartened.

Mm-hmm.

Cause that's not, that's not the case.

And not only that, how people around them can say things that make them, oh, should I really continue?

Is this really successful?

Because, you know, oh, you, why didn't you go back to a proper job?

You could like earn the right money.

Yeah.

How, how was that in terms of your own experience at the beginning?

How, how much, how much support?

But also was there any, with any dissenting voices around you, particularly both of you, you and your brother quitting your jobs at the same time?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Um, We definitely got a lot of questions around are you sure you wanna do this?

Are you sure you both wanna quit your jobs at the same time, and are you sure?

Why don't you go get a real job?

Um, we definitely could have gotten jobs that would pay a lot more, even to this day.

Um, it, it arises and yeah, I think there's just something so special about what we've built and we are continuing to feel challenged by our work, continue to feel inspired by the people in our community, continue to find meaning in what we're creating.

And those are things which I know from speaking to other friends in other situations that are really hard to come by.

And, um, of course finances are a reality of life.

Um, but, um, just one component of it.

Yeah.

Feels like the, the intangibles that you, you can't necessarily see are always the things that.

Yeah, it's easy.

It's easy to pick on things that are easy to measure, right?

And so.

Yes, exactly.

You know, there's actually a conversation my wife and I have been having a lot is, you know, what does it look like if we start living our life now, imagining that we already had all the things that we're striving for?

And then it's funny when we kind of follow that conversation, it becomes clear that we actually already have so many of the things that we want.

Uh, you know, I get to spend a lot of time with my son.

Um, and that's really important for me and I get to be present, yeah.

As a father, as a husband, I get to work out in the morning.

That's really important for me.

I get to journal whenever I feel the need to.

Um, I have like a flexible work set up.

You know, there's so many things I feel fortunate and grateful to have, and I'm reminded of those things.

Whenever, um, I see other opportunities or other, you know, they kind of get a real job thing.

I feel really grateful.

Um, for me, energy and time are the most valuable things.

And the fact that I have some control over my time and some control over my energy is a great, uh, feeling for me.

And it's, it's a really, a measure of success for me

I feel there's a, there's a narrative, around I need to make money now so that I'll be safe in the future.

Mm.

So I need to spend as much time as possible making all the money now because in the future something might happen or I might need it in the future.

And then there's this element also what you're talking about here in terms of, one of the things we can never get back is time.

Mm-hmm.

We've only got a finite amount of time on this planet, I'm assuming, unless something, something radical happens in these.

And so if we fill all our time right now creating all the, the, I would say physical security we can think we need for the future, how does that play in your mind in terms of this, like this, the, there's obsession, oh, I need to do stuff now because of what might happen in the future.

Yeah, I guess, uh, couple things emerged for me.

One is I just want to also acknowledge that I've been really fortunate in my life and that being able to take riskier decisions, like decisions I've made to start a company, are a result of me having a, a fortunate upbringing.

Um, my, my parents have always been very supportive.

And I've never felt like I would be out on the street if I made a wrong decision.

And I'm grateful for that, for that experience.

And I'm also grateful for generally my education.

If I ever needed, I always felt like I could go and get another job, both because I've had a lot of jobs in the past and I've, you know, I'm comfortable working, whether it's washing dishes or construction.

I'm open to whatever it takes to meet ends, financially.

So I'm grateful for my past experiences that have opened doors for me.

And with that said, I think if you're able to meet your, whatever your baseline, needs are, It is important to make the most of your time, uh, if that's important for you and for me, it's, it's very important.

And a slight, slight tangent is I, Holstee's mission is to provide tools that encourage a more meaningful life.

And I've been thinking about the word meaning.

Um, actually Carlos, you sparked that for me in our last conversation.

and I was trying to think of the most succinct way to define what meaning means for me in my life.

And I realized that for me to live a meaningful life, it means that I'm ready to die, which sounds really morbid, but it's, for me was the most concise way of being like, oh, what is, what is, what am I searching for?

And it, it's that at any moment that if I were to die, I would feel proud of the life I lived.

And that was a bit shocking for me for like those words to come out and for me to write them in my journal.

But when I wrote it, I was like, that's exactly what it's all about for me.

Um, that I knew that I was there living my values and that I was true to myself and I was there for the people that I was intend, intended to be there for.

And, and yeah, you can't put a price on that.

And that's, for me, what I think this whole path is all about, this whole journey, um, of life.

It's conversations that people are scared to have, isn't it?

And I, I'm not scared of having them.

I love having conversations around death because it's, I think there's a fear of living.

Um, well if, if there's a fear of death, there's a fear of living, I think.

Mm-hmm.

I dunno, it's the whole Tuesdays With Morrie thing, you know, we learn how to die, we learn how to live.

But it also, what you said reminds me of the whole top regrets of the dying.

Mm-hmm.

You know, that, um, when the chips are down, these are the things that matter.

And so yeah, I'm like you, it's that feeling of not, not wanting to have any regrets.

So yeah, if it was a tour to end tomorrow, that you know you've done your bit, you, you've kind of made the most of what you had, but that also not to come with the pressure of I need to fill every day with, you know, link to your whole thing about being ambitious or happy not to feel the need to fill it with more impact, more experiences, more stuff to cram into the life I have.

So,

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Being content whilst also not feeling that pressure.

There's a, someone I've been following on LinkedIn recently called Sam Kiff.

Um, and he talks about, oh, he is done some research or work to around our tolerance to uncertainty.

And so I'm, I'm making that connection because you're talking about death and, and, and, you know, being able to accept and one level, like if anything, if it happens, if it ends tomorrow, you know, I've, I've done, I've lived the way I wanted to live, it sounds like.

And there's, there's, there's nothing I've leaving on the table as such.

You know?

Uh, there were maybe, you know, the, I've, uh, I've lived a life worth living, let's put it that way.

Mm-hmm.

And what that means, I think like Laurence was saying, like, if you're scared of death, you might be scared of life.

But there's this also this aspect of, um, when we're doing things that are new, when we're launching stuff, and, and there's this real fear of the unknown

mm-hmm.

Of what if, what can happen.

Mm-hmm.

And I think without, you know, at a very basic level that's programmed into us, you know, if, if we weren't scared of the unknown, we wouldn't have survived this long as a species.

But at the same time, there is that fear, that lack of tolerance to uncertainty that stops so many people from starting something new or even channeling whatever it is that's within them.

Over time at Holstee, we've continued to refine our systems.

So, you know, we'll get into a flow and we'll refine.

We're refine.

And at some point you have a lot of systems and a lot of, um, dependencies and a lot of intricacies, interdependencies, and then it becomes very difficult to untangle them.

It feels like it's very difficult to take a.

Feels like all of a sudden you're further defining the tracks on the, of where the train of your business is going.

And I've only realized that recently, because Mike and I are talking about like, oh, where does Holstee go?

What do we continue to evolve?

And what does it look like?

And it feels like we're, on certain tracks right now and it's like, oh, well what if we wanted to change those tracks?

Um, what is the uncoupling of a lot of our existing, um, work look like in order for us to get to the next level of where we want to go and the kind of products, services and offerings we want provide and the direction we wanna take the community.

So, I think historically I've been very risk averse because I feel like, there's a risk of damaging what we've already built.

But recently I was reminded there's a much greater risk of not being able to, uh, follow the kind of, I don't know, for lack of a better word, the destiny of our company because we were too afraid, um, of keeping everything just how it was.

And I'm now much more warmed up to the idea of making, uh, a larger step, even if it means risking what we've already built, because I've come to appreciate that that's kind of the fun part, and that's where, that's where the beauty is unlocked.

And I actually was reading a quote today about, you know, like there's a lot of questions in life.

There's a lot of uncertainty in life, and I think it's human nature to try and find answers for everything.

But there's so much beauty in the mystery.

It's like the mystery is such a beautiful part of life.

And, you know, you can explain the science behind a lot of the beautiful things we see in the world, like a sunset or the waves in the ocean, but there's also something about Beau, the beauty of, there's something magical here and that's the unknown.

So trying to appreciate that a bit more.

I think there's something around, particularly in the startup world, but also in most businesses, there's this question of scale.

You know, how are you gonna scale up?

You know, how are you gonna either amplify your impact or amplify your income?

And in my head, you know, being a systems person in a sense, in a previous life developing technology, part of that ability to scale is to have quite strong systems that, that are robust enough.

And so there's a rigidity there.

It's like, okay, we make this thing, make this process, this process works.

We just need to do it faster, quicker, more times per day kind of thing.

But what happens then is like, if you suddenly want to change those systems, you know, change one thing in that system and it suddenly breaks everything.

Or, you know, you can't do the same business anymore.

What I think I'm getting at is this awareness for people who are starting something new, really tapping into, and which I think is where you are in terms of how you and your brother running your business, like what is it that needs to scale, or how much is scale important and how that works and how much is flexibility and growth and change important and uncertainty.

And I'm, yeah.

I'm curious about, for someone who is for, I feel a lot of people say, okay, I'll start this thing.

All right, how am I gonna scale it up?

As opposed to, I'm gonna start this thing and I'm really curious as to where it's gonna go and how it's gonna play out, and how I'm gonna change stuff and, you know, and is that allowed actually, because I, I was very much of that things like, you know, if you're gonna start a business, it's gonna be solid foundations in comments.

So I'd be curious to know Yeah, your what your, what your words to someone who is trying to, who's kind of cro you know, torn between this scale systems rigidity plan and actually things change and maybe you wanna do something different.

I think it really depends on what stage you're at, um, with your idea, um, with your business.

I think in the early stages, curiosity is the window to opportunity.

So you wanna be listening to what's out there, both your customers, but what you're feeling, your intuition.

I feel like that's the moment to explore why.

And, and once you feel like you found something that resonates with others, most importantly with you, then you can start going deep and start thinking about scale.

And you know, of course they talk a lot about product market fit, which is a range, of course.

And once you've, I think it's not really relevant to start thinking about scale until you find something that really sticks with people.

I liked what you said now, but it's going completely outta my head.

Something around curiosity is where opportunity lies, something like that.

And that was, uh, I think it's a lovely thing for people to remember at the beginning because I think the, there's a lot of fear of choosing the wrong thing as opposed to being open and curious to all the things.

And so I think coming back again to where we put a pin into this journey that you were describing with Holstee, how has that curiosity of, you know, played a part in your business journey?

And you talked about, you know, stuff that you can sell, you know, product market fit, but also how your and your brother's growth and interests have influenced where the business has gone.

Yeah, absolutely.

And thanks for bringing us full circle.

So when I, I left off earlier speaking about, we started doing more paper-based products, and that was kind of the, the evolution of Holstee at that time, an example of our curiosity guiding our next step was at that time we, you know, the paper-based business, we called it, you know, inspiration.

So it was like, okay, this is a lot of stuff to inspire people to make the change, to take the pause, to reflect back and our own curiosity.

Let us down.

Okay, what's the next step?

What are some of the.

Tools, um, what are some of the resources out there?

And, uh, that was the next evolution of Holstee.

We, we launched the membership, which started as an art membership, but then grew into more of a content membership.

So we were doing a lot more ourselves reading around positive psychology, around philosophy, around the science of living well.

We had identified through the manifesto and also through our research, 12 different themes, and those became core themes at Holstee.

So intention, kinship, wellness, compassion, simplicity, adventure, creativity, resilience, gratitude, uh, reflection, maybe I missed a couple in there.

Um, but those themes being core to what it looks like to me live a meaningful life.

And then we went deeper within each one of those individual themes and would identify specific resources that were really thought-provoking along the lines of what it means to live a meaningful life.

And, um, we would gather those together and then share them with members of our community through a printed guide, through a digital guide, and, uh, yeah, that, that would compliment the art we work with.

We continue to work with artists every month to interpret that month's theme, to create something visual, something you can place on your wall, on your desk that brings you back to that month's theme and something to kind of chew on for the month.

And so that's where our curiosity took us for that next chapter.

And another example of kind of following curiosity is we had developed a, a reflection guide.

Um, you know, we realized reflection is such an important part of living with intention.

It's hard to really know what your intention is without having taken the time to reflect back.

And, um, those reflection guides came the precursor to us developing an app.

Um, just realizing that, you know, having a place where you can continue to reflect, look back on your previous entries, allows you to create a more complete picture, get a better perspective, um, which then guides your intentions.

So everything's been in that sense, a very natural step for us.

And, um, we're continuing to unlock and find ways within the tools that we're, we're using ourselves, um, as we navigate what a meaningful life looks like.

If you were gonna explain, you know, your business model at a very basic level for people to say, okay, so how do they actually make money?

Mm-hmm.

How would you explain that to people?

Just to give them a feeling like, ah, okay, that's how Holstee works.

Yep.

So, uh, primarily an e-commerce company.

So we've got a shop online, people can buy stuff.

We also have a membership.

Um, so there's a membership component, a subscription based business as well.

And we also sell on some wholesale channels.

So we're in stores, um, you know, other on Amazon, uh, stuff like

A lot of the time when we were a startup studio, and also with some people who joined our community, they, they want us, I'm gonna build an app, you know?

Mm-hmm.

And they start thinking about, oh, I wonder, what does it look like?

How does it work.

With the reflection app, I'm curious about how that journey iterated, cuz you didn't start with the thing, uh, the, the, the actual app itself.

You started with guides, is that right?

Or how was what, was there like an iterative journey around that?

Um, So we had spoken to many people in our community about what we could offer as part of the membership.

A lot of people had said a Holstee app.

We started just exploring, this is years ago, what does a Holstee app look like?

And talking to more and more people.

And it brought us full circle to a journaling app.

Funny not because journaling felt like the foundation for where the contents of those guides, or the contents of your writing, contents of your reflection would always live.

And in order to do a powerful reflection, you have to have the pieces.

So at the end of the year, for example, we have an annual reflection that we provide at Holstee, and it guides you through your last year.

You can look through what were the highlights, what were the low lights, you can work through low lights.

And it just became clear the building blocks of a powerful reflection are those daily entries.

So we thought, okay, in order to build a powerful tool for reflecting, we have to also provide the tool for the building blocks.

And so that was sort of the evolution of how we got to building IT app.

And you know, like you said, it took many iterations to get to where we are and we're continuing to iterate what it looks like.

Did you have a kind of a printed written version or was it straightaway kind of some digital version?

We did have a print version of our annual reflection guide.

Yeah, I think this is trust trying for us as well to, to share with our community members and people who started the journeys.

Like, how can you start as quickly as possible, as simply as possible, start getting stuff in front of people and, and like you said, so that you are talking to your community members to engage in conversations, to, to make sure that you are, you're doing something that actually makes sense and, and matters.

And In terms of where you are at now with, with Holstee, how would you define success now these days?

So for, to answer your first question, I guess the longer term for Holstee, I really view community as the next big step.

You know, we recently launched a physical digital community space for our members, and we've been doing more gatherings every month.

And for me that's been really profound.

I just, I love the energy of other people and not having those windows into other people in our community previously, um, I didn't feel like the sort of feedback response that we have now.

And I just love the opportunity to see who's on the other side and have a conversation and more importantly, learn from them.

Um, we have so many people in our community who are so wise and so experienced and have a wealth of knowledge to share.

And so I think opening up those doors is, for me, it's become more and more clear that's the direction, um, I'd love for Holstee to continue to grow.

And in terms of success, for me personally, I'm into it a little bit earlier, but with the appreciation that time is so finite and energy can be elusive, the kind of combination of having an a, a sense of abundant time and abundant energy is how I define success.

So, uh, initially I thought it was just about time, but I realized that having more time doesn't always mean you have more energy.

And, uh, energy think is also, a product of our holistic wellness, for lack of a better word.

So, you know, what I'm putting into my body, how I'm using my body, how I beat my mind, how I journal.

You know, the, the tools that I've found in my own life.

And I think it's different for everybody.

The tools I found in my own life to keep me balanced and keep me sharp, to kind of always be able to exercise those.

Um, so, and then having the time to, uh, spend it on what I want when I do have energy.

So.

I think it's just a, uh, in some ways not too dissimilar to our journey in terms of having a vision and then working it out along the way, which is really lovely.

And uh, and also me and Carlos aren't brothers, but we've been friends for 40 years, so there's the shared journey of growing together, which I really love.

Yeah.

People usually mistake us for brothers.

Yeah.

I'm like a foot taller.

Uh, you only find that out when you meet us in person.

but yeah, that growth journey that you've been on together is, is very rare I think actually.

And that's, that's the nice part of this, I think, is that you haven't gone in different directions.

You left your job together at the same time.

You start this business together, you've grown this whole thing together.

And that I think is probably where the communities, um, come from.

Is that that foundation that you guys have built bedrock of, of, uh, connection that, um, I think people are looking for, right?

And that's, that's something like you said, becoming more and more important.

So, um, yeah, look forward to seeing where that goes cuz it sounds exciting.

And following that curiosity.

That's the other final point I've taken from it is just keep following that thread rather than trying to work it all out.

Just follow what's interesting you, exciting you.

I think there's a, it feels like the kind of similar kind of DNA to both our companies and, and also the

Yeah.

I feel that as well

approaches, which is, and, and it is lovely to hopefully find more, to just provide more examples of how to do business, rather than some of the, not only the traditional ways, but also the newer startup ways that still seem to be based on some traditional values.

So this is, it is been lovely to have a conversation with you, Dave, and finally connect given so many years we've been watching from the sidelines.

Yeah.

And, and yeah, really appreciating your work.

Maybe one final, final thing, just based on what Frances has just posted, I'd be curious to know, have you had any feedback from people who maybe were the naysayers a decade or so ago by jump ship to, to, to start this thing.

Or maybe it's, maybe it's family?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I guess if Frances wrote here, you know, that our, our parents probably get a lot of joy from seeing Mike and I work together, um, which is in a suit observation, I think, I think now due, I think it was fear originally.

Um, but I think now it, it has definitely, uh, evolved into joy and, um, a lot of people ask, like, you know, how do you possibly work with your brother all these years?

At the time we were, when we started, we were actually living together, and, uh, I feel just really lucky that we have a really solid relationship and connection.

So we're, we're very fortunate in that sense that, um, we know each other's strengths, we know each other's weaknesses, we know each other's buttons, probably most important, uh, in a business relationship.

Um, and, uh, we've really been able to benefit, yeah, from each other.

It's from each other's experiences, but also in how we work and, and, uh, the level of trust we have for each other I think is really important, which also makes it very, uh, nice relationship.

Before we close that, um, is there anything that's happening in the Holstee world that's coming up that you'd like to share with our listeners or people listening lives that um, yeah, we can point them to?

Oh, thanks for asking.

Um, we are making some big updates to reflection.app coming out in June.

I'm really excited for that.

It's like a pretty big, uh, UI and UX um, redesign and it's been many months in the, in the works.

And on the Holstee side, we're continuing to, uh, evolve our community, our membership, and we're gonna be launching a handful of new events in the coming months, uh, digital events.

So I'm looking forward to that as well.

Okay.

So, um, yeah, for those of you who are interested and don't know or haven't come across the, the Holstee website, please check them out, Holstee.com.

Some beautiful products, uh, and yeah, and, and I've been a part of the community for a while as well.

Unfortunately, I have not made some of the recent events, but looking forward to, to joining you soon again.

Thank you.

So, um, thank you very much Dave.

Really appreciate.

Yeah, thank you both time.

Yeah, it was a lot of fun.