Pets, Passion and Podcasting - BSM Partners' Origin Story

Transcript:

Announcer: Welcome to the Pet Industry podcast, connecting you with the people behind the passion, the leading experts in the pet industry. Here are your hosts, Steve Cauthron and Dr. Megan Sprinkle.

Steve Cauthren: So here we are, uh, ground zero, day one, episode one, uh, kicking off this podcast, and what a great way to start it. Interviewing Nate Thomas and Seth Kaufman, the founders, co-founders of BSM Partners and our employers out of, you know, a lot of great things we could say about them. I'll let them do most of their own talking, but it's a great place to be and I'm, I'm excited for what the podcast is gonna do.

Dr. Megan Sprinkle: Yes, I am so excited to be part of the podcast as well. So thank you Steve and and Whitney also, and behind the scenes. You've been working on this podcast for a while and I'm so excited that we're finally launching it. And in this inaugural episode, you will get to hear why we are even doing a podcast and also some of the origin story behind BSM Partners. So I am so excited to share this with everyone.

Steve Cauthren: Yeah, that's probably a good question that people are gonna have is, you know, why, why is a group of pet industry consultants jumping into the podcast game? But these are waters that are fun to swim in. So, definitely check this out and, and stick with us as we continue on.

Dr. Megan Sprinkle: Yeah, cuz we have lots of cool guests coming up as well. So here's our first episode.

Nate Thomas: BSM partners for me and Seth was, I would say it was more of a existential journey for us.

Nate Thomas: You know, we're both executives operating in business for a long time. And to be honest with you, I, I don't feel like there was nothing that really drove us into, consulting, but it was something that we could do.

Nate Thomas: Right. And I think I, for me personally Seth will tell you what he wants to, and you can chime in

Seth Kaufman: Well, thanks very, It's very, very generous of you,

Nate Thomas: Seth will have a different version. But for me it was really, I really got tired of doing amazing things for people that didn't deserve it, frankly. And I think, I kind of feel like that was really for me the, the launch pad for, for wanting to do something separate. And when we started the company, we didn't intend to have 40 people. It was just gonna be Nate and Seth.

st,: 2011

Nate Thomas: we see a need. We make sure there's a market and then we fill the, we fill the need and fill that market void that we have. And, and, you know, for us, I think that's really been kind of the most important aspect of us.

Nate Thomas: So we started consulting. Our very first client is also the very first client we fired. And that's actually kind of a fun story for later. Um, you know, we can talk a little bit about, a lot of it really had to do with getting rid of that client. I would say had more to do with the fact that Seth and I really want to work with people that we like and we want to spend time with. And if we don't like you and don't wanna spend time with you, you know, we're not interested.

Nate Thomas: I think that we've gravitated towards more of a, despite the fact that we work our asses off and we we're totally underpaid and we're busy as hell all the time, We don't feel like it's work because we're spending time with people that we love. You know, if, if, if we are, working with you, it's because we know that we can love you.

Nate Thomas: And that's, for me is the most important thing. It's, it's not only true for our team, but it's also true for our clients. If I don't feel like I can love you, I don't want to work for you. And I don't want you to work with us. Because I don't wanna spend my days working for people who don't deserve it. I would say that for me that's what motivated in the background as we continue to grow and change and evolve as a company, it was really more, bringing the love back into our lives, and doing things that, that we enjoy doing for people that we like working with It.

Nate Thomas: To me, it, it feels like we're gift giving and people are paying us for it really, honestly, And I love it.

Nate Thomas: Yeah. BSM Partners originally wasn't called BSM Partners. It was called Kaufman and Thomas Consulting. All right. And we went through a couple of versions of that. But the evolution of BSM Partners really kind of happened with our first employee that we hired. And that was David. And I had worked with, we both worked with David before at Simmons. David was a very talented formulator, but for me, David's gonna do it at the high, at the high level that, that we need it done. And and if we want David to do it in a different way, David will do it in a different way. And so David really helped us form BSM partners as it was.

Nate Thomas: And I can tell you the very beginning of David's years, I honestly, David is the same. Because it was not easy getting to where we are. It was very difficult. And in the very beginning, even though we made money, we didn't make very much money.

Nate Thomas: And there were times when, we weren't sure if we wanted to continue doing it because we hadn't figured out how to make it scalable yet.

Nate Thomas: In fact, we hadn't figured out how to make it scale scalable. When we hired David, we were still trying to figure that out. And there's a whole scalable story here that we could probably go into and maybe we'll save that for another date.

Nate Thomas: David was our, our first hire. And one of the things that really made us successful was the fact that David was out there marching in step the whole time, always. And David held us accountable. Probably not as much. We didn't accept the, the accountability probably as much in the beginning as we should have but David did that.

Nate Thomas: And so BSM Partners was really, it was of us trying to make this company not have, not bear our names. Because we figured that, if we got hit by a bus or got lung cancer or something like that then we couldn't be name our name company and make it successful for other people. We had to call it something else so that it didn't, it wasn't Nate, the Nate and Seth show anymore.

Nate Thomas: And I can tell you one of David's biggest frustrations early on, and he probably talked to David about it and get a couple of, couple of sound bites from David. But, one of his biggest frustrations early on was the fact that clients didn't wanna work with him. They only wanted to work with Nate.

Nate Thomas: Well, I, I wanna work with Nate. I don't wanna work with David. Yeah. But David's actually better than Nate. You know,

Seth Kaufman: He's he's certainly more reliable.

Nate Thomas: Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things that I think Seth and I can both tell you is we are absolutely the worst consultants in our firm because we're too busy, we just don't have the time to commit to our clients that they actually deserve. So we're, we're really working in the background, trying to make things work and trying to satisfy and keep our clients moving forward by hiring people, running our business and occasionally going out and doing things. One of the things that, that I'm personally, believe in is that you can't be a consultant if you're not doing the work.

Nate Thomas: You have to do the work because otherwise you're irrelevant. There are so many consultants out there they left the industry 20 or 30 years ago. They really don't know how to do anything. They're not in touch with what they do, and it kind of shows in the quality of their work.

Nate Thomas: we can talk about the naming of the company, a little bit later on in the, in the discussion, but the naming of the company was important and it was, I I feel like it's part of who we are.

Seth Kaufman: Yeah, I would say it's a little similar but different.

Seth Kaufman: Warren Buffet talks about you need to think about good ideas having like a punch card that you only have so many punches on the card and you need to be careful when you punch that card that you use them properly. And when you work for somebody else, you, when you accept that salary, you effectively say, I'm giving you the punch card.

Seth Kaufman: So as Nate said we got tired of giving other people our good ideas. The other aspect of that is we've always looked at the world and we collect solutions and search of problems. When you're a consultant, your clients come to you. They have a problem.

Seth Kaufman: If you're looking at the market, you understand how things work, you can collect solutions so that when a problem comes up, you can find ways to deploy it and solve problems quickly for your clients. And that's ultimately our responsibility. So we've always looked at the world that way. And that in turn, when you think about the punch card concept, you wanna be careful that you give your good ideas to clients or people that can make them successful.

Seth Kaufman: One of the most important things that we do, and part of it is because we love our team, is to make sure that we only pick clients that we work with, that we think can be successful. Because the success or failure of our clients ultimately reflects back on us. Even though as consultants we have limited capability to influence outcomes. Especially when we have really good ideas we're always looking for clients that we think can take those ideas and bring them into the market and be successful.

Seth Kaufman: Because ultimately one of the greatest things is to go into a store and find the products that you worked on and see where you changed the category. See where you brought something. You know the old GE tagline, Bring good things That is amazing. That is, that's what makes it all worth it, right?

Seth Kaufman: Great People doing really cool things and changing the nature of the industry. The things that we do with our clients today are things that people will see in Walmart or Target five and 10 years from now. But there are things that we're working on today.

Seth Kaufman: We talk about the fact that we're inventing the future of pet care every.

Seth Kaufman: Not everything we do is gonna change the market. But some of the things we do with some of our clients absolutely will. And it will change and improve the lives of pets throughout the US and the world. And I think that's what's really exciting is, and brings good people and brings good clients to us, is those types of things that we work on and bring

Nate Thomas: Tell, tell 'em about your, uh, your existential journey in me convincing you to come and join me and, and, walk away from the industry.

Nate Thomas: I think that's actually, I'd love to hear your journey about that.

Seth Kaufman: I think that, that, we like to talk about Nate's prime computations and, and Nate was definitely faster on the uptake than I was.

Seth Kaufman: But we went through a transition where the company we were working for, we acquired another company that was twice our size and we thought, or I thought that we were ultimately going to wind up running the combined entity and be responsible and being able to change the culture and really bring those good things to life.

Seth Kaufman: And Nate had had the experience of living through when Nestle acquired Purina and saw how things shook out, wherein really it was the Purina team that wound up running the combined entity, even though Nestle was this gigantic consumer product goods company that had, global operations was a gigantic organization,

Nate Thomas: company in the world

Seth Kaufman: still is. Right? And the Purina team wound up running the combined company and the culture of Nestle Purina, at least in those days, reflected Purina. The headquarters is still on one checkerboard square that is still the headquarters that checkerboard comes from Purina from decades ago. And that's how that shook out.

Seth Kaufman: And so when we were going through a similar situation, and I was, I'm a believer, guys, I want to believe we've gotta have a cause. And BSM is our cause, right? Our team is our cause. Our clients are our cause. The industry and the health of pets is our cause.

Seth Kaufman: So I believe what was going to happen, and Nate's prime computation was, No, no, no. This is not gonna work out the way you think it's going to work out. And I said, No, no, no. This does not mean what you think it means . And he said, Just watch.

Seth Kaufman: Right,

Seth Kaufman: And he was right. There's several things I've learned over time. One is you should never bet against a Sicilian when death is on the line

Seth Kaufman: and you should, and should, never bet against Nate's prime computations,

Steve Cauthren: or

Nate Thomas: These are, these are truisms that one should live by. Right? Also,

Nate Thomas: don't

Nate Thomas: say it again. Say it again.

Seth Kaufman: Don't fight a land war in Asia, I think is an important part of this. I think we've all seen how that works out and uh, so we'll have to see if there's any trademark infringement based on the Princess bride.

Steve Cauthren: Bride

Nate Thomas: That'd be

Seth Kaufman: So all that being said, it, it was clear that, we were, we had done a lot of great things. We've made a lot of tremendous change. But it, it wasn't gonna work out. And it was that journey of making the change to believing and wanting to bet on us and bet on our team, which is ultimately what the company's about, is a bet on our team to change the industry.

Seth Kaufman: That's what we do. So that's the existential journey of coming to believe what we can do.

Seth Kaufman: And also recognizing that when you have those good ideas, you need to hold tight to 'em and pick who your partners with, pick who you do business with. And that's really what it comes back to. That's what we do.

Seth Kaufman: It's why we're so selective with the people we hire. It's why we're so selective with the clients we work with. We reject a large amount of people that want to work with us for a number of different reasons. Not at least of which is we're not sure they can be successful. And that's a continuing area that we focus on because we want to change the, change the industry. We want to change the health of pets. And the way you do that is picking who you work with.

Nate Thomas: Yeah. I kind of feel like if you're way back in the cheap seats and you're not close enough to us, you might have heard of us or know about us or have an opinion about us, but the one thing that you don't know is how much we actually do care. It's why we hire the people that we do.

Nate Thomas: Seth and I are most famous for every single person in our company is actually smarter than we are. Right? And and, and we need people smarter than us. You can't change the world just by yourself. But I think Seth and I, in a way we're, you know, I'm, and I'm way more of a dreamer I think than than Seth is. Seth is, But but I'm not the

Steve Cauthren: the only. one.

Nate Thomas: Exactly. Seth is more nuts and bolts. You know, I think we really compliment each other, but it, for me, it's more about, how do we move the future? We're not playing the game. We're changing the game. And that's how we, that's how we influence the rules. That's our mission as a company. That's why we've grown to be the biggest consulting firm in our space, and that's why we have more talented people in our firm than most of the big companies actually have in their company.

Nate Thomas: It's that we are doing something we kind of feel like we're doing the Lord's work in a way. We are trying to drive us back into a place where the, the playing field is more level. Where people, where small companies actually have access to super high level people and we can get things done. And in the background, we're working on things in the future that nobody can really even expect.

Nate Thomas: So if you're, if you if you enjoy this podcast series, if you like it and you think you're gonna figure out how to compete with us, think again. Cuz you won't know. Because what we're working on, it's not what we're talking about right now. This is more of an illusion for you.

Dr. Megan Sprinkle: Well, speaking of podcasts, why do a podcast?

Nate Thomas: I think Seth and I, again Seth will have his own, commentary on that. But, you know, I, I kind of feel like we have access to really cool, interesting people.

Nate Thomas: Not only our team, but our clients and just people we know, And, and I kind of feel like, what we really want to do is share some of our collective experiences with, with the audience.

Nate Thomas: We want to bring people that they may not have access to, into, into their home, into their ears, into their thought, because it's not, we're not magical people. We're Seth and I aren't really that smart. We're well, Seth's very smart. I'm, I'm not that smart, but, we are, we just have enough personality and enough confidence in ourselves that we can bring people in that I think people are gonna like. And I think for me, that's really what having a podcast is all about is it's about, first of all, we have to advertise ourselves.

Nate Thomas: we spent the very first, I don't know, 10 years of, of our company not even having a website.

Nate Thomas: We grew, Here's the thing, most people don't know this. We grew our business on our reputation and our good work. you didn't, you would have to, to know about us to even work with us because we didn't, we didn't do any social media, we didn't do any advertising. We didn't do spreads in pet Food Industry magazine. We didn't do any of that stuff.

Nate Thomas: It was just purely based on the work that we did. And I feel like that, in and of itself is, is a good enough reason to have a podcast because our reputations alone built our company. It wasn't us. It's that we minded and protected our reputations. We avoided things that could compromise our reputation.

Nate Thomas: And so for us, I think that's the reason to have a podcast. Because we can talk to people that you want to hear.

Nate Thomas: We can have conversations that, that you might want to be part of. And it doesn't necessarily have to be about work. It can just be about whatever the, uh, the person we're interviewing wants to talk about. Because the, that's kind of what we have.

Nate Thomas: And I, I don't know. You want to cut this one? That might sound a little narcissistic, but you know, I think the reality is that, we just love our team. We love our clients, We want to spend more time with them, and we also have access to people that most people don't.

Seth Kaufman: I would say that the first reason, of course, that to do a podcast is it's a passion of our team. And when the team came to us and felt like that, This was a good idea. I think it, it's that decision, of course, is, is reflective of who we are, right? So when our team came to us and suggested we do a podcast, we said yes.

Seth Kaufman: I'd say the second reason is there's something really special about the pet care industry. And when you listen to podcasts as, as I do and as many people do, there are many podcasts out there about business or there are podcasts about pets, but there aren't podcasts that kind of capture or the passion that people bring, right?

Seth Kaufman: The special relationship that people have with their pets. And that's missing. There's nothing in the space of podcasting that really captures what the passion of the pet care business is really all about. And that's the opportunity that I see is in addition to bringing that to light, connecting really interesting, really cool people in the industry with a broader audience.

Seth Kaufman: And so to me, that's the best reason to have a podcast is because there's nothing else out there that really threads the needle that says, here's the passion about why people are in this business. It is a business. People are in it to make money. But there's a passion that's different about the pet care industry that is missing in a lot of other industries.

Seth Kaufman: This isn't about a business about widgets, right? It, it's just not. There are a lot of cool industries out there. But people don't have the same level of passion for those industries that they do about their pets. And that's what this podcast to me is really all

Nate Thomas: You know what? I wish that Seth should answer all the questions first to kind of set the stage so I actually answer questions questions better.

Steve Cauthren: get teed up.

Nate Thomas: No, but I think that that the, the two different positions are really, it's, it's what makes this a more holistic experience. And Seth said something that I think is really important.

Nate Thomas: Our team wanted to do it. We're gonna support our team. This the one thing that has always been true about BSM partners from the very beginning is this has to be the company that we wanna work for. We make decisions based on our team, based on what's going on in your life. So we have a, we have, I would say probably one of the best parental leave policies that you can actually get in the US.

Nate Thomas: And it's because we had a team member that got pregnant and was gonna have her first child.

Nate Thomas: And we're like, We gotta have a policy. And it can't just be a policy, it's gotta be so. That elevates our team, that that helps make the connection between the parent and the child.

Nate Thomas: And this policy is not just for having a baby. If you adopt a baby, it's the same thing. You, you, it's, and it's a parental leave policy, not maternity.

Nate Thomas: So you don't have to have actually gone through it. We think the connection with humanity with people is the most important aspect of what we do. And we try to reflect that back out to the industry, to our team, to ourselves. We constantly reinforce. Every time we make decisions about the company, we always ask ourselves, Is this the company we want to work for? Because we don't really want to work. We just wanna hang out with people we like.

Nate Thomas: Yeah,

Dr. Megan Sprinkle: I think you, yeah, I think you make such a good point too on the, the uniqueness of this industry being the pet industry. And a lot of people talk about it on that business side. But don't realize that there are human beings in that industry who, like you said, are so passionate. I mean, I, as I was interviewing editors, I had them reach out to me because they were intrigued by it being about pets and it, there is just something very special about this industry.

Dr. Megan Sprinkle: Yeah.

Seth Kaufman: The, the bond with a pet is magical, right? The experience that you create is different than almost any other relationship you're gonna have. And the unquestioning loyalty of, of a dog, the love of a cat is truly amazing, Right.

Seth Kaufman: And so when Nate talks about it being the Lord's work, there is like a higher power involved. There's a higher calling, which is really tapping into that. And when you, again, when you don't see that, that spirit being captured, we need to bring that out. We need to help people find a voice for that passion, which is why people are in the industry in the first place.

Seth Kaufman: There are lots of other places to make a lot more money and to do really well. But it's a, it's the best combination of bringing passion and an opportunity to provide for your families that I think you could ever find.

Steve Cauthren: Yeah, I think, before I came here I had no idea pet anything was this big. I mean, the, what I knew about pets is I went to Pet Smart and bought my dog food, whatever,

Steve Cauthren: And the fact that it's so big and there's so much to it is just amazing to me. And this grabbing all this and putting it into a company and then putting it into a show to talk about it is just, I, that's, I think it's pretty awesome. I had no idea that you could be so passionate about doing something like this for other people's pets.

Nate Thomas: you know, what the, I think that people just don't realize that, that there are other people out there like him. Yeah. Steve when you first interviewed with us, we took you out to dinner, you told us about raising wolves. And I was like, Oh my God. Is that a, is that an actual thing you can actually get a wolf and, right? I mean

Seth Kaufman: I think it's always an important question, just, just cuz you could should you

Seth Kaufman: Yeah,

Nate Thomas: I mean, a lot of people think I was raised by wolves.

Seth Kaufman: There are a lot of things you could do that maybe you question whether you should do, but we'll leave that for another discussion.

Dr. Megan Sprinkle: I was gonna say that sounds like another podcast episode

Steve Cauthren: Absolutely.

Steve Cauthren: Absolutely. Yeah. Or raising them back, , carrying on the theme.

Nate Thomas: Yeah. I, I I feel like, we're in the best industry. I never, you know, I was never really a dog person until we had pet dogs.

Nate Thomas: And and more recently for me it was really wiener dogs really captured my imagination of dogs. But I've gotta tell you, I absolutely love dogs. Every time I see 'em, I see the joy in their face. See the sadness.

Nate Thomas: We walked past a dog that was doing tricks or something and that dog was so happy. I was like, Man, a dog's life is pretty amazing, particularly if you're tied to people in this industry because these people absolutely love dogs. You can't not love dogs and cats. To be part of this industry, you just can't.

Dr. Megan Sprinkle: well, and I think we're seeing that human animal bond even more so these days. Not only do we have pets that are in our homes and sleeping in the beds with us. But especially with the pandemic. Even I was talking to someone and there was concern about separation anxiety in our pets as we all go back to work in air quotes.

Dr. Megan Sprinkle: And, but every time I talk to somebody, it's also vice versa. The pet owners are having separation anxiety cuz they're so used to being with their, their pets that bring them so much joy. So absolutely there's, there's passion in this industry.

Nate Thomas: You know, it's kind of interesting and I'm, I'm curious about you as a veterinarian.

Nate Thomas: What made you to take the industry track rather than the clinical track?

Dr. Megan Sprinkle: Yeah,

Nate Thomas: what, what, drove that?

Dr. Megan Sprinkle: You You And I went into industry pretty quickly out, out of my residency in nutrition. And I really looked at my options. And I felt that I could actually make a bigger impact by going into industry than I could in clinics because of the, the resources and the connections that I could make in by going into the industry route.

Dr. Megan Sprinkle: So that, that was it. I felt like I could impact more pets and their pet owners because I love people too. I love seeing that, the joy that the pets bring to people. And so that's why I went into industry.

Nate Thomas: What made you decide to come and join us at BSM partners?

Dr. Megan Sprinkle: A lot of what you've been talking about is the recognition of the purpose behind this industry and, uh, passion and connecting with people who really do want to make a good difference in the industry. And I felt like I, again, could have a bigger impact working with people who weren't afraid to actually do something different instead of taking a really long time to maybe talk about it at a meeting. This group is, they're very entre. Entrepreneurial. You do have amazingly brilliant people who work for you.

Dr. Megan Sprinkle: So I'm a learner. I saw the opportunity to grow myself to also be able to contribute to that bigger impact that I know that BSM is going to make is making.

Seth Kaufman: I think for me it's a, it's a logical conclusion of what you saw, because if you think you can have, and you can have more impact on the betterment of pet's lives in industry, Well, the way you can put that on steroids is to work for a company like BSM. Because we work with hundreds of clients to develop thousands of products every year, and we're totally science based because as new knowledge comes.

Seth Kaufman: The amazing thing that we have the ability to do is bring that knowledge to our clients and improve the lives of pets. So our team is so research driven. We are, we're. constantly monitoring new research done by others as well as charting new paths on our own. And our ability to bring that knowledge to a broad swath of the industry it's unparalleled.

Seth Kaufman: Because when we learn something new, we have a, A, we have a responsibility. It's not just an ability. We have a responsibility to bring that out, to share it with as many people, as many companies, and it, and influence the development of products. Whether it's nutrition, whether it's microbio, I mean, pick, there's so many different attributes to health, right?

Seth Kaufman: We have the ability and the responsibility to our clients and to the industry and to our pets in our homes, to, to do that. That's what we do.

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