Kara Goldin, Founder of Hint | Living an Undaunted Life by Overcoming Doubts and Doubters

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They my guest is Cara golden Cara is the founder and CEO of hint. She's a purpose driven inspiring entrepreneur. She was previously at AOL. She was in the tech space before she pivoted into starting hand building out a consumer package goods empire. She created hint as an alternative to sugary beverages sodas. She also started to build other products a tailor to a lifestyle of people that wanted to use products that were better for their bodies. She has an incredible list of accolades outside of just building hint an incredible company. She's been named amongst fortunes most powerful women entrepreneurs and Forbes 40 women to watch over 40. Having in post listed her as one of the six disruptors in business alongside Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg her latest book undaunted overcoming doubts and doubters is a Wall Street Journal best seller and is a real rare opportunity to gain insight and proven advice on like anything you've ever seen in a conventional business book or in conventional business press. She combines stories from her life with observations that may change how you think about your own we speak about her book and the podcast some further accolades include EY entrepreneur of the year in 2017 San Francisco business times most influential woman fast companies most creative person in business EY's winning woman 2012 fortunes most innovative woman and food and drink in 2015 the gold stevey award for female entrepreneur of the year amics open forums woman to watch and the marketers that matter award for brand building put out by small company. So a ton of absolutely incredible accolades an incredible career. And then on top of that she has built hint to a business worth over a billion dollars. And now you can see hint literally in the end. Wherever grocery store you go. So what do we speak about so we spoke about her story how she pivoted from a vice president of shopping and e-commerce partnerships at AOL pivoted from tech into CPG in the story that lit a fire in her and got her to basically take hint off the ground with no experience in retail or CPG. We spoke about a lot of lessons that she speaks about in her book undaunted why she named it undaunted and how undaunted is going to teach entrepreneurs to think outside the box to think differently to pursue things that perhaps they may have not ever felt comfortable pursuing in the attitude in the pierce of events and the tactical and the strategy that takes actually be successful and basically I don't want to ruin it but we just went into all the lessons that she experienced well building. And then how those can be applied to other entrepreneurs that are trying to start their own thing and grow an empire. So let's jump right into it. This is Cara golden. She is a podcaster author and founder CEO of hint water. So I grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona. I was the last to five kids and I like to say I was an original settler in Arizona because it was there weren't very many of us. We did have cars there and we weren't just you know riding horses around but it was it was significantly smaller than it is today. And I think being the last to five though, it's funny. I was I have two sisters and two brothers, but we almost had two different families. I have a brother and sister that are 15 and 16 years older than me. So while I was just this annoying little squirt like barely out of diapers, they were you know in high school and really annoying to have like a little little little sister brother most of the time, not all the time, but but I think for me, I just I really felt like they get to do a lot more things than I was able to do. And so I watched them get their first job and get their paycheck and buy by a car like all of these things align the way and I was like, you know, four and saying, when do I get to go right and that was me. I was always like putting ambitious from the get go right from right from four years old you want to go after. Okay. All right. But I think that the other thing that I was able, you know, to see too was that just being curious and asking a lot of questions and and you know I lots of people would be in and out of our house and you know they would have a lot of them didn't have younger sisters, so I was amusing to them. But being able to ask like, oh, you know, what are you going to do when you graduate from high school or college or whatever and why did you pick that like I would just always be asking these things and all along the way I would also be learning and so anyway fast forward. I went off to school. I went to school in Arizona. It was, you know, the price was right. It was in state tuition and I had been an athlete my whole life, either always running, playing, playing sports, doing gymnastics. And by the time I went off to college, I think for me, I really took, I wanted to take a passion of mine, which was writing and and my curiosity and become a journalism major. So, so that was my major in school and I'll never forget when a few of my friends, my new friends in college were taking business courses and they were frankly becoming much more educated than I was around finance. So they would come and talk to me and in my sorority, I would hear them talking about, you know, EBITDA and business planning and all of these things that I had always felt really smart until I started hearing them talk about these things and I thought, oh, maybe I should take a class in finance. I remember people saying, what are you doing as a journalism major, taking finance classes? And I, I thought, well, I want to be able to learn something. I don't want to major in it, but I want to be able to learn something and it's something that I share with people who, especially college students today, is don't be afraid to find those things that kind of scare you. Especially when you're in school or maybe you think they're stupid and you don't even know why they exist like a marketing course, maybe you're an engineer and, you know, to be able to understand kind of the basic elements of lots of different things is a very valuable thing. I don't mean you have to do it on a daily basis, but to be able to understand, you know, what is EBITDA, what is business planning, how do you do basic code, all of these things, I just always believed that it'd be nice to be able to go try it. I don't like it. It's not what my major is. So how bad could it be? And so I graduated with a minor in finance, which, you know, still sort of like made me laugh because I, they were the hardest things, the hardest classes that I took in school. And so when I graduated, I thought, I'm going to blend what I've done in journalism with my minor in finance and I'm going to go to New York and I'm going to get a job at Fortune magazine. I felt like Wall Street Journal was the other thing that I was reading constantly, but it was just a little too much type going on. There were no pretty pictures anywhere and no real stories that I guess all financially related stories. But I thought, I'm going to send a letter to the managing editor of Fortune and, you know, see what happens and try and get a job. That's the first that's the first job you want to get at a college, right? Yeah. And wasn't coming on Fortune magazine wasn't coming on campus. I just sent a letter and I think it surprised a lot of people that I, I mean, people would ask me and still ask me to the stay. How did you know how to send a letter to the managing editor and I'm thinking, are you really asking me that? I mean, you just open up the magazine and there's an address and email and there's people and you just figured it out. I mean, this is kind of like before Google before it was really easy to do this. So anyway, Marshall Low wrote me a note back and said, hey, if you're ever in the New York area. And so that was my invite to be in the New York area. Little did I, I never really thought that that was like a brush off. No, instead I thought, well, yeah, if I go to New York, I'm going to, I'm going to go meet with Marshall. I mean, he'll meet me and for sure he'll give me a job. And of course, you know, my brothers were, my sisters were cracking up. My friends were like, really? Like you really think that's what it says. And I'm like, I'm not going to ask. I mean, of course, that's not that bad. That's not that better response. Like you just taking that face value. I think that's pretty net positive. Right. Exactly. Well, what's the worst that can happen? He doesn't seem me, but why focus on, you know, the negative more than anything. So, so that's when I, you know, figured out how to get to New York and ultimately marched into the HR office. Isn't that where you go when you're looking for a job is, you know, I'm, I'm this college kid. And net of it is that fortune wouldn't see me. They didn't have a job. I wasn't on the books to actually meet with Marshall, but what I asked the head of HR while I was there, I thought I might as well make good use of the time. Is there any other jobs? And that's when I ended up interviewing the time magazine and and scored a job at time magazine. It was never my plan. I never walked in to the building at the time. And it was nothing, you know, crazy. It was an executive assistant role that I thought, I'm going to, I'm going to have a job in New York City. It's a lot better than a lot of my friends have. And I get, you know, benefits and all of that. And more than anything, I get to work in New York City. I mean, that I just was so excited that I was able. To do that. So anyway, worked there for a few years and was in circulation. I thought at one point, I'll, I'll move over to the editorial side that never happened. I was recruited out by what I now term as late stage startup called CNN. It was this guy Ted Turner. Why do you call it? Why do you call it a late stage startup? Because it was, we were, I mean, at the time, this is the early 90s, we were in probably 40% of the, the country had cable systems, right. And in their homes. So, I mean, it seems so foreign today to think about that. But the only reason why I had cable was I lived in New York in the department building. And I wouldn't have been able to have any reception if I didn't have cable. And so most of my friends like thought that that was, you know, pretty like ritzy to have it. And I'm like, I got a, I don't know anybody in New York. All I do is work all the time. And I've got to have some sort of communication with the world. So I had cable. And when they called and they said, do you know what CNN is? You probably have never heard of it. I'm like, oh, no, no, I, I like watch the news. It's great because I'm never home at six o'clock at night. So I can't, I can't watch it. And they said, oh, that's great. And so I ended up interviewing. And, you know, I talk about that role a lot because it was the first very different culture. First of all, from time, very buttoned up, very. You know, primarily Ivy League at time versus CNN. Here's this guy running around the halls and cowboy boots and a suit. And, you know, he's, he's, I call it a late stage startup is nobody termed the company. It was just this, it was this underdog company that was going up against ABC and NBC and people would say to me, like, oh, maybe you'll get experience from CNN and then you'll go, you know, to the big networks. And I was like, maybe I don't know, like it, it seems kind of cool. I mean, and, and the thing that I think back on those days that really was so impactful for me as even an entrepreneur today is that seeing a visionary entrepreneur, like Ted Turner. He wasn't there all the time, but when he was there, you kind of listen because he was, he was funny. He could story tell. He had this idea that the world needed 24 hour news. And there were days when we said, I don't know, like, maybe they don't, a lot of people say they don't need 24 hour news. And I was there at the company when a, when a government learned that Iraq learned that their country was being bombed. And it was that day when the head of Iraq called the White House and said, I just learned that my country is being bombed. I was watching CNN. And so that, just that moment. And that's what it takes to make the visionary entrepreneur, the crazy one, the one that nobody believed, that's what makes people believe it's those moments. And so to be able to have witnessed when that kind of thing happened. Again, I didn't get it then. I just thought, oh, we're doing better. Now people actually want to buy advertising on CNN. But until that moment happened. It was, it was, you know, this late stage chart up. So the company grew, continued to grow. I was there for another year and a half, got engaged, moved out to San Francisco with my, with my fiancee. He wanted to do this thing called technology law. No one was doing it in Sanford and New York. Everybody said, go ask. You can come back to New York in a bit. And so the only name that kind of came to mind and kind of company that came to mind. I, again, grew up in Arizona. I didn't really know people in northern California. But it was Apple computers. So I had saved all my waitressing and babysitting money from growing up to buy a Macintosh to do all my papers and journalism. And so I had been kind of quietly obsessed with Steve Jobs and had, you know, the, the, the difference between a regular, you know, computer that was out there by IBM and Xerox and some of the others versus an Apple computer. It was huge. I mean, it was just a beautiful little thing, not as little as they are today with a nice cute little Apple on it. And it was awesome. You know, it was the iMac. It was just, it was great and not very many of my friends had one, but I, I was lucky enough to have one. So I thought, how do I get a job with Apple when I come to the Bay Area. I'm living in San Francisco. And then I figured out that Cupertino where they were based was pretty far away. So I thought, I don't know what's kind of far, but in my research about the company, I found that there were these five guys that had worked at Apple and they spun a project that was a little known Steve Jobs idea out into the separate small company and it was called two market. And I thought, I'm going to just reach out to them. Because what do I have to lose me. Maybe they'll know how I can get a job at Apple and meet Steve and, and, and so I cold called a guy that was quoted in an article. And I said, hey, do you know, can I take you to lunch. I just moved here from the Bay Area. I'm really interested in what you're doing. And it was a CD-ROM disc that was like one of three in the market at that point. And it was the focus was basically getting people to shop on this disc. And so Steve had this idea that inside of Apple that if, if you could get all of the graphics put on a disc and just tell consumers to insert it in their computer, then, then, you know, bandwidth and all of those things broadband was not out. I mean, all of, we're in dial up. You could barely stay in, you know, a chat room, right. And it was just, it was, I thought it was just really interesting and really genius. And again, I wasn't an engineer. I felt like it was just something that every day I could go in and, and be intrigued if I could ever get a job there. So I also really, we talked about culture before. And I think that that's where I saw my, the third culture, very different where everybody had always worn a suit in my jobs in New York. And when I moved out and, and ultimately after my coffee with this gentleman to market there, they were, it was such a different atmosphere that I saw. It was startup startup. It was like very started. Yeah. And it was like jeans and t-shirts. There were, you know, two people with PhDs, you know, engineers, product managers, all of a sudden I walk in the door. The only woman, first of all, but also they were, they were excited to talk to me and kind of hear more about my experience in New York. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode factor. Now it's a new year. I'm busy. I always, always, always am running out of time. So when it comes to meals, I don't want to wait in line at a grocery store. I don't want to even have to drive if I don't have to. And I definitely don't want to spend a ton of time cooking in the kitchen. But now I don't have to meal plan or prep thanks to factor factor makes it easy for me to eat clean 24 seven. They deliver fresh never frozen prepared meals that are so delicious. You won't believe they're actually good for you. 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But also excited to hear about my experience working for a company that they perceived as apple light which was CNN. And about they wanted to know what Ted Turner was like and they had all of the and I'm sitting here wait you work for the God right Steve over there and here they were like Steve I was fine he's like super you know and and so all the sudden we had this like marriage where we both wanted to know about each other's experiences. And I had been doing sales at CNN was the last role that I had and you know I asked him like how do you guys make money. And on this I mean you're going out to j crew and LLB and all these catalogers but what where the economics of it and at CNN that's what Ted cared about right he cared about making money and and just when I saw these like five guys in a room in Silicon Valley I'm like how are you guys going to stay in business like I mean this is this is crazy you know and and again I knew nothing about equity or any of the stuff that I you know later. But I learned but but more than anything I think I learned that contributing and as long as you can contribute. So I think it's a great project that I was interesting right that I was that if I was willing to go out to these retailers if I was willing to set up a business model one of the guys said we'd love to make money we just don't really know how yet we're just building the product. I mean show us how to. So how can we monetize this project I was like yeah because you're not going to be able to pay like for very many salaries if you're just giving this way all day long. So anyway so that ended up one year into working at two market one of our investors was this little company called America online and everybody I remember calling my mom and saying okay like we're over the start up she's like well why not time and CNN I mean like why why did you guys move. To San Francisco and I'm like yeah we just got acquired by this company America online and I'll never forget she just kept saying American is it American online and I'm like no and instead it's like they teach you how to get on the internet it'll be great like there's a new chat rooms it's like it's perfect and they want to meet a run this thing called shopping this button and they had. Done a little bit with with e-commerce and shopping but basically they were watching what we were doing and thought like maybe we just acquire these guys who we've invested in and and you know kind of take the team and see if we can build out a much bigger marketplace. So what I laugh about still to this day is that I didn't even have a revenue target like I had they were like just you know just to your best like everything's going to be fine and and at some point people started waking up a couple of years later I mean it was it was really the first time that I had seen a rocket ship go at you know the the pace that it had CNN it seemed. It was it was a slow rocket ship it was like there was the plane was flying and then it turned into a rocket ship and then it's sort of you know leveled off of it but but for me a while was just like every day we were you know adding people every week thousands of people I mean it was just it was an insane you know thing to sort of witness and at the end of seven years. I was running their e-commerce and shopping partnerships at the end of seven years it was almost a billion dollars in revenue that we were bringing into the company and it was at that point when I thought you know this company is based in Virginia I knew it was based in Virginia but I live in San Francisco I had I had two kids at this point I was pregnant with my third and I I said you know what I'm going to take some time. And it wasn't I didn't hate anyone I wasn't you know having a bad time in tech and nothing like that I just really wanted to live in San Francisco I didn't want to be on an airplane all the time and I had these young kids that I really wanted to see and experience and so it was during that time. That I was really focused on everything around my young kids like what kind of diapers do I use you know what kind of formula I had never thought about any of this I mean even when I was babysitting when I was growing up I I laughed because it was like somebody else buys the diapers somebody you know use use whatever you don't really think about. Nutrition and and all all of that and it was it was really during this time that I started to think about what you put in your system is representative of how healthy and. And active and all that kind of stuff you can be and and I really really believed it and I believed it for my family but I didn't practice it for myself and so for for me I started at that moment really looking at you know. On a scale of you know zero to 10 i'm sitting here telling my kids don't have sugar don't do this don't do this and I'm like wait it do I practice that and I started you know I didn't have a job so this was like my new job i'm like i'm going to keep track of this whole thing and I was always exercising and you know and keeping up with with that but I. More recently developed this terrible adult acne which I never even had as a kid a teenager and I was also just had a really bad stomach and I thought maybe I should really take a look at everything that I'm eating and start reading ingredients and. I also had gained a bunch of weight through all my pregnancies I was excellent gaining weight I was terrible at losing the way and so it was at that moment. When I thought okay i'm going to keep track of all of these things maybe i'm going to go on one of these diets everybody's talking about these different diets i'll see what happens there. And while I was in this process that's when I looked down at my favorite friend my diet coke. That I had been drinking since I was 15 never thought there was anything wrong with my diet coke I drank anywhere from. 8 to 12 cans a day I mean I always had to have my stash people now tell me that when they were in meetings with me if I. didn't have a diet coke like I was different right I would definitely not be able to you know think and focus if I didn't have it which is ironic of course they never said that to me at the time but I really was attached to my diet coke and so when I looked at. My all the ingredients that I've been putting in my body I thought if this were food I wouldn't actually have it so why am I giving it a pass for bring for being a drink and so I thought i'm going to. Take two weeks and i'm going to put it to the side and i'm going to drink water and I remember saying to my husband i'm going to drink water and i'm not going to drink. Diet soda anymore and he was like how like how are you going to do that I mean you're cold turkey you're just going to do it i'm like yep it's like going to happen and and it was really hard I was super miserable for. First few days were the hardest and then I got used to it i'm like just make sure i'm not having it and i'm not cheating along the way and what I realized was that water for me the reason I didn't drink it was it was super boring and I. Growing up in Arizona I should have been drinking a lot more water but I didn't do it and I swapped it out for with this diet soda and so I started slicing fruit through it in the water to get. Me to enjoy water and that's when two and a half weeks later I lost 24 pounds and two and a half weeks my skin cleared up my stomach was better my energy was better and I thought. Oh my gosh like why isn't anyone talking about this like why are so many people drinking these diet so does this was 17 years ago and you know and I would. People would see me they hadn't seen me in a few weeks and see I look like a different person when you lose that much weight in two weeks I mean you look like borderline sick right your your bodies trying to catch up with what. This detox almost right yeah like it's significant but I felt so much better and so I would share with people that it really wasn't the food that I was eating it was this. That was spiking my my insulin levels I had always thought that insulin by the way was only the thing that people talked about if you had diabetes and you know that that was like you know people are concerned about it but it ends up when you put something sweet in your body that it doesn't. Just mean sugar it means anything that sweet that actually triggers your brain to produce this thing called insulin and there's some people that are better at processing it than others and and again I knew a little bit about science but science wasn't my major I certainly wasn't a nutritionist but I knew enough to sort of. Make me curious make me interested in what I was stumbling upon and I I started to look at these you know multi billion dollar companies Coca Cola Pepsi you know that all the juice all the soda that was out there and I also looked at all of these. These diets that were out there and there was just big money and behind all of them and and you know all these all these diet sweeteners that were out there were constantly changing they were getting better how were they getting better so again I didn't have a job so this became my job that I just became so passionate about it and. I remember thinking like why am I so passionate about it because there's all this new information to me on learning so much but also I felt like I was seeing something so clearly that so many other people that I knew didn't have an opportunity to see which was if there were if there was a change in. The availability of these diet sweeteners or if consumers actually knew what I knew and and had gone through the experience that I had experienced would the diet soda industry be so big would. This new disease called type 2 diabetes actually be in growing at the rate that it was growing would you know these diets that were out would people with the consumer of be buying into these diets if they actually figured out how their body reacted to sweet as I had and I thought I should take this water because it. It was pretty easy for me once I started slicing up fruit and throwing it in water to get water to drink it and replace the diet so it doesn't want to. Yeah and so I thought I'm I'm going to just there's this brand new store called Whole Foods and I'm going to go up to Whole Foods and if they don't have that product then I'm going to talk to the guy who's stocking the shelves and I'm going to say hey how do I get a product in here and see what happens and I'll never forget like doing just that. And on my shopping trip right I'm all by myself but I'm like got my cart and he's like I don't know I just work here and I'm like but. Like there's a lot of brands in here that aren't in sort of you know regular grocery stores and he said oh yeah there's like a local program that we have that. He was like here's here's who you talk to and about getting your product in here and I was like oh and so you just talk to a person and and then you can get your product in here and he was like yeah you know that's how it. And a couple weeks later I came back and he said yeah you just like really educated me about you know I've been drinking vitamin water for you know the last couple of years and I keened all these all this weight and then I just stopped and I realized like what I was doing and I never really thought about it and I was like I know me too like it's just. It's all this healthy perception that's out there versus healthy reality and it's just not right and he was like I totally agree and so weird conversations like that would come up where I felt like I was touching on something that nobody had really thought about yet if I could actually. Get the product out there and get people to see what I was seeing by and how easy it was just by drinking something that solved the problem for them around the taste of water then I did change a lot of people's health. And and that was my purpose then it's my purpose today so when people say to me you know how did you decide to start a beverage company for from you know coming from tech like what were you crazy like why why would you do that and I was like I had this massive purpose sitting in front of me that I I saw an opportunity to go and. Change not only an industry but multiple industries the health industry the you know tackling these diet sweeteners you know really being a consumer advocate to help people do what they didn't really see and. I think I go back I'll say one one more thing when I talked about you know Ted Turner and I didn't work directly for Steve jobs but indirectly for people who had worked for him or indirectly for Steve case thinking back on these visionary entrepreneurs during a time when people thought it was crazy why do we need another drink. You know how is this different from vitamin water and you know and all what I didn't realize until a little bit in like a month into launch was that I was not only launching a new company and a new product but also a new category. In an industry that was a multi billion dollar industry that is a massive undertaking and if somebody would have told me before I launch I I would have said that that's for some other girl to do that that's like not what I'm going to do. But when I saw how much I could help when I listen to the consumers who were saying how much they enjoyed drinking water again how much this product was helping them control type to diabetes which was a tiny percentage of the population which is now 40% of the population has type to diabetes or pre diabetes it's the. You know number one scary thing to have when combating COVID you know that is most of the cases of of people who are in hospitals today have some sort of complications stemming off of type to type to diabetes or type one diabetes but. Again I saw this as much bigger than a beverage industry and every time I hit those challenges every time people would look at me as the visionary entrepreneur I would think back at those other entrepreneurs who I had witnessed being called the same thing and I thought until. Until it makes sense to people you're considered crazy right you're considered you know people will have their doubts but when they get it the beauty is then they come back and they say we always knew you're on to something you know and it's it's what people do so it's I think I never really thought of myself as one day i'm going to be an entrepreneur. But I think being able to work for entrepreneurs being able to see you know people who were doing the impossible until it was possible was so helpful in allowing me to do what I do today so long long journey story but an important one. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot now the new year might have you thinking ahead to what you want out of your career so when you think about your success story what do you actually picture is it retiring early with a beautiful view of the skyline is it leaving a legacy with your name on it or maybe it's helping influence and change some of the world's most pressing issues whatever it is writing your success story starts by working smart because when you work smart your success story writes itself. HubSpot CRM platform helps your marketing campaigns work harder and smarter with intuitive visual workflows and bot builders you can create scalable automated campaigns across email social media web and chat so your customers hear your messages loud and clear. Are you tired of your content not adapting to mobile making it difficult for your customers to absorb your message HubSpot CRM platform optimizes your content for multiple devices so that you can reach your customers wherever they are which is just smart learn more about how you can transform your customer experience with a HubSpot CRM at HubSpot.com. It's a very important story I think I'm going to ask a couple questions out of that but the one thing that I noticed that really really is such a great trait that you have is you mentioned a curiosity but also just taking massive action. Like every single thing that you said you did in your life it was a new job it was figuring out how to get hands into whole food it's just you just you're curious and you just do stuff you just do a whole bunch of shit like that's it and you're and eventually like not everything's going to work but if you if you take enough action if you do enough activities towards the thing that you want to do. Things start to fall into place things start to start to come together right and that's really that's I think that of course you know being successful there's a lot of different things that contribute to that but I think that that's probably one of the main things that I pulled out that you just do continuously that probably got you a lot of the things that you are you have right now just taking that action again and again and again as opposed to just ruminating on it thinking on it. In whole foods you know like instead of like worrying about the process you just went up to some guy who's talking shells and you're like hey how do you do this versus trying to like cold email like you know maybe trying to figure out like feeling a forms or like I don't even know what the process would be if I even had to start but just like that why not why not ask the guys out in the shells right like why not do that I love that. I think even writing a book I think you start to think through a lot of these you know these things too and you know people had asked me for years just in interviews for hint like you know how how were you fearless how are you you know so brave and I think early on. Look my parents were 40 back when they had me the last kid and that was old I mean that was like nobody had parents that were as old as my parents and and I think they always let they gave me a lot of rope right they they basically said you can do stuff but you you know you have to think about it you have to explain it you have to go and and kickstart it in some way like I remember even signing up. For gymnastics classes I would figure out like I there was nobody who was going to sit there and say okay well here's your choice you have my near weather I'd be like I need your checkbook like now because I just I need this I need to get in this class now and I was always used to advocating for myself that I could make it happen. But I didn't have the helicopter you know parent over me saying to me here it is instead I just I would always look at life is you know I can probably figure out it wasn't that my parents weren't there that if I needed help figuring stuff out but I also got a lot of pride and actually going and figuring stuff out when other people waited and I think that you know it's something that I think about today when when things just seem a little you know tough or hard and in in some way I my my next step I guess is to go and talk to people go and figure it out like how do I make it happen I am constantly I do not allow the minute I start watching that wall. And it still happens to this day in various you know situations but when I see the wall starting to build and it starts to get higher and it starts to get scarier I stop it I try and figure out how do I you know knock it down how do I did mystify it in some way. Yeah I want to ask you I want to this is a good this is a good spot to just ask about undaunted about that word that you chose because you describe all these other emotions you describe fear you just like a little bit of imposter syndrome mixed in their confidence. Tenacity persevere like all these things that have allowed you to be and anybody to be successful really but what what is what is undaunted mean to you why did you choose that word for your book versus something like fear maybe fear this is already a book I don't know yet to choose something. Yeah well I'm done. I mean even when I turned in my manuscript I didn't have a word for I didn't have a title for the book I mean I had been you know tossing around fearless relentless I mean think words that people had called me over the years and had called me or who had sort of shared what I do that is different than what they can't do and I would always have these you know one or two liners that I would say to people you know whenever I'd hear people say oh I I could never do that I think back on things like yeah I thought about that to like you know getting over a fear of heights you know I I'll go and hike the Grand Canyon and people are like whoa you're afraid of heights like what why would you choose to do that because I don't want to live in fear. I don't want to not understand finance so I go and take classes I'm constantly looking for those things that I fear and I think over time what those things do. When when you take on situations when you take on things that scare you and you go achieve those things they don't necessarily always turn out the way that you thought but what they do do is allow you to know that it wasn't as bad and it wasn't as scary as you thought it was right and so I think over time people people would say to me but but how do you do that and and that's what I really thought about you have to be undaunted right you have to sort of like purposely push yourself into that position because no one else is going to push you to do it right you don't push somebody who is afraid of heights to go and hike the Grand Canyon it has to start with you and it has and you have to do it because it's something that you want to get over right and I think it's the same thing about people are like how did you decide to be an entrepreneur like I think for me I saw it as I'd seen other people do it which I think was helpful but I also it just it didn't seem as scary to me because I had watched these other people but I thought every single day I'm waking up and thinking about doing this and I'm making progress you know I I go to whole foods I barely start talking to you barely start talking to the guy stocking the shelves and then he hooks me up with this guy that you know is talking to me about their local program and I thought and then I it was fairly easy to connect with that person and then I get like the next steps and then every day I start on those steps and I find that like two weeks before I didn't know what I was doing and then I just got in and I started moving it forward so again if you don't choose to live unwanted you're not going to hike the Grand Canyon you're not going to start a company I have a lot of entrepreneurs especially female entrepreneurs who say to me like I can't raise money and I'm like it starts with you right I'm a female entrepreneur I've raised a ton of money has it been easy do I meet with twice as many people that a guy meets I don't know because I've never been a guy I don't I you're saying but you're saying you know what if you do you just do it you're doing it anyway it may not be it may not be the it may not be perfect it may not be the best but you're doing it you're getting it done you next step you know one foot in front of the other you don't believe that you can actually achieve anything then it then it doesn't get done right if it starts with you and people can read it they can if you don't believe if you walk in to go raise money and you believe like go you know experts very low percentage of women you know are able to raise money and whatever it is if you have that in your head it's never going to happen I can guarantee you it will not happen my daughter is in is in college now she'll kill me for talking about this but she's she's majoring in storytelling she's that brown she's an incredible writer and she's tried out for a few things and hasn't gotten them and you know she's she's chosen to live undaunted picked a profession of storytelling and feeder and and wants to do this it's a choice and it's it's hard because rejection is really hard but I think that what I'm sharing with her to is you have a choice you can actually it's a numbers game you got to just keep going or you can just decide I'm not going to do it anymore I'm not going to try out for any more plays I'm not going to submit my manuscripts to festivals anymore to try and you know get money and I she was really dumbed out at me by the way what I she was talking to me about this last night I said you know what you'll get exactly what you want you'll get the play it where you'll act in you'll you'll get your script picked up but then you know what will happen and she said what and I said you'll be happy for a week and then somebody will somebody will review it and they'll say it was terrible right and I said and and this is the world right and and if you let these things take you instead of appreciating the journey that that you're on and continuing to figure out how do I keep going how do I keep moving forward then you won't live the life that you'll be totally happy with instead go figure it out go figure out what you want to do try it and if nothing else I always said to people when people people would say to me when I was launching a beverage company you don't stay out of tech for very long because you'll never get back in you'll never you'll be you know people think you're you know not focused you you don't have experience whatever I'm like 10 minutes ago you were telling me I'm awesome and you were quitting me for a job like all of a sudden you've decided you know based on me telling you that I'm going to go and start a company all the skills all the things that I learned a lot in the way if it doesn't work out and they're like well I don't know I mean to stay out for more than six months I'm like why six months I don't know like I'm like have you are there statistics about six months maybe it's a year I'm like you have no idea what you're talking about at the at the end of the day and anyway I just think like that the challenges of of you know building a startup some of these stories that I'm sharing Now I are things that I really wanted to write out in in my book too because I think no matter what you think about entrepreneurism it's way harder than you ever are setting out to to think about and you know there's there's plenty of unicorns out there but there's way more way more failures and the journey even if you're a failure it could mean that you had a product that didn't do well during the pandemic you could have supply chain issues that you know you relied too much on Asia which whose factories shut down for whatever it is could sink your company but I think that that's another thing that I talk about too it's just it's not it's not black and white it's not that you've got the unicorns or you've got the failures it's the people that get back up again are really the ones that you have to watch. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode Shopify and don't you love that sound as a sound of another sale on Shopify be all in one commerce platform to start run and grow your business see Shopify gives entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big businesses so upstarts startups and established businesses alike can sell everywhere synchronize online and offline sales activity and effortlessly stay informed you can not only sell your product but you can reach customers online and across social media networks with an ever growing suite of channel integrations and apps including Facebook Instagram TikTok Pinterest and more you can gain insights as you grow and detailed reporting of conversion rates profit margins and beyond whatever you need to track Shopify contract for you and remember Shopify was built to liberate commerce for entrepreneurs and big businesses alike Shopify is tirelessly reinventing tools of growth and scale for over 1.7 million businesses so 1.7 million businesses trust Shopify to help them organize their online and synchronize with their offline sales you should be able to use it for your business as well connect with your customers drive sales manager day accept all major payment methods and integrate with any third party app you could possibly think of if you want to try out Shopify right now go to Shopify.com slash success story that's all lower case for a free 14 day trial and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features grow your business with Shopify today go to Shopify.com slash success story right now remember success story is all lower case that's Shopify.com slash success story can I ask you one more one more startup one more startup question and then I'll and then I'll do a couple we can close with some like rapid I was really good and honestly I feel like you have so many stories that we could probably go for like a while. I realize a lot to like a part two sometime in the future when you do a do one for your podcast doing for your next book whatever I want to know when you have a passion like what you have so as opposed to a founder that's coming from they just did an exit and they are a very technical founder and they'll analyze a market you know need to find a total dress will market the fine product market will take the market that's not the founder that I'm trying to help I'm trying to help the founder that has a passion like you had with water with flavored water. What in the world you do to figure out how to take that to market when you have no experience in that category or that industry that to me blows my mind how you were able to do that because you didn't come from five other beverage companies. Yeah you came from tech and you just had a passion and you did it. So what's what would be the I don't know pick pick one to three most important things. I don't know what it would take. So what did you do? I think be ready to be humbled by all you don't know and with that be able to ask questions. I think my ability to ask questions is I think people struggle with wanting, especially as you get older and the more experience you have wanting to look smart. Right. And versus actually being inquisitive and I think that for me, I just always felt like get being inquisitive was where you were going to learn the most. So here I had in the tech industry, I was getting recruited by Google and Yahoo and all the rest of them who are out at that time, you know looking for somebody to go do e-commerce, but I felt like I was teaching a lot and mentoring a lot and not learning. So this obsession, this passion that I had around drinks. I I you know saw this like huge, huge mountain in front of me that I had to learn about, but I was also so energized how I had stumbled upon, you know, this world that I knew nothing about when I need so much about the tech industry and new so my whole network was in the tech industry. The other thing was was that I was obsessed with the fact that, you know, I knew what Coke was and Procter & Gamble and some of the others, but I didn't really know people in that industry at all. So for me, the first step was, how do I actually know what the lay of the land is? I go to this new store called Whole Foods. I'm already like they're shopping and, you know, why not? I'll just start talking to people and and the combination of being okay with not being, you know, the most knowledgeable in the room, coupled with the ability to go and ask a lot of questions. When you are willing to be vulnerable, show that, you know, you're not trying to, people would ask me like the guy stuck in the shelves, he'd say, so you're interested in launching a beverage company. Did you used to work at Coke? No, what'd you do? Oh, I was in tech. He's like, okay, she's in tech. He didn't even ask me like, what was she doing? What's your title? What'd you do? And tech, you just knew I was some like lady who came to Whole Foods and went shopping. And so I, he discounted me before I even started, which was great because I thought the bar is so low. Nobody thinks that I'm going to be able to do this. So nobody's even watching all my friends in tech. They didn't know anything about the beverage industry. They sort of, you know, quietly ridiculed me and said, I don't know. Like she's either staying home with her kids or she's like, I don't know, she's doing some beverage thing. I don't know. It tastes pretty good, but I, who knows. I have no idea. She's funny and, you know, whatever. And, but that was. So I think that that that's probably the most important thing is being able to, being able to ask questions and humble yourself and surround yourself with people that are going to teach you versus you feeling like you've got to teach everyone else. Like that's good advice. That's a really good advice. So you just, you just, you just humbled and that's actually something that people have a lot of trouble with. Especially if they're coming from any sort of experience in another industry. Yeah. How many themselves and realize they don't know anything. The thing too. I mean, I was pretty tapped into, you know, the whole tech world speaking at a lot of these conferences and. And now I'm going into the beverage world. I'm trying to figure out, you know, what are the conferences where I can start to talk to people and network and it was so fun. Like I just bought a ticket. I wasn't speaking. I didn't know Jack. Right. So I'm, I'm like sitting there going. I'm, I'm just like. I have a mission. Okay. I'm going to fly out there and go check it out. But again, like I would just meet people that said, oh, what'd you do before? Oh, I was in tech. I, they wouldn't even, I wouldn't say I was at a while. I built e-commerce. Like they, they just immediately were like, oh, you didn't work at Coke or Pepsi. Okay. She's kind of a waste of time. And so I'm not even, I mean, she seems nice. Maybe I'll have a beer with her. But that's it. Why should I spend any time with her? Because, you know, she's not going to make it. It's not, it's not so though. But so again, like I just kept talking to people and kept weaving a lot of those conversations together. And more than anything, like I loved it that no one knew who I was because I thought it's awesome. Like people would know who I was at the other ones. I loved being, you know, this like anonymous person who was just trying to do something that, you know, is was, was different. And frankly, I mean, people have said to me, do you spend a lot of time like at the beverage conferences and food conferences. Oh, I mean, I think for me, I'm constantly looking at places, not only where my customers are. So, you know, we've grown to be the number one beverage and Silicon Valley when offices were open and Google and Facebook and all the rest of them. But I wanted to be where my customers were because I felt like that's where I can learn not just about how to produce a product, but how do I continue to service them. And so I've always thought about if I can figure out, for example, if people are drinking hint, are they wearing Warby Parker glasses. Are they what, you know, you, you might find me at an apparel show where I'm sitting there, listening to somebody talk about direct to consumer or building brand or whatever. And then again, like they're like, what do you do? I'm like, oh, I'm the CEO of hint, you know, they're like, oh, the water. What are you doing here? No, nothing. I'm just learning, right. You go find these environments that actually teach you something that you don't know. And you become wiser, you become smarter, you become, you know, more confident, you get a bigger network, all of those things that ultimately I think has helped significantly. And last question on this, it's more just on the actual, the book that you put out, if somebody's going to pick up this book, who would you want to read that book, who's like the ideal reader and then what you want them to learn from it. So it's so interesting. I knew that this would be a great book for people who were starting a food and beverage company. I've had, I've mentored many food and beverage entrepreneurs and other entrepreneurs over the years and starting their companies and more than anything I felt like if I could actually take what I had written some of my notes and put it into a book, I could help a lot of those people. What happened since the book came out is we've now had entire classes, schools, UPEN, Arizona State University, Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, lots of people have actually bought the book for various classes. So they're studying it, which is super awesome. So even getting to the entrepreneurs before they're even thinking about being entrepreneurs, but the group that I'm most fascinated with is the people who were kind of like me who were sitting in the sea suite inside of companies. I've had a number of people who had never thought about being an entrepreneur, but they have run a public company for many years. They've, you know, they don't feel like they've really taken any risk. Yet if they've got one more gig in them, you know, then maybe they should actually be following their passion going and doing something to better society in some way. And so if, if my book can actually help people get out of the gate and just go try and not allow the walls around them, really kind of focusing on, you know, themselves and sort of what they fear and why they're not doing it, then I've done my job. Much more than I ever thought it would. So I'm very, very excited to hear from so many people that this book has kind of helped them rethink what was important to them. I love that. That's a good, that's a good mission to have. I think that's important. It's very important. If people want to connect with you, if people want to obviously the book, I'm assuming anywhere you can buy books, Amazon or any other place, you're going to look for undaunted, you'll find it. So podcast or your socials or your website can you drop those so people can check you out. All Kara Golden with an eye and yeah, I'd love to hear from you as well. And my podcast is called the Kara Golden Show and it's all about interviewing other founders and CEOs and their journeys more than anything. I like to pick up on the journeys of people that have had challenges, admit the challenges, failures along the way and people that have gotten back up and gone and done what others won't do or they thought was impossible. So it's, it's really fun and educational for me and so many. That's why I do this right 100% and and I learn every single time I'm talking to, to the guests too. Again, always be learning, always be challenging yourself, always be raising the bar a little bit higher and also always be drinking hint. So I have to still run and always will be the founder, but it's still run the company. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode indeed. Now in 2022, make a commitment. This is the year that you're going to build your business. 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Okay, I can use some rapid fires. That cool. You don't have to go along on these. I wanted some rapid fire. Okay. Biggest challenge that you've had or had to overcome in your personal or professional life. What was it and had you overcome it? I think biggest challenge was. It's hard to do that in a rapid fire, but really looking. I know, I know, I know. That's okay, but really, you know, looking trusting myself that I could go figure it out. I think that that for me 17 years ago, I had assumed that I had really, you know, been in tech and was kind of labeled as tech and therefore I had to stay in tech. And so I, you know, went out and tried to find lots of different experience people who knew a lot more than I did. And what I realized is that when you're starting something, especially a new category that those experienced people typically haven't done your stage. Right. They haven't, they haven't rolled up their sleeves and pulled cases of hint out of the back room at target or. You know, run the run, you know, the bottles at a plant and tried to figure out when the pH levels were, you know, too high. Like what was going on? Like being able to kind of solve problems, I think is much more key than then actually having experience. So that was probably the biggest mistakes in the early days of hint. I love that. If you had to pick one person, obviously, there's been many people that have been influential in your life. Who is that person and what did they teach you? I'd probably say my husband and it sounds so corny in many ways, but, you know, my kids laugh because we met at a bar in New York and it can happen. And 26 years later, we've been married and. I want to use our chief operating officer. So we've done it. You know, there's definitely when people meet him, we're very different. There's definitely Yang and Yang and, and I think more than anything. He appreciates me for me. Right. And it feels like if, you know, that I'm smart in my own way, he's smart in his own way. And together, we're undaunted. So I think I'm, you know, thankful for that. A book or podcast or audible or some source, other than your own that you'd recommend people go check out. So many. I have so many up here on my wall. Pick one you read recently or want to just stuck with you. Something that you'd recommend people go. Yeah, well, one actually just interviewed him from my podcast. This, and I reread this book and I actually, I love rereading books because I think I oftentimes like I put it down for a couple of years and I go back, but. This guy Scott Harrison, who started charity water and about the same time, frankly, that hint started and the book is called thirst. And it's a really interesting book and in some ways, you know, similar to hint in that he came from a totally different career. He was open to 40 night clubs in New York and was parting like a rock star and thought that, you know, just being able to sit next to Jay Z was like, you know, that was the key to the kingdom. And what he's realized is that actually helping people and changing people's lives for the better in some way was something that he needed. It's a, you know, pretty powerful. I think he's in 29 countries. Now he's providing clean water and to over 70 million people. So it's again, something where it wasn't obvious to people that he was going to be able to do it and had a lot of, you know, challenges along the way, but that's a great book. And it's a great story of following your passion and doing good. And it's he's a not for profit company, but I, I think it's, it's also something that, you know, people I think should be aware of too that you can do good for profit. It doesn't have to be a nonprofit. So anyway, there's, it was a good podcast. You'll be out in a couple of weeks, but I love his story. I know him. I don't know him personally, sorry, but I know his story. It's actually really interesting because Cuzzy came from the night life scene and then just like total pivot. Yeah. And in many ways, I think he thinks that he sort of mentally bottomed out, right? Like he, you know, achieved what he wanted and then all the sudden he's like, is this it, you know, and I think it's just, it's a, it's a good story, especially for people who might be feeling like, you know, I'm working at the best company and making a great salary. I'm just not feeling it, right? And then I think you, you have to live undonted. You have to go out and change and, you know, change your scenery and do what you've got to do until you figure it out. I agree, I agree. If you could tell your 20 year old self one thing, what would it be? Continue asking questions along the way. I mean, I was always asking questions, as I mentioned, and I think that, you know, it wasn't always an asset. I mean, it wasn't a total like pain in the ass, but I was, I think sometimes people, especially when you're, when you're in classes and you're constantly asking people questions, my hand was always the one to go up, not because I, you know, felt like I, I, no one else was asking questions, or I wanted to get attention, I really was curious. And so continue asking questions along the way and, and don't be afraid. What other people think? I love that. And then last last question. What is success mean to you? I think being fulfilled. And I think that that can come in a lot of different ways. And, you know, just going off of Scott's story too, at charity water. It's not about money. It's about, it's about doing what you want to do every single day. It's about having people around you that love you for who you are and who you love as well. I think it's, it's, it's, that to me is, is really the key things to success.