Interview Replay: Kara on Win Monday with Paul Epstein

0:00Kara Goldin:I 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. 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. I hope you enjoy it.

0:45Kara Goldin:And please make sure to tune in Monday for a brand new episode of Kara Golden Show. Enjoy. So often people sort of get stuck. I guess it's the goal, right? Go find your purpose, go find your mission. But sometimes in order to find that purpose and mission, you just have to start with not staying complacent. Welcome to Playmakers On Purpose. I'm your host, Paul Epstein, 15-year NFL and NBA business exec, widely known as the 49ers Y coach, now your coach. In this transformational podcast that takes purpose from an out-of-reach North star to a practical and tactical exploration of how we can take action on purpose every day.

1:34This is your all access pass to a tribe of leaders in business, sports and life who are ready to share their playbook where purpose becomes the igniter of the impact and the performance that we're all after. As we ramp up toward today's episode, pull out your notepad so we can make plays and level up on purpose together. Playmakers, it's about that time to welcome Kara Golden into the conversation. Kara is a proud founder of Hint, best known for its award-winning and industry-leading Hint Water, now generating north of a quarter billion dollars annually. She's also the best-selling author of Undaunted, Overcoming Doubts and Doubters.

2:19Accolade-wise, let's just say she's got a few. How about being named to InStyle's Badass 50, Fast Company's most creative people in business, Fortune's most powerful women entrepreneurs, Ernst & Young, Entrepreneur of the Year in Northern California, even the Huffington Post listing her as one of six disruptors in business alongside Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. I hope you're as fired up for the conversation with Kara as I am. And as a reminder, many of today's top takeaways can be found in the show notes on playmakerspod.com. With that, let's welcome Kara Golden into the Playmakers podcast.

3:00Kara, welcome to Playmakers. How are we doing? I'm great. Thanks for having me. Of course, we are so fired up to have you. And by the way, I was just mentioning off camera, undaunted, which every single playmaker needs to pick this up. wow would be an understatement. So we are certainly going to unpack that. Of course, talk about your hint journey, but to bring all playmakers in many folks may know you because of what you do, where I really want to kick us off is more about who you are and why you do what you do, given that this is playmakers on purpose. So going back, I opened up undaunted. I'm seeing some of your childhood journey.

3:41And I love that. And I'm going to quote here for you. No means maybe, and maybe means yes, which is awesome. Where did that mindset come from?

3:56Kara Goldin:Yeah. So my poor parents, I mean, it was, I was that, that kid that was, so I was the last of five kids and And my parents got really good by the time I rolled into the scene at saying no. And so my goal was always to get them to not say no. And I thought if once I got them to maybe, then I had them, right? And it was always my goal to get them to at least maybe. And it was very rare. I had a pretty good batting average of, you know, once I got them to maybe it was done. And so, so that was, you know, definitely my, my childhood, I think, you know, definitely good development for being in sales, which I, I guess I have been to some extent being an entrepreneur my whole life, whether it's trying to raise money or sell product into Target or Costco or whatever it is.

5:04Kara Goldin:You know, I definitely have, I learned a lot of things just through those negotiations as a child with my parents that helped me later in life. For sure. And another thing that I captured from the childhood journey is the power of the question, what's the worst that can happen? So we're going to zoom out and eventually we're going to talk Hint Journey and we're going to talk about the book Undaunted, but it seems like this question has been this powerful force in your life because if you're going to be undaunted, if you're going to be brave and courageous enough to persevere and launch what many considered a crazy idea that eventually leads to Hint Water, you got to be asking the question about what's the worst that could happen.

5:52So talk about why that question is so important to you and how it has served you since you've really applied it to helping you navigate life?

6:00Kara Goldin:Yeah, well, what I found is that, you know, it's easier to look back on situations where you, maybe you stressed out about something. I mean, maybe you remember taking that test when you were a kid and you thought, oh, it's going to end up really bad. It's rare that it actually ends up as bad as you ever thought, right? And I was a gymnast growing up and, you know, I used to very much stress out about meets and all of those, you know, things that I thought were going to happen. I'd fall off the bars and it'd be terrible. I'd be laughed at, right? I'd have nightmares about it and those never happened.

6:44Kara Goldin:And so I think that that is something that I think a lot about around business as well, where, you know, you, you don't actually tend or most people don't tend to take risks because they think that it won't work. And, you know, and I mean, this sort of goes to another thing that I'm fond of sharing with people, which is that if you think too much about the end that you'll never get past the beginning. Right? It's just, it's, uh, cause you know, you're so worried about hitting that goal that you got to take those steps along the way, uh, in the case of hint to make the product to, um, you know, you gotta take those steps.

7:34Kara Goldin:There's not shortcuts along the way. And so they're, they're all really important things that I think people kind of, you know, forget about. And again, there's all these stages in life that you, that maybe you never ended up doing those things because you thought, oh, they're too hard. I don't have the right experience. I could look really stupid. I could lose my job. I could, you know, whatever the excuse is. But it's very rare that it actually does. If you look back on history, whether it's your own history or someone else's history. And that's why I love reading about entrepreneurial journeys, because it's just they they all went through something.

8:26Kara Goldin:Right. All those entrepreneurs. Countless. Yes. So often we think, you know, Steve Jobs, he founded Apple, right? It's a trillion dollar thing now. But there were so many dark days, right? Where there were things where he doubted, you know, he got fired, right? From his role, like all of those things. Yet we don't actually think about those things or hear about them on what that entrepreneurial journey was all about. So, again, asking what's the worst that could happen. Maybe even here's here's another thing that I get people to think about. Maybe even something happens and that actually changes course for you.

9:14Kara Goldin:Right. That that those things happen. And one of the stories, if you don't mind if I share this. Of course, please. One of the stories that I think a lot about and share as an example in my own life that I have is we were in Starbucks, hint. And that was a big day when we got into all the Starbucks. We're in like 6 ,500 Starbucks. I was so prepared. We only had one flavor. It was the blackberry flavor. I was super excited. We were only supposed to go into 300 and then they changed the plan. We went into all 6 ,500 locations. And so I wanted to make sure we stayed in there, that we didn't get kicked out of there.

10:00Kara Goldin:And so it took us about six months to kind of reach the level that I knew that they had told me that they would be happy with, you know, volume wise. And by the time an hour or an hour, a year and a half into this relationship, that's when I mean, we were killing it. We were doing like three X what we were supposed to be doing. There was no way in my mind that we were getting kicked out of there. It was about 40 percent of our overall business because I just sat there. I was so confident in that business. and then there was a buyer change and that buyer wanted to change the whole strategy, right?

10:41Kara Goldin:She had her own agenda and she wanted to put food in the cases at Starbucks, higher margin businesses, all the right reasons why she wanted to do what she wanted to do, but she needed space. She only had so much space in that case. So hint, BlackBerry was out. I'm like, wait, what? I mean, how can this, how can this happen? We're killing it. We're doing three acts. And when is this happening? Next week. I'm like, next week? Like, no, right? I mean, I'm dying at this point. And all I'm thinking in my head is I hate her, right? Why did you take the job? Go away. Where do you live? No, I'm just kidding.

11:37Kara Goldin:But it's, you know, like all of these things. But then I'm also thinking, I have investors. I have product that's going to go bad in the warehouse. And this is 40 % of my overall business. And I'm dead. This is bad, right? I don't cry very often, but I cried. I got off the phone and I just thought, oh my God, what am I going to do? So when I resurfaced after a couple of days, I thought, okay, we have to figure something out. I had this product that was going to go bad in the warehouse. I had to share this news with investors. And I always believe that it's during those times when you really have to believe that the stars will align.

12:30You have to listen maybe a little closer.

12:35Kara Goldin:You have to network. You have to figure out what do you have to be doing. You can't stay complacent. You have to keep moving in some direction. So I get an email from Amazon and Amazon was starting this grocery business. And the buyer, I get on the phone with the new buyer and want to know a little bit more about it. He loves Hint Water. He has Blackberry Hint every morning with a Starbucks latte. And I'm like... The irony in that, yes. Do I tell him that we've been kicked out of Starbucks? And I thought, well, I mean, we'll see how the conversation goes. And then he said, listen, I need product like yesterday.

13:26Kara Goldin:How fast can you get it for me? Because we're moving really fast. And I said, if you wire me the money, you can have three truckloads now. And he said, you're kidding. oh my God, you just solved the biggest problem for me. This is amazing. So my inventory was gone. Starbucks owned it. I, or sorry, Amazon owned it now. And I was like, okay, one problem solved. This is amazing. I hope it actually gets bought, right? I hope it does well. We became one of the number one products on Amazon, it was huge, right? And so going back to the Starbucks situation, something I learned, you know, when that turmoil hit is that I had too many eggs in one basket, right?

14:25Kara Goldin:Starbucks was 40 % of our overall business. When things are going great, that's the time not to sit you know on your pedestal and chill out right that's the time when you need to figure out opportunities because that's why it hurt so bad and that was my fault starbucks needed to do what was right for their business i wasn't happy about it um i wish she never would have taken a job at Starbucks. But regardless, it was really my fault and I needed to own it because it was 40 % of our overall business. And so, but also being open to those possibilities, who was out there that we could do business with to sort of put a bandaid on my current situation, all of a sudden that Band-Aid became, you know, a great business to overtook, you know, the business that we were going to be missing from Starbucks.

15:35Kara Goldin:But in addition to that, a year after being in Amazon, the buyer shared with us that the consumer that was buying Hint was unique compared to other beverages that they had on the service because they were crossing over into areas like they were buying things in sports or in health. So they were buying diabetes monitors where somebody who was buying, you know, Pepsi wasn't buying diabetes monitors. And so they said, you know, it's really interesting because you're creating this healthy halo, this consumer that we didn't used to see in beverages. And I was like, wow, that's so interesting. Can you give me their email?

16:29Kara Goldin:Because I really want to reach out to them. And the buyer said, no, I mean, that's Jeff Bezos's email. There's no way he's going to give you the email. We own the inventory. Does Starbucks or Whole Foods or Target give you emails? I'm like, no, but you're Amazon. You're an online. I mean, that's what you're supposed to be doing, right? And they're like, no, like we're not going to get that. So it was at that point when I decided the only way I'm going to get the emails is to start drinkhint.com. And it's fascinating because I always think about this as a visual where I thank Starbucks for really allowing me to be open to other opportunities.

17:20Kara Goldin:And I thank Starbucks and Amazon. And ultimately, I mean, drinkhint.com is like 35 % of Hint's overall business now. That never would have come to be if I wasn't willing to go and take those risks, if I wasn't willing to kind of open new doors, new opportunities where the entire beverage industry, when we were going online in 2012, was like, cases are too heavy. Why would you do that? That's not the way beverages are sold. And I'm like, okay, that's fine. You guys can think that. we're going to do what we're going to do for different reasons. We want to have that relationship with the consumer.

18:05Kara Goldin:Anyway, so long-winded story of how that all goes back. Yeah. And I love where you're bringing us because bringing every single playmaker into this, while we all have our independent stories, think about this piece of life and where your message connects to mind deeply, Kara, as you know, I talk about playing defense versus playing offense. And it is, it starts with a mindset, but the mindset means nothing unless it inspires action. And so when you have this offensive mindset, think back to the early days of the pandemic, everybody thinks that was such a difficult time to hit the gas, so to speak.

18:46And sometimes hitting the gas is a sidestep. Sometimes it's the cliche of one step back to take 10 forward, but you're always moving. And where I love that you made it human and vulnerable, Kara, is you didn't lie about it. For one, you told us that you felt about, and I know you're half joking about the lady at Starbucks, but where I love you brought us is it took you a couple of days. It wasn't perfect. It was painful. You needed to process. You needed to recover. You needed to prepare your game plan. And you didn't even know what the game plan would lead to. You didn't have a crystal ball that would say Amazon's going to hit you up the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year.

19:27You didn't know that there's a future business opportunity that will eventually be 40 % of the pie through this online piece that might not ever get invented if Starbucks doesn't need more space in their shelf. So for all playmakers, what's happening in your life right now that may seem like it's out of your control, but as you process it and you set an offensive game plan for not only the recovery period, but now how you can actually grow from it. And, you know, I know you brought up Steve Jobs earlier. I've heard you in other podcasts talk about how he has shared and this is knowledge that now we're aware of.

20:05when you look back at life, not only the power of your question of what's the worst that could happen, but Steve Jobs always says, it's easy to see how things connect to one another in retrospect. And so this is less about making the perfect step today. It may be imperfect action, but at least you're taking steps. And as time progresses, you can reflect back and say, how has all of this served me? How have I grown because of this? For playmakers, how are we living more on purpose? So Kara, I appreciate that you brought us there. And that's something that I want to stay on the topic of hint, because now the world sees this quarter billion, correct me if I'm wrong, about a$250 million annual business and highly successful.

20:54And you can tap of the origin story. And also where I found the most fascinating part of your journey was when a Coke executive challenged you and essentially said, this ain't going to work. It ain't going to work. This flavored, but unsweetened water, it doesn't exist. And so I'll let you tell the story, but where I want you to bring us is you said, and that's the moment that something clicked. So A for playmakers, tell us about that experience with a Coke executive and then what clicked because of it?

21:28Kara Goldin:Well, it was out of time. It was about, I guess, a year into the journey of Hint and there were so many problems, but probably the top two problems, which really could have shut down the company, was we couldn't figure out how to get a longer shelf life for the product. We were, you know, I felt like every time I walked in the door at Whole Foods, I would feel like I had achieved something, like we were doing well. And then they would say, oh, well, you need a longer shelf life. And they kept raising the bar. I'm like, I just met the bar last week. Can't we just hang out here for a little while?

22:12Kara Goldin:And they're like, no, you can't. You got to do it sooner. You're going to get kicked out of here. So that was just this ongoing conversation. And then the other piece of the conversation that was really hard was distribution. Because I was living in San Francisco, I could, you know, run around town in my Grand Cherokee and deliver cases, but they didn't want a bunch of us running around, us meaning entrepreneurs running into stores. So we needed a distributor. So somebody who consolidated product and brought it in. And so I didn't know how to really solve that problem. And I also didn't know how to solve the problem of getting our product without shipping it to like Denver, right?

22:57Kara Goldin:Like that was too far for me to do in a day from San Francisco, drive my Grand Cherokee over there. So a friend, I had connected with a friend who knew this executive at Coca-Cola. And when I ended up getting on a call with him, as my dad said, thank God you weren't meeting in person, because that would have been like a really uncomfortable conversation. You know, I shared with them for the first 15 minutes how we had grown in San Francisco that, you know, I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, I had come from the tech industry. I wasn't a beverage executive. But what I found was that there was this audience just like me that had given up drinking diet soda, diet Coke in particular.

23:43Kara Goldin:Of course, I'm talking to the Coke executive, He probably was like, you know, I wish she never came into this call and same feelings I had about the Starbucks person. Right. But it was about 15 minutes in. He interrupted me and said, sweetie, this business isn't going anywhere. Americans love sweet. And I thought, did he just call me sweetie? I mean, this is I've never been called sweetie. I've been called a lot of things, but I've just never been called sweetie before. And I was really, really surprised. And I went on to keep listening, I think, maybe to figure out whether or not I had misheard him in some way.

24:27Kara Goldin:But then the longer he talked, the more I realized that he believed in this strategy, this take on the consumer. And that's what he did every single day. And he kept saying the same thing over and over again. And so his idea of the consumer was quite different than what I believe the consumer was. And I wasn't going to sit here and tell him, no, actually, I was that consumer. And you wouldn't have kept me if you would have sweetened the product but got the calorie countdown because I was on to you because I was not getting as healthy as I wanted to. Instead, I was thinking that, but I didn't say that to him.

25:16And instead, by the end of the conversation,

25:20Kara Goldin:after we were on the call for an hour, it was pleasant enough. I hung up and I thought I have a choice. I can either close the company down because he's clearly not going to help me figure out how to get a longer shelf life, or he's not going to distribute the product for me. He doesn't even think that I should have a product or a company. He's laughing about it. Or I know my consumer. I think the consumer is used to be his consumer and is coming here. And so what I need to do before he figures out that his consumer is coming here is throw the gas on. Right. And I need to focus on my consumer because he has one thing that I don't have, which is a lot more money.

26:15Kara Goldin:And so if I educate him on who this consumer is, and let's just say that he might believe me. I mean, I didn't have any experience. Why should he believe me other than the fact I was a consumer? I knew enough that it was going to take him a while to turn the cruise ship, right? His cruise ship. And so I thought I needed to just hit the gas and go as far as I could. And along the way, maybe our worlds would intersect. Hopefully he wouldn't figure out what I was this about the consumer, because, again, he had a lot more money and he could, you know, crush me like a bug. But I think for me, it's funny because so many people have picked up on that story and they would say things to me like, why didn't you correct him?

27:16Kara Goldin:Why didn't you hang up the phone? Weren't you really discouraged when he called you, sweetie? I mean, here he has a lot more experience than you do. But I think it's a story about if you really believe that, first of all, you're doing something that can actually help people. And you see the consumer and you're so sure that that consumer that you're looking at, you've got a good read on them. It doesn't matter how much experience somebody has. They're just reading the consumer differently. Right. And I knew I was the consumer. I had been a Diet Coke drinker for many, many years and I had left. I was a loyal consumer.

28:06Kara Goldin:I didn't drink Diet Pepsi. I only drank Diet Coke and I drank, you know, some days, 10 to 12 a day. I was Diet Coke. You could give it to me from my Circle K or cans or I was Diet Coke. People would say, do you want Diet Pepsi? Nope, I'm good. I'm going to find that Diet Coke. And so you have people like that who are so loyal and they're out. And they were few and far between 17 years ago, but I was starting to find them. And I was starting to find them when I would hear from consumers early on. I would get on my customer service lines and also answer emails from these consumers. And there were consumers just like me who were doing it because they wanted to get healthier.

28:54Kara Goldin:And they realized that the word diet they had been marketed to. And it was exactly like me, but different, like for different reasons. I remember the first time I ever heard from a consumer who really loved Hint, they shared this new disease with me that I was fascinated by called type 2 diabetes. I had never heard of type 2 diabetes. And they were convinced that diet sweeteners was actually causing spikes. And yet, you know, diet sweeteners, everybody was saying 17 years ago, they don't do that. They don't cause spikes in sugar level. And I'm like, I get it. I don't know. Like, maybe no one's talking about this.