Inside The Mind Of An Active Investor. And, A $200 Revamp? Yep.

26:13Don't know. Don't remember how that whole thing went. It's been a while, huh? It's been a little while. But yeah, no, that's, I think, been a challenge with beverages that are designed for kids is just they're trying to achieve something nutritionally oftentimes with sweeteners or, you know, whatever it might be, sneaking in some healthy ingredient, right? And how do you get kids to drink it? And I will say this, the Kitty Wink, like, it tastes pretty close to what I remember chocolate milk tasting like. Maybe it's the vanilla-based one that I'm having a little trouble with. Yeah, vanilla is probably a little harder.

26:50Yeah, chocolate is good. I started with the chocolate one for that reason. That's like the original flavor, you know, in that sort of product. Gotcha. All right, shout out to the team at Hightide, which is a new brand of cannabis-infused, non-alcoholic RTD margaritas. Mocktail, yeah. Yeah. Is that can melting in your hand? It is not. Okay. Co-founders Shea Coakley and Josh Grab came to the office. It was great to see them. They dropped off some samples of their non-spiked or non-cannabis-infused products. Which I think are just samples. I'm not sure they... Do they sell them without cannabis? I don't believe so.

27:27I think they're samples, yeah. So we could all try them. They say sample, not for resale. That's all I was trying to say. Those are the Mike version. Oh, yeah, Mike. Yeah, test it out. Yeah. I've known Josh Grab for a long time, back when he was still with the Boston Beer Company. a great guy. Glad to see him in the beverage space as an entrepreneur. And a huge thanks to him and Shay for dropping by. Thanks for stopping in. We love when people come to the office. If you're in the Boston area, if you're based here, come out to Newton. We want to see you. 65 Chapel Street. Probably should send us an email before you drop by.

27:59I was just going to say, don't give the address. But if you do, if you do, we'll probably let you in. And if you're in the San Diego area, come stop by the San Diego office, which is right near the Costco off of the Five. Jackie, you're so San Diego. I love it. Loyal listeners will know why we're laughing. Yes. Is that a sports drink you have there, Jackie? So it's not a sports drink, but you can hear it sloshing around. So this is from Sparrow Foods, which Sparrow Foods, other people might have seen. They have plant-based cream cheeses and some other products. And they just recently launched this egg alternative, pepita egg alternative.

28:41It's similar to like a just egg. But what's interesting about this product is just very, very simple ingredients. It's just water, pepita seeds, which is pumpkin seeds, and then just some seasoning. Are you sure that's not the pickleball workout recovery drink? Yeah, why does it come in a beverage bottle? I'm so confused. Are you going to chug that, Jackie? I mean, people might. If it's just pepita seeds, you know, it's not going to hurt me. But it's interesting. It's a yellow bottle. it was in like the dairy egg section i picked it up because it did look like something different and i was curious so i haven't tried it yet but it's supposed to work kind of just like a just egg you can scramble it it's liquid and supposed to be better for the planet so i'm gonna give it you gotta report back on that you better instagram this i mean i will i will and don't do like scrambled eggs do like a frittata or something that's yeah instagramable come on yeah yeah this is like the reverse of a lot of issues that beverage brands have which is they're using like a dressing bottle for their beverage oh so true this is like the reverse of that a food product using a beverage bottle when it should just use the dressing bottle there you go but that wouldn't be any better in a dressing i don't think so i think it was that's how you really feel putting on a salad no it should be someone needs to invent like a plant-based egg shell that you can just crack and out comes the plant-based egg, right?

30:04That would end up on Snackshot for sure. She's going to drink it. Oh, don't do that. Jackie, oh no! She's drinking it. If it were just rye egg. And? It actually tastes like flavored plant-based milk, honestly. Wow. Egg-flavored. Like a spiced plant-based milk. If you're in the studio, you see me backing up because I felt like Jackie he was going to spew into the camera. It is yellow. So it would just be yellow. Oh my goodness. Don't do that. All right. Do you have the plastic on the floor? We have to have that in the studio going forward. All right. It's time to get to the first of our featured interviews for this episode.

30:46As I mentioned at the top of the show, Michelle Razavi and Nikki Elliott are the co-founders of Ilave, which markets low sugar and gut friendly protein bars and cashew butters. I sat down with Michelle and Nikki at Expo West 2023, where they shared a remarkable story about a recent package revamp whose timeline and total cost are jaw-dropping.

31:13Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. I'm back here at Expo West 2023 in the Anaheim Convention Center. And once again, joined by the dynamic duo of Michelle Razavi and Nikki Elliott, of Elavi. Michelle, Nikki, great to see you. Great to see you. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah. Well, about one year later from our last conversation at Expo West and some amazing things happening with Elavi. Just give us a sense of where you are in terms of retail and distribution. Yeah. So we're distributed nationwide. We really focus on the alternative channels. So quick refresh on our backgrounds. We're Equinox fitness trainers in addition to running the company.

31:50And we really lean into the alternative channels of the fitness studios. So we're distributed in the Equinox cafes in both California and New York. We're also sold in over 100 locations in Lifetime Fitness cafes, in addition to Central Market in Texas and your local juice shops, smoothie shops, and fitness studios as well, in addition to Amazon and online. So really leaning into where our consumers are and trying to get in front of them in the best way possible. Yeah. Michelle and I were emailing a few weeks back and she asked me if I had seen the new packaging for Lavi's Superfood Cashew Butters.

32:31And somehow I missed seeing the package revamp, the label revamp. And she sent me a photo and I said, holy crap, this looks incredible. This must have cost you a fortune. And Michelle was like, that's actually a really interesting story, right? Because it didn't cost us a fortune. Well, first of all, let's back up for a second and explain why you felt like you needed a label revamp for these butters. Because I thought the original label was great, but you made it excellent, like really, really fantastic. Nikki, talk about what you wanted to change. Yeah, so we launched these about a year ago, and we wanted the nut butters to sit under the umbrella with our bars.

33:09We wanted to look like a related family of products. So we very much mirrored this black packaging, very premium, sleek and modern gender neutral packaging that we have in our bars for our nut butters. And we were really proud of the product and how vibrant and bright colored it is with the superfoods. And this black packaging we noticed was really not doing justice to like this really high personality product inside. And it was also getting confused on shelves with our bars. And so we this kind of necessitated the discussions around, hey, I think we need to like really bring this product to life.

33:38We know we have some really innovative, delicious product that people are loving, but the packaging is holding us back. And so that was months kind of into the market after launch. We launched January 2022 with this product. And within a number, even of weeks, I think we realized that we're going to outgrow kind of how we launched. And we were just more focused on like, let's get to market. Let's prove concept. And we'll figure out how we need to do a package rebrand after the fact once that's been done. So that necessitated pretty quickly that we are going to need to do something. Yeah, we realized that we missed the mark in terms of conveying the fun, vibrant color because who else is blue cashew butter and pink cashew butter?

34:16It was so cool. And I think we were trying so hard to give off the premium, elegant look as our collagen protein bars that we were blind as founders to really seeing what was in front of us, which is this very vibrant, fun, new brand aesthetic that we had the opportunity to tap into. And our packaging was holding us back. And so we realized we need to move quickly, just like as quickly as we launched to market. We need to relaunch a new package design before we distributed further into retail, because it's really difficult to go and change your products. And so we knew we had to act fast in the redesign.

34:52In further context, we're sold in individual single serve packets, not jars. So there's no window into what the product looks like, what the consistency is. And similarly to the color, it's also much more of a liquid viscosity product so that you can get the entire thing out of the packet. So we just felt like between those two things not being conveyed well by the packaging we initially designed, we wanted to really bring that to life through imagery, showing cashews, showing the superfoods, showing the color, showing how it drizzles to really put that right in the front and center of the packaging.

35:21Now we'll put this in the show notes. We'll put photos of the two flavor varieties that you have here that I have in my hand here. But I'll just describe it as best as I can. It's a 1.13 ounce pouch of cashew butter. The blue spirulina vanilla variety has just that, what would you call that, sort of cascading? Yes, great word. Exactly. Yeah, that cascading cashew butter just being poured all over cashews. And the key attributes of the product underneath where it says cashew butter here, no added sugars, vegan, no palm oil, and gluten-free. Totally easy to understand exactly what this is in a very short amount of time.

35:57And if you do actually take a closer look, there's a lot of great information on the front and the back. Again, typically to achieve what you've achieved here, you would be paying, I don't know, upwards of$30 ,000 to$60 ,000 to a branding agency or designer. It would probably take months. Yeah. And that's the painful thing, right? It's the back and forth iteration. It's the mood boards that they want to do. And those are all great. But when you're a startup that is competing against time to get to market and get your name out there, you need to act fast and efficiently. And the brand agencies that we were talking with, not only was the time just not able to work with our timeline, but the price was just not going to work with where we're at, especially with the economy for every brand.

36:45We're looking at every single part of the business and where can we be mindful of our cash flow and of our spend. Two remarkable things. Let's start with the first one. Your timeline for the revamp was? Like two weeks. Okay. That is a very short amount of time. Is that how long it took? Actually, it took two days. I did two all-nighters. So what's really fun about this story is just the power of hustle and thinking outside of the box. And I think that's what's so fun about when you're constrained on resources, it forces you to think creatively. So there's this amazing site called CrowdDesign where you crowdsource designers from all over the world to submit different concepts, different designs.

37:31You put up a brief, logos, anything you want, examples. And then all these designers submit their concepts or ideas. And then you pick a winner. And then from there, you work back and forth with that designer, that talent. And you get to bring your vision to life. Now, I have some marketing background. So I was able to be the creative director for this. And we had an idea of generally what we wanted and where we were lacking. But yeah, I just pulled like two late, late nights because he was in Bangladesh, I believe. And so I had to work with crazy time zones and just knocked it out. And we got it into the hands of our printer.

38:09Yeah, within 48 hours. Okay. So that is remarkable. But I think the cost is even more remarkable. Yeah, we spent less than$200. So$150 total. Okay. What would you say? $150 $150? Yep. Okay. Well, I don't even know. So yes, folks,$150 is how much it costs to create a really impressive label and do it in a way that didn't take weeks and weeks, if not months, of research analysis and probably wasted time, honestly, in some cases. Exactly. Did you have any confidence this thing was going to work? Or was it just sort of, look, we've got to do this and we've got to try at least? More so the latter. It's kind of like we didn't really have much of a choice.

38:52We needed to rebrand right away to submit the designs in time for our next production run. So we knew that we need a new product. And we knew that with every extra day, our older packaging is out in the market. That inhibits us from expanding into retail growth, knowing that we need to do this eventually. So why not do it now before we expand and grow anymore? And how I heard about this idea was actually an advisor was telling us about this site. We had never done it before. So to your point, we had no idea. It was kind of going down the rabbit hole and seeing what would happen and just taking one step after the other.

39:24And, you know, the finished product that you're looking at, that isn't what we started with. We went through a lot of iterations still with the designer. We shared it with our friends, their community, with trusted advisors, and went back and forth internally a lot with what made sense for the consumer. Because the end goal is understanding what's on the inside of the packaging. Because we don't have a clear window because you can't do that with the nut butters. And so really that was just the goal is to make it as clear and inviting and delicious and just this beautiful brand experience. And the result, it just kind of came together because, yeah, we didn't really have much of a choice.

40:00And fortunately, we were open-minded to different options. And I think if we were just designing it from scratch, we wouldn't have come to where we saw it. And we kind of needed people to present us with different options so that we can see, okay, we don't like this. We do like this. We like something similar to this. And eventually hustled through and got it across the line. I recently spoke with the founder of Urban Remedy, which makes organic snacks and meals. And I asked her about whether she wants Urban Remedy to be most known or best known for making delicious products, which they do, or for making nutritious products.

40:38And she ended up, you know, she kind of, she didn't like the question to begin with, you know, because it is a tough question. But in the end, she really does want it to be known for the nutrient density, for the nutritious value of her products. But when I'm looking at your package, I can't tell, actually, because you have this very, very indulgent kind of looking product with, again, the cascading cashew butter. But, you know, between blue spirulina, superfood, you know, vegan, gluten-free, it all speaks to the modern consumer in a way that I think so many people are striving toward. How did you think about that balance between indulgence and nutrition?

41:17Yeah, I mean, I think that's an exciting part, right, to kind of intersect both. So our newest advisor, Jared Smith from RxBar, he defines our products as healthy indulgence. And I think that's perfectly hitting the nail on the head of what we're trying to do. Because if a product doesn't taste good, you're not going to get that repeat purchase, right? Or even maybe after that first trial for someone to even buy that first purchase. But at the same time, consumers, especially since we're in the fitness industry, they're looking for healthier ways to enhance their lives. And I think that's a really exciting thing that we can provide is that empowerment to consumers of, hey, you can enjoy the healthy foods and feel good about the foods that you're putting into your body and reinvent this dichotomy.

42:01Yeah, the compromise of you can only have one or the other. So it's not the whole you can have your cake and eat it too, but how do we tap into nature's ingredients like dates and monk fruit and spirulina and have fun and function and energy from the foods that we know inherently are good for their body. So I think it's empowering to consume the product. And from a brand, it's empowering to create the products that, you know, innovation is really our forte. And it's so exciting to challenge ourselves to bring that. It's such a great story. And I've always loved the story of Alawi. And I think you guys have created a great brand.

42:40And I'm excited to see how these do in 2023. Please let us know how things are going. And please let us know if you have any other tips or tricks. Maybe it's like you'll never pay another dollar in slotting fees. And you can tell us about how you did that, too. because that would be a really good story as well. I mean, look, it's a hard time. Yeah. Brands are more constrained than ever. There's a lot of pressure, a lot of scarcity mentality from the investment standpoint. It's hard fundraising, so we get it. We're in the thick with everyone. And I think what we lean into is that our origin story was very, very humble.

43:13We bootstrapped it ourselves with our personal savings. We didn't have any family money to help us through the pandemic. So I think just that mentality of, you know, we'll get through it, we'll be resilient, we'll figure it out, has just always permeated through our story. And I think that's a great mentality to carry as a brand right now. So if you're afraid, if you're scared, if you're worried about money, kind of flip that on its head, right? It's, okay, there's opportunity to get creative, right? If we weren't forced to innovate with a very tight budget, this probably wouldn't have come to fruition.

43:41We would have worked with some brand agency. They would have come up with something that we wouldn't have liked. And so it's kind of an exciting opportunity to be constrained because it really forces you to be creative and nimble. And I think that's just been our brand ethos is hustle and put yourself out there and take risks and bring your community along to help you along the ride and share anything you can because people want to help. For sure. And investors want to invest in great brands, but they also want to know that you're going to be smart and cautious with their money too. Exactly. This is a good starting point for sure.

44:12And a lesson for them to be like, look, we will be very cautious with your money. and I think again this is something we've talked about on the podcast a number of times with a number of investors yes we'll give you X but we want to know that you're spending wisely. Exactly. Exactly. We will squeeze every last drop of that fruit. And I'll squeeze every last drop of this cashew butter and eat it for the rest of the day. Thank you so much again. Michelle, Nikki so great speaking with you as always. Let's talk again soon and good luck with the rest of the show and the year. Thank you so much. Thank you.

44:49a capital efficient mindset is appreciated by investors just ask carlton fowler a managing partner with goat rodeo capital a san francisco-based investment firm goat rodeo's portfolio includes stakes in several fast-growing food and beverage companies including lemon perfect hoplark beatbox beverages and the good crisp loyal listeners will recognize carlton's voice as he has been featured in two previous episodes of Taste Radio, with more to come. This interview marks the first in a new series in which he will regularly share his perspective as an active investor in emerging and growth stage companies.

45:30Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I'm honored to be sitting down once again with Carlton Fowler, the co-founder and managing partner of Goat Rodeo Capital. Carlton, great to see you again. Ray, it's good to see you. It was fun to catch up at an expo. And always a pleasure to sit down with the Taste Radio folks. I am really looking forward to this conversation and subsequent ones. This is the first in a regular series of interviews that we'll be doing with Carlton about his work, what he's doing with Goat Rodeo, being on the ground in the trenches of investment in food and beverage.

46:05Goat Rodeo is absolutely an active investor. And you and I have chatted about the fact that some investors and some firms are really pulling back the reins on where they're putting their money and being a little bit more careful and cautious about their investments, given these uncertainties in the economy. However, again, I think some folks like yourself, I wouldn't call you bullish, but I would call you less cautious, perhaps, about brands that you're looking at for investment? Why is that? There's two things. And the first, I'll kind of address what kind of seems to be like a bifurcation within what we'll call the food and beverage space.

46:52And what we're seeing, definitely, is like as liquidity pulls back, there are definitely some companies, and I'm using rough numbers here but like the top decile of companies we'll call it both in growth and as with a good walk towards you know positive unit economics they're able to access capital they just don't and we'll call like you know that maybe the next two deciles have enough progress that they're probably able to at the very least access capital from inside their cap table those people are willing to defend their investments those companies like it's not as if the trends that is pushing all this, much of which is better for you, you know, better products, you know, more sustainable supply chains, some ESG, but for the most part, just better for you.

47:38It's not like if we go into a recession, people are going to wake up and be like, oh my gosh, like I definitely need to have an extra 40 grams of high fructose corn syrup in my diet every day. That's just not going to happen. The toothpaste doesn't go back in the tube. So the slight delta of premium that the Better For You products have that can create sustainable and durable and attractive margins at the top aren't going to go away. And in fact, I would actually argue, and this is kind of really illustrated to me at Expo West, like there are so many amazing products out there that are delicious.

48:13And in a very liquid environment, more of those products are getting funding. It doesn't mean they'll all be successful because there's so many other things that go into it, like process and team building and scale and a lot of luck. But if the liquidity tap isn't flowing into that bottom 70%, you actually don't have quite as many people trying to come at you from behind. So if you're one of these companies, you know, like Liquid Death, like Poppy, like Lemon Perfect, like Gollipop, you know, some of the beverages that have absolutely broken through, you might actually find yourself with considerably more share as you go through this process, because there's not, you know, someone picking off one or two regions of Whole Foods or picking off, you know, 300 targets here or there, because they're just not able to get quite as much funding.

49:06But on the flip side, the overall consumer trends are better for you. Like, you know, people are still fleeing the large brands that were developed, you know, 30, 40, 50 years ago that are not good for you. So I actually think those in that, you know, we'll call it top two deciles, are going to perform quite well. So we are definitely deploying there. On the flip side, it's not that I'm anti-caution. It's that I am anti-bolting the door closed after the horse already got out. That, to me, isn't proactive and forward-thinking investment. I don't mind slowing deployment. I think that the fact that people are trying to deploy their funds in 12 or 18 or 24 months, that's going to go away.

49:48That was a blip of of that super high liquidity environment. But I also think that 2023 and 2024 are going to be some of the best vintages because quality companies are available at better prices than they have been in the past. And I think there are many structural reasons why that they will grow faster. So if I hear kind of an echo chamber of, you know, game of telephone getting like, well, we only want to back profitable companies, we only back profitable companies. Like we also want to back profitable companies, but I'm willing to say, okay, for the last four or five years, growth was what was in demand, and that was being overpaid for.

50:25And that's how we got to some of these valuations that ended up being crazy. Now, if nine out of 10 people are looking to invest in profitability, and of course, profitability is like, it's good. It's good to be profitable. We are capitalists. But there are going to be times when I'm looking to buy things that have a walk to profitability and can take share right now because really growthy names maybe aren't as sought after as they were before. So I always want to try and buy what's on sale and what's going to be attractive three years from now, not what's attractive six months from now. And two years ago, if you would have been swimming against the crowd and saying, no, I'm only deploying into profitable companies, you would have saved yourself a lot of heartache.

51:06There wouldn't have been very many of them, but it would have slowed your deployment. And so I think right now what's on sale to some extent is growth. So if you see us deploying a lot, it's because we think there are some companies with amazing margins and improving unit economics because of getting on top of their supply chain and the growth is there. We think 23 is a great year to buy that. Let's talk about that a bit. How do you evaluate brand as a part of your investment strategy in relation to things like process and team or product itself? And how does that change from stage to stage or the stage of development for a company as they continue to grow?

51:48That's a great question. To answer that, I've got to go into my background a little bit. So at Gallo, I was trained to be a product obsessive. They are an amazing product development company. and what I did very differently is I came into an organization that was very professionalized from a consumer research standpoint but to a lot of degree is one of the reasons I like so much more being on the capital allocator side is it's not that good insights and good research can't get done it's just that consumers are actually pretty savvy and if you're available on a Tuesday afternoon to give your opinion on a new product like in many ways you're probably not the consumer that product's going after.

52:33And it's not like these folks can't identify which is the product that's been on shelf for 10 years and which is the new product. And they naturally have a proclivity towards pleasing the interviewer, regardless of how objective that interviewer is. So I got put in this situation and I just started asking a lot of questions. Like, well, you know, we spend all this money on like Basies and these different products. I'm like, well, how good are they? Has anybody looked at their track record? And like, it turns out like Basies, like ups the chance of like a product launch success by some enough to potentially justify the cost of it but for me i was just i was just like i i just don't understand this notion of like top two box like you know strongly agree with buy somewhat agree with buy like the only brands that ever attracted me as a brand developer were actually things that had a ton of top box and a ton of bottom bucks.

53:27I want people to either love it or hate it. Because then at least you know that there is a visceral reaction to it. Like liquid death is a great example. I was just going to say. The amount of people that love to define themselves by hating liquid death is the reason it's successful. You talked to, there's so many capital out of cars like, well, you know, I had a chance to invest in it and I passed because like, it's just water or it's like, I don't understand it. it's just water well like you know where i've heard that before it's like i don't understand it it's just a chat room like well the internet's gonna get a lot better like i don't understand it it's just crazy internet money it's like oh i think bitcoin might be a thing i love it like when i see something that like half of my investors think like how could you invest in that that's the stupidest thing i've ever heard like i'm like and if the other half like i totally get what you're doing you know that team is very forward thinking like then i get really excited if i can find things where people are like i don't get it that's dumb it shouldn't be successful and then other people are like this is the best thing i've ever seen i can't wait to buy more of it i get super excited so from a brand standpoint because i helped build so many that did go through that like you know people loved it people hated it kind of you know for the longest time so many people thought heineen was the dumbest thing in the world now the downside to that is i learned that in an organization where a number of other things were held constant.

54:52You could be certain that Gallo had a phenomenal supply chain. You could be certain you were going to get distribution, you know, and you could be certain that the sales force would react to incentives and the way you set it up. So if you armed them with the best brands, it was much more likely to work. So of course you had to focus only on cracking what is a good product and what is a good brand. in capital allocation world especially at seed stage and like a where we where we like to play the most that can be super dangerous because i can just convince myself this is a very special brand i have subjectively the ability to identify special brands because i did so in the past which in and of itself can be spurious logic but let's just just say that that's that that's a talent so like we've had to very much change you know some of the things and ways we go about it and get much much more rigorous on how we evaluate team and how we do allocation of capital from like maybe we need to pull back and not do as much as seed so we can follow in bigger than a and even a bigger and b so that we have time to evaluate this team because having an operator background and being able to help and point out a lot of potholes to founders is good.

56:14I think if you hold our founders, they would appreciate how much we know about the systems they operate in and how many doors we can open and help. But I think it can blind us to a lot of things because we can be like, oh, we know how to do that. We can definitely fix that. And my job shouldn't be over time being a free executive to all these companies. We definitely probably do it more than most. But I do think that that's, it's a double-edged sword or a two-sided coin, whatever euphemism you want to use. It's very helpful to have an operator background and it's very helpful to have a very good heuristic on brand, but it can also blind us.

56:52Well, it can also make your founder partners a little agitated from what I've understood. Now, I'm not talking about your partner at Carlton, but I'm saying in general, I've heard from founders that they don't necessarily love when investors dabble in the day-to-day. Is that something where, I mean, I guess what is your process for offering advice and insights and feedback without sort of crossing the line into day-to-day? I think so much of it is a proof-based system, right? So we try to be overwhelming in the level of help that we give at the beginning of a relationship to establish a level of credibility.

57:32so that when we have something that is constructive, but perhaps critical, that they know it's coming from a place of someone who's in a foxhole with them who is working their ass off to make this conversation. Because like going back to what I said, like Goat Rodeo is a startup. We have an almost perfect incentive alignment with our founders. We are not so big that James and I can live off management fees. Like we have to affect exits if we want to be as big as I want Goat Rodeo to be five, 10 years from now. so we have truly you know as good incentive alignment as we can possibly get and even within that we try and earn the trust within we'll say like the first year of a relationship such that it can almost be undeniable that we can help can be undeniable that we are right more often than we're wrong we give advice so that when when it's time to come and say hey i really think that you need to rethink this decision, it's coming from the right level of relationship rather than just jumping in there and making the assumption that you know better.

58:34Like it just works so much better, I think, if you put in the time to develop the credibility. I imagine it's really helpful for a celebrity-led or celebrity-founded or creator-founded brands to work with an investor that does have operational background that can help them navigate what could be a treacherous process to getting to retail, to making sure that you have adequate supply for the demand that's coming in. And we're seeing a lot of interest in celebrity-led brands. I mean, just look at, you know, what's going on with Prime. I mean, it's pretty nuts. So, you know, how are you evaluating and how are you advising brands that do have that celebrity component?

59:17I mean, kind of like the question when you look at what can happen in something like a prime or even a feastables the way that we're trying to rapidly develop a heuristic for this world is that like and this isn't rocket science right but we do spend a lot of time thinking about it's like okay the old world the old military industrial complex was big conglomerate like procter and gamble still the largest advertiser in the market, works with celebrities to borrow said credibility, pays them in cash. And that was the way it was done for 60 years, 70 years, basically since the advent of radio and television.

1:00:03And then I would say recently, the military-industrial complex is actually the cooperation between true celebrity and influencer. and we can kind of unpack that a little bit. Plus, very good operations. Like, let it not be lost that Congo Brands is a very, very good operations company. You know, the folks that were behind our X-Bar that are working with Mr. B-Sone Feastable is very good operationally. But then also retailers. So, like, one of the themes that goes through this is, like, you got to go Star plus Operations plus Walmart or Star plus Operations plus Target to actually make this work.

1:00:44And you say, well, why would Walmart do this? Well, A, if they can be convinced that your operations are going to be there and you're going to be able to meet demand, that makes them much more comfortable. But Walmart also wants to send brushback pitches to Procter & Gamble and Unilever and Kraft Hines and all these things because those people try and dictate so much of what happens in Bentonville. Bentonville swings a big stick with their volume, but they can also swing a big stick by saying, hey, I can king make anybody I want or at least help. And so for me, like celebrity, good. Celebrity plus really great operating team, great.

1:01:22Celebrity plus really great operating team plus an unholy alliance with Bentonville, best. Like that's really kind of how this is working because it's very difficult for Kroger to say, no, I'm not going to take this if it's doing top king tile velocities at Walmart or Target or any other mass. And they're big enough and they have enough reach. I think eventually the alliances will start with the Kroger's and the Albertsons of the world, depending on how that merges. So this is kind of the brave new world of this. And we don't necessarily know what acquisitions are going to look like because some of these things have gotten so big that, I mean, there's always exceptions that prove the rule, but what Prime has done is just, it's bananas.

1:02:04And what I don't know, and I don't think anybody knows, is, okay, will the velocities just keep going? Do they decay over time? Because normally my heuristics would be like, okay, in just a non-celebrity brand, okay, if you did, I'm just normalizing this numbers, if your velocity was one in year one and then you got it up to two in year two and then it's 2.5, it'll slowly, but I'm trying to get you to three or four X what your original velocity was. then i know you're really turning it's time to push you into a lot of chains some of the celebrity brands are starting at five and so like will after three or four years that consumer feel satisfied feel they've bought enough of their celebrity will that decay and frankly that decay is okay if you do start at five and decayed at three over 10 years it's a hell of a lot better than starting at one ending up at three in 10 years but it still makes it difficult to understand and evaluate that growth and decide whether or not a public market might be a more appropriate exit or an acquisition is a more appropriate exit and how to value that acquisition.

1:03:18So trying to figure this all out as it's happening in real time is about like, it's not a burden. It's about as much fun as can possibly be. And we're like, we're involved in it. And then within that, like you can throw a wrench into it and look at a brand like Nectar, which we are very excited to continue to invest in. These guys are becoming famous as they promote their product which is very like when you buy into if you're an investor in congo you don't you have no claim on logan paul you're just hoping that contracts and his own personal interest that is hopefully incentivized properly continues his work there but like the nectar guys are digitally native they have a media arm and that media arm is nectar So how do you work that math out?

1:04:08We don't know. We just want to be a part of it. Not bad at all. I think you have, going back to an earlier part of our conversation, I think you've coined a new term, Carlton. You talked about the military-industrial complex. Well, if we're talking about the celebrity operations retailer complex, the core complex is really what it is now. Yeah, the unholy alliance. Awesome. Awesome. Well, this is a great start to what I know is going to be a fantastic series. Thank you so much, Carlson, for doing this. I know our audience is going to love it. And I'm sure there are people that could try to get in touch with you every day.

1:04:43Is LinkedIn the best way to connect with you? LinkedIn is good. We do have an email address, theroundup at goatrodeocapital.com. We try and stay on top of that. You know, the best way to do it, because one simply must create like stage gates on time. So it's not like I'm trying to set up like a Zelda level quest, but if you can get a warm introduction to me, that is always going to be preferenced over, you know, over a cold email, but we do try and get to every cold email that comes in. Good to hear. Once again, appreciate the time and excited to meet again in about a month's time. Great. Appreciate it, right?

1:05:24That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNet.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cratchy. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt. And our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smirlinski. And our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. check us out on instagram our handle is bevnet taste radio as always for questions comments ideas for future podcasts please send us an email to ask at taste radio.com on behalf of the entire taste radio team thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time