From Corporate Lawyer to Waffle Maker

Speaker 0 00:00:00 I'm so fascinated by people who create companies based on a need in their own life. Our next guest really just invented Evergreen Fresh because of a need she found for her future family and little kids to feed them more healthy. And today, she's running this frozen waffle empire that is healthy for you, makes your life a little bit better in the morning when your kids are off the rails, and really solves a nutrition problem for all young families. I hope you'll enjoy hearing Emily Rodin talk about Evergreen Fresh. Emily, I'm so excited to talk about your business and all the successes you're having. Um, I'm very fascinated, uh, how you picked what you picked, um, waffles. And I also am super jealous because my kids aren't young, and I'm not feeding them waffles every day. <laugh>, I didn't know. So is that still a thing? People feed their kids every day? Waffles. Speaker 2 00:01:12 Uh, both of my daughters had waffles this morning and they actually also had waffles for dessert last night, <laugh>. So yes, it is an everyday occurrence at our house. Okay. Sometimes multiple times a day. Yeah. Oh, Speaker 0 00:01:23 Wow. You love it. Where you were destined to start a waffle company then? Speaker 2 00:01:25 I, who knew? I mean, if you had asked me, I graduated from law school in 2015, and if you'd told me then that, you know, fast forward eight years that I'd be making waffles for my career, I would've laughed at you for sure. Yeah. I think was unexpected, to say the least. Speaker 0 00:01:43 No, I love your story and we'll, we'll get into that. And I do think it's interesting. I've been recently both interviewed and met a ton of lawyers, and I've come to realize that, um, you are the dominant brains in the world, <laugh>. Um, and so I'm sure you can't figure anything out, but it does, it is a pretty big leap, um, going from, you know, probably a, a, a very cerebral, um, kind of a job to what in, in businesses, it's a lot of tactics all day long. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, plus strategy, plus people, plus money, plus all the things. So as you sit here, uh, a couple of years into a very successful, uh, journey, what do you think are the, the tailwinds that you have going for the company right now? Speaker 2 00:02:22 Great question. Um, I mean, I, I think that, I think that I happen to, you know, land on a product at a moment where there was a real need for it. Um, and what it's kind of, what's nice about starting a company that comes from a genuine, authentic need, right? Like, I didn't sit around trying to come up with ideas of companies to start. I never intended to be an entrepreneur. I'm an accidental entrepreneur. Um, but truly, I mean, the, the way I got the idea was I heard a podcast driving home from work one night, and it happened to be talking about the frozen waffle category, which is super random. But, um, you know, the long and the short of it was that Eggos were still such a dominant force in the category. And I was pregnant with my first daughter, who's now four and three quarters, she'll tell you. Speaker 2 00:03:16 Um, but it just made me pause and think, you know, I'm a working mom. I'm gonna need a feeder, something like a frozen waffle. I don't want it to be an Eggo. What else is out there? And for whatever reason, I just decided to start doing a little research in the grocery store frozen aisle, and realized that even the better free waffles really weren't all that much better for you than an Eggo when you flipped around the package and actually looked at the ingredients. And I just wasn't willing to settle for that. Um, and so I bought a mini waffle iron from Amazon, and the rest is history. Speaker 0 00:03:49 Such a good story. I mean, I love when people solve problems that are, you know, uh, not so obvious, but obvious. So you've now already, you know, gone through your initial years, you've changed manufacturers, you've come out with more products. What would you say, like, of all the things and hired people, and I know you've just added a bunch of people, what do you think every day when you get up is the part that you absolutely dread doing of your job? <laugh>? Cause I think it's real <laugh>. Yeah. We all have that part. And then what's the part that you just know you're in your sweet spot and you're in your lane? Yeah. Speaker 2 00:04:22 Um, I was thinking about this last night because I was reviewing, we are about to launch a new product. We debuted the line at Expo West, which was the big, uh, trade show in California every year for, um, consumer packaged goods. But it's frozen, uh, waffle breakfast sandwiches. So we have four skews, um, chicken sausage, egg and cheese, Turkey bacon. Actually, we just switched to regular bacon, bacon, egg and cheese, spinach, egg and cheese, and egg and cheese. But I was sent the artwork, the flats for the, um, packaging and had to do the final review. And I was sitting there, it took me so long to even open the files. I'd procrastinated about 10 other things first. Um, because that to me is really painful. It's funny, I, I, you know, the law, practicing law is so detail oriented and so tedious, kind of like reviewing <laugh> final set of artwork for packaging. Speaker 2 00:05:18 Um, and it's, that's my least favorite thing to do. Anything super tedious, super detail oriented. Um, I think I'm fairly good at it. That's what I was trained to do, but it just, um, it's not so fun to me. It, it's, you know, it makes me nervous that I'm gonna miss something. What I love to do now is kind of step back and the kind of big picture strategy. Um, I love, you know, or we just started working with a branding agency to, um, do a rebrand. Um, really do a, you know, deep dive and try to figure out like, who are we, what is our personality as a brand? How do we create a community around our brand? And so we're going through all those questions, you know, sitting back and having discussions and thinking and, and talking about that kind of thing. I love, um, thinking about new products. Speaker 2 00:06:08 I love, um, you know, I love doing sales pitches, talking to retailers. I, I actually really love talking to potential investors and telling our story. Um, I love doing this, talking to people about, about the product, about the company, um, about where we came from, where we're going. So, so yeah, it's, you know, it also just goes to show like, I probably should never have been a lawyer if the things I dislike the most are, are the things you, you know, you the skill sets you need for the law. Um, but I, I like being, you know, just talking with people, being out in front, um, out, out from behind my computer. Speaker 0 00:06:44 Oh, that's awesome. So you have gotten some pretty impressive customers that I imagine are pretty hard to get into as a small company, maybe because you're not proven enough, or because they worry about having enough product if it starts selling. What do you think was the real make or break for how you got into Whole Foods? Speaker 2 00:07:02 It's funny, it, um, in some ways it was a lot easier to get into Whole Foods than I thought it required. I applied in, um, September of 2019 to be a local vendor. Uh, so Whole Foods has a local vendor program. Um, they have this whole team of local scavengers around the country whose whole job it is, is to find smaller local brands to bring into their stores. Um, and it's an, and it's an incredible entree into the retail world if you can, if you can get the gig. Um, but they also do a really great job kind of holding the brand's hands once they're in stores and kind of teaching them about what it's like to be on a retail shelf. Um, so I applied to that program and, um, you know, they asked me to submit samples. I submitted samples, and within a few weeks, they said, you're accepted how many stores you wanna launch in. Speaker 2 00:07:55 And you could launch in, you know, you could choose one store, you could choose, you know, I chose, I was like, how many stores are in Illinois? And they said, 28. And I said, sure, sounds good. And then I had to figure out how to manufacture that many waffles pretty quickly. Um, but I have found, and this, I'm sure it's consistent with your experience as an entrepreneur, so much progress happens. If you're just willing to write the email or make the phone call, pick up the phone, ask the question, send a LinkedIn message, you never know, you know, what response you're gonna get if you're gonna get a response at all. But there's nothing to lose in, in putting yourself out there. Speaker 0 00:08:32 Yeah. I really liked, when I heard you speak, I really liked that, um, a lot of the successes, including your recent raise, was you kind of pinging investors and, and actively looking for them versus them finding you. And that's a huge, a great reminder for people listening and, and a great reminder just to me that I think a lot of the things that I've made happen, so to speak mm-hmm. <affirmative>, were just simply reaching out mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, um, I think everyone, no matter who you are and what level you are and how many people are calling you, loves having opportunities presented to them. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Speaker 2 00:09:08 Yeah. And I'll, I'll go one step further and say that a lot of the opportunities I've had were nos at first, the first time I reached out. Yeah. So it's not just reaching out and getting in front of somebody, it's then following up. Right. Um, because a no is never a no, it's just a not right now. Yeah. Um, but so many retailers said no the first time, this isn't the right time. And, uh, you know, a past version of myself maybe would've, you know, walked away with my head down thinking, oh, it's never gonna happen. But if you just ask again a few months later, the answer might be totally different. Um, but yeah. I mean, so much of my life and career path has come from a cold email, um, or a phone call as you said. I mean, I, to to go back several steps, I started at a big law firm, and then my first pivot was to work in-house at Alinea. And that whole job opportunity came from a cold email. Um, but yes, to your point, I mean, no investors coming and knocking on my doors, <laugh>, that's not true. I've had a few, but, um, but, you know, all of my current investors I, I reached out to. Speaker 0 00:10:12 Okay. So I wanna segue to, um, the money raise just because, uh, I know that's part of your journey and certainly something lots of startups at some point go through. What was it that you, you know, made you decide that you needed to go out for a money raise? Speaker 2 00:10:29 Well, I needed money <laugh> cashflow. Yeah. I had, uh, no, I had, um, for the first three years of the business had, uh, you know, bootstrapped it, uh, myself. And, uh, that took us quite a ways, but got to a point where, um, a uh, didn't, you know, wanna use my family's money anymore. Um, but b uh, knew that we had this real opportunity to grow pretty quickly, and that it was gonna require, um, you know, more funds than we could provide. The thing about our industry is it's really expensive in the beginning, and companies really aren't expected to break even until you're making, you know, maybe 10 million in revenue. Um, and so Speaker 0 00:11:12 Wait, wait. Go back to that. So, really, you don't, like, consumer packaged companies typically don't make money if their sales are sub 10 million. It's Speaker 2 00:11:20 <laugh>, it's, it's a really expensive industry. Obviously that's gonna vary a little bit depending on what your product is. Frozen happens to be really expensive. Sure. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, um, there's a lot of investment upfront. Um, you know, we often partner with third party manufacturers. That's expensive. Um, retailers require a lot of promotions. You know, whenever you see a product on sale at a store, it's the brand that is funding that sale. Um, there's a, you know, capital investments, um, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The list goes on, uh, distributor networks, you know mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, most of the retailers require you work with a distributor who obviously that's another cut along the way. Yeah. Um, so yeah, so, so you are not, you know, expected to make money for years in this industry. So at a certain point, um, fundraising just kind of makes sense. Speaker 0 00:12:15 Okay. So that, that makes sense. Um, do most people start these businesses with the end in mind? Speaker 2 00:12:22 That's a good question. I don't know. Um, you know, for me, it has been helpful to have a goal. Uh, it's informed, you know, knowing that I wanted to, you know, I wanna grow quickly and then hopefully be able to sell this company one day. I'm not shy about that. Um, and so that helped inform my decision to raise money. Right. Because there is a, to be clear, I should, I should step back. You can, um, you know, there are some brands that are profitable much earlier than 10 million. Sure. But they're growing a lot more slowly. Right. Um, you know, they might have a goal of growing over 20 years instead of five to seven. Um, and so knowing that I wanted to be able to hopefully sell the company one day in five to seven years for my decision to, to raise outside funds. Okay. Speaker 0 00:13:12 All right. That makes more sense. Yeah. Um, and so your goal is to grow to a point where you're attractive to a strategic or somebody in your field to roll up under their umbrella? Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:13:25 Our mission as a brand is to revolutionize our families eat, starting with the most important meal of the day. And for me, you know, I, um, feel very proud of the reach that we've obtained so far. And I know we have, I mean, we're just scratching the surface. Um, we'll reach a lot more families in the next five to seven years, but, um, you know, plugging into a strategics distribution network, uh, you are within reach of so many more households at that point. So, um, uh, you know, it's both a nice personal outcome, but also it would help us achieve our mission. Speaker 0 00:13:58 Oh, it's also important. And I, I've had lots of people ask me why I sold my first business, and I, I, I just wanted people to hear, you know, you put your family's wealth at risk mm-hmm. <affirmative> for three years for this passion, I did the same thing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, presuming you aren't taking a salary, you know, people don't understand, still haven't taken Speaker 2 00:14:18 A salary. Speaker 0 00:14:19 Right. There's no big money pot. Right. While you're growing these things. Right. And sometimes the only way to, um, to kind of get paid back for the work, if that part of the equation is to have a liquidity event. Right, right. And I, I think people don't understand, you know, it looks very sexy. You're in all these publications, you're, you know, on a lot of important shelves, but they don't understand the economics behind it. Yeah. That you're like juggling all the things. <laugh> Speaker 2 00:14:48 Also just like the implications on your lifestyle. Like I, uh, my husband this morning was like, you need to sleep more. And it's true. I, you know, I, I give my whole being to this company, I also have two young kids. Um, and so I, um, I'm somebody who doesn't do really anything halfway. Yeah. Um, and so a I don't think it's sustainable forever, <laugh>. Um, but b i, you know, I, I, I tell myself, and I, and I do believe this is true, that my two little girls are watching, and that this is, you know, a life lesson for them. And they'll hopefully grow up one day and realizing, you know, I can build something. If I wanna build something, I can, you know, if I start one down one career path, then I don't like it. I can change and I can do something totally different. Um, actually one, I was at my daughter's school, my four and a half year old, four and three quarters, uh, year old school yesterday, because they were celebrating summer birthdays, and she has a summer birthday, and one of her little friends, a five year old turned to me and she said, I really love your waffles. And I said, thank you so much. And she said, I think it's really cool you sell your waffles to stores. And I was like, that is so cool. Yeah. Like, this is, that's what Speaker 0 00:15:58 I'm going Speaker 2 00:15:58 For. This is what I'm going for. Yeah. Um, and so, but, but yeah. I mean, I would like to have a little more time with my kids at some point too. Yeah. You know, um, I'm pushing really, really, really hard now. And, um, I do carve out, uh, time for them, and that's really important. I think that's what keeps me from burning out from the hard work. Um, but yeah, it would be nice to, to, you know, in the handful of years, be able to spend more time with them. Speaker 0 00:16:24 So how do you get from here to a sale? What has to happen Speaker 2 00:16:29 A lot? <laugh>, <laugh>, there's a lot of ways to go. Um, Speaker 0 00:16:32 Is it, is it sales? Is it more products? Is it certain customers? Do you know what all the triggers are that would make you that optimal candidate? Speaker 2 00:16:42 There's not one path, not one equation. Um, it, um, you know, varies by product, by year, by macro environment, you know, uh, certainly more sales. Um, but the thing about retail that, or CPG that a lot of people don't realize is it's not all about how many stores you're in. Um, you have to turn off the shelf. It's called Velocity. Um, well, in order to be successful, so if a strategic looked at you and you were in 10,000 stores, but you, you velocities are really low, you're not selling off the shelf, you're not gonna be an attractive likely, you're not gonna be an attractive target to them. Similarly, with investors, it's velocity is king, is what we say in the industry. So it's, you have to be careful and balance expanding your retail presence with making sure that you are in retailers where you, your velocities are gonna be strong enough and, um, and or that you are throwing the marketing support behind the retailer to make sure people are walking into the store to find your product. Speaker 2 00:17:50 And so it's a, it's a balancing act for sure. Um, so, uh, you know, it's, so it's, it's, it's, it will be expanding our retail presence, but making sure that we, our velocities are there that we're moving off the shelf. Um, so that's throwing marketing support behind, um, behind our retail partners. Um, yeah, there are certain gold star retailers. You know, there are different philosophies in sales in cpg. This is getting into kind of the nerdy weeds of the CPG world, but, you know, there's a school, one school of thought that's, you know, you really saturate the natural channel. So that's like the whole foods and the sprouts and, um, of the world first. And then you move on to the conventional channel, which is more like the Marianos and the jewels of the world. And then you move on to club stores, so like Costco, and then you move on to, you know, big box. Speaker 2 00:18:41 So like Target and Walmart. Um, there's kind of a slightly newer school of thought that says you don't need to go necessarily in that order. You can kind of spread your eggs across multiple baskets, which helps, um, you know, from a risk perspective. Yeah. Uh, having, working with multiple distributors instead of just the natural distributors right out of the gate, um, can be a good thing. Um, but also if you can be successful in, say, a Whole Foods and a Walmart, then there's no better argument that you've hit the nail on the head in terms in terms of product market fit. Speaker 0 00:19:15 Yeah. So I, now you're going into breakfast sandwiches, which as I would think, um, is a lot more complicated of a distribution path versus the, the mix mm-hmm. <affirmative> that sits on a shelf. Is it complicated for both, um, production mm-hmm. <affirmative> the making of it and getting it to the stores? Because you now have refrigerators and all those things? Speaker 2 00:19:36 Right. Well, so our waffles are frozen, so we're already in the frozen space. So the waffles are toaster waffles. Um, so, so the, we've got our cold chain figured out typically to, if any company had a waffle and a frozen waffle breakfast sandwich, um, that would likely be two different manufacturers because, um, you know, your big waffle makers aren't typically working with like sausage and egg and cheese. Um, we, our manufacturing partner can do both, which is amazing. So it really simplifies things. Um, so the same manufacturer makes them, our manufacturer is U S D A, you know, certified, which is required to, um, to make anything with, you know, egg, chicken, whatnot. Um, and then we've already got our cold chain figured out. So it's actually, um, chicken kind of a pulldown, you know, it's different. It's, we're introducing, or we had to, uh, you know, bulk up our supply chain a little bit. We added new suppliers for, um, the cheese and the chicken and the bacon, um, and the spinach. But other than that, we've kinda been able to plug it into preexisting networks. Speaker 0 00:20:42 Okay. So tell me about these recent hires. Um, I think there was somebody, VP marketing. Um, what did you hope to accomplish bringing on such a presence in, in marketing? Yeah. Uh, relatively soon. Speaker 2 00:20:55 Yeah. As I was saying with cpg, you really, if you're gonna really push on sales and build sales, you need to have the marketing to back it up. Because also if your velocities are not there when you launch at a retailer, some of these retailers give you six months to prove yourself. Okay. And then we'll kick you off the shelf if you're not performing. Add on top of that, that often, this goes back to the breakeven comment earlier. Um, most retailers require what are called free fills when you launch with them, which means you have to give a free, sometimes a case, sometimes two cases of product for every flavor, for every skew for every store that you're launching in. So do that math. I mean, I've had free fills can be hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free product that you're giving to a store. Speaker 2 00:21:47 Then if you're not performing in six months, you get kicked up. But you just gave them hundreds of thousands of dollars of free product. So thus it's really important that your velocity days are there. So I knew if I was going to hire a really great sales guy, that I needed to hire a guy because he's a guy I needed to hire a really great marketing gal. She is a gal. Um, and so those are my first two hires. So the, um, kind of higher level goal was to surround myself with people who knew what they were doing. Um, who'd done this before, been there, done that because I was a lawyer and I've never done this. Um, and so I hired a chief sales officer who's been in the industry for 30 years. Um, you know, he grew up, he likes to say napping on crates in the back of the grocery store cuz his dad was a grocer. Speaker 2 00:22:37 He knows the industry inside and out. Um, and so, uh, and has worked with some really great brands, um, that you've probably heard of in the past 15 years when he's been on the brand side doing sales. Um, so he's my sales hire, my marketing hire is a two-time founder herself. Um, she had a, a protein bar that was a national distribution, you know, both at Whole Foods, also at distribution at Walmart. Um, and then her second company was a, a d to C coffee concentrated company. So they've both been in the industry for, I mean, a combined almost 50 years. Yeah. Yeah. And so a I can learn from them. B I don't, uh, necessarily need to micromanage them. Yeah. Um, and they, uh, work really well together. They have a bunch of connections within the industry. Um, so they've been to amazing hires and have, frankly, they both joined in February and just have totally transformed the business. Speaker 0 00:23:37 Oh. You know, from here to, let's just say in five years you sell besides sales, um, you know, will you have to raise more money and dilute again? Um, or is it a goal to not, um, because I'm just always fascinated by, you know, not that soon you'll have a track or you have a track record, you know, are you sure there's not another way to go get this money? Like Right. I'm always like, don't dilute. Right. Like, you know, lever up. There's a pro and a con cuz you can lever up your castle and then you could be without a castle. Like, I get it. Yeah. But it's also like if you get on a path and you're got the right people around you and you're pretty sure you're gonna sell, um, is it worth a little bit more risk to get a way bigger reward? Yeah. Speaker 2 00:24:19 Yeah. I, um, you know, I never say never. I will, I'll explore every avenue when the time comes. If we do need to raise more money, I would love not to. Um, and we actually, part of what I'm really focused on right now, like I said, we're doing this branding exercise. Um, we're also, um, looking at ways to, uh, make our manufacturing process more efficient. Yeah. Through, it's still a very manual process. So is are there things we can automate to bring down our cause Yeah. Cause yeah. Um, to increase our margin, which will obviously lead to, to break even sooner than later. Yeah. And maybe, um, negate the need for any additional fundraising. But, uh, yeah, I mean there, there are many avenues to explore. Speaker 0 00:25:04 Explore. Are you the head of finance? Are you the one who does the financial Speaker 2 00:25:07 Team? Um, I, we just brought on a fractional cfo. Okay. Who helps. Speaker 0 00:25:12 Okay. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Um, so, Speaker 2 00:25:14 But, but you know, the goal, um, of, so our fundraise, like I said, we've talked about, we hired a few folks, but we're also spending some of that money on this, um, kind of branding exercise as well as working with a consulting firm to go through the, you know, COGS exercise as well. The goal is if we can kind of button all that up now, then we need to, we'll need to spend less cash going forward because if we really nail the brand Right. If we, if we can succeed and it's so hard and so few brands really do it, but if we can, can succeed in being a brand that people wanna be a part of that community and are going into stores looking for us. Yeah. Yeah. As opposed to needing to drive sales by going on sale sales. Exactly. Then we'll burn less cash going forward. Um, so I'm that we're really trying to kind of hone in, dial everything in now, um, in the hopes that it makes scaling easier and less expensive. Speaker 0 00:26:15 Yeah. That's cool. I like that. Um, cuz I think people just like forget that. I mean, by no means is it easy to raise money, but I think you successfully did it when the odds are way against women doing it. You really, I was really impressed with like, you know, that you got through that it sounded relatively seamlessly. I mean there's a million stories where people Speaker 2 00:26:37 Didn't feel seamless at Speaker 0 00:26:38 All times, but thank you. But you got through it and, and a lot of people don't. Yeah. So now you're at the, the table and you got the money and it's kind of like great breathing room. And I think then people sort of like take a little pause and like, okay, we can spend money now, but the reality is the faster you like clamp it down like, yeah, no, no, we can breathe <laugh>. Yeah. Now let's really clamp it down and spend every dollar like it's someone else's cuz it is. Yeah. So that we don't ever have to do that again. Right. That's just really, um, important. Just good business if you can do it. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:27:07 Yeah. Exactly. We're, we're trying to build a good business, not just grow cash at people to keep Speaker 0 00:27:15 Our and and grow sales. It's really sexy in today's world to grow your comp. You know, there's lots of tech companies and startup companies that grow sales. Yeah. And they're just like, our sales are good, our sales are good. And you say, well what are your earnings? And they're like, oh, we're gonna, they're gonna catch up. Yeah. But really only company, unless you're something super specialized, I don't think most waffle companies are gonna sell for a boatload of non multiples if there's no earnings. You know? Right. Like we're not doing anything. Yeah. So earnings, Speaker 2 00:27:43 That used to be the case. Um, but in the last three or so years it's really shifted to a focus on, as I said, being profitable once you're hit 10 million Yeah. In revenue, your ebitda, et cetera. Speaker 0 00:27:57 Yeah. Because the whole landscape of acquisitions has changed. Yeah. And money is expensive. So your practice of looking at, okay, what do we have? How do we get more outta less? Whether it's, you know, margin improvement because we can manufacture bigger size orders or different manufacturers or you know, you buying packaging cuz you have staffing. I think that exercise, you know, we always were self-funded so we were really cautious. The flip side is we might have been able to grow more quickly. Right. If we could have had a VP of Yeah. You know, anything <laugh>. Yeah. So there is a flip side to it, but, um, I think when you have the, when you know the pedals down and you know that you are on a trajectory, I think that's really great to invest then. Speaker 2 00:28:41 Yeah, well that exactly. I'm really glad we certainly grew slower over the last three years being bootstrapped than we would have otherwise. But I'm really glad for a few reasons. One, it taught me how to be conservative mm-hmm. <affirmative> and only spend dollars on what we should be spending dollars on. So it just taught me good business sense. Yeah. Um, but two, we weren't ready to, like, we were still figuring things out with the product and figuring things out with the packaging. We weren't ready for the big stage yet until now. Um, and, and you know, that's relative. Like we're, we've been in Whole Foods and whatnot, but, but to really expand into a national presence, I don't think we were ready to do it before now. And so I'm glad we weren't tempted by having fun fundraised to do that. And like I said, even now we're, we're dialing things in. Like we're, I think I'm proud of how we are using the funds right. To make a couple really good hires. Um, who I hope and envision to be with the company for, you know, a long time. Um, but also just to dial everything in, um, so that we can grow smartly. Speaker 0 00:29:49 A lot of times people are entrepreneurs cuz they love, um, autonomy mm-hmm. <affirmative> and um, I know it's like one of my top buzzwords. And when you have outside funding, you give up a little bit of that autonomy. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, how's your job specifically changed or your day to day or month to month having people have oversight on, on your company? Speaker 2 00:30:12 Not a ton yet. I, you know, was I, I love all of my investors, um, and I think they have a respect for me and what we're building and so they have given me kind of space and it's been more like, how can we help you? Um, kind of thing. I, I think, you know, you hear horror stories about investors. Um, fortunately I haven't experienced any of that yet, but it just, you know, you had to be careful who you choose, uh, to bring into your family. Cuz it really kind of is a family, um, who to bring into your family. And so that, you know, I've, I I, there are certain investors, I, I can't tell you how many hours I spent on the phone with them before it was a mutual decision to move forward, you know, um, and, and met in person and all that. Speaker 2 00:30:56 It's really important to make sure that those investors are gonna be good partners. But for me, I was also just excited to bring on investors. Like I said, um, with my hires I was hiring people who had a ton of experience. Like I wanted to bring on investors who had experience and could be helpful. I would say one of, um, kind of my strong suits, uh, uh, if you will, of being a founder is that like I'm very open to learning from people around me. I recognize I haven't done this before. Um, and so I'm happy to bring people into the fold who have experience and who I can learn from. Speaker 0 00:31:28 Yeah. You're such a good leader in that way. I think you, um, I mean you just seem very open to gathering all the information. It could be your just general, um, you know, I think that's where, um, your past training of being a lawyer is really going to help you. Either you're, you know, an active learner and that is by definition what lawyers do. I think, um, you kind of don't take no for an answer. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I think that's another thing <laugh> lawyers do very well. So I do, I actually see it as like it was the perfect training ing for being an entrepreneur. Interesting. Interesting. Um, and reading all that boring stuff. I mean probably no lawyer likes that, but yeah. It's just part of the job. Yeah. Um, Speaker 2 00:32:06 It's also very help honestly on a day to day basis. I can't tell you how many contracts I read myself, but it's so nice to just be able to read 'em quickly Yeah. And sign them and move on instead of having to send 'em to a law firm, which might take like a week to turn it around. It enables us to be really nimble. Yeah. I also know what I'm signing up for. Yeah. Every time I sign a contract, which just brings comfort Speaker 0 00:32:27 A hundred percent and it would be a big expense that you're avoiding. So Yeah. And expense of it's a real skills act. Speaker 2 00:32:32 Absolutely. Courtney, I actually have a couple questions for you. Uh, having built a business before when, you know, I hired just recently for the first time, we have a really small team. Something I constantly struggle with is, you know, if we added more team members, we could be more productive and we could move faster. Obviously added team members come with added expense, added management. Kind of how did you balance building your team? Um, how quickly did you do it? How did you decide when to bring on your next teammates? Speaker 0 00:33:04 Yeah, it's a really good question, Emily. I think, you know, fixed cost hiring like employees is something that I am pretty careful about. I think the first, and maybe that's wrong, but we've always been able to meet our goals, um, by going, um, I'd say I'm probably like slightly underwater when we bring people on mm-hmm. <affirmative> versus proactive hiring. Yeah. And it's two different philosophies. Yeah. Um, I think the most important thing you could do, uh, and I'm sure you have this in place and if not easy to do, is to really get clear on what does success look like for those roles, um, at three, six and 12 months. So, you know, having a marketing person, um, I don't know what needle you're trying to move. Is it, you know, free coupons and the retailers social media presence events. Um, how, how do you define that community and what's their role in making that happen? Speaker 0 00:33:56 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so the best hiring I have made is when a, a lot of times I've done just like you, I don't know as much about what they're doing as they do mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I'm not teaching them about marketing or sales or whatever. If they've done it before, they're bringing it to our company. So the part that I do know a lot about is like, what does success look like and what doesn't it, so you almost pre-negotiate the, the end so to speak. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and I, and I don't start with thinking people are leaving, but I also don't like having coaching every day, all day. I don't have time to like say, well course correct. Course correct, correct. It's like, here's what that looks like. So metrics is um, for sure some, you know, your friend. The other thing that has really helped us decide when to bring on people is our revenue per employee. Um, so we look at um, a trailing 12 on what the revenue per employee is and then we forecast forward based on the hires we're gonna need, how, how much sales we will need to bring on x, Y, z, new staff. So I think those are two things that, um, have helped us gut check is it the right time. Yeah, Speaker 2 00:35:07 No, that makes a ton of sense. And I have hired, you know, in the time of covid or you know, post covid and so we're all remote. Yeah. Um, it's also my first time having a team. Okay. How do you think about building an internal culture? We've talked a lot about building a community around the brand. Yeah. But there's also gotta be a community, you know, internally within the brand. How do you think about doing that? How do you do that in the world of remote work? Speaker 0 00:35:35 Yeah. Well, um, I personally am not a big fan of remote mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, I've been on a lot of press talking about that and here's why. Cuz you just hit it on the head. I think that, you know, you have these people doing whatever job, but the real secret sauce and and productivity as it's gonna be measured is them doing their job plus 10% because they're engaged in the mission. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they're not doing their job, they're doing all the extra thinking in the shower, talking to their friends at the the stands while they're with their kids, you know mm-hmm. About the company. So that's the real measurement of productivity. So how do you do that? Well, they've gotta know exactly like where you're going, what's in your brain, have time with you, you spend time learning what you stand for, what you don't stand for. Speaker 0 00:36:26 And I just found that so much of that can be lost if it's not, you know, face to face. And I think there's some things you can do in between Zoom and things, but we all are inundated with so much noise. I mean, at the end of the day, the emails, the suppliers, the, you know, their home life Yeah. You know, they're at home. Yeah. And so their home life is working for you too. Yeah. So I think maybe in a, in a fully remote world, I would suggest really having some rituals like weekly at the very outset. Yeah. And then definitely monthly where you try to get that team together and build that bond. I think that will be, no matter how much does that meal cost you or that room to rent, you will, it will pay you back in spades. You know, for us, we're manufacturing so we can't, we, I just just chose that since the manufacturing team couldn't work from home because they didn't have the equipment mm-hmm. Speaker 0 00:37:18 <affirmative> that it also wasn't right that the office team be as flexible because we all like to work at home. You know, you can do your laundry and cook your dinner. Right. And, but now flip that as the boss and I'm like, okay, they're doing their laundry, picking up their kids and which I understand is nice, but there's some lost value there. So I would just think about really working on the culture and the rituals. Like start small because you know, it's great to be like, we're gonna be together every week. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but it's just not practical. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and something where you can build that connection so they're thinking about your company like morning, noon, and night. Yep. Which is how it'll grow as fast as you want it to. Speaker 2 00:37:57 Great advice. Thank you. Speaker 0 00:37:59 Well, we wish you, um, only good things, uh, for Evergreen and, um, hope that, uh, the next launch is gonna be as successful as the waffles. Thank you. And then we can't wait to hear what's next after that. Speaker 2 00:38:10 Thank you so.