Nima Jalali - Salt & Stone's Founder Breaks Down His 9 Figure Brand

25:19I feel like that's the same with you. That's right. I mean, I care a lot more. I care more about like not just keeping it cool, but I care about a lot of the things, like the product, the actual product itself, the marketing, you know, I care about a lot of it. So it's not really just, not just keeping it cool, but certainly that's part of it. Asia said you're still checking all of the reviews online. Is that factual? That's a fact. But, you know, every review that gets put on our website comes to my inbox. And so I read through them, good or bad. I take the bad ones personally and figure out if, you know, if there's a real problem that we need to solve.

25:57And so up until a couple of years ago, I was still replying to DMs on Instagram and doing customer service myself four years ago. Like I was, I had the customer service inbox on my phone and my computer. And so I'm going through my own personal inbox. And then I switch over to the Salt-N-Stone customer service one and do all that. I mean, you got to be connected to your customer and hear what they're saying. I feel like that's the best way. I was shopiconic at gmail.com for the first 4 ,000 orders. You just figure out any and every little thing that you ever could want to know about your brand, every issue, problem, what you need to SOP.

26:32For any founder out there, I feel like at least the first couple of years, you have to be customer service as the operator. Totally. Once the founder becomes disconnected from the end customer, it's over. Completely agree. So Sephora, it's a monster. I feel like a lot of people get this one wrong. I mean, what happened there? They come to you. Did you go to them? I know you went big right out the gate. So tell us what happened there. Because that's like, I feel like the center of all things beauty. Yeah, I always knew I wanted to be in Sephora. And they emailed us one day. And so we met with them.

27:05And it was, hey, nice to meet you. Let's stay in touch. you know, and that I was crushed. I just felt like, okay, that's the end. You know, you got your Sephora meeting and then, but you know, three weeks later I got hit up by another buyer at Sephora and they're like, Hey, let's meet. And so it was this long process that, you know, of just meeting them and ultimately they decided the brand was for them. And it turned out to be a great decision. You know, we're the best selling body wash in there, the best selling deodorant in there. And it's been a beautiful partnership. What do you think is the main reason why you're getting such a good sell through there.

27:35I believe it's all the, it's everything that I was talking about from a, from a product perspective, a visual perspective, the design is beautiful. The brand name is beautiful and it's becoming iconic. And it's something that, you know, I believe the brand has the it factor, right. And it's like, you see the copycats come up and you feel like they might do well, but the universe just doesn't accept them, you know, and the brand is, is got it and it looks beautiful. It smells beautiful. It works. and it's exactly what, you know, Sephora, I feel like what they need, you know, they, there's a lot of brands in there competing for who's the loudest, who's the most colorful.

28:09And then we come in a little bit more reserved and beautiful. And for the, you know, the shopper that is maybe a little bit older, right? Like it's not really, you know, made for like the 13 year old, 14 year old in mind, you know, it's, you know, creating a product for that, that slightly older demographic. Looking at Sephora and then looking at Amazon, I think it's very, very rare. I think everyone out there would agree to have the same price point on both Sephora and Amazon have such success. What was like the strategy behind that? And what has been the kind of like the hurdles to go over with that?

28:42I never think of us as a Sephora brand. We do well in Sephora and it makes sense that we do well in Sephora, but we're an everybody brand, you know, and that's why, you know, you see the commercial success we're having on Amazon. You know, a lot of men use our products, you know, and so, you know, and historically it's women shopping at Sephora, you know? And so anything else big to kind of look on, on Amazon, I know that your average sale price is significantly bigger than everybody else's. You have what I have here on deodorant, 6.3 % share of the category. That's insane. Is there anything in like your Amazon playbook that you can point to?

29:16That was like a big reason why you guys went there. Here's the thing. We had the number one bestseller badge on deodorant before we even advertised on the platform. So you know how it is as a consumer, you find a brand, you find a product, and then you kind of jump to Amazon and go, could I get this tomorrow? Or could I get this same day? And so a lot of people are doing that. That being said, now the strategy is we advertise on it, we're on the attack on the platform. And that's why it's been such a huge channel for us. But to get our start and our momentum on there really happened with not that much focus on the platform.

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30:44Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify.

31:14to describe to you how it smells, but you ultimately don't know. But one thing for certain is you see the photo of the product and that's why design is so important. I agree. I use Whisperflow for hours every single day. I think way faster than I type. I speak about 220 words a minute and type only 45. Whisperflow closes that gap. It's a voice-to-text tool that works anywhere on your computer or phone. You talk and clean formatted text shows up wherever your cursor is. All right, let me show you. I'm going to answer a real email right now without typing. You can see here, Tyga is asking for feedback on our intro video for the next episode.

31:52Watch how I respond. If you could just make a few changes, make the red a little bit brighter, the typography a little bit smaller. For the music, if you can just give me some other options, and that first photo, some more options as well. Please give me three options for each, and make sure you send it to me by end of the day Friday. Thanks. So as you can tell, the text is way cleaner. I kind of speak in half sentences and sometimes mumble on. This makes it very clean, formatted perfectly, and avoids all the small mistakes. This is a product that I cannot live without. I promise you that you will love it.

32:26If you guys want to get one month free of Whisper Flow Pro, click the link below and use code OPENRESIDENCY. Let's get into some more partnerships. Braindead, Stussy, Outdoor Voices, Aritzia, Cherry LA, Kendall Jenner's 818, Air One smoothies, all kind of different cultural audiences. How do you look at kind of these partnerships to excel the brands? Yeah. So originally it was, it was, you know, and very much to this day, it's like, what will be fun for our marketing team? What makes sense brand wise? Like how can we get all these new eyeballs on our brand, but do it in a way where we're going to have fun with it?

33:00You know, and Aritzio was a great example of that. You know, they have an amazing brand they have, and they're much larger than us, you know, and that's, that's always the goal in the back of my head too, is how can we gain a lot from these collaborations, but also have a lot of fun with it campaign wise, product design wise. And so it's, it's, it's not this like huge money-making strategy is not why we go into it. They are, they do make money, but the goal of it, the goal for it is like, let's make noise and let's have fun with it. Simple and profound. So a big distribution plan, not so much about the profits.

33:32And then from a product perspective, how do you look at these collabs? Is it net new product? Is it taking an existing product and putting your logo on it? What does that look like? We like to have custom fragrances for each one. So like each scent will be that brand's expression. So we had a new scent for the Aritzia collab. It was called Lily and Yuzu. And it was something that we loved. We had. We worked with them, made some tweaks to it, and personalized it for them. And it was great for us to put out this scent. And it was like, okay, if Aritzia ever did a fragrance, like, well, what would it smell like?

34:04And it's here it is, you know? And so working on that is so much fun. So just the new scent alone is a big deal for us. If you look back at all these collabs, which one do you think is the most impactful for your brands? Under the notion that money is not a thing, what has driven the most amount of kind of awareness and helped your positioning? I would say either Aritzia or probably Outdoor Voices, because this is back when Outdoor Voices was a different brand. This is like the Ty Haney days when she was running it? Yeah. And it was, it was, it was very much cool and it was relevant. And we, we came in and got a bunch of new eyes on the brand where it's like, we weren't a household name at that brand.

34:39And anything that helps us get there, I find is a big win. Looking back on this Kendall Jenner's A1A that happened like pseudo recently, what was the big thing that came out of that? What is the Jenner effect? I need to know, I need to hear it from you. I mean, it sold out quick, right? It did really, really well. And the cool thing is we get to test new scents that like feel fun and different, but we're not maybe, we don't want to put out like 15 fragrances, right? And this gives us a chance to put more out that we're in love with. And so this is beautiful vanilla, this like agave, beautiful fragrance that we got to put out.

35:12And I mean, and it certainly helps when Kendall and Kris Jenner are posting about it, you know? And so. What does that look like? Is this like the shark tank effect when they press the button? It's explosiveness. How does that go? It's hard to, it's hard to, and I could definitely have our CMO breakdown, what amount of the sales are from those posts and what are not. But like, we're in a great position right now that our collaborations are doing well and selling out very quickly, regardless of who's posting about it. I was just told offline about the Alaska Airlines partnership. I absolutely love that and the thesis behind it.

35:45Why don't you tell us about that because I think that's something that more people should think through. Yeah. So I actually just saw it for my first time. I mean, all my friends send me photos when they're in the Alaska Airlines bathroom. You love that. You love that. I love it. I mean, why wouldn't I love it? It's amazing. But I saw it for my first time the other day or last month. And it was like every once in a while you have these moments of like, wow, like we did this. And so that was that moment on the flight, walking into the bathroom cabin and seeing your product there is just unreal.

36:19No words. You're just like, holy shit. Makes sense. You guys are remote. I mean, rumor has it you may or may not have sold for over$500 million. You have said that you've done 165 million plus fully remote. How is that even possible? Like at that type of scale? Like what are those big things that you do to keep efficiencies remotely? I try to find people who thrive in a remote setting. And when you talk about people who have sort of no distinction between work and life, it's they're just, not that they have to work all the time, but they're just trying to achieve excellence in their life no matter what, right?

37:01They have a sense of pride for their career and the brand they're working with. It's like a doer, right? Like the type of person that's just, They're not going to rest if the dishes aren't done. And it's like, it's a personality, you know, and you either have it or you don't. So it's like, you can't, you can write these like culture things like of like what people should be. But I find that kind of useless. You just, you look for personalities that are just like self-starters, people who want to be remote, not because they get to walk their dog or whatever. It's because they're more efficient and they care about what they're doing and they want to build something meaningful.

37:34Those people exist. They're harder to find. and when you get them, you got to keep them. And so building an organization, at least the goal is try to have everybody have that personality. So you meet somebody with the track record that they're with so-and-so brand that's just massive and they've done this, done that, and you meet them and you just feel like, you know what, maybe this person's not going to be great remote, right? And they're not going to thrive in a remote setting. And so you have to pass on them. And so just making sure that everyone has got that built into them. And then from a leadership perspective, finding people who are like mini founders, like mini CEOs of their own category.

38:13Right. And so it makes the hiring process hard. One thing we do have going for us is we are remote. So people value that. The people who actually value remote work will, will prioritize that and come work for us rather than have to go sit in an office and drive 30 minutes there and 30 minutes back or whatever it is. Opens up the pool for more people to come. That's right. You find amazing talent anywhere. You could find talent in the Midwest or wherever, and you're not limited by, oh, well, our office is in New York City, so we have to find somebody who can commute in. What do those mini CEOs look like, and how does that kind of ladder up to you?

38:53So I work closely with them. I mean, I have one-on-ones with a couple of them who've wanted to keep it, but I talk with them so much. Like my CMO, there's just like, it feels like every hour we're pinging each other for something, jumping on, jumping off. And it's like, why would we set a one-on-one for somebody I'm talking to all the time anyway? So I'd say the most successful people at Salt-N-Stone have that kind of relationship with me that are just always hitting me up. I'm always hitting them up. It's not like, okay, let's meet once a week and talk about how your week went. And so it's like, you're in it, we're in it together.

39:24We're gonna be communicating. These are good problems, man. These are all, these all sound like really, really good problems. You guys use recruiters? How are you getting all this talent? I mean, obviously you have a great brand that people want to work for, but is there any kind of hiring tactics and tricks that you've used? We started using recruiters not that long ago. I was spending a lot of time on LinkedIn. A lot of our best employees have come from me scouting them out on LinkedIn, sending them a message, especially as the brand got bigger, they would reply and I'd get meetings with them and we'd be able to successfully hire them.

39:54So I spent a lot of time, hours, every single day on LinkedIn, looking at different talent, just playing that like sports team GM role. You know what I mean? Like I got to find my all-star here, my all-star there. How are they going to work together? And so I found, I had a lot of fun with it, but ultimately it takes a lot of time. I will do it now. If, if somebody has to leave or we're hiring for something new and meaningful, I will spend hours on LinkedIn and try to find top talent. Yeah. One of my buddies like that was like, he scaled the company to nine figures and that was like what he spent most of his time on.

40:25And looking back, I always thought he was crazy, but that's like a very, like a very good usage of your time. It's just talent acquisition. talent acquisition. That's right. I'm basically a recruiter, right? Like you're only as good as your team. So what else are you going to spend your time on at this point? You got the beautiful, perfect product. You got all these things going. And now if somebody leaves, it should be a priority for you to find the A plus player, the Michael Jordan of, of whatever that category is. When I look at you, I feel like you've obviously, especially in the beginning when it was like just you and a couple of people, like you were doing every single role.

41:01But when I look at you, I think you're a highly creative individual. You're a brand guy, a visionary, I would say. And when you like look at the book, there's a great book, it's called Rocket Fuel. There's a visionary and then there's an integrator. There's probably a lot of people out there listening that are like almost creative and brand people first. And they're kind of thrown into this CEO role. Like you literally came like snowboarding, kind of a smaller business, and then you're thrust into this massive company. What's your advice that you would give to kind of these creative first leaders?

41:31I would say trust your instincts. And if you feel like you have an idea and you feel like you are a visionary, trust it. And then you get thrown into having to do a lot of different things and wear a lot of different hats. And you just have no option but to learn these things and figure them out. and I think that that comes back to having the passion for what you're doing because if you truly hate it or just can't figure it out or don't want to figure it out you're gonna have to hire help you can't do what I did whereas like I ran this thing all by myself for the first three years so it's hard my advice it's it's not so much advice it's like hopefully as a founder you have that passion hopefully you have that thing that eats away at you that you're just like cannot sleep because you want this thing to be so successful.

42:18And I think you either have it or you don't. Brutal, but true. What were those key hires though? Because I'm sure there was a moment where you're like, okay, this thing is scaling fast. I need to get in more people. When you look back at this journey, what were those big inflection points of the hires that ultimately freed up your time and allowed you to kind of help scale the company? Yeah, my first hire comes to mind. you know, I, I was doing everything, all the ops, the shipping, like everything, the ordering, you know, to the manufacturer, finding suppliers, AR, like collecting payments from retailers, every little piece of the brand.

43:00Those are the good old days, baby. I mean, man, it was so fun. You know, I don't talk about it like, man, that sucked. It was just so fun building something, seeing it come to life. Like what's better than that? What else you're going to do. Yeah. I remember the first couple of million and just working till my face was burnt off and then sleeping on beanbags and no weekdays, no weekends. I still put in the work, but especially if it's working, if it's working and you're doing it by yourself and you're doing everything and all you're doing is work. I didn't have a family at that point either. You know, I had a girlfriend, but I didn't have kids, you know, so I could just go relentlessly like all the time.

43:38And when it's working out and, you know, the brand is growing and it's this thing, it's your first time doing something on your own other than pro snowboarding. Like it's so fun, man. It's the best. It's what you live for. Yeah. You said something there that I think is like, for anybody out there listening, like you have to find a way to put yourself in a spot where the efforts of your input directly tied to the output. Like I just remember it was like, the harder I worked, the luckier I got, the harder I worked, the more money I made. And that was like the beginning. And I just remember it's just like, there was just not enough hours in the day.

44:14And I just wanted to work every day, all day, because I just saw direct benefit. And I think you have to find that. You do. I mean, look, half of the thing is just going for it, is being a doer, you know? And that's why being a doer will always outperform a thinker. You know, someone who's just gonna, you know, just sit there and dwell on it and write their ideas down. and, you know, is this calculated? Like, you have an idea, you just got to go. Those are the type of people who are successful. And if that doesn't work, you just do it again, over and over again, you know, and something will work.

44:46You just got to be a doer though, because not a lot of people are willing to just go. Yeah, analysis paralysis. Analysis paralysis will kill you. But to get back to the answer, I'd say the most impactful hires were, my first hire about three years in, you know, she excelled at all the things like operations, And she, I mean, she would do anything really where she didn't excel was brand. And that's where I excelled brand and product. And so she took all that stuff off my plate and it was just me and her for a little bit. And that was huge because my brain that only has so much space got to free up into completely focusing on product, completely focusing on marketing and these other things that I really like.

45:24That was a big one. And then our first VP of digital was a big one. You know, like for the longest time I'm making ads, I'm figuring out meta advertising, I'm doing all this stuff for the first time, right? Like learning how to, you know, run Google ads, like all that stuff. I'm the point of contact for our agencies that are running ads and all that. And it's like, when I found somebody who was like, no, this is my thing. Like I'm passionate about digital. I'm passionate about websites. I'm passionate about, passionate about ads. And I, and I know how to run these ads. Like that was a game changer.

45:54So I didn't have to do that anymore. And then, you know, my CMO that I currently have, you know, she was big game changer for me as well. trying to find these people that are that are taking these things off my plate that I was doing but I wasn't passionate about or really good about so finding people that were better than me and bringing them in that was huge right now with the scale that you guys are at would you rather hire someone 10 years at L 'Oreal or three years of building their own failed brand hot take give it to me I would just have to meet the person I would just have to feel out the personality I know within a few minutes if I'm going to hire the person or not personality.

46:31Still very involved in the hiring process? Very. I meet everybody. Everybody before we offer, I meet. So I spend more time with the people that are on the higher level. But if my operations person comes and says, hey, I found this person where we're going to, we want to extend an offer. I'm always like, oh, let me have a five minute chat with them. And just to put a face to the name. And if something feels really off and it's happened, not a lot, it's happened once where I'm like, I don't think this person is for us.

47:27This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. It feels like all the best companies in the world. I never see the best companies overstaffed. They're always understaffed a little bit.

48:06And I feel like just like your ratio of team members to revenue definitely speaks to that. And I feel like you did a couple million dollars in revenue out the gate with like two people, three people. And I feel like that just is a better operation to run for sure. I think so. I mean, having it always operate and have that startup mentality, have people wanting to be scrappy and not soft manage people and people who just want to get in the weeds. They just inherently want to get in the weeds. When you get people like that, you don't need you don't need a ton of people on your team. You can you can make a difference with with less people.

48:40I agree. This episode is brought to you by Momentus. Most Americans today are walking around deficient in omega-3, vitamin D and magnesium. Three of the most foundational things in energy, recovery, and sleep. And even if you're already taking supplements, the industry is so loosely regulated that you really don't know what you're taking. I know the team behind Momentus personally, and that's why I trust it. Every product, every batch is third-party tested for NSF, certified for sports. So what's on the label is exactly what's in the bottle. It's why over 200 pro sports teams trust them and why my whole stack is theirs.

49:14Omega-3, vitamin D, magnesium, and creatine every single day. If you're putting real effort into your health, you want to know that it's actually working. Go to livemomentous.com, use code OPENRESIDENCY for up to 35 % off your first order. Hope you guys are enjoying the episode. We put together a free PDF playbook on Nima's design obsession, his partnership strategy, and the tactics behind how he became the number one selling deodorant on Amazon and Sephora. Link down below in the description. Enjoy the rest of the episode. Let's get into the fun part here. so most founders i mean they pour their whole entire lives into a brand and they walk away with nothing you've taken chips off the table multiple times two bites of the apple and under 18 to 24 months i guess why don't you just walk us through as much or as little as you want to tell us let's just kind of go through each one of these bites because i feel like some founders like don't even know that this is like an option but obviously you guys were very very profitable throughout so it gives you optionality but why don't you just walk us through from a macro perspective, just like all the kind of liquidity events and how you looked at them?

50:20Yeah, I actually, I had no idea that you could have a sort of an exit moment financially without having an actual exit, right? And selling majority of your company. And so, I mean, the big one was two years ago. That was, that was, you know, a life changing event for us. You know, when I say us, for me and my family, nobody in my family, you know, immediate or distant has ever had that kind of wealth. And so that, that was the chance to, you know, get tens of millions of dollars, you know, for me and my family and make sure, you know, my kids are fine and I don't have to, you know, go to sleep at night, you know, worried that if the brand goes out, I'm going to have to, you know, figure things out.

51:03And so that, that was one where we brought in a private equity firm and And that whole deal was me taking chips off the table, but also maintaining control of the company. So it just felt like such a win-win. Most people start a company owning 50%. They start with a partner. I had started the company owning 100%. So I had this amazing opportunity to still control the brand and take the chips off the table. So from a secondary perspective, just for people out there, your cash came in, you got diluted, and none of it went to the balance sheet. you just took the chips off the table. That's right.

51:40Yeah. That's right. And that was, you know, that was one that was a big deal. Going through the due diligence and the 45 days waiting to close and fund and all that stuff. You're just like, is this going to happen? I think so. And then you'd wake up one morning and get some news and you're like, this is not going to happen. And so having it get there, I mean, it is just an unbelievable moment, you know, and money's not everything. And I think you kind of learn that quickly, you know. I worked harder than ever. Like the day the funds hit, I was on my computer working. But definitely an unbelievable milestone for sure.

52:18Let's go inside your brain from the day, let's just say there's an LOI or there's some sort of commitment to the day the funds actually hit. What is that like in your brain? Because like anything can happen then. What's going on in your brain in those 45 days? Chaos. It's just chaos. Like it's hard to sleep, especially as you're getting closer. And it sounds, I don't want it to sound like money's everything because it's not. But it's like, it's just the difference of making the deal happen and not making it happen is just like, you're going to be able to do different things for your kids, you know, and it's just going to be a different life altogether.

52:54And so you try to kind of have the mindset of, okay, if this doesn't happen, we're fine. we've built a beautiful brand you know it's killing it we're gonna keep going and everything but it's hard because as you get closer you're like you know inevitably in these deals like things pop up right like questions and then all of a sudden the legal team wants to jump on and you you know you got uh you know 10 days left until close until fund you're mentally like okay this is gonna happen then all of a sudden you're like holy shit this isn't gonna happen now it's just a roller coaster. And I remember on that deal, I was, I was told like two weeks until funding.

53:34And I said, okay, let's go. And it ended up going to, it could go 45 days. We ended up funding on the 45th day. So yeah. So mentally I'm like two weeks and then we get to two weeks. I'm like, are we there? And they're like, oh no, we actually got to use the whole 45 days. So, I mean, it's, it's just mentally grueling. It's mentally grueling, but like, you know, yeah. Looking back for people out there that eventually do want to have this liquidity event, what are those key things to be buttoned up on? Do you think looking back? I mean, having a good banker is one thing, right? Like that's very important.

54:07The Raymond James team did it twice for us. Like I'll always be grateful for them to Vanette and Jonah over there. They've changed our lives forever. Amazing people having the banker that knows the process, but then hiring, you know, the CFOs, the finance people, the people who've done it, you know, and I brought a president on board after the first deal who, who had gone through an acquisition for another large company. And, um, I mean, she's an all-star. We, we promoted her from CFO to president like right away, basically, but she had done that. And that was one of the, one of the allures, you know, one of the benefits of having her is she, she, she knew how to do it and what the person that the company acquiring your brand was going to want and how you're going to want to have to like, you know, have all those things handed on a silver platter to the, to the acquirer.

54:56I'm going to ask you a very personal direct question here. You can answer it or not answer it. So you had those two big chunks, but then before that you had a chunk where like overnight you became a millionaire. So you had kind of three chunks, a seven figure chunk, an eight figure chunk, and then a nine figure chunk. Given if you just kind of do the math there, I would say, how does your life change from each one of those? I was like, what is it? Like, there's no one better to answer this question than you because you have like hard lines in the sand where it's like, I'm six figures today. I'm seven figures.

55:25And it's right there. So what are the big things that are different like in life? Well, from the first transaction or you mean now? Just how does life change? I would think that I don't know about these last transactions. I'm not there yet. But just like, I just remember the day that I went from negative in my account to zero, zero to six, six to seven. So like, just walk us through the psychology of what that does to you as a human. Yeah. I mean, look, ultimately my passion is building, right? It's my family, my kids, and it's building my brand. And these kind of things, bringing these things to life, right?

56:04And this is my passion. And so it really, the main thing that I like that it did is that I can sleep a little bit easier at night, right? For sure. But I can build the brand in the right way. I'm not penny pinching. If my CMO comes over and asks, let's do 200 billboards. I'm not saying what's the ROI. It's like, you feel good about it? Like, yeah, let's do it. You can make these decisions more for the health of the brand and not really just be kind of like penny pinching and doing things the wrong way. And so that's been the biggest unlock. It's kind of gamified building the brand as opposed to having everything be, you know, for the bottom line.

56:38Everything dollar in, two dollars out versus just like, this makes sense to build the brand over time, over a longer horizon. Yeah, that's right. So why Humble and why Advent? I'd love to know because for people out there listening, I feel like it's way more rare the case that someone just buys outright when you're talking about kind of these bigger acquisitions. It's always some sort of PE play where they buy 50, 60, 70%. They want you on board for X amount of time and to kind of take you to the promised land. What should people out there look for when picking these partners? What are those key things?

57:11what I liked about humble was it was started by founders. So people who have been in my shoes. So when things are not going great and thankfully things went great the whole time, but you know, they're, they're, they've been in the, in the seat before and they know that, you know, there's a founder magic, right? There's this like, you know, not trying to hype myself up, but just the founders in general that have the passion, like knowing that you don't, don't disrupt that, right? You're buying into that. Like that's what's making this thing special. So the best thing Humble did was they came in and they let me do my thing and they let us do our thing, right?

57:48And it's, you know, growing, you know, from 16 million to 29 million and now we're run rating at 96 million or 100 million. The worst thing they could have done is come in and be like, no guys, like we want to, you know, interview everybody that you hire. We want to, you know, come in and say no to collaborations or whatever, right? Like they came in and they believed in it and they believed in the brand and what we built, but they believed in us. They believed in me. And so I felt that. I also felt like they were a private equity firm that has integrity. Very talented people over there. They're visionaries, but they operate with integrity.

58:26They're family people. I went out there. I took my family to meet Andrew Abraham, who built Orgain, sold it to Nestle and now he's operating Humble Growth. Amazing human in my life. And so I took my family over there. We spent some time together and I just figured, you know, this is somebody I want in my life. I was simply a good person that I could learn from. Yeah, I feel like sometimes people just get so excited about him. They don't realize that you're also interviewing them. Like you going over and seeing how he is as a human. Yeah, I mean, we had about 15 different private equity firms at that time.

58:59that bid came down to even more bidding and they weren't the highest bidder. Wow. I could have taken more money off the table, but I chose them. That's crazy. Cause I'm sure, I mean, I'm just, I'm just thinking, I'm just thinking about the raw numbers here. Like there's a lot of millions more that you probably could have got. Yeah, for sure. But you meet some people and you go, Hey, I don't want to do business with that person. They're just the way they're acting. You just feel, you just feel it. Like they're not, they're not going to do things ethically. They're not going to do things the right way.

59:28they, you know, maybe would want you to discount to like discount the brand, be promotional. And they just don't see the vision. And so humble, great people and great at what they do. And, and, and, you know, they, they saw the vision and they, they, I just knew they were going to put the trust in us. And they were there when we needed them for sure. Anytime I needed anything, even before we signed the deal, like I had people I was on the fence with big hires, Andrew, before we closed the deal would sit in on these meetings with me. And so they just, they care. This is, they care. They're amazing, man.

59:58Highly recommend them for anybody. Yeah. Anybody who's lucky enough to work with them. Shout out to Andrew, Uncle Abraham. Andrew, Evan, Serene, the whole team, the whole team, Nick, everybody over there is class act. What about Advent? Why them? So yeah, another bidding process, right? And, and I got to know Dave and Trish over there really well. It's like, it's a requirement for me to go and just spend time with these people. Let's go have dinner. As we went to a Celtics game, we spent a lot of time together, got to know each other super well. And so are these people who operate with integrity, are these people who can help get the brand to where I want it to go?

1:00:35I want this thing to be here long after I'm gone. I want my grandkids to look at the brand and know what it is and not just have this thing like, oh yeah, my granddad built this brand and it was great then, but it's gone now. Like I want it to be at that Nike level. And so they really understand that vision. And I feel like they're the ones that are going to help us get there in the right way and great people. What's the one thing you know now that you didn't know through going through these processes? Here's the thing. If you're a founder who wants to stay involved, then get in the room in these meetings and talk.

1:01:13Talk about your passion. Talk about why you wake up every morning and work on the brand. If you're a founder that wants an exit, that was on the table for me, right? Don't go into those meetings because as soon as they think you're a founder, that everything relies on the founder, like the main magic is the founder, you're not going to sell the amount of equity that you want to sell. So they're going to want to have you keep a large portion. And so I would just say for any founders who are looking to get out, I would say just don't even go into those meetings. Say less. Yeah. That's a good, subtle little piece of advice for somebody out there listening.

1:01:53I like that. It's something you don't think about, but luckily I want to keep doing this. And we have a lot of things that I feel like the brand is just getting started. I know it sounds crazy, but like on the big scheme of things, it feels like we are just getting started. So I'm passionate about it. I'm happy to keep going. So you mentioned before now that you can think way more about brand as opposed to direct response dollar in,$2 out. What are some of the stuff that you're doing now that maybe you couldn't have done in the past now that you guys have all this kind of bankroll and firepower behind you?

1:02:22Yeah, I mean, billboards, advertising on trucks, like all these cool things, like activations in Paris, in New York, just doing these cool things. And we're really looking now at retail as well. And yeah, we're looking at it, yeah. Nice. Yeah, and so just doing these things that are risky plays, but that's what moves the needle. You know, you look at the marketing team, just letting them have fun with it, right? Like the best brands in the world are putting out content that's fun, that's good and interesting and letting them have the freedom to operate like that is huge. Yeah, we talk about in the Peter Hall episode about just kind of how the pendulum swings in the beginning.

1:03:05You have to be a little bit more performance. And then as you scale, you can invest more in brand things like Billboard. board because obviously you guys have the notoriety if you're number one on amazon before even spending on ads i feel like you guys your name recognition is pretty pretty deep right now i mean it helps in many ways to get to this level for sure all right let's fire away i got a million questions for you um i guess we could start right off the back of that last conversation one word to describe Andrew Abraham. Beast. Best snowboarder of all time. Peter Line. So four years of customer service, it's you.

1:03:43What's the biggest lesson you learn that still shows up today on those four years on the phone as customer service? People are emotional and just don't take it personally. If customers can get upset about missing packages and things like that. So it's practicing patience and going through them one by one. Yeah, not rushing through it, taking your time and making sure you really listen to the customer, listen to the feedback. If there's something that's trending in a certain direction, course correcting and listening to the customer. Definitely test your patience. They're always right. It's absolutely fucking incredible.

1:04:21So some of those emails did. The hardest thing about being a fully remote CEO? Humans, humans have emotions, managing, managing people and their needs. And they, these are geniuses in their own right. And you need to be there for them. And I think the hardest thing is if you find somebody that isn't working out and you're trying to sort of guide them into teaching them how to make this work out for them, how to make this an environment for them to thrive and it just isn't getting through, you know, and that takes a lot of time, right? Like why is your style not working out here and trying to coach them through it and then ultimately having to move on.

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1:06:02What's the next category you disrupt if it wasn't beauty? i love going into aaron and seeing all these brands like i think it's really fun and i've always been into like nutrition and and health and and what i'm putting in my body so i think something in that space at some point could be fun you're off grid for 30 days one number a day you get what's the metric that tells you salt and stone is healthy revenue what's put are you guys D to C versus retail? I mean, it's changing because we're growing so fast in retail. I want to say it's like 80 % D to C, 20 % wholesale. Favorite founder to follow on social?

1:06:49I think George is a fun follow. Like he's just showing you his day and how there's like all these other things that go into building the brand and seeing the behind the scenes, the way he shares all these things. I think he's a really fun follow. George from Represent. Great episode, guys. Represent, great brand. Who is a competitor you secretly respect? Dove. They've been around. They're huge. That white and blue, that's pure. That's pure. When you see that, that white and blue, it's pure. I would say Aesop. Aesop massively respect. Coming into the beauty space and looking at all the competitors and what else was out there.

1:07:27I mean, the attention to detail they have, like from their stores to their designs, staying true to the brand. And Aesop would be at the top of the list. When I think of you, I think of you guys in the same universe, for sure. The best piece of advice an investor has ever given you? I would say hire a leadership team and put trust into them and let the talented people do their thing. Simple but profound. Most underrated CEO trait? Understanding brand. Hardest no you've had to give in the last 12 months? I think some, you know, when the marketing, marketing team is hyped up about something and they really want to do something and I get brought in like late and ultimately don't feel like it's a right move for the brand and have to say no.

1:08:15It's always hard because I love our marketing team. They do everything so right. So once in a while, if I have to say no, it's, it's, it's always tough for me. Biggest learning lesson from working at Subway.

1:08:29I think working in a restaurant is good for you. My kids at some point are going to have to work in the service industry. It's where we've all met the 16-year-old boy who's just shy and can't handle himself and gets nervous on every little thing. Having to work in that, especially in Subway or at my dad's restaurants in South Central, you have to learn about how to handle yourself. You have to learn about people, good people, bad people, people who treat you well, people who don't. You have to stand up for yourself at times. You just learn being around people all the time. I think I learned a lot about just how to handle myself.

1:09:07And yeah, I learned a lot of social skills through that. And it'll be a requirement for my kids to work in the service industry. What's the one thing you'd tell 25-year-old Nima that he would not believe? that you would start something on your own and, and yeah, secure a financial freedom for generations to come. So you talk a lot about discipline throughout. How does discipline show up in your life? And what does discipline mean to you? It shows up across basically everything. I run five days a week and get my, my workout after, and that's five days a week, no matter what. If we're on a snowboard trip and there's snow everywhere on the roads, like I'm up, I'm, running no matter what.

1:09:49If we're on vacation and we're jet lagged, like whatever it is, those five days a week, I'm getting it in no matter what. And it's not like, oh, this sucks. This is grueling. It's like, I'm just doing it. You know, it's like brushing your teeth. And so that's kind of just the way I live my life. And I've been doing that ever since I can remember. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you, how do you guys use AI and what's your thoughts on just AI in general from an operator's lens? I think AI can be an incredible tool. I think it's great at some things and it's really bad at some things. What's it great at?

1:10:22You know, giving it a zip file of 200 pages and being like, you know, what, I have this question that appears on page 42 and within three seconds, it gives you the answer. That's pretty insane. But I think if you're a founder right now and you, and and I see this a lot and you think AI is going to come in and name your brand and do the design for your brand like this is kind of like the mentality now like people think that like AI is going to come in and do all this creativity for them it is awful at that and I think if you're a founder and you're if you're a visionary I think you're best not using AI right because every once in a while, a visionary comes along, right?

1:11:04Like, like the Beatles or like John Lee Hooker, like these musicians or like Radiohead or even Tupac, like there's greatness happening, right? And then you fast forward and 10 years later, you're like, damn, they were ahead of their time, right? And that's the human superpower is being ahead of being able to see ahead and AI inherently just doesn't, it can't do that. It gathers data from things that have happened already. So there's no progression. And so the magic of the human brain of a visionary is being able to see ahead. And so you can't just do a brand like you want to hear people like they want to be the next Aesop and like they want to look just like Aesop and come up with a name.

1:11:43And it's like, that's not going to be the next Aesop. Like that's Aesop is there. You have to do what's next. And it takes, you know, a visionary to do that. And AI can't do that. It's, it's, it's awful at that. It just can't do it. It's amazing at these other things, right? Like you want to spitball with it and financials and spreadsheets and stuff. But as far as like, come up with a can't like all these creative things, I would just say, if you're a true visionary and a creative, it's don't even use it. I don't think, and if it's this bad now, I don't think it's ever going to get to the point where you say, Hey, design, come up with the brand name, come up with the design and packaging and have it be something like a true good genius designer looks at and says, this is fundamentally incredible.

1:12:25It's so far from that now. I have no hope that it'll ever get there. And I hope it doesn't. And I hope the visionaries don't use it and use their brains and keep excelling things forward. Because it's not just musicians and artists. It's everything. It's sports. Like your best basketball player right now is better than your best basketball player in the 70s. You know what I mean? And this is just human evolution, right? It's like a machine isn't going to be able to do that. So that's my view. That's my view on it. Hot take. All right. Last couple of questions I asked everybody. Favorite book or podcast and why?

1:13:00Dave Senra. I love the Founders podcast and his new podcast, much like you. I love his enthusiasm. I love his questions and the guests he selects. It's just all the combination is super entertaining. And I look forward to your episodes and his episodes. Love that. Thank you. Big fan of Founders podcast as well. entrepreneur or brand that you want to give flowers to and why we'll say jordy and john at tbpn give them their flowers i mean they put in the work and they just had an amazing outcome with open ai acquiring them under two years it's hard to beat that pretty amazing outcome technology sports center on twitter for people out there they're not listening to six foot plus beautiful humans, good at business, consistency.

1:13:53They're going hard. Discipline. We talked about it off camera. People think this is easy. They checked a lot of boxes there, those boys. There was a lot of, there was a lot of things going for them. A lot of discipline, man. Like a lot of discipline, consistency. I mean, discipline is the word that comes to mind with, with it. Most successful founders have that, that that's the common thread is the discipline, right? Like waking up and just, and just doing it no matter what. there's a lot of temptations, right? Like you can go play golf and like do all these other things, but just being disciplined, like that's kind of the through line, right?

1:14:23With all, with all the successful founders I know. No golf here, boys. Um, how big can Salt and Stone be? And don't be humble. I won't be. I think we can be as big as Nike. I think we're going to be a massive brand that'll be in the conversation with the Nikes and the Apples. Tens of billions of dollars. I think so. Great investment for Advent. I had an amazing time, bro. Where's the best place they can find you on the internets? Instagram. Just really just Instagram. Appreciate you, man. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for watching. If you got value out of this episode, every single principle framework tactic is in one free playbook linked at the top of the description.

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