Interview Replay: The RazReport

Episode 631.5

Kara Goldin, the inspirational founder of Hint and author of the Amazon bestseller "Undaunted”, shares her incredible journey and entrepreneurial spirit that led to revolutionizing the water industry.

Key Points of the Conversation:

  • Kara’s transition from AOL executive to health-focused entrepreneur.
  • The inception of Hint water and breaking industry barriers with a no-sweetener product.
  • Insights from Kara's bestselling book, "Undaunted," empowering entrepreneurs to conquer doubts.

Resources from
this episode:

Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. 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. I hope you enjoy it, and please make sure to tune in Monday for a brand new episode of Kara Goldin show. Enjoy.

Jason Rasnick 0:52
I’m excited to have a true entrepreneur, a creator, inventor, an idea person, created one of the biggest water brands, has her own show, also an author of the book, undaunted, a best seller. You do it all. I’m your host. Jason Rasnick, founder of Benzinga, a leading platform in the financial world with the mission to level the playing field for individual investors. And this is the Raz report podcast, where we share inspiring stories, expert advice and exclusive perspectives that keep you ahead of the ever changing world of investments and entrepreneurship. Let’s dive into the show. Welcome to this week’s edition of The razz report. I’m excited to have a true entrepreneur, a creator, an inventor, an idea person, created one of the biggest water brands has their own show. Kara Goldin, thank you for coming on. Also author, author of the book, undaunted, a best seller. You do it all. Hello. Welcome to the Raz report. Oh, thank you.

Kara Goldin 1:49
Thanks for the very, very nice intro. Appreciate it.

Jason Rasnick 1:52
So, no, it’s, well, it’s your you did the hard work. I’m just, I’m just reading. I don’t know what I’m saying. Actually, I can’t even talk. You do the hard work, and I can’t even talk wait. Were you always an entrepreneur in the sense of, like, an idea person when you were younger, middle school, elementary school, high school? Were you always trying to, like, figure things out, or was this later in life? So

Kara Goldin 2:14
I you know, it’s fun to look back on things, because I never called myself an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur. My dad was actually an entrepreneur living inside of a large company. He was always creating things and frustrated a bit by some of his ideas weren’t working out the way that he had envisioned them. So definitely, he taught me a lot about it just going out and trying and going out and creating, he had actually developed a brand called Healthy Choice, many, many years ago, UV dinners that, yeah, the the the frozen dinners, yeah. So in the green boxes, yeah. So when I was,

Jason Rasnick 2:59
I have those. Those are my freezer too. Yeah, I mean, you and your dad and your family, they’re infiltrating my house, making all the pens on the cups and the glasses. I got your waters everywhere. I got your dad’s frozen dinners. This is amazing. I had no idea.

Kara Goldin 3:15
Oh, that’s funny, yeah. So it was, you know, it was a good lesson in, in going out and trying, and he had many failures along the way that different flavors or not flavors, but different skews, I should say, didn’t really work out. But definitely was good training for for me, to be able to be living in a house where you have a creator for sure, and then later on in life, I ended up when I was looking for a job. My first job was actually in media at Time Magazine. But what I really wanted to do was go into after I worked in magazines. I really thought about working in television, and so there was this little network called CNN that was a lot smaller than the, you know, big three networks. And so I decided I’m going to go and try that, and maybe eventually I’ll get into one of the big networks. But what I didn’t sort of identify was the fact that, you know, working inside of a founder led company. Ted Turner was still running around the network at that time and working inside of a large what would eventually become a large company. A founder led company was, you know, again, great training for understanding what it would take to actually grow a brand. And then when I moved actually out of CNN and came to Silicon Valley with with my husband, my soon to be husband, that’s when I got in to Tech. My dad had all. Always said to me, if you are looking for a job and you don’t really know where to go, find the brands, and you can’t go wrong, because you may not be able to work with one of the brands, but you go figure out who those brands care about and who they view as their competition, and maybe you can go work for them. And so that was what I did. When I got to Silicon Valley, I identified Apple as a company that I would love to go work for Steve Jobs was was definitely part of of that mission. I didn’t work for Apple. I couldn’t figure out how to actually get a job there. But I had heard about a little startup that had spun out of Apple, doing city rom shopping, which ultimately was the early days of direct to consumer. That was a Steve Jobs idea, and it was called to market, the number two, and then market. And it was sort of like an online mall. And and again, like I thought, if I can really do a great job here, maybe I can ultimately get into Apple and we, after a short period of time there, were acquired by a large company that, frankly, I hadn’t heard of, called America Online, and another founder led company, Steve Case, and when I was part of the transition team and went to run the direct to consumer shopping partnerships at America Online, and stayed there for seven years, growing that business, well,

Jason Rasnick 6:38
it was one of those things where you like logged in or not logged in yet, those little like tables, you know, where you click on something, is that where, when you were there, like, where it had, you know, I’m talking about, yeah,

Kara Goldin 6:47
I mean, the the icons. I mean, look, laugh at, laugh at, AOL, you know, where are they today? Or, you know, where, what were they? I mean, people called it the internet for training wheels. And at the end of the day, many people started their, their, you know, integration with with the internet through America Online. They didn’t really know how it worked, but they definitely, you know, use that and that’s where most people started, you know, chatting. Do you remember the chat rooms and all of those that were going on. I mean, Deal of the Day that popped up on people’s screens. So I am

Jason Rasnick 7:28
I almost bought, when Tim Armstrong closed a little a loan messenger Benzing, I almost bought a loan to messenger technology. Long story, but then it didn’t work out, but it would have been good. But yes, I remember all that. I don’t remember guild of day, but I remember the rooms and all that stuff. So you went, you went to a what, but you didn’t healthy choice. Whatever happened with healthy choice? I was curious, like, because that was so big at one point, yeah, it’s

Kara Goldin 7:53
still huge. It’s, yeah, it’s still huge. I mean, it’s, it’s actually not a lot of people know this, but healthy choice actually, well, healthy choice is owned by ConAgra, still today, but it actually started by my dad, inside of armor food company. And armor food company, he had actually created this, this brand that ultimately became healthy choice. But it was a brand called Dinner classics, and he created it for Safeway initially, and so ran that. And then they were armor food company was acquired by ConAgra, and so he was part of that transition, and they changed the name and re launched it and called it healthy choice. But yeah, I mean, still to this day, it’s, it’s it, as far as I know, it’s a, it’s a big part of ConAgra is, you know, it was, it was definitely a home run for ConAgra. But it’s interesting, because I, I frequently tell people that, you know, my dad clearly had this bug in him for creating. And was a you know, entrepreneur at heart, but he didn’t realize it until later on in life. And I think for him, we had five kids in our family, you know, he had a lot of, you know, bills and aspirations for all of his kids. And so he stayed where he was and continued to try and create when he could on, you know, the side. But it was definitely, you know, something that I think he really ingrained in my head is like, you know, while you’re young, go out and try things, because you can actually shift a lot of what you’re doing in your career, you know, especially when you’re not making any money, right? You’re, you’re starting out and go figure it out, like, you know, you’re, maybe you start in media, and then you go to tech, and then you end up in the food industry. I mean, it was, it was, you know, definitely him inspiring that.

Jason Rasnick 9:59
Uh, yeah, about doing right? I mean, that’s just like experiment. So, you know, you started this water company. Hint, what was the genesis there?

Kara Goldin 10:10
So, back in so I left America Online in 2001 and starting my family living in San Francisco at the time, and I started looking at what I was putting in my kids bodies and realizing that some of these things kind of looked mysterious that I was giving them. Some of them sort of smelled some of the formula that I was supplementing with to give my kids. And I started really looking, at that point at ingredients. I don’t think I’d ever really focused on ingredients in food. In fact, I don’t think all packaging had ingredients listings at that time. And so that’s when I just decided that I was going to, you know, really do what I could to give my family the cleanest ingredients possible. And this is even before organic or clean labels or, you know, anything like that. I just thought, I’m going to understand what is in the label and what is in the product as much as possible and see what I can do to be the best parent possible. And after, I felt like I was finding success in in that situation, and it wasn’t that hard to, you know, give them what they what they needed and wanted, that’s when I started looking at my own diet. And there was one thing that I had probably more of than than anything else throughout the day, and that was the Diet Coke. And so I thought one day, I looked down at the label and saw the ingredients, and I thought, What is this that I’m drinking for so many years and and, you know, I’d been trying to lose a lot of the baby weight that I had gained from having kids. I was always an athlete, but I had looked at, you know, lots of different diets, and nothing seemed to be working. And that’s when I thought, I’m going to just quit this diet soda and sort of be on the plan that my kids are on and see what happens. And so that’s what I did. And I was shocked when I realized how much water I wasn’t drinking, how much weight I was able to take off. And

Jason Rasnick 12:30
I thought like, sorry to interrupt. No, no, you’re not but I don’t want to skip over it. When you get off Diet Coke and you go to water isn’t like Diet Coke, I mean, with like, 90% of water or something, or is it not?

Kara Goldin 12:44
Well, it has water in it, but it has a lot of other things in it as well. And so I think that the key thing that, again, I didn’t realize, when I was even quitting what it was doing was it was it had diet sweeteners in it and and so at that point it wasn’t even at zero calories, but at that point it was like 10 calories back in 2004 and I started and what I realized was that I was a lot less hungry when I stopped drinking diet soda. And so the thing about diet soda that a lot of people don’t think, they immediately think, okay, it’s diet. It’s better than full fled sugar. But these diet sweeteners, and I was seeing this, you know, in my own experience, were causing me to, you know, have a sweet tooth and want something at every point. I wasn’t sitting there having, you know, 10 burgers every single day. It was actually causing me to crave sweet. And so I was, you know, I grab a stick of gum or candy or whatever along the way, and that’s what I really realized was kind of the key difference. And once I actually stopped drinking diet soda. I mean, I I was really thirsty. I had been used to drinking something all the time. But it was, it was when I came up with another realization, which was water, for me, was very boring. I had a palette that I could actually really taste things. And for me, water just tasted bland and not very good. So one day, I saw some fruit on the counter, and I started slicing it up, and I threw it in. And as I started to, you know, go out, take my kids out to the park, or I’d go to the gym, people would see that I’d always have some kind of fruit, and it became sort of a signature element to to what I had in my water. And people were very curious, like, how did you pick pomegranate today? How did you pick raspberries and and that’s when I thought, gosh, if somebody could just bottle this and not put all these other ingredients in it, that would really help a lot of people, because I think a lot of other people are really bored with water too, like me, and it’s.

Eight. Not very long after, we didn’t use a naming agency, we just started talking together, and that’s when I said, you know, hint, that’s it. And and so that was the story of that, in terms of actually getting it on the shelves. I also, on that day, when I was talking to him about the name, I also shared with them that I’ve just found out that I was pregnant with our fourth so as you can imagine, that was probably a really interesting day for my husband, when I shared with them that we were not only going to launch I was going to launch this beverage company, but also that we were having our fourth child, who Justin, as I mentioned to you, is a second year in college now, but that’s when he that’s when he said, wow, like you’re launching a company you have four kids under the age of six. Sounds really crazy. And I said, Yeah, so my timeline for actually getting this launched is before I’m due. One thing that any founder knows, when they’re launching a company, there’s always delays, right? That you don’t anticipate for with everything, whether it’s, you know, software delays or your product isn’t there, and that’s what happened. That’s what happened with hint. And so the product actually showed up at my house the day before I was delivering my son, Justin, and so I didn’t have to be at the hospital until one o’clock. So I decided I’m going to go over to Whole Foods, waddle on into Whole Foods, and see if I can get it on the shelf, because I’ll feel like, you know, I’ve gotten a lot done before I actually go and add another child into our family. And so that was exactly what happened. Got it on the shelf at Whole Foods on May 27 and and, you know, the rest is history.

Jason Rasnick 21:58
Like in one store like or was it like many stores? No, it

Kara Goldin 22:02
was one store. And got a phone call the next day from the guy who brought it in as a test. And I didn’t even know whether or not he was actually going to put it on the shelf, because I didn’t see him put it on the shelf. He said, Just drop the cases. Drop 10 cases right there. And, you know, we took it off our dolly and and took the dolly away. And he we didn’t know what happened. And then the next day, he called me in the hospital and said, hey, the 10 cases are gone. And I said, who took the cases? I mean, this is, this is crazy. And he said, No, they’re, they’re, they were sold. The cases were sold. And I said, Oh. And he said, so I can’t save your space. I mean, you guys, you guys have to, do you have somebody else in the company? And I’m like, No, we’re in the hospital right now. We can’t come over there, but we did, and my husband went over and replenished the product and and

Jason Rasnick 22:58
so that was it. And they weren’t and they weren’t carbonated. Then, Nope, just still, still water. Yeah. I mean, being honest, the carbonated threw me off a little bit, because when sometimes, when I would have I had a hint water, I expect it to be just water and and I go to have it and it was carbonated. And I don’t know if you know how that is, because when I was in Rome for my honeymoon, many, many years ago, you’re dying of thirst. We’re walking up this big like Hill. Get up there. I think it’s water. And it was water with carbonation and water with gas, as they call it, and oh my god, I was like, so surprised by it. So like, I didn’t sometimes you don’t know if it’s carbonate or not. You know what I mean, is that ever, well, you’re not in the business now, but, like, Does that ever an issue for people? No,

Kara Goldin 23:47
I mean, the bottles look the bottles look really different. We’re only in the US, so that definitely wasn’t and, well,

Jason Rasnick 23:54
I know that wasn’t you in Rome that was at a water stand. Yeah. You

Kara Goldin 23:58
know, you know what’s really interesting. And now I’m going to give you a little a project. So it’s, it’s fascinating when you have somebody who has multiple people in the house that maybe are, you know, sharing the refrigerator, what I what I found, is nine out of 10 times if there’s two people in the house, one of those people is a carbonated drinker and the other one’s a still drinker. Hey, Kara, here we are thrilled. You are listening with us, and I hope you’re enjoying this episode. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing so many amazing guests over the past few years, and there are so many more to come. I cannot wait, and my focus is on entrepreneurs and CEOs, real innovators and leaders who are making a difference. That’s what I’m looking forward to bringing you. One of the reasons I enjoy interviewing many of my guests is that i. I get to learn. We all need to hear stories that teach us to be better, inspire us and help us get through those challenging moments. I can’t remember the last time I had a guess that didn’t leave me feeling like a major hurdle had been overcome. We just don’t hear these stories enough, and when we do, we learn to be smarter and stronger. Don’t you agree? Episodes are concise but packed with amazing info that you will surely be inspired by. Do me a favor and send me a DM and tell me what you think about each interview that you get a chance to be inspired by. And if you are so inclined, please leave one of those five star reviews for the Kara Goldin show on one of your favorite podcast platforms as well. Reviews really, really help. Now let’s get back to this episode, and it just and it’s so interesting, and people will have the same reaction. There are people who you know, really like carbonation. And it ends up there’s a sensation in your mouth that I think people really like. And I think that that, frankly, is, you know, the the what has helped the soda industry for so many years, and, you know, and, and, you know, we’re

Jason Rasnick 26:19
trying to appeal to the household instead of just one person in the household, yeah,

Kara Goldin 26:23
but the but the carbonation is a real thing, and it’s just, it’s a real thing for people who really like the carbonation, and it’s and you know what I think, oftentimes they don’t think about on the soda side, is there’s a lot of other stuff in there, and a lot of these products, and oftentimes it’s a lot of sweeteners that people just don’t really realize, you know, that they’re, you know, frankly, addicted to. Over time, the more they have, you know, whether that’s sugar, whether it’s, you know, diet sweeteners, or whatever, you get this, you know, craving, and it’s actually, you know, it’s an addiction, and unfortunately, there’s health risks attached to that. And you know, many people have you know, over the years, you know, who are prone to diabetes, type two diabetes, you know, was not even a topic back in the early 2000s today, it’s extremely prevalent, especially in the US. And I think that, you know, so many of the soda companies should be thanked for that, not really being sarcastic. I mean, it’s just it, that’s, that’s really, you know, the the plus side of having so many of these sweeteners out there.

Jason Rasnick 27:40
Okay, no, it’s very good. Now we’re gonna the last seven to 10 minutes. We’re gonna switch a little bit, because you wrote a book and undaunted, and the subheading was very appealing to me. Overcoming doubts and doubters. What’s an example of a doubt, or a doubt, or you overcame.

Kara Goldin 28:02
So I remember

Jason Rasnick 28:05
not applying to you. Then I just thought it was, yeah, you

Kara Goldin 28:09
know, look, I think we all run into moments, especially as as founders, as you are, where you start to, you know, you get up one morning, you’ve had a series of, you know, challenging days and challenging issues, and you think maybe I should do something else, right, especially in those early days that the the vision and the dream seem, seem impossible, right? And it’s not that they are, but you’re, you know, really super challenged by it. And so that was for me, a moment that I had where I couldn’t figure out how to actually develop a product that, or I should say, bottle a product without I could figure out how to do it without sweeteners, but not without preservatives. So we were having a huge challenge in trying to figure out that point and also how to distribute the product, because while whole food, while Whole Foods in San Francisco allowed me to load up my grand cherokee and deliver it to them, once I actually started to find success, then they were saying, Hey, can you deliver it to Denver? Well, shipping water to Denver would be quite expensive, and my costs would, you know, not be, would make it not so doable. So I thought, How am I actually going to scale this? Maybe I should actually just talk to one of the big soda companies and see if I can get on the trucks, and that would be great. I didn’t know how I could do that. My Network was not in the beverage industry, but I thought, I’ll just figure this out. Well, I figured out how to get connected to somebody at Coca Cola, and that’s when.

That, you know, was really, that was the genesis. I never thought I had kept notes about all of these different things along the way and would share these stories with people, but I never really thought that, frankly, it was going to have the success that it, that it did. I think it, it’s, it’s definitely been a book that I, you know, still hear three years later, almost three and a half years later. Now, how much people are, you know, energized by it, but

Jason Rasnick 35:31
you got, like, a serious publisher on it. Like, so when you started writing this stuff, where you just writing this stuff, and then you got a publisher, or did you go get the publisher first? Like, how did this? How did this come about? Yeah,

Kara Goldin 35:41
I mean, I knew nothing about the book publishing industry either. And so I think for me, you know, I’ve always been super curious, so I was willing to kind of learn that industry as well, but I had taken a ton of notes over the years. And so I think some people take those notes and go to a publisher. I think it’s harder to do that if you’re a first time publisher. I mean a first time author. I think it’s probably easier to do that if you’re a second time but I decided that I would basically write this book, and at the time when the book came out too self publishing isn’t even what it is today. I mean, today, with Amazon, you can self publish a book and and get it out there as well. But yeah, it was Harper, was the one that actually helped me, and was my publisher. And they were terrific. They were really, really great.

Jason Rasnick 36:40
Were you, like, found you found them as you started writing, like, I just yeah, like, I saw, yeah,

Kara Goldin 36:45
I had, I actually was introduced to a an agent that essentially goes and and, you know, talks and shops the book to a lot of different publishers and and so and again. Like, I think it, it varies a lot, but I think the most agents that I’ve talked to, especially for first time authors, they want to have a book in in some rough format to be able

Jason Rasnick 37:16
to change it. That’s an awesome story, because you’re a person, you know, we’re with Kara Goldin, who founded hint, has her own podcast called The Kara Goldin show. Hasn’t you know, Wall Street Journal, Amazon bestseller called undaunted. You’re a person that isn’t a talker is a make is a make it happen or Thank you, those. Those are facts, and to go do that, and to have, you know, Harper, and then build what you write right for Huffington Post and EOI Entrepreneur of the Year, like there’s, you know, all those I was, I was that in the Midwest or Michigan and Chicago or Michigan and Ohio region. But to all that stuff takes hard, hard, hard, hard, hard work, you know, to figure out how to make water with fruit and zero calorie when the industry is not set up for you to succeed, it’s not it’s not set up for you to succeed. It’s like, I tell my kids, or I tell people, yes, being a doctor is difficult. You have to go to a different school. And we talked about this before the interview. But there is one thing about being a doctor. You have a direct route. You know, go to college, take the MCAT, you do well, you pass or organic chemistry, then you can go to med school. Once you go to med school four years, then you can do a three year residency, or two year or four year, then you do a fellowship. But you know your path. You know your path. US entrepreneurs, there isn’t an exact path. And what that creates, least for me, is a lot of mental health issues during the time, because you have friends who are lawyers or investment bankers or this, and they’re making they’re going up the ladder, and you’re going sometimes like this, sometimes like it can’t be in the camera all the time, something like that. And not only did you do that, like build hint, but you wrote a book, and you get those awards, and you’ve you’ve done the hard work. I mean, we have hint water in our house that doesn’t exist without you waking up in the morning and getting started, and I get like, we I’ve been Ben zing. I started like, these things don’t exist. So like the people, there’s one thing to be a creator, but that’s awesome. Next thing to be a creator and a doer, to get it done. And that’s what you did, and that’s why I love telling these stories of inspiration, hope and people that overcome obstacles and and I’m going to read on Dante, because I’m sure you share other stories of people that did that, and that’s what this is about. And you’re and you and I still see the energy, and it feels like it feels like it feels like you’re just getting started. Still, I

Kara Goldin 39:51
I am a creator, and you and I talked about that. I mean, I’m such a believer too, that if you look back at i. Look all the ideas, all the business ideas. I love the stories behind these brands, whether it’s a B to C or A B to B brand, because it’s when you actually dig in and get back to the Creator. There’s usually a reason why something actually was developed, and I think that actually watching how that scaled. You know, in some cases, how it failed, right? You You learn a lot of lessons along the way, but you have a lot of different choices on what path you’re going to take. And I think that creating something is, is, it’s really challenging, but it’s actually, I think, the, you know, lifeline, life, blood, I should say, of of what this world is made up of.

Jason Rasnick 40:47
Yep, absolutely. So I appreciate you coming on the show the Raz report, Kara. I will looking forward to following your Kara, just followed you on LinkedIn. But like what you’ve done, I mean, again, your products are in our house, and it came from your dad. I mean, even when working at a company to you, and there’s going to be another idea that you’re going to start up and build with Justin, when Justin thinks about the new replacement surgery or prosthetics or what have you. So just beginning, and it’s awesome that the opportunity to have you on the Raz report today.

Kara Goldin 41:22
Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. 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 like 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. Goldin, thanks for listening. You.

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