Interview Replay: Kara on Follow Your Different with Christopher Lochhead

Chris Lochhead 0:00
Well, Kara, it’s great to see you. Thank you for joining me.

Kara Goldin 0:04
Thanks for having me.

Chris Lochhead 0:05
I, my first question for you is, you make this comment that I find is fascinating, that you sort of don’t need to know everything, but you need to know enough to start. So what does enough to start mean?

Kara Goldin 0:21
So I feel like the key thing that people need to really have confidence in, I guess, is that their idea, I’m a huge believer that you’re gifted with an idea or a challenge or something that you see missing, because it’s, it’s yours to own. Right, it’s yours to ultimately go out and figure out what to actually do with that. And so, I think that that’s really the key thing, that so many people will not allow themselves to go and move forward, because they have a million reasons why they can’t do something, they don’t have enough experience. They’re don’t have the right education, they’ve been staying home too long with the kids, whatever it is. And so I think you can almost start anywhere with where do you start, because it could mean the idea, it could mean, you just you’ve had an idea for a while, but you didn’t know what to do with it, you just have to start really moving it forward. And once you ultimately start moving forward, what I found is that those times that you move forward actually add up to getting over challenges, making progress, whatever it is, you just have to start somewhere in order to ultimately get it going in some direction. And you may change direction, as well. But at least if you start somewhere, then that’s ultimately what helps you to achieve your dream success, however you want to look at it.

Chris Lochhead 2:03
I love that. Thank you. The other thing I’m fascinated by about you is you and I share a background in technology. But a big difference in that I’m still in the tech world. And you decided not so much. I’m gonna jump in the water, so to speak. And so could you kind of open that up for me and share how that how that went down in your life? Yeah,

Kara Goldin 2:26
so I was at AOL, prior to deciding to leave AOL. I had been there for seven years and was there pretty early where I helped to build the e Commerce program, ecommerce, and shopping. And my role was partnerships. So all the E commerce and, and shopping partnerships that were out there was what I was ultimately managing. And so when it became a billion dollar in revenue to AOL, I sort of thought about that number as a joke, like, you know, when it’s a billion dollars, right, it’s like, you know, billion dollars, a million dollars, they were like, you know, and then suddenly, as we started edging closer, I thought, like, it may actually, like, hit a million dollars pretty soon. And so people used to remind me that I said, Oh, and when it’s a billion, I’m going to, you know, not do this anymore. Somehow, I managed to have three children along the way and building this business, which by the way, I was on the plane so much, and and the United Airlines pilots all knew my first name, which I thought was relatively frightening. And so when it did hit a billion, that’s when I said, Maybe I should actually try and find something that is in Silicon Valley, versus commuting to the east coast where AOL was based.

Chris Lochhead 3:58
And you were living in Silicon Valley at the time. Yeah. Well, San

Kara Goldin 4:01
Francisco, I was living in San Francisco. And so I kept thinking that, you know, there’s tons of stuff going on in Silicon Valley. And San Francisco was just kind of really starting to kick into gear back in 2001. And so that’s when I decided, you know, it’s time it’s time for me to go and figure out something a little closer to home where I’m not traveling so much. I had four kids, eventually, but three kids at the time under the age of four, and my husband was a was an attorney at Netscape. And so actually, the other funny thing about my experience with AOL is that all of my former companies were rolling into one. So that was another big thing for me. I’d been at time and CNN and to market and then AOL and then my husband with Netscape, and so all of it was rolling into one and I’m like, I was part of the transition team for a year. And then I thought, you know, it’s, it’s This is a good time for me to go and figure out something else to do. I also felt like it was, it was the first time where, and I share this with entrepreneurs and just the youngsters of the world to that it was kind of the first time where I really figured out the stage that I really loved in a company. And, and, you know, here I had watched it from being, I don’t know, 100 ish people in the company to 1000s. And every week, it was, like, 200 more we’re getting at it. And it was, you know, it was hypergrowth, it was crazy. And I felt like, now the role was really to manage. And so I had 200 people working for me, and I thought, you know, I can do that. But a lot of other people can do that, too. And so I really wanted to I love the the create time. And again, it was at a time when when, you know, there was consolidation, and there was just a lot of, you know, that’s what that company needed at that point. And so that’s so that was really what I was looking for, and kind of the next thing. But I think another thing that, again, it’s always easier to look in the rearview mirror and kind of think, you know, what was I thinking at that time. But for me, 911 I lived in New York, prior to moving to San Francisco and 911 had a huge impact on me as well. And it was, we had family there, I had friends who were 911 as well. And I felt like if there’s no tomorrow, am I actually doing something that I’m proud of for not just myself, but also for my family and I so I was looking for something that really made a difference. And not that there aren’t tech companies that don’t make a difference. But I felt like the companies that I was, you know, immediately interviewing with and sort of drawn to I felt like maybe I should actually look at nonprofits. So

Chris Lochhead 7:11
was there a do gooder hiding in you screaming to come out after 911?

Kara Goldin 7:15
Yeah, a little bit. And, and again, like I didn’t know what that meant. I mean, I The other thing that I wasn’t in a hurry to go back to work either. I mean, I had worked so hard over the course of, you know, those seven years, and I was really enjoying being with my family. And we were redoing a house in San Francisco and my husband had actually left Netscape and went to join a startup that he was the CEO of that was during a medical information company. And so again, I was like, I don’t know, I’ll keep interviewing and see what happens. And, and, but I wasn’t in any rush to do anything that I really wasn’t passionate about.

Chris Lochhead 8:00
Fascinating. Now, I want to circle back to something you said a little bit earlier. Kara, you said that you if I remember, right, I tried to jot it down, as you were talking that you saw a missing. I remember saying

Kara Goldin 8:14
missing

Chris Lochhead 8:16
in the in the context of what ultimately led you to do hint.

Kara Goldin 8:21
Yeah, what ultimately led me to do hint was that my health was not really what I thought it was. I hadn’t as closely defined it at that point. But there were things about my health that I wasn’t that excited about, including that I had gained a bunch of weight from having kids, and I couldn’t figure out how to get it off. And I had also developed terrible adult acne that I never even had as a teenager. And my energy levels were low. So I decided while I was looking for this perfect job, that I would try and get my health under control. And I went to a bunch of different doctors, I looked at different diets, nobody could actually come up with any type of diagnosis as to why I had gained weight. I think that they thought that I was eating, you know, 12 cookies a day or something. And that’s why, which I wasn’t. And that was really, when I saw this, ultimately, this void in the market that would lead me to launching my company hint, but a few steps before that was when I finally decided that the best thing for me to really understand why it wasn’t as healthy as I wanted to be, would be to actually look at ingredients and everything that I was eating and drinking. And so, you know, this was 17 years ago now when I was just taking a close look at everything that I was eating for something reason I gave a pass for what I was drinking. I don’t know why. But Whole Foods had just opened in the Bay Area. And I remember just being in awe of like Whole Foods is beautiful.

Chris Lochhead 10:12
It was amazing the first few times you went into it wasn’t it right?

Kara Goldin 10:15
And, and I just thought, it’s so beautiful. All I have to do is shop here and I’ll be healthy. And and that really didn’t work. And so I, I actually found I was gaining weight by going to Whole Foods. And so that’s when I, you know, started reading ingredients and trying to figure things out and was, again, I didn’t have a job. So I had all this time to actually look at the labels and all of these products, I would spend three hours and Whole Foods like looking in the aisle, I loved it. And then one day, the Diet Coke can, that I drank every single day was staring at me in the face. And that’s when I thought, wow, I don’t even understand what I’m drinking. And

Chris Lochhead 11:01
it’s hard to pronounce some of the things in Yes, kinds of drinks, isn’t it? Yeah. And

Kara Goldin 11:04
I mean, I, I wasn’t a science major, or pre med or anything like that. But I thought, I don’t know, I bet most people don’t really know what they’re drinking. And I cared more about what I was putting into my car than I cared about what I was putting into my body. And I think it also came at a time when and I think this is true for a lot of people where I had these young kids, and I was looking at what I was putting in their body. And I thought, why do I care about what they’re putting in their body so much, but not my own. Like it’s kind of crazy. And so that’s when I decided to put the diet coke to the side and start drinking water instead. And ultimately, it was a whole series of Converse that I was having with myself, including the fact that, you know, I just assumed that my diet, soda was like somewhere it had water in it, you know, and maybe I can, maybe I can justify it. You know, just

Chris Lochhead 12:03
as a liquid. I had to be hydrating, a little late.

Kara Goldin 12:06
And then after two and a half weeks of, you know, getting over my cravings for this diet soda and just continuing to drink water. I realized that my clothes were fitting differently, my skin issues had cleared up. And when I hopped on the scale, then I realized that I had lost over 20 pounds. I had lost 24 pounds in two and a half weeks like melted away. Wow, Whoa,

Chris Lochhead 12:33
yeah. You lost 24 pounds in two weeks. Crazy from primarily cutting out diet

Kara Goldin 12:42
diet soda. And so what I found was, I mean, it was two and a half weeks of, you know, my head, like hurt. I mean, it was almost it was truly like a detox that I was going through to you know, it’s it was an interesting time where everybody would ask me when I’ve forever buddies asked me when I tell the story that it’s not. I remember it not just being about, you know, having bad headaches right from the caffeine. It was also my stomach. And I mean, I had been drinking diet soda since the early 80s. When Diet Coke came out. My mom was a tab drinker. I know, they just discontinued tabs, she would

Chris Lochhead 13:26
I know. And they had those great 70s and early 80s ads for tab that were very sort of Yeah, the pink and a little studio 54 vibey. If I remember them, the bell bottoms and stuff and glamorous looking people in the leg if I remember them in the early days.

Kara Goldin 13:43
Yeah. And so tab was my mom’s drink. And Diet Coke was my drink. And I really actually thought that I was doing great because it said the word diet. And then when I gave it up, during this time i I really started to look closer at the industry as a whole. And when I would tell people that I gave up diet, diet coke, and this is kind of how this came about that I lost all this weight. They would say weight diet. Now come on. Like that’s like that can’t be and I said yeah, I mean, it’s it’s crazy. I mean, I used to always want to chew gum, like that was always my like thing, I would have my diet coke. And then afterwards, I would I would like chew gum. And now like fast forward 15 years, I mean, we’ve we’ve learned so much about these diets, sweeteners, how, you know, they cause people to overeat, they cause people to, you know, actually produce insulin, because it really goes into this defense mode. And again, like nowhere in in my wildest dreams did I think that that’s what I was doing to my system. So

Chris Lochhead 14:56
I’ve read this stuff that there much research out now, is this correct that suggests or that points to that aspartame and these sorts of things, actually, over time, make you want to eat more. And so even though there’s no calories in the actual drink, if you’re trying to reduce calories in your diet, that turns out these things are pretty bad in that regard. Is that Is that what I’m hearing you saying? And that was your own personal experience?

Kara Goldin 15:25
Yeah. So it’s even further than that, where yes, we started out with saccharin and aspartame and NutraSweet. And we’ve graduated to natural sweeteners. And so stevia is a natural sweetener that has Earth recall, on top of it, which is an alcohol. And so anytime your body actually touches alcohol, then it actually the alcohol goes to your liver. So in addition, with these natural sweeteners, what we’re doing is we’re, we’re creating havoc inside the body, where not only are we craving sweets, and, and, and again, now it’s it’s not even 10 calories, which when I started him, it was 10 calories. Now at zero calories. There’s this fascinating article, and the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago, on how they’re trying to create a low calorie sugar, because they feel that diet sweeteners have gotten a bad rap. And so they’re working hard to get sugar to zero. And I thought, you know, why don’t we just encourage people to actually not crave sweet and cut down on actually sweet things. But instead, like, let’s hire a bunch of scientists to actually, like, get people to believe that things are healthier than they are. And that is exactly what I was seeing. And I was not a, this was not a vision that a lot of my friends were seeing, because most of my friends were in tech. And so they thought it was pretty darn crazy, that I became so interested. But again, it was out of my own interest and getting myself healthy and what I had seen and what I had experienced.

Chris Lochhead 17:15
And of course, you’re not a doctor, you’re not a scientist, you’re not a food researcher, or chemist, or any of those things. You’re just a person who was in tech, who one day, had some time on our hands and started thinking and you mentioned a couple of these health things you’re trying to deal with, and you sort of went headfirst into this rabbit hole.

Kara Goldin 17:38
You know, it points My husband was like, Okay, maybe you should actually go get a job. Like, this is like, you’re so interested in this. But then, you know, I got to a point to where I was just so fascinated by it. And, and while I loved my experience at at AOL, I never, or I can’t say I never, but there weren’t, it wasn’t an everyday occurrence where I woke up and felt like, there was a lot of stuff for me to go figure out. Like, there was a big puzzle that I needed to go work on. And every day, it seemed like, you know, there was something else that I was discovering at the time, Vitamin Water was a huge, you know, as everyone was discovering vitamin water, they were everywhere. And, you know, I turned the label around on the vitamin water bottle. That was never my thing. Diet soda was my thing. And I was shocked to see that vitamin water actually had more sugar and more calories in it than a can of Coke. And I would ask them, my friends who were drinking vitamin water, I’m like, so why do you drink it and they’re like, because it has vitamins in it super healthy. And I’m like, oh, so I was drinking diet soda because I thought it was super healthy too. And on sort of a whole other parallel parallel path, my roommate from college was working for the Center for Disease Control. And she’s still working for the Center for Disease Control. And I reached out to her and I told her I’d lost all this weight. And I really got rid of my diet soda addiction. And she shared with me that she had moved over from poison control at the CDC to working on this new area that they’re really focused on, which is which was on type two diabetes. And so what was fascinating about what she was sharing with me was that most of the people who were getting type two diabetes, which is different than type one diabetes, claimed to drink diet and eat low fat

Chris Lochhead 19:33
and type two, just so that I’m clear. That’s what also sometimes is called adult onset diabetes, as opposed to being born with it is that

Kara Goldin 19:42
yeah, I mean, now I think it’s it’s slightly shifted, because there’s plenty of kids that have it, you know, as well,

Chris Lochhead 19:49
but was generally a function of diet and lifestyle as opposed to something that’s hereditary that you’re born with is correct.

Kara Goldin 19:56
And so at 15 years ago, when I was starting Can’t 2% of the population had type two diabetes? Or pre diabetes today? 45% of the population has type two diabetes, or pre diabetes.

Chris Lochhead 20:09
What? We’re coming up on half of the American population, it’s crazy. I’ve read Kara that, if you take the I don’t know if it’s this is probably the CDC definition. Maybe you’ll tell me of overweight and obese. I think they use the BMI. But maybe you’ll tell me, I have read that if you take those two numbers together, roughly 70% of the American population fall into one of those two categories. Have you heard or read similar thing?

Kara Goldin 20:38
I think that sounds about right. I mean, it’s, it’s frightening, right? Like, it’s just it’s a scary statistic and

Chris Lochhead 20:44
was your friends sort of saying to you, there’s this really strong connection between what we drink, and how overweight or obese we are. And in particular, noticing this pattern of diet, sodas, contributing to overweight and obesity,

Kara Goldin 21:01
actually, what was interesting, what she was sharing with me was that it was people who were a little bit overweight, not a lot overweight, but they couldn’t lose the weight,

Chris Lochhead 21:10
like that extra 10 pounds, it just won’t go away, that kind of thing won’t go away.

Kara Goldin 21:14
And you know, and so I, my brain was thinking, maybe I have type two diabetes. And I actually went to a couple of doctors and said, I’m pretty sure I’ve got type two diabetes after talking to her,

Chris Lochhead 21:27
it’s hard to believe that looking at you today, because you look fairly fit and trim to me. I mean, we’re just getting to know each other, but you don’t fit the mold. And,

Kara Goldin 21:37
man, a lot of people I mean, what’s fascinating, I’ve met, people have heard my story. And again, I was never diagnosed with it, I think I probably was pre type two diabetic. But, you know, I run into people all the time who have heard my story runners, you know, athletes, you don’t have to be fat and out of shape to actually get this crazy disease, what you do have to do is, is really be fooled and buy into this, you know, whole concept of, of natural sweeteners.

Chris Lochhead 22:09
And there’s some terrible words in the industry, right? Like, all natural, organic things along these lines, which don’t necessarily mean good for you. But somehow we the consuming public translate Oh, well, it’s all natural, so then it must be great for me, etc, etc. Is that what’s going on?

Kara Goldin 22:27
Yeah, or you shop at Whole Foods, and you just assume like, I was like, it’s all good, right? Like, everything that I buy here is, is awesome. And you can actually get incredibly unhealthy shopping at certain grocery stores. Right? Like, you can also shop really well, at some of them too. But you just have to how much produce or you’re buying? Yeah, I mean, you just have to, you just have to look and so so that was my, you know, kind of early aha moment how I had been, you know, a smart cookie, who had been fooled by the sword diet for many years. And I was seeing friends that were getting fooled by vitamin. And finally, I was so bored with plain water. And I started slicing up fruit and throwing it in water in my kitchen. And I said, this got me to drink water, and I would share it with friends. And the running joke was people would want to see what was in my class. They’re like, Do you have a pomegranate today? Like, how did you decide on a pomegranate?

Chris Lochhead 23:26
So you became that person that it was always doing something fun and funky with you. And I was

Kara Goldin 23:30
worried about my friends a little bit because they were like, so how, like, how did you slice it? You know? And I’m thinking, really? Like, are we really having this conversation? Like you don’t? Yeah, like it was it was fascinating. And so that’s when I went to my local Whole Foods in San Francisco. And I said, I would love to get a product on the shelf. So you just

Chris Lochhead 23:55
walked in and talk to us, the manager, system manager, somebody Oh, plans

Kara Goldin 23:59
to have a actually not not even I mean, the guy that was stocking the shelves, they used to have a program when they first started that, and I think they still to some extent have this program but local products, so like, you know, 10% of their products, they would try and buy local. And so the so I but again, like

Chris Lochhead 24:21
I hate to interrupt you, but I know a number of folks in the coffee business, the beer business that that really helped to start those companies because they did a similar I didn’t realize you just walk in and talk to the whoever was doing was shelving work, but But yeah, that was a wonderful program.

Kara Goldin 24:38
Yeah. And I think I don’t know what happened when Amazon bought it. I’ve heard kind of mixed based on categories that they did, but anyway, we that was where I went was in San Francisco. I walked in and I had no idea what I was talking about. I think the guy probably thought that I you know, was some crazy lady that was walking in asking how do i Get a product on the shelf, this looks like a cool thing to do. And he was asking me if I had any experience. And I said, no, why I just want this product, I want water with just fruit in it, I don’t want all the coloring and the sweeteners in it. And so I went home and wrote a little mini business plan, I knew how to do that. And, again, had my three kids under the age of four that were running around. And, and then I realized that I was actually pregnant with my fourth child. And so I and at the same time, I had found a bottler in Chicago. And I was going to get on a plane and go visit this woman and learn a little bit more about how to actually produce my product. And I needed $50,000, to do it to buy the bottles and the fruit and the capsule to really do sort of this test run. So I thought it was a good idea to actually share with my husband that I was removing this money to go and potentially start this idea rather than him thinking that I was taking 50,000 and going to Jamaica with a bunch of girlfriends or something I don’t know. And,

Chris Lochhead 26:08
and so to make it is very nice. Kara isn’t very, very

Kara Goldin 26:11
nice, right? But I thought and he wasn’t arguing with me about it. He just didn’t think it was a great idea. But, you know, that’s, that’s our life together. Like he’s like, you know, I might say, Let’s go somewhere for dinner. And he’s like, Yeah, and I’m like, Yeah, let’s do it anyway, you know, like, it’s a good idea. And so,

Chris Lochhead 26:29
I have some of that dynamic with my wife to the point where it’s like, Baby, if you want to do it, let’s go do I don’t even know why you’re asking me let’s you make everything awesome. Fuck it. Let’s just go do what you want to do. I don’t, I don’t even think about Yeah,

Kara Goldin 26:41
happy, happy wife. Happy Life is what he subscribed. And so that was it was one of those conversations, and I’d made some money at AOL. So he wasn’t arguing with me. But he was clear that he did not think it was the best idea that I had ever come up with. Fine. And then I probably was a little annoyed with him in this conversation. So I said, Oh, and by the way, I’m pregnant with our fourth child. So like, you should be a lot nicer to me. And he said, What, like, What are you talking about? And I said, Yeah, it’s it’s, uh, and he said, So how pregnant are you? And I said, Well, it’s about six and a half months, I’m going to have the fourth child, he’s like, you’re going to start a beverage company, in an industry that you know nothing about. And you have four kids under the age of six. Like, seriously, are you? Are you saying, are you okay? And he said, what’s the name of your company? And I said, it’s not even a company. I’m just like, starting some products, and I’m going to get them into Whole Foods. And he said, Okay, so what’s the name of the company? And I said, wah, wah. And he said, he grew up on the East Coast. I grew up in Arizona. And he said, Okay, so there’s this tiny little chain called wah wah, which is not so little in western Pennsylvania. It’s a very large convenience store. So don’t do that. Don’t call it Wawa. It’s also you’ve been staying home with the kids way too long. You’re, you know, saying drink some Wawa. I don’t know, not a good idea, maybe once a while. And I said, You are not my favorite person right now. So that so that was the point when I said, you know, listen, he said, he said, just keep talking about it. Let me hear a little bit more about it. He saw that I was getting really annoyed with them. And, and so then somewhere in the conversation, I said, you know, we’re giving people hints on how to live better. It’s a hint of flavor. And I said, hint, and he said, You’re never going to forget it. Like you’ll never get the word hint for your for your name. I mean, it’s four letters. He’s an intellectual property lawyer. He’s like, you know, forget it.

Chris Lochhead 28:55
No, no way URL, forget

Kara Goldin 28:57
that. It’s not gonna happen. And I said, Okay, well, so You’re the lawyer. I’m the business person. And I would like you to file for this name. And so he’s like, fine. I said, Oh, by the way, we’re like, as he’s walking out of the room, I said, also put in for drink water, not sugar. And he started laughing. And he just kept walking. And I didn’t know if he did it or not. So we got the trademarks, worldwide trademarks on hint and drink water, not sugar. So don’t listen to your lawyer, your husband, your whatever it is, when you’re coming up with these ideas. And but yeah,

Chris Lochhead 29:32
I can interrupt you on that. There’s a lot of people that entrepreneurs shouldn’t listen to, isn’t there? Yeah, cuz a lot of people are going to tell you know, one of the mistakes I see entrepreneurs make all the time cares, is this, you know, they’re trying to achieve this thing called product market fit, which I think is one of most dangerous ideas in the history of entrepreneurship. And the way they think they do it is well, we put the food in front of the dogs and if the dogs like the food, we’ve got a winner right And people may or may not get it in the beginning, right. And so there’s a lot of people, including customers whose feedback is not really what we need in the beginning. Right?

Kara Goldin 30:09
Yeah. You know, it’s it’s an interesting thought. I think that, in our case, when I got it on the shelf at Whole Foods, I put the 800 number on my bottle. And immediately, we were hearing from consumers, who were calling us writing us saying, I love this product, you’re helping me drink water, you’re helping me control my type two diabetes. And so that consumer feedback for us was actually confirmation for me when industry experts were sharing with me that they thought it was a stupid idea. And that it wouldn’t go anywhere, I have a story in my book that I talked about my encounter with the coke executive. And I, after about a year of getting it into a bunch of stores in the Bay Area, and it was doing pretty well I, you know, got really just tired and frustrated and not really sure how I could ultimately grow this business. And so a friend shared with me that she had been introduced to this gentleman, very senior at Coca Cola, and she said, you should, you know, I’ll introduce you. So he took a phone call with me. And I was very excited to tell him how we were doing in the Bay Area. And we were selling and, you know, I grew up in tech there, I don’t know how to get a proper shelf life for distribute this product and really grow it. And he interrupted me and said, Sweetie, Americans love sweet this thing isn’t going anywhere. And I was like, Whoa, like, what, sweetie, that like thinking to myself, You just called me, sweetie. And so then I kind of zoom

Chris Lochhead 31:57
can add up to that. I don’t want to do the man interrupted thing. But you just told such a powerful story. You know, at that point, you’re an accomplished business person, you made some real money, you have a real idea. You’re fleshing it out. You’re very serious person. And I think the average dude like me doesn’t get that, particularly at that stage of your career. And so what’s it like in that position, when a guy says that to you?

Kara Goldin 32:26
So I’m actually really thankful that he said it to me, because I was so shocked. I had not grown up, I didn’t grow up in a, an environment where I was used to hearing this. In fact, I remember calling my dad, and not about this, but sort of talking to him and sharing the story with them that this guy called me this. And he said, you know, like, that’s awful. That’s terrible. For me, it actually made me tune in to the fact that he was totally focused on something else, which did not include health. And so for the next 45 minutes, he went on to share with me that consumers love sweet, we our goal is to get calorie counts down to zero. And then consumers will buy more, because they’ll think that it’s actually healthier than it is. And, and I’m like, I mean, never did I hear that he had a mission, or a concern about making me healthier, which is what I saw as my big mission. And so and

Chris Lochhead 33:37
then was he sort of, did you get the impression that they were playing some kind of trick on us, that is to say, if they could get it to zero calories, they would fool us into thinking that it was it was good for us, or it certainly wasn’t bad for us, when in point of fact, it actually was

Kara Goldin 33:54
the statements were consumers will buy. Consumers will do this, consumers will do this. And and I thought, Okay, well, I’m a consumer, but I don’t I mean, I, like I woke up, and I figured out that that’s not how I want to live. And I didn’t like these things. And he said, well, most consumers aren’t that way. They just want to get it down to zero calories, and it’ll all be fine. Everything, you know, will be great. And, and so going back to you know, how I felt at that point, I’ve had a lot of people say to me, Oh, I would have you know, hung up the phone, I would have, you know, told him off I you know, would have quit my company at this point, because this guy who’s got this huge industry experience is telling you that your idea is stupid. And I said, but for me. He he woke me up to the fact that these large companies in every industry, focus on selling stuff and when you become a public company, it’s even worse, right because you’re answering to the street on, you know, what do you need to do? And, and that was not I, you know, there was nothing called a mission driven company when I started this company, right. But that was what I saw so clearly in front of me. So I thought, like, Why listen, I mean, it just it just, you know, and of course, you’re gonna run into people that you disagree with. I mean, I’ve always believed that since I was a little kid. And but this was just we were in, we were running down to different rivers, right. And I thought, I don’t need to convince him that I’m actually seeing the future of water consumption and health and beverages. Instead, I thought he has way more money than I do. And so I need to like get off the phone, and throw the gas on this thing and start growing it before he does wake up, and realizes that I realized

Chris Lochhead 35:57
how much further ahead you were. Yeah. And you’re thinking, and that, and this notion of being mission driven. It sounds like, I don’t know, put words in your mouth, you can tell me but your desire to make a difference? Would you say was equal to that of making building a company and making no, it was

Kara Goldin 36:15
probably more so initially, you know, and, and I think what I, what I saw was, I, you know, this void, what I said earlier that I saw this void in the market, that was, you know, so frustrating. And, you know, and then I saw my young kids.

Chris Lochhead 36:35
I mean, you sound like a very nice person. But did you get a little militant, a little angry, like, you know, I always think of one of my favorite movies is The Big Lebowski. And there’s that quote, In the movie, where he’s actually quoting George Bush, the first President, first President Bush, where he says, this aggression will not stand, man, you know, entrepreneurs see something and they go, the world is this way, and that is fucked up. And it should be this other way. And these people have it all backwards. And this aggression will not stand man. And there’s this sort of this militant this pirate this? Did you have that? It sounds good, some of it, but I’m curious how it was in your mind.

Kara Goldin 37:12
And I would come home. And I would, I mean, at this point, my husband had joined me. And, and, you know, after seeing really, that this was a bigger mission for me that I really believe that if we could, based on how big these categories were, in this huge sea of beverages, that I was moving away from the diet sodas and the vitamin and enhance waters that all had sweeteners in it, I said, Can you imagine if we could actually get people to enjoy water, that there’s a lot of people think, and you don’t have to tell them, Go drink water, go drink eight glasses, whatever, everybody knows that, like that. Instead, just give them something that tastes better, because then they’ll start drinking water. And then they’ll do exactly what our consumers were telling us early on, which was, you helped me drink water, I’ve lost weight. And, and they, they understand that they can, right, you give them hope. And then they’ll go and figure out the rest of, you know, their health issues, and etc. So that’s, that is how I viewed this thing that I was working on. And, and again, like, every single day, I would get up. I also love the idea that I wasn’t going into an office, I was able to spend some time with my kids. So I also, you know, thought about the fact that if I still want to go to mommy and me classes, and you know, Monday afternoons at three, then I’m going to be back on after dinner, and I’m going to, you know, keep moving it. But that may mean that I you know, in order to get what I want to get done, it may take me an extra year. Right? Like I wasn’t in a rush to get it done. I mean, there’s so many entrepreneurs that I’ve met in the food and beverage space, who have, you know, tried to blanket the country with their drinks and, you know, for food or whatever, because they’re like, Oh, you got to get it out there. Because then it’s, you know, if you don’t, like competition will come up or whatever. And I and, you know, I’ve learned

Chris Lochhead 39:20
and we here in the you know, the tech industry. I’m sure you’re aware of your blitz were scaling and yeah, all this stuff, right. And you got to sort it flies and you know, one of my entrepreneurial Heroes is vancian Art of Patagonia. And I remember when I read his book, Let my people go surfing. I wasn’t Isn’t that an amazing book?

Kara Goldin 39:40
In fact, he made me that book made me go to Patagonia. Patagonia the place Yeah, I ended up going down there. And I, I that was that was the book that really inspired me to go down there and travel and see.

Chris Lochhead 39:53
But I remember in the book, I don’t remember what the number was. But at one point, he’s describing how the company is really growing and so forth and so on. And at a certain growth rate, again, I can’t remember what the number was, but a certain growth percentage, it felt like the wheels were coming off, they couldn’t be on top of things the way they wanted to certain things were being sacrificed, etc, etc. And they made a conscious choice to hold the growth at a low again, I can’t remember the numbers. I read the book a long time ago. But But I don’t ever remember a CEO saying, we are actually going to pull down our growth rate because our company doesn’t work if we’re growing at x. And so I find it fascinating Kara, to hear you say that. Of course, you’re you. I mean, you have an incredibly fast growing company, you’ve won insane awards for doing it. So we’re not you know, it’s not like you have a, a two person lawn business, far from it. But yet at the same time, it’s fascinating to hear you say, you were prioritizing your children and and you were taking a more long term view. And if that meant shorter growth in the near term, then then so be it. Yeah. How did you deal with the fact that people are saying, hey, competitions coming, and you might lose this category, battle, and so forth, and so on. So

Kara Goldin 41:10
I think we really, I was hearing it and kind of seeing the pressure, especially when we were going out to finally raise money, I didn’t raise money for the first couple of years, primarily because I, I had plenty of friends and family that were asking me to invest, and I had no idea what I was doing. And I was like, I’ll let you know, like, this is not this is I’m getting my MBA and beverages right now. And you don’t want to do anything yet, because I’m not sure where this thing is going. And so when we started going, when we finally raised money, and we were a little more confident in our business, and had figured out the shelf life issues, and, and all of that we started going and, you know, went to Silicon Valley to Sand Hill Road, they, they were actually calling us and saying we drink your product. It’s at Google, like it’s at all these companies.

Chris Lochhead 42:05
So the VCs on Sand Hill Road started calling you as a beverage company, and so

Kara Goldin 42:12
crazy. And so they were all drinking it in their offices. And so they called and I thought, oh my gosh, like they’re calling, I mean, this is amazing. We’re gonna, you know, be the next, you know, big thing, right? Like, it’s all gonna grow. And then it’s fascinating because they were afraid. And they were kind of making me afraid and me doubt that if I actually got enough traction, and I got big enough that, you know, coke, or Pepsi, or any of the big guys would crush us. And so I remember when, shortly after a couple of those conversations with VCs. And so that was the reason why they wouldn’t invest in us because they said, you know, this isn’t scalable, because ultimately, they’ll figure it out. Yes, you are head, but they’ll figure it out, and they’ll see what you’re doing. And they’ll crush you. And they’ll come out with it, you know, coke, water or something or whatever. So we get a phone call from one of our major retailers, target. And this is early on and and they’re like, Okay, know, you’ve been doing pretty well with us. But we’ve got bad news. Coca Cola is category captain. And they’ve decided that they’re going to launch a competitive product to you. So we’re going to actually pull you out of target. And I said, well, that that’s not very nice. That doesn’t seem very fair. And, and they said, sorry. Like, we’re, you know, we’re pulling you out. So they pull us out. And, you know, the next two months, we basically assumed that we were done. I mean, we basically we kind of ignored what was going on at Target. You know, we continued to be hopeful that they wouldn’t, you know, go and do what they did at Target to us and other retailers. We, you know, continue to kind of focus on what we were doing, and then we get a phone call from target a couple months later, and they said, so, Coke decided it was called Dasani essence water, and coke decided that they didn’t want to continue with the product. And so we still see a need for your product in the store. We have a customer that likes, you know, unsweetened flavored water. And so we’re bringing you back in and you’re actually gaining space. And so because they they actually had a lot more space than you did a couple of months ago.

Chris Lochhead 44:50
So now they created a hole on the shelf for our room for him. Now, I know why all that happened. I can explain it perfectly. But I’m very curious why you think that happened? Which part why Koch pulled out? And target called you back saying, Hey, could you please come back and give you more room? I have a, I have an opinion about that. But I’m more curious about your opinion.

Kara Goldin 45:15
So many lessons in there. First of all, I’ve worked in large companies. And I know that, you know, you can have a very smart MBA, who comes in with this great idea, like Kant is making traction out in the marketplace, I want to go and innovate, and I want to go do this thing. So all of a sudden, you have somebody internally who’s running vitamin water, or Diet Coke. And they’re very good at crafting the numbers, and basically saying, If I had that space, and target, then my, this would be better. And we could show the market, this much more profitability, sales, whatever, you know, lots of different things. And so, so that ended up. And basically, that was the first time I was really scared. Now, the running bats inside of our company, we’ve had eight in the last 15 years, eight times where they’ve taken space away from us disrupted, not just Coke, it’s been Pepsi and Dr. Pepper and lots of other companies. And then what happens is that they don’t do it as well as we do. And so then, you know, they or they decide that they don’t really want to focus on water, because the rest of their product line actually has sugar and sweeteners in it. So why would they want to focus on that. And so we’ve now learned that every time that disruption comes along, we don’t love it. But we, we cherish it now, because we know that we’re actually going to be gaining. And you know, it also happens with private label brands. I mean, over the years, we have lots of stores that I mean, literally our our logo goes down the side of the bottle, we’ve had

Chris Lochhead 47:16
a beautiful marketing, beautiful by the way, the book marketing is absolutely gorgeous. Thank you, your promo video, the cover the whole thing, I looked at it, I know marketing is legendary. When I’m, I’m not envious kind of a guy. But when I look at it and go shit, they crushed it on that the you’ve done it with the company, of course, you’ve done it with the book. Now i i would love to share with you my analysis I want to hear happen. So everything you said, I’m sure, and I would add this perspective. You’re what we around here, call a category designer, you created a new category you saw missing, nobody else saw that missing. You got motivated and maybe, you know, uh, you know, I’m an old punk rocker and a boxer and stuff. So I understand sort of aggression. And you said, you know, this aggression will not stand, we’re gonna go get people healthy, we’re going to create a wonderful product to do that. And you got and you’re a missionary, not a mercenary, which is a huge distinction. And you created this whole new category of fruit flavored healthy with ingredients you can read and understand. And that actually, uh, it’s real water with a yummy flavor. And there you go. As a result, you design the category. And as such, you are the first company in the water space to evangelize the problem that you personally experienced, which is this stuff’s not healthy, it’s not helping, there’s got to be a better way. I would describe that as a point of view, legendary category designers have a and I’m going to use these words very much on purpose Kera a different point of view. And they go on a mission to change the world to move it from the way it is, to the way they want it to be. And so what I think probably also happened in addition to what you said is consumers like to call them people to humanize us because I don’t wake up and think I’m a consumer but anyway, acknowledge you as the category king, they had fallen in love with you as the category queen. And, and and so the first company in people’s mind to achieve any kind of scale around a new way of thinking about a problem and therefore a solution becomes very hard to dislodge, particularly if they do you’ve done which is execute in a tremendous way. You are not you are not an easy target far from it. So you created this category. You evangelized it, people got it. And then when they took you away, they were like, not so much. And in addition to that, per your comments, the folks at Coke, they weren’t on a mission. This was a spreadsheet jockey looking at numbers thinking they could drive some revenue and some margin. Whereas as we talked about in the early part of our conversation, that’s a second, or it was in the beginning, a secondary thing. And so when you have a missionary who’s created a whole new category that resonates with people, that becomes the category queen, kind of hard to knock off, even if you’re the smaller up and coming contender. That’s what I think, totally, that’s a lens. Let me say it that way to look at what happened, because that’s what I think happened. Am I right? No, I

Kara Goldin 50:38
think you were 100%. Right. And I, you know, the number of people. I mean, here’s it. Here’s another marketing, aha moment to I remember when we were launching this company, and the number of people, including some of those VCs that we met with, said, You know, you, you really shouldn’t talk about why you founded the company. Because what if you talk about how you founded the company, then you’re I know, I mean, it’s crazy to think about it now. makes you sound small. And so and, and

Chris Lochhead 51:14
no, it makes you relatable, it makes you human cares a person. This was a person who had an idea who walked into Whole Foods and said, how, and you went after it, that it makes it incredibly awesome. That sort of makes it

Kara Goldin 51:29
your years into, and I remember I was on this episode of how I made my millions. And it was more like how I spent my millions. But it was, it was funny, because it became the number one episode of how I made my millions. And they were running it over and over and over again. And, and one day I was at a hotel in Georgia, the cloisters and I was sitting out by the pool, and I just gone to Harris teeters a little market and pick up the bottles a hint. And I was talking to my daughter by the pool. And this woman walks up to me and she said, So I’m sorry to interrupt you, but where did you get those bottles of hint. And I said that down the street at Harris Teeter. And she said, Oh, I’ve been dying to try this product. I saw this woman who was on how I made my millions and and she’s you know, I just am dying to try this product. And, and I said, Oh really? What? What was it? And she said, Oh, she you know, she made it in her kitchen. And then she took it to Whole Foods. And she started telling me that as of course my daughter’s like 12 at the time she’s cracking up, she jumps into the pool and runs away. She comes back a few minutes later. And she’s like, did you tell the woman she’s telling me the whole story? My story. She doesn’t realize it’s me. And so my daughter said, Did you tell her? And I said no. And then I was sort of awkward. And I said oh, so I work for that company? And she said get out of here. What What’s that woman like? And she was she still didn’t know that it was me. And what I realized, is that my story, and it was giving her hope. Right. She then went on to tell me like about these ideas that she had for company as well. So I totally wholeheartedly believe that that stories. I mean, they work 15 years ago, it wasn’t popular. And it’s

Chris Lochhead 53:25
true. It’s what happened. And it’s awesome. And it Look, I don’t want to I don’t want to make you blush too much. But it’s legendary. What you have done is fucking legendary. Thank you. Now I know, I don’t have you for a ton more time you’re running a high powered, high, fast growth company. And you’ve got this wonderful new book out. But I’d be remiss, I think if I didn’t ask you, Kara. We’re at a funny time. That is a very strange time. And I think many of us, myself included, want to grab on to as much inspiration from other legendary people as possible. And I think that you’ve become a very inspirational entrepreneur, your profile has really risen over the last couple years best I can tell. And frankly, I think you’re inspirational to men. And you’re probably a little especially inspirational to women, part of the discussion around having three kids and being pregnant with a fourth and going after it and doing it with your husband. And it’s it’s a pretty extraordinary if you take a big step back and think about it from a life perspective. What you’re doing with your life is is very inspirational, I think probably a little extra inspirational to gals. And so, sort of a two part question A How does that make you feel? And then be what advice would you have for entrepreneurs, and particularly female entrepreneurs who might be in a somewhat similar situation. But first, what does it feel like to be an inspiration

Kara Goldin 55:00
I don’t know, I don’t even think I mean, I like to inspire Am I what I go as far as to say, I’m an inspiration? I don’t know, I don’t really think about it. I just know that it that people write to me on a daily basis, and tell me that it gets them going. And, and I think that, that is the thing that gets me excited when you are running a company that where you’ve got people that I mean, I’ve got people on Twitter, where I’ll like, go away for a few days. And if we will get it, I just want to make sure you’re okay. I mean, people, you know, and I don’t say anything that is like, you know, brain surgery worthy ever. Like I’m, I just think about things, and I’ll say things that, that I think everybody maybe would like to think about or would like to say I frequently, you know, talk about my challenges and my failures. And I think that that’s, that’s something that I’ve always been really good at. And I laugh at myself a lot. And I, you know, part of what I talk about in my book, too, that a few people who have have read it in in the pre the preview of the book, including Jamie diamond, and John Legend, and Sheryl Sandberg, all kind of said the same thing.

Chris Lochhead 56:30
Crew, giving you quotes for your book of support.

Kara Goldin 56:33
Well, you know, I’ve gotten to know him over the years. And you know, Cheryl, actually, she interviewed me yesterday, and I was on Facebook, and I was cracking up because I’ll never forget getting a phone call from her assistant when she went from Google over to Facebook. And she she said Cheryl loves Hinton, she doesn’t have the hint at Facebook. So can you like, start getting it in the micro kitchens here at Facebook. And so Cheryl was the person that ultimately brought it in. And, you know, John, legend is a investor in our company. And you know, I’ll never forget, he called me off the 800 number on the bottle and like 11 years ago, and telling me how much you love the product. And I said, you know, I’m sure you’re somebody really famous. I don’t know who you are. But don’t hold it against me, because I don’t know anything. I mean, remember, in fairness, 11 years ago, John was not as big as he is today.

Chris Lochhead 57:28
He’s gigantic. Now. This is giant.

Kara Goldin 57:31
But yeah, I mean, I think that if you look, if you ever hear people saying to you, like you helped me, I discovered your product. I mean, I like I never would get those emails from people when I was in tech. And again, I’m not saying that, you know, some people might not need that I love the idea of being able to help people. And so that, for me, was just huge motivation. And I just, I think, too, that we, I don’t know, we grow up in a world where somewhere along the way, we’ve been told, like, kind of fake it until you make it or, you know, don’t talk to people don’t complain too much, whatever. I think there’s, there’s ways to sort of move forward and actually share with people what you’ve been through. And, and that actually helps people through your stories to, you know, know that they’re not alone. I mean, that that is that is the NS Cheryl said when she read my book, she said, actually, when it’s an even funnier story, she, I reached out to her during the pandemic. And I said, would you, you know, give me a quote for the book. And she said, I won’t give you a quote, unless I liked the book. And so I was like, Oh, that means you have to read it. And really, what else am I going to do? And I

Chris Lochhead 58:59
hope it doesn’t. So I

Kara Goldin 58:59
know, I didn’t write. And then all of my people said the same thing. Nobody would just give me the quote, I said to my publisher, I’m like, I don’t know, like, what authors you deal with, but I mean, none of my friends, like, what give me just give me the quote. And so Cheryl calls me back after 30 days, I gave her 30 days to read it. And she said, so. So here’s the thing. Your the thing that I thought about with your book is, what would I do? And what would people do if they didn’t know the word fear? And that and and she said that you don’t think about fear, what you think about is going and trying and knowing that you may not actually like succeed. But the key thing is that the key thing is is that you’re going to learn and you’re going to try and Like, and some things are gonna work out, and some things aren’t going to work out. But you’re gonna, and and I said, you know, that’s exactly right. And what I’ve figured out is that with every single challenge along the way, that actually helps me to do better the next time. And so that is, so it’s fascinating to me how many people have read this book and, and said, I thought about very different things, then, you know, it’s not the same things that are coming out of the book, it’s like a lot of different it’s, it’s, it’s thought provoking.

Chris Lochhead 1:00:37
Well, and that’s why I think you’ve done such a great job with it. You know, I didn’t know if your publicist had any sense for how much it would resonate with me, one of my favorite expressions is, you can’t be a legend without being a loser. And we even made up a word around here to make failing, feel a little better, we call it losery. There’s gonna be a lot of losery along the way,

Kara Goldin 1:01:02
but those people are so much more interesting, right? I mean, the people that sort of own, you know, yeah, that didn’t work out that well. Right. I mean, how many people like I have lots of friends like that they’re just way more interesting than the people that say, oh, everything’s handled, Everything’s beautiful. You know, it’s not a no, but we

Chris Lochhead 1:01:20
get sold this piece of bullshit. Yeah, sort of success sort of up into the right, yeah, maybe there’s a few little waves along the way. But, you know, everything so and so touches turns to gold, and this and that. And, you know, for the most part, that’s complete crap. It

Kara Goldin 1:01:33
is. And, and I think that, so that’s the other thing. I mean, so I was journaling for four years, I went, and that’s how this book developed. I didn’t know how to write a book, I knew a few authors, but it wasn’t like, I’m going to go write a book now. Because that’s going to boost my sales for my company. Instead, I said, I’ve got a lot of plane flights. And I’m going to write because people would comment to me that, you know, I’m different than they are, because they have doubts, and they’ve had fears and failures. And I’m like, Really, like you don’t think I’ve had like problems that I have having doubts. I haven’t had failures along the way. And so I would share my stories when I was thinking about this just in my journal. And then after three years of writing, I finally was like, I don’t know, this could actually help a lot of people who I’ve talked to, and because I bring these stories up, so why don’t I see if I could actually get it published. And so that is the story and daunted overcoming doubts and doubters. The The one last thing that I’ll say to that has really frustrated me over the years, but I know, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs and people who have built things, you know, in lots of different industries, but there’s always the, the unicorns, and then there’s the failures. And I’ve, I’ve always been like, the stuff in between way more interesting, right? And, and even when there is the failure, there, there’s like, I want to know the stuff in between, like, I always know that if I meet that person, or if I’m on a panel with them or whatever, over the years, on go dig up some like little story on that person that I’m like, tell me when you got kicked out of Starbucks, like, tell me, like, tell me when that happened? Like how do you feel? What do you know? And like, call me an instigator or whatever. But I like that’s the those are the great nuggets. Right that that? Yes. So that’s, that is the book of undaunted, and I hopefully will

Chris Lochhead 1:03:35
and it’s a great title to care a fantastic title. Undaunted, it’s it’s inspiring. It’s a little aggressive. But and and from a pure marketing point of view. The genius of undaunted is it’s the perfect word for your book. And it’s a word we don’t hear very often. It’s it’s fresh language. It’s not in the business vernacular, like some other words are and so it fits exactly. And it’s a fresh word. It’s like, yeah, I can get behind that word.

Kara Goldin 1:04:07
I appreciate that. So there is another undaunted book that just came out, unfortunately, so be sure to look for the one that is undaunted, overcoming doubts, and doubters, the other undaunted, that just came out a couple of weeks ago is the former head of the CIA. So very different book, then

Chris Lochhead 1:04:26
very different, might be interesting. Different kinds of interesting,

Kara Goldin 1:04:30
mine. Exactly a different type of interesting, so But definitely, you know, this is a book that hopefully, if you get a chance to read it, you’ll reach out to me too, and and let me know what you think of it because it’s it really, it came from the heart. It came from a place where I hope I can actually help a lot more people just really push themselves through and not build up walls around them that really prevent them from believing in themself. And even if you, you know, have these doubters around you, why not just like, go out and try, and you may prove them wrong and all of that?

Chris Lochhead 1:05:17
Yes. It’s fantastic. And it’s, there’s maybe a couple other things, if you’ll indulge me. There’s a lot of business bullshit today, maybe more than ever before. And there’s a lot of books and podcasts and whatever’s from people who don’t have real track records, or they’re just spewing pablum, you know, I call them hustle porn stars and these types, right? You’re a real person who’s built a real, you created a new category, you define that category and design that category. And now you’re the category queen. And that is an extraordinary thing. And you did it in a space, I’m always fascinated when outsiders get it done. And I find that very fascinating about what you’ve done. The other thing, and maybe this is a little, maybe I’ve lived on the west coast a little too long. But I’d like to get your reaction to this. I’ve been talking to my friends about this. If you think about what could happen next year, and I sort of think about what might be true next spring. And hopefully, where we are next spring is we’re beginning to get our arms more around this virus, and our economies coming back. And hopefully, I really hope that our country finds a way to deal with racial injustice. And that these things that we’ve been living through, I think we’re living in this cocoon time. And my hope, is that by plus or minus spring, next year, will be slowly beginning to emerge from the cocoon. And so I think you, your book and your company, have an opportunity to be inspirational at a very unique time. Because there’s a chance that next spring will be on the calendar spring in America. But from a mindset perspective could be, if you will spring in America. And so your book coming out now, I hope will be inspirational to many in their lives, as well as entrepreneurs, we need more Cara Golden’s in the world.

Kara Goldin 1:07:26
Thank you. I agree. And I think that, you know, we’re at a time right now, where not only are people getting furloughed and laid off, but also there’s people that are questioning whether or not they want to be doing what they’re doing every day, they’re moving to different locations, they’re kind of changing what, you know, they ultimately thought maybe they wanted to be doing and I also think what’s I was on a CNBC segment the other day, and they, the person interviewing me, mentioned that the women leaving the workforce is 30%, higher than it’s ever been in the history of women working. So that’s a major step back. Now, when kids are back in school, when women do go back into the workforce, do they want to go back in the same way? Do they want to, you know, try and find a similar job? Or, you know, go back to the same company? Or? Or do they want to go do something totally different? I encourage people to start to think, during this time, and answer to your earlier question, like, you know, how do you start? Right? And, and I think like, that’s what you do, you start to look around you and figure out, what do you see, that would be better, that you’d be better off? If there was actually this problem was solved, or this product was created, and go and figure out small steps on actually creating those things? Because I think next year, you’re right, I think it could be the time to go and do this. And, and truly, you know, like, if I can do it, everyone else can do it, too. I think you just have to take baby steps and you know, just because you’re taking a few months off or off from the working world maybe you know you’re taking care of kids that are being homeschooled right now. Why not actually, you know, get ready to hit the ground running with your new idea if that’s what you choose to do. And you know, or call it a side hustle to I mean, there’s so many people out there that are you know, rethinking that about what they want to do and maybe they feel like they want to live in whatever Montana and and it’s beautiful but they’re not sure that this is going to be a long term thing for their company, start thinking about these ideas. And it doesn’t mean that you have to quit your job today. And, and, you know, in order to start something, I think you’re absolutely right. There’s no better time for this book, to actually be in people’s hands to really get them to start thinking. It’s funny, I had my one bad review, it wasn’t a terrible review. But it wasn’t a great review, in my mind. And it was interesting is that the person came out and said, Miss golden doesn’t actually tell me how to be an entrepreneur, and doesn’t give me the steps to actually be an entrepreneur. And I said, I laughed, and I said, No entrepreneur could actually tell you how they ultimately did it. Right. And they made a lot of the best entrepreneurs. And the most successful entrepreneurial journeys are the ones where they made mistakes, they learn from their mistakes, they figured out, it was a you know, it was not a straight line, but they look how they thought it was gonna look. Yeah, there wasn’t a 123. Here’s how I, you know, built this. And here’s how I did this. That’s just not the way it’s done in any industry. And so if you’re looking for that, this book is not that. And you’re not well, by any

Chris Lochhead 1:11:25
book that claims to be that is full of shit, total, right? All we can share is what we’ve done and what we’ve learned. And some of it may work for others. And some of it may not. And hopefully, it’s instructive, but there is no playbook for how you build a company like hint or any other successful category and therefore company and brand and product. Totally care. Clearly, I could talk to you forever.

Kara Goldin 1:11:48
Well, we’ll do this again.

Chris Lochhead 1:11:50
I would love to have you back. You’re welcome back anytime. You’re an extraordinary entrepreneur and a wonderful person. Is there anything else you want to touch on before we wrap?

Kara Goldin 1:11:58
No, I you know, this is this is terrific. And, you know, reach out to me on social if anybody wants to have any questions along the way. I I’m definitely eager to, you know, really help.

Chris Lochhead 1:12:17
You do. Is it you they get or is it some person in marketing?

Kara Goldin 1:12:20
It’s me. Yeah. So Instagram, actually, I have a team of people that do the postings, but I’m always looking at my messages and are therefore reading but nobody does my nobody does my Twitter. That’s where people find me. Well, Kara,

Chris Lochhead 1:12:36
you’re a legendary entrepreneur. I’m really glad you took the time to write this wonderful book, and I can’t thank you enough for spending this time with me. And you’re always welcome back.

Kara Goldin 1:12:47
So appreciate it. Thanks so much, everybody. Have a great week. Stay legendary. Thank you.