Interview Replay: Kara on Founder’s Journal

0:00I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out.

0:14Kara Goldin:So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin Show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Today's episode is a bonus episode. Enjoy. What is up, everyone? This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and executive chairman of Morning Brew. Welcome back to Founders Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you, the business builder, the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business, a team, or a new product.

1:04And today I am back with a guest journal where I hand the keys of Founders Journal to another incredible founder. I am so excited to introduce Cara Golden, the founder and CEO of Hint Water. Cara has been building Hint for the last 16 years as a consumer brand that creates products that help people live healthier lives. Kara is also a published author, a frequent podcaster, and an all-around incredible storyteller. So let's kick this thing off.

1:36Kara Goldin:Hi, I'm Kara Golden. I'm the founder and CEO of Hint. We are best known for our unsweetened flavored water, but we do a lot of other things as well to just help consumers stay healthy. Cara, as a builder, what has been critical to your success? Maybe I always did it a little bit, but I think it's so critical to business is thinking about the question, what can we do at every fork along the way? So even when you are killing it, you don't stop and get complacent by thinking, okay, we're killing it. Let's just sit there and like, let it go. But also So how do you continue? If you ask yourself that question, like what else can we do?

2:22Kara Goldin:Then you start to dream and have goals and all of those things. But on the flip side, when things like a pandemic come along, or in our case, when Starbucks, we went into Starbucks a few years back, and that was an exciting day. we were told that we were going into 11 ,000 locations with our BlackBerry hint and big news, we're killing it. We're going to be all over the US. I remember thinking, okay, I'm going to make sure that I understand the goal of what will they be happy with. So I specifically asked the buyer, I said, so what is success? They said a bottle and a half per store per day, and we will be happy.

3:09Kara Goldin:and I said okay so we roll out takes me six months to get to a bottle and a half per store per day I was looking at the reports every single day after six months it started going beyond that by the time a year and a half rolled out we were at almost three bottles per store per day We're killing it. And so, so happy. And suddenly I get this email from the new buyer, wants to introduce herself. And thinking, okay, just say hi. It's all good. And she said, I have some very bad news for you. And I said, well, it can't be that bad. We're doing three bottles per store per day. And she said, unfortunately, we've changed strategy.

3:55Kara Goldin:This comes from the top. basically we're going to add food to the case. And I'm thinking, well, you need water. You need water with your food. And she said, you know, it's a decision around the margins are better. The ring is higher. All made total sense, but it didn't make sense for me or for my business. So I hung up the phone, actually asked him one last question. When are you guys planning on putting this into place? She said, two weeks. So I said, so I have all this inventory that is going to go bad for my three bottles per store per day for the next six months sitting in my warehouses. What am I going to do with this product?

4:41Kara Goldin:And she said, I'm sorry. So I don't cry very often, but I cried. I thought, oh my God, how am I going to handle this product that's going to go bad? how am I going to go tell my investors that I'm no longer in Starbucks anymore? We're almost done at this point. So when I came back in the office a couple of days later, I said to my team, okay, I'm not going to lie. It's pretty bad. It sucks. There's no other way to really think about it. But what Starbucks did do is that they got us into a lot more locations across the US and And there were customers that were buying the product. Unfortunately, I don't know who those customers are.

5:25Kara Goldin:So I can't go out and tell them, hey, we've been canceled at Starbucks and come into another store to come buy our product. So I'm thinking on this, thinking on this. And in the midst of it all, I said, OK, what can we do? And I hadn't figured this problem out. Instead, while I'm thinking about this, I get an email from a buyer at Amazon. And the buyer says, hey, you know, I drink your product every morning with my latte from Starbucks. And I buy a bottle of Blackberry Hint. I really want to put Blackberry Hint into Amazon grocery. They had started in a small way, but they really wanted it to take off.

6:12Kara Goldin:And they said, how quickly can we get some BlackBerry Hint? And I'm thinking, do I tell him that we've actually been discontinued from Starbucks? Or he hasn't asked. So maybe I'm not going to share that awful news with them. And I said, we actually have an overrun of BlackBerry Hint. So if you want to just wire me the money for two or three truckloads of product, I can send it this afternoon. And he said, oh, that's amazing. Totally solves my problem. That's really great. Part of the problem was solved with Starbucks. I still didn't have my customer names and I still didn't know how do I get the word out that customers can still purchase our product somewhere or go on to Amazon and buy our product.

6:57Kara Goldin:So about a year into selling on Amazon, that's when I had a meeting with our buyer at Amazon. They're very, very happy about our product. And he shares with me this really, really interesting insight. He said that the people that are buying Hint are different from the people that are buying other beverages that we sell in our service, other sodas and diet drinks and things like that. And I said, how so? And they said, the people who are buying Hint are also buying things like diabetes monitors and products that are saying that this consumer is healthy or trying to get healthy in some way. And I said, wow, that's terrific.

7:36Kara Goldin:That's the whole reason why I started Hint was to get myself healthier and get off of diet soda. And I said, can I email those consumers and reach out to them? Because I'd really like to get some more information from them. And he laughed at me and he said, Jeff Bezos won't give you the emails. And he said, does Starbucks give you the emails or Target or Whole Foods? And I said, no. And he said, so why do you think we'd give you the emails? And I said, I don't know. And it was at that moment when I realized that my problem was that I didn't have a relationship with the customer. I didn't have a direct relationship.

8:14Kara Goldin:And I was relying on these people that I was selling my product to, to give me. And they could change their strategy anytime. I mean, you can have contracts in place or whatever, but they change their strategy. I mean, all of a sudden, you're the one that's holding the game, not in your favor. And so that was when I decided at that point, what can I do to get this data? The only way that I can get this data is to start our direct-to-consumer platform ourself, our own, at drinkhint.com. It was sort of an unsolved, unanswered thing with Starbucks. It was at that moment when we decided to launch our direct-to-consumer business that I realized that my journey had to include Starbucks because the importance of data.

9:00Kara Goldin:And again, I came from tech. I didn't come from the beverage industry. I knew about data. But somewhere along the way, I thought nobody sells beverages online, so therefore, it must not be important. But the data component, and in order for me to get the data, I needed to run my own direct-to-consumer business. And today, almost nine years later, from those days at Starbucks, that business is over 50 % of our overall business. During the pandemic, that business tripled. Our overall business has increased just in the last year over 50%. And so, again, I go back to these challenging times, these good times.

9:41Kara Goldin:Figuring out what else you can do is always the question that you should be answering in order to continue to get up every day, grow your business, whether it's a challenging time or whether it's, you know, an awesome time. That question always should be sitting in your mind. Thanks again for listening to The Kara Golden Show. If you would, please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Golden. I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me.

10:25Kara Goldin:And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building Hint. We are here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Thanks for listening and goodbye for now.