Interview Replay: Kara on Breaking Precedent

31:20And he had written about Steve Jobs and the CD-ROM shopping company. And when I looked up where it was, it was in San Mateo. And I thought, well, it's not San Francisco, but it's kind of close. Yeah, it's all right. So I cold called the gentleman. And more than anything, I was hopeful that Steve Jobs was hanging out at that office, right? That he had these guys that all spun out this company from Apple. I couldn't figure out if Steve had any involvement in the company. That was kind of what I was thinking when I went to go meet with them. Now, what I didn't expect right away, it was sort of a informational, hey, let's get together for coffee.

32:02I think one of the things that he was most interested in, because he was asking me, oh, what had you done in New York? And I said I had worked for CNN and he was very inspired by Ted Turner. And so I said, why don't we swap stories about Steve Jobs and Ted Turner? And like, again, like I thought this was just coffee. Yes. Then all of a sudden I have a job offer in front of me and a contract. And he said, what we need you to do is very similar to what you were doing at CNN, which was there's no map. There's no measurement. We don't really know if it's going to work or not. But why don't you go out and call retailers like Levi's and Ghirardelli and J.Crew and all over the country and see if they'll actually put their catalog on the CD.

33:04And I thought, that sounds fun. I love all of those brands. I love brands, right? Yes. So that sounds great. What I didn't know was that there was a whole lot of education. The first thing I learned and probably the reason why they had pointed me towards focusing on calling this a catalog was that unless they had a back end operation to actually ship individual orders, it was going to be very difficult for them to do what we wanted them to do. So in the case of The Gap, for example, The Gap didn't have a direct-to-consumer business. And so for them, shipping pallets of product to stores all over the country was one thing, but shipping individual products is a very different thing, right?

33:56So that was the start of another thing that I thought, what's the worst that can happen? I mean, this is like, there's a lot to learn here. But every single day, I thought, if I don't get up and do this, then no one else is going to do it. And there were some other services, online services out there that we were competing against, including one of the companies that was an investor in our company, America Online. And I didn't have a whole lot of interactions with them because I was just the head of partnerships at Two Market was the name of the CD-ROM company. But eventually we needed capital.

34:37I heard the guys who started the company say we're getting really tight on cash. This is the first time that I had ever really been close enough and had worked in a smallish environment where I thought, I hope we make it right. But I was privy to a lot more information than I was in a later stage startup, CNN. That was exciting and also saw that our investor decided that it would make more sense to just acquire us. And they acquired us basically for the partnerships that I had formed and I had built on this little CD-ROM. And so they said, okay, we're going to acquire this company. And this is AOL.

35:24This is AOL coming in, doing the acquisition. Yep. Exactly. And so part of the acquisition is we would like you to come and run this marketplace for us. And I thought, okay, now it's online versus a CD-ROM. Actually, in the beginning, we were doing both. And then eventually we discontinued once the data speeds sort of sped up. Because again, this is the days of dial-up. The wild west for the internet. It was instant messaging and all those things were just getting started. It was a very exciting time. It's fun to look back on those times because I love creating and I know that I love creating because I've had to.

36:14Right. Because you've had to. That's so key. Right. Right. You weren't given a choice. You had to. Yeah. But I think back and my mom was an artist and an art history major. And I loved creating and drawing, but I always thought creating was that, like putting pen to paper or she was always doing different projects. We had a kiln where she would do stained glass or knitting or quilting or always doing something. And so that for me was creating. And yet creating can actually be creating businesses, right? Yes. And figuring out how do I work outside of these confines, like these parameters, which are very challenging for a lot of people to do.

37:03But you need somebody who's creative in order to do a lot of things around business that hasn't been done. And sort of comfortable in the uncomfortableness, right? And completely undaunted to take the title from your book on what needs to be done. And so there's a great story in the book. I think people should definitely read about you negotiating your role at AOL. I'm going to leave it there. But you do end up at AOL full time. And there's this other just incredible story. Talk about getting exposure to founders. So we talked about Steve Jobs. We talked about Ted Turner. Can we please talk about the early exposure you had to Jeff Bezos.

37:45And this crazy meeting, you're an AOL exec, you fly up to Seattle. I mean, the story is incredible. And I think it's like, for you, you're still forming this idea of what a founder is and how they're creating. Can you share that story and tell us how it impacted you? Yeah, totally. So had built out the marketplace for AOL and had really thought about it. Actually, I think back on this too, because I felt like there were other services, CompuServe and Prodigy. I don't know if you remember those services, but they weren't doing it better than we were. And yet I think that this is another lesson that I'll leave with people too, is that if you're the best, you always have to keep raising the bar, right?

38:37You always have to You keep not staying, not ever letting yourself be in a position where you're going to stay complacent. And so I always thought about that as, okay, how do we get better? And the closest thing that I could visualize, because again, none of my obvious competitors were doing it better than us. I remember going down to the Stanford mall. One day, the Stanford mall, live right here at the Stanford mall. Yeah. And it was still great back there in the early 90s. But I thought this mall is really different than some of the other malls that are out there. And what is the most different aspect of it?

39:21Well, I started to look at like the big stores, the Macy's and the Nordstrom's or Bloomingdale's or whatever it is versus some of the JCPenney's and Sears. Not that those were bad. They were just different. And so I decided one day to call the mall developer because on the sign, again, it's like the masthead. I had no idea what I was doing. And again, I was like, so how do you become a retailer in this mall? And he said, do you have a store? And I said, no, I'm just curious. Like, how do you value the real estate? And so I ended up getting into more than a few discussions. Then I went back to another mall, actually in Arizona that had the Sears and the JCPenney as anchors.

40:13And I started to see that having an anchor as an anchor tenant would bring in these other brands. If I could get those, then that would be helpful. I also started to notice that every single mall at that point, this before iTunes had a music store, all the good ones had a bookstore. So that's what I used as a model. What an insight. Yeah. Yeah. And it's something that I talk about and think about still to this day. Sometimes it's better to look outside of your industry for the answers that you need, especially if you're trying to up your own game. Yeah. Right. So that was where I was inspired.

41:01The other thing that I tried to bring in, by the way, now that we're talking about Bay Area was Fourth Street in Berkeley. Restoration Hardware was just starting. There was this company, Nature Company. A lot of those companies were new and cool and they were startups. I wanted to bring in that essence because that's how we would differentiate ourselves from a physical mall that they could actually come into this environment with AOL. The consumer could and they could get it all in one place, which was very different than a mall. So sometimes you can even one up some of the people that you're talking to and do it better than what they're doing.

41:42And they'll share with you because they don't see you as a competitor. Right. And so I think that's a very big lesson that I've been able to use just to grow in our business. So we had every single category covered, but we didn't have books. And I had gone to Barnes and Noble and Borders and they each said no. And they're like, no, we're going to do our own direct to consumer. We don't need America Online to help us. And I thought, okay, well, I really need a book vendor. And I had heard about Jeff and he was tiny, right? And he was in Seattle and I thought he's making some progress, but how is he ever going to compete?

42:27I mean, Borders and Barnes and Noble were like going head to head and they were just much bigger. So I thought, OK, well, maybe I can get Amazon on our service if he can actually do what we need him to do. And then I can show Borders and Barnes and Noble that they should actually drop them in. Yeah. So I reached out to Jeff and he said, maybe like I might be interested. But if you want to come here and we can talk about it, but you have to come here. Meet me actually at the warehouse. It's not far from the Seattle airport. and meet me there at five o 'clock. So I'm like, okay, I'm coming. I dragged somebody else from our office.

43:10I'm like, come with me. Let's go. So we get there and I'm driving around. I actually had one of those large phones. This is 1996 with me, thankfully to make some phone calls. And so it's 515 and I'm like, there is no, I can't find this anywhere. So I'm going to call them. There's no addresses. There's no numbers on these buildings. Cannot find them anywhere. So I finally call him and he said, oh, let me go outside. There's no numbers on the building. And so here's Jeff Bezos, like moving his arm. Waving you down. Yeah. And I said, oh, my God, thank God. And he said, OK, but I can't meet now. And I said, wait, what?

43:50And he said, I can't meet now because and I said, but there were no numbers on the building. I couldn't find you. And he said, I have so many books to put away and I have to set up all of these different shelves, units. And I said, well, I'll help you. We can talk while, because again, I wanted to know whether or not I could get this guy on so that I could get Borders or Barnes and Noble moving as quick as possible. And so I said, I'll help you set up the bookshelves. He's like, have you ever set up a bookshelf? And I'm like, oh, I've done it all the time. Truth be told, I hadn't done it, but I thought, okay, it's all fine.

44:30So I went in with them. We're setting up the bookshelf. Is it like Ikea, like the little Allen wrench thing? No, so much easier. They were like Home Depot. Like they were like tubes that you stick in. It was super simple. I had it. Yeah. Thank God that it wasn't. I mean, I probably could have pulled it off. I didn't have tasks grab a back van or anything, but I was like, it's going to be fine. So you're building bookshelves. We're building bookshelves. Okay, exactly. And Jeff is doing it. Yeah, it's all good. And I'm really starting to think through this whole visual. First of all, I felt like he wasn't the most friendly guy in the world.

45:10He basically was like, okay, here it is. And he was like, tell me why I should do this and basically sell me. And I'm thinking, okay, well, here's what we're doing. And I said, okay, Jeff, let me ask you this question. Cause I'm really thinking that the CEO of the company is building bookshelves. I don't know that this is all going to work out. I mean, we were actually getting good traction on AOL and I'm not sure this is all going to work out. So I said, Jeff, so tell me, why do you think that you can compete against Borders and Barnes and Noble? And he said, well, let me ask you this. do you read and i'm like uh i do jeff i i do read like i'm thinking god is this a trick question yeah i mean am i walking into a trap here yeah and he said so do you ever go to barnes and noble or borders and ask the guy behind the counter for a recommendation and i'm like yeah probably And he said, so how successful are they with the recommendations for you?

46:17And I said, well, they can't possibly know. And he said, so the future of book sales. And then he stopped. He said that the future of online sales is recommendations. And I remember thinking, wow, that's big. I mean, that's really. Maybe he's right. Yeah. But actually, I was thinking he's a dreamer, right? He's not an executor. He's just like, OK, we're going to wait for recommendations. And we all know the story. I mean, this is 1996. It took decades. It took him at least 20 years. Yeah. To actually even get close to these recommendations. And so I think but again, That's the founder, visionary, the crazy.

47:10He had this idea, but on a parallel path, he just kept going and kept creating. Right. And he really believed that eventually the technology would be there. We ended up working with Jeff and we actually signed a non-exclusive and we ended up doing work with actually Borders for a moment and then Barnes and Noble as well. But it's interesting because I don't think I ever really thought or believed that Amazon would ever bypass the brands. Right. And I think that's a whole other thing when you've lived through seeing brands lose, right? If they're not willing to challenge themselves, whether that's add new technology or come up with new ways of doing business, then they could die.

48:09Right. And it's interesting data point, I think, for anybody listening. I think so, too. And so you file all these things away. You've had a lot of experience, a lot of data points, a lot of exposure to different companies, different founders, different ways of operating. You take some time off from AOL after super successful career. You at that point, I think have a couple of kids. We're both in the four kid club. And when I was reading the part in your book, I mean, your first delivery was very tough, ended in C-section as did mine, sort of traumatic. To go on after that and have three more.

48:45Like talk about being undaunted right there with like three more C-sections. I can't even begin to fathom. And so it was between your third and your fourth child that really kind of came together. Can you talk a little bit about the origin story and how you decided to start this beverage company in a completely new space, in a completely new category? Yeah, I don't even think I stopped and said, I'm going to go start a beverage company. To your point, I had taken time off. Actually, Theo, my husband at this point, he went in-house counsel at a company called Netscape. So he was at Netscape and AOL.

49:29And actually, all my former companies, CNN and Time Warner, were all coming together in one. All merging. Yes. And I was like, OK, this is chapter... Yeah, I'm out. You guys do this. I'm out. It's really big. Yeah. It was a billion dollars in revenue that this direct-to-consumer group within AOL was now bringing in. And I thought, okay, you know what? I live in San Francisco. We never moved back to New York. I was on the plane all the time. I want to be a present parent as much as possible. And that's as far as I had gotten. So when I had some more time, that's when I started looking at, OK, how do I have healthier things in the house?

50:13Not only for my kids, but for myself. This is the early 2000s. No one was talking about organic or hormone free. We had this company called Webvan. I remember Webvan. I would get so many questions about Webvan when I was pitching TaskRabbit. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. And it's I remember like just being such a luxury, like it was so great. I loved it. But anyway, there were a lot of new products that I was seeing. And I felt like also we live in a place where it was possible to get organic milk or hormone free milk. And there were a lot of other places in the US where that wasn't possible. But it was the first time I sort of opened my eyes to really paying attention to food.

51:02And it's ironic, actually, going back to my father's story, because my dad was so interested in that topic, that trend, as he said, like people are going to get there eventually and want to understand sourcing and healthier things. And anyway, so it was at that time when I thought, I want to try to give my kids a lot healthier things. I found that my oldest kids, when I would give them apple juice in the sippy cup, that they would act differently at the park. Then if I... That sugar rush is terrible. Yeah. Right. Had given them like milk, but I didn't want to give them too much milk because it was constipating and everything else.

51:46So I started just really thinking about how do I move them away from the apple juice? They never wanted plain water. And so I started trying to dilute the water with juice and they were on to me, right? Like they knew. Oh, I've tried that too. They were like, you can't do this. Come on. It was again, like this like little experiment that I was doing. And then what I realized is that I was drinking diet soda, diet Coke in particular, and it had sweeteners and I wouldn't give my young kids diet sweeteners. yet I didn't want to give him a whole lot of sugar. And I thought, how do I move my family away from sweet?

52:31Because it wasn't just for me, just about the sugar. I thought I'm super addicted to my Diet Coke. And I think it's more about the taste than it is even about it being bubbly. I started really thinking about it. What is it? Yeah. No one like this isn't something that you go talk to your girlfriend about maybe I would talk to my husband about it, but it wasn't something that I was broadcasting to everybody. So one day I decided to put some lemon in water and I thought that doesn't have sweeteners in it. Is that actually going to do the trick for me? Is it going to do the trick for my kids? And it did.

53:12So that was like the initial living in San Francisco, the initial hint. And then I started playing with, okay, what other fruits? I went to local Whole Foods and started buying like pomegranate and raspberries and trying different things. And so that was when actually I said to the guy that was stocking the shelves at Whole Foods, I said, I've got this idea for a product. And is there anything like this? Again, I wanted to buy the product. I didn't want to make it, but it wasn't on the shelf. It wasn't available. Right. And he misunderstood me and said, you mean like you're starting a company?

53:52And I said, sure, I'm starting a company. I had no idea what I was talking about, but I was like, yeah, I guess so. I'll start a company if it's not already out there. And he said, this was probably the second time I came back and I was asking him some more questions. I'm like, so how does it work? Like, what do you need from me? And he said, so did you work for like Pepsi? Did you work? No, no, no. I worked for AOL. He's like, oh, I didn't know they had a beverage company. I'm like, no, they don't. I mean, it was just crazy conversations. So as I'm thinking about this and incubating it, I didn't realize, but I was pregnant with our fourth child.

54:29So I always say Justin was our first employee or co-founder, however you want to say it, because he was in my stomach while I'm like incubating this idea. And I thought, what's the worst that can happen. Maybe it's keeping my brain thinking about something that I'm already thinking about, which is healthier products and looking at everything in the beverage industry. At this point, I'd given up drinking diet soda, but my curiosity was engaged, was excited. There was no map, right? I didn't know what questions to ask. So I really had to rely on everything that I was seeing as a consumer. How much do you think that sort of outsider view helped you create what you did with Hint?

55:19Did that end up being like, I'm sure it felt like, oh, this is like a huge learning curve. I need to figure out all these processes, the bottling and everything. But looking back, do you think that outsider view helped you achieve what you wanted to? I think having an outsider view was definitely key because I think that so often going back to the planogram discussions that we were having earlier, when people are creating products, they're often thinking about, okay, well, I want to be better than that other product because it's successful, right? No one wants to do a product exactly like something that isn't working, right?

56:02It's always going to be a little bit different. And often when you're actually doing something a little bit different, you may be creating an entirely new category because it's not exactly the same. And especially if it comes from a large company. And again, this isn't just in the beverage industry, but in a lot of different industries. In our case, there was soda, there was diet soda, there was water, and then there was something called enhanced water, which typically Sobe was kind of part of that. And then vitamin water was the home run in that category. So doing a product that wasn't sweet didn't really fit into that.

56:42But again, like I didn't set out to start a beverage company and certainly didn't set out to start a beverage company that was creating an entirely new category. I mean, that's a very daunting thing to do, especially when you didn't come from the beverage industry. So I don't think anybody would be crazy enough to go do that with their own capital, but also like with nobody but my husband, Theo, who was now understood that I was pregnant with our fourth child and was jumping into an industry and writing$50 ,000 checks for bottles. I mean, it was crazy town. Yeah. I mean, you don't go from zero to a million overnight.

57:29So two things. I think one of the big turning points, let's see if you agree with this, is figuring out how a process for bottling that you didn't require the preservatives. So it extended the shelf life and that shelf life extension enabled you to get national distribution and really scale. But it was very complicated to figure out. I love, love, love the story from the book about Theo chugging bottles of Hint water that had the shorter shelf life, but ended up with a little cloudy float in it. And he's like, it's totally safe to drink. And he just chugs it right there in the store. I mean, that must have been so surprising to these Whole Foods buyers, right?

58:14Yeah. I mean, that's like par for the course for Theo. Not that he is going to drink. We called it smeggy water when it was like funny looking, but going back to explain it a little bit more, it was, I wanted a product that didn't have sweeteners in it, but didn't have preservatives in it because preservatives was adding a lot of things that I wasn't comfortable with. But again, it was an industry standard that was super easy for the large soda companies to do still is. Yeah. But I didn't want it. And I wanted to know why it wasn't possible. And no one had the answer for me why it wasn't possible that was bottling this product.

58:58And I thought it was comical, frankly, that I would ask people in an industry, again, I hadn't come from the industry, why do you have to use it? And people said, just because. And in the tech industry, just because was, oh, okay, they haven't really figured it out yet. But it's probably possible, but no one's really figured it out. That's exciting, right? And so I thought, okay, we've got to figure this out. And in the meantime, we'll just do shorter shelf life. Now, during that period of time, while we were trying to figure out how we would ultimately get to what we wanted to do, there were points where the product, maybe we had a three month shelf life and it should have been two and a half months.

59:46And at that point it was the Smeggy water. So mold and water, by the way, doesn't look like black. Typically it actually looks like almost like a cloud. And so we just nicknamed it like Smeggy water. As I'm going out to like, again, we didn't have huge distribution, but we would pull bottles that look like because we were still trying to figure out how to fly the plane while we're building it. I will also say, too, that Theo had worked in a law firm and had actually worked on the Adwala case where there was botulism and we didn't want to go there. So every day that we would get these bottles where we would see this problem, we would take it to a lab in South San Francisco and have it tested because the last thing we wanted to do was make anyone sick or kill anybody.

1:00:43We took it very seriously. So that's where he got the confidence that when we missed a bottle and the Whole Foods buyer called us and said, you need to get this product off the shelf. We were able to say that it's not going to kill you. And again, we had like sort of seen for ourself that things like, for example, blue cheese is mold. There is mold in product. They said, no, I love blue cheese. Right. No one has this. And we were like, actually people do have it. It's just not very good looking. And we agree with you, but give us another shot. And so when he chugged the product, he said, I'm not going to get sick.

1:01:27And I mean, seeing the buyer's face at that point, only imagine she was like, I have to tell you, no one has ever done that when I've said that we're going to recall it. And again, like sometimes when you do the unexpected and you show them that you're willing to take the risk. And again, like it was a risk where I didn't want the father of my children to get sick or die, But he was confident after we knew what we knew. So that was one of the funniest stories. It was so funny. And it's fascinating, too, because there's a moment in the book that you're really trying to figure out the shelf life problem and extending it.

1:02:06And Theo's kind of messing around with an espresso machine. And he's like, oh, this hot and cold. I mean, I don't understand all the science behind it. But he says to you, he's like, I don't think we can do it. And you say, well, then what can we do? What are we going to do right now? And I just love that you were unwilling to falter on the integrity of the company you were building, the product you were putting out there. You were unwilling. The easy path would have been, sure, let's add the preservatives. Let's extend the shelf life. Maybe that would have been the easy path and say like, oh, and then in the background, as we scale and make all this money, we'll like figure out how to roll it back.

1:02:49But no, you were like, no, this is the product. What can we do with it right now? I just loved that. Thank you. Well, and I'm sure you are the same. I mean, you can probably think back on times when you wanted to go do something. Yeah. But again, you don't stop. You just keep figuring out what can you do? And sometimes those steps that you're going to take are the things that allow you to figure out if you should go right or go left. Right. And I think that when you're thinking about what can you do, you don't think about that part. You don't think about, okay, if I go do this, I mean, it's sort of a, the Jeff Bezos story is I'm going to get this so that I can actually get what I really want.

1:03:39But the reality is that step may be just fine and you just need to expand on it. So it's not the easy path, though. Not the easy path. It's not the easy path. But I think that's the path of many founders, no matter what industry you're in, is that you have to try and you have to go and break new ground and see what can be done. Because when people are telling you that something can't be done, you can't produce a product that is all natural with no preservatives in it, and they don't have the answer, then they may not know. Right. Right. Which seemed really shocking to me. But, you know, I think that the other thing that we're very proud of is that when we ultimately did figure it out, many people in the beverage industry started to use it.

1:04:30And so So we not only created a product or a way of doing business for ourself, but many others. You set a new precedent in the industry. Right. It can be done. It's not easy, but it can be done. Yep. And others could replicate and build off of it. I mean, that's the step function change that not only you provided for Hint, but you provided for an entire industry. Totally. I mean, we didn't have a patent on the process. I don't even think we could have gotten it patented, but we didn't want to. It would have been all over it if you could have. Yeah, but I think that's an important point. Sometimes you can change an industry, not just around creating a company, but you can also start to change processes because you're willing to admit that you don't have all the answers.

1:05:19Right. Right. And so when everyone's telling you, oh, you can't create a platform to actually help people do tasks, right? Like who would do that? Who would do it nationwide? I mean, you can't possibly do that. There's too many things that could go wrong and you're not there. And I'm sure I can only imagine. Right. But that is it's the same story. Yeah. Right. It just takes somebody who is curious, who's a little crazy and who's willing to try. So I have this theory that when precedents are broken, they fall into one of three categories. OK. And I call it sunrise, tide, rainbow. A sunrise is a precedent that is inevitably going to happen.

1:06:06It's like consumer trends or just timing. It's like the sun rises every day, no matter what you're doing. The tide is a precedent that may go backwards. It can ebb and flow. It could take us back to a different time. But the rainbow is a precedent that is kind of this delightful left turn, this surprise, maybe seemingly out of nowhere. It may not have the momentum that a sunrise does. When you think about what you created with Hint, do you think it's a sunrise? Is it inevitable? Would someone else have built it? Or do you think it's a rainbow? It's like, it took you to dream this up and go and build it?

1:06:51I think it's a rainbow because I think sometimes you seeing that you don't have something that you want in your life. It's like my theory that ideas are a dime a dozen. How many times have you said, oh, I'm trying to figure out how to call somebody to go and do this task. I'll go back to task rapid because I love it, But you don't know how to do that. It takes a little bit of crazy, right, to go and do that and effort and execution and all of those things. So I guess that's the rainbow, right? Like, I think that it's not that the idea is impossible to dream up. It's the idea plus execution and somebody who's passionate enough to hang with it.

1:07:39Right. Because ideas don't become companies overnight and it takes so much longer than you ever thought. All of those pieces. So I think that's the piece that is hard. Right. Somebody who's worked inside of a large company who maybe isn't used to coming up with ideas or used to just thinking that, oh, I'm just going to go and create this and execute on it. Yeah, I love that. I love also how much you included your kids along the way in building the company. They were the taste testers. They held lemonade, hint water stands outside the house. When you think about now your kids are grown, they're off to college.

1:08:25How do you think that this experience has influenced them and what they may do later in life? I'm not sure that they would necessarily say it has influenced them, but I definitely see it happening. I mean, it's very exciting to watch them. I mean, one of the things my son, Kenan, that I talk about in the book, he just graduated from Tulane last May. And it's interesting because he incubated a couple of ideas that are still ideas that he's thinking about starting as an entrepreneur. I never would have had the confidence, but also the know how to go. I mean, I didn't have the exposure to know what that was when I graduated from school.

1:09:10Yeah. So that's part of it. But I think that the other thing he's always been super interested in cars and gone to car shows and he loves it. And BMWs in particular, he'll take BMWs apart. We actually have way too many old BMWs in our house. I'm like, listen, you have to figure this out pretty soon because he's terrible. It's like a junkyard. He does. He buys these cars and he fixes them up and he's excellent at buying them below blue book. And he puts so much value. But then he like can't part with the cars. And so I'm like, that's great. Like that. You've got these assets that end up to be unique.

1:09:52That's amazing. But like, what are you going to do about it? So anyway, he has this idea. He gave himself a year. He said, I'm going to do something that I'm really passionate about. So cars are his passion. And actually, he went to work for one car company. It's actually very interesting. He couldn't get BMW to pay attention to him. He's still working on that, but he hasn't been able to get BMW to engage. And so it was interesting because he said, I'm going to figure out who BMW cares about. And so he came up with this idea that the newest car, it's this Austrian car company called Enios. Have you ever heard of it?

1:10:42No, I'm not a car person. There's like five in the US. It is the it car right now. You've probably seen one around. They look like an old Land Rover. And anyway, so he went to work there and they don't have anything but car sales. So he's selling cars. I'm like, so you're selling Enios like you're on the lot. You're selling cars. And he said, just for now, this is like what I'm doing, because my idea is that I could wait tables or I could actually be around an industry that I really want to be around and that I'm passionate about. And I can learn a lot about these cars and maybe ultimately or maybe I won't end up going.

1:11:26What ended up happening was he was at a car show and he knew so much about Enios and a an executive from Rivian came and he said, have you ever driven a Rivian? And he said, yeah, he knows about cars because he loves cars. And so he's talking to them. And so now he got poached away in six months. And now he just he's at Rivian. It's like your time magazine story. It's so good. And he's so excited about it. Going back to the days of Hint, he's grown up around it and he's figuring out his passion. Amazing. OK, Kara, last question. If you could wave a magic wand and break any precedent and reset any precedent, you would want?

1:12:15What would it be? So I would say creating something in an industry takes experience and know how. And it's something that I think prevents a lot of people from trying, right? They think I can't go do something because I've never worked in that industry before. And I wish that precedent wasn't sort of glued into people's mind. Yeah. Because I think that creation, entrepreneurship is the gold of economies, right? Like you have to create in order to get people, get consumers excited, get businesses excited if you're doing a B2B company. So I would say that would be it. Fabulous. Well, Kara, I think that's a great place to wrap up.

1:13:08This has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Thank you so much. All right. Take care. What a journey. Kara Golden has shown us that breaking precedent isn't about rebelling for the sake of it. It's about seeing a better way and having the guts to make it happen. From shaking up the tech world at AOL to turning an idea born in her kitchen into a nationwide sensation with Hint Water, Kara proves that the best way forward is sometimes the one no one's taken yet. So as you go about your day, channel some of Kara's unstoppable energy. Think big, question the status quo, and don't be afraid to carve your own path.

1:13:50Who knows? You just might break a precedent or two along the way. Thank you for listening to Breaking Precedent. Remember to click the follow button on your favorite podcast app so you never miss one of these exciting conversations that challenges the status quo and inspires change. And if you know someone who is trailblazing a unique path, I wanna hear their story. You can send a note to me on my website, breakingprecedent.com. Until next time, I'm Leah Sullivan.

1:14:19Before we sign off, I wanna talk to you about fear. People like to talk about fearless leaders, but achieving big goals isn't about fearlessness. Successful leaders recognize their fears and decide to deal with them head on in order to move forward. This is where my new book, Undaunted, comes in. This book is designed for anyone who wants to succeed in the face of fear, overcome doubts, and live a little undaunted. Order your copy today at undauntedthebook.com and learn how to look your doubts and doubters in the eye and achieve your dreams. For a limited time, you'll also receive a free case of Hint Water.

1:15:01Do you have a question for me or want to nominate an innovator to Spotlight? Send me a tweet at Kara Golden and let me know. And if you like what you heard, please leave me a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also follow along with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn at Kara Golden. Thanks for listening.

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