Interview Replay: Kara On The Growth Fire Podcast

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be I want to be you just want to make sure you will get knocked down but just make sure you don’t get knocked down knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control control control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go Let’s go. Today’s episode is a bonus episode. Enjoy.

Marc Reifenrath 0:48
Welcome to the growth fire podcast, where we engage with top business leaders who share their experiences and provide real insights that help them attract customers retain staff and grow their bottom line. Now, let’s get started with the show.

Hi, there, I’m MMarc Reifenrath, the host of the show where I feature inspiring business leaders from various backgrounds and industries willing to share their perspectives on healthy cultures and motivated teams. past guests have included Scott mortel, the former CEO of YPO. If you haven’t listened that episode, I would absolutely recommend it. It was a blast really, really good insights for me. Today. I am super excited. I’ve been a longtime fan of this brand, and Kara Goldin is the founder of hint, best known for its award winning hint water, the leading unsweetened flavored water. She has received numerous accolades including being named EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017 for Northern California, and one of InStyle 2019 badass 50. Previously, Kara was VP of shopping partnerships at America Online. She hosts the podcast the Kara Goldin show, and her first book undaunted, overcoming doubts and doubters was released October 2020, is now a Wall Street Journal and Amazon Best Seller care lives in the Bay Area with her family and three Labradors. Without further ado, Kara, thank you so much. And welcome. That was a great bio. And thank you for sending me the book. So welcome to the show.

Kara Goldin 2:22
Thank you excited to be here.

Marc Reifenrath 2:24
All right, I gave you a little bit of a forewarning. When you wake up in the morning, you’re walking to your desk, you’re kind of getting in the in that mindset for work? What would be that walk up song or entered song plan in your head every morning? Okay,

Kara Goldin 2:37
so when it’s so funny how many times I’ll go on stage to do speaking and without asking me that the song that continues to come on is I have the tiger. Yes. So I think that has become sort of the song that is attached to me. So when I feel like that adrenaline rush, and I’ve got a ton of stuff to accomplish that day, I think that song automatically hits me in the in the head, so and gets me all jazzed up,

Marc Reifenrath 3:14
that one can bail forever be a great song for that. That works very well. All right, um, you called yourself an accidental entrepreneur. What do you mean by that? And how do you think that impacted your path to take the hint where it is today?

Kara Goldin 3:27
Yeah, well, I think first of all, I’ve, I’ve talked to a number of people, you and I were just briefly chatting about a forum and and obviously, lots of entrepreneurs and YPO, for sure. But, you know, I think people don’t really think about it when they’re deciding to start a company. And I think many people are accidental entrepreneurs, right? They want to, they see an idea that no one is doing and they decide, Oh, I’m gonna just go do it. But when I was setting out to write this book, it really made me think a lot about the fact that I had worked for entrepreneurs, that were incredibly inspiring. And, but I never really thought of myself as that. I wasn’t going to work for them in order to gain experience. That’s one way to do it. But that wasn’t me. But I guess when I actually had this idea for him, that it gave me the confidence to be able to know that I could do this right that I was that I had been prepared and trained just by watching others who were just normal, everyday people. They were accidental entrepreneurs at one time. So I think that that is that’s just something that I’ve that I’ve learned along the way you You don’t have to be born an entrepreneur or always want to be an entrepreneur, you have to have an incredible idea. And you have to have confidence and, and a strategy to be able to start, right. And that doesn’t mean that you have to have everything figured out either. That more than anything, you have to know that, you know, every single day, you have to figure out how do I make progress? How do I see around corners to make stuff happen? That is a true sign of an entrepreneur and their journey.

Marc Reifenrath 5:39
Yeah, love all that. Okay, so I do want to, we’re both in YPO. That’s how we got connected Young Presidents Organization, it’s been transformative for me. So you kind of hinted at that the forum. Were you in YPO, when you joined, or started hint? Or I’m assuming you started hint and then joined? YPO?

Kara Goldin 5:58
Correct. Yeah, I started Han and then joined YPO. In fact, I had never heard of it. Prior to joining, and I knew a few people in the Bay Area where I live, who were a part of it. And somebody reached out to me, and and, you know, it’s sort of the story of, I think, you know, the busiest people are the ones that you that you ultimately probably want to be a part of your forum, or your group, or, and my first point was, like, I don’t know, if I have time. I mean, it sounds like it’s a lot of meetings, and, but what I gained from it really was, you know, a different set of thinking, people pushing on me to, to actually, you know, create my own path. I think one thing that I’ve learned that I’ve actually shared with people who even aren’t in YPO, yet, is truly a way of thinking about things and, and, and coming up with my own ideas of how to solve my problems, has really been something that I am grateful for the training that I got through YPO. So being able to actually sit in a group and hear other people’s challenges, but also kind of relate them back to my own challenges and how I solve them without giving them the solution. Like, here’s what you should do. And sometimes when you first hear that kind of that talk, I guess it’s frustrating, right? Because you’re like, I just walked out of that meeting, and no one actually told me what to do. But there’s a reason for that. And I think that there’s a thinking around it, that, you know, everybody is capable of figuring out what they should do. But sometimes you need examples of how other people solved problems to be able to think about, well, maybe I could do it that way. And I think that that’s what I’m probably most grateful for in the YPO experience.

Marc Reifenrath 8:10
I like to always say from for me anyways, and you’re kind of describing it. YPO is kind of like a cheat code for time. So everybody’s fear is, I don’t have time, I don’t have time. But it’s really there is a return on your time by investing in YPO. Because like you said, you have a challenge. And you think in your head, oh, I’m the only person who’s ever experienced this challenge. And you get in that forum. And it’s like, Oh, I’ve went through a similar version of that. We did that five years ago, I did that last year, and you hear how they solve that problem. And all sudden, you leave with a ton of ideas. And I’m so impressed with my four mates and how when they come back from a problem, and then 3060 90 days, the progress they’ve made, it seemed like a really tall mountain to climb, and they just crushed it. And that’s so rewarding to see them do it and the little part the forum had and helping them but you’re right, it unlocks thinking to accomplish things that maybe you didn’t think you could totally

Kara Goldin 9:07
and I think it’s just the idea of, you know, oftentimes when you’re sitting in your, your world of you know, running, either running a company as a CEO, or actually creating a company, having ideas from other leaders and other industries is super, super helpful. Because again, you know, most entrepreneurs are they sort of lose their social life right there. They’re so focused on especially if they have a family, they’re focused on their family, and they’re focused on, you know, building this thing that, you know, they’re so they’re so excited about and really, you know, under the gun to really try and make something of it. And I think that being able to know that You were going to come into a situation once a month, and you have to dedicate that time to really thinking about not just your own issues, but other people’s issues and kind of relating it back to maybe challenging times that you had, that were similar. It really, I always found myself kind of leaving meetings, sort of daydreaming about like, oh, wow, I actually, that looked like a disaster point in the company. But it was actually, you know, I learned a lot. And here’s what happened. So yeah, super, super amazing.

Marc Reifenrath 10:37
So your path when you started, I mean, you had gone into the you had a pretty colored professional career with great experiences, big companies, I’m sure tons of smart people. So you know, I started my business when I was a junior in college. And plenty of people telling me I shouldn’t my parents included telling me I shouldn’t and you know, a professor told me your dreams aren’t big enough until somebody laughs at him. I took that very seriously. But so, you mentioned that in your book a little bit. You kind of said it in one of some of your open opening remarks, too. But you had people telling you this was a bad idea. You can’t do this. That’s impossible. You’re gonna fail. So all that haters, for me, that was fuel? How did you take that and harness it to? Because it’s tough when you have those people chirping? You know, it’s the right shoulder left shoulder? No, no, no. Yes, yes, yes. Walk me through your mentality there to do that and take the leap.

Kara Goldin 11:26
I totally agree. I think it was fuel. I was I was actually talking to somebody yesterday, an athlete a pretty well known athlete about this as well, I think, you know, growing up, I was accustomed to always, I was a gymnast, I was also a runner. And I had a tendency to want to be around the people who were so much better than me, like I, I looked up to them, I was inspired by them. And I think that that’s been a consistent thread amongst, you know, frankly, my life, right, that it was, you know, who do I know, that can actually either tell me how I can get better. That would be my dream, that never really happened. Instead, I would watch. And I would similar to what we were just talking about in the YPO experience, like how did you get the courage to do a, you know, roundoff back handspring, double flip, right, like that sort of mentality, or, you know, in the case of softball, I was a terrible softball player and never really got the hang of it. But I would surround myself with all these great softball players, and I, you know, learn the game pretty well. But, but more than anything, I would, like sit there and try and analyze exactly what these people were doing in order to get better. And sometimes it worked. And sometimes, it didn’t work more than anything, but. But again, like taking that all along the path of my life to ultimately starting a company, and even kind of, even though I wasn’t technically an entrepreneur, and running my own company, I was sort of running my own businesses that didn’t, you know, have an initial business model to work off if I was building the businesses out the direct to consumer business on America Online, for example. So when you’re starting with a blank, blank slate, right, I think that it’s, it’s, it’s challenging, right? Because you don’t really, you know, you’re sort of throwing, you know, slime up on the wall and hoping it’s gonna stick but you don’t really know. And you’re trying to, you know, figure out what is the measurement, all of those things along the way. And there’s plenty of people who are going to say, no, no, that’s not going to work. But I learned that just by asking why people thought, what they thought that most of the time, not all of the time, but most of the time, people would throw out these like very strong statements that it wouldn’t work, but they didn’t know why. And so then I started to wonder, should I actually, you know, take that as gold or not, because maybe they don’t really know, but maybe they’ve been told a million times that it can’t work and they’ve never tried. And so I think combining that kind of thinking with kind of past experience and what I’ve seen unless I can actually find somebody who can tell me for sure why it can’t work. I I’ve just learned that I have to try for myself and figure it out for myself and it is fuel It’s definitely fuel. And so when so many entrepreneurs that I’ve talked to have said exactly the same thing, when you hear that a lot, but I think that I’ll, I’ll even take it further to say that oftentimes people walk away when they say, oh, you can’t do that they get frustrated, they give up whatever. The entrepreneur who is not willing to take no for an answer, typically, is going to also follow on with questions like, Oh, that’s interesting. Why do you think that? Well, you just can’t? And that’s not really an answer that Hey, throw a, they’ve been, you know, told that they are probably not an entrepreneur, and they’ve probably never taken the type of risks that I’ve taken. So yes, you know,

Marc Reifenrath 15:51
I think there is there’s a very distinct line between people that are willing to take that risk, and ones that aren’t and the courage to take. And I think that’s what’s so awesome. You writing this book, obviously, you kind of just described a lot of the reasons you wanted to write this book. This is kind of your it’s kind of a gotcha, I did it when you didn’t think I could message back to all those doubters, which I think is great. And again, that’s fuel. That’s things that a lot of entrepreneurs have to mentally overcome. I think athletes do too. It’s very relatable in all aspects of life. One of our core values is we get better every day. And it’s a very simple mentality of I’m just chasing point 01 compounding interest of growth. And you know, if you let those setbacks define you, yeah, sure, okay, we can lose, we can fail. And you can let that only or you can say, all right, what are we gonna learn from that? How are we gonna get better now and move forward? And I think as we have to have, I’ve got my TED lasso mug, here be a goldfish, you know, have that memory of a goldfish, as with those failures for the pain, but take the lessons and grow? And it sounds like you did that? Is there a specific? I read one of them. I know. But is there a specific moment that just clicked for you? And it was like, Oh, I’m gonna get it now. Like, I’m just like, it really pushed that fuel for you to go over there, like a defining moment?

Kara Goldin 17:12
Well, I mean, there’s a few different stories along the way, one of my favorite stories, that, that I felt like, you know, today, I’m probably most proud of is, look, I wasn’t in this industry, I came from the tech industry, I had no idea what I was doing. But I was so totally curious about why everybody in the beverage industry was telling me that things couldn’t be accomplished. And I kind of I’m grateful for growing up kind of in the tech industry, because I felt like there was so much innovation that was being done in tech, because they felt like they started from a place of zero. And everything is gravy, right along the way. It just gets better and better and better. You’re not like, I don’t know, you’re, I guess you’re displacing different types of technology. But it’s because the technology is getting better. It’s not because you have a different brand, similar to like the beverage industry anyway. So when I walked into the beverage industry, I wanted to create a product that didn’t have sweeteners in it. But I also wanted to create a product that didn’t have preservatives in it. And so everybody in the beverage industry was telling me that it couldn’t be done. At first, I wanted to sort of take that, as you know, that’s, they know better because they’ve lived in this industry. But I asked that question, you know, why? Because I didn’t really understand how to actually produce this product. And most of those people not only told me that it couldn’t be done, but also that they didn’t know. And that they had been, you know, at one of the big soda companies for 20 years. And I thought I was like, I mean, these were people who were not, you know, salespeople. They had been in operations. And I was like, wow, that’s really interesting. They have no, I mean, they weren’t even curious why you actually had to use preservatives and the product and again, they just weren’t entrepreneurs, they were just doing a job. Right. And, and so, I think coming from a different industry, and also believing that and knowing that I didn’t have all the answers, because I really didn’t know. I made it my mission to like, solve the problem and and figure it out. I didn’t know whether or not the answer would be that they were right. I sort of assumed They’re probably right. I just am so curious about it. So I’m just going to keep asking people, and eventually, maybe I’ll get half the answer, maybe I won’t. But the reality was, was that nobody had really, either they didn’t, they had never tried it, or they didn’t know how to do it in a different way. And so that was something that ultimately, you know, I’m very proud that hint did for the industry that we figured out how to actually create a product that was shelf stable, without using that extra ingredient of preservative in a product by just using heat. And again, like you go back to, I mean, I don’t know, I would imagine that other people had used it, it was a different piece of equipment. In, you know, the category of water, it had been used in juice, but it hadn’t been used in water. And so we just had to kind of play around with that, and also find some willing person who owned a plant to let us play. Right? That was a whole other piece of it, too, that, you know, you kind of have to be a good salesperson as an entrepreneur to especially when you have no experience, and you have a crazy idea that you want to try. Because oftentimes, you know, they’ll they’ll see you walking in the door. And they’re like, oh, did you work at Pepsi or Coke? No, I worked at America Online. Oh, I didn’t know America Online did beverages? They don’t? Oh, well, what were you doing before I was in college. I mean, there was no reason why they should have taken a chance on me. And so long winded story, but I think that that’s a really important point that you that, you know, actually figuring out things that no one has done before. From a processes standpoint was something that, you know, in addition to building a brand and helping lots of people within, I feel like that process is now used industry wide in the beverage industry. And, you know, maybe it would have been developed without us, but maybe not. I want to share a tool that has truly been helpful to me and my team. It’s called articulate 360. And it makes workplace learning that much more fun. If you’re like me, you love learning new things, and you want to extend that love of learning to your team. 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Marc Reifenrath 24:14
cool. That’s something to be really proud of. I mean, that was a there’s a lot of pieces of that story that are awesome. Like you overcame a lot of obstacles, but you get kind of reinvented in industry to think differently and push them I want to move into so you went to kind of big corporate America, culture and core values is very different in big, big, big business America when you started hint. And then I want to kind of parlay into how did YPO and your forum and those experiences help influences but when you started hint how important was setting the culture you wanted and the core values that you believed in a part of the hence story and then how YPO maybe helped shape that over time.

Kara Goldin 24:57
So culture was always really important from the Beginning I think it’s, look, the first five people in the door, I think kind of set the culture. I mean, the founder seriously sets the culture. But then I think that the the advantage that I had had was sort of growing up in an environment that, you know, prior to starting hand was, had been through a hockey stick, I was at America Online. And when I joined America Online, I came in through an acquisition, which is a whole other story for people, like I’ve seen that, you know, how do you integrate different companies and cultures, and you know, all of that. But we went through crazy hockey stick growth, when, when I was, you know, there, and ultimately, when I left, it started to slow slightly, but it was still, you know, growing significantly. So, I had seen the different stages, and I had sort of thought about the different stages in terms of, you know, revenues, but also people, right, like, I think that there, there’s a little bit of both that goes on. But I think that the thing that I really, really valued when I thought about each of those things, not only from, you know, America Online, but the company that they ultimately acquired that I was a part of, which was a tiny little startup that had spun out of Apple, that was the Steve Jobs idea, I didn’t work with Steve or work at Apple, but I worked with a bunch of people who had, so a lot of what I picked up on was, what their journey had been. And a lot of their processes, because I think when you when you also join a group of people who have all worked together, and it kind of works, you you acclimate to, to kind of what is working there. So I had picked up on that. And then we ended up joining, you know, when America Online was small, and then it went through this hockey stick. So again, you start to bring all of these things together. But you also figure out what doesn’t work. So, you know, things like unnecessary meetings, you know, I’ve ever since people walked in the door, I, you know, I believe that people should have the ability to opt out of meetings. And that, you know, so often, I saw that meetings were huge waste of time. And this was even before, you know, work life balance conversations were coming about, like, I just think that, you know, the ability for people to actually just get better at managing their time, you have to leave it to them, right, whether or not they should be involved in in meetings or not. So things like that from a culture standpoint. But I also think that the, the tone of of the mission and the purpose, I always felt like, people were joining hands, because they believed in something, we had an enormous amount of people, especially in the early days, and especially being in San Francisco, that joined because maybe they weren’t that excited about the tech industry. Maybe they didn’t like the culture that had formed in the tech industry, or they, frankly, didn’t really believe in what they were working for anymore, or thought that there were details that they were uncomfortable with. And then suddenly they looked down at what they were drinking every single day and excited about it. And and so I think that there, there’s this love and this passion, that I think when people come to work for him, probably the num, besides the fact that people tend to go to the restroom a lot more, because of the amount of water that they drink. The second thing is, is working for something that you really believe is helping. Yeah, a lot of people it’s very difficult when people leave to actually figure out what they’re going to do next. And I’ve had this come up numerous times, that they you know, they sort of joke you ruined it for me, because when I’m looking at these opportunities, yeah, it’s great money. It’s a great title. It’s, you know, like, should be awesome, but it’s like, do I really want to be doing that? And and I think that, you know, it’s it really speaks to kind of the culture of, of working for something that you believe is actually helping in some way. Yeah. So

Marc Reifenrath 30:03
how many employees you have today?

Kara Goldin 30:06
So at hand, there’s about a little less than 200. Okay.

Marc Reifenrath 30:10
So what did you have to do as a leader? I know for us as we went from 20 people to 50 to 7500 to 165, we’re at today. And those are different stages for the culture. And so as a leader, how did you stay engaged in because it, you know, like, you mentioned that those first hires, it’s like, you’re in the trenches, together, you’re locked arms, you know, what did you do to kind of continue the mission that you had that vision that you had, as you’ve grown to make sure that every team member really, really understands that from you?

Kara Goldin 30:43
Yeah, I think that the key thing, you know, as you’re growing is, first of all, we were fortunate to be able to, you know, hire great talent, and you have to, you know, you have to compensate people well, especially in the Bay Area. I mean, there’s lots of competition, you know, for that, but I also think that it was helpful, because when people would come in, it wasn’t just about money, right? It wasn’t just about, I just need to draw, it was about I, I want to be here, because you’ve touched my life, or, you know, you’ve helped somebody that I love, get better, stay healthier, the stories would constantly be, you know, different, but the same more than anything. So I think that leading a team of people that who is really, you know, comes in excited and passionate about what their what their joining, I think is, it is, I felt very lucky and very fortunate to be able to, you know, have them in your house, right, and you have them, like, super excited, but I think that you have to keep them inspired, you have to keep them motivated, and not thinking that, Oh, this is just another big company that it doesn’t really, really care about, you know, the mission and the purpose. So, I found actually, over time that my role was not just internal, but also very much external and figuring out what else is going on in the marketplace. And how else can we be, you know, not only inspiring employees, but also inspiring, and serving consumers that were, you know, that so that they could really speak to the brand as well. Yeah. But But I think you know, more than anything, I think it’s, it’s when you have a mission, and when you have a purpose driven brand, I think in many ways, it’s, it’s easier, right? You have to do the details you keep, you know, a great product. You have to have, you know, all the right benefits, and you don’t have to have a ping pong table, or certainly not now, it’s so many people working remotely, but I think like that, those are the things that you have to continue to, you know, really not only inspire, but also be authentic, and sort of, you know, keep keep that authenticity, alive. And well, no matter how old the brand gets. Yeah, for sure. Um, all right, the book.

Marc Reifenrath 33:44
What does it mean to be undaunted? So that’s, that’s really kind of the theme of this. What what does that mean? What What would you tell somebody, if I’m, like, pick up the book and you walk into the bookstore and about to buy it? I’m like, what

Kara Goldin 33:53
does that mean? Yeah, I mean, I think being undaunted is figuring out what can be done during those most challenging, you know, times, and sometimes it doesn’t happen overnight. Right. Sometimes you have to stop and think and, and, you know, continue to get over your fears continue to figure out a path forward, but you don’t stop for long. And I think that that is the message that so many people, you know, really sort of get stuck on is that they feel like there’s there’s no path forward there. There always is a path forward. Sometimes you just have to figure out how to, you know, find that path or go a different direction or whatever it is. And I think that that is what great entrepreneurs do, you know, they they ask questions like what can we do? They You know, don’t take no for an answer. If they, and maybe it’s not as obvious that they’re, you know, and they’re not combative in order to, you know, not take no for an answer, but they figure out a way and start to ask, you know, what if we did it this way, suggest things, try fairings, all of those things. That’s what being undaunted is and not giving up and giving in to what I think, normal people, that’s what I like to say, prevents them from actually going out and doing what they’re meant to do, or trying new things, or getting over hurdles, all of those examples.

Marc Reifenrath 35:49
So you did all this too. And I think this is part of being undaunted you married four kids? Correct? Um, so the balancing, I think, and I think this is a big thing, and YPO to, you know, work pulls us family pulls up. So how did you as a mother of four, I should say, six? Because you have two dogs? Correct? So

Kara Goldin 36:12
your three dogs three, okay,

Marc Reifenrath 36:14
a mother of seven? How did you balance all of that? And I was saying a lot of ways be a good example, for other badass women to lead in and do that.

Kara Goldin 36:28
You know, it’s funny, like, I used to, when I, especially when I first started out, people would ask me this balanced question. And one day, I think I think I probably was lacking sleep. And I said, something like, I’m not balanced at like, at all, I’m really actually not balanced, lots of stuff happens. And what I realized is that, I think the key is really doing something that you truly love, that you believe is going to have impact. Right? That if you are doing that, you figure out a way to do lots of things, you give up things, as I mentioned, before, many entrepreneurs give up, you know, their friends, their social life, right, depending, you can only have so much on your plate. But I think that that’s a really, really key piece of it, that trying to find balance, trying to always be, you know, not stressed out, not, I mean, it’s just, it just can’t happen, especially if your plate is extremely loaded, right, that you’re trying to do all of these things. But having said that, I think that the people that you are surrounding yourself, with my kids in particular, I mean, they’ve, you know, my youngest son, Justin was born, just after we got our first bottle on the shelf. And today, he’s a senior in high school, and he knows a lot about growing a business. In fact, I would go so far as to say he knows a lot more than many people who are starting companies, because he has been really curious about, you know, different aspects. And he’ll, you know, we’ll go to Target and I’ll be turning, you know, labels around and, you know, pulling product out of the back room, and he be like, Mom, how come you can do that? And I’m like, Oh, you just ask for forgiveness later, right? Like, just things like that, that I think he has picked up on. And he’s also knows that if he doesn’t try? They won’t happen. Right. And so I don’t know if he’s going to be an entrepreneur or not. But he definitely knows that it’s not all rosy, right, that some days are super challenging some of the stuff that, you know, we’ve taken on that. We don’t have the right experience to do it. I remember a couple of years ago, I was working on an initiative, another initiative in Washington around clean water. Now, to me, it made a ton of sense because I had learned a lot about water. And I had learned about you know, the fact that there’s state rights and it’s not a an on a federal level. And there’s a lot of different ingredients in our water supply that probably shouldn’t be regulated at the federal level that I see in our different plants across the country. And I had a number of people in Washington that I met with, who asked if I was a lobbyist. I’m like, No, do I have to be there like, oh, no, it’s just usually lobbyists or in talking to us about this. I’m like, No, I just run a water company that I see a lot of different. You know, here’s what the batch says from this plant in Texas versus this plant in Michigan. Right? And these are the things that you know, you regulate and dairy and and And in cattle, but you don’t regulate and water like, why is that? And again, people wouldn’t have answers immediately. And so it’s the same formula. Well, why? Who would I talk to you about this? And being able to have that entrepreneurial experience? I would come back. And, you know, not typically not get anything accomplished in Washington, right? I’d come back very frustrated. And my kids would ask me, Well, so what happened? Like, tell me about your experience? And like, Well, what did they say? And they would be able to, you know, follow this, but they were also like, Oh, why would you need to be a lobbyist? It seems like you gotta like done and you were able to put a petition together. And anyway. So the point is, is, I think going back to your initial question, if you’re doing something that you feel like is actually your audience that you’re around, they’re going to learn things from that you can have impact in some way, then you just go do it. Awesome.

Marc Reifenrath 41:12
Okay, um, one of my last questions, I’m just looking at the back of your book here. I’m gonna guess the obviously I love marketing or digital marketing company. I’m gonna guess you’re pretty good marketing yourself. And I’m reading some of these names of people that gave you kind of little quotes from the book. Yes. Sheryl Sandberg, John Legend. Jenny Johnson Guy Kawasaki. I mean, you got some big hitters on here. So how did you grow that? Was that a strategy to get influential people to kind of be brand ambassadors, whether it was, you know, known or not? How did you get into those circles? That’s, that’s, that’s awesome to get those that type of feedback.

Kara Goldin 41:52
So I have just met many of those people through the years, I think, just through networking, and some of them are investors and our company too. But you know, it’s interesting. What I realized is that they each have audiences. And I think so often, it’s funny, I was sharing this with somebody the other day, who had commented about that, who was writing her book, it was actually her second book. And she’s like, wow, you have all these big hitters. I, I viewed them as big hitters, but when you think about their audiences, I mean, even Guy Kawasaki and Sheryl Sandberg, if they’re different. They’re very different audiences. And I think that is, and then, you know, Jamie Dimon, I mean, so if I could bring audiences in, that were, you know, skewed by them. Right, John Legend. I mean, even though he’s sort of incredible in the music industry, he’s also an entrepreneur in his own right, eye view. Right. And so, I felt like, there was just there was definitely that going on with it. But, um, but again, like, I just asked them, and it actually was a lot easier than I thought, I mean, a way and, and I think, you know, it’s funny, if you don’t know the, if you don’t know people, that’s another thing, like asking them to write you a blurb. I don’t know, like, the it might work. But I think always figuring out and again, like I didn’t, I’m an accidental author, and I’m an accidental entrepreneur, like I didn’t sit there and strategize. Okay, one year before, I’m going to ask him, I’m going to get to know Jamie, right? Like, I just knew him along the way. So when I asked, I mean, it was actually so much easier, like, at first I was, I was thinking like, oh, they’ll never do it. But the reality is, is a lot of those people don’t get asked, Adam Grant gets asked a lot. But a lot of the other people that were have blurbs on there, they don’t get asked to try and find audiences that you know, might not know who you are. Yeah, that you’re friendly with. I think that that is, you know, a good strategy.

Marc Reifenrath 44:22
Great advice. Great advice. Okay. Anything, I didn’t ask you that you’d like to share or say.

Kara Goldin 44:33
You know, I, I think more than anything, I I love the entrepreneurial spirit, right. So I find that with everybody I meet, frankly through YPO I mean, I can kind of tell even when people don’t identify themselves. I don’t know if you feel the same way as you know, being a part of YPO because it’s just a He, I think it’s just about learning and bettering yourself and, and connecting and finding people that you’re going to grow with. Right? Yeah, whether they’re in your forum or not. And I think that anytime you can find those type of groups, whether it’s in YPO, or there’s other types of groups out there now to that are super great, you know, take an opportunity to go try it, right? Don’t sit there and put up a wall around yourself to say, Oh, you’re too busy, you know, what am I going to get out of this? You know, and it’s, and I think it’s the same sort of learnings that I’ve gotten from starting a company, it may or may not work out, right. But I think the idea, I always felt like, if I started a beverage company, and it didn’t work, I would be an awesome guest at a dinner party and be able to tell them, like they’d say, Wait, you went from a great job and tack you had, you know, lots of break going on. And all of a sudden, you just, like, jumped off the train. And you started a beverage company? Like, why did you do that? Maybe the short answer was, I have no idea. Like, that was so dumb. But who cares? Right? Like it just I learned, I would have learned, even from the moment that I started researching the industry, all the things that I learned along the way and building something or just this, it was like my MBA and beverage from like, I

Marc Reifenrath 46:33
was just gonna say that it’s, I think so many entrepreneurs get their MBA through that process of failure after failure, and then victory, small victory, fail, fail, fail, small victory. And it’s like, you just keep get back up, keep keep getting back up and climbing. And you finally kind of make it and people are like, I know, for me, we’re 23 years deep, like, oh, it’s always been this way. It’s like, No, we, one of my partners lives in the basement of our first office paying the guy 100 bucks on the side, like, that’s, those are the types of things that I think a lot of people don’t, they only see the president and the success, but you know, what you had to do to make you put every letter in hence, you know, brick by brick, and it wasn’t easy. So from another entrepreneur, I mean, watching your story. So awesome. Congratulations. It’s like I, I can’t overstate what a huge accomplishment it is, especially in the industry, because it is beverages hard to get into. It’s super competitive, a lot of new stuff coming. So you broke through and did it. And I think it’s just such a great story. So congrats on that.

Kara Goldin 47:38
Thank you, I really appreciate it. So where

Marc Reifenrath 47:41
can obviously Amazon, where else can they get your book,

Kara Goldin 47:45
all bookstores, but but Amazon and it’s on Audible as well, which was a lot of fun. Doing doing an audio book, I highly if anybody’s thinking about writing a book, too, it was something that I always liked the physical book myself, and but, you know, audio book sales are a big deal. Much bigger than I thought and, and I highly recommend taking the time to actually read it on your own, because that is also something else that I learned along the way that it makes a huge difference that versus having somebody else read your book. It’s a it’s a, you know, game changer for sure.

Marc Reifenrath 48:31
Awesome. Is there a potential second book? Have you thought about that?

Kara Goldin 48:35
Um, yeah,

I have. So Well, we’ll see. So, you know, that’s, we could have a whole other session on like, on, you know, becoming an author. But that’s, you know, I just believe stories more than anything, are the things that really help people to learn, again, going back to the YPO kind of forum experience. For me, it was, you know, that’s how I would learn. And that’s how I would, you know, get my energy and be inspired by listening to how other people did things. And so when I would write things out for myself, this book was actually about 600 pages of notes. And finally, I actually asked a friend of mine who’s a nonfiction writer, I said to her, you know, how do I actually get something, take these notes and put them into a book format? And she was like, Oh, you mean, like, write a book? And I said, No, no, I’m way too busy. Like I couldn’t possibly like write a book I didn’t want I didn’t dream like there’s people who dream of becoming an author too. I think it’s great, but that was not me. And but more than anything, I just wanted to tell people that you know, I what I had experienced because I felt like when I did actually tell people about not, for the most part, not the successful part, but the challenging part and how I figured it out. And you know what happened, when I thought like, This is really bad, and I don’t know how I’m getting out of here, then all of a sudden, getting back up and going in another direction or, or slowing things down, conserving capital, and then realizing that I had to wait something out, like all of these different strategies really help other people that I had mentored or shared friends that I had, you know, told the story, investors, you know, all of these different situations. So, I thought, if I could take those learnings and put them out there in the world, that whether I know those people or not, you know, maybe you could actually help a lot more people to become entrepreneurs, and follow their dreams. And that was the probably the most interesting thing about this book for me was that I knew that entrepreneurs would love it. I think it’s actually inspired, it came out right, during the pandemic. And it was like the manuscript was all turned in, right before, I guess, January of 2020. So the thing that, I think was really surprising to me as the number of CEOs who were kind of rethinking probably because of the pandemic, sort of like what life you know, should be for them. But also, I think the best CEOs kind of threw everything out the window a little bit during the pandemic, to say, okay, what can we do here? Right, because the rules just didn’t apply to, you know, you’re homeschooling your entire thing, that I mean, you’re, you’re managing your team, who’s homeschooling their kids, you know, and dealing with all kinds of Kunis going on. And like, it was, I had been through other crisises, like, you know, 2000, the 2008 2009 ish time, but it was different, right. And so I think being able to have kind of an entrepreneurial mindset, I had more CEOs, not only saying, I think I’m gonna go start my own thing and follow my dream, but also having that entrepreneurial mindset of, you know, things like, you know, build the plane while you’re flying it. We didn’t know during the pandemic, exactly how to manage something perfectly, but you had to do something. Yeah. Right. And you had to lead and all of those things, I think, really applied. So to inspire people who do not call themselves entrepreneurs, I think was probably the biggest kind of surprise. And also parents, you know, who were hearing from their kids, I’m gonna go be an entrepreneur, they were able to get a glimpse, especially if they had never known entrepreneurs, or they thought, you know, why isn’t my child going to college right there, they want to go start this crazy company, and then all of a sudden, they’re hearing my story. And they’re like, I don’t know, maybe it’ll work out. Like it’s. So I love the idea that it has been able to, you know, have impact more than anything.

Marc Reifenrath 53:48
That’s so great. That’s awesome that I mean, to feel that impact and be a part of that. So that’s, that’s, that’s really, really awesome. I’ve said about the pandemic that the playbook we ran before it, it didn’t work during it. And now we have to run a new playbook post pandemic and leadership just harder today. But to your point about, you know, people shifting, there’s gonna be more startups out of our current kind of situation. So what a great time for this book to be out because people need it, they need that inspiration, because they might have just been laid off. And, you know, but they’re super talented, and they need that little nudge to go and take the leap. So that’s got to be a really awesome feeling for you to be a part of that. So again, I think this is a great book. Go out and get it if you can. Kara. Thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed this. And I know that my audience will love it as well. I’m glad we connected to YPO. And hopefully we can meet in person at an event some point in the

Kara Goldin 54:40
future. Definitely. Well, thank

Marc Reifenrath 54:42
you so much. All right. Thanks, Kara. Thanks for listening to the growth fire podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

Kara Goldin 55:02
Before we sign off, I want to talk to you about fear. People like to talk about fearless leaders. But achieving big goals isn’t about fearlessness. Successful leaders recognize their fears and decide to deal with them head on in order to move forward. This is where my new book undaunted comes in. This book is designed for anyone who wants to succeed in the face of fear, overcome doubts and live a little undaunted. Order your copy today at undaunted, the book.com and learn how to look your doubts and doubters in the eye and achieve your dreams. For a limited time. You’ll also receive a free case of hint water. Do you have a question for me or want to nominate an innovator to spotlight send me a tweet at Kara Goldin and let me know. And if you liked what you heard, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts. You can also follow along with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn at Kara Goldin. Thanks for listening