Catharine Arnston: Founder & CEO of ENERGYbits

Episode 693

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, we’re joined by Catharine Arnston, Founder, CEO, and Chief Scientific Officer of ENERGYbits®—the pioneering brand bringing the power of algae to the forefront of wellness, energy, and longevity. After a deeply personal experience with a family health crisis, Catharine made it her mission to educate the world about the incredible health benefits of spirulina and chlorella—long before they became trendy.
In our conversation, Catharine shares the early days of discovering algae's healing potential, what inspired her to build ENERGYbits, and why she believes algae is the most powerful superfood on the planet. We dive into the science behind spirulina and chlorella, the major obstacles she faced educating consumers, and how she’s grown ENERGYbits into a trusted brand used by athletes, biohackers, and wellness seekers worldwide. Catharine also opens up about the resilience it takes to build a movement from scratch, the leadership lessons she’s learned, and the habits that keep her going strong.
Whether you're a health-focused founder, a nutrition enthusiast, or someone curious about building brands with real mission and impact, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss. Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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Transcript

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 out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. So 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. Welcome back to the Kara Goldin show today. We’re diving into a topic that deserves way more attention, algae, that’s right, one of the world’s most powerful and misunderstood superfoods. And I’m excited to be joined by someone who has made it her mission to educate, innovate and lead in this space. Catherine arnston, who is the founder, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of ENERGYbits, comes in four different verticals, but offers premium spirulina and chlorella tablets that are trusted by athletes, wellness experts and everyday health seekers around the world. I can’t wait to hear more about Catherine’s incredible founding journey, the science behind these incredible products using algae, and why it’s still such a hidden secret in the US, and what it really takes to really build a health brand today that lasts so Catherine, welcome to the show.

Catherine Arnston 1:46
Thank you, Kara, and congratulations to you and all that you did, and have done it at hinge water. I watched your journey many, many years ago, and I’m still in awe as a fellow female founder, we well, any founder, frankly, it doesn’t matter whether you’re matter whether you’re wellness or female. It’s, it’s a it is. You have to be very passionate about what you’re doing, because it keeps you going. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 2:10
absolutely, absolutely. It’s, it’s not for the faint of heart, but kind words, absolutely. So how would you describe ENERGYbits to someone who’s hearing about it for the first time. Well,

Catherine Arnston 2:23
we’re the, I believe we’re the first premium algae tablet, because it’s medical grade and for providing nutritional benefits, but also has nutrients that have healing properties. And I think a lot of people are familiar with spirulina, maybe not so much chlorella, and they know that it’s a quote, super food, and they put it in their smoothies, but they have no idea. Outside of Asia, nobody is aware of the healing properties the that are in spirulina in particular, but only if it’s a high quality algae and hasn’t been dried with high heat, because high heat deactivates some of these critical nutrients that protect your mitochondria, prevent chronic disease, prevent accelerated aging, prevents your protects your brain. And all of these things that I’m telling you about are documented in science, like 100,000 studies documenting all these heart benefits, brain benefits, skin benefits, digestion, detox. So I don’t say anything about algae unless it’s been scientifically proven and with lots of 1000s of documents. But the trouble is, outside of Asia, none of this knowledge about this healing properties is known, and I attribute it to two reasons. 190, 9.9% of algae, spirulina, chlorella in particular, because those are the two most popular are grown in Asia, so you can’t ride your bicycle to school or drive your car to work without going by an algae farm. It’s just the way it is. Here we drive by, you know, corn fields or wheat fields or or tomato patches, but we certainly don’t drive by algae farms, because they’re just not grown here. Although I’m planning to change that. I want to create a huge algae agricultural industry in Florida. We grow ours in Taiwan, and Florida has exactly the same climate as Taiwan, and growing algae isn’t like growing broccoli. It’s like making wine. So two things there, it’s affected by the angle of the sun. So the angle of the sun in Taiwan just generates the best, high 10, high quality nutrient dense algae. And then, just like wine, it’s the production processes in wine, it’s the type of wood you wear, use for your barrels, how long you keep them in, and you know, all the different attributes for us and for algae, it’s whether you dry it carefully and to preserve the nutrients, almost everybody else uses high heat because they’re lower quality, so they cut corners to get to market quickly. Well, that high heat deactivates a couple of these critical nutrients, one that will prevent things like mitochondria damage, which will protect you from Alzheimer’s. And heart disease and just about 1000 other things. And another one is the blue pigment found in spirulina. It’s a blue pigment called phycocyanin, proven to kill cancer cells. Both of those nutrients are deactivated by high heat. So when you get the lesser quality, which 99% of the stuff that’s on the market is the lower price, lower quality algae, you’re not getting those benefits. So it’s like getting a great deal on a fabulous car, except you lift the hood and there’s no engine. Yeah, looks great, doesn’t perform. So I’m on a mission to help people understand how all these great benefits that they’re missing. You can also get frozen or fresh spirulina, because, again, it has not been exposed to high heat, but we’re missing some of these amazing attributes of spirulina in particular, and also chlorella, because the quality just isn’t there. But it can be there, and I want it to be there so that we can start addressing the crisis that we’re in, nutritional crisis, health crisis, environmental crisis, algae can is that is the fixer can fix all of those issues. I

Kara Goldin 6:05
love it. So what were you doing before you are a scientist, so I’d love to hear a little bit about your background. Yeah.

Catherine Arnston 6:14
Well, I fell into this because I’m actually Canadian, although I’ve lived in Boston, Massachusetts for 35 years. Recently relocated to Miami, where it’s warmer in the winter, and I had an international corporate career, nothing to do with nutrition, although I did have a sub career in the interior design industry, if you can believe that interesting blend, but nothing to do with nutrition. And then 17 years ago, my younger sister in Canada, have two sisters, develop breast cancer, and she she she completely healed. So I want to assure everyone the best news is that she completely healed. But as she was preparing for her chemotherapy, her oncologist, which is a cancer specialist, told her she needed to change her diet to an alkaline diet, because it would help with her healing. They didn’t tell her what an alkaline diet was or why it was specifically Good for her. So my baby sister called me, and I had no idea about anything with nutrition, but I’m a good researcher. Just got my PhD last year, so I said, I will find out. And I did, and it turned out an alkaline diet was mostly a plant based diet, and it was the phytonutrients and the chlorophyll that would help build her immune system. And when you go through chemo, you want a strong immune system. So that was number one. Number two. It turns out that there was a German scientist who won a Nobel Prize in the 30s for discovering that cancer cannot exist in cells that are alkaline. There’s a scale of zero to 14, and as long as your cells are slightly like 7.1 you can prevent cancer from taking hold. So I have to believe and plants are very alkaline, and chlorophyll is very alkaline. So that was the other reason why, I’m sure her oncologist want her have an alkaline diet. So I found her foods to eat, not to eat. She went through chemo, she completely healed. I learned about plant based nutrition. Nobody was talking about plant based nutrition. 1516, years ago. I decided, well, somebody needs to. So I gave up my corporate career, I went back to school, studied plant based nutrition, got a health coaching certificate from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and I taught plant based nutrition for a year, companies, hospitals, but this is what led me to algae, because as I was telling people about the importance of eating more plants and more veggies, I got so much resistance. People said I my kids won’t eat them. My husband’s won’t eat vegetables. They go bad quickly. It’s too much work. They give me gas, yada yada, yada. So okay, I got to find something that’s easy for people. Doesn’t give them gas, doesn’t have bad taste that the kids and the husbands will eat them. And I looked at everything I’d found for my sister, and when I got to algae, that’s when the miracle happened. Because first of all, it’s the most alkaline food in the world. It’s the most nutrient dense food in the world. We have a quote from NASA says one gram of algae has the same nutrition as 1000 grams of fruits and vegetables. So we it’s also 100 as I said, 100,000 studies documenting the health benefits of it. It’s grown and has been used in Asia for almost 75 years. It’s a multi billion dollar agricultural industry. It’s as big as the beef industry is here, and yet nobody in America knows about it. And the best part of all is that it comes in these little tiny tablets. We call them bits because they’re bits of nutrition. So the darker one is spirulina. It’s a blue green algae. The lighter one is chlorella, which is green algae. Now, when you take these tablets, we recommend at least 10 of each as a minimum per day, 30 for medicinal purposes. But here’s the thing, it’s so concentrated with nutrition that one tablet has the same nutrition as an entire plate of vegetables. So while I’m talking to you, Kara, I just have a plate of vegetables one tablet has the same nutrition as a plate of vegetables. That’s based on that quote from NASA. Now I will say most people swallow the spirulina because it’s very chewy. Three times the amount of protein is steak. But even if you swallow it, it goes down in a second. So. So now kids do like to chew it because it turns their tongues green, and they think that’s pretty funny. They’re gonna fought my mouth, but if they don’t even like the flavor, they just swallow it. There’s no repeat, no flavor. They last for three years. There’s no mess, no cooking. We sell these our tablets in large bags of 1000 tablets, and I use the math to figure out one bag of art 1000 tablets has the same nutrition as 551 pounds of vegetables. Put another way, that’s 30 grocery carts of vegetables in a bag, and it lasts three years. What vegetable lasts three years if it’s real, right? So now we can get nutrition into people, because nobody’s people are getting sick because our food supply is so damaged a the soils have no minerals in them. So even if you are eating vegetables, you’re getting fiber and calories, but you’re not getting nutrition. And spirulina will fill all of those nutritional gaps, and then chlorella, you know, the other problem is we’re surrounded by toxins. The average adult has 700 toxins in them. Chlorella algae is a wellness algae. That’s why we call it recovery bits. It attaches to heavy metals, glyphosate, pesticide, alcohol, lactic acid, and pulls them out. So it’s like a wellness algae. I call spirulina your nutritional insurance, because it fills all the nutritional gaps you could live on this forever, honestly. And chlorella is your health insurance because it builds your immune system, helps you feed your gut biome, and heals your gut and pulls out toxins. So the two of them are really they’re not just super foods. I call them super duper foods.

Kara Goldin 11:39
No, I love it. And so the chlorella, you and I were chatting a little bit more about that before we hit record. But does it make you tired? Is that why you would do it at night? No, no,

Catherine Arnston 11:51
so, so I’ll back up and I’ll talk about the two key benefits. So spirulina has always been known to give you energy, but it’s not energy like you would get from a stimulant. A stimulant is caffeine or chemicals or sugar, which is like putting a paper on a fire. You get a burst, but then you get a crash. Spirulina has the highest protein in the world, 18 of the 20 aminos. They’re all the proteins in aminos, including the nine your body can’t make, and very high B vitamins, which convert the aminos into energy, but the energy is at the cellular level. It also improves the production of what’s called ATP, which is your cellular energy in the mitochondria. So it’s like putting a log on the fire. So spirulina is very much an energizing algae for your brain, for your for your health, for your mitochondria, for your body, but there’s no drama, there’s no rush, and there’s no crash, and it satisfies your hunger, because it has the highest protein in the world, three times the amount of steak, and very high essential fatty acids, and then these 40 vitamins and minerals. So usually you’re tired and hungry in the morning, at lunch, in the afternoon, before a workout. So that’s when most people have spirulina, any of those times, because that’s when they’re tired and hungry and want focus or more physical energy, or they just want their appetites satiated. So that’s when you take Spirulina. Now, most people take chlorella before bed. You can take it any time of day, but it’s a detoxing wellness, healing, restorative algae. And when you are sleeping, that’s when your body goes through a detox, repair cycle. And by the way, chlorella has the highest amount of tryptophan in the world, five times more than turkey. So it and tryptophan is a precursor to melatonin that helps you sleep. Now it won’t make you sleepy, but it will help you get into that deeper sleep when you are sleeping. So generally, we recommend people take chlorella before bed, because your body is going to go through a detox repair anyways. So why not help it out? Pull all the aluminum out of your brain and the toxins and the heavy metals and alcohol if you have cocktails or lactic acid, if you worked out, and it also stimulates what’s called peristalsis, a fancy word for saying bowel movement. Most people are use fiber to help feed the gut biome and have bile bowel movements, but honestly, you will never need to eat another vegetable again if you are taking this every night before bed, because what does it do? It has fiber that feeds the gut biome and it stimulates a bowel movement. Spirulina does not do the stimulation, only chlorella. And I tell people, it’s not just what you are taking in for nourishment, and in fact, it’s not even just what you’re eating. It’s what you’re absorbing that determines your nutritional efficacy. And spirulina is absorbed instantly because it’s not even a plant, it’s a bacteria. It’s called a cyanobacteria. And why is that important? Because there’s nothing for your body to break down, no cellulose whatever, to get access to all the nutrients. Because if you chew it like I do, you have the nutrients in your bloodstream in seconds. If you swallow it, maybe about 10 or 15 minutes. So very, very bioavailable nutrition. Now, chlorella is a plant and has that hard cell wall, and it takes about a good hour and a half to be fully absorbed, but it that’s why, if you take it before bed, it will fully in, get into your system. And a lot of people aren’t talking about constipation, but it’s a big problem because if you’re on medication, if you’re stressed, if you’re traveling, if you’re eating a lot of dairy, if you’re needing a lot of carbs, I can promise you, you are constipated, and you do need another at least a one bowel movement a day to get rid of what I call the junk in your trunk. Because if you don’t have that bowel movement, it’s just sitting there and your blood circulates around and what’s down there stuff your body didn’t want. It’s like having a garbage truck parked in front of your house permanently. So we need to help people get rid of the junk in their trunk, and chlorella does it. So this is how the two of them work very, very differently. And if it helps you understand how different they are and when to take them. I travel a lot, and sometimes I get room service, and after my room service, I feel fully nourished and energized and ready for the day. And I thought to myself, Wow, that’s sort of like spirulina. It energizes you, nourishes you, and you’re ready for the day. And then you come back to your room later on, and it’s all cleaned up and the garbage is taken out. And I thought, wow, that’s sort of like chlorella, you know, it takes all the junk in your trunk, out, cleans everything up. It’s like, it’s like housekeeping. So think of spirulina as room service and chlorella as housekeeping, and that might help you understand the difference between the two.

Kara Goldin 16:46
I love it. So you discovered this incredible world of algae years before it was on many people’s radar and came you mentioned it earlier, very personal place, trying to help your sister, your family member. How did you know that you were onto something bigger? Because, of course, things often start in your kitchen and in your own house, but getting other people to like it. Of course, you had to go through a process of actually creating it, getting packaging. You know, whether you’re selling it direct to consumer or on retail shelves, whatever it is, it’s a lot, right? And and then you gotta, especially when you’re doing a product that, whether it’s a food or a supplement, or, how are you going to position all of these things. It’s, it’s just a ton, right? And the consumer wants to buy products that work, right? And so there’s all of that that goes into it. So when did you know, like, how long was the period of time before you said, I’ve got to go and launch this from the time you actually first started and realizing that this was a big idea,

Catherine Arnston 18:08
well, I wasn’t planning on building a company. I just wanted to help my sister. That was it. And then after she got better, and I learned so much about plant based nutrition, and decided I needed to do something about it. I’ve just been that kind of person all of my life. It’s just, it’s like, you see someone falling into a pool of water, do you jump in and help them? Or do you not? I’m the person who would jump in, even if I didn’t know how to swim, I would still jump in. It’s crazy that I am like that, but it is what it is. So when I learned how difficult it was for people to include vegetables into their diet, I just felt compelled to find an answer. I’m just someone who needs to find a way to help people just I’ve just been like that. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m Canadian or a middle child. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always been that way. And then when I discovered algae, and I started reading the science. Now, remember, I had no science background, no biology, no chemistry, no nutrition, nothing. Although I will say I’ve always been an avid learner. When other kids were trying to break into the movie theater to get a free movie, I would break into conferences so I could suck up the information. It just, that’s just the way I am. So when I read about algae, and I started reading hundreds and hundreds of these articles, I didn’t know there was a thing called PubMed, which is an online scientific library with millions of scientific papers. And I, I must have read at least 500 of them. And I saw the science about algae, and I it dawned on me, this is crazy that people don’t know about this. So I decided at the very, very beginning that this was my calling, that the universe had picked me. I was by myself for the first five years. I had no money, in fact, to be perfectly honest, because. Were helping other entrepreneurs. I was so passionate about this, and I was determined not to give up. My family thought I was crazy, even though it was the inspiration for whatever. My friends thought I was crazy. I went through bankruptcy. I was in foreclosure for three years. I had my car repossessed. People thought I was nuts, but I just thought the universe had tapped me on the shoulder. I argued with it for five years, like, pick somebody else with science background. I know nothing, but it wouldn’t let me give it up. And so I just slowly but steadily learned the science. The more I learned, the more passion I became. And then I thought, well, what are the steps I have to go through? Well, I I thought, I need to, I need to build a company. I entered, gosh, a dozen different contests for startups. I, you know, all over the country, and never won anything. Watch. It’s not true. I did win something. I want to. I want something from the entrepreneur, the magazine of the year magazine and they part of the prize was $15,000 which I used to create my first set of packaging. But I couldn’t afford a package designer, so I decided, okay, I have to teach myself package design. So I went to Whole Foods, and I got all the Laura bar box empty boxes and the kind empty boxes, I lined them up on my dining room table, took the measurements, length, width, height, what was on the front, what was on the back. And you got anyone who’s listening, who’s an entrepreneur and knows this is the stuff we do, right? I had no design skills whatsoever, although I did have that flirtation of, you know, 10 years in the interior design industry, so I have a good eye, but, um, I designed all of my packaging, everything on PowerPoint, and then I would print it up on paper and cut it up into little models. And that’s how I’d and then once I had that, I did that over and over and over again until I got the first designs. They were the first designs were darn ugly. In fact, when I was on Shark Tank, I was with still my first early ugly designs. But that’s how I did it. And and then I would find someone to put in what’s called a die line that the actual packaging company would need to use to actually make it. But same with supply chain, I had to teach myself supply chain, I had to teach myself production I went through five or six fulfillment companies, five or six supply chain organizations. I had to keep reinventing the website, the packaging, and I had to, even though I have an MBA, I was not in finance, I was in marketing. So I had to teach myself finance. I had to teach myself how to run a company. Because there’s one thing, when you’re by yourself, and maybe you get one or two people, and they’re still kind of a solopreneur, but then when you get we’re now 12 people, and we’re soon to be 15, maybe 20, you have to step away from the day to day, because you can never grow. And you have to go from being an entrepreneur to being a leader, and that’s a completely different skill set. And then along the way, I kept learning science, and I wrote papers, and I lecture all over the country on mitochondria health and using algae to help with mitochondria health. But some places wouldn’t let me speak because I wasn’t an MD or a PhD. So I thought, Okay, I’ll get one. And so I did. I studied, I wrote my exams last year, and at the ripe old age of 59 I got my PhD. So or not, 5969 What am I telling Yeah, so I’m going to be 77 zero. So anyone who’s listening, and they’re not, you know, a 20 year old entrepreneur, I want to tell you that passion and purpose and focus and perseverance can get you through anything at any age. Don’t let society tell you you’re too old to do anything. It’s all about you and your desire for your own life. And I just did not want to leave the universe down or the world, because, for some reason, I was selected to bring algae to America, and I am, I’m in. I’m doing it against all odds.

Kara Goldin 24:00
I love it. So what’s been your smartest move when it comes to growing distribution and awareness for ENERGYbits well,

Catherine Arnston 24:09
and some people will probably take this the wrong way. My smartest move was not taking venture money because I knew this was I knew I was way ahead of my time. Remember, I started this fifth in 2010 and I did some of the research in, you know, 1999 so or earlier. So I knew this was going to be a marathon, not a sprint. And unfortunately, at my stage investors, they like to be able to get their exit within five or six years. And I just knew that wasn’t going to happen. And the reason I wanted them to I didn’t want their money, is because I knew they would push me to retail, and I did not want to go to retail because it’s a very difficult process. The margins are high. There’s no loyalty. You can spend a lot of money on your inventory, send it to out to a retailer if it doesn’t turn fast enough. They’ll they’ll just dump it. And so you’re left paying for everything. Maybe you don’t get paid by the retailer. And also, I didn’t want that kind of product. We’re medical grade, high, high prestige product that really delivers. And so I wanted my product to be in places where the customer was going to get a lot of hand holding, a lot of support, and you get that from functional medicine, biohacking, clinics, spas. So I chose not to take the venture capital, not to go the traditional route of retail. And it’s paying off, because there is no other algae company in the world that has our sophisticated branding and packaging, high quality endorsements by doctors I’ve made. Last year, I made 20 videos teaching people. We’re all about science, all about education, bringing the highest quality product to the consumer as possible. We do most of our sales through direct consumer but the practitioner community is an anchor for the credibility and the visibility. And I really like working with that community, because they’re all science based. I didn’t want to compete on a shelf with somebody based on price or positioning in terms of what shelf you were going to be on. So I was able to decide to choose my route, which was the unconventional route, and now that the world is waking up to the importance of nutrition, the importance of prevention, the importance of all these functional medicine clinics and doctors, it’s turning out to be the right choice. But man, it was. I was fighting an uphill battle. People kept trying to push me to go into general retail. I did. I will tell you we did. Do one small retail test, and it blew up in our face. We got accepted by Neiman Marcus, and they put us in their beauty counter. And they wanted, we took our beauty, beauty bits brand. But the problem is, they asked, they required us to hire people to go into every store where we were in this that particular store, and train their staff and be there once a week. So I had to hire all these people, you know, Miami, Beverly Hills, all over the place, and the the orders, it cost me five times as much to support their order as the revenue I got from the from it, and then after six months, they pulled us out because their beauty consultants, the beauty consumer, didn’t care about science. We were just it was not where we belong. And so we we pulled out completely, and I’m so glad we did, and we are full on into the wellness, longevity, value, hacking, space where science is required and science is revered. And you know, it’s funny, because all the science that I know has been available online through these PubMed articles and whatever for up to 50 years, but no other algae company has gone into them. Not a single person, not a single company. We are the only ones educating people and taking the time and making all this rich science available, and so I don’t think at this point anyone’s going to be able to catch up with us, because I chose the hard, untraveled path because of the positioning and the integrity that I wanted to go to use to get this product to the consumer, and it was longer and harder and more expensive than I ever expected, but very satisfying. And it’s working.

Kara Goldin 28:34
I love it. So looking back on the journey, what’s been the proudest moment? I mean, this took a little while to kind of find your groove, I guess, so to speak, right? And now people are understanding it, and it’s, you know, definitely has a great implant on the industry, and people are talking about it. You’ve got beautiful packaging. I mean, the product just is, is awesome. So thank you. What’s been one of the more proudest moments over the years that you’ve seen with the product?

Catherine Arnston 29:09
Well, there’s been a number everybody thinks growing a company is sort of like this, and it’s nice. It’s like this. Somebody gave a great analogy. They said, when you’re an entrepreneur, it’s sort of like being a duck on the water the water. The duck, you see the duck just gliding along, and they look so graceful, or a swan, and underneath their feet are just going like this, right? So so there have been a couple of really very proud moments. One was when I won this award from Entrepreneur Magazine. Daniel lebinski, from Kind bars, won the same award a couple of years earlier, and they flew me out to California with a family member and got me on stage and gave me one of those big checks, you know, those big cardboard checks on stage for $15,000 and my sister was there to see me win it. So that was, that was really nice, and it paid for my packaging also being on. Shark Tank. That was about eight years ago, and I wasn’t planning on being Shark Tank. I didn’t want their money. But I had hundreds of people saying you should be on Shark Tank. You should be on Shark Tank. So, okay, I’ll apply. I knew nobody. I just applied. You know, put a great package together. You have to send in videos and testimonials and product, and they interview you every week for like, you know, three months. But I stayed the course, and then they called me and said, you’re on, you know, get on a plane tomorrow. So, and after you’re on the plane, then it was, you know, lots of fun. So being on, they didn’t invest, and I didn’t want their money, and I would have taken, wouldn’t have taken. Anyways, however, getting on the show was a lot of lot of fun, and they’ve aired my segment probably 100 times. People recognize me still with because of my glasses, although if you see the Shark Tank episode again, it was about eight years ago. The packaging was the ugly first packaging, all black with just the logo, and clearly we’ve advanced beyond that. So that was kind of fun. The other couple of high points for me was when I had no money and I was struggling and, you know, just keeping things alive. I never once missed a payroll. I could only afford interns, but fresh out of college, so So I was teaching them, you know, everything but you my skill set only extended so far, so I was very proud when I finally, three years ago, hired my first real executive hire. She was my became my head of operations. She’s now our VP of Operations, and she brought to me knowledge and skills that I never knew existed and that encouraged me to keep hiring at that level. Of course, when you have money, it’s a lot easier to hire you really good executives and attract good talent, and we’re in that stage now where we’re only hiring really competent rock stars. But she was my first three years ago, and then recently, on a more recent note, I’ve been working out of a very small office. The first eight years the company was run out of my condo. There wasn’t a square inch in my condo here in Boston that didn’t have I had inventory in my bathtub. I had shelves where we filled all of the orders. In my living room, there were algae tablets everywhere, like for eight years. I mean, it’s only been 815 years, so the first half was in my condo, and then I kept trying to find an office, but it was too expensive, and they were crappy offices, so I ended up renting, which is where we have been for the last six years, an apartment in my condo building. So we decked it out like an office, so it’s a real office, but it’s still an apartment building. So I was very proud. Last summer, I signed a five year lease. I moved the company to Miami. We finally moved in in November, but I signed a five year lease in a big boys office tower, where it has our office name on the outside of the door, we take an elevator to work, just like everybody else. We’re surrounded by other businesses. And I was just so proud. We got one of those lit signs, like in the back of you, ENERGYbits. And it just makes me other women maybe want diamonds, and I don’t know I wanted to. I wanted a real office and where we can have my real team come come in, although a lot of our team is virtual, but, but that was a huge, huge milestone for me. We’re actually shutting down this office where it’s empty, because we’re cleaning it out, and we’ll be out of here in another four months, and we’ll be completely working out of our Miami office, and I’m already looking at more office space, because we’re going to be growing in the office tower. We will be growing and needing more office space soon. So So, so those are a couple of, you know, high moments for me. But there was Mo, it’s been very there was no plan B for me. I was going to do this, and it was, like I said, a marathon, and so I didn’t want to get too many people involved. I don’t have an advisory board. I don’t because I didn’t want people telling me no, because I knew that this was needed, and it’s already a multi billion dollar industry in Asia. There’s no reason why it won’t be a multi billion dollar industry here, but I also believe it needs to be grown here, because the way that, you know, supply chain is and tariff changes, you know, it has to be here, and that’s not an easy thing to do, so, but I’m up for the challenge. I’ve met with Casey and Kelly means, and told them about my plans and the MaHA people, and I said, we need an algae industry here in America. And I will, I will work on it for you, America. You know, I’m visualing like a visitor center, not quite a Disneyland, but teach children about how we grow it and and give them a tour, and give them a lunch, and give them clothing and and packaging made of algae is in. Credible what it does, and there’s a huge undercurrent of algae. Experts around the world, we all know what it can do, getting consumers interested in taking it and explaining, I call our product bits, because they’re bits of nutrition. There’s nothing added, nothing subtracted. But you know, I don’t want people to think, ooh, algae is weird. I want them to say, Hey, did you take your bits today? Like that? That’s playful, right? We’ve made animated characters, you know, the Eminem characters. We’ve made algae. We call her the algae gal. She’s animated. She blows kisses, she looks like me with my big glasses. We’re doing everything we can to make this fun and playful for the whole family and make bring nutrition to the people, so it’s effortless, and and eat, you know, and nutrient dense, so we can get out of this crisis that we’re in nutritionally. But you have to make it fun.

Kara Goldin 35:55
Yeah? No, totally No. You are just so such a bulldozer. I mean, I love it. I love the resilience, and I love energy. Bits are terrific. So thank you so much for joining us today, and thank you for taking a very overlooked industry algae and turning it into a powerful health movement as you have your passion and commitment for educating and really driving change is really, really amazing, and everyone needs to try ENERGYbits. We’ll have all the information in the show notes. They’re also going to be offering discount for everybody listening too. So we’ll get you all of that. But thank you again. Really appreciate you coming on Yes.

Catherine Arnston 36:47
And if you want to just learn about algae, you can come to our website, ENERGYbits.com and you can purchase it there as well with Kara Goldin as a discount code 20% I just want to leave you, leave your listeners with one final comment, algae has been here 4 billion years. It’s the first life on Earth. We’ve only been here 200 million so it predates us by a long shot. But it’s not new. It’s just new to you, and you didn’t know about collagen powder or bone broth or chia or matcha, which had been used for centuries in other countries, same with algae. So I’m just here to help bring America up to speed on what some of the ancient traditions and civilizations knew, so we can get ourselves out of this hole that we find ourselves in with nutritional deficiencies. But I’m going to make it fun for you, I promise, and science based. So thank you Kara for allowing me to share.

Kara Goldin 37:42
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 goodbye for now. You.

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