Orgain: Andrew Abraham

27:56Did you even have a did you have like a logo or anything at that point? I had nothing other than a formula in blank packaging and a name. And I see these massive booths being put together. Some of them look like small homes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And, you know, I'm with my wife and she looks at me and she goes, we got to go. This is not what we expected. And I said, I know, but we paid$5 ,000. It's non-refundable. And we're going to set up right there. And we're going to talk to people about this. So you've got this little booth. And so sometimes people would stop, but probably 95 % of people just walked by because there was no, like, what is, like, did it, it said Orgain protein drink or Orgain nutrition drink?

28:40Like what, what was the description on the sign? Yeah. Orgain organic nutrition drink. Great. Okay. And that was it. Yeah. It's funny because as you say that, I remember a moment where there was a guy that I spoke with on the side. He didn't know I was presenting at the, at the show. And he had been there for 10 years and he was telling me about it and I was listening in earnest and he said, you know, you have this guy over here that's selling this iced tea that wants to take on these big iced tea companies. He goes, over here, there's this other guy that has some organic nutrition drink that wants to take on these big pharmaceutical companies.

29:13He goes, these guys aren't going to be here next year, is what he said. And he was talking about me. And I remember that moment sticking in my head that now my new goal was that I was going to come back next year. To be honest, we looked a bit foolish and we weren't buttoned up. I mean, people are wearing matching uniforms. Some of these booths have like two or three floors, right? So I'm sitting here like with my blank packaging, looking up and wondering, okay, what am I doing? But just continued, anyone that would give me just a couple minutes, I would tell them about the product, try to tell them a little bit about the story and the genesis of it.

29:52And the show went on and one guy came up to me and spent five minutes with me. And I told him the story, what we're doing, the plan. And he said, can you come share it with me? And I said, absolutely, I'd love to. And I thought he was maybe a physical therapist in the Anaheim area. And he turned his badge and he ended up being the global buyer for Whole Foods. Wow. His badge was turned around because I think a lot of times they do that. They don't want you to know who they are when they're coming to your booth. That's right. I mean, given any, Did he try the drink? He tried the drink. He liked the flavor profile and said, can you come out to Austin?

30:31And six weeks later, I was on a flight to Austin, Texas. And by the way, in a show in 2009 at the Expo West with thousands of booths, there were no other – I mean, protein powders were out there. You know, extras like post-workout powder companies were out there. There was nobody out there doing sort of a, and I keep by shorthand saying a better for you version of Ensure. I shouldn't really say that, but just a shorthand version. Nobody's doing sort of an organic version of what was already on the market at the time. Not at all. No, not only was it not there in Expo West, but I remember when I was sick and beyond there, I would call all of these random companies in the United States and beyond in the world to see if anyone was doing it.

31:16It's hard to imagine now. I mean, of course, today there's hundreds of protein powders and things on the market. But 2009, you were the only one there. So it makes sense. I mean, I can understand why this Whole Foods buyer stopped because they're always looking for things that just aren't nobody else is doing. Yeah. You know, he probably thought that obviously the packaging and the design, you know, was completely underwhelming, which I agree with. But I think he was intrigued by the story, the fact that I had developed this formula that tasted good, that all of these ingredients were in there.

31:52And he gave me a chance. But you had to prepare for a presentation for that. I mean, when he said come present, did you know what that meant? Because you had up until that point, I guess, been thinking this is going to be really primarily purchased by hospitals, not grocery stores. That's what I thought. And I thought maybe some grocery stores could entertain it, but I really thought it would be in hospitals and we'd be selling online. And I prepared in every way that I possibly could. I remember very specifically getting there. I had like a suit. I was extremely prepared in every way except when I woke up that morning.

32:33The one thing that I didn't have were my shoes, my dress shoes. So I got there. I'm waiting in the lobby. And out comes Heather Mills, who had just divorced Paul McCartney. She had a full team with her. And they presented a vegan line of frozen foods there. They had all kinds of paperwork. It looked like they had given the laser light show presentation. Wow. And I was up next. And I have my sneakers on. And I have 10 pages that I had printed in Kinko's in color. And I was just completely honest. I said, you know, the truth is, I don't have anyone here with me. I don't have a fancy PowerPoint presentation prepared.

33:16But what I do have is a product that I firmly believe is going to transform a category and change people's lives for the better. And they tried the product. They didn't give me that much feedback. I think someone said I liked the taste. I didn't hear anything else from anybody else in that room. And I went home. And, you know, four or five weeks later, I got a phone call and an email that said, you know, can you handle a national launch? I didn't know what that meant, of course. And I said, absolutely. When we come back in just a moment, Andrew runs into a problem that could upend the business when his nutritional shakes start to solidify.

33:58Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

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38:21Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2009, and Andrew has just hung up the phone with Whole Foods. And he's kind of in shock because not only do they want to order his nutritional shakes, they want to do a national launch. And suddenly, he has a lot to do. I knew it had to be shelf-stable, but I didn't know what that meant at the time. And so as soon as I got that phone call, prior to this, I had been working with a small agency to design the package to make sure that it looked nice. And I just was gathering as much information as I could. I was taking all of these notes every day.

39:00And then when I got the go-ahead from Whole Foods, I contacted a manufacturer, you know, and I got rejected. And it was very hard to get capacity, especially as a small brand. Yeah. Somehow, someway, I was able to convince a manufacturer to take us on. Where was the manufacturer? What part of the country? Savannah, Georgia. And they made all kinds of beverages there? Yes. They made everything from chicken broths to other protein shakes and so forth. Yeah. And so they would be able to not just make the product according to your specifications, but also to package it? That's right. So I would send in every single ingredient to them, give them a formula, how to mix it, how to process it, what to do.

39:49And their job was to essentially blend the ingredients and put it in the package that I sent and charge me a tolling fee. I gotcha. Okay, now the question is, when Whole Foods said, we want to roll this out nationally, how many cases of this stuff were they ordering? You know, it was tens of thousands. And I didn't know what I was doing at all. But I just started placing orders and really trying to make sure that I could deliver for them. And I placed the orders on ingredients. Some of them had longer lead times. The organic cocoa was going to take six weeks. You know, the organic protein was going to take three.

40:27And I was trying to merge them all together. And then you always have one lagging ingredient that's going to take 10 weeks. I'll tell you, I didn't even know how to arrange trucks, right? So I'm on like freightquote.com trying to manage trucks and get trucks to different places. It felt like every step there was an obstacle. So before we get to how it was sort of received at Whole Foods, let's go back for a moment to the time between the order and then getting it made. How did you finance that? I mean, Whole Foods is not going to pay you up front. They're going to pay you 30, 60, 90 days later.

41:02You had to finance this. So where did you go? I mean, did you get a loan from your dad or from other people? Because you needed, I'm assuming, a few hundred thousand dollars. It was over$100 ,000 for the initial run. But interestingly enough, I had started a business in college where I was really into cars. I loved cars. And I built and designed custom cars for trade shows. Wait, wait, sorry. What? This is a new story. You built cars? So I had a car. I had a small car that I would take to trade shows that I really enjoyed and I would fix it up, you know, and you would put rims on it. What kind of car was it?

41:43It was a Mitsubishi Eclipse Spider. Okay. And what happened was at these trade shows, I would get these companies that would come up to me and say, we really like what you're doing. Can you feature our TVs in it? For example, Panasonic or AccelaVision or one of these companies. And what I would do is I would feature their TVs, they'd give it to me for free, and then they would pay me to go to these trade shows to display it. And wait, in the car, you would have like a television monitor integrated into the exterior of the car? Into the interior, it would come out. So before like the shows on TV, I was very early on in integrating TVs and custom interiors into cars.

42:28And I would build and exhibit these cars and they would pay me for it. You would go to like junkyards and buy parts or what? Like how would you – a million questions. First of all, how did you even learn how to work on cars and do this? So I wasn't the guy actually working on the cars or sanding down the fiberglass. I was the guy drawing the concepts. So I was really more the creative behind it. And I found guys that this was their specialty. This is what they do. They could take a 27-inch TV and mold it into fiberglass in the middle of the dash. Wow. This is like a – this is a wild side hustle.

43:05I've never heard anything like this. Yeah, and it was, again, not intended to be a side hustle. It was just a personal hobby that turned into this business that ended up funding a good portion of Oregon, and my father also provided a loan for me in the beginning. All right. So with this money from this totally different part of your life, learning all these new things all the time, you were able to finance – and then with a loan from your dad, you were able to finance this production run, which as you say was over$100 ,000. That's right. And over$100 ,000 and that was going to make thousands of cases of orgain.

43:49That's correct. And I would ship it to Whole Foods and hope for the best. I knew it was a big risk. I spent this much money. I really didn't know how much would come back. I just made it and went forward. Okay. At this point, were you still planning to become a doctor to take over your dad's practice? Absolutely. How are you doing the residency and planning to provide Whole Foods with a national rollout of your product? I mean, residency, you're working like crazy already. That's a grind. That's like 10, 12-hour days already. Yeah, and every third day, we worked something called a Q3 shift. So every third day, you worked a 30-hour shift with little to no sleep.

44:34You know, whether there's a code blue and you're running a code blue or managing all of the patients on the floors, you are the doctor at that hospital. And it was extremely exhausting. And the ongoing joke, you know, with my residents and even my superiors was, you know, Dr. Abraham is the guy that will see a patient step out of the room, order 20 ,000 pounds of organic cocoa and go back and see the patient again. And how much time did Whole Foods give you? They said, you know, after you went there, six weeks later, they said, you know, we're ready if you want to do a national rollout. The clock started ticking.

45:12How much time did you have to deliver? I had about 90 days. And to be honest, I failed in reaching that timeline. It was a couple weeks late. They were very upset. But the product made it on shelf. I had zero dollars for promotions, zero dollars for marketing. And it just went on shelf. and they didn't even know where to put it on shelf because it was a whole new category. But that's still crazy. You had to make thousands of these boxes in 90 days and get them distributed. How did you manage that? I mean, you yourself admit you didn't know anything about the food business, let alone how to run a business.

45:54I didn't. And it was really just sheer willpower. And I dedicated my whole life and was consumed by making sure that I was going to deliver this. So every waking hour where I wasn't working at the hospital or seeing a patient, I would dedicate every minute, every second to making sure that I was going to make this happen. How did you deal with the bureaucracy and logistics of working with Whole Foods? Not to say they're bureaucratic, but once you work with a big organization, there's a bunch of forms to fill out and there are different units that you have to talk to And you needed people to do that with you, I imagine.

46:36Typically, you do. And I filled out those forms. And I would write my mom's name as one unit, my wife's name as another unit. But all the numbers would be pointed back to me. Unit meaning like accounts payable? Accounts payable, accounts receivable, operations, food safety. So you just basically put your relatives' names. Relatives' names and my number and kind of went with it, yes. And did Whole Foods ask you any questions? Did they say, like, how big is your operation? They didn't. They knew that I was starting off. They knew that I was able to produce it. But they didn't initially ask how big was the operation.

47:18Because you didn't have an office. I didn't have an office. I didn't have anything. I mean, I ran Organe by myself for almost four years as a one-man show. All right. So you had to get this to Whole Foods in 90 days and you managed to convince this co-packer to make the product for you. What was the reason why? What were the challenges that you had to – was it the ingredients coming in? Was it the production process was slow? What was it? It was a learning process every step of the way that further delayed things by one or two days. How were you managing the residency and doing and getting this to Whole Foods?

47:58That's what I'm trying to figure out. How did you find the time? It was very little sleep, honestly. I look back and I think about the sacrifices I made, and that year was the biggest sacrifice in terms of just getting it out the door. We had our first child that year. My son Isaac was born in April 2009. Residency was, your internship year is your toughest year, and that was the most hours I've ever worked, and then launching Organe and getting it into stores. So it was extremely difficult, but there was just a conviction that I needed to do this and I wanted to see it succeed. So I really dedicated every waking minute I had to it.

48:41All right. So you got a lot going on in 2009. By the way, what did your colleagues at the hospital say? They were like, wait, you're launching a product at Whole Foods. Did that register with any of them or did they just think this was like a weird like side gig you were you were working on like a side hustle they all thought I was crazy uh really I mean they were barely hanging on with what they were doing uh with our residency and and to see that you know my office was full of papers and and packaging and like displays and things they thought I was out of my mind yeah and I mean you kind of were right probably was it probably was yeah all right so the product gets to Whole Foods in what, the fall of 2009?

49:22Yes. And this is a national rollout. It's not just like Whole Foods in Southern California. Every single Whole Foods in the United States. Okay. You had no budget to market this, right? Right. And they presumably wanted you, wanted the price point to be fairly aggressive. So I have to assume that maybe on that first, that this first order, you weren't going to make a whole lot of money. Is that right? I didn't know. I had no idea. And, you know, I knew the retail price point was going to be$2.99. I knew that the check that I would get from Whole Foods may likely offset the amount of money that I was going to spend, but I just went for it.

49:59But the really amazing part is this product went on shelf with really no marketing, no know-how from my perspective. And it started to sell and the velocities, you know, and all of a sudden I'm sitting at my desk and I get this email that has a purchase order. And it's a replenishment order for Whole Foods. And at that time, it happened much, much sooner than I thought. And quite frankly, much sooner than what Whole Foods told me. And the interesting part, I know you and I talked about, I thought this was going to be for sick patients or people dealing with cancer. That ended up not being the case at all.

50:42Right now, if you see a pack of Organe, the grab-and-go drink, Like it says, you know, organic nutrition on it, right? On the label. It says 16 grams of protein, 21 grams of carbs, whatever it is, you know. Was the label like that? Were you very clear about what was in it on the label? It just said orgain and it said our, you know, gain health, gain energy, gain life. And it said organic meal replacement when we first started. And it said high protein on the front. That was it. And we were very fortunate to start at Whole Foods because that customer picks up every product and reads the ingredients.

51:22And we wanted that. We really wanted people to pick it up and read the back. Yeah. All right. So this starts to sell at Whole Foods, but you're still not in it 100 percent. I mean, you are, but you're still doing your residency. And were you committed to finishing the residency? Yes, I was. I was committed to finishing the residency. As a matter of fact, my last year of residency, I became the chief resident. So I had 17 residents under me. So I very much enjoyed what I was doing. I was very good at what I was doing. And I had every intent to continue practicing medicine. And my dad was super happy.

52:00You know, my wife is a physician's assistant. She's a PA. And both of us, upon the completion of my residency, went and worked with my father in his practice in Long Beach, California. This was in 2011? Right. So you started this in 2009 as a resident. You had three years of residency and you were launching this product. So that was three years of craziness. Three years, Tucson's, and Oregon being launched was, yes, it was the most difficult three years, I would say, of my life. Okay, so once Whole Foods made that second purchase order, you knew that you were on to something. And how quickly before you actually started to turn a profit?

52:48I mean, you had no expenses. It was you and you and you. And you had some freelance designers. But that was it. I mean, obviously, you had to make the product. But I have to imagine you were profitable pretty quickly. Yeah, we had essentially no overhead, right? I was working from home. I would also work from a coffee shop. I would work at Pete's Coffee. So we actually became profitable very early on. And it was in the first 12 months where Orgain shifted to profitability. And it was all, I mean, and you could do this by yourself because Whole Foods would make more orders and then you would do the same thing.

53:23You would just have that co-packer make more product and then you would kind of, I don't know, with duct tape and glue and patchwork together like some freight trucks to distribute them? That's right. And deal with problems all along the way. And I'll tell you, at Whole Foods, about eight months into being on shelf, I remember very clearly they called me and they said, we have a problem. And I said, what is that? And they said, we're getting some complaints about your product, that it's a little bit clumpy and we're not sure what's going on. And I remember getting into my car, rushing to Whole Foods, buying two chocolate, two vanilla, going outside, opening it, turning it upside down so I could take a sip, and nothing came out.

54:12It had solidified on shelf. And this goes back to this idea of kind of not knowing what I was doing. Like when you make a product that's shelf stable and it's 26 organic ingredients, no one had done it. So if you're not using organic ingredients, it's much easier to use artificial gums and different things to make sure that the product stays a liquid. When you're certified organic, you're very limited on what you can use. And what happened was the product solidified on shelf. And I remember almost collapsing to the ground, realizing that that was it. I had to issue a voluntary withdrawal, which is, you know, it's not a safety issue, but you are withdrawing product from stores.

54:59How much did that cost you? That was a major hit. That was about a$50 ,000 withdrawal at the time, which for me was catastrophic. You just had to destroy all those products. You just throw it away. And how did you solve the problem? I mean, you had the ingredients, but now you had to make something that was gonna last beyond six or seven months on the shelf. So I had to make a very tough decision. We went with my food scientist, made some adjustments, and I said, like, how sure are we that this is going to work? And he said, I'm not sure. And I said, well, you know, what's the risk? And he said, I don't know, it's a risk.

55:36So I made the decision to proceed and say, like, just put faith in that, look, the second time we've got it figured out. And it went back onto Whole Foods shelves, taking the risk. And every day I was worried for that phone call. And thankfully, it didn't come. And it was just a slight adjustment, but the flavor profile remained the same. Slight adjustment, flavor profile remained the same. And we were able to, we adjusted the protein a little bit and it worked perfectly fine. But that year, you know, my worst nightmare was waking up to have that problem happen again. because, you know, one, you're forgiven.

56:13Two, you're permanently blocked. Right, that's right. Right, Whole Foods is like, they give you a couple of chances and that's it. And then you're done. That's it, yeah. And quite frankly, I wouldn't have been able to afford another issue. But I took a major, major risk. When we come back in just a moment, Andrew takes yet another risk when he decides to pursue or gain full time and walk away from a much more stable career. Stay with us. You're listening to How I Built This.

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59:26Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around 2010, and Organe has just come through from its first big crisis and fixed its problem with clumpy, solidified shakes. And Andrew has hit about a million dollars in sales, but he's still doing his medical residency and still doing almost everything himself. And one thing that happened was because I was a one-man show, I was the customer service guy. So anyone that would call me, they would ask me a question. I would answer very thoroughly, give them a wonderful answer. And they would ask me, you know, what's your name? And I would say, Andrew.

1:00:06And they would say, OK, well, thank you so much, Andrew. But are you, you're not the Andrew on the back of the package, are you? And I would say, yes, I am actually. And, you know, many people thought that was great, but others didn't think it was that great because you're not a big company anymore, right? Are you, you know, are you running this from your garage? Yes, you were. And the truth is I was. Yes, I was. So when you were, I guess my question is like once you hit a million dollars in revenue, why didn't you hire somebody to run operations so you could continue focusing on your medical work?

1:00:42I thought I couldn't afford them. And, you know, I thought, again, that this was going to be a side business. I would manage it accordingly. I wouldn't even know how to hire someone. So I just kept doing it, thinking like this is going to be something you do on the side. You could manage it. You'll be fine. So you're running this, you're bootstrapping this. And by year two, I mean, it's the cash flow is financing the business. And it's just growing steadily purely through just people going to Whole Foods and seeing it on the shelves? It was at Whole Foods going on shelf. And then I started to take this story to others.

1:01:19So I would take the story to Sprouts here on the West Coast, to Wegmans on the East Coast. I made a listing on Amazon. I was one of the first protein companies to put an Amazon listing up. And slowly but surely, it got out there. And people would ask quite more questions. And there would be more purchase orders. And it started coming from different directions. and the business grew pretty rapidly. At what point, you know, did you finish your residency? You know, did you realize that maybe you need to not pursue medicine? I finished my residency and 2011, immediately started working with my father in his clinic in Long Beach, along with my wife, and he could not have been happier.

1:02:11He was just over the moon happy that I was seeing his patients. His patients were happy. The nurses were happy. You know, he had achieved his lifelong dream of his son and his daughter-in-law taking over his practice. And I would see the patients, you know, work really hard and then go home and work on organ until two or three in the morning. Wake up at six and get ready and go back to work. And it got to the point where it just wasn't sustainable. I was barely functioning. And I had to sit my dad down and tell him that, you know, I really want to take this leap of faith. I, you know, I started this company.

1:02:51I truly thought it was going to be a side business. But it's overtaken my life. And I want to focus on it full time. What did he say? It was beyond comprehension for him. You know, he looked at me and said, you know, Andrew, I don't understand. Like you literally just spent seven years after college and you're going to go and sell milkshakes for a living. Like you're a doctor. This is for you. I built all of this for you. And I told him that I know and I totally understand. But I feel like I could help more people this way. I told them, you know, you and I on a very busy day, if we see 30 patients each, if we see 60 patients together, dad, like that's the most we can do.

1:03:33Right. And he said, yeah. And I said, I think with this Orgain thing, I think I could reach hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people. And he didn't get it, but he was supportive. And he said, look, you know, it's your life, but understand this. I'm slowing down. I have to sell the practice. There's no going back here. And with that, I decided to focus on Orgain full time. And I left the family business to focus completely on Orgain. And he understood? He accepted it? He accepted it. He didn't understand. But I will tell you, I started sharing with him the letters that were coming in. Some of the cancer patients that couldn't tolerate the conventional shakes that were now relying on organ as their sole source of nutrition.

1:04:19How people were using organ and how it changed their lives. I'd say six months after that discussion, he became our number one fan. And it was less so about the success or the revenue or anything like that. He never talked about that, didn't care about that, but he loved the impact we were making. And he passed about six and a half years ago and he couldn't eat his last 18 months of life at all. And he sustained solely on Organe those last 18 plus months of his life. He would drink five to six shakes a day and it sustained him. Wow. Did you, I mean, initially in that first year or two when you had, two products on the shelf.

1:05:03You had vanilla and chocolate and they were meal, they advertised as meal replacements. Did you have anyone saying to you, hey, you've got to, you got to have like seven, 10, 15 SKUs. You got to have a bunch of different, you have a bigger product line. You can't survive with two products, two different flavors. That's it. You got to expand now. They did. Initially, I hired a consultant and he said, look, you need to have four or five, six flavors to get that shelf presence. You know, it's not going, you're not going to win with just chocolate and vanilla. You're going to look really small on shelf.

1:05:35You're not going to succeed. People are going to get flavor fatigue. But really, I went with my gut. I told them, well, don't you think we should truly succeed with chocolate and vanilla first before we get into other flavors or before we get into other products? But I just went with my gut and I said, look, if I want to succeed with chocolate and vanilla and if more comes from there, great, but I'm not going to do that now. I just don't even have the resources for it. All right. So for the first four years, it was you, you really, this, at this point, you're no, you're focused full time on Orgain.

1:06:08So who was your first hire? My first hire was a guy named Todd. And Todd was doing demos at Whole Foods. He was demoing this chicken pot pie. And he was the strong, very fit guy. And I asked him, I said, you know, shouldn't you be demoing protein? And I took him over to Oregon. I told him about it. He was our first hire. And he helped me in kind of a lot of the day-to-day stuff, but also in getting the word out there for trade shows and getting the product out there. From there, it was ops. I hired someone on operations to help me and then sales. How did you, as, because I think today you've got about 120 employees.

1:06:55We're almost about 160 today. At what point did you get an office? I mean, you were working out of your house for the first few years. When did you, like, get a separate space? It was about seven years in. that I got an office. Wow. So we were working remotely, working from my house, working from coffee shops. So it was about six or seven years in that I got an office here in Irvine, California. And six or seven years in, I mean, what kind of revenue were you doing by that point? We were probably at that point at least$50 million in revenue. Wow. You had a really significant business with a tiny number of people.

1:07:36Yes. I think we had made the Inc.'s 500 fastest growing company list and we had two or three people, or I wrote two or three people. We really had one. This is in 2013. You made that list with three employees, including yourself. Including myself. And was at this point by 2013, you're five years in, still primarily the bulk of your revenue coming through Whole Foods purchases? Through Whole Foods, the Natural Channel, and it was ready to drink at that time. And I was trying a lot of plant-based powders at the time, and they all tasted horrible to me. I remember I'd have to mix them up. They looked like cement.

1:08:17They tasted like, you know, cement. And I would just, you know, plug my nose and hope for the best. And I thought, someone can do this better. And I worked very, very hard with our food scientists. And around that 2013 time period, launched a plant-based protein powder that was completely innovative and disruptive. It was new to the space. Innovative in which way? It tasted delicious. It bridged the gap between dairy protein and plant protein. And I brought this product straight to Costco. But I brought it to them and I said, look, I have something here that I think is completely disruptive to the space.

1:08:59And they said, look, we appreciate it, but we have these dairy powders. They taste much better. And I said, I just want you to try it and give us a chance. And they tried it. And they said, look, it tastes much better than other plant powders, but we have these dairy powders. They do very well for us. And I said, yeah, but that's like the muscle crowd. That's the guy that wants to bench press 350 pounds. I want to bring in an incremental audience to this aisle, like parents on the go, business professionals, people that are actually reading their labels. And she said, look, this is what I'll do for you.

1:09:32I'm going to give you 20 stores as a test. And it went into these 20 Costco clubs, and the numbers came back, and it exceeded expectations in every way. And a few weeks after that, they said, can you bring this into all clubs at Costco? So that happens in 2013, 2014 timeframe. And I'm curious about – I mean obviously you've got now a team being formed, right? But I'm curious about the decisions that you made that, you know, certainly in the first five years when people probably came up to you and said, you should do this or you should do that or you shouldn't do this or you shouldn't do that. What were some decisions that you made that were the result of those kinds of suggestions that you regret or you wouldn't have done?

1:10:26So, you know, a lot of people told me not to go to Costco. You know, they said you have to really wait. Costco can put a company out of business. You have to be very careful. And I felt the opposite. And that was one of the best decisions that I made. But I will tell you that I think generally speaking, I have a completely unfair advantage in life in that I thought that I was going to truly die, right? There's one day that's seared in my mind that I'll never forget as I'm thinking about it now where I had just finished radiation treatment. I remember that day I got so dizzy that I passed out and they called 911 and I'm in this ambulance.

1:11:11They pull out these pads and I feel like I'm almost watching this in the third person. And I remember asking the EMT, I asked him, am I going to die? And he just, you know, he just looked at me and he said, hang with us here, bud. and in that moment I was almost sure that I was going to die you know and thankfully of course I was stabilized in the ER and obviously made it but I gained this completely unfair advantage from that experience and and cancer in general that I would always go for it you know life is short you know in my mind I've already won the game in my mind so I'll never take the safe option to tie the game, I'm always going to go for the win.

1:11:56And Costco for me was going for the win. Yeah. And you weren't going after the muscle building crowd. You were going after a different crowd of people who were not using protein powders. I wanted the everyday person that would wake up and instead of bacon and, you know, and sausage and whatever they'd have for breakfast, that they would wake up and have an organic protein smoothie. and that would set the tone for the day. Andrew, one of the things that I, and I struggle with this a little bit, I use protein powders, including orgain. I've used a bunch of different ones. I try them. I like experimenting with them, with the plant-based ones.

1:12:38But I also really do try to eat a very good diet. But I kind of struggle with this idea of like powders, being real foods or whole foods. I don't know. And I guess maybe it's just, look, most people don't have the time. They need to just get nutrition in them, and this is a convenient way to do it. But part of me is still kind of conflicted over this idea that we can see a powdered beverage as a healthy meal. Yeah, and I think it's a great point. I would say that it really depends on kind of what's in that powder. right? If you could consume whole organic foods and have a perfect diet on a consistent basis, that's ideal.

1:13:27The next best thing is to make sure that what you consume in your body are ingredients that are food-based, that are organic, that are clean, and that are companies that are reputable. And what we do is we make sure that we are a convenient solution to your health journey. Protein is top of mind now more than anything. So getting products that have clean protein, organic protein sources that you could supplement and push up that grams of protein per day, it goes a very long way to ensuring that you're achieving your highest health. So you bootstrapped this company basically until for the first 10 years, until 2019, when you did sell a majority stake to a private equity firm in LA that focuses on food called Butterfly.

1:14:14and I have to assume because you'd been doing this for 10 years and now was a chance to you know to take some money off the table you'd been working really hard and I guess it was a chance for you to just just kind of put some money aside you know I had gotten to the point where if something went wrong with the company everything was on me I was highly leveraged you know, against my home, the bank, any kind of leverage that I could get, I had. And it got to the point where the business had just grown dramatically and it was at scale. And I was looking for a partner that would allow me to kind of continue with what was most important to me.

1:14:55I mean, there was a list of non-negotiables. These are the things that I would need you to stay away from. These are the things that we need help on. And, you know, Butterfly Equity proved to be wonderful partners in honoring that and allowing us to grow in a way that I wanted to carry out. I think in 2022, early 2022, Nestle, a division of Nestle, purchased a majority stake from you and from the private equity group. And now they are the majority shareholders of Organe. What What does that mean? I mean, that's a huge multinational company that can really turn us into a category dominant product line.

1:15:42Yes, I mean, they're the largest food and beverage company in the world. And Organ had reached a point where, you know, I had taken it to a certain level and we wanted to truly go global. Right. And we wanted we don't have the resources for that or to get in the medical channel. Now, the thing that's most important to me is making sure that there's a mutual respect. A lot of times you hear companies that get acquired by big companies like Nestle or others, and they get lost in the shuffle. I made it very clear from the beginning that our products cannot be compromised, ever. And they recognized and appreciated and said, this is what makes Oregon special.

1:16:26And one of the things that was interesting that they really respected is that anyone that needed product or needs product today that can't afford it, we give it to them for free. No questions asked. So if you're a cancer patient and can't tolerate other products and Organ is working for you, but you can't afford it for any reason, we ship it to you. No questions asked. And that was something that was extremely important to me. Andrew, you are still the CEO. You run the company. and you have a minority stake still. You're 42 right now, I think, at the time of this recording. So you're still very young.

1:17:06What do you think? I mean, at some point, Nestle can, if they want to, just, you know, they're the boss. I mean, they can get rid of you and they can name their own CEO. I'm sure they're happy with you and your story's on the, you know, part of the company's, you know, origin, your personal story. But how long do you want to keep doing this? running the business? I mean, this is something that I love, right? You know, Simon Sinek said something along the lines of, you know, when you work, and it's just something that you don't love, it's called stress. And but when you work for something that you care about, or something that you love, it's called passion.

1:17:42This is still very much my passion. I'd love to continue to lead and shepherd the company into what it can become, which I think we're just scratching the surface. And I'm immersed in this industry. I love the space. I started a private equity firm focused on better-for-you brands that I could work alongside other founders and help them realize their full potential. So I'm in this industry. I'm immersed in it, and this is what I'll be doing for the future. obviously your your battle with cancer was um probably i think still the most trying period in your life but and i even hesitate to ask this but i mean i imagine without that experience this company wouldn't exist no this company absolutely wouldn't exist i wouldn't be the person that i am today.

1:18:39And, you know, anyone that's dealing with cancer, I have a huge soft spot in my heart. I want to do anything and everything to help them because I've been there and I'm not supposed to be here, but I wouldn't have, I wouldn't do anything or realize my full potential if it wasn't for cancer, which is crazy to say now, but it's absolutely true. Andrew, if you, when you look back on, on the journey that you've had so far, I mean, you know, I know that the, the acquisitions is an undisclosed amount but but based on on you know revenue for 2022 which i think is about 700 million dollars reportedly uh you can imagine what the company's valued at it's it's a you know you've you've made a lot of money you've been very financially successful and you know you're doing what you you love um how much of of of where you are do you tribute to how hard you worked and how much do you think has to do with luck?

1:19:35Well, if I was to sit here and tell you that everything that I've become and everything that Orgain has become was just all a result of hard work, I'd be lying to you. I mean, I launched Orgain at the height of the recession. I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea what I was getting into, really. And I had no idea how difficult the hardships would truly be. So, you know, don't get me wrong. I can tell you with confidence that I couldn't have worked harder. I made sacrifices that I never imagined making, even I would say to my detriment at times. But there was certainly, just like, you know, you think about that one basketball player that runs the hardest down the court and jumps the highest and finds this perfectly placed lob in his hands every once in a while.

1:20:20And all he has to do is throw it in the net. And every time I found myself with an opportunity, you know, I seized it with every part of me, but with a lot of purpose and a lot of gratefulness. So I would say definitely both hard work and a few of those lucky lobs along the way. That's Andrew Abraham, founder and CEO of Orgain. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And as always, it's totally free. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger with music composed by Rumtin Arablui.

1:20:57It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Sam Paulson. Our audio engineer was Ko Takasugi Chernovan. Our production staff also includes JC Howard, Casey Herman, Carrie Thompson, Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, John Isabella, Chris Messini, and Carla Estevez. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

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