Episode Transcript
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0:00
My name is Alex, and I am an entrepreneur.
0:03
No, no,
0:06
alright, it will be
0:09
alright forever. Nor
0:16
right, no will be alright
0:19
forever. I
0:22
guess I kind of fell into it. I didn't really like,
0:25
no, you know, I didn't come out of the womb being like, I'm
0:27
an entrepreneur, I'm gonna have a business. Um.
0:29
But I obviously I loved music
0:32
ever since I can remember, and ever since I can
0:34
remember, the only thing I ever wanted to do was make
0:36
music, and I wanted to share that music
0:38
with other people, and I wanted to perform for other people.
0:41
And obviously as I as I
0:43
grew up, I stuck to that, and I
0:46
moved out to Los Angeles when I was fourteen,
0:48
um going on fifteen. I
0:51
you know, I met my managers, which I still have to
0:53
this day, and we got working
0:55
immediately. And I never really saw it as anything
0:58
other than like following my dream. I didn't
1:00
really put the business aspect into it. I didn't
1:02
really put the money or financial aspect into
1:04
it or the other responsibilities outside of
1:07
writing music, performing that music
1:09
and kind of being a musician.
1:12
And it wasn't until I started signing
1:15
contracts and I had to create ll c
1:17
s, and I got a business manager to help work with
1:19
me on on taxes and all
1:22
of these things that I realized, Wow, I'm actually like a
1:24
businessman. This is pretty cool. And I started
1:26
taking meetings um and now to
1:28
this day, I'll take meetings as as an
1:30
investor, or I'll take meetings as a
1:32
consultant, or I'll take meetings as still
1:35
as an artist obviously, or a writer or
1:37
a producer or any of those things.
1:39
And I realized kind of throughout
1:41
this process that not only am
1:43
I a musician or an actor or
1:45
a writer or a producer, I'm also
1:47
an entrepreneur. You know, I have a business.
1:50
And now that I have a business, I have to you know,
1:52
pay employees, and I have to you
1:54
know, have insurance, and I have to cover
1:57
you know, unemployment, like a lot
1:59
of things that I never realized I would
2:01
ever have to face. And it's really really interesting
2:04
because especially in today's world
2:06
with social media and you have
2:08
your Gary vs and your Grant
2:10
cardones and and all of those
2:13
incredible sources of information to help
2:15
you kind of get your business off the ground and follow
2:17
your dreams and and chase real true happiness
2:20
based off of you know what your passions are
2:22
in life. I'm seeing
2:24
more and more entrepreneurs left and right, and
2:26
they're looking for, you know, for answers
2:28
or for pathways. And so I thought this episode would
2:30
be really, really amazing to do
2:32
because it could help anybody who's a listener
2:35
who is maybe at a job
2:37
they hate and has a real passion in life,
2:39
or anybody who you know, they have an idea
2:41
in their head and they want to take it to the next level,
2:43
or they want to start their own business, or they want to chase
2:46
something that isn't kind of the regular
2:48
nine to five clock in and clock out.
2:51
And so I wanted to do this episode featuring two
2:53
amazing entrepreneurs and just kind
2:55
of get a feel for what it really means to be
2:57
an entrepreneur. So that got me thinking, what
2:59
does does it really mean to be an entrepreneur?
3:02
No, welcome
3:05
back, This is let's get into it. I'm alex
3:07
Iono and we're talking about entrepreneurship.
3:10
I'm so hyped about today because
3:13
maybe I'm wrong, but I think a lot of listeners are a
3:15
lot of people on Earth right now are on the fence
3:17
about starting a new business. And there's everybody
3:20
doing everything from four x to trying
3:22
a new company, to drop shipping to you
3:24
know, flipping or garage sales and
3:27
all of these things. And so I think this episode will be amazing
3:29
to talk to two people who have experience
3:32
in being an entrepreneur. But I want to introduce
3:34
you to them right now. Um. First
3:36
off, I have an m b A
3:38
holding Harvard Business School
3:40
alumni, studied economics at Smith
3:43
College and at the London School of Economics. She's
3:45
also the owner of Cahawa Coffee
3:48
and she's working to revolutionize the global
3:50
coffee trade from the ground up.
3:53
The One and Only Maggie near Mumbo.
3:55
Maggie, how are you. I'm doing
3:58
well. I'm telling you I'm
4:00
also doing well. I'm so excited that
4:02
you're here because I'm I'm just baffled
4:05
by your your repertoire. I mean, we're
4:07
talking Harvard Business School, We're talking Smith College,
4:10
London School of Economics. I'm so hyped
4:12
to dive into it. And I'm also excited for our
4:14
other guests. He is not only the founder
4:16
and CEO of Beat Kicks. He's
4:18
not only a former Indiana
4:21
University starting
4:24
baseball pitcher. He is not only
4:27
a Peloton monster. And not only did we
4:29
get our first call of duty win last
4:31
night, he's also my brother in law,
4:33
my sister's husband, the one and only Josh
4:35
Louis. What's up it, hey man? Thanks for having
4:38
me up to your house to yeah the long
4:40
drive. We live
4:42
ten minutes away from each other with no traffic, which
4:44
is great. Guys, I'm so excited to have both
4:46
of you here. We have some awesome topics we're gonna get into.
4:48
First, Josh, you and I are going to talk about from
4:51
side hustle to day job is what we call this
4:53
category, talking about the transition
4:56
from doing a regular nine to five or
4:58
a regular day job and switching over to being
5:00
a full time entrepreneur. Then,
5:02
Maggie, you and I are gonna be talking about goodbye
5:04
status quo, breaking that status quo, of
5:07
of you know what it really means to be an entrepreneur.
5:09
And lastly, all three of us are going to talk
5:11
about blood, sweat and tears,
5:14
what it really takes to run your own
5:16
business, to be your own boss. But
5:18
before we get into those topics, I have a question that I
5:20
ask all of my guests, and that
5:23
question is what are you doing this week
5:25
to improve yourself. Um,
5:28
I will start just so you guys have
5:30
some time to think. If you watch this or if
5:32
you listen to this podcast often, you'll know that a
5:35
lot of them are about being healthy and like really
5:37
sticking to my diet or you know, any of those
5:39
things. I was talking my therapist this week and
5:43
he was actually he told me, I need to give myself
5:45
a little bit more of a break. And so I last
5:47
night is what I did. Last night. I ordered
5:49
two dozen and you probably don't know this company,
5:52
but look them up because they're delicious. I ordered two dozen
5:54
Diddy Reese cookies and
5:56
I ate as many as I could. It was only
5:58
three, but I I enough until
6:00
my stomach hurt, and I was like, you know
6:03
what, this is good for me? Um. So that's
6:05
what I've been doing this week. UM.
6:07
I know it's not a great example, but Maggie,
6:09
do you have something that you've been doing this week to improve yourself?
6:12
Yeah? So this week I've actually
6:14
been doing a lot of writing, so
6:17
I channel a lot of my energy and an
6:19
introvert, so I channeled a lot
6:21
of my energy into internally.
6:23
That's how we rest introverts when
6:25
we are kind of at peace with ourselves.
6:28
So I've been doing a lot of writing. It's a piss
6:30
that's been on my mind for over two years.
6:32
I've wanted to write essentially
6:35
a guide to the coffee industry, um,
6:37
so people can really understand what's
6:40
going on, how they
6:42
can, you know, make better coffee, but also
6:44
how they can understand the history of coffee.
6:46
So I have all this information from
6:48
sort of my perspective as are
6:51
as a farmer and also as someone
6:53
with the background in economics, and wanted to bring
6:55
all of that into one piss that people
6:58
can really understand. So I've been kind
7:00
of writing that and now I'm like twenty pages
7:03
in and it's like not an essay, it's not an
7:05
article, it's not a book. So trying
7:07
to figure out like what is it exactly,
7:10
But that's really what I've been doing. It's like writing
7:12
and getting all my creative energy on
7:15
paper. That sounds amazing.
7:17
Also, as a somebody who drinks coffee multiple
7:20
times a day, I absolutely have to figure
7:22
out the guide to starting a coffee business because
7:24
I might I might have to start one, and I might be I'm
7:27
not gonna lie, I might be a competitor later in life,
7:29
So don't I'm just saying,
7:31
game on. We love more
7:33
people into coffee, so you'll definitely
7:35
not be a competitor. You would love to have
7:37
you. I don't have three
7:40
degrees in college. I also I don't even have
7:42
one degree and I hardly have a high school
7:45
diploma. But I still am an entrepreneur.
7:47
So so don't count me out of Josh,
7:50
you've got something for me on what you're doing this week to improve
7:52
yourself. Yeah, as you know, Alex, we got
7:55
our sixteen month old at the house, so getting
7:57
sleep has been a little hard, especially
7:59
during courd teen with working from home
8:01
and and everything. But I've been trying
8:03
to get up a little earlier to you know,
8:06
for myself, to get time to think about the
8:08
day and obviously be a better dad to
8:10
my girl. Uh, spend a little more time with her
8:12
before the the wife wakes up,
8:14
and you know, just click my thoughts for the day when I need to
8:16
get done. A lot of that has helped me
8:19
plan out the rest of that week, and then you know, it's
8:21
just just been really good. Yeah, man, I mean,
8:23
I I applaud you for that, obviously, I
8:25
know the inside because your wife happens to be my sister.
8:27
But she's been working a lot this week as well, which means
8:30
you're not only working from home, but you're working
8:32
from home and being a dad at home. And
8:35
my favorite thing about your daughter, my niece,
8:37
is that she loves being with other
8:39
people. She's just like me, and she almost
8:41
does not she can't handle being by herself.
8:43
So I applaud you for getting work done
8:45
while Mila is yeah,
8:48
or or the lack thereof getting dubs. That's all. That's
8:50
all that matters, guys, call of duty, dubs, It's
8:52
all we care about these days. Well,
8:54
I'm so glad. Both of those are great. Better than
8:56
me eating three cookies at once,
8:59
but great. We're all improving. That's what matters.
9:02
Uh. Well, Maggie will be with you in just a second.
9:04
But Josh, I think it's time for us to go one on one. We're
9:06
talking side hustle today, job.
9:08
But before we get into that, I want to dive a little
9:10
bit deeper. You were the first in law in our family.
9:13
Um, you were the first person to kind of come into
9:15
our circle. This is how are
9:17
you? Six years now? Six
9:20
years now you've been married to my sister. Um.
9:22
I will take credit that I knew you before her
9:24
because we played basketball. We played basketball,
9:26
and I was like sixteen years or seventeen
9:28
years old. Um, and then my
9:30
sister was like, oh, I'm dating this new guy. And I was like, I
9:33
know that guy. That's the guy who played basketball
9:35
with But you got quite a history,
9:37
man, I mean you, and
9:39
I'll let you tell the story. But long story
9:41
short, when you were in college, you were planning
9:43
on going you're planning on playing
9:45
MLB baseball. Talk about that. Yeah, just
9:49
rewinding a little bit. Like the high school. My sophomore year, I
9:51
had just a freak not really
9:53
an injury, you wouldn't call it, but how to paint in my knee,
9:55
and I found out that I had a vascular
9:58
necrosis, which is basically dying bones. So I
10:00
had to have a like not emergency surgery, but had to have surgery.
10:02
Couldn't play my sophomore year. So it came in my junior year,
10:04
not really knowing if I was even good at baseball, you know what
10:06
I mean, because been a year off. I don't
10:08
even remember filling out many college applications.
10:10
But anyway, I got a scholarship, went to school.
10:14
Uh, start as a freshman, had a pretty
10:16
good career my junior year. A couple of days
10:18
before the draft, that same knee I had surgery
10:20
on started hurting. Yet I just and
10:22
I've always had pain, you know, just normal pain,
10:25
just having a bad knee. But it got
10:27
progressively worse throughout the day, and it was just got
10:29
to the point at night when I was in like little
10:31
tears on the couch because I couldn't even I don't even
10:33
know what was going on. I remember having friends at the house, like
10:36
getting ready to go to a movie because we were like, we plan
10:38
to go to a movie. That's how fast, That's how rapid had happened,
10:40
just like plans of the midday. Nighttime,
10:43
I'm in the er because my knee was so bad. Long
10:46
story short, found out I had lime disease. My knee
10:48
was like the size of a balloon. I couldn't walk for
10:50
two months. The draft caming went, I
10:53
got invited to play in like an uh invite
10:55
only college league, which only only people
10:57
that can get invited are usually the best in college. Couldn't
11:00
do that, so I couldn't do anything
11:02
all summer. Usually you're playing all summer to get in front
11:04
of Scots and just get better, right, And then came
11:07
into my senior year literally not doing any all summer
11:09
before my senior year, and we got a new coach, had
11:12
a decent senior year, thought I had
11:14
a good enough resume to get drafted. That came
11:16
and went, didn't happen. I got some offers to play independent
11:19
league ball, which is similar to the minor leagues. It just doesn't feed
11:22
the major leagues, but a lot of guys go there and kind of work their
11:24
way in. But to be honest, dude, I was
11:26
just so upset and just
11:28
mad. Yeah, that's gotta be insanely
11:31
crushed, because I think, in my mind, the way that I see
11:34
it, the same way that I see myself as an entrepreneur,
11:36
a professional athlete or somebody chasing
11:38
that is also an entrepreneur. Honestly,
11:40
to me, I don't know what the definition of an entrepreneur is, but
11:42
I think anybody who's not like going for
11:44
a kind of traditional
11:47
job. I don't know if that's the that's appropriate
11:49
term to say, but like, anybody's not going for a traditional
11:51
job, in my mind, is in essence
11:53
an entrepreneur. So for something that you
11:56
had dreamed about up until your senior
11:58
year or the end of your senior year even and for
12:00
that to kind of all crush. How did you battle
12:02
your own like kind of self confidence out
12:04
of that hole that I'm sure it probably took
12:07
you to. Yeah, I mean it
12:09
was rough because I mean I remember flying to Utah to go
12:11
to be with my family for the draft because I thought
12:13
for sure I was because I like advisors that advising me,
12:16
telling me, oh, yeah, this team, this team, this team. But nothing
12:18
happened. And it was like the most embarrassing thing ever, you
12:20
know what I mean, Because you go from high school being a star, you go to college,
12:22
you're not like a star, but like you're good, you know,
12:24
and you're like you're this close to like maybe living your
12:26
dream. It's like I went back to school
12:29
after that didn't work out, I think
12:31
it might degree, and then came home in January. It was
12:33
like no clue what I wanted to do, you know.
12:35
But I had some opportunities in l A with the job.
12:38
I remember, just like one day was like all right, taking it.
12:40
Three days later, I packed my car and drove l A by
12:42
myself, like a little hand a chord, look
12:44
at you and and now. So then, so that
12:46
job is the job that you then had for No,
12:49
So I came out worked in real estate for a little while, but
12:51
that was during two thousand and eight, thousand and ten with economy
12:53
just right,
12:57
So I'm trying to learn
12:59
the industry. You know, people
13:01
I knew were making tons of money the business. We're making zero
13:03
dollars for years and years, right because nothing was happening.
13:05
So I had to get out of that, you know, worked
13:08
at an agency for a few months here and there, but then
13:10
yeah, I fell into medical sales, which some teammates
13:12
like, you know, they like, dude, you would love
13:14
this, and they love athletes and it was really
13:16
competitive, and so yeah, I got
13:18
my first job and think it was two thousand ten. Yeah,
13:21
and so you and then you did that obviously you did
13:24
that job for how many years? Six seven years?
13:26
It was nine? Yeah, I was like two thousand eighteen
13:29
I think when I left the job, and
13:32
when full time on beat Kicks, right, And
13:34
so that's where we're gonna get into right now, which is beat
13:36
Kicks. And let's let's rewind to the
13:38
birthplace of beat Kicks before we get
13:40
into it. I'm gonna try my best as your brother
13:43
and as a user if you watch any of
13:45
my YouTube videos or right now, if you were to
13:47
see me recording this, I'm using
13:49
beat Kicks products. UM. Beat Kicks
13:51
are headphone covers um that
13:53
protect your headphones from usual
13:56
sweat. It's very popular now in gym's if
13:58
you'll see a bunch of athletes on on the field
14:00
or on the court wearing over ear headphones
14:03
and and the the original products,
14:05
as you've obviously now branched out into different
14:08
products, was to protect those from sweat,
14:11
um from the damage that the sweat
14:13
can cause. And I've had the same pair
14:15
of beats since you started the company and they've protected
14:17
them. Uh, perfectly. Did I do a good job
14:21
on the spokesperson? Now? I just got a job
14:23
as a spokesperson for beat Kicks, UM, but
14:25
tell me how the hell did you come up with this
14:27
concept? Yeah? It's funny. I mean when your intro
14:30
with entrepreneurship, it's you know, a lot of
14:32
people do something that they're passionate about or that
14:34
you know they're just really good at. Like it
14:36
wasn't like I was like some headphone of ficionado
14:39
or like anything, you know what I mean, Like honestly, at the gym,
14:41
I was wearing you know those earbuds. It just wrapped
14:43
around your neck and you put them in your ear. But I would
14:45
see people at the gym wearing their headphones, and I know
14:47
they're expensive, three all you know, beats or three dollars
14:49
bows or four dollars. And
14:51
it's funny because i'd see people that would wear their
14:54
headphones and in a way to protect them, they put
14:56
a towel over their head and then put their headphones over towel.
14:58
Maybe you've seen those guys at the gym,
15:00
or I've honestly seen people where napkins
15:03
on their ears and then put their headphones over there. Like. Um
15:06
So, it just kind of like and that's really silly.
15:08
Maybe there's a way to like fix that and make
15:11
it look cooler, you know what I mean. Um So, it's kind of
15:13
how it started. Like I said, it wasn't like passion
15:15
of mine or just kind of like I was an idea. Maybe let's
15:18
literally like no idea, what's going to happen with this?
15:20
Let's just see how it goes. You went
15:22
from being an entrepreneur baseball wise, to
15:24
working a few jobs with a
15:26
boss you know your traditional based jobs
15:29
and then now you're doing a whole new thing something
15:31
like you had mentioned, you're not like an aficionado you in
15:34
creating businesses, not much
15:36
experience. How did you navigate through? Like
15:39
what the next right thing to do? Was? Well?
15:41
Interesting thing is the job that I had before, I was technically
15:43
an independent contractor and every one of those. So
15:46
in the real estate world, I was an independent contract
15:48
I was technically I worked under this agency,
15:50
but I was an independent so I'd pay for my insurance.
15:52
Right. Moving into medical sales, same
15:55
thing. I sold for a company, but I worked
15:57
under a distributor, which was made me an independent
15:59
contract so in a way I was technically I
16:01
mean, listen, I wasn't my own boss, but yeah, but
16:04
you were like it was like it was if any
16:06
I guess, if anything, it was training for becoming
16:09
truly owning your own business and the great
16:11
thing. And listen, when I came to l A, I mean, like I said,
16:13
I told you had to put baseball away, and like forgot
16:15
about it for two years, and I think that helped me to just
16:17
put my head down to work because like otherwise
16:20
you know, who knows what I mean? So but yeah.
16:22
I mean, like the medical sale was great because even though I had
16:24
a technical boss, but I kind of was on
16:26
my own pretty much every day working at my hospitals
16:28
and surgeries doing a thing. So I
16:31
was able to manage my time kind of on my own and
16:33
you know, be able to do my own thing. But yeah, I mean
16:35
you add this to it's just it's a whole new
16:37
world. I mean, it's a different ball game, Like because
16:40
you are it, you know what I mean, that's it. Wow.
16:43
So obviously beat Kicks has
16:45
become what it is now, which
16:47
is you're over a million dollars in sales
16:49
and you've been at
16:52
the biggest athletes. Mr. Olympia
16:54
wears Beat Kicks. At this point,
16:56
it is you've taken over the fitness
16:59
industry when it comes to headphone protection.
17:02
But on that journey you had, obviously
17:05
you had to stay committed even when sales
17:07
weren't what you had dreamed of or
17:09
things weren't moving as fast as you wanted to. What
17:13
gave you that kind of confidence to like keep
17:15
pushing to where you are now with a million
17:17
dollar company. I think I'm a pretty determined
17:19
guy, you know, Like I don't I don't like letting people
17:21
down. I feel like if I'm not doing a good job and people see
17:23
that, it's like it didn't work out like that. To
17:26
me, that's like that just I don't like that. So
17:28
like at the very beginning, I mean I was medical
17:30
sales. You know, you were, I was married to your sister.
17:32
I mean, you know, I mean my schedule was crazy in medical sales.
17:34
I was literally sitting on the couch phone
17:36
call I'm gone, you know what I mean. I'd go to hospital and do
17:38
the case right then I would come home. You
17:41
know. I would work literally from what ten thirty until
17:43
three in the morning for two straight years, like because
17:45
I was a filling orders from that loft upstairs in that apartment.
17:48
So um, you know, you you
17:50
you know, and as you go you learned how to like make
17:52
things more efficient. But it was definitely
17:55
a struggle in the beginning. And like yeah, like you said, like getting
17:57
to that point where your things may not going well, It's like,
17:59
I just think I'm prettydetermined, and I think you to be an entrepreneur,
18:02
you have to be determined, otherwise you're not.
18:04
You know, they're gonna have rough days. I remember I
18:07
used to get a sales on my phone like back in the day,
18:09
Like it was like I had to like just
18:11
get rid of those notifications because like I can't
18:13
let that dictate how my day goes. I
18:15
need to think about the future. And if I'm thinking about
18:17
every sale it comes through and if it's a bad day, like it's
18:19
letting it's putting me in a bad mood or like I
18:22
don't want that negativity, you know what I mean, And like negativity
18:24
can crush on entrepreneur. Oh absolutely, I was
18:26
just gonna say, I think obviously
18:28
we're brothers now and we've seen
18:30
each other for the last six years in the way that we work,
18:33
and it's and I think we can both say for each other, but I
18:35
can absolutely say and that's
18:37
why I want to transition into you know, from
18:39
from side hustle to day air to your day
18:41
job, because there were two and a half years
18:44
where you were coming
18:46
home from your job to start
18:48
your other job like that, and that's the level
18:50
of tenacity that you really do
18:52
need to have. And the same thing,
18:55
you know, it's like we've we've missed
18:57
both of us. We've missed weddings and
18:59
we've missed day parties and We've missed things.
19:02
We've missed family dinners and all these things because we
19:04
knew we needed to get the work done. Um,
19:06
and so I want to transition over into that. For
19:08
two and a half years, obviously you kept both your
19:11
side hustle. I mean, you kept your your day
19:13
job and you kept Beat Kicks obviously alive
19:15
and moving. How did you
19:17
know it was the right time to
19:20
transition out of your day to day kind
19:22
of medical sales job into
19:25
full time CEO Beat
19:27
Kicks. It was a tough time to
19:29
know. I mean, I mean, just staring
19:31
you in the face of sales numbers. You have to have a certain number of sales,
19:33
right, because I have to be able to live off something, you know what I
19:35
mean, Like I'm leaving you know, decent
19:37
six figure salary and medical sales too. No,
19:40
I'm not going to pay myself pretty much anything,
19:42
right, you know, and we live in l A and it's
19:44
expensive. But honestly, it was just to a point
19:46
where it like the revenue coming in was
19:49
consistent enough that I felt comfortable and you know,
19:51
I ran through the numbers as you have to do as an entrepreneur
19:53
that you know I can do this. We can live off.
19:55
This is gonna be tied. But luckily we had some savings
19:58
or whatever. But having that that read
20:00
them, you know, at peace of mind to like doing this stuff
20:02
when you need to do it. Um, that was another
20:04
check in the box like, yeah, I'm not gonna make some mo money,
20:06
but I have more time to work on this. And if I can work on this
20:09
every single day for ten hours or whatever, how
20:11
much further kind of grow? Because I literally grew the thing from
20:13
an operating room on my cell phone, you know,
20:15
I mean I literally ran the Instagram. I mean I
20:17
was responding to customers literally in surgeries while
20:19
I'm like a work like
20:22
I'm they're flatlining in the hospital's
20:24
like, hey guys, that wasn't my
20:26
job. That was those guys job. But
20:28
you know, I'm you know, the great thing about
20:31
social media and technologies that I was able to run
20:33
my business through my phone at my other
20:35
job and then when I came home I could do to fulfillment
20:37
right. Um, But yeah, I was really
20:39
just crunching the numbers and be like we can do it. You
20:41
know, we'll it'll be tight. We'll have to live a little bit more
20:44
for ruble whatever for a while. But you know
20:46
the end game. You're always looking at the end game, right, So
20:49
I think the thing that I that I find beautiful
20:51
about the process, the entrepreneurial
20:53
process, that a lot of people
20:56
don't see, especially like I'm I'm fortunate
20:58
enough to have seen
21:01
what you have created
21:03
out of nothing, out of an idea. I
21:06
remember when you first had a sock
21:08
like as your first model of what a what a
21:10
headphone cover would look like. I remember when you first got
21:12
your first set of beat Kicks. Like a
21:14
lot of people I think, who
21:17
aren't entrepreneurs or want to be entrepreneurs,
21:19
or a judgmental entrepreneurs, do not
21:21
know or appreciate how
21:24
hard and how dedicated
21:26
you must be in the darkness before
21:30
you even touch a sliver of light.
21:32
And a lot of people only see the light, you know what I mean?
21:34
A lot of people. I think we could name
21:36
collectively thirty people who
21:39
you told about beet Kicks and then never
21:42
talk to you again until they hit you up and
21:44
we're like, yo, can I get a pair of those beat Kicks?
21:46
Like now that it's a popular company, and
21:49
uh, and it's insane how how much
21:52
effort truly goes into it and
21:54
and that isn't something that I want to say for the listeners
21:56
to to shy away from becoming
21:58
an entrepreneur. I'd just want to set the
22:00
expectations right so that you know that
22:03
being an entrepreneurs I would say the hardest
22:06
job in the whole world, because you have to
22:08
stay motivated, you have to stay
22:10
passionate, you have to stay confident. Like you had mentioned, there
22:12
were days where you were you had to turn off your phone
22:14
because the sales. There's also days. I think
22:17
my favorite memory of Beat Kicks, as
22:20
I believe it was, it was either Thanksgiving or it was
22:22
Christmas, and we were watching a movie a pirate
22:24
Don't don't arrest us, but a pirated
22:26
movie. Um during the holidays,
22:29
off of your phone. Don't arrest him.
22:31
I didn't do it, but that
22:34
phone's gone, don't track the IP address.
22:37
But we were watching a movie off of your cell
22:39
phone, and the notifications were on,
22:42
and you had like a sale going and we were counting
22:44
it. It was always Black Friday, that's
22:46
what it was. We're counting the Black Friday sales and
22:48
we were just like every it
22:51
was it was coming. They couldn't
22:53
even stay on the screen long enough for you to read who
22:55
the who bought the product like it was just
22:57
rapid fire, rapid fire, rapid fire, and
23:00
moments like that. I can attest
23:02
to not that moment, but to moments like that.
23:04
It's the most gratifying. There's nothing more gratifying
23:07
than building something like that. So as
23:09
we close out before we take this break, my last
23:11
question is what advice do you have for people who are
23:13
out there who want to be entrepreneurs
23:15
or I feel like they could be an entrepreneur,
23:18
have an idea, um, but are where
23:20
you were five and a half years ago? Anybody
23:23
who is in that same place, or the advice that you would
23:25
have given yourself now, what is?
23:27
What is that advice? You know? It's
23:29
interesting. I think a lot of people have great
23:32
ideas. I think a lot of people want to
23:34
be entrepreneurpreneurs, but there's a
23:36
few things holding them back. Could it be financial reasons,
23:38
could it be you know, not of time? Right.
23:40
I think a lot of people have so many good ideas, it's just
23:43
just taking that leap of faith really to be
23:45
like I'm gonna do it. I want to do it, you know, and
23:47
some people just can't write whatever. I mean, family issues
23:49
too many kids. You can't worry you have to work any of
23:51
job. You just stabilize your family. Uh.
23:54
Unfortunately for me, it wasn't enough financial
23:56
wise, It wasn't a high cost out of pocket
23:59
in the beginning um to do it. But I
24:01
mean, honestly, you've gotta be a savage, you really do. You've
24:03
got to be a savage to be an entrepreneur,
24:06
you really. I mean, like you said, in
24:08
the dark, people don't see it. All they see is your
24:10
Instagram posts and like, oh, he's
24:12
at a convention. That must he must be
24:14
doing well, Like you know what I
24:16
had to do to get to that point, you know what I mean? People don't
24:18
see that part, right. They see these cool companies pop up
24:20
out of nowhere, and it's like, do you realize what that company had
24:22
to do for you to see that and see everybody liking
24:24
those pictures and reposting it and all that stuff.
24:27
I mean, you gotta you really just gotta
24:29
have that mentality of like, nothing's going
24:31
to stop me, and I'm gonna put my head down
24:33
to just work. Absolutely. I mean, that's
24:35
that's what we're gonna Our whole last
24:37
segment is going to be that
24:40
exact thing. And again, I
24:42
don't want anything that we say today to scare
24:44
you away from doing, you know, from
24:46
chasing your dream anything. We want to, all three
24:49
of us here on this episode want to encourage
24:51
you to chase your dreams and be that
24:53
entrepreneur and follow it. But
24:56
I think all three of us would be remissed today
24:58
if we did not let you know
25:00
that it's not a walk in the park, um,
25:02
that it's not as easy as it looks,
25:04
and that it's going to be a big work. But Josh,
25:07
I love you, bro. We'll see you in the sec We're gonna take
25:09
a quick break. When we come back, we'll be speaking with Maggie.
25:11
Don't go anywhere. Welcome
25:14
back to Let's get into it. I'm Alex I O no
25:16
and we have Maggie new Mumbo with
25:18
me. Maggie, how are you. I'm
25:20
doing well. You're up in San Francisco
25:23
right, Yes, I want to. I want to point
25:25
out as all I believe, all four of us, including
25:27
Catherine, our producer on this on
25:29
this zoom right now, all live in California. And
25:32
I saw a funny tweet that I talked about earlier.
25:34
Because it's so cold in California. For some
25:37
reason, I saw a funny tweet that said, sixty
25:39
degrees in California is way colder than
25:41
four dy degrees in New York. And you cannot argue
25:43
with that. And I don't know why. It just makes sense.
25:46
It just makes the building so
25:48
in New York is all this steam coming
25:50
out from under the and
25:54
it's why it smells so bad. Oh
25:58
man, Well, Maggie, enough of out New York.
26:00
Enough about smells. I want to talk about
26:03
I want to talk about the great smells of
26:05
kahawa Ere. You are the owner
26:07
of this this coffee company,
26:10
but you've also lived multiple lives,
26:12
you know, quote unquote multiple lives, having
26:15
left a successful career on Wall Street
26:17
to start your company. But you also are a
26:19
third generation Kenyan coffee
26:21
grower. So I think it's
26:23
to me, it makes uh, makes
26:25
pretty good sense of why you were working in
26:27
the coffee industry. But I
26:30
don't know if that's necessarily the only reason why
26:32
you wanted to start a coffee business. So
26:34
what made you want to start khawa
26:36
Ee? Yeah?
26:39
So I was actually working
26:41
on Wall Street and I
26:43
used coffee as a drug. So it's
26:45
something that I
26:48
drink this day. A week and I was doing investment
26:51
banking and a typical
26:53
day, I'd be leaving the office at sunrise,
26:55
that been going home at six am. So coffee
26:58
was like such a drug. I used to
27:00
just stay away, give me productive. And
27:03
I got into coffee actually from
27:06
it was. I attended like a weekend competition
27:09
for the Startup Competition
27:12
UM, and it was about social impact
27:14
UM. And at that competition that you had to come
27:16
up with an idea that had a social impact.
27:19
And that was really the first time I thought
27:21
about business because I've always
27:24
thought about just a background
27:26
on me. Grew up on a coffee farm
27:28
in Kenya, and because my parents
27:30
were entrepreneurs, they were on the
27:32
opposite side of the spectrum where they were
27:35
like, do not become an entrepreneur, got
27:37
to school, get educated, get a real
27:40
job. And so the idea was
27:42
to always like run as far away from
27:44
entrepreneurship and coffee as possible.
27:47
But after that competition, we actually like
27:49
we're like number two on that and
27:51
I started thinking about, actually this could be a
27:53
business. So I started talking
27:55
to coffee people in New York,
27:58
going to workshops, and I struck up
28:00
a friendship with a roster in New
28:02
York, who actually has been the business since the eighties.
28:05
He helped Stabbuts open their like third
28:07
store in Seattle, So that's how
28:09
long he's been around. And he loved Kenyon
28:12
coffee. So he took me under his arm and really
28:14
showed me the business. And as
28:16
I got more comfortable and a lot more, I got
28:19
intrigued by that, by the
28:21
by the business um, and especially because
28:24
I saw sort of a huge opportunity to essentially
28:26
improve the lives of farmers who do a
28:28
lot of work to make coffee possible.
28:31
I mean, so in essence, you're you're you're flipping
28:33
the whole status quo when it comes to how
28:36
farmers are treated. The term fair
28:38
trade, I know that. I think everybody's
28:40
heard that term, but if you asked people
28:42
to define it, I don't know. I don't know what fair
28:45
trade means. So can you give me an idea
28:47
of what that looks like? Kind of from
28:50
your boots on the ground perspective. Yeah.
28:52
So, the so the coffee industry
28:55
for a long time, the market has been
28:58
really very very hotel
29:00
So the coffee prices are set in New York on
29:03
Wall Street, and then the farmers
29:05
have to essentially sell their coffee at that price,
29:07
and what has happened for a long time is that
29:09
price is below the cost
29:12
of production. So imagine, Josh,
29:14
if you're to sell your products below
29:16
what you produced them at, that's
29:19
kind of like what the farmers have
29:21
to contend with. And so and for
29:23
me personally, sort of growing up on the farm
29:26
and seeing that all of the work really
29:28
on the farm about is done by
29:30
women and then they don't get paid. So
29:33
I was like, we have to do something about it,
29:35
um, And so that's when I started er. I
29:37
wanted to very specifically figure
29:40
out a way where we can get the money back to
29:42
the farmers. So when you
29:44
buy our coffee, we have like a
29:46
QR code on there that you can
29:48
scan and tip the farmers um.
29:50
And so the idea is it's almost like a type
29:53
of fair trade. So fair trade is when you
29:55
buy the coffee, you you
29:57
pay a certain price above market
30:00
so that the farmers can make money. So in
30:02
this case, it's like a tip, the way that you can tip
30:04
your barista, the way that you can tip someone
30:07
at the restaurant. This is the way of recognizing
30:09
the farmers are not making enough. You can send
30:12
them like five dollars ten dollars on each
30:14
bag, and that way they can actually make
30:17
a living from coffee. And especially
30:19
for us, for the women that we work with, we
30:21
have a fund for them and they're able to kind of use
30:23
those funds to to develop themselves.
30:26
We're educating some girls on the ground.
30:28
So it it was really for me something of like,
30:31
we have a market that we can't really affect
30:33
right now, but how can ask consumers?
30:36
How can I invite other fellow
30:38
coffee lovers to essentially participate
30:41
and make good ethical choices around
30:43
coffee. So that was really the model
30:45
that we built around. That's around
30:48
coffee. That's something that I really loved
30:50
in my research, which was you
30:52
had mentioned how you can help
30:54
the women in the coffee industry. In
30:57
in the coffee trade in Kenya, women do
30:59
most of the work, but men are
31:01
getting paid and you have way
31:03
more ownership than the women do, and
31:06
you're talking about all of these things. How else are you guys
31:08
working to reverse that more so
31:10
than just helping the women make a
31:12
little bit more. Yeah, So the other way that we're
31:14
doing is essentially investing
31:17
in them so that they
31:19
can produce specialty coffee. Um,
31:21
so, as you know, specialty coffee is where
31:24
farmers can actually earn better
31:26
prices for their coffee. Um. And so
31:29
because the farmers had not been paid
31:31
well for a while, so the machines were down,
31:33
they didn't know how to process. So it was
31:35
really very very for
31:37
me, very very fulfilling to go on the ground
31:40
and I worked directly with the farmers and we
31:42
improved the quality of their coffee.
31:44
We even sold it to Blue Battle. So like our
31:46
coffee is like Blue Bottle quality. By the way
31:49
you beat me to it. I love, I have
31:51
to I have to shout out. I know. I make
31:53
coffee at my house, Um, nothing, nothing
31:56
fresh. I have an espresso machine. But
31:58
when I do feel bougie and want to go and buy
32:00
my own coffee, Blue Bottle is where I go.
32:02
And I think that it's amazing that you work with companies
32:05
like Blue Bottle because they really
32:07
are that that next level. I mean to me,
32:09
like, I love, I could have a Starbucks
32:11
coffee and I won't throw a fit, But if you give
32:13
me a Blue Bottle coffee, we're best friends.
32:16
Um. How did you go about developing
32:18
relationships like that to build your brand? Yeah,
32:21
so it was essentially again you
32:24
know, just approaching the bronze and
32:26
kind of talking to them about so they are aware
32:28
of the sort of this this issue with farmer
32:31
is not getting a fair price, and so in this case
32:33
with True Bottle is approaching
32:36
them and kind of telling them about the vision
32:38
that I had in the mission that I had on the ground
32:41
UM and they were on board with it. I actually traveled
32:43
with a coffee buyer from Blue Bottle back
32:46
to the farm and Kenya, I wish
32:48
and met the women UM and we essentially
32:51
you know, give them tips, give them a new
32:53
new ways of like processing UM.
32:55
And so it was really just talking
32:58
about the mission to people and then
33:01
essentially and a lot of people want to help and a
33:03
lot of people want to adopt
33:05
new solutions, and so this is just a case of
33:08
presenting another way of
33:10
doing things and very very surprised
33:13
by by the reception. Even
33:15
in California. We've worked
33:17
with other tech companies like Facebook,
33:20
Twitter, we served before Covid,
33:22
we served our coffee in their cafes in
33:24
the in the campuses, UM.
33:26
And that was really just companies that are into
33:29
the mission and they understand what we're trying to
33:31
do and they want to be part of part of that solution
33:34
and sort of fun fact, we actually it's to the
33:36
coffee that we really helped improve the
33:38
quality got got
33:40
like from a blind test. There's like a coffee
33:43
rankings website that's similar to the wine rankings
33:46
um that we submitted like our coffee and
33:48
for blind tasting, and it came out as one of
33:50
the top coffees in the country. So that
33:52
was right for us and so
33:54
our and that was the first time, like our
33:57
coffee we put this like our our
33:59
farm on the up. Before then,
34:01
like our coffee had never been served
34:03
as a single origin ever
34:05
in the world. It was always like and
34:08
branded. So this was the first time
34:10
that like we could put that like village
34:12
coffee on the map, and like other roasters
34:15
were like now reaching out and wanting to serve that
34:17
coffee. So it was really like
34:19
Josh said, it's just like you gotta start
34:21
it, you gotta believe it, and then like people
34:24
will start to like take notice
34:26
and also just like be invested.
34:29
So people are just looking for a leader that can
34:31
kind of help them build
34:34
around a similar vision and a CineMo mission
34:36
as well, right, And that's why I think
34:38
it's so interesting. And obviously every entrepreneur
34:41
is going to have their own story. But the thing that I love
34:43
about your story and a lot of stories like yours,
34:46
is that you are trying to
34:48
make the world better. Like you're You're obviously creating
34:50
a business, but you're trying to make the world better. And
34:52
I know that you said you were surprised that a lot of companies
34:55
wanted to do more um
34:57
kind of collective mindset things. I'm
35:00
not as surprised in the sense of I
35:02
think when you offer like the same way that when
35:04
you're at a grocery store and they say, hey, do you want to donate
35:06
two dollars to the blank blank blank
35:08
foundation, I all like to me, I'm always
35:11
like, yeah, sure, why not. I
35:13
think a lot of people do want to do the right thing, and
35:15
that's what I love about your company. Um. Your company
35:17
also sells uh, single serving
35:19
coffee tea bags, which is something I've never
35:22
ever seen before. I didn't even know that
35:24
you could do that. I thought that I thought you got arrested
35:26
if you put coffee in a tea bag. Um,
35:29
But they're super convenient and they're environmentally
35:32
friendly, way better than you know your
35:34
k cups. Luckily, I want to point out I
35:36
do have an espresso, and I recycle the pods.
35:38
I take them back to an espresso. So I'm doing the
35:40
best that I can, UM, but still
35:43
not as good or environmentally friendly as
35:45
the tea bags that you guys serve your coffee
35:47
in. I think what I love about
35:49
your company is that your company starts at doing
35:51
the right thing and people
35:53
genuinely seem to follow that. Is that something
35:55
that you would agree with? Yeah, I would say, and
35:57
even um, you know with this QR
36:00
code. Um, it's the idea
36:02
was you know, there's a lot it's
36:04
a very long supply chain. There's like, you
36:07
know, almost twenty people between the farmer
36:09
and the consumer. Um, and so
36:12
the whole idea was like, you know, you want to
36:14
make a difference, but like there isn't always
36:16
like an easy way to do it at the grocery.
36:18
So and this is one of those ways where like it's like
36:20
having you know, a
36:23
backet at the cash registrate,
36:25
just like making it really easy for people to
36:27
have an impact. But also um
36:31
for the coffee tea bags, which people really
36:33
love. I mean, I'll tell
36:35
you the story behind it. So
36:38
the story behind it was I
36:40
remember giving so when I started the coffee company,
36:42
And again, coffee is actually something that
36:44
even though coffee was discovered
36:46
in East Africa, so like you know,
36:48
e Europians the bathplace of coffee. We
36:51
give coffee to the world, but
36:53
Black people in general were not that
36:55
prominent in coffee. Coffee
36:57
was not the choice of drink in
37:00
the black community. We get like sprite,
37:02
it's like the is what gets
37:05
advertised in the black
37:07
community. Um, so coffee
37:09
is like not something that people were on top of. So I
37:11
remember gifting my friend a bag
37:13
of coffee. It was like whole
37:15
being coffee. And then I went
37:17
over to her place to make it and she
37:20
was about to make it without grinding it.
37:22
She did not know you had and
37:26
so and at that moment I
37:28
realized that, like when I joined the coffee business
37:30
and I'm actually one of like very few black
37:33
women in coffee, I realized that was
37:35
such a huge gap in like coffee
37:37
knowledge in the industry where you
37:40
know, in the specialty coffe industry is
37:42
very very like white brower culture.
37:45
It's very hipster um.
37:47
And so I really wanted to create that bridge
37:49
between sort of the average person who really
37:51
wants to enjoy specialty coffee, but it's very intimidated
37:54
by all of the trappings of that. Right.
37:57
So this the coffee tea bag is
38:00
that whether you can make coffee, it's like a French press,
38:02
but already has a filter around it pretty much.
38:05
Um. And so that was a way where the coffee
38:07
is you know, kind of trapped in there and it
38:09
stays fresh for a long time because it's like
38:11
nitrogen flash. And so for me, that
38:14
was one way I could easily share coffee with people
38:16
and really introduced them in a
38:18
like a non intimidating way to
38:21
coffee. So I really love that as like a way
38:23
of introducing people to specialty coffee,
38:26
especially for communities that are you
38:28
know, previously having been um, sort
38:30
of partaking in coffee because it's intimidating
38:33
to them. Yeah, no, I that
38:35
makes absolute sense. And again you're
38:39
making the world better by you know, kind
38:41
of removing that
38:43
that I'm I'm sure
38:45
as hell I'm not moving outside of mine espresso when it
38:47
comes to me making coffee, Like it is so intimidating
38:50
to make it because you have your French presses and you
38:52
have your poor overs, and you have your you
38:54
know, your this, that, and the other. It's intimidating.
38:57
So the fact that you made these you know, again, I
38:59
want to reiterate the idea that when
39:02
you start by doing something right or doing
39:04
something good, whether it's something as environmentally
39:06
friendly or or convenient
39:09
like a tea bag or you know, trying to
39:11
switch the status quo, people
39:13
generally tend to follow. But I
39:16
also, again I want to point out not only the good
39:18
side, but also the bad side, is that when you switch the
39:20
status quo, there's also another end,
39:22
another side of people who are not happy
39:24
with that, who like things the way that they've been.
39:27
Have you had any pushback from kind
39:29
of the opposing side of of you
39:31
know, whether it's people who still
39:33
want to make the same amount of money, or it's you know,
39:36
big coffee industries who are who
39:38
are not wanting things to be shaken up.
39:41
Yeah, no, I think there's a lot of So
39:43
another thing that I'm part of, like I
39:45
mession, I'm writing an article. Part of the
39:47
article that I'm writing is essentially, you
39:50
know, taking people through my learning process,
39:52
and I'm calling it I'm learning coffee
39:54
industry myths. So there's a lot
39:56
of myths about the industry. Um And
39:59
as I become an expert in the industry,
40:01
I'm starting to like essentially break them my
40:03
path and realize some of this was sort of essentially
40:06
created to like isolate or
40:08
keep other people out. Um.
40:10
And so I'm learning as I learned more, I'm
40:12
like really surprised by all of that,
40:15
but at the same time, like not very surprised
40:17
because it's a very competitive industry.
40:20
UM. So I think the only uh, I
40:22
think pushback that I would say
40:24
I've received is around
40:26
I think when we came out with the tea bags,
40:29
it's like the snobby people being like, oh, you
40:31
can't put coffee and tea bags for instance. On
40:33
the other side, um, it's also just recognizing
40:36
that, you know, you know, people
40:38
are just like used to doing things a certain
40:40
way, so there's gonna be a resistance
40:42
to the old too, you know, shaking up
40:45
the system. But that's something that
40:47
we actually want to do more of because
40:50
it's it's a gentle push over. And I'm really
40:52
very very inspired by like the new generation
40:56
gen Z that's kind of like does
40:58
not care. I think Maggellennio
41:01
and like my generation we were like
41:04
there was like this whole thing of like, don't buy five dollar
41:06
Starbucks because you can say for your mortgage.
41:10
And I feel like gen Z is really like
41:13
shaking up a lot of status school just
41:15
as a generation, and that's kind
41:18
of helping us a lot because nothing is
41:20
taken for granted anymore. So I
41:22
really like kind of like, well your generation
41:25
is doing with just shaking
41:27
up the status school, so that for us was
41:29
shaking it. It's not an earthquake.
41:32
Um, right, right, man,
41:35
I I really, Maggie, I'm so
41:37
just I love your story
41:39
and I love the love what you're
41:42
doing, and I think it's incredible and I'm so lucky
41:44
that you're here as a guest. Um. I cannot
41:46
wait to hear your advice or what it
41:48
really truly takes to be an entrepreneur. Um.
41:51
But we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, because
41:55
I wanted to show you something. Yeah,
41:57
I want to show you this
42:00
new mag that I have. It's part
42:02
of like my Gentle So this is like
42:04
a coffee Mac. Can you see it? Yeah?
42:07
But then look at what it says, all
42:10
right, so you can't you guys can't see this, But it says the revolution
42:13
will be brewed and that is incredible,
42:16
like, oh, a gentle way of just saying
42:18
that, like there is an oncoming revolution.
42:22
I thought I thought I
42:24
could not love your company and your story
42:26
more, and you just proved me wrong.
42:29
Maggie Kaw. I'm
42:31
so hyped to try some of it, um, but we're
42:33
gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk
42:35
about what it really truly takes
42:38
to be an entrepreneur. Don't go anywhere, Welcome
42:42
back. This is let's get into it. I'm alex Iono,
42:44
and we've had some incredible conversations,
42:47
but it's time to kind of strip
42:49
the pretty away and get down to the nitty gritty,
42:51
which is why we're calling this segment blood, Sweat
42:54
and Tears. We got Josh here with
42:56
me, my brother in law, also the founder and CEO
42:58
of beat Kicks, protecting your over
43:00
the ear headphones and now also have headbands,
43:03
towels, masks, which
43:05
was a major thing which I want to talk
43:08
about in this segment. Uh and also
43:10
now if you have air pods, both the
43:12
air Pods regular and the air Pods pros, you can
43:14
protect the case of those air
43:16
pods. They're they're dope. I can't find my air
43:18
pods right now. I'm pretty sure they're lost, but I'll have to
43:21
buy some new ones so that I can put them on. But we're
43:23
here with with Josh and also with
43:25
Maggie new Mumbo Uh, the founder
43:27
and CEO of Kaha Coffee,
43:31
and we're talking about what it really truly takes being
43:34
an entrepreneur. Like I said before,
43:36
I really do believe it's the hardest job
43:38
from a to z um and anybody
43:40
who started their own business knows
43:42
that, and they know that you really do. I
43:44
know this saying has kind of been thrown around blood
43:46
sweat and tears, but you really do put
43:49
your blood, sweat and tears into it. Josh
43:52
mentioned that he had spent you know, holidays
43:54
answering emails, that he spent ten
43:56
pm to three am s you know,
43:59
working and packaging his product
44:01
and printing labels, and the
44:03
amount of effort that I've seen Josh
44:05
go into, and obviously the amount of effort that I
44:08
know that I've put into my own career. And
44:10
talking with you, Maggie, from flying executives
44:13
of other companies back to your homeland
44:16
of Kenya to show them how beautiful
44:18
the culture is of coffee in East
44:20
Africa. There's so many,
44:23
so many things, and we mentioned
44:25
it in the first segment of Like the Darkness,
44:27
so many things that nobody gets to
44:29
see, and nobody really does see unless
44:31
you show them that. It goes
44:34
into, you know, creating
44:36
your own business, being your own boss, really
44:38
truly being an entrepreneur. So my first
44:40
question is to this day,
44:43
what keeps you motivated on a daily
44:45
basis? Maggie. It's tough,
44:47
you know, why do it right? Why why should
44:49
you do this instead of, you know, a day
44:52
job where you're guaranteed a paycheck.
44:55
And I think for me, it's just
44:57
looking on my life and thinking about what kind
44:59
of leg see do I want to
45:01
live behind, Like what's my purpose in this
45:03
world? Um? And when I thought about
45:06
um sort of my journey and what I wanted
45:08
to give back, I figured that
45:10
there was actually a way for me to do those
45:12
concurrently. So there was a way for me to build
45:15
a business around coffee and then
45:18
use that as sort of a way to
45:20
engage the larger community
45:22
around social issues
45:24
that I care about, so like helping
45:27
women making sure that there was gender
45:29
equality in coffee. So for
45:31
me, coffee isn't really
45:33
just a business that I run. It's
45:36
everything that I do, so I bring
45:39
all my values to it and being
45:41
able to make a difference. So in a
45:43
perfect world in the future
45:45
for me is where we get
45:47
to a place where I
45:49
think, I think a little bit of ourselves
45:52
as almost like Tesla, but not aggressive.
45:55
You know how Tesla went from like we
45:57
need to like get rid of force of falce, we need
46:00
like clean energy and that there's a world where
46:02
we can have nice cars
46:05
that you know, run on clean full
46:07
like that's a thing. So I feel like
46:09
in a future in coffee,
46:11
I think there's a future where we can have
46:14
delicious coffee, specialty coffee, and
46:17
in that paradigm also
46:19
have you know, farmers fairly compensated,
46:22
so like being able to like build that into
46:24
our system and like removing sort of the old
46:27
colonial system and replacing
46:29
it with like a modern system where
46:31
everyone's like paid fairly for
46:33
their wages. That women are getting this like gender
46:35
equality in the industry. So
46:38
for me, I think being able to emerge a future
46:40
where that's possible and realizing
46:42
that actually I'm building the blocks
46:45
towards that that that's what keeps me
46:47
up at night. And also that's like what makes
46:49
me go to bed thinking that I've achieved
46:52
something for the day, right,
46:54
right, And I think that that's more
46:56
than enough to keep you motivated. Something as
46:58
big as you know, chase seeing down a
47:01
dream like that, or if there's a problem in
47:03
the industry now and we need to fix that
47:05
problem. Josh, your story is obviously
47:07
different. You had a problem, you saw a problem in the
47:10
gym, and you fix that problem, and
47:12
that problem is pretty much fixed like you, I mean like you.
47:14
If somebody has that problem now, they can
47:16
fix that problem. So
47:18
having done that, you know, you fix that problem
47:20
before you went into headbands and towels
47:22
and masks and all that. Once you
47:25
hit that point, you're a million dollar company.
47:27
What keeps you motivated to keep trying
47:29
to reach that next level or hit that next
47:31
thing? More than obviously money, it's always
47:33
a good motivator, but you your heart
47:36
is in this. You've had offers for people who want to
47:38
come and and buy, you know, pieces
47:40
of your company or your whole company, but you obviously
47:42
have said no to those things and stuck to it
47:44
to build it into an even bigger empire.
47:46
What keeps you motivated? Yeah, I think
47:49
for me, it's the athlete of me. That the
47:51
thing thing I keep thinking about. It's the competitiveness
47:53
and wanting to because like right now, what
47:55
you said, we're we're in the fitness base pretty
47:58
much. You fallow fitness, you see it, right, But
48:00
I mean there are so many different areas that we can
48:02
hit and we were starting to hit. So
48:05
for me, that's that's the motive. It's it's
48:07
the drive to get in those
48:09
different spots. Like you remember times when I was, oh
48:11
I got this implement or to try them, and where I'm now, they're
48:13
like wanting to be a part of the brand, Like how cool that was?
48:15
Like there's so many different areas
48:17
that I think we can we can get into and
48:19
industries And for me, that's
48:22
in driving force. It's you know, because you get that little
48:24
bit. It's a little honestly, it's like a high right, you get
48:27
all this big influencer, million followers. They want
48:29
to be a part of it, like oh my gosh, like okay,
48:31
I want the next one. Where's the next one? Where's the next
48:33
one? Right? And then you know, building
48:35
a brand like you know, the covers are a baby and that's what
48:38
we do, and that's what everybody knows for. But yeah, I'd love to
48:40
just be a brand that represents
48:42
different products. We're getting there, but you know,
48:44
it's a ton of work. It's a lot of work. I want
48:46
to talk next about about the financial
48:49
aspect of it, and a lot of people um
48:51
for I would say for most entrepreneurial
48:55
businesses, you have to start by shelling
48:57
out of your pocket or taking out a loan or
49:00
ending it, you know, financially, really taking
49:02
a risk. And
49:05
the other thing that I think is funny as a total side
49:07
note is um and I'm gonna out you,
49:10
Josh, but I'm also gonna out me. We love
49:12
Josh and I love blackjack like we love
49:15
and I'm guilty of it. I love going to the casino
49:17
and playing black jack. But I think
49:19
that that's something that really feeds into our entrepreneurial
49:21
spirit because you have to be willing to take a risk,
49:24
a big risk. And Maggie, that even translates. I
49:26
don't know if you like black jack. I hope you do, so one day
49:28
we can all have some Kaha coffee
49:31
and play some black jack. But you had to say
49:33
you're taking a risk every day by shaking
49:35
up a full industry and changing
49:37
that status quo. But financially
49:40
specifically, you have to shell
49:42
out your own money. I last year, Josh, Josh
49:45
knows this because he's my brother. Like, I had to spend
49:47
a lot of my own money to put together
49:49
a tour um the fund to three
49:52
tour because I had a dream
49:54
and I wanted that dream to come to life
49:56
and have a screen on stage, and so I put my
49:58
own money into it, knowing that it was a risk.
50:01
And sometimes those risks work, sometimes those
50:03
risks don't work. Josh, what were your
50:06
financial fears or struggles? You were
50:08
married at the time, and I know that as cool
50:10
as my sister Sydney is, you know, spending
50:13
family money and knowing you're dipping into savings
50:15
and knowing that if it doesn't work, then
50:17
this will happen, or if it does work, then that will happen.
50:20
What struggles or fears did you have when you were
50:22
starting B Kicks? Yeah, I mean
50:24
it's like like I mentioned before, it's going from you
50:26
know, a job that pays a decent salary or commissions
50:29
whatever, and knowing that I'm going to pay myself
50:31
you know a fifth of that, You know what I mean? For
50:33
the foreseeable future and not worth really no end in sight,
50:36
you know, and then you just go into the workings of the business.
50:39
And listen, we all heard the saying you've got to spend
50:41
money to make money, right And I
50:43
don't know about Maggie, but I boostrapped this whole thing from
50:45
I didn't raise any money. It's all been my money. And
50:48
you know, so you've got to be really picky and where you spend that
50:50
money. You know, you can't you know, whether
50:52
it's marketing dollars or you know, influencers
50:55
which falls into marketing whatever. But yeah,
50:57
there's been times where it's like, I don't
50:59
know if this is a right move, but like, how
51:01
many eyeballs would see this if I pay this amount
51:04
of money, you know what I mean? Like, listen, I've had multiple
51:06
mistakes, you know, trial and error,
51:08
spent money, didn't work out. But I mean,
51:11
like you said, you got to take those risks. I mean, you're never
51:13
going to see where your idea can go. Dude,
51:15
you came out of fourteen like with a guitar and
51:17
like, you know what I mean, and now you're doing what
51:20
you're doing. That's why I think is interesting, is
51:22
I like for me, I've all I've ever known
51:24
was my entrepreneurship. Right. But
51:27
for both of you, Josh and for you, Maggie,
51:29
you both had good jobs like you
51:31
guys. You guys weren't like in a place
51:34
where you were like, oh man, what am
51:36
I gonna do? I guess I'll guess I'll have to
51:38
start my business, like you both had the
51:40
option to or not to
51:42
become entrepreneurs. So, Maggie, coming
51:45
from Wall Street to starting your business,
51:47
what was that financial fear slash struggle?
51:49
Like you had a good job like you were, You're on Wall
51:51
Street. People people died to
51:53
believe it was to work on Wall Street. Meanwhile,
51:56
you're starting your own business and leaving it
51:58
so similar I strapped
52:01
like Josh, um And I think that part
52:03
of that is, I think we're gonna have to acknowledge
52:05
it is a little bit of a privilege that you
52:08
know, to be in that position. Um. I think
52:10
for me to be in a position where I had had had
52:12
worked in jobs that allowed me to
52:14
save, so I had a financial safet
52:16
in it. So that's not true for a
52:18
lot of people. So I think for me, I
52:21
felt comfortable doing it because I felt
52:23
like I had saved enough money
52:25
to be able to essentially bootstrap
52:28
this and kind of build it, especially building this business
52:30
where it's a lot of about
52:33
about values and I have to
52:35
be very picky about who I work with
52:37
UM, So having financial backuds
52:40
that have different you know, interests
52:42
and motivations would not be the
52:44
best situation. So it was it was
52:47
very you know, it was again like George said,
52:49
you get very creative. You really
52:51
think about is this what doing? What's
52:54
the arrow I on this? But I think the
52:56
beauty of this looking at it, you
52:59
know when I now reflect act upon it. The
53:01
beauty of having the opportunity to
53:03
build that with you know, limited
53:05
resources, is that you become very
53:08
very intentional. But also you build
53:10
a stronger community because it's
53:12
very you become very authentic because
53:14
you don't have not like you have a limited
53:16
bank account to be flushy.
53:19
You really work with the scraps, and I think that's
53:21
something that really radiates and allows you to
53:24
build a stronger brand. So you're not buying
53:27
you're not buying followers, you're not buying UM
53:30
you know, you're not buying people with sales or
53:32
with like you know, giving huge discounts
53:34
or you're essentially giving people products for free.
53:37
You you essentially cultivate
53:39
a very very strong following
53:41
and a strong community. So I think that there's
53:44
definitely as a as a person,
53:46
if I was starting out, I would advise people
53:48
that sometimes I think gets stressed about not having
53:50
enough capital to think about
53:53
that has an advantage, not a disadvantage.
53:56
It really pushes you to focus on like what's
53:58
the most important thing um and
54:01
to focus on the right things, because otherwise
54:03
you maybe get distracted and you know, make
54:05
really some companies have been killed
54:08
by having too much money, like Quibi
54:14
companies. So I think that there
54:17
is some advantage of being bootstrapped
54:20
and being under resourced at the beginning.
54:22
But obviously i'd be remiss Alex
54:25
if I don't mention that I know, for
54:28
a person like me still even
54:30
with like my education, my privilege,
54:33
I still feel that I
54:35
fall into the same troubles
54:37
that other you know, entrepreneurs of color.
54:39
As you know, less than one person
54:41
of funding goest to women, less than point
54:44
one person goes to women of color. So
54:46
it's it's it's like a huge gap where
54:49
if you started to like spend your time looking
54:51
for money like you would just like it's
54:53
not it's not a good odds. We come back to black
54:55
tack, you have better odds. Focusing
54:58
on raising money from customers. I'm
55:00
doubling down at that point, I'm doubling down.
55:02
I'm splitting. I'm doubling each of the splits.
55:05
We're going hard. So I got one thing that
55:07
that one thing. Yeah, So it's
55:09
funny, it's like the word and we have to be nimble, right,
55:11
I mean, even to this day, you
55:13
know, I think to myself, what do people care
55:15
about when they get my product? They just care about getting it into
55:17
being good quality. So in my even in our packaging,
55:20
even to this day, like it's not the greatest
55:22
packaging, but like I just know they bought it because
55:24
they want it, and when they get it, it's gotta be good quality.
55:26
So those things are good for me. That's enough.
55:28
I don't need to spend that extra capital right now
55:31
to give them this awesome package box
55:33
that costs another fifty cents every order, you know what I mean.
55:35
So, like you know, we've done in the past, but it's
55:37
like is it worth it right now? Like
55:39
you know, so like small things like that, it's like you
55:42
know, what what what does the customer really want?
55:44
Like you know, we both boost trapped it, so we had to
55:46
be like pretty nimble and how we do things so you can
55:48
see what really is the most important
55:51
thing and what do the customers what do they want? You
55:53
know what I mean, That's the question I think all entrepreneurs are trying
55:55
to answer. There's a lot of movement that
55:57
you have to that you might not be like
56:00
that. There's so many things that I didn't realize I had to
56:02
do as a musician, so many things, like you said, you didn't
56:04
realize, like, oh man, I got to think about the
56:06
packaging. I remember you had boxes, and
56:08
then you had certain like certain cool
56:10
plastic, and then you had like they you
56:12
were um you had the like labels
56:15
that were going around it or on top of it. And at
56:17
the end of the day, those are things that you have to really
56:19
think about as an entrepreneur. Another
56:21
thing that a lot of people have to think about as an entrepreneur, or
56:23
more so deal with, not think about, is
56:26
the naysayers, the haters,
56:28
the oh man, I really think you
56:30
should do this, Josh, You and I both know how
56:33
many people and I don't know as much
56:35
as you know, but I've witnessed it firsthand.
56:37
How many people have told you you need to do this,
56:39
you need to do that, don't do this, that's
56:42
not gonna work. And I'm sure you had the same
56:44
thing, Maggie. A question
56:46
for both of you, how do you tune
56:48
that out? Because I know, like as some I've
56:51
had naysayers my own way, you know,
56:53
for my own career as well. But how do
56:55
both of you guys tune it out? Yeah?
56:57
I mean, honestly, I just don't care to be honest
56:59
with do
57:02
you know what I mean? Like, listen, there are times where if
57:04
it's a specific product thing, like maybe
57:06
there's an issue with something like obviously I want
57:08
to resolve that. I don't want to just throw it to but
57:10
like yeah, like these are too expensive
57:13
or why is a logo so big? You know what I mean?
57:15
Like you gotta tell your you got to think,
57:17
like how what's the percentage of people
57:19
that are actually complaining about these small things? And
57:21
it's like that's why I just do it. In my head, I'm like,
57:23
listen, it's under one percent of people that are complaining
57:25
about this or that the other It's like you kind of have just
57:28
pick and choose the things that really matter, Like listen,
57:30
if it's a like a quality control issue,
57:32
like if something broke, ripped or whatever, We're
57:35
going to fix that as fast as possible. We're gonna
57:37
talk to manufacturer and make sure hey, like be
57:40
more careful, right, you know what I mean.
57:42
It's just there's trolls out there, and it's like they
57:44
get a high on like trying to make you feel
57:46
a little bit of negativity. Right, So
57:48
I'm just like, you know what, press
57:51
on man, you know what I mean, absolutely
57:54
absolutely, Maggie, have anything to add to that, Yeah,
57:56
I saying I think you really got to tune
57:58
it out. I think when I started UM,
58:00
for I think a lot of people, it was like
58:03
I was not who you think you
58:06
know sells coffee, Like I was not the face
58:08
of coffee. So for a lot of people, they've
58:10
only seen two you know, two types of coffee.
58:12
Was either like big coffee stuff. But so they had
58:14
seen like Hollywood celebrity
58:17
like starting a coffee brand, like for
58:19
charity. So they were like these two spectrums
58:21
of like charity coffee and then big coffee.
58:24
So when people, I think when I started,
58:26
they were like, oh, is it a nonprofit? UM
58:29
is it, like, are you gonna make money? Like you're not rich.
58:32
So there was a lot of people that were worried
58:34
that I was, like, not a Hollywood celebrity
58:37
doing this for charity. So
58:39
that was trying to like explain
58:41
to people that this can work. But also
58:44
like just you have to at
58:46
the beginning. You just have to know that not everyone
58:48
will see the vision until
58:51
it Like you said, you know, there's a lot of like working
58:53
in the dark. There's a lot of small moving
58:55
paths to building a brand. So
58:57
I think it's just you know, I think
59:00
just giving people time to really warm
59:02
up to it, and you know, it takes time. So I think
59:04
that I having that attitude
59:06
of like, you know, they're seeing
59:08
a half drawn painting, so
59:12
like when it's fully drawn and
59:14
then they might appreciate it more. So I think
59:16
it's just knowing that that's it's
59:18
natural for people to want to be protective
59:21
of the status quo. Yeah, totally.
59:23
I mean I think again, nobody sees nobody sees
59:25
the darkness. Everybody only sees the light. You know that nobody
59:27
sees what happens behind closed doors, and so it's
59:29
important to just stick to your guns, trust
59:32
yourself try and just you know,
59:34
whether it's avoiding comments in your
59:36
comments section, whether it's listening
59:39
with you know, with half an ear to your
59:41
your weird friend or family member
59:43
who thinks that they know your business better than
59:46
you do, whatever it is. I think the
59:48
last thing I want to talk about is like,
59:50
we're here and we're in the middle of a pandemic. We
59:52
have so many businesses closing down, and
59:54
even in good times, new business is very
59:56
rarely turn out successful.
59:59
John, she mentioned being nimble. I think one of the smartest
1:00:02
things and from the outside that you
1:00:04
did this year is you started producing
1:00:06
masks. Masks was not something
1:00:08
that you did at all, but somehow it works perfectly
1:00:11
with protecting your beats, protect your face,
1:00:13
protect your you know, your immune system.
1:00:16
That nimbleness, How did you
1:00:18
come to that? How did you keep
1:00:20
your mind and your and your options so nimble
1:00:23
that you could have an option like that that you go, yes, we need
1:00:25
to jump on that, and and your masks sold
1:00:27
out immediately when you dropped them. Tell
1:00:29
me about that. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I
1:00:31
was fortunate that my manufacturer had
1:00:33
a customer who was doing mass so I was able
1:00:36
to and listen. I didn't early on, I just didn't
1:00:38
even think about it. I just I was doing my business, you
1:00:40
know, with what I go down there look at my inventory or whatever. But
1:00:43
you know, it's like, you know, in Februarily
1:00:45
March came around, it was just kind of like this thing
1:00:47
is maybe a real thing, you know what I mean. I was like, you
1:00:50
know, maybe we should do it. And listen,
1:00:52
because of the high costs of manufacturer, I had to put
1:00:54
down it up front the money, and
1:00:56
they weren't cheap, mask. I mean everything's getting made
1:00:58
down town l A. I mean, these
1:01:00
were not cheap, like they're good Mass. I want I want
1:01:02
to voice said, it's it's the Mass that I endorsed
1:01:05
myself. Um.
1:01:07
So, I mean, listen, March was terrible
1:01:10
for me. Let's be on. I mean, my my product
1:01:12
is mainly in the fitness space. Gym's closed, right,
1:01:14
people were freaking out, like going to
1:01:16
the banks taking thousands dollars put in their under their own mattress
1:01:18
because they were like, what's going to happen? Right, So no
1:01:20
one spending money and gyms were closed. So for me, it was like
1:01:23
the worst month I've had in probably ten months. Um,
1:01:27
but then we decided to make masks, and April
1:01:29
was my biggest month in eight months. The
1:01:32
day I launched a mass I never promoted it. I just
1:01:34
put it up and we had a bigger day than my Black Friday,
1:01:36
which is crazy. So
1:01:39
yeah, I mean, honestly, I was fortunate enough to have that opportunity
1:01:41
because if they weren't doing it doing it, I wouldn't have had that opportunity.
1:01:44
But but listen, I had to make the call, right,
1:01:46
I had to say, Hey, I'm gonna spend this much amount of money to
1:01:48
do this, and who knows, Like, I
1:01:51
mean, luckily, like Maggie was saying, you build
1:01:53
that customer base and that loyal following
1:01:56
that, you know, I just put up in Boom
1:01:58
and like they're listen, they're expensive, like compared to other masks,
1:02:00
they're pretty expensive, but they just took it. Was
1:02:03
I'm not gonna say it's saved the business, but like it's
1:02:05
almost a blessing in disguise for me because
1:02:08
at the time my manufacturing shut down, my
1:02:11
covers and everything else, all they did was making mass
1:02:13
It was like it was like a factory of mass making. So
1:02:15
luckily I had enough inventory on handle the covers
1:02:17
that the orders it did come in, we were able to fulfill. So
1:02:20
I was able to lower my inventory and everything and that was profit.
1:02:22
And then we had masses. We had another product to sell and
1:02:25
was sold like crazy. It was like we were able to
1:02:27
actually come out of it a little better I think than most
1:02:29
people, just because we had that ability. Yeah.
1:02:32
No, I mean a lot of companies came
1:02:34
and went or we're here and left
1:02:36
and and uh and so I think that
1:02:38
nimbleness is what keeps companies
1:02:40
alive. And and that's why I think it was amazing.
1:02:43
I had to point it out because the wrench
1:02:45
was thrown into this year. This year has been the worst.
1:02:47
And so for a company like Bee Kicks, where you were
1:02:49
working, you were a fitness based
1:02:52
company or where that's where you started from,
1:02:54
and then the thing that kind of powers that
1:02:57
goes away, you have to move quick.
1:02:59
You have to act quick, Maggie. On
1:03:01
top of the pandemic, we are also
1:03:03
in a year that people are trying to obviously
1:03:07
we are. We have unearthed um
1:03:09
racial injustice here in America and
1:03:12
racism in general. There are
1:03:14
so many fights for taking
1:03:17
away women's rights and women's reproductive
1:03:19
rights. And on top of that, you come from an immigrant
1:03:22
family, the cards were
1:03:25
not sent in your favor. How
1:03:27
have you, as a CEO and a
1:03:29
founder of a company powered
1:03:31
through that. Yeah. I
1:03:34
actually posted on our Instagram that
1:03:36
when the elections came out, now that
1:03:38
we have Kamela the first black
1:03:42
and Indian immigrant
1:03:46
vice president, I was saying, oh, twenty twenty
1:03:48
is definitely UM. It's
1:03:50
going to be interesting when we discussed it because we
1:03:53
saw the worst and it's also now historic.
1:03:56
So I think that the reason election was such
1:03:58
a you know, a breath of relief,
1:04:00
I think, especially for a lot of people whose lives
1:04:03
were UM sort of in
1:04:05
a non territory because of the
1:04:08
last four years. UM. For
1:04:10
us from a business perspective, obviously
1:04:12
the coffee industry was massively impacted
1:04:15
with coffee shops can't open up,
1:04:17
shut down UM. So for us,
1:04:20
we UM as a nation. We used to serve offices
1:04:22
in the Bay Area, so we had a huge
1:04:25
office business which went
1:04:27
away immediately because no one's going
1:04:29
into the office. But again, like
1:04:31
Joe said, it's a blessing in disguise
1:04:34
because it really pushed us
1:04:36
to do direct to consumer, which
1:04:38
was which is a beast of its own, but
1:04:41
it's once you start to do it, you start
1:04:43
to love it, especially interacting directly
1:04:45
with customers and you know, even
1:04:48
emailing with Catherine, when customers
1:04:50
like message me their thoughts or
1:04:52
asked me questions, it's very very
1:04:54
fulfilling. So that was for me
1:04:57
going through transitioning from sort
1:04:59
of more are b to be and doing
1:05:01
more direct to consumer, which you
1:05:04
know has as now
1:05:06
with the Black Lives Matter movement and
1:05:08
sort of people really um looking
1:05:11
to support brands that you know, share values
1:05:13
with them. So it's been really interesting
1:05:15
time for us, I think, to be an outspoken
1:05:18
activists for a lot of these issues and
1:05:20
very very like refreshing. So is
1:05:23
a very mixed year for me, But I think it's
1:05:25
gonna in a good note. I
1:05:27
sure hope so, and I think for all three of
1:05:30
us, I do have a good feeling it's going to continue
1:05:32
trending upwards. I think my biggest
1:05:34
takeaway from this is that an entrepreneur
1:05:37
is so much more about the spirit
1:05:40
that you have. There's so many ways in
1:05:42
which you can be an entrepreneur, and so I think
1:05:45
my takeaway with that is also the
1:05:48
dedication that you have to prepare yourself
1:05:50
to have in being an entrepreneur. It's
1:05:52
amazing. And so I really implore you
1:05:55
if you have even an ounce of yourself that wants
1:05:57
to explore being an entrepreneur. You don't
1:05:59
have to a full time Josh didn't go full time
1:06:01
for two and a half years. You don't have
1:06:04
to have a groundbreaking idea.
1:06:07
Uh. You can simply find
1:06:09
something you're passionate about and see if there's a
1:06:11
business in that. Um and and
1:06:13
that's really my takeaway. Uh. And I hope
1:06:15
you like this. I've really, I really loved
1:06:17
this episode. I thought it was amazing time.
1:06:19
Thank you Maggie, thank you Josh, both of you for
1:06:21
your insight and sharing your experiences with
1:06:23
this. I want to point out before we get
1:06:25
into my favorite part of the show. Both
1:06:29
gifts, both Khawa Coffee
1:06:31
and Beat Kicks, whether it's the headphone
1:06:33
protectors, that air pods covers,
1:06:36
the headbands, or the towels
1:06:38
or the masks, are incredible holiday
1:06:40
gifts. We're going to the holidays right now, ladies and gentlemen. Make
1:06:42
sure you guys get you get get your man's
1:06:44
or your woman's or your or your person. Some
1:06:47
headphone covers and some coffee, and I can guarantee
1:06:49
you they're gonna smile, You're gonna have a great holiday. It's gonna
1:06:51
be incredible. That being said, it is time
1:06:54
for the shameless not so shameless
1:06:56
promo. Basically, I just give you guys
1:06:59
each time just to ug everything you want.
1:07:01
You don't. I'm already buying it, so you don't
1:07:03
have to sell me on it. But it's time for you to just sell
1:07:05
it to the listeners. Maggie hit Us with
1:07:07
some not so shameless promo. I
1:07:09
mean, I think that we have the best
1:07:11
coffee in the world. Seriously,
1:07:16
I think that you know, you should
1:07:19
check it out. Um, it's I
1:07:21
sometimes wonder, you know, I
1:07:23
feel bad for people that haven't discovered it yet.
1:07:27
That should be a slogan. That should be a slogan.
1:07:29
If you haven't tried it, I feel bad for you. I
1:07:35
love that. Josh hit Us with some not so shameless
1:07:38
promo. Listen. So most
1:07:40
people listen to music, and that's you know, and
1:07:42
everybody likes to customize things. We're all trying to match
1:07:44
things, right, I mean, whether you're trying to protect your
1:07:46
headphones, they're good for that, but
1:07:48
also just to match something we have multiple
1:07:51
designs. We also have a customization
1:07:53
aspect. Now we can go in and make your own not
1:07:55
only covers, you can make your towels, you can make headbands.
1:07:58
So yeah, I mean we're here for you. We protect
1:08:00
you, we got you covered. Oh my
1:08:03
gosh, you guys are just professionals. Check
1:08:05
this out. If you like music, if you
1:08:07
like big teeth, if you like
1:08:10
Polynesian men, and
1:08:13
you like an i heeart radio podcast, let's
1:08:15
get into it as the podcast for you. Um,
1:08:19
you guys already know where you can follow me. Uh,
1:08:21
you can follow me at alex Iono on all platforms.
1:08:25
Do you guys have an Instagram or a or a social media platform?
1:08:27
Here and it is at
1:08:30
Cahawa nine three Josh, you gotta you gotta
1:08:32
social media platform for Beat Kicks Instagram,
1:08:35
Beat dot Kicks, Beat dot Kicks,
1:08:37
alex a i O n Oh. You can
1:08:39
find and follow all three of us. But more
1:08:41
importantly than me, following me on
1:08:43
Instagram makesure you follow Khawa and
1:08:46
follow beat dot Kicks on Instagram.
1:08:48
You can also rate our podcast and subscribe. It's
1:08:50
the it's the way that we grow, and you can give us
1:08:52
a nice review, especially after this episode.
1:08:55
But thank you so much for listening. I I
1:08:57
love you guys so much and we'll see you next
1:08:59
time piece. We
1:09:06
really want you to get the help you need, so if you
1:09:09
need help, please seek independent advice from
1:09:11
a competent healthcare or mental health professional.
1:09:13
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
1:09:16
those of the podcast author or individuals participating
1:09:18
in the podcast, and do not represent the opinions of I
1:09:20
Heart Media or its employees. This podcast
1:09:22
should not be used as medical advice, mental health advice,
1:09:24
counseling, or therapy. Listening to the podcast
1:09:27
does not established dr patient relationship with
1:09:29
hosts or guests of alex Iona Let's Get Into
1:09:31
It or I Heart Media. No guarantee is
1:09:33
given regarding the accuracy of any statements
1:09:35
or opinions made on this podcast. Well,
1:09:38
if that's a doozy
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