Mark Mastrandrea – Co-Founder of Ikonick Inspirational Canvas Art

Kara Goldin:
Hi, everybody. It’s Kara Goldin from Unstoppable, and I’m super excited to have Mark Brazil here from Ikonick. Very, very, very excited to have you, Mark. How are you?

Mark Mastrandrea:
We talked about it off camera. We just got to talk about it now. Guys, this is not how I normally look. I get a haircut every seven days. It’s been 42 days since I got a haircut or shave, so I look like a caveman. I just need to preface that, first and foremost, before we start.

Kara Goldin:
Oh, come on. I love it. Have you ever grown a beard?

Mark Mastrandrea:
It’s usually, I mean a little bit. Not like this. I look crazy right now.

Kara Goldin:
No. No, you don’t. You actually look good. Yeah, you’re looking good, and you’re enjoying the… It’s the pandemic look, right?

Mark Mastrandrea:
I am laser focused and I’m not concerned about that right now.

Kara Goldin:
You’re so funny. Okay, so just a little bit about Ikonick, just so you guys know, Mark and I actually met through social. I’ve admired his work for a while, and we’ve chatted a little bit, but it’s… I think what he’s done is not only inspirational, with lots of his work that you can see. Ikonick, by the way, if you guys want to look it up, is spelled I-K-O-N-I-C-K. And just we’ll jump into who Mark is, and why he decided to start doing this, but yeah, let’s go there and then we may backtrack a little bit on this.

So, talk to me about sort of how did Ikonick start, and how did you get started in this whole business?
Mark Mastrandrea:
First and foremost, you’re the first person in any interview I’ve ever done that actually spelled out Ikonick, so-

Yay!

Mark Mastrandrea:
Kudos to you for that, because that’s actually relevant. It’s the same when I say Mark Brazil, I say Mark with a K, Brazil with a Z, so I love that, that you did that, so let’s start there. Yeah, one of the things that I definitely want to talk about is the importance of story, so I’ll kind of get into my story, and I think curating and understanding how to communicate and tell your story is so important in short-term talking and long-term business in interviews like this.

So, my story is I came from Long Island. I grew up in an upper-middle class family. Great, loving parents. A sister a year older. Big soccer player growing up. And I think the first kind of big moment in my life was going into my senior year in high school, I was a very decorated club soccer player, and for my high school team I was not put on the list of players to watch, and I saw a lot of people on that list that I thought I was better than, but I hadn’t proved it, and that day I vividly remember sitting at the breakfast table with my mom, eating my normal breakfast of an everything bagel and scrambled eggs, and that’s the day I decided that I was going to go absolutely psycho and train like a mad man. And I ran every single day, day, night, all summer through the season, and then that season our team did the best it had ever done. I made all county. Tons of scholarships for soccer. I got offers.

That’s kind of when I became a man and realized that if I put the real effort towards something, I can achieve anything I want in this world. So, that was kind of like the big first step, and I went to University of Delaware, and I get to school and we’re at freshman orientation and they’re telling us three strikes and you get kicked out of school. Noise violations, open container tickets, and I always was a little mischievous and interesting, upbringing of all different types of people I grew up with, so I had a fake ID, and my real-

Kara Goldin:
No. I can’t believe that. Mark. Come on.

Mark Mastrandrea:
Yes. Jason Miller from Woodmere. He was a tall, skinny, Persian boy. I played it off. I’m Brazilian. Yeah, my roommate had a car, and he was on the football team, and I go down the hall to these two girls and they’re like, “Can you get us alcohol?” Because everybody was afraid to get alcohol. And they gave me $40. I go to the store and I discover an alcohol called Natural Ice. And for those of you out there that don’t know about it, it’s a $6 30 pack, so I go, I buy it, I go back to give them $34 and they say, “Keep it.” And I go thinking in my head, and I’m like, “Wow, I just made $34.” And that’s when it kind of rang in my head, like, “Wow.”

Only an entrepreneur would think, “Well, now I have a business. Now let’s attack.” So, then what I did it was first it was the girls across the hall, then it was the whole first floor, the whole second floor, the whole entire building, the building next to me, and I basically took all of the risk to get the alcohol, and I just jacked the prices up three, four X. I had a mini menu, and I was making thousands of dollars as a 17 or 18 year old, and I was calling me my mom, she was shipping my old soccer duffel bags, and it got to a point where I was on the top floor looking down at other people that were actually mitigating all the risk for me.

So, I was just kind of the mastermind behind this alcohol ring, and eventually I almost got kicked off campus and they threatened me, and I stopped. But that’s when I became an entrepreneur, and then I did like… I was social chair. I had a clothing company. All these little hustles. And then I would say then I graduated school, and my best friend was living in California, and he was working for an eco-friendly energy-efficient lighting company. And this is when eco friendly, remember when it was really big? Like 10 years ago? And I always did really bad in school. I had a 2.1 GPA. I was there for five years. And he’s like, “We need someone that’s LEED certified.” It’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

And I knew nothing about this. It was like irrigation systems, and all of these building things, and I don’t even know how to build a desk from IKEA. I’m an idiot with that stuff. So, I’m like, “Hey. I’m going to test myself. I’m going to study this test and pass it.” So, I study for months, I fail, you have to wait two more months to take it, I study again, and then I fail. I wait another two months, and then I finally pass. So, I take probably 10, 11 months of my life to pass this test. Move to California, at that point with no money. I move, I sign the paperwork, I sign my lease, a week later I get laid off. The guy just comes up to me and he’s like, “I don’t need you.”

And that was my first taste of working for someone. I had never worked for anyone. And at that point I was a much different human. I felt bad for myself. But ultimately, it’s all on you, so I was really, really stuck. I had no money. I go on Craigslist and I start selling door to door energy efficient windows and coating. So, I’m literally zero salary, 100% commission, I’m driving from Beverly Hills, to Compton, to the Inland Empire. I’m driving 200, 300 miles a day, and there would be days where I literally, people wouldn’t even answer the door. So, I did this for a year. It was up and down. There would be two months in a row where I made no money, and there would be a month where I made $10,000. But I just remember so vividly, I was in this sandy area in the Inland Empire, and I was wearing a suit, which at that point… I’m not a suit guy for people that are on audio. I’m not a suit guy.

And I’m just sitting there in a suit, I’m drinking a Dasani water and eating a little Slim Jim, and I’m broke, with this shitty car, and I’m like, “I can’t do this. This life isn’t for me.” So, I move back to New York, and you know how people come to California and some people can’t hack it and then they move back?

Kara Goldin:
Yeah.

Mark Mastrandrea:
I was one of those guys. I was the weak guy that couldn’t hack it. So, I go home, and then I develop this idea called the World DJ League, and I team up with someone from my fraternity, he’s a friend from home in New Jersey, and we spend about 10 or 11 months developing this idea. And long story short, we raise $500,000 on an LOI. For those listening, it’s a letter of intent. It’s a commitment to put in money based on something else happening, and long story short, my partner went to Colorado for the weekend, and I get a call on Monday that he passed away.

Kara Goldin:
Oh my God.

Mark Mastrandrea:
And the money was through his father’s friend, who, he came from a wealthy family. So, now, again, I’m living at home, I have no money, the $500,000 goes away, and just in a really bad spot again. And then finally I lead into a couple other projects in my mid-20s…

Kara Goldin:
Hang on one second.

Mark Mastrandrea:
And this kid was a young 20s kid, an art student, that was a tattoo artist, and I was doing marketing for Melin, so I had access to a lot of celebrities. He was like, “Man, I would love for you to manage me.” So, this was 2014-ish, and I was friends with Rob Kardashian, and I gave Rob a piece of art that T.J. Bransfield made, and Rob posted it on Instagram. T.J. Bransfield became TimmySneaks, that’s his art name. He got 5,000 followers, and then he was getting inquiries to buy the art.

Later that day, I sold a piece of art for $1,000. I became a “art dealer.”

Kara Goldin:
Wait, so go back. We had a little blip there and I think this is really important. So, wait, how did you get the… This may have been when it cut out for a little bit and we’ll go back and edit it, so how did you get to the art piece? Did you always like art? Or what was kind of the key-

Mark Mastrandrea:
No, so I don’t know where I got cut off. I’ll just rewind a second. So, I was CMO of this hat company called Melin. It’s a luxury hat company. We lived on a tour bus for four months. 42 states. 175 retailers. We ended up raising money. And I was in Boston in this shop called Lace, and I saw a picture, cool drawing, and the artist was in there. His name was T.J. Bransfield. And I was always into aesthetic, I’m into fashion, and we just hit it off, and eventually he was like, “Oh, I want to do paintings and art.” And at that point I’m literally just at my friend’s house, Rob Kardashian’s there, and I was like, “Yo, you want a piece from this kid?” And he’s like, “Yeah.”

He did a piece, I gave it to him, he posted it, he got all these emails, and then he didn’t know how to sell anything, so at that point I was a good salesman, a good marketer through my door-to-door sales and such, and yeah, I just sold a piece of art for $1,000. And I was like, “Okay, I’m an art dealer now.” And I ended up managing him up until about a year and a half ago, and his pieces up to $20,000. Kevin Hart, Snoop Dogg, Meghan Trainor, Scott Disick, all these celebrities, through a lot of my celebrity contacts, and it was 2015 or early 2016, I realized that everybody that emailed me couldn’t afford the art. And I pride myself on being a good salesman, and I had to individually sell every piece of art.

I mean, someone is not buying a $5,000 piece of art. You need to sell them. So, I dropped a limited time print. Not limited unit, limited time, so that we didn’t limit our upside, and we made $21,000 in two days. So, I was like-

Kara Goldin:
Amazing.

Mark Mastrandrea:
Wow. There’s a hole in the price point art market. And at that point, I was part of Melin, and my graphic designer at the time, Jeff Cole. He’s @cole on Instagram with a C. And this kid was literally the hungriest, most talented, most creative kid I ever met. And for some odd reason, he just always never got the fair shake. He was always either no equity, or very small amount, low pay, and at that point I owned big Instagram accounts, and we started talking, and we were actually living together at that point, and I was like, “Yo, man. Let’s just start drop shipping art.” And he was like, “Yeah, I see on Instagram, there’s all these motivational quotes, and there’s photography, and these memes. Let’s make affordable art. We’ll drop ship it and I’ll do all these kind of topics.”

We did that, and this was in 2016, making $1,000 here and there. And then in 2017, on February 27th, my life changed. I went from Squarespace to Shopify, and then on March 1st, we started doing ads. In March, we did six figures, and we went on a 13 month run of going up in revenue. We did the first three or four million part time, from 5:00 AM to 8:00 AM, and then 5:30, 6:00 PM until literally our eyes shut. It was literally the craziest roller coaster ride you could ever imagine. It was myself, Jeff, we had one guy buying media, and then his 16-year-old brother who was a sneakerhead and we were bartering sneakers and paying him per order to process.

It was so crazy, because we’d have hundreds of orders, and Jeff was the artist, and then I was the whole business. And for people listening, I think any businessman, before you become a specialist, you really need to become a generalist. You need to understand everything that’s going on in your company. I dealt with the first 4,500 orders. I was our customer service, so I knew every single question, every single rebuttal, all the sizes. Oh, how long does it take to ship here? Oh, do you ship here? What’s the difference between standard gallery wrap? Everything. I knew everything.

And it was so wild. I mean, we would play a game where we’d go back and forth with… We didn’t even have a production partner yet, so we’d have to upload the art through a third party site, and me and him would have a stopwatch, and we’d play games on who could upload quicker, and we would do… I would do 100, he would do 100, and then we’d argue like, “Damn, man. I really don’t want to do this. Can you just take this shift tonight?” And we did that, and it was so crazy. We were like two weeks behind on orders. And me, I’m very aggressive, I’m not a conservative guy, so I kept telling Jeff. I’m like, “Jeff, let’s…” We had another job. There was one more company after Melin. I was like, “Man, we got to leave. Let’s do this, man. What the hell?”

And he’s very conservative, so eventually I got him to leave. We were very heavy on one or two SKUs. One or two pieces of art, for people listening. And then once our sales started going into more SKUs, kind of mitigating our risks and seeing it was a real company, I got him to commit to quitting, and then the beginning of our company was just… It was so savage. I mean, we were literally… I mean, we’re still crazy savage, but I mean we were working like 18, 20 hour days, and just going crazy. Yeah, and then eventually we met Gary and Scooter, we partnered with them, and we got some licenses, and then it was just off to the races.

Kara Goldin:
That’s amazing.

Mark Mastrandrea:
The last thing I forgot to say, too, when I was 28, I didn’t know about taxes and I went $30,000 in credit card debt, so I was heavy in the hole, guys. I’m talking about zero, zero, zero, partner died, left for shit, fired, negative 30 in the whole, I mean I was… I’m 34 years old now. I didn’t catch my break until I was 30.

Kara Goldin:
Wow. That’s amazing. So, what were those two prints? You were talking about the two, the motivational, what was it that was… What were those two hot ones that people were really picking up on?

Mark Mastrandrea:
I don’t know what happened.

Kara Goldin:
Oh, I can hear you now.

Mark Mastrandrea:
Yeah, I can hear you now. Keep going.

Kara Goldin:
Yeah, that was weird. So, what were those two motivational quotes that people were really wanting? What were the things that really launched you guys?

Mark Mastrandrea:
Everything was motivation based. It was really… It was so crazy, because we would… The best thing about our company, it’s so authentic to us that we did a piece. I remember I was working and we had The Social Network in the background. The movie The Social Network. And Justin Timberlake made that line, “A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion.” And then boom, we took that quote and we put it on a piece. That was a piece that crushed it in the beginning. So, it was just like me and him, our DNA was so authentic to motivation, and inspiration, and grinding, that it was literally my favorite quotes, his favorite quotes, stuff we’d see, we’d remake it with obviously our own aesthetic. Lines that we randomly heard from movies and then we’d remix it.

So, it’s always been motivation. We’ve tried getting into other pockets, like abstract art, and it never does as well. We’ve kind of over the years, we’ve really narrowed our focus. We’re not an art company. We are inspiring and motivating through storytelling, so it’s really all about, it’s not even about art. We’re about to do other product categories. It’s just about the motivation and the inspiration, and that’s the persona that we do really well with, and that person doesn’t want abstract art. They want motivation. It has and always will be motivation.

Kara Goldin:
Yeah, and I think the way that you do it, the way that you couple it with art is just cool, too. So, there’s some other companies out there that are-

Mark Mastrandrea:
They’re trying.

Kara Goldin:
They’re prints, right? Where they take these motivational, they’ll take somebody’s quote, but I feel like the stuff that you’re doing, too, is finding these quotes, too, that are… Some of them are sort of well known, but others aren’t. That’s what’s pretty cool, and you give people… I don’t know. Inspiring hope, right? That’s really what you’re doing, and we’re actually recording this during the whole COVID-19 pandemic, and what have you seen as… What are sort of your learnings through this period of time, and what are people really focusing on at the moment?

Mark Mastrandrea:
Well, they actually just came out with a report, there’s a couple reports, like the Mary Meeker report, another one I read, and home décor is up in total, and then obviously motivation is. In a time like this, people need motivation, so we are so blessed that we are doing well right now in this time. But for me, it’s not even really about business this time, for me it’s just about business is ultimately just a bunch of people doing a bunch of things, and I think it’s really about my team as individuals really just taking time away, and a lot of reflection, a lot of clarity. Finding out who they care about in life. The people, what they want in life. And I just feel like every single person on my team right now is just ultimately advancing as a human and really finding out who and what they want to be.

And that, for me, has been the most fulfilling thing. I’m talking to way less people right now, and I’m really seeing who’s important to me. I’m talking to my family a lot. Everybody on my team, we’re waking up early. Everybody is eating well. Everyone has very similar core DNA on our team, so for me, COVID is just more about clarity and just finding yourself, and for me it sounds so crazy, and I don’t want to offend anybody, because a lot of people are going through a lot of times, but the last 45 days for me has been one of the most impactful periods of my whole entire life as a human. And I think the same could be said about a lot of people on my team, so for anybody out there that’s going through the bad, the good, whatever it is, I just challenge you to really take the time to find yourself, and what you want, and who makes you happy, what makes you happy, because all we got right now is time.

You pushed this back 30 minutes. You could have pushed it back a day. You could have [inaudible 00:19:50]-

Kara Goldin:
So true. So true. One more second. There we go, I can hear you now.

Mark Mastrandrea:
Yeah.

Kara Goldin:
That’s strange. I don’t know what’s going on with it. Well, we’ll bleep that stuff out and keep going. So, digital, I think it’s not just about you having a great product. I also think it’s how you get it out there. How do you build your audiences? And what do you think was… Who taught you that? What was sort of the key? You worked in some other companies that were doing some good digital stuff, but I feel like you’ve really taken this to the next level.

Mark Mastrandrea:
Yeah. Ironically enough, every company I worked for actually does not know digital, and ironically enough, the two CEOs of my last two companies keep coming to me for advice, ironically enough right now. It’s funny. But you know, to kind of set some context here, for anybody listening that wants to scale a company online, if you’re a leader of the company, you must understand digital. You don’t need to know how to do ads, or be a media buyer, or understand super micro tactics, but from a macro level, you must understand what’s going on. This is where all the scale is.

Kara Goldin:
I agree.

Mark Mastrandrea:
You could be in all doors Walmart, whatever it is, that’s fine. But the internet is limitless, so I would definitely invest in digital. For me, my personal route, which you could do it a bunch of different ways, but for me, I hired an agency and there was an internal guy at the agency that was very intelligent, and I think I was smart enough to utilize him to basically get my MBA in digital marketing. All the other clients weren’t asking questions and were hands off, and were sourcing it out to them. I was bugging the shit out of him. I was asking him every single question. I was working out of my agency’s office once a week to go in there and ask any and all of the questions.

And then what we did is once I knew enough, I brought it in house, and now we’re building an in-house team. So, for anybody sourcing that out, if you’re the leader of your company, if you don’t know what KPIs are, and ROAS, and AOV, and LTV, I’m sure there’s a lot of people listening right now, that might sound foreign to you. The words that I just said are the words that are going to make your company a big company. So, for me, I personally learned from people that do it, and then the other really big thing, Kara, is I surround myself with other people that are on the same journey as me, like-minded humans that are running their company that are spending a lot on digital, and then we’re all sharing tactics. The leaders of the company, the media buyers, the head of growth, the marketing directors. All of us our, “Hey, this call to action is doing better than this. Hey, what are you using? Are you using this app or this app? Wow, these type of videos are doing good.”

All of that type of stuff, I think that surrounding yourself with people that are in the trenches is very big, because this environment is changing so fast that you can know everything a week ago, but today you can know nothing. So, that’s my thoughts on it.

Kara Goldin:
Yeah. I totally agree, and I think that the key thing is I find that I’m actually learning the most from people who aren’t necessarily in my same category.

Mark Mastrandrea:
Yeah.

Kara Goldin:
But I think it’s just really about you talked about growth, and LTV, and all these things. Everybody’s going to have a little bit different metrics based on their categories, but I think that the fundamentals are really the things that you just have to really have that network, and you’re great at sort of just picking up the phone, even though you’re busy, and shooting an email to people, and like I said, that’s how we met. And I think that that’s just super important, that you find people that are kind of doing things that you’re like, “Huh, that’s interesting.” And I think that’s great.

Mark Mastrandrea:
You know what’s crazy, Kara, is I’ve taken during this time, I’ve cold emailed and filled out cold contact forms for so many people, a lot of people that I looked up to, and I just closed an enormous deal with someone that I really look up to. For people out there, too, that’s another thing. You should shoot your shot, especially during this time now. Everybody is on their computer. Everybody’s on their emails all the time. You’d be surprised. Yeah, I don’t even remember how I hit you. I probably just cold emailed you or whatever it was, but if I find someone that I think I can provide value to and we can teach and learn together, then yeah, all day long I’m hitting them.

Kara Goldin:
No, I think it’s awesome. So, what are you most scared of? I mean, you seem like you just go. That’s what I love about your journey. It’s like you’re everything from… Actually, I think the high school stuff that you mentioned is actually super impactful, like it’d be really interesting to sort of hear. I was a gymnast. I was a competitive gymnast. And I look back on so many things that I do in my journey along the way, and I always tell people it’s like I would always get back on the vault, and get back on the bars, and I’d fall off, and it was just… I lived sort of like in this world that just falling down, and it was just never even an option. I wasn’t going to walk out of the gym, right? I was going to keep going until I got it right.

And I think that’s kind of what you did, right? Talking about the soccer practice, like people say to me all the time, like I have the story where a Coke executive told me that Hint was a terrible idea, and I have entrepreneurs when I’m out speaking say to me all the time, or executives say to me all the time, like, “But why didn’t you listen? Why didn’t you, when the big Coke exec running this multi-billion dollar company said to you, little entrepreneur want to be startup, like I got this water company, why didn’t you just say, “Oh, I better just close it down or not start it or whatever?”” And I always say, “Because I had this idea in my head and I was just going to play it through, and if nothing else, it was going to be a good story, right? I just felt like why not try?

And I feel like there’s a lot of that in you, like you probably are scared of things, but it doesn’t sound like you really fear failure.

Mark Mastrandrea:
I say it all the time, that winners win and losers lose all the time, and you’re just a winner. But you know, it’s you built up confidence through I guess gymnastics, and I think it’s just in people’s DNA. So, it’s funny you say that, but as far as things that I’m scared about, you’re spot on with what you said. I’m the ultimate, I’m a guy that prepares, so when you prepare, you don’t really scare much. Scared of really anything. I’m not really scared of much.

I think for me, I’m 34 years old now, so as I’ve gotten older, I’ve taken a much more… I’m focusing on health a lot more, because I think that for me, one of my strengths is my psychotic energy, and I can outwork people, I can outlast people, and as you get older, things happen. So, I think for me, lately I’ve really been investing in my health. That’s the biggest thing for me is just slowing down, but as far as from a business perspective, obviously outside competitors can come in, certain distribution channels, the cost to acquire a customer can go up. But a quote that I really love from this guy called Naval is, “Escape competition through authenticity.” If you’re a true, authentic self, and you’re building your own story, then there’s no competition, because no one can be a better you than you, and we’ve done that.

Myself and my business partner, Jeff, we are only doing projects that are authentic to us and stuff that we like. That’s it. We’re only doing stuff with people we know and we like, and as we get older, I would assume our taste is going to mature. Is has matured. So, we’re just going to build through the brand, and hopefully our tribe and our customers are going to build with us. So, it sounds like borderline arrogant, but I’m really not scared of almost anything, because we’re just doing what we’re doing, and it’s really that simple, and if you find something you’re passionate about and you’re authentic to the brand, then you’re really not going to be worried. So, that’s my answer. It sounds a little crazy, but there you go.

Kara Goldin:
No, I think you’re spot on. I mean, I think I told you I have a book coming out in October, and I actually turned in, my manuscript is going to print on Monday, so I turned it in last night. Three years in the works. It was crazy.

Mark Mastrandrea:
Congrats.

Kara Goldin:
Yeah. No, so happy. So, it’s called Undaunted, and very, very excited about it. It’ll be out in October. But I talk about this in one of the chapters, about I remember the first time that somebody came out with a knockoff product of us, and it was Coca-Cola, and they came out with a Dasani flavored water with no sweeteners in it. I remember thinking, like I have a chart, I have over the last 15 years, where I sort of talk about low points in the business, and that was definitely a low point. I thought, “I’m dead.” Right? They have so much money, they have so many trucks, they have so much distribution, I’m dead.

And what was interesting is we were in Target, in a really small way, and this was almost… I think it was probably 11 years ago. We were in Target in a small way and the buyer called us from Target and said, “You’re out. Coke is coming in and they’re going to have Dasani flavored water.” It was a really bad day. And so, Coke came in there with a Dasani, they got beautiful space, and they really just took us out. Couple months later, the Target buyer calls us and she’s like, “Yeah, Coke just decided that they don’t want to do it anymore. That they don’t want… Dasani is just taking too much energy out of them and they just figured they’ll just put other stuff in that space, but we told them that we really have a customer that really wants this, so we want you back in, but we want to know if we can expand your space.”

Mark Mastrandrea:
Whoa!

Kara Goldin:
So, they expanded our space, because of a competitor coming in and trying to do this. So, Coke has now knocked us off six times. Six times. And every time they do it, we place bets around the office trying to figure out where we’re going to gain new distribution, because it happens every time. We have a moment where there’s some disruption, and stuff that we don’t like, and then we end up gaining more space. And so, after a while, and you know a lot of these buyers change, so they don’t know the backstory that this has happened before. But I always, like now I celebrate when I have competition, because what I also realized is that it expands the category and the need.

So, if you can stay the course and do what you do, and also I think it’s another reason why we tell our story, and sort of the why story. I mean, my story of why I did this, I was a tech executive. I was not, had never worked in a soda company, or never thought that I was a foodie, or wanted to get into this, but I got super angry about diet soda, and how it had been making me sick. I mean, anyway, crazy long story that you can read about, but in six months, I love 55 pounds after giving up Diet Coke.

Mark Mastrandrea:
Wow.

Kara Goldin:
And I developed terrible adult acne. My energy levels had gone down. And every doctor wanted to give me a prescription for like diet pills, and lots of other stuff, and so for me, it was really paying attention to what I was putting in my body, and I kept thinking that the word diet meant health. And when I recognized that diet, that there’s just no validity around the word diet meaning health, but I had been sold that. I had been marketed to for years, thinking that the word diet meant health, and so I ran eCommerce at AOL for seven years, and so I had taken a couple years off, and that’s when I got into this epiphany about getting healthy, and losing 55 pounds in six months is a lot of weight, and people notice it, and everybody was asking me like, “What are you doing?”

I mean, I was surprised as everybody else that it wasn’t sugar that was making me fat and sick, it was actually diet sweeteners. And so, that’s when I really, like that is my brand story, that is a story that goes… Most buyers know the story. I mean, it continues to go on because I think it’s relatable. And that’s what I always say to entrepreneurs, too, when you’re starting companies, it’s like don’t be afraid. If your brand has purpose and you started it for a reason, then tell people that reason. Because I think more and more today, that consumers don’t just buy products, they buy stories, to your point, and what you’ve done so well, and they’ll talk about, “Oh, that’s that founder.” They may not remember my name is Kara, but they’ll remember the story around Hint and how it changed me and this could help them.

And it’s amazing what the storytelling does, and we continue to do it. And frankly at times, I’m like I don’t know, I’ve probably in the last 15 years told this story a few hundred thousand times, right? But it doesn’t matter. You keep telling the story, and people remember that, and then it does not matter, as long as you continue putting out great products. And you don’t have to have 200,000 products, either. You need to have great products. And people buy from people at the end of the day, and that’s something that large companies can never take the place of what you’re doing.

Mark Mastrandrea:
I’m going to read your book. I loved absolutely every single thing you just said. I completely agree. With all other things consistent, as long as you’re running the business fairly well, if you have a good story, and you tell it properly, and you communicate it properly, it’s always going to win. Completely agree with everything you said.

Kara Goldin:
Yeah, and I think that it’s also… I mean, the other thing, just to give you a snapshot, a little more of a snapshot on the book, it’s like I now celebrate hard times, right? And I tell myself, like I’ve lived through 9/11, I’ve lived through 2008, 2009, and now this pandemic, and I think the key thing that you’ve got to do is really look at what can I be doing better, and what did I learn along the way, and you mentioned this earlier. I think speed, right? Speed is always going to be important, and how do you react, how do you stay with this customer? All of these things are just absolutely critical, and so our business is one of the smartest things that we did, and I love my investors, but I had investors fighting me along the way when we were doing this. We started our direct-to-consumer business way earlier than other beverage companies.

We started with Amazon and then Amazon wasn’t going to give us data, and so then we decided to launch our own site, and do everything on our site, and today, before COVID, it was 40% of our overall revenue was on drinkhint.com. And after, as of now, our direct to consumer is up 100% over plan right now for the year, and our Amazon, we’re now in… If you go on Amazon Grocery, we’re number 20 in Amazon Grocery for all products. It’s like it’s on fire, and so I think that’s the thing, that underdogs can win. You have to stay the course and you have to do things really right, and you have to keep… You mentioned understand the digital side of it, understand the growth. I love our direct-to-consumer business on drinkhint.com, but I also love Amazon, and I love Target, and I love Kroger, and Publix, and we’re in lots of different places.

Where we’re not right now, frankly, is food service, because we’re huge in Google, and Facebook, and all these offices that are shut down right now, and so if my business was 100% in food service and Google and Facebook, I’d die. Right? And so, the smartest thing that I’ve learned about this time, and we’re bigger than obviously we were in 2008, 2009, is have money in the bank, and have your business in lots of different pockets. And if you don’t, and something like food service happens where people shut down offices, that is… Our numbers are way up, because we were able to sort of diversify and really think through where this customer is going to go.

Mark Mastrandrea:
Kara, I absolutely agree with every single thing you just said. I could not have said it any better. And ironically enough, we just hired our head of growth, and one of the main initiatives is to start spreading out our spend. I mean, a lot of people are spending almost all their paid acquisition on Facebook, and I remember before Black Friday, I finally was going to spend some time with my family, and I’m home for the holidays, and our ad account gets shut down. And you’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, so obviously I did not see my family. I was going absolutely nuts.

So, for all the entrepreneurs out there, I think diversifying your paid acquisition is huge. I think offline versus online. I think online is way more important than offline, but if you’re just offline, get online, just like you did.

Kara Goldin:
Totally.

Mark Mastrandrea:
Yeah. My favorite thing that you said was just when the competition comes in or something shitty happens, it’s the same way. You have the entrepreneur disease. So do I. It’s like when that happens, you just love it, because you just know something good is going to come out of it, and you’re going to learn, and you’re not going to make the same mistake twice, so there’s always a silver lining in everything. I remember when the first company knocked us off. I am non-emotional. My partner is pretty… He’s a creative. He’s a little bit more emotional. He’s becoming less emotional. But he was absolutely flipping out. He’s like, “How could they do this?” And blah, blah, blah.

And I’m just like, “Man, you got to calm down,” because we had never been in the eCommerce space, and it’s dirty out there. You know that. With the black hat stuff, and people knocking you off, especially in art, because it’s a little easier to knock off than obviously a real CPG brand. So, yeah, it’s really about not being emotional, as well. I love that you guys are doing contests and bets on people knock you off, that’s hysterical. I love that.

Kara Goldin:
And it’s true, and sometimes it’s just like it doesn’t mean that I don’t get upset, and I’m a real person when I see this stuff happen, but then I just say, “We just got to be better.” Right? It’s just it happens all day long, and the old saying like copying is flattery or whatever, I think it’s totally true. But when you look at these big guys and they don’t do what you do every single day, it’s not, as I always say, that I look at the soda companies, and I really don’t care what they do, actually. I really don’t. And that sounds really funny to people. I mean, we’ve had investors who haven’t wanted to invest in us because they were like, “Well, you should care.”

And I’m like, “I actually don’t.” Because at the end of the day, they’re a public company that cares about sugar. And that is like, that is their driver. Every single day. And I think it’s the same, you can find that person in every single category that maybe you fear, that you think is like if they were to launch a company, they would kill me, they would have more money, they would be this, they would be this. But if you think about their company, what ultimately drives them, and if this is just like, “Oh, we’ve got to go get them really quick and annoy them so that they don’t get any bigger.” That’s not a strategy. That’s not a strategy to win.

So, I think that that’s like when you do what you do every single day, and you have your story of inspiration. I mean, I’d love to talk to you more, too, about doing stuff around the Undaunted book, because I think there are a lot of quotes in there, and I think it could be super fun to get you guys to do some custom stuff, because I’m going to be out speaking about it a ton, and I’m hoping that I can really, really get people fired up and stop being scared, and just go try. And just do what you do every single day, and those are the winners.

Mark Mastrandrea:
Oh, Kara, we are definitely working together on something. I’m absolutely loving everything you’re saying, and again, every single thing you’re saying, I’m in complete agreement with. I’m a big… I study. I study all of the top entrepreneurs. I am a hoarder of information from podcasts and interviews and such, and a Jeff Bezos line is focus on your customers, not your competition. That’s something that I completely agree on. I call every single day, Kara, every single day, every single customer that spends over $1,000. I’ve done that since the day our company started. I will never stop doing that.

And I’m even in the DMs talking to people all the time.

Kara Goldin:
You are. Yeah.

Mark Mastrandrea:
I just recently hired a head of community to handle all of that, but for people listening, we have a fairly sizable company, and we don’t have titles at our company, but for all intents and purposes, CEO, co-CEO I am, and I was running the social media until very recently. By social media, I mean just Instagram, not the other stuff. I think understanding, knowing, providing value and talking to your customers is all the answers lie with your customers, and people are so asleep on that. I mean, I don’t mind telling people that cheat code that I just gave, because people are just too lazy and don’t do it.

But if you’re listening right now, I challenge you to call your last five customers. Say, “Hey, what’s up? It’s Mark, the co-founder of Ikonick. Thank you for ordering. How’d you find us? What do you like? What don’t you like?” Start a conversation. You do that, if you want to talk about the cost to acquire a customer, if you just focus on calling customers, I guarantee you your cost to acquire a customer is way lower doing that than what you’re going to spend on an ad. I would bet that till the end of time. So, that’s something that we’ve done since the day we started that company, and that’s just super authentic to who I am, is just like I like talking to people. I like inspiring people and motivating people, so for me it’s fun. My business partner, who’s not here right now, he’s in the other room, he thinks I’m psycho. Because I’m just on the phone all day with customers often.

Kara Goldin:
No, and the effect that you have on those customers, you know what? They’ll go tell people that they know that you did that, and then they know who you are then, and it’s like and it happens over and over again, and I think that… It’s just so key. So, really, really smart, and I think just tagging on to that, the other thing is no matter how big you get, our company, we have 200 people in our company now, and it’s a fast growth company and going well, but I think that the thing that I’ve seen is you should be able to do every one of these roles in the company, too. That I always tell people, so I grew up in eCommerce and was there for seven years, but even when I started Hint, I felt like I didn’t really know all the tools.

I sort of knew Facebook a little bit, but I didn’t really, really. I knew what lifetime value was. I knew what all of these things were. But I didn’t really know all the tools, and so I’ve really focused throughout to be able to sit down and understand, and I’m also a huge believer that I won’t hire somebody in the company unless they know something that I don’t. So, I’m always hiring people who are… I always say way smarter. I push on managers in my company. I’m like, “What do they know that you don’t know?” Because I said that they’re going to make you want to stay here, because they’re going to educate you. Otherwise, you’re going to get bored.

If you’re sitting here teaching, teaching, teaching constantly, and you don’t hire people who know, or don’t know something that you don’t, then you’re just going to be bored. So, that’s another thing that I’m seeing, like you’re hiring people that are helping you to kind of get to the next level, and it’s just another way of saying that they’re going to teach you, and they’re going to keep you engaged and help you grow.

Mark Mastrandrea:
I agree with that, too. I always say if you’re not learning, leave. And then the other thing is I think every person in every role should be doing both. Everybody should be teaching and everybody should be learning. So, it should go both ways in every single role in every part of the company, and I have that. So, yeah-

Kara Goldin:
That’s awesome.

Mark Mastrandrea:
I’m starting to hire now real killers. Oh, I love it. And they’re just like, they’re just talking, they’re not talking down to me, but they’re just saying stuff that I don’t know and I’m like, “I love it! I love it! Tell me more.” So, yeah, I love that. It’s great hiring really smart people.

Kara Goldin:
Yeah. No, and honestly, when they end up going on to bigger and better things, too, that you actually know what’s going on, right? As a leader of the company, I think that’s another thing. It’s like it’s such an important piece of it. Well, this is awesome. This is so great. I just have two other really quick questions. So, what’s your favorite Hint? Hint drink. So, I’m drinking the clementine right now.

Mark Mastrandrea:
I actually, ironically enough that you just said clementine. Clementine is my favorite, because in Brazil, I’m a big clementine guy. So, clementine is my favorite.

Kara Goldin:
That’s awesome. I love this one, too. It’s awesome. So, and what makes you unstoppable? I mean, you’ve talked a little bit about this, but I think everybody, the podcast is called Unstoppable with Kara Goldin. I meant to also say that I know a couple of your investors. You’ve got, what, Gary Vee, and Scooter, and lots of unbelievable people backing you and believing in you. That’s super great, but what makes you unstoppable?

Mark Mastrandrea:
I think it’s my daily routine. I think it’s my daily routine and my consistency, and my preparation, and all of those things. If you’re consistent and you build momentum, and you build that internal reputation with yourself that you can do anything, then you just feel like you can do anything.

Kara Goldin:
Yeah, that’s awesome.

Mark Mastrandrea:
I’m waking up earlier, before I would guarantee almost any and all of my competition. So, just like that gives me the mental edge, and then I don’t… This is a big thing that Gary says all the time, and I’m in complete agreement. My family, anybody in my immediate circle, they make fun of me, is I have a intellect level of a kindergartner in 97% of the things in this world. I’m half an idiot on directions, geography, I don’t know how to ride a bike, I’m so weird. I don’t know so many things. But the things that I do know are the only things that I talk about, and those things, I’m supremely confident I can destroy almost anybody at.

So, I think I’m unstoppable because I’m prepared, and I’m consistently investing in getting better at what I’m passionate about. So, I don’t know, that’s a long-winded answer, but that’s my answer.

Kara Goldin:
No, I love it. And you’re interesting, and you own things that you know how to do and don’t do, which is also amazing. I love it. I love it. Well, this is great. Where do people find you, Mark?

Mark Mastrandrea:
So, my Instagram’s Mark Brazil. Mark with a K, Brazil with a Z. Ikonick is I-K-O-N-I-C-K. For people hungry for knowledge out there, we just started a text group. It’s in my Mark Brazil Instagram. It’s literally me just sending out links of podcasts, books, and YouTubes that I love, just curated by me a couple times a week. I just started. I think you’ll love it. And then, yeah, I can’t say enough about how, again, you don’t need any compliments, but how I just love everything that you’re saying and how impressed I am with everything. And quite frankly, I only knew your brand from the drink, and the drink is good, but now that I know more about you and I look forward to getting to know you more, it’s super impressive and I’m excited to help you with the book, too, because I think that you got a great story and the book’s going to kill it. So, thank you.

Kara Goldin:
That’s awesome. Thank you. I’m excited. Well, this is great. Everybody take a look at Ikonick. Reach out to Mark. And this is awesome. Thanks, everyone.