🧀 AARON MENITOFF // BOARDERIE CO-CEO & CO-FOUNDER

23:23Aaron Menitoff:So it's broken down into really manageable things. So if you think about a cheese and charcuterie board that has 37 different ingredients on it. So 37 different ingredients, right? And then each one of those ingredients has to be cut up and everything's done by hand. I mean, there's not machines that are doing this. or there are people sitting there with taking a wheel of cheese and with a wire and slicing the wire and then turning it and slicing it. And so there's like a whole team of people that that's the most skilled position because you have to have incredible visual spatial ability. If you had me do that, I couldn't do it.

23:59Aaron Menitoff:They would be different sizes, but everything fits perfectly. You'd lose a finger? I might. Well, I was saying that you would lose a finger, but you know, we can decide that later. It's a special song. What are you talking about? What do you mean I do this? So, yeah, so obviously because everything has to fit perfectly. So if you think about all the individual hand moves and individual pieces, there's, you know, hundreds of pieces and hand moves that go into every single board. So like a chef that's doing this, it would take a chef to do a curated experience like this and it would take hours, right?

24:34Aaron Menitoff:You have to buy all the stuff. You have to cut it up. You're going to have tons of leftovers. It's going to cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars, and then you're going to put it together and it's going to look beautiful, right? So the average person can't do that. So the only way to do it is break it down into these manageable kind of tasks. So one person is cutting cheese, one person is slicing meat, one person is weighing that stuff, you know, then we have teams that are working on different trays and then teams that are working on different boards. And it's all, and everyone, the main thing is the reason or how everything is supposed is able to be so precise and perfect is everyone has one job.

25:11Aaron Menitoff:It's like when we were doing catering and you were doing a plate up for like a thousand person meal and every single thing came out exactly. You have one person there with like the sauce thing that's doing the sauce on the end before it goes out. Right. So there's that's kind of the little peek behind the curtain. All right. All right. Well, I won't I won't probe too much. But this reminds me of are you familiar with the concept of thirbligs? Thirbligs? third legs no i don't think so i'll tell you it's okay car wars figure someone's a good character so a third leg this is one of my favorite concepts in like i don't know ever a third leg is an elemental motion it might be to push something or to lick something or to stamp something or to fold something or whatever and uh i i was helping my dad with something like way back in the day, we were prepping for some trade show and we were doing the same, like the same seven motions over and over and over again.

26:06And then we were like, as a, you know, I don't know, as a diversion in exchange for me helping for free, it was like, we were trying to get more and more efficient and do fewer movements as we went. And so he told me this story of, his name was Robert, Robert Galbraith. And so third leg is an anagram of this guy's last name. And there are these elemental motions that the Galbraiths, which were Gilbreths, sorry, I'm getting all screwy. It's Frank. Frank Gilbreth and his wife come up with this concept of like how units of work measure work. And then they anagrammed it and they called it Thurblegs.

26:49And the goal of a physical operation is to minimize the number of these units of work measure that any given activity takes. And so it sounds like you've kind of, you know, done something very similar in the operation, which is just like, how do we get more efficient at doing this activity and what's the right lineup of it? And then if you tell us the whole thing, you'll have to kill us. So it's okay.

27:12Aaron Menitoff:Yeah. I mean, I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to look that up. That's interesting. It sounds like the exact definition of like efficiency. Like we're always trying to become more efficient. You're always trying to, in in commercial kitchens saves steps, right? The more things you can put in places that people don't have to move to go get them, it makes you able to do things quicker and your output is greater. You know, like we always go into it with certain, we theorize about based on data that we have of daily production volumes about how much we're gonna be able to actually produce in December because that's the big thing.

27:50Aaron Menitoff:That's the only time that we ever sell out. it's because we feel like we can't do that. But an interesting thing that happens is without anything that we do ourselves, the staff gets more efficient over time. So like last December, we thought we could do, you know, 18 ,000 would be the maximum hands down. There's no way any more than that. And then next thing you know, we're doing 25 ,000 boards that day. And we're like, how did we just do that? And it's like the staff, as they're doing it, they become so much more faster and so much more efficient when there's just one thing they're doing. Everyone becomes an expert at one thing.

28:23What do you think? What's the single hardest job in a small company? Well, well, now I don't want to make a contest, but like, yeah, maybe like the hardest. Totally. You're going to have employees going and you'll be like, listen, I drive a track.

28:41Aaron Menitoff:My phone's blowing up. Everyone's yelling at me. They're like, new question um what have you found to be kind of the most fascinating physical process for you to learn as you're going through it where you're like you know whether it's like cutting cheese with a wire or like i don't know some decorative aspect of it um what what part is like fascinating to you um i mean so making everything super efficient um is fascinating to me i'm not the best person at it. The best person at it here is Angel, who, you know, he's the one that's our COO. He's a co-founder and partner. He's also an engineer by training, right?

29:21Aaron Menitoff:And he can figure out anything, right? Like he'll, even if you don't want it figured out, like he'll be, he'll, he'll just spend his time figuring out just because that's the way he is. Like he has to figure it out. So, and we're like, you don't, you don't really have to do that. And he's like, you know, I'm going to show you how this works and how, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to reverse engineer all this stuff. So he's been instrumental in, in, in making this, uh, you know, as, as efficient as possible in order to have, you know, as, as little trim loss as possible, making sure people are saving steps.

29:54Aaron Menitoff:Um, and then, you know, the, even the intricacies of, uh, movement of inventory, you know, like for, so at our facility, so we keep, we can keep like three days of inventory on our facility just because of the turnover of everything, most of its production and packaging space. And so we have at any given time, we'll have, you know, 2 ,000 pallets that are stored in cold storage facilities of just like blocks of cheese and wheels of cheese and, you know, and just the logistics of that coming and going when you have, you know, 37 ingredients on the cheese and charcuterie and 47 ingredients. So there's hundreds and hundreds of pallets of hundreds of different items and just making sure that they're all coming.

30:33Aaron Menitoff:And so you never skip a beat. Like you can't, you know, one day just realize all of a sudden like, well, we don't have any more olives left, you know? So Angel's been like very instrumental in, you know, in figuring that out with his inquisitive mind and his high IQ and his engineering background. That's rad. Like how for each ingredient, say on a just on an average board, do you have multiple suppliers for that ingredient or is Is there some dependency on sort of like a focus supplier? Because you're making specialty things, right? These are like your recipes, they're your flavors. How much have you had, or maybe has Angel needed to create some redundancy in order to be able to like flex with volume or keep costs competitive or, you know, any other considerations like that?

31:21Aaron Menitoff:Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's something that, you know, that I've really been like kind of taking the reins with in terms of dealing with vendors for different products. You know, when we started out, we didn't have the volume and nobody believed that we were going to have the volume. So we couldn't do we couldn't work directly with manufacturers. So we were forced to work with distributors. You know, they add on 30 percent and it destroys your margins. So you have to kind of get through that period until people really believe in you and believe in your concept. And they see your they see your growth.

31:54Aaron Menitoff:Right. And they see the data and then they want to jump on board. Right. And that's the time when you can go directly to the manufacturers and they want to work with you. And then once you can work with them, you can do things like the wheels of cheese that I was telling you about. You might have trim loss, and that's hurting your food cost tremendously, right? I mean, so we're able to say, well, we need this instead of in a wheel. We need it in a block, and it needs to be these dimensions. So when we cut it, there's zero trim loss for that, right? So and then in terms of finding producers, things like like our meats, those are something, you know, some meats you can cut a meat and like a salami or a charcuterie.

32:37Aaron Menitoff:And it's going to within an hour, it's brown. Right. And so it just all depends on the different recipes. And not that it's not fresh. It's just that's, you know, it's a natural product and that's what happens. And so, you know, you can dictate recipes once you have the volume. So now we've got, you know, we have an amazing manufacturer that does it for us specific to, you know, we designed recipes with them in conjunction. And because of the volume that we're getting, we're able to get it at a, you know, at a really, really good price, which obviously, you know, especially in this environment with like fuel prices and tariffs and everything.

33:15Aaron Menitoff:And every day you're getting phone calls. I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to raise the price on you. I'm gonna have to raise the price on you, you know. And so constantly doing these negotiations is necessary. Yeah. Wow. This is probably one of the more complicated things I can imagine. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, in the beginning, we had some amazing artists and producers who couldn't keep up with the demand. Right. And so as much as we wanted to work with them and they wanted to work with us, then they couldn't anymore. And so then we would have to find another producer that's making something that's the same or better, or we would have to create a new recipe on our own, which recipes take, you know, a really long time.

33:59Aaron Menitoff:Like our dessert board, for example, which is our new product. This one is got 47 different artisan ingredients. Huge. Right. And it comes just like this. And it's there's like there's nothing like it on the market. You know, you can get you can get like a box of truffles. You can get like a box of cookies. But this one, these are mostly our own recipes and or they're like some obscure gourmet items that we found. Like we went to Copenhagen and found this awesome company that makes licorice that's covered in chocolate. And it's huge in Copenhagen. And Copenhagen is like a culinary capital of the world.

34:36Aaron Menitoff:But you want to you want to find it more Michelin star restaurants. And so, you know, it's like nobody noticed this. And so we decided to try to bring it here to America where, you know, people hate licorice. I guess 50 percent of the people hate licorice. And even the people that hate licorice love this. Wow. I'm a licorice lover. So I'm an easy. Yeah. I don't know why. But I like anything that's sort of an interesting flavor profile. Like and I feel like licorice falls into that category of things that are just like surprising to the palate. um so uh i'm a good customer all right yeah i'm excited for you to try it you're gonna you're gonna like it's gonna if you like licorice then like people that don't like licorice like it people that like licorice it like blows their mind you'll be like how is this been out of my life for this long right right yeah um are there any other are there any other things like that that you want to help the world discover that you're like really excited about and you get to kind of spread the word?

35:35Aaron Menitoff:Yeah. I mean, I mean, we're just we're having fun with what we're doing and we get you know, we all love food. We love culinary. We love the fact that people love our product. You know, we're we feel like we've kind of defined a new brand, like a new not a new brand, like a new category in in edible gifting. You know, like we were talking about earlier, how everyone doesn't want a gift basket, but that's what we're sending. So now we have this cheese and charcuterie board that, you know, we're doubling the sales for every single year. We're incredibly proud of. Nobody else is doing it because it is so incredibly complicated to do.

36:13Aaron Menitoff:And then we just launched these dessert boards. And so the dessert boards, we ordered like 10 ,000 enough ingredients as kind of a proof of concept, like 10 ,000 of them for Valentine's Day. And we sold out in three days. And then we're like, all right, we've got a hit. We're no longer just cheese and charcuterie. Now we're a brand that can expand into any category that we want and provide these incredible culinary gourmet artisan culinary experiences that are super easy and super fresh. Like you can order up until two o 'clock at two o 'clock in the afternoon. Right. And we're going to hand to make your product and ship it to you.

36:46Aaron Menitoff:And you're going to have it the next day on your doorstep anywhere in the country. And you can't find that, you know, anywhere else. So now that we that we've proven out the cheese and charcuterie and that we know people like the the dessert. Now we're going into other things. We're going to bark boards for dogs. We're going to do candy boards. We've got cookie boards in the making. So we feel like now we're in a position right to kind of own the market in the edible space. Like it's been a big white space like everybody hasn't seen it. They've been they nobody for whatever reason, nobody recognizes huge opportunity that there's been no innovation in edible gifting and in decades.

37:26Aaron Menitoff:Right. And so like like fruit on a stick was the last thing that was like huge. Right. And I was I was in like elementary school then. So I did take over. OK, so I was going to ask about fruit on a stick because I feel like so you've got the horrors on thing on lock. I feel like it's time to go vertical, man. Like it could be it could be sausage on a stick. It could be like huge, you know, candy jars full of just like layers of stuff. Yeah, I mean, it can be. So when we started, we had our name had cheese in the name. Right. And then we changed it along the way to Bordery when we realized there was so much more potential than just being a cheese and charcuterie company.

38:07Aaron Menitoff:Right. So now we're, you know, our goal is to be the largest edible gifting company in America. Like we're last year, we were the eighth fastest growing food and beverage company. Right. And then this year we got up to number seven. Right. So I think we're well on our way. And it's all just be concentrating on quality, on, you know, innovation, on having enough margin to be able to market. Right. with it. You know, all our all our customers come from those that all the amazing ads that you see on Facebook and Google and Instagram. So, yeah. What? OK, well, we talked about we talked about what's next.

38:50Is there anything that you miss about being a smaller business? I know I miss I miss things all the time about just having like four people on a team and just grinding it out. Is there anything that kind of pulls on your heartstrings in terms of what it was like to be small. And then is there anything from that that you're like, you know what, I can I can bring this to the big leagues. Like we can we can be the fastest growing edible food company, you know, CPG company and and still kind of hold on to like this part of our character.

39:19Aaron Menitoff:Yeah, I mean, I think there were different. There are definitely different phases of the business. You know, like I remember like a few years ago, we had this huge party at the end of December because we did 10 ,000 boards in the entire month, right? And now, like, that would be a small day in December, right? And so, but we still celebrate all those different things. We have so many, you know, so many reasons to be able to celebrate, and we do that with the entire team. I mean, every quarter we're doing events with the whole team. We involve everybody here and everything. I mean, we do things like for last Halloween, we took all of the managers out to, with 50 kids that are homeless, that live at a homeless shelter, a local one, and we took them out to Chuck E.

40:08Aaron Menitoff:Cheese, right? And they had that experience all together. And then we all went Halloween costume shopping, right? So they all could have Halloween costumes to be able to participate with their friends at school and the other Halloween-related events and that kind of thing that your employees know that you care about them and you care about the community and you care about, you know, you know, building something that's more than just, you know, a dollar sign at the end of the day. I mean, I think that's what makes things, you know, permanent and last and iconic. And I think it's one of the things that kind of differentiates us.

40:44Yeah, I think that's one of the hardest things to balance as you grow is being financially ambitious and then still really caring about people. because on a given day or hour, those things can be at odds. And I find myself constantly kind of in the, you know, it's at my most philosophical. I'm like, how can I do both of these things really, really well? How can I take care of people? And how can I build an extraordinary world-changing business? And like, boy, if you can do both of those things, you know?

41:14Aaron Menitoff:I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, it's a business and EBITDA is super, is like the most important thing. It's a business. And that's the point of building the business. Right. And so but in order to do that, there's different there's different methods. Right. People have different theories on how to do that. Some people have a theory of let's cut let's cut everything. And then, you know, our theory is let's get people invested in it, because when we're asking them to do superhuman things, they're going to stay and they're going to do that because we're because because they know we care about them, right?

41:49Aaron Menitoff:And so you have to create an environment where everybody cares about everybody and they're looking out for each other when you're expecting somebody to work 18 hours a day back to back in December. And that's our theory and it's worked because we've had terrific revenue, terrific EBITDA, terrific, we barely have any turnover of employees ever. So I think from our experience, I think that's worked. That's really, it's a beautiful thing to be able to do. I was going to ask you, do you run like 24-7 shifts to pull all of this off? And when do you sleep? Asking for a friend. You can tell. There it is.

42:35There it is.

42:39Aaron Menitoff:I mean, we're constantly, especially with, you know, with this, with the new product line of dessert. it's like launching a whole new company, right? So now we're customizing everything for, you know, you have all those ingredients on it. Now we're looking at all the truffles and we're making some of them with like witch hats, some of them looking like a pumpkin, some of them. So we're designing all that. We're getting prototypes made for Thanksgiving, for Halloween and for Christmas. So that's what we're, that's what, you know, my major focus has been kind of doing that. And then Angel's been really focusing on building out the new facility.

43:15Aaron Menitoff:Um, and it's just been, um, you know, there's not really like when a company is growing and you're doubling in size and you're not bringing on, uh, like, um, the same amount of people to be able to support that. If you have the handful of people that you're doing, cause we're selective, we're not going to just pump people in cause people aren't the, they're people aren't the solution, right? They're not, they're not, people aren't going to fix it by throwing them at it. You've got to have, you've got to have the right mix of people and the right people. And as you know, that's the, that's the hardest thing to find.

43:45Yeah. So, yeah. So hard, hard to find, hard to, but it sounds like you've done an amazing job of creating a culture that people are really happy in. And I really admire it.

43:54Aaron Menitoff:Thank you. We're proud of it. Yeah, you should be. You should be. It's not an easy thing to do. I wanted to bring back a segment. So this, this podcast used to be called best day ever. And, but commerce is chaos seems like a fitting for the, for the current era. um but we have a segment it's it actually it's like a recurring thing you know what so if i'm sending you a board can i get a t-shirt at least that says commerce is chaos a hundred percent yeah all right i have yeah uh i have i i got you on swag for sure all right um and i actually i wish i had it here because it's pretty cool it's got like a snake on the back um so uh oh i'm writing myself a note now to anyone.

44:39It is chaos. And some of that chaos comes from when scale happens to you, which I know has happened to you guys because of Shark Tank and Oprah and all of these other kind of like externalities. And then of course, your own growth that you've generated, which is probably slightly more predictable, but still heavy. And so we used to have this segment that I'm bringing back. I want to know like what, well, so the preamble is for me as an operator, I was always searching for the best day ever. Like, you know, when you, when you got on Oprah or when the Today Show called and wanted to do a feature or when a new retailer that was like your dream, you know, Costco's calling, it's like your dream retailer.

45:22And then the next day was always the worst day ever because you had to like deliver on that without throwing it up. And so living in this like this is chaos, like the best day, worst ever paradigm is something that I really have, you know, just has sat with me a lot. And I'm curious what what your best day ever was as an operator. And then also like what was your worst day ever?

45:47Aaron Menitoff:So it's going to be a little bit of like like a period, but I think it was a very pivotal moment in our business is when, because when we started, we had, we never had any e-com experience, right? And so we got on, the way that we started is we got our board on a company called Gold Belly. And within two and a half months, they issued us the largest check they had ever issued a vendor since their inception. And that was our proof of concept where we were like, we're all in, right? And then I emptied my bank account, maxed out my credit cards. I was like, this is going to blow up. And so second mortgage on the home, like everything.

46:18Aaron Menitoff:And so then at that point we needed to get, um, we needed to get, uh, on other platforms in order to grow the business. So we went, we, I would, we would email like William Sonoma and Costco.com and hundreds of thousands of emails. They wouldn't get back. So we went to trade shows and we, and we, Rachel and I would go and find the people with the credentials that said like, you know, William Sonoma or Harry and David, and we would go and we would like literally stalk them, wait till we had a moment. And we would like show them. like, look at this. We're the best seller on this thing. You have to carry us like we haven't heard about you.

46:52Aaron Menitoff:And you're like, you haven't returned any of our emails. And so and we got one of them and we've got one another one. And once we had a few of those, we thought in our mind, like, OK, there's no way we're going to be able to sell more than Williams-Sonoma, right there, Williams-Sonoma. And so then all of a sudden the order started trickling in and we were like, you know, like Like, this is this can't be real. Like, there's got to be more orders than this. And the reality is like these companies like that was the light bulb that switched. Rachel walked in when she said she's like, we have to do our own D to C.

47:22Aaron Menitoff:Like, we have to have our own Web site. Like the margins suck. The they're not even though we're top sellers on the site, they're never going to advertise for us the way that we want to grow. And so we she she launched the Web site, figured out how to how to build it. And then we started doing, you know, just going to Rachel's kitchen and we would just hold hold up boards and film ourselves. And Rachel would learn how to edit them and launch ads and manage a meta account. And we're like, all right. And we're not we don't have like investment money. Right. So the money that we have in the bank is our operating capital.

47:54Aaron Menitoff:And we're not going to like, you know, just be like, all right, well, let's just throw money into it. So like we'll put like two thousand dollars in and we're like, oh, this better work. And then it worked. And we're like, all right, let's put more and then five thousand, then ten thousand. And, you know, then it's up to like, you know, a million dollars. And then, you know, it just keeps growing like that. But that was like, I guess, like the best day, William Sonoma wants you on, right? And then all of a sudden the sales are trickling in, right? So that's the worst day. And then you launch your own DTC and you're so excited about that.

48:24Aaron Menitoff:And then all of a sudden it works. And then that's your best day. And it continues to be the best day. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a long-winded answer. And it's probably a span of years rather than days. But hopefully it answers the question a little. Well, I think that's a rebrand because now it's going to be, you know, best year ever. Worst year ever. All right. I want in on that when you launch that podcast. I get it.

48:50I have this. I don't think I've said this out loud before, at least not on the podcast. But I have a bottle of champagne chilling in my fridge for when 2025 is over. It is not over for me. But it will be. 2025 was a tough year.

49:09Aaron Menitoff:Okay. 2025 was a real... For those listening several years from now, the date is May 28th, 2026. And I'm still living inside 2025. Uh-oh. What happened? Well, a bunch of stuff happened. This has been a tough year. Oh, man. Tariffs happened. That was tough for us. It was tough for our clients. we went through a period of like extraordinary growth, but also just like needing to build so deep on our software product. And, you know, you're building something so big. I mean, I'll say it out loud. We're like a seed stage company with seed stage funding. My first rodeo on that, by the way, everything else I've ever done is bootstrapped.

49:51So I'm like, all right, we're going to grow this time. And, you know, I'm not going to spend the next year building this business to be big. I spent nine years building the first one. I'm going to spend five years or three years. So we're in just like heavy growth mode. And, and, but the product that we're building is competing with like legacy ERPs and some of the best, most entrenched, most well-funded and profitable businesses out there in commerce enablement. And that is like, you know, on the one hand, I'm not, I kind of not afraid of anything, but on the other hand, I'm like, there's a, I need a wallet to like go compete at this level.

50:24What are you going to do? We're raising a series A. Call me. Yeah, we're going to go kick ass and take names. And I couldn't be more confident or enthusiastic for where this platform is going. But I also know that we made a really brave choice to build really wide and that to deliver on the promise of our software, it has to basically be seven extraordinary things in one. And we did that. And it but it was it was quiet and and punishing and grueling. And I didn't have a you know, I didn't have a summer. And I think my kids still recognize me. But it's just been a hard it's been a hard year.

51:08Aaron Menitoff:You know, I mean, and this isn't your your first rodeo. And so, like, I'm sure you and you you should know more than anybody because you interview people about this stuff all the time. Like I've never heard anyone be like, yeah, how'd you become so successful? And how did you build this? And they're like, yeah, it was pretty easy. Yeah. And now I didn't stock the place anything. Like I got to see my wife and my, or my husband or my kids, like went on vacations. Like just doesn't happen. None of that. Like this did not, did not happen. Um, but it will, it will, it will. Right. And I think we're going to change the world and I think you're changing the world.

51:42And I'm going to buy myself a really nice charcuterie board to go with that bottle of champagne when 2025 is over.

51:51Aaron Menitoff:Amazing. I will. Where is your home city? I'm a little bit south of L.A. Okay. All right. I mean, maybe we'll come out and celebrate together. I'll hand deliver it. You know what? It's a date. Also, charcuterie at the beach. There's got to be. That's a whole vibe, you know? Yeah. It's a whole thing. it's an unexplored territory we're gonna make it a thing well you'll put the surfboard in bordery well it's the surf bordery and oh my god i love that yeah we actually we we trademark all kinds of names because they work really well like we have mom coutery right uh char boo terry for uh for halloween right so we yeah bark board like so we trademark all these uh all these things so surfboarder add it to your add it to your list um i actually think so we talked about so you've like you've won horizontal but like large format horizontal like what if the bordery was on a surfboard actually and it was for like a huge party i mean that's a uh it's going to be an expensive shipping bill gift with purchase i'm gonna have to call fedex see if they have a big enough box.

53:04The kids negotiate the rates.

53:07Aaron Menitoff:This is our FedEx plane. Well, look at that. You like it? So they're grateful. Yeah. I mean, we're, we're, so we, we partnered up with FedEx and it's, you know, we have a great relationship with them. We're the largest overnight shipper out of South Florida, you know, so we fulfill a good, a good need for them. And so we fly out of PBI, right? And so they can only take 10 ,000 packages on their plane, you know, and we obviously ship out way more than that. And they have other customers. So during such a logistics thing during the during the all the different peaks, they have to find space for us out of all the different airports in South Florida, like Fort Lauderdale, Miami, we've got refrigerated 53 footers, like 14 of them lined up that were all day and all night, we're loading them up, they're going to the airport.

53:59Aaron Menitoff:Then they go all the way to the Memphis hub, which if you haven't seen the hub at FedEx in Memphis, it's insane. It's a whole city. There's hundreds of planes coming in and out and that's where everything gets put into other smaller planes that go to the different regional airports. And then they go on the FedEx trucks that customers see, right? So when you think about the complexity of what goes into getting something that you order at like two o 'clock to on your doorstep the next morning in like California, for example, it's just insane. It's like mind boggling. Yeah, it's it is. Well, like many brand founders and maybe like you all, I started.

54:41In love with a product, right, and I wanted to share that product in that story with the world and and the product itself and the storytelling around it were the things that I was like pretty good at. And so that's how I built, you know, the started the first business. and as I've you know had more experience in it I am just so fascinated by the things that actually make you know the hundred planes on a runway work and like all of this stuff move around the world and move around the country and where the cheese comes from and just the orders of magnitude that and and the uh man it's like it's like looking at a sparkling diamond or something like that where you're like this is just a little I'm gonna turn this in just get lost in it for infinity because every angle that it's at has this different sparkle and this different color.

55:27And I, anyway, that's why I'm in love with the different things. Cause it never, it never gets old and, and every day is different.

55:36Aaron Menitoff:That's true. Yeah. And you know, and so we have, we have orders that are coming in the same day. Right. And so like we could, we could do, we could wake up, we'll go to bed with like, you know, 3000 orders and then you wait and you expect to do, you know, maybe 4000 through the next day, but then you end up doing 7 ,000 and then you're scrambling with the team, the FedEx team trying to find Lyft at other airports. And somehow it always happens, like, right. Like they always figure out how to, how to get the packages to the right place. And, and not all, you know, obviously all the time, well, missed a package, but we've never, we've never missed getting a package out because of that.

56:16Aaron Menitoff:But the complexity like gives you like, um, you know, agita every day. Yeah. Yeah. It never it's a never ending puzzle. It really is a never ending puzzle. And every stage of growth redefines it, which if you like puzzles, makes it really fun. Yeah. But you go ahead. No, no. I was saying like, I do enjoy puzzles, but I think it's going to I'm going to have to save it for another stage of my life. Fair. You got you've got enough of a puzzle right now. You can relate. Yeah. No, one day you're going to be sitting at the kitchen counter with a Diet Coke doing a puzzle with your grandkids. And then that's that stage.

56:58This has been such a great combo. I love what you're building. And really, really, again, admire the way that you've built the business and fascinated by the way that you've constructed the team. And it's clear that, you know, the leadership and your co-founders alongside you have just shouldered, you know, excellence at each at each phase. So thanks for coming on and sharing a bunch more of it. And I'm sorry if I asked too much in depth about that, about how it's made. But before this podcast airs, you should go to Surfborder just in case nobody get any ideas.

57:37Aaron Menitoff:You know, I'm going to try it. We're actually going to, my wife and I are going to my nephew's high school graduation. They live in Nicaragua and they're really, really good surfers. And so, you know, they're going to be giving us surf lessons. And then maybe I'll suggest that I'll bring a suitcase of charcuterie and I'll make a big grazing table on a surfboard. And that'll be the start of it all. All in. All right. Well, that's an awesome party. I'll be there on my private birdery jet. Yeah. All right. Thanks, man. It's been great. All right. Thanks. It was a lot of fun. Bye. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Commerce is Chaos.

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