Kat Cole: President & COO of Athletic Greens

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be I want to be you just want to make sure you will get knocked down but just make sure you don’t get knocked down knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control control control. Hi, everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go Let’s go. Hi, everyone. It’s Kara Goldin from the Kara Goldin show and I am so thrilled to have my next guest here we have Kat Cole, who is the president and chief operating officer of an amazing brand that if you don’t know it, you’ve been hiding under a rock. It’s called athletic greens and I for 1am Such a big fan, cat I’ve I’ve seen in action over the years and heard her speak and, and really admired her for everything that she’s done. Coming from humble roots. She has risen to prominence in the corporate world exemplifying tenacity and visionary leadership for sure. And prior to joining Athletic Greens cat spent about 10 years I believe leading the focus brand portfolio of companies including incredible brands like Cinnabon, and Auntie Anne’s. And Jamba to say the least with I believe over 5 billion total in annual sales, something like that. And prior to that, she has an a crazy story. Crazy, great story with Hooters. And hopefully we’ll get a chance to hear a little bit more about that. But the key thing that I really want to delve into is she’s seen a lot. She’s got an incredible brand that is just a rocket ship. And I’m so excited to have her talk about her vision, and really what the future of health and wellness in her mind is. So let’s get started. Welcome, cat.

Kat Cole 2:16
Thank you. Thanks for having me. It’s so good to see you. It’s

Kara Goldin 2:19
so good to see you too. Very, very excited to have you on. So first of all, how would you describe athletic greens and its mission.

Kat Cole 2:27
So the way I think about the company’s mission is we are on a mission to empower people on their health ownership journey. So what we say is we’re a health ownership company, we help people on their health, no matter where they are on their journey, the way we do that is developing the highest quality, most trusted, most recommended foundational nutrition product that is the most comprehensive and the most convenient. So there’s nothing better you can do for your health in 60 seconds, nothing. There is nothing that provides a higher return on 60 seconds than drinking ag one and taking the opening that travel pack like what I have here or taking the scoop out of the pouch. If you have the bulk pouch at home, put it in water, shake it, drink it first thing in the morning, and it’s your morning, it’s the one scoop one step one, you know one drink one minute. And for us, there’s a lot of ways you can improve your health. You can exercise you work on your sleep community gets sun in your eyes. But we are this simple foundational layer on top of eating the best you can. And then some customers choose to customize from there and stack on things you need. But instead of separate pills, separate powders a multivitamin, a probiotic, digestive enzyme, a greens powder, we are all of those in one full stack multivitamin phytonutrients digestive enzymes, enzymes trust, stress reducing adaptogens Pro and prebiotics. So it’s a gut health product. And it supports nutrients that most of us are lacking because of either lack of nutrient density in the food supply, busy hectic schedules, or just demanding lifestyles that demand for nutrients at a time when it’s harder and harder to get enough nutrient dense foods. If you’re like me, a mom of a four and a six year old who started a little bit later in life, I need things to be as easy fast and high quality as they can be. You know, while I’m navigating life so so that’s what we’re about empowering health ownership doing it through nutrition in particular convenient foundational nutrition and making what’s hard, which is quality formulation, synergy how much of this vitamin, how much of that mineral doing that all and making it taste good enough so people can turn it into a healthy habit first thing in the morning.

Kara Goldin 4:49
One of the things that I think is fascinating about your brand is that somebody was asking me the other day, what the demographics are and I Vick, the demographics are, you know, people want to stay healthy? Right? And and frankly, not too different from the brands that I started hint where you, you know, you’ve definitely got the female audience, you’ve got the male audience, I had heard about it, as I mentioned to you earlier from my college son, who is such a huge fan as well. So when I think about, like, how do you how do you target that, though? When you’re when you’re right, it’s like you’re not going through every one? totally right. It’s hard. It’s really, really tough. And maybe it’s slightly easier because you’re doing direct to consumer, but actually, I don’t think so. So how would you respond to that? It’s,

Kat Cole 5:48
you know, back to that phrase, if, if you’re trying to talk to everyone, you’re really speaking to no one. And so the nice thing about being an exclusively D to C, not even just D to C and E commerce only at drink, ag one.com. Like I tell people, there’s sort of a weird gray market, black market for ag one out there, if you see it sold anywhere else, Amazon, a third party marketplace, I cannot attest for the shelf life, the quality, I don’t know where it came from, the real deal is only sold on drink ag one.com, we have complete control. And we may expand areas where we promote and sell and partner later down the road. But up to now, that is the case. And so for digital marketing, and because we are exclusively selling out of our own site, we can give people different experiences, we can speak to maybe a 60 plus demographic in a more specific way and target them on various channels, whether that’s streaming or television or social media channels, and then show up at a D one lacrosse game activation and talk to performance oriented, maybe older college students. So digital marketing, and activations give us the opportunity to target but still we’ve been around long enough that you do have to speak to brand. And what is this company? What is this brand? What does it stand for? And usually you’re doing that from a fairly large megaphone where it’s reaching multiple different demographics needs states. And so the way I think about that piece is just focusing on our truth. So to your point, the target customers, people who prioritize being on a health journey. So some people may think because we’re a premium brand, whether that’s premium price point, premium packaging, premium, actual quality, the cost of, of making this product is quite high. To do it in a high quality third party tested way that we do, that we’re only targeting a certain household income, a high household income. And while certainly people who have higher household income are a direct correlation to people who would be more loyal to a more premium priced product, we have a giant chunk of customers who are not necessarily in the highest income brackets, but they’re CrossFitters they might be in a low to mid income bracket, but for them $3 a day to prioritize their health is a no brainer, they’re very happy to sacrifice something else they might have spent $3 on right chips, sodas, a coffee, etc, to prioritize their health. And so I find it fascinating when my team and I talk to our actual members, our subscribers, our customers that it is a broad swath there are college athletes. And so if someone’s younger, it’s about being more performance oriented because a younger consumer just in general is more fickle, more experimental, less loyal, because they’re still in that exploratory part of their consumer journey. And they may not have the income relative to what they prioritize to stick with a daily premium daily foundational nutrition habit, whereas a college athlete will whether they pay or their parents pay. Someone who’s older, however, is a bullseye demographic for he one because as we age, we’re aging into new ways to afford in most cases, until you get on a seriously fixed income. So we’re aging into new ways to afford and as important if not more, so aging into new reasons to need nutritional support and value, high quality nutritional support. So I think most people would be very surprised unless you’re in this group. And then you’re like, that’s not a surprise because it’s me. That one of the fastest growing groups of our customer base, our 50 Plus and 50 plus women in particular people who are reading Peter Thiel, his book and taking the Grail test and doing all kinds of in depth blood tests to focus on healthspan strength, longevity, and so they’re trying to stack the odds in their favor to live long and strong. And that includes people like me, I’m about to turn 46, I have a foreign six year old at home, I have my own reasons to be healthy for myself, but man, do I have a few other ones, and I can’t unsee the trends and the charts, and the research that talks about what happens when you hit a certain age, how quickly things declines. So the key is lifting that baseline as much as you can. And nutrition is such a critical, such a critical pillar of that. So we can speak to a broad audience and then segment for digital marketing, showing talent showing people and customers that reflect that target. That target customer whenever we encounter them in a digital format. And then as we’ve been leaning into other channels, just showing a good diversity of of customer and where they are in age, profession. Family, just life stage in general.

Kara Goldin 10:52
So you are not the founder of athletic greens, you join the founder, and how did that all come about?

Kat Cole 11:01
I, as you mentioned before, had a tenure, tenure, 10 year tenure, at Focus brands and decided to take a year off to just lean into more advising angel investing, finishing a book on leadership. And as part of that chapter, I was introduced to Chris Ashenden, the founder and CEO of athletic greens. And now he won. And so we met and we were connected by a mutual friend. And I thought he was fantastic. I was already a customer of the product. My husband is an ultra endurance athlete, very into fitness and nutrition. And I had, I believe I heard about it from him a few years prior. And so I was already chief fan girl of the product. But that’s what it was called athletic greens, not ag one, it was not known to be the bigger brand and business that it’s known to be today. So at first, when I started advising him, and he threw out like, hey, come help me build this, I thought, you know, that’s cute. I’ve run departments bigger than this whole company. But I don’t think that that is the best use of my time, nor what might I be a fit for such an earlier stage company. But I would come to find out a few things that would bring me to a different place. And one is the company was bigger than I thought to it was growing faster than I thought three, I got to know Chris, and how incredible he is as a human. For I got to know even more about the product itself. And I saw so much that was unknown and underappreciated by the market and even by our existing customers. So that was just upside. And as I looked under the hood of the company saw more upside more low hanging fruit and the physical product and the digital experience and the leadership team in the ways of working in the storytelling and PR. And so it quickly went from Why would I do that it seems so much smaller than what I’ve done to I would be crazy not to do this. I’m a fan grow the product of a customer. So I get it, I trust and believe in the product and the core people behind it. And what I have done is part of what’s needed to help unlock the potential of impacting millions of lives. So it was just so much more mission driven and aligned with my personal ethos and where I was in my life around health and nutrition. And then all those other business elements converged. And it was a no brainer. And so I advised him for six months, until we made it formal in November of 2021.

Kara Goldin 13:34
And what a year that was right. You making this big switch into this new company that I can’t help but think to while you had amazing experiences that other companies, there was a lot of this that was brand new to you, right? It’s not that you couldn’t figure it out, but you actually had to figure it out, right? It wasn’t like you were walking into into a company where you had done all of this before, how much of this was kind of new to you. And again, it’s not that your experience wasn’t amazing. And coming into this company, I couldn’t add value. But I think that’s really exciting. And frankly, you and I probably have mutual friends who you know, like would say, gosh, like, that is an amazing opportunity where you’re going to learn something you’re going to be able to kind of really challenge yourself in many ways. But how how new was a lot of this to you walk again.

Kat Cole 14:36
So a few things that aren’t super obvious from the outside, maybe on my LinkedIn profile or other areas is for about eight years leading up to this point where I joined ag one I had been investing in and advising early stage founders a good portion of them and better for you CPG so That gave me one piece that would have otherwise been totally new. And that is working with founders and understanding some of the dynamics of just being earlier in the journey. And those differences are radical. I mean, if you come from a big mass market company like I did, or bigger, and then go to a company that has sub 100, team members, and is growing at hundreds of percent, instead of trying to eke out 5% of your every year comp sales, like you do in the restaurant, industry, those are very, those are really big, like structural dynamic differences. And so those early years of just being on that journey with founders, some of them a very active involvement with helpful it made that piece not as very, like radically new as it otherwise would have been. Then in that same vein, many of those companies were also D to C. And so otherwise, that would have been completely new to me, not having the brick and mortar journey. Now it’s Cinnabon I started the multi channel division. And it focused brands the parent company, so launch CPG, launched ecommerce, but that was small compared to the grocery CPG. And then our brick and mortar franchise business, it was tiny. And it was an end, right, it wasn’t the it wasn’t the thing, and but the part that I will say so those things were not as new as it as it looks like. And I think I wouldn’t have been successful without those experiences, in my board, work, my investing and my advising. But the thing that was really, really new, is subscription. It’s a subscription, that the things that changes in what you do, why you do it, the existing behavior that is so ritualized, that makes changing anything quite precious. And so and so that was a big one. The other thing that’s very different, which is an obvious one is, you know, I ran many, many brands across multiple countries, and each of those brands had hundreds of SKUs and put over 100, CPG skews into market across those brands, and we sell one thing at AG one, we sell ag one, we do have d3, cane, food drops, and omegas that are only available to our subscribers, not even marketed to the public. Because those are the two things we would put an ag one but we can’t in order for them to taste good, be vegan and be optimally efficacious from an absorption standpoint. So we offer them separately. But it’s one thing, I mean, imagine being used to pull 1000s of levers to drive a financial outcome or a brand outcome, or storytelling goal. And here, you got one channel, and one product, and it’s subscription. And so that those three pieces were the most new and you can intellectually get there to your point very quickly if you’re humble and open and listen and pay attention. But if you if you don’t respect the things that are different about those dynamics, every playbook you bring to the table will not only be difficult to have the same value as maybe in a previous company could actually hurt the business.

Kara Goldin 18:20
Yeah, totally agree. So health and wellness is obviously a really competitive market. And obviously, you guys called a lot of attention to the powdered format and having a single SKU as well. But overall, the greens market exploded since you guys came out. The you know, the the copycats the people that try and and some of it’s not

Kat Cole 18:53
they’re not even bashful about it. They actually say ag one on their site. That’s

Kara Goldin 18:57
insane. On on many, many levels. I hope you guys have trademark attorneys all over the place. Yeah, I have a greatly. They’re busy. I’m sure we’ve had many. We had Elf on a Shelf on here. And I think she has She’s based in Atlanta. Yeah, as well. And I think she has like, I don’t know, 30 on staff or something. It’s crazy. And but anyway, fascinated about that conversation too. But so how would you for somebody who just looks at the Greens powder market, how do you differentiate you touched on a few things but like when when you stack these things up to the average consumer, maybe they look the same, but they’re not totally and and besides taste like you know, which I think yours tastes right beyond that. What do you think is the key thing?

Kat Cole 19:55
Yeah, I mean, and to your point taste, it is a big differentiator. You know, we hear that, but that’s only known if you try it. Yeah. And so, so just look just the appearance of, of what looks very similar, especially when you have an abundance of copycats that either outright infringe on the protected marks or get as close to it as they can without infringement. Because that’s their goal, right is to ride the wave to create considerable confusion, to try to do something similar, but get their little piece of a pie, and such as life such as business. What I don’t love about it, is how it muddies and can muddies the market confuses the consumer and makes the customer not able to, as quickly tell what is the good stuff or not. And when I say good stuff, yes, taste is a part of quality. But I’m talking third party certifications, certificates of analysis available to be able to trace the product that types of third party testing the depth and frequency of them. Third party certifications that like NSF for sport and being made in a TGA registered facility like ours, some customers who are early in the journey and just trying to do something good for themselves may get tempted by fairly unsophisticated, but nonetheless, sometimes effective marketing tactic like side by side comparison, here’s an example. Someone says and I’ll get to how we break away from it, you get a side by side comparative to packages that look the same. Here’s ag one, sometimes they actually use the package and then we can legally have them take it down. Other times, it’s just that they’re obviously using ag one, but they’ve sufficiently blurted out. And then they put their package. And in many cases, they have gotten as close to the green or as close to the design as possible. And then they’ll say something like, ag one has 75 ingredients, we have 80. And so some customers go more is more, right, like more is more, or they’re $3 a day or two to 290 a day, ours is $1.50 a day. And so they are creating these comparisons to try to get at something that an otherwise uninformed customer about our product brand value, prop and quality would go oh, well, I’ll try that. It’s cheaper, oh, I’ll try that it’s got more ingredients. And so there are and that’s just the head to head like people trying to be lookalikes that does not include others that are less literal competitors in the powder, green sense. But maybe people looking to bundle very similar structures of supplements, stacks in a pill form. So they might call it like the bundle. And there’s a multivitamin, and a pill with green superfoods in it, and a pill with mushrooms and adaptogens. And so if you look at the bottles, it actually might mirror the section, you know, our label construct. And so that also is competing for the customers time, and money, and habit. And so we cut out in a few ways, one, quality, quality quality, we do things that the customer will never know and appreciate, to protect the highest quality to make sure we are testing for things that should not be in the product, make sure we are testing and putting in ingredients to the degree that the label claim is always the label claim. Some of this is not strictly regulated in the supplement industry. It’s why there’s such well earned criticism in the industry. They’re in really bad actors. And there’s more FDA involvement than people think. But it’s still not regulated in the same way that food and beverages in the United States and our other markets, there’s a little more regulation and involvement. But we still hold ourselves to a regulated standard like a food and beverage, or like something that is approaching more of a scientific bar instead of just a commercial product bar. So but if we don’t do a good job of talking about that testing and the research behind the formula itself, then we’re missing an opportunity to differentiate so one of the ways we do it is we tell that story more clearly third party testing, quality formulation, and scientific research but a lot of companies lean on research of individual ingredients so they’ll pull from a study that says Vitamin C helps your immunity, no DHA. And they’ll say because there’s vitamin C in here and that’s a researched ingredient that is a benefit of our product. What we’ve done is gone a step farther to say we have tested ag one, the ingredients in combination, and that matters because they actually work together some ingredients inhibit absorption of another ingredient. Some ingredients accelerate and improve synergy actual effectiveness in the body. Many people have heard d3 and Ketu need to be good together. Some people have heard black pepper and turmeric as an example and so this is true all throughout nature, and we’ve put together a formula that takes all of that in context. And so marketing the research and marketing the quality efforts is a, because they’re massive investments we make, they’re part of the price that people are paying for that it’s not cheap to do things the right way. And it is a real differentiator, even though it is far beyond what’s required. So that’s a big part. The other piece is we’re fortunate that many people with their own platforms, and megaphones, like you in this podcast, or others are actually customers. And we have leaned into the Creator economy way before it was cool, supporting pods, supporting newsletters. And really being a partner going far beyond I’m sponsoring this pod. You know, this, this podcast sponsored by ag when no one cares anymore, like falls on deaf ears. It’s more about authentic recommendations from trusted thought leaders, not just thought leaders on wellness thought leaders on in mechanics in sailing in auto repair in home construction, right, there are people who have created influence and built community, and they have trust with that community. And if they’re really customers, we will only work with people who are actually customers, then it is something we believe in as a way to cut through the noise to be the most trusted and most recommended, but always with that tone of authenticity. And then the other side is just constant innovation. So he one has been iterated 52 times. And we are going to launch iteration 53 fairly soon. And so it’s kind of like the iPhone, right, they keep upgrading the camera, the battery life, the speed, we keep upgrading probiotic quality, quality of vitamins and minerals that unlock more research benefits, or that work more in concert with the other ingredients. And in 10 years, we have not increased the price, even though we have radically increased the cost base to keep leveling up the quality of those ingredients. Because we believe one we should disrupt ourselves, we’d be furious if someone who knew about a better ingredient, put it in there used it as a marketing angle. And you know, and succeeded. And we could have done that all along. So innovation but iterating on the product itself, is another way that we cut through it and then being great digital marketers, because for now, our channel is DTC. And so it is important to find people on the internet and and meet them where they are with contextually relevant content. And then I would say the last is referrals and recommendations and enabling it. So you mentioned you heard about ag one from your college aged son. And a big part of our business growth has just been someone who has a great experience, and they recommend it to a loved one. And that really is a testament to the quality. And it’s actually our internal quality mantra, make a product so good, you are desperate for the people, you love to drink it. And think about that. Make your product so good that you’re desperate for the people you love to drink it. There’s a lot in that statement. People have to trust it, they have to feel actual benefit, they have to believe that. Like why would someone you love? Why would you ever recommend something you didn’t trust and think was going to be great for them? And supplements? It’s a big deal, right? You’re drinking it every day, you’re putting it in your body, it’s something we take so seriously. So enabling referral and gifting and recommendation is another big part of what’s important to stand out when you have a product that’s actually this good. It accelerates word of mouth.

Kara Goldin 28:40
Now, I couldn’t agree more. And I think it’s you touched on so many things. There. I love the statement of disrupting yourself. So and I had heard you in another interview, talk about reformulating. 52 times and how do you how do you do that for the consumer? Like how do you tell them you’re coming out? Is it you know, new and improved do the does the consumer think well, you know, what have I been drinking to date and and now they’re I mean how do you do that? How do you bring the consumer along that has you know trusted you today I also heard you speak about like flaxseed for example how all this research is coming out. Right and and I totally get it but how do you I mean, you’re in a really like amazing, interesting position because you’re really your voice right of of helping people which is a really powerful thing. But how do you do that to tell them like Come with me, right? And trust me because we’re going to weave we’re, we’ve got your

Kat Cole 29:50
back? Yeah. One of the ways something that’s very important is to do it often, right if people are used to AG one upgraded this B vitamin because it’s now available at scale. And there’s enough research behind it to suggest it has this benefit. So they replaced this B vitamin with that vitamin, the flaxseed example. That was the only example of removing something. There may be another example in the future of removing something and replacing with a more researched ingredient. And the amount of research on plant as medicine is just such a different level now with AI, with the companies investing in the flavonoids and phytonutrients that come from various plants, and then companies that are now going to find those, get them in a regenerative way, and then produce them at scale. There’s of course going to be some something new I just heard as an example, this isn’t an ag one. But I heard I heard and saw someone talking about taking basil seeds instead of chia seeds. Have you heard this? Have you seen this? No. It’s like basil seeds. And then I ended it said no one quote me I have not verified these facts. I’m just using it as an example of how new things you know, come out that there’s a DTC company that’s selling basil seeds, and they cite some bananas level of increased benefit from a nutritional standpoint over chia seeds. And I’m, I’m a chia seed queen, again, not chia seeds in ag one. But I, I was like basil seeds. I never heard of that. So this idea of a company you trust, to keep up with research, and give you the best at all times without asking any more of you know, no new steps, no new process, no difference in routine, we’re going to do what’s hard. So it’s easy for you no new cost, right? We’re going to do what’s hard. So it’s always the best for you. And if you do it often, again, the iPhone such a great example, then it doesn’t lose people, they don’t feel like oh, well then was what I bought last month, a bad purchase was that not smart? It’s more like there’s, it’s the best until there’s access to something better. And I actually don’t have to leave ag one to get something better. They’re always putting if it can go in ag one and improve the synergistic benefits and show up in our testing in vitro and human trials or in other types of tests. Even if they’re the single arm observational studies across large groups of people, that it’s making an impact, then that is worthy of exploring what is what makes this hard to do at scale, is this is an all natural, this is a natural product, it’s whole food ingredients. So when you start mixing vitamins, and a different plant at a different quantity from a different farm, without artificially flavoring the product or sweetening it, which we neither of which we do. It’s really hard to keep it tasting kind of similar. So this idea I mean, we I don’t know if you’ve got this in your package. But a few months ago, we we had grown so much we had we expanded farms, we expanded sources of some of our ingredients. And we noticed like wine like chocolate, like coffee, there were these slight variations. And we had figured out through our blending technology, which is, again, just unbelievably complex. How to keep the flavor consistent our sourcing and our blending, but it was difficult. I mean, there was a period of time where a handful of us were tasting 10 to 12 batches of ag one every day except Sundays a package delivered to my door where remote fully remote team never had a headquarters. So 7am the FedEx or UPS person is like, what do you do for a living, I’m dropping this tiny package off to you every day. And that’s how seriously we take it. So this idea of innovating also has a consequence, for a product that to your point is part of someone’s not only daily routine, first thing in the morning, first thing to hit your palate. And it is about nutrients and digestive health. So when we change things, so as we upgrade probiotics, some people might notice a slight difference in how their gut responds or bowel movements. It’s a largely cited benefit of ag one. And just overall digestive health, supporting digestive health, and then less bloating and improved improved bowel movements and all the good stuff that comes along with a slightly healthier gut. And so if we change the probiotic strains as an example, that’s something we’re going to really need to communicate and let people know here’s the research. Here’s why. Keep an eye out for this. You might want to try a half scoop or if you notice anything, let us know. And we do rigorous testing in front of it anyway. But to your point, having a large subscriber base is such a blessing because we’re impacting so many people’s lives and it means anything you change has to be really thoughtfully communicated in a way that you’re fairly sure the customer is seeing it. So in their monthly package as an example, instead of an email that maybe only half will open. And so making sure people see here’s what’s new, here’s what’s different. Here’s why. Here’s, here’s the next one that’s coming up and how we just keep making this better for you. So bringing people along, doing it often and telling people the why I love it.

Kara Goldin 35:26
So culture in the company. So is it primarily remote? Where Where do you see this going in the future, it’s such a hot topic for businesses overall. But I’d love to hear your take on it.

Kat Cole 35:42
Eight, GE has never had a headquarters in 14 years, never. And so things that people are navigating as a continued transition to whatever this new world is. It’s all he has ever known. And that matters, it doesn’t mean we’re perfect at everything. But it does mean that being native to fully remote, not just fully remote, but fully remote and global, very different time zones, the time zones are a harder dynamic to navigate than the remote piece is. And so that’s a privilege, right? It’s a great privilege to be able to get access to the best talent, who want to work from wherever they want to work from, to enable the life that they are crafting for themselves. So we can access to the best talent, like hands down. However, we’d like to say we pay a remote tax, there is a tax we pay for this choice. And it requires surgically addressing the things that are harder, because we’re not together all the time. So of course, that means getting together at some frequency. It means certain types of events and connection points. It means understanding the psychology of people who don’t bond together in a regular and irregular way. So but the company is built around being remote. And but the other piece is we’re still a high growth company and driving performance and making sure people are giving their best we do say live your one spectacular life and work remotely. And we have unlimited PTO, and the most aggressive parental leave that I’ve ever seen out there in the world like positive. I mean, for any parent, any type of parent becoming a parent, it’s all the things and all that stuff could exist to such a degree that it’s a detriment to the performance of the business. So it also requires very decisive and engaged management all throughout the organization to make sure we have this balance of work from anywhere and live from anywhere and the customer is the customer is what we’re focused on. We have a unique opportunity. It is a fast growing category with a fast growing number of entrants. And this is a once in a generation opportunity to impact 10s of millions of lives and power millions of mornings with ag one. And so while it is live your one spectacular life and focus on yourself. And we’re a health ownership company. So we prioritize the health of our team. It’s also give your best, do your best and drive performance for customers in the business. So that culture is a very interesting blend of what people might consider modern and legacy put together. So

Kara Goldin 38:27
I could talk to you all day long about this stuff. This is This is so great. So two last questions. Tell me about your own ag routine. Obviously you have the d3 and the Omega but knowing what you know what is your routine.

Kat Cole 38:43
So my routine is I wake up I go downstairs to the kitchen before my kids wake up my daughter is in this weird early wake up face. So sometimes it’s not alone but but most of the time, this is my morning. This is my little window. I can’t control how the day evolves, I can control how it starts. And so this is my my ritual, my habit, my meditation, if you will, it is everything to me in my day. And so I come down, I put my cold water I use between rooms in cold cold makes it more fruity for everyone just so you know. I’m a little weird. I like more of the greener side of it. So I put my water in my shaker. Get my scoop out of my canister from the fridge remember if you have the pouch to keep it in the fridge keeps the probiotics alive longer keeps the flavor fresher. travel packs don’t need to be refrigerated. I shake it up. I drink it. I take my omegas and my D 3k. Two with my ag one in the morning and a little more d3 que tu in the winter a little less in the summer. I’m actually deficient in vitamin D. So I have to take this I take a higher dose than the average person out burn through a bottle a couple times a year, as many women are, and I was severely deficient after having my kids, and ag one, the combination of ag one and D 3k. Two is really helped me there. That’s so critical for immunity, in addition to hair growth and other things. So that’s my morning routine, then I will cold plunge workout, sauna, if I have time. And it’s a little workout. I mean, I maybe have 30 minutes to do all this. But if the kids are waking up, I’ll just do one of those pieces, just whichever one I can fit in cold punch is going to be the fastest. And then make my coffee and do a big ol like protein coffee in the butter, oil, collagen protein. It’s almost like a breakfast, and then have a really savory breakfast. And I you know, that sounds like it’s all organized. When I’m traveling. It is very organized that way. But on the average day, it’s all happening around the kids until they go to school and until my car my calls start and sometimes it gets delayed to later in the afternoon. And then I will not medical advice. When I’m traveling in cold and flu season. Can I have two little kids. So every bug that exists is coming home, I have a second ag one in the afternoon. And just to beef up nutrient density and immune health supporting benefits. And sometimes I’ll put that in a smoothie or just drink it in the normal way. That’s my routine. And then magnesium, extra magnesium, extra

Kara Goldin 41:37
magnesium. Perfect. So last question. So I read that you have a rule, the hotshot rule. Can you describe the hotshot rule for us? Because I think it’s it’s so awesome.

Kat Cole 41:51
Yeah, it’s been a big part of helping me just keep that day one mentality and and not being blinded by my own progress. I believe we’re all blinded by our own progress. Of course we are things go well, the new problems of today seems smaller, you know, in most cases than the big ones you tackled when you first started out. And, and I’ve learned this lesson over and over. So for many reasons, I developed the hotshot rule. And it is simply this I envisioned someone I admire. And I envision them in my role tomorrow. So I’m gone. And Kara takes over. And I think if she inherited everything, my slack, my team, my meetings, my email, any of the business and process, what is one thing and the first thing that knowing her and respecting what she’s built, that I have to acknowledge would be the first thing she would look at and say love cat can’t believe she let this go on. It’s the first thing I’m going to change. Because you would have that day one mentality, you would see it so clearly. And so for whatever reason, something about that psychological positioning of knowing all the details that I know about my world, but seeing it or acknowledging how it would be seen through the eyes of someone I admire, and then asking the question, so specifically, what is one thing that they would change immediately. And then as soon as for whatever reason it comes to mind, and there are lots of reasons it’s percolating. It’s in the back of my mind, my team has been telling me I haven’t been you know, they’re all these reasons. We don’t act on the things. And so I act on that idea in 24 hours, if I can’t complete it unilaterally, because in my role, there’s usually other people who need to lead and do things. I at least send the email, book the flight, get, you know, get it in motion. And then the final step is I tell my team, so I practice this every Sunday, on Monday, whatever the relevant conversations are, I say I was you can just say, I was thinking, you don’t have to say I was practicing the hotshot rule, I practice the hotshot role. And I realized that if one of you were in my seat, or I envision this person, they would, they would hire this role, they would upgrade this technology, they would go fly and meet with that franchisee they would fire this person, they would, you know, whatever it is. And so I’m going to do it and what it does every week, it means I’m addressing something I would not have otherwise addressed. I am acknowledging it to the team. So it builds a culture of vulnerability. And this is an action exercise. It’s ask answer act, my three A’s ask answer act, ask the question. In this case, what would someone I admire do in my seat? Having the courage or the culture to answer the question, candidly, and then acting on it? So So many times we do one of those three? We ask a lot of great questions. But maybe there’s not the culture to get the honest answer or we just ask because we just pontificate or we just answer and maybe that makes an impact but might not be as thoughtful or as outside and this is an outside in coaching, exercise, self coaching. And then many times we don’t act and we don’t act as frequently as we could and And it’s all about action and doesn’t matter if you know these things could be better. It’s what do you act on? And then how does your team see you do that. So when it motivates them to do the same call

Kara Goldin 45:10
president and chief operating officer of ag one, thank you so much for your wisdom at this has been incredible. So really appreciate it.

Kat Cole 45:20
My pleasure. So good to see you.

Kara Goldin 45:23
You too. Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would, please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit and of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me. And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book undaunted, where I share more about my journey including founding and building hint. We are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening and good bye for now.