TAKE THE SWING
Friends, I hope you are all well. I am sorry I missed last week's Brain Dump, I have been on the road for the last 20 days, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.
First things first, I am sitting in an RV park in Orem Utah. We started this journey in San Diego, then hit Carlsbad, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Las Vegas and now we are in Utah for a few days. This trip has been a whirlwind of emotions for me. I came up with an idea about three months ago when I knew we were going to launch the DAILY BAR at Sprouts Market across the country. I had asked the team at Sprouts to send me the top 50 stores across all the whole chain. They were all clustered between California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Florida.
The idea was pretty ambitious, rent an RV, wrap it with our branding and hit as many of the top 50 Sprouts as we could. Get into the stores and demo the DAILY BARS for the Sprouts consumers to fully immerse into the community, move as much product as we could, get real time feed back on the bars, and capture the whole journey with a content team.
I thought it would be awesome to connect with run clubs in each state to immerse in the run club culture and community to introduce the DAILY BAR…. WE DID IT and are still on the road for another week.
When running a brand, it is required to take risks. In my opinion, not only is it required to take risks, but it is required to think outside of the box, to scale the unscalable, to swing big and hope you connect with that ball to hit it out of the park. That is exactly what we did, and it worked… The response we have gotten from our community and the new people we have met has been nothing short of wonderful. When the term “boots on the ground” is stated, this trip defines that. So far we have driven over a thousand miles, have knocked out about 15 in store demos, have run with 3 run clubs and have 4 more to go, I am so proud of the team that has worked tirelessly to pull this off.
A few days ago we pulled up to the Sprouts HQ in Arizona, we parked the RV right in front, did a demo for the full HQ staff and were told that no brand has ever done anything like this for a launch, they were fully impressed and made it clear that were stoked on this partnership.
Additionally, the small team I am on the road with and I have been able to see the country, spend some time in nature, have great long and deep conversations, shoot a few podcasts, and make a pile of great content. It has been such a cool way to spend the last 3 weeks, doing what I love as a founder and CEO.
I also want to give a shout out to Life Time Fitness for getting us all access to their clubs in every state, we have been able to train most days and use their saunas and cold plunges (and showers). If you haven’t been Life Time yet, I would highly recommend popping in, they are hands down the best gyms in the country.
There is also another component of this journey that has not been easy. Though all things are pointing north at KOH, there are still the challenges of running a small business, which is always hard. We invested a lot in this retail strategy, a massive milestone for KOH, but cash is tight. So I have also been raising money while on the road, which is always stressful for me. The one thing I don’t love about my job as Founder and CEO is raising money, however it is a massive part of my role and for most all brands a requirement until an acquisition happens, which I don’t have a plan for until 2029/30. Or you decide to grow slower and focus on getting profitable a soon as possible. The dichotomy of incredible success with this national retail roll out, all the great feedback, meeting with the decision makers at Sprouts, but the backdrop of feeling like I am behind the 8 ball in the capital to support all the things we want to do has been tough… .
This is real life. That is what I have concluded after a few days of feeling really under the pressure out here. That if we are going to step up to the plate, if we want to play on the varsity team, there will be times that scare us, times when we question ourselves, this is what makes us feel alive, all the feelings, all the emotions, the good the bad, the pain and the bliss.. I have felt them all on this trip. I am grateful for them all, even though when I am in the fear, it really sucks.
This is all to say, TAKE THE DAMN SWING, keep putting the right foot in front of the left, surround yourself with a great team of people that will help guide you, especially when the going gets tough. A lot of people ask me how to start a business, it's probably the question I get most these days. I guess the answer to that question has been made very clear to me over the last few days, you have to believe a story that you have created around a product, experience, solution so good that people will also believe. You have to become so obsessed with that story that asking others for money to help you bring that story to life comes naturally, because money is something you will need, and in many cases, most founders don’t start with a pile of cash. This is the part that most new founders don’t know how to do: raise money. It starts with confidence, because you have rehearsed telling the story so much, that when people hear it, they want to be a part of it. It starts with your friends and family, literally everyone you know, and then moves beyond that circle to strangers that invest for a living.
That was a bit of a ramble, but roaring through my veins right now. KOH is in a great place, all channels are firing, but there will always be something that reminds me I am alive, and that typically comes in the way of fear… I am cool with it. If you guys live near a Sprouts Market it would mean the world if you would pop in and grab a handful of DAILY BARS!
I am so dang grateful for this community.
Chernow