January 17, 2025 • 52 mins
This week, Rachel Zoe is joined by the incredible female duo, Danielle Duboise and Whitney Tingle, founders of Sakara Life. Childhood friends, Danielle and Whitney began their wellness brand journey by cooking nutrient rich, plant-based meals out of their New York City apartment. As their brand continued to grow and expand, they stayed committed to their mission of nourishing bodies from the inside out and they've only just begun.
Sakara is a whole-body wellness company that makes nutrition programs and supplements that nourish and activate your whole body’s systems to help you function at your most powerful.
Use code CLIMBING for 20% off your next order of their Signature Nutrition Program, Level II: Detox, or supplements.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hi everyone, I'm Rachel Zoe and you're listening to Climbing
and Hails for your weekly dose of glamour, inspiration and
of course fun. Before we get into our amazing interview today,
I want to take a minute to acknowledge the incomprehensible
devastation and deeply, deeply rooted fear that's covering my hometown
(00:32):
of Los Angeles. I am one of the very, very
lucky ones and incredibly grateful that at this time my
home is safe, my children and myself have remained totally safe.
But there are so many people and families that have
lost everything, many many that I know, closest friends of mine,
(00:52):
closest friends of the kids, really countless countless others that
lost everything they own in their entire lives, that simply
cannot afford to in any way rebuild, recover, and don't
have safe places to go. So I really just want
to encourage anyone listening, if you're able, to please donate
(01:13):
to Baby to Baby. I've been on the board from
the beginning. It is the most extraordinary organization. I know
where every dollar goes. I promise you it's all going
to help these babies and children and families that are
suffering so deeply. They are working actively across LA to
provide families with basic essentials diapers, formula, clothing, wipes, high
(01:36):
gene items, or please donate to the Los Angeles Fire
Department LAFD, who, as you've seen on TV on your socials,
who are working tirelessly to put these fires out and
keeping everyone safe. Our hearts are with all our first
responders who we can never ever think enough. We love
(01:56):
you so much, LA, and please keep everyone here in
your hearts. So today I am joined by the powerhouse
female best friends behind Sacara Life, a whole food, nutrition
and supplement brand for your body, skin, and mind. Danielle
Dubois and Whitney Tingle were childhood friends that began their
(02:19):
incredibly successful business out of their very tiny New York
City kitchen in their very tiny apartment. I don't even
think it was a full kitchen, it was a kitchenette.
I know from personal experience how amazing and delicious Sacara
Life Food is and have used their meal service several
several times for my entire family. It does not feel
(02:41):
like starvation, It does not feel like a diet. It
feels like just delicious healthy food. You are never hungry,
and it's such a treat if you can try it
even once to set yourself on a great healthy routine.
Danielle and Whitney have continued to grow their brand to
monts proportions. I cannot believe how big they are and
(03:02):
have a cookbook and a podcast, and I know it's
only the beginning for these amazing young women, So let's
jump right in. I'm very happy to see you, guys.
I feel like I've known you for a long time,
Like I feel like I've known you since you started. Yeah,
(03:22):
you know, and now I've been the like lucky recipient
of Sakara so many times in my life, like if
I come off like a huge stretch of work and
I'm feeling really burnt out or like I was sick,
and I just feel like I need to nourish myself.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I just love Sacara because you're.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Never hungry and everything just like the food's so good.
And then I love what you guys started, and I
want to go back a little to the beginning, but
I feel like it was monumentally different and better than
what has existed in a space of you know, drink
(04:02):
this huge bucket of like cayen chili peppers or whatever
when people needed to like reset and feel better. And
so I want to talk first about, you know, just briefly,
like how like how did this even happen? Because you guys,
you know, there's a lot of stories of you know,
founders that were like best friends in you know, college,
(04:25):
or you know, started this out of their room or whatever.
So I want to know a little bit about how
you found each other first and foremost, and how many
years ago that was, because it's you know, it's not
always the happy ending of you know best that start
things together.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Well, Danielle and I grew up together in Sodona, Arizona.
Have you been to Sedona?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, I actually have. I've been there twice. I mean,
it's beautiful. It's like.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Lots of spirituality, lots of people coming from all around
the world seeking different forms of healing. There's lots of
different healing modalities there, nutrition being one of them, using
herbs and super foods and mother nature really.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
To help feels the vindy.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
My parents moved there in seventy six, Danielle's grandparents I
think right around the same time in the seventies, and
so we grew up together. There we met. I was
the new girl in school. I switched to schools in
seventh grade and in my first period math class, I
you know, my very first class. I come in and
(05:35):
I sit down and this girl is sitting in front of me.
She leans back over her chair and she goes, Hi,
I'm Danielle And I borrowed a pen end of story friend.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
That's so cute. And how old were you at that time,
like thirteen twelve?
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, I had tested out a different school before this
one that you know. First, I went to a very small,
very alternative charter school, Montessori based charter school. It was,
you know, forty five kids, and so by the time
I was twelve, I was like, I want to be
around some more people, some boys. So I tried this
other school first, and it was filled with mean girls
(06:15):
and I know that well yeah, and it wasn't my vibe.
So I tried this other school and it was amazing,
and all of the most popular girls in school were
the nicest girls.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
That never happened. That never happens.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I feel like it's such an important point because it's
something we've really tried to carry through and how we
have built the business. You know, we have historically had
a lot of women and a lot of women in
leadership roles. And to make sure that the culture stays
one of rooting each other on, of seeing the best
in people, of assuming everyone's doing their best no matter
(06:52):
what it has been like really a top priority for us.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah. No cattiness, no competition, no mean girls club.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I mean, that's by the way, that's the impetus for
climbing and heels, you know. I mean the reason that
I started this podcast was because I was mean girl
since kindergarten and I've been listen, I've continued to battle
mean girls throughout my entire life and career, and I
just felt that this was such an amazing forum to
(07:24):
pay it forward to amazing women that you know, I
just want to continue to support in every single way.
And I think that it's important to talk about the
journeys of how you get to the top of where
you are. And I think this is such an important
point that you're talking about because it's something that I
so strongly believe in and advocate for as women being
(07:47):
kind to women.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
And I think for you.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Guys, it's like the fact that you literally said that
Danielle's to you and you had come off as like
mean girl, and she was like no, And that the
fact that the popular girls were nice. I think that
that carrying that through and through your adulthood is so important,
you know, because I think sometimes how we grew up
(08:10):
it was sort of like the mean girls were the
cool girls, and the jerk boys were the hot guys,
and the nerdy boys were the nice boys, and you
know all the things. Yeah, And I think changing that
whole landscape, I think now, so it's so cool to
be nice, you know, so.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Well, You've been so nice to us and supportive and
sharing us on from the beginning. So thank you.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I will always I'm such a believer in it.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
And I think that it is a secret to our
success is that we care deeply for each other. And
it kind of starts with that foundation of being nice
girls and and having that respect for each other. We
always say that first and foremost do we care for
(09:00):
each other as people, as humans, as individuals before the business,
that we if each of us are happy in our lives,
if we're feeling good, if we're feeling taken care of,
if we're doing work that is inspiring, then we're going
to do better at work. And if things aren't going
well from a relationship perspective or from our own personal
(09:23):
relationships or whatever it is, we're not going to show
up as our best. So kind of you know, nurturing
each other in allowing space for us to be real humans,
not just you know, co workers or employees of our company.
And that's allowed for this stamina, I would say, like
being able to endure the past thirteen years.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I was going to say, so, they also work their
asses off, right.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I know for a fact that you have. I've seen it,
I've lived it. I've seen you from the beginning. So
you start, okay, so you're best friends immediately. I imagine you
stayed best friends all through high school and everything else. Right,
So what happened after you graduate high school? Do you
go to college or do you start a business or both?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So I moved to.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
New York for college. I wanted to study pre med.
Whitney went to Arizona for college and then did some
time in Spain. And it was around that time, you know,
she had one more year to graduate and she was
thinking about LA or New York, and I was like,
come to New York. It's the best. You're gonna love it.
(10:33):
You can just shoot with me.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
She was like, come live in my apartment. You can
sleep in my bed, you can wear all my clothes.
We'll figure it out. She was like, don't bring anything.
She was like, no, really, don't bring anything. We have
no space for any of your stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
She's like, actually, you can't come here if you bring anything.
For a long time, I know.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
So I moved in with her. She was in this
two bedroom wing apartment in Soho. So it's the small bedrooms.
Her bed was almost touching all of the walls in
her room, and you know, shared it with another girl.
And there was this tiny little kitchenette in the hallway,
and they made space in the pantry for me to
come with my one suitcase. And yeah, and we figured
(11:18):
it out.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I love it so much. I love it so much.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
It is it was so fun. We had so much fun.
Probably too much.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Fun as it is in New York.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Yeah, exactly. But you know the kind of start of sakara,
I'd say it was when we were kids, Like I
suffered from a lot of disordered eating patterns, you know,
and it was never officially diagnosed because I never wanted
to admit it to anyone, and I hopped from diet
to diet and was always just looking for the solution
(11:56):
thought that you know, my thinness was wrapped up into
my wordiness and my power in the world. And I
had a terrible relationship to food. Food was always the enemy.
So less was always better no matter what it was.
It was never about listening to my body, taking care
of my body. It was just with this kind of
(12:17):
aim to be thinner.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And money and so much of the world, yes.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
So many of us. And I my mom was also
very sick for my entire life, and in and out
of the hospital all the time. So we were, you know,
with medical professionals and doctors all the time. And you know,
I saw many doctors save her life, and then I
saw many doctors make her life more difficult because they
(12:45):
didn't really understand root cause they didn't understand how to
take care of chronic conditions. They were great at like
acute conditions like you have a heart attack, thank God,
but when you're talking about like long term autoimmune issues
or you know, chronic anything, they really couldn't help her.
And so I moved to New York to study medicine,
(13:06):
and it was you know, around that time, I'd been
working in a hospital and with the cardiologists, and we
were seeing people with really late stage autoimmune issues and
lifestyle diseases. And after you see so many patients, it's
like you start to just realize that we actually don't
(13:27):
have the tools to help them long term. Sometimes we
have the tools to help them in the short term
with pain relief, with symptom relief, but nobody's really talking
about let's get to the core issue. And so then
they get moved around and you see the dietitian or
see another specialists, and it's just so disorganized. And I
was kind of at the bottom of my own journey.
(13:47):
I had done this crazy retreat and it was twenty
one days and it was a water fast and it
was so intense.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Though I think there is room for that in one's
kind of like spiritual work if you have a healthy
relationship to food. I did not, and so it just
took me down. And I wasn't looking at it as
like this spiritual kind of thing. I got like this
spiritual revolution that I needed, but I had no idea
that's what I was in for because it put me
to rock bottom, and you know, it was a blessing
(14:19):
now that I you know, look back and I'm grateful
for it. It just made me realize that I really
had to renegotiate my relationship to food or I was
going to be sick forever. And I had, you know,
been to doctors because I had gut issues. They give
me IBS as this umbrella term of like we don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I was so trying to diagnose you, well, like these
your symptoms great, right, yeah, And.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
You know, now fifteen years later, after I have studied
medicine functional medicine and have my master's in it, like,
I really understand these doctors just don't have the tools
to understand what is going on. But it really put
me on a path of after seeing those patients, after
kind of my self witnessing how you can't really go
to the conventional medical system with chronic conditions, I really
(15:07):
wanted to figure out how to you know, help myself
get out of rock bottom. And luckily, you know, Whitney
at that time was in New York with me, and
we were kind of at this bottom together. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah, you know, my kind of journey to Sakara. Also
started at a young age. I had terrible cystic acne
all over my face, big red, painful cysts, and I
tried everything to fix it. They put me on rounds
and rounds of antibiotics. I did the acutane. It didn't
(15:40):
work for me.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
And you know, with the immune system and all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I mean, it's now being connected to things like Crohn's
and colitis, and who knows. It's a very serious drug.
And I'm still so shocked that today it's prescribed to
people all the time by top dermatologists, when really, what
(16:06):
I didn't know in that time is that acne starts
in the gut. It's not a skin issue. It's a
gut issue.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
It's like a microbiome.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
It's microbiome, it's your immune system, it's your own your
body's bacterial balance, and your body's ability to fight an
imbalance of bacteria. So, you know, I tried all of
these things. And when I was moving to New York,
you know, back to our story moving in with Danielle,
(16:36):
I was working on Wall Street. My lifestyle was terrible.
I was working eighty hour work weeks, just go, go, go, NonStop.
I was you know, as part of my job to
go out after work and entertain clients and you know,
drink and my boss would expect me to come and
have a drink with him.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
I remember that, Yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
You know, and then and it's you're eating fried food
and whatever else with those drinks. And in the office
there's free pizza Fridays, and the luncheon learns. You know,
I'm twenty two and broke, so I'm eating whatever food
they're putting in.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Front of me, of course.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
And my skin was just at an all time worse,
Like I had put on a fast fifteen pounds and
my acne was just in a complete flare up right,
So I was desperate for my skin to clear up.
It was affecting my confidence, my career, how I showed
up in the world, you know, I couldn't hide it.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
It was the power of like clear skin.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yes, I do understand, because I have a lot of
people in my life so affected by acne insisted, and
it's polarizing. They don't want to actually go out ever,
they don't want to leave their house because they can't
look at people.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Yeah, and you try and makeup and you're covering it up,
and that just makes it worse. But I thought, I'm
in New York City and this city has everything, the
best of the best. I'm going to go to all
those I've read about in the magazines, and they're going
to fix me. And one by one I went to them,
and one by one they wanted to write me another
prescription for a mega round of antibiotics, which just makes
(18:12):
it worse, and as long term side effects by you know,
passing up your gout microbiome, or another prescription for acutane.
And I said, I already did those things and they
didn't work, So what else do you have for me?
And they basically just said nothing. You know, I can't
(18:33):
help you. And I was so upset, and because I
had so much hope set on these people that they
were going to fix me, and when they didn't have
the solution, I was devastated. But in that moment, I
heard my inner voice shouting at me, at this point,
don't do it. It's not the answer. You need to
go inside and figure out what is the root cause
(18:56):
of these symptoms on your face. And that was the
first time I thought about it as not the thing
I was trying to fix, but a symptom of the
actual thing that was going on in my body. And
so I turned to my best friend, to Danielle, and
back to our Sedona roots of food as medicine, mother
(19:19):
Nature's ability to heal, the body's ability to heal if
given the right tools and ingredients, the right material to
repair itself. And we decided to come together and figure
out just for ourselves, like what does true nutrition look like?
What is the healthiest way of eating? How can we
(19:39):
give our bodies the cleanest, purest inputs and give it
what it needs, all the right things so that it
can function at its best. This is something that so
many people don't know about nutrition, is that a majority
of our bodies processes are nutrient dependent, but it needs
(20:01):
nutrition and order to function properly. So, just like eliminating,
I had done all the elimination diets, I had eliminated
everything out of my diet. Danielle and I we tried
master cleanse, We did all the things, and it didn't
work because we weren't feeding the body the things that
needed in order to function properly.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Right, and the literature really supports this notion that it's
way more important what you do eat than what you
don't sure. And I think we just have an obsession
with what not to eat. And I can say that
because I was one of them. And you know, it's
just somehow way more seductive to have a list of
(20:40):
what not to eat than you know, to think about
what should I eat every single day instead.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
I remember the first time I had sakara, and I
just remember going, this just feels really good, Like it
just felt really good. It felt clean, it felt fresh,
it felt thought out. It wasn't I think that to me,
you were the first to create something that felt like
a lifestyle of eating rather than a diet or a
(21:09):
cleanse and it and I think that that, in my opinion,
is why it's so successful because and I think that
is a very hard thing to create. And wildly the
food is so good. And I think that's the other thing,
because you know, I come from a mother a family
(21:30):
who loves food, and when you say diet or light
or restrictive or regimen, it is like a hell no,
like like they eat everything.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
They don't.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
I mean, my parents are older. They don't like when
you say to them, like gluten free, They're like, what
are you talking about? You know, they're like you need
gluten or it doesn't taste good. You know, they're in
their late eighties, like they can eat whatever they want.
But I guess my point is is that I think
that more and more now we are seeing the it's
(22:06):
almost like an epidemic of autoimmunes and chronic disease, and
it is I have so many friends with autoimmunes, and like,
to me, it's like this combination of polarizing your immune
system with antibotics, you know, because they just throw antibotics
at everything right, and.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Then you have nothing to fight anything with.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And too many parents that aren't paying attention when they're
giving their kids from you know, age zero to when
they leave the house, just giving them whatever, like here's
doritos with your lunch or here's whatever. And I just
feel like there's so many things to prevent it. Now
we know so much, and so I feel like you
guys were such pioneers.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
So I want to understand.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
I guess what, like, how in that moment where you
guys were at rock bottom of your own health problems,
what happened that you were like, Okay, let's let's do this,
and how do you do it? Because being entrepreneurial and
starting a business, especially talking about you guys were living
in like the teeniest space ever probably four hundred square
(23:13):
feet to bedroom, Like, you know, how did you have
the power, the skills, the money like to actually say
let's do this because it's scary.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Yeah, And I also just want to add about, you know,
this idea of autoimmune issues before we get to that
is like, you know, I do think there's a lot
of parental responsibility that needs to be had, but I
actually think the onus is on the people and the
corporations who are making really bad food. And then we're
also swimming in a soup of toxic exposure that is
(23:48):
very new. You know, We're around electronic devices all the time.
Like there's just a lot that is trying to kind
of like eat away at our health and our health span.
And so know, the it was really the start of
Sapara was to we think about our health as like
I always say this, I don't I wish I could
(24:10):
tell you who it was by, but I don't remember.
But it's something like, you know, a healthy person has
a thousand dreams and an unhealthy person has one. Right,
and if you think about your health as something that
we are very lucky to have. The most important thing
that we can do is understand how to either get
(24:33):
back to health or stay healthy. And so we both
knew that we had to get back to health and
that we were kind of at this you know, fork
in the road where we could keep doing what we
had been doing and probably end up sicker and sicker,
or we could try and figure out how do we
actually get back to health and make that our priority,
(24:53):
not you know, my thinness, not Whitney's acne, but to
truly get back to a center and to understand what
is your toolkit? Because for me, as somebody with disordered
eating patterns, the scariest place in the world to be
was to be at that rock bottom and have no
idea how to get out. And so, you know, I
(25:14):
really appreciate what you said about Sakara being a lifestyle
versus a diet, because we worked so hard to make
sure that that was true. You know, That's why we
talk about this idea of eat clean, play dirty. It's like,
you know, I am the first to grab for a
glass of wine. I had French fries last night. It's
not about perfection, It's not about what not to eat
and drink. It's about what you do most of the time.
(25:36):
And if we could just kind of help people understand
that your toolkit really needs to be focused on what
you do do and less on idolizing what not to do.
Just that shift for people makes such a big deal.
And so when we started Sakara, we found that out.
You know, after me I studied nutrition and then we
(25:56):
just kind of from our Sedona roots, knew so much
about how people had been looking at nutrition for thousands
of years and all these ancient modalities and herbs and
looking at food and plants as medicine, not just like,
oh I'm hungry and here's some calories. And so we
came up with, you know, our pillars of nutrition, and
when we talk about them, none of them are going
(26:19):
to surprise you. They are all foundational, They are so simple,
and yet none of us can do it every single day.
It's so hard. You know. It's like, eat your greens,
make sure you're getting a lot of colors, make sure
your plate is full of whole fresh foods versus parson.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
It is very pretty, it's very and.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Make sure it's delicious. That was a big one for me.
Because I had dieted so long. I was so used
to eating you know, cardboard, like you drinking nothing. And
it was really important that we made this a joyful
ride because this is a lifestyle, and you know, we
think that joy is a nutrient, and so we realize,
(26:59):
like the the foundation of you know, nutrition or we
like we prefer to call it nourishment is actually pretty simple,
and most of us can agree that we need to
get more fruits and vegetables and whole foods. Yet somehow
it's so hard to do. And so we were like, well,
you know, let's try it. Just Whitney and I we
just were like, okay, let's commit for a couple months,
(27:21):
we're going to do this, and we would switch off
cooking days, and it really only took about three weeks
before both of us just everything about us started to change.
On mental shift, my mental shift where I like, it
gives me chills now even just talking about it, but
I just it was like my brain turned on. I
had been so focused on the wrong thing, so like
(27:43):
you know, thinking of food is the enemy and what
not to eat. But when I use my time and
energy to focus on what to eat, it was like
everything just got better. My mental health got better. Actually,
my I was so much easier to kind of like
get in the shape I wanted to get into because
I had nourished, man, I had the tools to do that.
I was like not getting enough nutrients every single day.
(28:05):
And you know, it was the first time, you know,
the inflammation with skins started to go down, and we
just realized we were onto something. We had friends asking us,
what have you been doing? What juice cleans do you want?
That was like really the time of the juice cleans,
and we were like, no, actually, we're chewing these days
and you know, and so we just thought, let's let's
(28:26):
see if there's a couple other people out there that
have some version of what we're going through and really
need the solution at their doorsteps so that there's no
like nothing to get in the way. Here's breakfast, lunch,
and dinner, organic, nutritionally designed. You don't have to think
about it. By the way, you don't have to heat
it up if you don't want to. You can bring
it to the office. It's beautiful, it's delicious. And you know,
(28:49):
we were like, Okay, maybe there's a few people. We
had no idea what we were doing. We were in
our young twenty something and it started with one client
and then their lives were changed, and then it turned
in to five clients, and we were just cooking in
our kitchen like at home.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Just like dropping it off. At that point, you were
just dropping it off at people's home.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
We were doing everything, and we did that for a
long time and then it was.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Actually that's like kitchenette right.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Oh my god, it's so small, like yeah, like.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I did kitchen at It's like, I know exactly what,
I have such a visual of your apartment.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Like hard to cook for one person in.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah, by the way it is, it's almost like it's
one level up from like a dorm room.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Yeah, no exactly. But it really set us on this
mission because you know, once you impact one person's life,
you're like, oh, maybe there's somebody else who needs this.
And then it just really started to snowball and it
kind of hit this peak point when an editor from
Daily Candy kind of heard about us, and we were
(29:58):
still like cooking ourselves, doing delivering ourselves, I know, Daily Candy,
I IP and she was like, hey, I'm you know,
doing a piece about you know, health and nutrition and
how like juice cleansing might be out. Can I try
what you're doing? And you know, we had to put
on a face about it because we didn't want to
tell her. We were just like cooking in our kitchen
(30:19):
and this thing was so small, and so we're like yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then you know, so we made it ourselves, okay, guys, yeah,
and so we well we and then we ended up
delivering ourselves, and we really surprised her because she, I'm
sure just assumed we had delivery people, but we did not,
so it was us and we opened the door and
she like still had curlers in her hair, was just like,
(30:40):
what are you.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Doing, really surprised to see us, and we're like, oh, yeah,
you know, we just wanted to make sure that it
arrived safely to you. So we delivered it ourselves.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Ye ik service. But she ended up writing a piece
about us, and we had no idea what was going
to happen. So it just happened randomly, like three weeks later.
And I was the first to realize it because at
the time we built our own website, Shopify did not exist,
and so we had you had to email us to
order and it was like ten email exchanges before we
(31:12):
could order, and then we would send you a PayPal invoice.
But after Daily Candy, I woke up one morning and
I opened the computer and it was the thousands of
emails being like I wanted last week. She called us
the anti crazy cleanse. Yeah, it's and it's still true today,
(31:32):
Like it's really is that so bless her? And Whitney
and I were like, what are we going to do?
So we like had to make up like a name
for an email and an assistant and it was really us,
and we told everyone we were sold out for two weeks.
And in those two weeks, we got a kitchen, hired
a staff, got delivery people, and that was really the start.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Were you scared that you were to like lose interest
in those two weeks? It's so scary to do that.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
I think we just, I mean, there were so many
people that's in like you guys, because that was the
very beginning of like because we launched the Zoy Report
around so what year was that, twenty twenty eleven?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, yeah, it's so wild.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
And nobody knew what plant based was.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
People were right, and nobody knew how to get food delivered.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
You're like in Sadonia, Arizona, everybody's plant based.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Yeah. No, people were like, can you just make sure
I'm allergic to shrink? Like, don't worry, it's not a problem.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
You're good.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
But we were good. We then we were like went
to Craigslist and we were like trying to hire kitchen
people and delivery people. I mean, it's endless, endless stories
about how like we definitely have some PTSD about what
it meant to be.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Yeah, I met that.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
I think, you know, I love this story. I love
this journey because it really goes back to the original
way of building a business.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
A small business.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
With a big idea that is terrifying when it grows
that quickly because it's really hard to manage. And I
think that's sort of like one of the biggest pain
points for entrepreneurs that like if you have this like
pr moment and then all of a sudden, you go
from like two hundred to two thousand, or even twenty
to two thousand, you're like.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Wait, like you don't because you have to be so
careful in that moment, right.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
And especially in a business that continues to grow, where
you're going from twenty to two thousand to twenty thousand,
and you know, there's no Danielle and I talk about this.
There's no ceo guidebook, no entrepreneur guidebook that teaches you
or trains you how to be a CEO when you
have a team of four people, Now, how to be
(33:53):
a CEO when you have ten people, twenty people, two
hundred people. Like you have to just figure it out
and be able to scale yourself in that same time
you're understanding your ability to lead. Your leadership skills have
to scale along with the business, which is also hard.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
There are so many there's so many things, and there's
so many learnings, and it is navigating your path right
and like, I mean, how many mistakes did you make
along the way?
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Daily mistakes daily, every single day.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Yeah, and it's hard. Like so a couple of things.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I want to ask you, So, what were the scariest
moment if you can remember even just one or two
that like basically you were like, I'm done, I can't
do this anymore, Like we can't, We're so screwed, or
like or did you not have any of those?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Because I know I've had like countless, but I mean.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
With so many, I mean, for me, I remember it
was early on, and this is where I'm just so
grateful we had to each other because when I had
an off day, Whitney could be like, no, we're doing
this right and vice versa. But I remember we had
this one client early on, and she was a friend
of a current client and he had sent it to
(35:13):
her and so she wasn't somebody who like went to
our site ordered it herself. And she wroteiced this email
where she was like I could just go to Chopped,
like I don't get what you're doing and I won't
be ordering again, but I really wish you guys luck.
And I remember Whitney and I, you know, we would
work at a cafe and I remember looking at her
(35:34):
in the cafe and be like, yeah, what are we doing,
Like we're delivering salads? Like what are people only want
pizza delivered? Like at the time, their meal delivery didn't
really exist.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
And there was no Uber eats post.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
And so I was like there was no one to
kind for us to be like this is what we're
doing but better or different or it was like we
were really making a new path, and so I would
have I I remember that moment where I was like yeah, wait,
what are we doing. We're cooking ourselves. Like I couldn't
imagine at the time, like scaling two one hundred thousand
(36:10):
square feet of production facility. I couldn't imagine having a
team of two hundred, Like I just couldn't. It's hard.
Even though I knew we were onto something, it's hard
to imagine how you're gonna get there. And for me personally,
like I have achiever and like one of my top things,
like I personally have to feel like I'm achieving all
the time, which has its pros and its cons. But
(36:33):
in those moments where I'm like, yeah, this doesn't feel
like it's going anywhere, Let's try something else, let's pivot.
I remember when you being like, no, we're onto something
like remember this food changed our life. This is not chopped.
This is like nutrition delivered to your door. And so
we could kind of like talk each other down. But
then there were so many other moments like wasn't us
(36:53):
It was like outside circumstances that just made it so hard,
like hiring kitchen staff if you've never like were in
a restaurant, or it's so hard.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
It's so hard.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
That's why I'm saying like, I have a real knowledge
of what you guys have built. I really do, just
because I have so many friends on all sides of
the industry in food and you know, just building different
kinds of businesses around food, whether it's like mini cupcakes
or or nutrition based it's you know, to cookies like it.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
It's so hard.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
It's so freaking hard, which is why I like really
wanted to have you guys on because I think being
pioneers and you know, this is something that you know,
people say, well, Rachel, you.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Were the first stylist, you were this, you're that.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And I'm like, okay, thanks, But like that's also comes
with it the hardest challenges because there is no there
is no one to look at of like I want
to be that, or I want to get there, I
want to accomplish this much, or I want to do
that better. Right, It's sort of like what am I doing?
(38:02):
I'm figuring this.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Out as I go to educate the market, Yes, and
on a completely new category.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Correct, correct, And I think I think the other thing
I want to say is like, how did you so
you started with this program?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Right?
Speaker 1 (38:17):
And then to your point, like it was two of
you then it was four of you. Then it was
whatever that to me is the scariest part, right, like
the growing pains of the small to the next level,
but then really going to the scaling level. So did
you then along the way did you raise money?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Did you have advisors?
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Did you have friends that were like, guys, this is
over your head, you need help?
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Or like, how how does that?
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Like?
Speaker 1 (38:42):
How did you go from that to where you are now?
How many people are you serving now?
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Roughly?
Speaker 3 (38:46):
I mean we do millions and millions of meals each
year delivered all across the country.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Insane?
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Is your team hundreds now hundreds of people. We're headquartered
in New York. You also have a team in LA.
But I'd say team is everything. Like we have had amazing,
(39:14):
truly incredible, so talented people work for Secar over the years.
I mean early on we had just really amazing people.
We had an incredible president join us where she was
a client, and she wrote to us an email and
wanted to meet with us, and we're like, oh, she
(39:34):
probably wants to talk about digestive issues, and you know,
I don't know. I like, I guess we can meet
with her. Because she didn't tell us why she went
to meet, and then she showed up with her resume
and it's you know, Harvard Business School and all these
Goldman Sachs and.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
All these amazing things and resume.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
There are basically like three of us sitting in a
in an office space and we're still doing everything. And
she said, you guys changed.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
My health, my body, my life.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Like I see what you're doing here and I want
to be a part of it.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
And I also chill.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
No, I was just going to say, we we've been
able to attract really incredible, high caliber people to our
team because they have had.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
These life changing experiences.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
I'd also add that we didn't raise money, so you know,
we really built it off of some money we raised
by throwing a dinner and that's how we started it.
And now you know, we're obviously on so many like
entrepreneurial panels and podcasts, and everyone I talked to like
(40:44):
thinks that there's one path, and that is that you
come up with an idea, you make a deck, you
come up with like a prototype, you raise money, and
you go to market. And I think this kind of
genre or this like kind of wherever we are in
the world of entrepreneurialism. It's like people just want to
(41:05):
get it perfect, raise money, and go, and I think
they're very scared to start with one client. They're very
scared to start small. And it really allowed us to
evolve and adapt and own our company. I mean, we
still own the majority of our company, and that is
unheard of in most kind of like consumer D two
(41:27):
C type businesses, but especially in meal delivery because it
is such an operationally and logistically heavy business that most
of the time people raise hundreds of millions of dollars
even when they're doing far less in revenue, and so
they own very small pieces of their company. We've been
very fortunate. We didn't raise money until we were doing
(41:49):
millions in revenue, and then we raise money from people
who were willing to kind of be in the long
game with us, weren't asking us to just like turn
the business in a couple years. And still to this day,
like sometimes I'll have I'll have a board meeting and
a friend or somebody will be like, oh gosh, sorry,
I'm like, no, I love my board meetings like I
(42:11):
love my board. There there are biggest fans and some
of them are like family. At this point and just
cheering us on thirteen years later and just seeing like
what else can you do? What more can you do?
And you know, sometimes have to remind us like that
we're on this mission and you know it.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, of course it's hard to not like lose your
lose your way a little bit sometimes along the way
because it's pressure is real.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
But we feel so lucky that we are mission based,
right because so many companies do lose their way and
they're like, what are we doing? And let's pivot and
let's try this and you know, try that and follow
this trend.
Speaker 4 (42:47):
And we have this pressure of investors or like you
have to change your business, you have to sell, you
have to you know.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Yeah, right, but we have this anchor in place, the
stake in the ground, our north star that says we're
here to transform lives. We're helping people through you know, nutrition,
through plants and giving people the tools to sit in
the driver's seat of their own health and be a
(43:15):
you know, an active creator of their life. And so
that really guides us when we're wondering, wait, what are
we supposed to do here? Like oh, yeah, we need
to just think about the client again. What is what
does she need? How can we better service her? How
can we you know, service her deeper more of her
(43:36):
needs and more people more of her.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
We will go now, you guys, like I love the bars,
I love the powders, I love the granola is amazing, Like,
I also think that's a very important key to the
business to have for people that don't want to be
on a program but want the products consistently and.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Find at different price points.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
One So I think that's a huge thing.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
But also one thing I really want to ask you
before we start to wrap is what.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Do you do about copycats?
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Because there are a lot and that's something like I
know I've had to deal with throughout my entire career
on all sides, and it's something that I think when
you have a business like this, there are people that
will jump to copy, or existing businesses that will pivot
to try and copy. How do you deal with it?
(44:30):
Because I think there is a common reaction to that,
But I'm seeing many over this year of people that
have gone to great lengths to do different things to
deal with that.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
So I'm that I think when I come at it
from kind of different angles, which I think is good.
I think we're both of the mind though of this
business is very hard. It's very hard, like your busines,
this is very hard. Like there, you know, it might
(45:03):
be easy to get to one hundred clients, maybe even
a thousand clients, but and it's it's not easy, but
it might be doable. But then once you start thinking
about scaling, which you know it's a hard business. If
you're going to keep it at a small amount of people,
it's a lot of effort for you know, small amounts
of clients. And so if you're talking about scaling, like
(45:26):
it's just incredibly difficult, and then I don't I think
we have really nailed how to make food with love
and you feel like you know, you got it at
a spa or your mom made it for you, made
with love and then delivered to your door. It's incredibly difficult.
I mean, we've had some of like the world's experts
(45:49):
working on it. We've been in the kitchen, like we've
been making food. So it's like it's it's been perfected
over fifteen years. And so I think there's also just
time like it's going to be hard for and went
to fast forward. But I'm also of the personal mind,
like kind of ethically, spiritually of just like you just like, yeah,
(46:09):
you just keep going, and look, we'll definitely lose client
system competitors, but I've also seen so many clients come back,
Like if you want to go try something new, go
try something new, Like we're in it for the long game.
We're the lifestyle, and so if you need to go
try something else for a little while, go, But there
is longevity to this nutrition, like continually, even though on
(46:32):
the consumer level you see so many different types of
trends and nutrition, when you look at the literature, it
doesn't change. Like you just like over and over again,
get more whole foods into your diet, you know, get
clean fats, get healthy proteins, get enough greens. Like that
just has like stood the test of time. And that's
what we're about. And I totally get it if some
(46:54):
client wants to like go try crazy cleans, you know,
go do something wild, But I tend to find that
they always come back, and so I think about just stamina,
I mean, and that's also I think the wisdom of
doing this for fifteen years is they'll come back, and
we're just going to keep going.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
I look at Sakara as a more affordable way to
have your own healthy, private chef.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
You know, I ask.
Speaker 4 (47:17):
There's many good quotes from you.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Yeah, that's a personal chef and a nutrition.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
As I speak in soundbites.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
But I've watched it from the beginning and I just
love that you guys are standing so strong and at
the top of it and just continue to like expand
and improve it.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
I also love that you can customize so much.
Speaker 4 (47:39):
Now.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
I think that's so great too. So to me, those
are actually like so again like wins, you know.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
And we're we're not pushing veganism. That's not what we're about.
We're about basing your diet on plants. That means getting
enough plants into your diet because the rest of the
world is pushing you. Meat, cheese, coffee, and alcohol is
your five major food groups. You can go Yeah, you
can go out to a restaurant and get an amazing burger,
(48:10):
but it's really difficult to go somewhere and get high
quality plants. Yeah, a vegetable based meal that is delicious,
that's organic, which is really important. We were earlier, we
were talking about gut bacteria and antibiotics, pesticides and herbicides
are often antibiotics that are sprayed on your produce, and
(48:33):
you know you were eating that and we have all
these little bugs inside of us and it changes your
gut microbiomes. So you want to be getting organic. But
it's how many restaurants do you know that are organic?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Not enough?
Speaker 3 (48:46):
You could count them all on one hand.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Yeah, it's so insane.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
So we really want to make sure that you're getting
the enough plants into your diet, enough variety of plants
to feed a diversity of microbes in your gut and
be that support. You know that we really did throw
the idea of dieting on its head. We turned it around.
Instead of just eating whatever you want and then jumping
(49:10):
onto a diet to clean up, we said, no, eat
clean most of the time and then play dirty and
go out and go on your vacation and do whatever.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
That's how I live. I'm like, you know what, you
got to go and have fun too. This whole like
never have a drink again thing, it's not for me.
Speaker 3 (49:27):
And so you know, most of us need the support
in order to eat clean. We don't have our mothers
and our grandmothers cooking us food. You know, we're not
living in a village with a multi generational home, and
so in a way, you know, we've felt over the
years like we're your Sikara mamas, like we're providing you
(49:47):
with that healthy food, saying eat your vegetables and so
that you yeah, you can go out and play dirty
without any shame.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Well, I love you, guys. I'm so happy I met
you the beginning. I've watched you, I've watched the journey,
and you know, I'm such a fan. I'm no one
paid me to say this. I for my listeners. If
you had not heard of SOCAR, I can't imagine. But
if you haven't tried it, you should.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
We actually just launched a brand new program that I
don't know if we should be promoting it onto because
it's already sold out through the first week of February.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
We'll come back, yeah, come back again.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
It's we revamped our Level two detox and it is amazing.
It is it will change your body and your relationship
to your food. Is just such an incredible program. It's
also it feels like a spiritual cleanse, physical cleanse.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
It's all out until February, yes, but so if people
want to do it, I'm signing up right now post fashion, Yeah,
post sassion is a great time.
Speaker 4 (50:59):
It's it's like we called it level too, because it's
like a level up. So if you're feeling called to,
you know, detox cleanse, I think it can be a
really good place to start and then you can kind
of maintain with the meals after that. But yeah, it's
it's it's not for the faint of heart, but it's
certainly easier than juice cleanses things like that. It's very
(51:22):
nourishing things that are just like it's real food. You're
gonna too, You're gonna enjoy it. You're gonna have hot
meals like it's it's really nourishing.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
This was so much fun and so much to learn
from your experience and so inspirational for our listeners to
you know, not just like whether it's trying sacara but
just taking care of themselves, but also how to start
a badass business.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
I'm so impressed with you, guys. I hope to see
you very soon. I hope to see you guys really soon.
Speaker 3 (51:56):
This was so fun. It was great to see you.
Speaker 1 (52:08):
Okay, I want to say thank you so much to
Danielle and Whitney for coming on the pod today. They
have truly built such an extraordinary lifestyle brand in Sacar Life.
It is so beyond just a healthy meal program, and
I cannot wait to see what's next for them. Thank
you so much for listening to Climbing in Heels. If
you haven't already, please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
(52:31):
the iHeart app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You
don't miss a single episode this season. Be sure to
follow me on Instagram at at rachel Zo and the
show at Climbing Inhales pod for the latest episodes and updates.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
I will talk to you soon. One
Hi everyone, I'm Rachel Zoe and you're listening to Climbing
and Hails for your weekly dose of glamour, inspiration and
of course fun. Before we get into our amazing interview today,
I want to take a minute to acknowledge the incomprehensible
devastation and deeply, deeply rooted fear that's covering my hometown
(00:32):
of Los Angeles. I am one of the very, very
lucky ones and incredibly grateful that at this time my
home is safe, my children and myself have remained totally safe.
But there are so many people and families that have
lost everything, many many that I know, closest friends of mine,
(00:52):
closest friends of the kids, really countless countless others that
lost everything they own in their entire lives, that simply
cannot afford to in any way rebuild, recover, and don't
have safe places to go. So I really just want
to encourage anyone listening, if you're able, to please donate
(01:13):
to Baby to Baby. I've been on the board from
the beginning. It is the most extraordinary organization. I know
where every dollar goes. I promise you it's all going
to help these babies and children and families that are
suffering so deeply. They are working actively across LA to
provide families with basic essentials diapers, formula, clothing, wipes, high
(01:36):
gene items, or please donate to the Los Angeles Fire
Department LAFD, who, as you've seen on TV on your socials,
who are working tirelessly to put these fires out and
keeping everyone safe. Our hearts are with all our first
responders who we can never ever think enough. We love
(01:56):
you so much, LA, and please keep everyone here in
your hearts. So today I am joined by the powerhouse
female best friends behind Sacara Life, a whole food, nutrition
and supplement brand for your body, skin, and mind. Danielle
Dubois and Whitney Tingle were childhood friends that began their
(02:19):
incredibly successful business out of their very tiny New York
City kitchen in their very tiny apartment. I don't even
think it was a full kitchen, it was a kitchenette.
I know from personal experience how amazing and delicious Sacara
Life Food is and have used their meal service several
several times for my entire family. It does not feel
(02:41):
like starvation, It does not feel like a diet. It
feels like just delicious healthy food. You are never hungry,
and it's such a treat if you can try it
even once to set yourself on a great healthy routine.
Danielle and Whitney have continued to grow their brand to
monts proportions. I cannot believe how big they are and
(03:02):
have a cookbook and a podcast, and I know it's
only the beginning for these amazing young women, So let's
jump right in. I'm very happy to see you, guys.
I feel like I've known you for a long time,
Like I feel like I've known you since you started. Yeah,
(03:22):
you know, and now I've been the like lucky recipient
of Sakara so many times in my life, like if
I come off like a huge stretch of work and
I'm feeling really burnt out or like I was sick,
and I just feel like I need to nourish myself.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I just love Sacara because you're.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Never hungry and everything just like the food's so good.
And then I love what you guys started, and I
want to go back a little to the beginning, but
I feel like it was monumentally different and better than
what has existed in a space of you know, drink
(04:02):
this huge bucket of like cayen chili peppers or whatever
when people needed to like reset and feel better. And
so I want to talk first about, you know, just briefly,
like how like how did this even happen? Because you guys,
you know, there's a lot of stories of you know,
founders that were like best friends in you know, college,
(04:25):
or you know, started this out of their room or whatever.
So I want to know a little bit about how
you found each other first and foremost, and how many
years ago that was, because it's you know, it's not
always the happy ending of you know best that start
things together.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Well, Danielle and I grew up together in Sodona, Arizona.
Have you been to Sedona?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, I actually have. I've been there twice. I mean,
it's beautiful. It's like.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Lots of spirituality, lots of people coming from all around
the world seeking different forms of healing. There's lots of
different healing modalities there, nutrition being one of them, using
herbs and super foods and mother nature really.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
To help feels the vindy.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
My parents moved there in seventy six, Danielle's grandparents I
think right around the same time in the seventies, and
so we grew up together. There we met. I was
the new girl in school. I switched to schools in
seventh grade and in my first period math class, I
you know, my very first class. I come in and
(05:35):
I sit down and this girl is sitting in front of me.
She leans back over her chair and she goes, Hi,
I'm Danielle And I borrowed a pen end of story friend.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
That's so cute. And how old were you at that time,
like thirteen twelve?
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah, I had tested out a different school before this
one that you know. First, I went to a very small,
very alternative charter school, Montessori based charter school. It was,
you know, forty five kids, and so by the time
I was twelve, I was like, I want to be
around some more people, some boys. So I tried this
other school first, and it was filled with mean girls
(06:15):
and I know that well yeah, and it wasn't my vibe.
So I tried this other school and it was amazing,
and all of the most popular girls in school were
the nicest girls.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
That never happened. That never happens.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I feel like it's such an important point because it's
something we've really tried to carry through and how we
have built the business. You know, we have historically had
a lot of women and a lot of women in
leadership roles. And to make sure that the culture stays
one of rooting each other on, of seeing the best
in people, of assuming everyone's doing their best no matter
(06:52):
what it has been like really a top priority for us.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah. No cattiness, no competition, no mean girls club.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I mean, that's by the way, that's the impetus for
climbing and heels, you know. I mean the reason that
I started this podcast was because I was mean girl
since kindergarten and I've been listen, I've continued to battle
mean girls throughout my entire life and career, and I
just felt that this was such an amazing forum to
(07:24):
pay it forward to amazing women that you know, I
just want to continue to support in every single way.
And I think that it's important to talk about the
journeys of how you get to the top of where
you are. And I think this is such an important
point that you're talking about because it's something that I
so strongly believe in and advocate for as women being
(07:47):
kind to women.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
And I think for you.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Guys, it's like the fact that you literally said that
Danielle's to you and you had come off as like
mean girl, and she was like no, And that the
fact that the popular girls were nice. I think that
that carrying that through and through your adulthood is so important,
you know, because I think sometimes how we grew up
(08:10):
it was sort of like the mean girls were the
cool girls, and the jerk boys were the hot guys,
and the nerdy boys were the nice boys, and you
know all the things. Yeah, And I think changing that
whole landscape, I think now, so it's so cool to
be nice, you know, so.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Well, You've been so nice to us and supportive and
sharing us on from the beginning. So thank you.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I will always I'm such a believer in it.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
And I think that it is a secret to our
success is that we care deeply for each other. And
it kind of starts with that foundation of being nice
girls and and having that respect for each other. We
always say that first and foremost do we care for
(09:00):
each other as people, as humans, as individuals before the business,
that we if each of us are happy in our lives,
if we're feeling good, if we're feeling taken care of,
if we're doing work that is inspiring, then we're going
to do better at work. And if things aren't going
well from a relationship perspective or from our own personal
(09:23):
relationships or whatever it is, we're not going to show
up as our best. So kind of you know, nurturing
each other in allowing space for us to be real humans,
not just you know, co workers or employees of our company.
And that's allowed for this stamina, I would say, like
being able to endure the past thirteen years.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I was going to say, so, they also work their
asses off, right.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I know for a fact that you have. I've seen it,
I've lived it. I've seen you from the beginning. So
you start, okay, so you're best friends immediately. I imagine you
stayed best friends all through high school and everything else. Right,
So what happened after you graduate high school? Do you
go to college or do you start a business or both?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So I moved to.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
New York for college. I wanted to study pre med.
Whitney went to Arizona for college and then did some
time in Spain. And it was around that time, you know,
she had one more year to graduate and she was
thinking about LA or New York, and I was like,
come to New York. It's the best. You're gonna love it.
(10:33):
You can just shoot with me.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
She was like, come live in my apartment. You can
sleep in my bed, you can wear all my clothes.
We'll figure it out. She was like, don't bring anything.
She was like, no, really, don't bring anything. We have
no space for any of your stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
She's like, actually, you can't come here if you bring anything.
For a long time, I know.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
So I moved in with her. She was in this
two bedroom wing apartment in Soho. So it's the small bedrooms.
Her bed was almost touching all of the walls in
her room, and you know, shared it with another girl.
And there was this tiny little kitchenette in the hallway,
and they made space in the pantry for me to
come with my one suitcase. And yeah, and we figured
(11:18):
it out.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I love it so much. I love it so much.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
It is it was so fun. We had so much fun.
Probably too much.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Fun as it is in New York.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Yeah, exactly. But you know the kind of start of sakara,
I'd say it was when we were kids, Like I
suffered from a lot of disordered eating patterns, you know,
and it was never officially diagnosed because I never wanted
to admit it to anyone, and I hopped from diet
to diet and was always just looking for the solution
(11:56):
thought that you know, my thinness was wrapped up into
my wordiness and my power in the world. And I
had a terrible relationship to food. Food was always the enemy.
So less was always better no matter what it was.
It was never about listening to my body, taking care
of my body. It was just with this kind of
(12:17):
aim to be thinner.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And money and so much of the world, yes.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
So many of us. And I my mom was also
very sick for my entire life, and in and out
of the hospital all the time. So we were, you know,
with medical professionals and doctors all the time. And you know,
I saw many doctors save her life, and then I
saw many doctors make her life more difficult because they
(12:45):
didn't really understand root cause they didn't understand how to
take care of chronic conditions. They were great at like
acute conditions like you have a heart attack, thank God,
but when you're talking about like long term autoimmune issues
or you know, chronic anything, they really couldn't help her.
And so I moved to New York to study medicine,
(13:06):
and it was you know, around that time, I'd been
working in a hospital and with the cardiologists, and we
were seeing people with really late stage autoimmune issues and
lifestyle diseases. And after you see so many patients, it's
like you start to just realize that we actually don't
(13:27):
have the tools to help them long term. Sometimes we
have the tools to help them in the short term
with pain relief, with symptom relief, but nobody's really talking
about let's get to the core issue. And so then
they get moved around and you see the dietitian or
see another specialists, and it's just so disorganized. And I
was kind of at the bottom of my own journey.
(13:47):
I had done this crazy retreat and it was twenty
one days and it was a water fast and it
was so intense.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Though I think there is room for that in one's
kind of like spiritual work if you have a healthy
relationship to food. I did not, and so it just
took me down. And I wasn't looking at it as
like this spiritual kind of thing. I got like this
spiritual revolution that I needed, but I had no idea
that's what I was in for because it put me
to rock bottom, and you know, it was a blessing
(14:19):
now that I you know, look back and I'm grateful
for it. It just made me realize that I really
had to renegotiate my relationship to food or I was
going to be sick forever. And I had, you know,
been to doctors because I had gut issues. They give
me IBS as this umbrella term of like we don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I was so trying to diagnose you, well, like these
your symptoms great, right, yeah, And.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
You know, now fifteen years later, after I have studied
medicine functional medicine and have my master's in it, like,
I really understand these doctors just don't have the tools
to understand what is going on. But it really put
me on a path of after seeing those patients, after
kind of my self witnessing how you can't really go
to the conventional medical system with chronic conditions, I really
(15:07):
wanted to figure out how to you know, help myself
get out of rock bottom. And luckily, you know, Whitney
at that time was in New York with me, and
we were kind of at this bottom together. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah, you know, my kind of journey to Sakara. Also
started at a young age. I had terrible cystic acne
all over my face, big red, painful cysts, and I
tried everything to fix it. They put me on rounds
and rounds of antibiotics. I did the acutane. It didn't
(15:40):
work for me.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
And you know, with the immune system and all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I mean, it's now being connected to things like Crohn's
and colitis, and who knows. It's a very serious drug.
And I'm still so shocked that today it's prescribed to
people all the time by top dermatologists, when really, what
(16:06):
I didn't know in that time is that acne starts
in the gut. It's not a skin issue. It's a
gut issue.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
It's like a microbiome.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
It's microbiome, it's your immune system, it's your own your
body's bacterial balance, and your body's ability to fight an
imbalance of bacteria. So, you know, I tried all of
these things. And when I was moving to New York,
you know, back to our story moving in with Danielle,
(16:36):
I was working on Wall Street. My lifestyle was terrible.
I was working eighty hour work weeks, just go, go, go, NonStop.
I was you know, as part of my job to
go out after work and entertain clients and you know,
drink and my boss would expect me to come and
have a drink with him.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
I remember that, Yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
You know, and then and it's you're eating fried food
and whatever else with those drinks. And in the office
there's free pizza Fridays, and the luncheon learns. You know,
I'm twenty two and broke, so I'm eating whatever food
they're putting in.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Front of me, of course.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
And my skin was just at an all time worse,
Like I had put on a fast fifteen pounds and
my acne was just in a complete flare up right,
So I was desperate for my skin to clear up.
It was affecting my confidence, my career, how I showed
up in the world, you know, I couldn't hide it.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
It was the power of like clear skin.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yes, I do understand, because I have a lot of
people in my life so affected by acne insisted, and
it's polarizing. They don't want to actually go out ever,
they don't want to leave their house because they can't
look at people.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Yeah, and you try and makeup and you're covering it up,
and that just makes it worse. But I thought, I'm
in New York City and this city has everything, the
best of the best. I'm going to go to all
those I've read about in the magazines, and they're going
to fix me. And one by one I went to them,
and one by one they wanted to write me another
prescription for a mega round of antibiotics, which just makes
(18:12):
it worse, and as long term side effects by you know,
passing up your gout microbiome, or another prescription for acutane.
And I said, I already did those things and they
didn't work, So what else do you have for me?
And they basically just said nothing. You know, I can't
(18:33):
help you. And I was so upset, and because I
had so much hope set on these people that they
were going to fix me, and when they didn't have
the solution, I was devastated. But in that moment, I
heard my inner voice shouting at me, at this point,
don't do it. It's not the answer. You need to
go inside and figure out what is the root cause
(18:56):
of these symptoms on your face. And that was the
first time I thought about it as not the thing
I was trying to fix, but a symptom of the
actual thing that was going on in my body. And
so I turned to my best friend, to Danielle, and
back to our Sedona roots of food as medicine, mother
(19:19):
Nature's ability to heal, the body's ability to heal if
given the right tools and ingredients, the right material to
repair itself. And we decided to come together and figure
out just for ourselves, like what does true nutrition look like?
What is the healthiest way of eating? How can we
(19:39):
give our bodies the cleanest, purest inputs and give it
what it needs, all the right things so that it
can function at its best. This is something that so
many people don't know about nutrition, is that a majority
of our bodies processes are nutrient dependent, but it needs
(20:01):
nutrition and order to function properly. So, just like eliminating,
I had done all the elimination diets, I had eliminated
everything out of my diet. Danielle and I we tried
master cleanse, We did all the things, and it didn't
work because we weren't feeding the body the things that
needed in order to function properly.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Right, and the literature really supports this notion that it's
way more important what you do eat than what you
don't sure. And I think we just have an obsession
with what not to eat. And I can say that
because I was one of them. And you know, it's
just somehow way more seductive to have a list of
(20:40):
what not to eat than you know, to think about
what should I eat every single day instead.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
I remember the first time I had sakara, and I
just remember going, this just feels really good, Like it
just felt really good. It felt clean, it felt fresh,
it felt thought out. It wasn't I think that to me,
you were the first to create something that felt like
a lifestyle of eating rather than a diet or a
(21:09):
cleanse and it and I think that that, in my opinion,
is why it's so successful because and I think that
is a very hard thing to create. And wildly the
food is so good. And I think that's the other thing,
because you know, I come from a mother a family
(21:30):
who loves food, and when you say diet or light
or restrictive or regimen, it is like a hell no,
like like they eat everything.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
They don't.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
I mean, my parents are older. They don't like when
you say to them, like gluten free, They're like, what
are you talking about? You know, they're like you need
gluten or it doesn't taste good. You know, they're in
their late eighties, like they can eat whatever they want.
But I guess my point is is that I think
that more and more now we are seeing the it's
(22:06):
almost like an epidemic of autoimmunes and chronic disease, and
it is I have so many friends with autoimmunes, and like,
to me, it's like this combination of polarizing your immune
system with antibotics, you know, because they just throw antibotics
at everything right, and.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Then you have nothing to fight anything with.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And too many parents that aren't paying attention when they're
giving their kids from you know, age zero to when
they leave the house, just giving them whatever, like here's
doritos with your lunch or here's whatever. And I just
feel like there's so many things to prevent it. Now
we know so much, and so I feel like you
guys were such pioneers.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
So I want to understand.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
I guess what, like, how in that moment where you
guys were at rock bottom of your own health problems,
what happened that you were like, Okay, let's let's do this,
and how do you do it? Because being entrepreneurial and
starting a business, especially talking about you guys were living
in like the teeniest space ever probably four hundred square
(23:13):
feet to bedroom, Like, you know, how did you have
the power, the skills, the money like to actually say
let's do this because it's scary.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Yeah, And I also just want to add about, you know,
this idea of autoimmune issues before we get to that
is like, you know, I do think there's a lot
of parental responsibility that needs to be had, but I
actually think the onus is on the people and the
corporations who are making really bad food. And then we're
also swimming in a soup of toxic exposure that is
(23:48):
very new. You know, We're around electronic devices all the time.
Like there's just a lot that is trying to kind
of like eat away at our health and our health span.
And so know, the it was really the start of
Sapara was to we think about our health as like
I always say this, I don't I wish I could
(24:10):
tell you who it was by, but I don't remember.
But it's something like, you know, a healthy person has
a thousand dreams and an unhealthy person has one. Right,
and if you think about your health as something that
we are very lucky to have. The most important thing
that we can do is understand how to either get
(24:33):
back to health or stay healthy. And so we both
knew that we had to get back to health and
that we were kind of at this you know, fork
in the road where we could keep doing what we
had been doing and probably end up sicker and sicker,
or we could try and figure out how do we
actually get back to health and make that our priority,
(24:53):
not you know, my thinness, not Whitney's acne, but to
truly get back to a center and to understand what
is your toolkit? Because for me, as somebody with disordered
eating patterns, the scariest place in the world to be
was to be at that rock bottom and have no
idea how to get out. And so, you know, I
(25:14):
really appreciate what you said about Sakara being a lifestyle
versus a diet, because we worked so hard to make
sure that that was true. You know, That's why we
talk about this idea of eat clean, play dirty. It's like,
you know, I am the first to grab for a
glass of wine. I had French fries last night. It's
not about perfection, It's not about what not to eat
and drink. It's about what you do most of the time.
(25:36):
And if we could just kind of help people understand
that your toolkit really needs to be focused on what
you do do and less on idolizing what not to do.
Just that shift for people makes such a big deal.
And so when we started Sakara, we found that out.
You know, after me I studied nutrition and then we
(25:56):
just kind of from our Sedona roots, knew so much
about how people had been looking at nutrition for thousands
of years and all these ancient modalities and herbs and
looking at food and plants as medicine, not just like,
oh I'm hungry and here's some calories. And so we
came up with, you know, our pillars of nutrition, and
when we talk about them, none of them are going
(26:19):
to surprise you. They are all foundational, They are so simple,
and yet none of us can do it every single day.
It's so hard. You know. It's like, eat your greens,
make sure you're getting a lot of colors, make sure
your plate is full of whole fresh foods versus parson.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
It is very pretty, it's very and.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Make sure it's delicious. That was a big one for me.
Because I had dieted so long. I was so used
to eating you know, cardboard, like you drinking nothing. And
it was really important that we made this a joyful
ride because this is a lifestyle, and you know, we
think that joy is a nutrient, and so we realize,
(26:59):
like the the foundation of you know, nutrition or we
like we prefer to call it nourishment is actually pretty simple,
and most of us can agree that we need to
get more fruits and vegetables and whole foods. Yet somehow
it's so hard to do. And so we were like, well,
you know, let's try it. Just Whitney and I we
just were like, okay, let's commit for a couple months,
(27:21):
we're going to do this, and we would switch off
cooking days, and it really only took about three weeks
before both of us just everything about us started to change.
On mental shift, my mental shift where I like, it
gives me chills now even just talking about it, but
I just it was like my brain turned on. I
had been so focused on the wrong thing, so like
(27:43):
you know, thinking of food is the enemy and what
not to eat. But when I use my time and
energy to focus on what to eat, it was like
everything just got better. My mental health got better. Actually,
my I was so much easier to kind of like
get in the shape I wanted to get into because
I had nourished, man, I had the tools to do that.
I was like not getting enough nutrients every single day.
(28:05):
And you know, it was the first time, you know,
the inflammation with skins started to go down, and we
just realized we were onto something. We had friends asking us,
what have you been doing? What juice cleans do you want?
That was like really the time of the juice cleans,
and we were like, no, actually, we're chewing these days
and you know, and so we just thought, let's let's
(28:26):
see if there's a couple other people out there that
have some version of what we're going through and really
need the solution at their doorsteps so that there's no
like nothing to get in the way. Here's breakfast, lunch,
and dinner, organic, nutritionally designed. You don't have to think
about it. By the way, you don't have to heat
it up if you don't want to. You can bring
it to the office. It's beautiful, it's delicious. And you know,
(28:49):
we were like, Okay, maybe there's a few people. We
had no idea what we were doing. We were in
our young twenty something and it started with one client
and then their lives were changed, and then it turned
in to five clients, and we were just cooking in
our kitchen like at home.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Just like dropping it off. At that point, you were
just dropping it off at people's home.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
We were doing everything, and we did that for a
long time and then it was.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Actually that's like kitchenette right.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Oh my god, it's so small, like yeah, like.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I did kitchen at It's like, I know exactly what,
I have such a visual of your apartment.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Like hard to cook for one person in.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah, by the way it is, it's almost like it's
one level up from like a dorm room.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Yeah, no exactly. But it really set us on this
mission because you know, once you impact one person's life,
you're like, oh, maybe there's somebody else who needs this.
And then it just really started to snowball and it
kind of hit this peak point when an editor from
Daily Candy kind of heard about us, and we were
(29:58):
still like cooking ourselves, doing delivering ourselves, I know, Daily Candy,
I IP and she was like, hey, I'm you know,
doing a piece about you know, health and nutrition and
how like juice cleansing might be out. Can I try
what you're doing? And you know, we had to put
on a face about it because we didn't want to
tell her. We were just like cooking in our kitchen
(30:19):
and this thing was so small, and so we're like yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then you know, so we made it ourselves, okay, guys, yeah,
and so we well we and then we ended up
delivering ourselves, and we really surprised her because she, I'm
sure just assumed we had delivery people, but we did not,
so it was us and we opened the door and
she like still had curlers in her hair, was just like,
(30:40):
what are you.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Doing, really surprised to see us, and we're like, oh, yeah,
you know, we just wanted to make sure that it
arrived safely to you. So we delivered it ourselves.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Ye ik service. But she ended up writing a piece
about us, and we had no idea what was going
to happen. So it just happened randomly, like three weeks later.
And I was the first to realize it because at
the time we built our own website, Shopify did not exist,
and so we had you had to email us to
order and it was like ten email exchanges before we
(31:12):
could order, and then we would send you a PayPal invoice.
But after Daily Candy, I woke up one morning and
I opened the computer and it was the thousands of
emails being like I wanted last week. She called us
the anti crazy cleanse. Yeah, it's and it's still true today,
(31:32):
Like it's really is that so bless her? And Whitney
and I were like, what are we going to do?
So we like had to make up like a name
for an email and an assistant and it was really us,
and we told everyone we were sold out for two weeks.
And in those two weeks, we got a kitchen, hired
a staff, got delivery people, and that was really the start.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Were you scared that you were to like lose interest
in those two weeks? It's so scary to do that.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
I think we just, I mean, there were so many
people that's in like you guys, because that was the
very beginning of like because we launched the Zoy Report
around so what year was that, twenty twenty eleven?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, yeah, it's so wild.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
And nobody knew what plant based was.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
People were right, and nobody knew how to get food delivered.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
You're like in Sadonia, Arizona, everybody's plant based.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Yeah. No, people were like, can you just make sure
I'm allergic to shrink? Like, don't worry, it's not a problem.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
You're good.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
But we were good. We then we were like went
to Craigslist and we were like trying to hire kitchen
people and delivery people. I mean, it's endless, endless stories
about how like we definitely have some PTSD about what
it meant to be.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Yeah, I met that.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
I think, you know, I love this story. I love
this journey because it really goes back to the original
way of building a business.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
A small business.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
With a big idea that is terrifying when it grows
that quickly because it's really hard to manage. And I
think that's sort of like one of the biggest pain
points for entrepreneurs that like if you have this like
pr moment and then all of a sudden, you go
from like two hundred to two thousand, or even twenty
to two thousand, you're like.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Wait, like you don't because you have to be so
careful in that moment, right.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
And especially in a business that continues to grow, where
you're going from twenty to two thousand to twenty thousand,
and you know, there's no Danielle and I talk about this.
There's no ceo guidebook, no entrepreneur guidebook that teaches you
or trains you how to be a CEO when you
have a team of four people, Now, how to be
(33:53):
a CEO when you have ten people, twenty people, two
hundred people. Like you have to just figure it out
and be able to scale yourself in that same time
you're understanding your ability to lead. Your leadership skills have
to scale along with the business, which is also hard.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
There are so many there's so many things, and there's
so many learnings, and it is navigating your path right
and like, I mean, how many mistakes did you make
along the way?
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Daily mistakes daily, every single day.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Yeah, and it's hard. Like so a couple of things.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I want to ask you, So, what were the scariest
moment if you can remember even just one or two
that like basically you were like, I'm done, I can't
do this anymore, Like we can't, We're so screwed, or
like or did you not have any of those?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Because I know I've had like countless, but I mean.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
With so many, I mean, for me, I remember it
was early on, and this is where I'm just so
grateful we had to each other because when I had
an off day, Whitney could be like, no, we're doing
this right and vice versa. But I remember we had
this one client early on, and she was a friend
of a current client and he had sent it to
(35:13):
her and so she wasn't somebody who like went to
our site ordered it herself. And she wroteiced this email
where she was like I could just go to Chopped,
like I don't get what you're doing and I won't
be ordering again, but I really wish you guys luck.
And I remember Whitney and I, you know, we would
work at a cafe and I remember looking at her
(35:34):
in the cafe and be like, yeah, what are we doing,
Like we're delivering salads? Like what are people only want
pizza delivered? Like at the time, their meal delivery didn't
really exist.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
And there was no Uber eats post.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
And so I was like there was no one to
kind for us to be like this is what we're
doing but better or different or it was like we
were really making a new path, and so I would
have I I remember that moment where I was like yeah, wait,
what are we doing. We're cooking ourselves. Like I couldn't
imagine at the time, like scaling two one hundred thousand
(36:10):
square feet of production facility. I couldn't imagine having a
team of two hundred, Like I just couldn't. It's hard.
Even though I knew we were onto something, it's hard
to imagine how you're gonna get there. And for me personally,
like I have achiever and like one of my top things,
like I personally have to feel like I'm achieving all
the time, which has its pros and its cons. But
(36:33):
in those moments where I'm like, yeah, this doesn't feel
like it's going anywhere, Let's try something else, let's pivot.
I remember when you being like, no, we're onto something
like remember this food changed our life. This is not chopped.
This is like nutrition delivered to your door. And so
we could kind of like talk each other down. But
then there were so many other moments like wasn't us
(36:53):
It was like outside circumstances that just made it so hard,
like hiring kitchen staff if you've never like were in
a restaurant, or it's so hard.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
It's so hard.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
That's why I'm saying like, I have a real knowledge
of what you guys have built. I really do, just
because I have so many friends on all sides of
the industry in food and you know, just building different
kinds of businesses around food, whether it's like mini cupcakes
or or nutrition based it's you know, to cookies like it.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
It's so hard.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
It's so freaking hard, which is why I like really
wanted to have you guys on because I think being
pioneers and you know, this is something that you know,
people say, well, Rachel, you.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Were the first stylist, you were this, you're that.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And I'm like, okay, thanks, But like that's also comes
with it the hardest challenges because there is no there
is no one to look at of like I want
to be that, or I want to get there, I
want to accomplish this much, or I want to do
that better. Right, It's sort of like what am I doing?
(38:02):
I'm figuring this.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Out as I go to educate the market, Yes, and
on a completely new category.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Correct, correct, And I think I think the other thing
I want to say is like, how did you so
you started with this program?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Right?
Speaker 1 (38:17):
And then to your point, like it was two of
you then it was four of you. Then it was
whatever that to me is the scariest part, right, like
the growing pains of the small to the next level,
but then really going to the scaling level. So did
you then along the way did you raise money?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Did you have advisors?
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Did you have friends that were like, guys, this is
over your head, you need help?
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Or like, how how does that?
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Like?
Speaker 1 (38:42):
How did you go from that to where you are now?
How many people are you serving now?
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Roughly?
Speaker 3 (38:46):
I mean we do millions and millions of meals each
year delivered all across the country.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Insane?
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Is your team hundreds now hundreds of people. We're headquartered
in New York. You also have a team in LA.
But I'd say team is everything. Like we have had amazing,
(39:14):
truly incredible, so talented people work for Secar over the years.
I mean early on we had just really amazing people.
We had an incredible president join us where she was
a client, and she wrote to us an email and
wanted to meet with us, and we're like, oh, she
(39:34):
probably wants to talk about digestive issues, and you know,
I don't know. I like, I guess we can meet
with her. Because she didn't tell us why she went
to meet, and then she showed up with her resume
and it's you know, Harvard Business School and all these
Goldman Sachs and.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
All these amazing things and resume.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
There are basically like three of us sitting in a
in an office space and we're still doing everything. And
she said, you guys changed.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
My health, my body, my life.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Like I see what you're doing here and I want
to be a part of it.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
And I also chill.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
No, I was just going to say, we we've been
able to attract really incredible, high caliber people to our
team because they have had.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
These life changing experiences.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
I'd also add that we didn't raise money, so you know,
we really built it off of some money we raised
by throwing a dinner and that's how we started it.
And now you know, we're obviously on so many like
entrepreneurial panels and podcasts, and everyone I talked to like
(40:44):
thinks that there's one path, and that is that you
come up with an idea, you make a deck, you
come up with like a prototype, you raise money, and
you go to market. And I think this kind of
genre or this like kind of wherever we are in
the world of entrepreneurialism. It's like people just want to
(41:05):
get it perfect, raise money, and go, and I think
they're very scared to start with one client. They're very
scared to start small. And it really allowed us to
evolve and adapt and own our company. I mean, we
still own the majority of our company, and that is
unheard of in most kind of like consumer D two
(41:27):
C type businesses, but especially in meal delivery because it
is such an operationally and logistically heavy business that most
of the time people raise hundreds of millions of dollars
even when they're doing far less in revenue, and so
they own very small pieces of their company. We've been
very fortunate. We didn't raise money until we were doing
(41:49):
millions in revenue, and then we raise money from people
who were willing to kind of be in the long
game with us, weren't asking us to just like turn
the business in a couple years. And still to this day,
like sometimes I'll have I'll have a board meeting and
a friend or somebody will be like, oh gosh, sorry,
I'm like, no, I love my board meetings like I
(42:11):
love my board. There there are biggest fans and some
of them are like family. At this point and just
cheering us on thirteen years later and just seeing like
what else can you do? What more can you do?
And you know, sometimes have to remind us like that
we're on this mission and you know it.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, of course it's hard to not like lose your
lose your way a little bit sometimes along the way
because it's pressure is real.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
But we feel so lucky that we are mission based,
right because so many companies do lose their way and
they're like, what are we doing? And let's pivot and
let's try this and you know, try that and follow
this trend.
Speaker 4 (42:47):
And we have this pressure of investors or like you
have to change your business, you have to sell, you
have to you know.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Yeah, right, but we have this anchor in place, the
stake in the ground, our north star that says we're
here to transform lives. We're helping people through you know, nutrition,
through plants and giving people the tools to sit in
the driver's seat of their own health and be a
(43:15):
you know, an active creator of their life. And so
that really guides us when we're wondering, wait, what are
we supposed to do here? Like oh, yeah, we need
to just think about the client again. What is what
does she need? How can we better service her? How
can we you know, service her deeper more of her
(43:36):
needs and more people more of her.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
We will go now, you guys, like I love the bars,
I love the powders, I love the granola is amazing, Like,
I also think that's a very important key to the
business to have for people that don't want to be
on a program but want the products consistently and.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Find at different price points.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
One So I think that's a huge thing.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
But also one thing I really want to ask you
before we start to wrap is what.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Do you do about copycats?
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Because there are a lot and that's something like I
know I've had to deal with throughout my entire career
on all sides, and it's something that I think when
you have a business like this, there are people that
will jump to copy, or existing businesses that will pivot
to try and copy. How do you deal with it?
(44:30):
Because I think there is a common reaction to that,
But I'm seeing many over this year of people that
have gone to great lengths to do different things to
deal with that.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
So I'm that I think when I come at it
from kind of different angles, which I think is good.
I think we're both of the mind though of this
business is very hard. It's very hard, like your busines,
this is very hard. Like there, you know, it might
(45:03):
be easy to get to one hundred clients, maybe even
a thousand clients, but and it's it's not easy, but
it might be doable. But then once you start thinking
about scaling, which you know it's a hard business. If
you're going to keep it at a small amount of people,
it's a lot of effort for you know, small amounts
of clients. And so if you're talking about scaling, like
(45:26):
it's just incredibly difficult, and then I don't I think
we have really nailed how to make food with love
and you feel like you know, you got it at
a spa or your mom made it for you, made
with love and then delivered to your door. It's incredibly difficult.
I mean, we've had some of like the world's experts
(45:49):
working on it. We've been in the kitchen, like we've
been making food. So it's like it's it's been perfected
over fifteen years. And so I think there's also just
time like it's going to be hard for and went
to fast forward. But I'm also of the personal mind,
like kind of ethically, spiritually of just like you just like, yeah,
(46:09):
you just keep going, and look, we'll definitely lose client
system competitors, but I've also seen so many clients come back,
Like if you want to go try something new, go
try something new, Like we're in it for the long game.
We're the lifestyle, and so if you need to go
try something else for a little while, go, But there
is longevity to this nutrition, like continually, even though on
(46:32):
the consumer level you see so many different types of
trends and nutrition, when you look at the literature, it
doesn't change. Like you just like over and over again,
get more whole foods into your diet, you know, get
clean fats, get healthy proteins, get enough greens. Like that
just has like stood the test of time. And that's
what we're about. And I totally get it if some
(46:54):
client wants to like go try crazy cleans, you know,
go do something wild, But I tend to find that
they always come back, and so I think about just stamina,
I mean, and that's also I think the wisdom of
doing this for fifteen years is they'll come back, and
we're just going to keep going.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
I look at Sakara as a more affordable way to
have your own healthy, private chef.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
You know, I ask.
Speaker 4 (47:17):
There's many good quotes from you.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Yeah, that's a personal chef and a nutrition.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
As I speak in soundbites.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
But I've watched it from the beginning and I just
love that you guys are standing so strong and at
the top of it and just continue to like expand
and improve it.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
I also love that you can customize so much.
Speaker 4 (47:39):
Now.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
I think that's so great too. So to me, those
are actually like so again like wins, you know.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
And we're we're not pushing veganism. That's not what we're about.
We're about basing your diet on plants. That means getting
enough plants into your diet because the rest of the
world is pushing you. Meat, cheese, coffee, and alcohol is
your five major food groups. You can go Yeah, you
can go out to a restaurant and get an amazing burger,
(48:10):
but it's really difficult to go somewhere and get high
quality plants. Yeah, a vegetable based meal that is delicious,
that's organic, which is really important. We were earlier, we
were talking about gut bacteria and antibiotics, pesticides and herbicides
are often antibiotics that are sprayed on your produce, and
(48:33):
you know you were eating that and we have all
these little bugs inside of us and it changes your
gut microbiomes. So you want to be getting organic. But
it's how many restaurants do you know that are organic?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Not enough?
Speaker 3 (48:46):
You could count them all on one hand.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Yeah, it's so insane.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
So we really want to make sure that you're getting
the enough plants into your diet, enough variety of plants
to feed a diversity of microbes in your gut and
be that support. You know that we really did throw
the idea of dieting on its head. We turned it around.
Instead of just eating whatever you want and then jumping
(49:10):
onto a diet to clean up, we said, no, eat
clean most of the time and then play dirty and
go out and go on your vacation and do whatever.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
That's how I live. I'm like, you know what, you
got to go and have fun too. This whole like
never have a drink again thing, it's not for me.
Speaker 3 (49:27):
And so you know, most of us need the support
in order to eat clean. We don't have our mothers
and our grandmothers cooking us food. You know, we're not
living in a village with a multi generational home, and
so in a way, you know, we've felt over the
years like we're your Sikara mamas, like we're providing you
(49:47):
with that healthy food, saying eat your vegetables and so
that you yeah, you can go out and play dirty
without any shame.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Well, I love you, guys. I'm so happy I met
you the beginning. I've watched you, I've watched the journey,
and you know, I'm such a fan. I'm no one
paid me to say this. I for my listeners. If
you had not heard of SOCAR, I can't imagine. But
if you haven't tried it, you should.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
We actually just launched a brand new program that I
don't know if we should be promoting it onto because
it's already sold out through the first week of February.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
We'll come back, yeah, come back again.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
It's we revamped our Level two detox and it is amazing.
It is it will change your body and your relationship
to your food. Is just such an incredible program. It's
also it feels like a spiritual cleanse, physical cleanse.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
It's all out until February, yes, but so if people
want to do it, I'm signing up right now post fashion, Yeah,
post sassion is a great time.
Speaker 4 (50:59):
It's it's like we called it level too, because it's
like a level up. So if you're feeling called to,
you know, detox cleanse, I think it can be a
really good place to start and then you can kind
of maintain with the meals after that. But yeah, it's
it's it's not for the faint of heart, but it's
certainly easier than juice cleanses things like that. It's very
(51:22):
nourishing things that are just like it's real food. You're
gonna too, You're gonna enjoy it. You're gonna have hot
meals like it's it's really nourishing.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
This was so much fun and so much to learn
from your experience and so inspirational for our listeners to
you know, not just like whether it's trying sacara but
just taking care of themselves, but also how to start
a badass business.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
I'm so impressed with you, guys. I hope to see
you very soon. I hope to see you guys really soon.
Speaker 3 (51:56):
This was so fun. It was great to see you.
Speaker 1 (52:08):
Okay, I want to say thank you so much to
Danielle and Whitney for coming on the pod today. They
have truly built such an extraordinary lifestyle brand in Sacar Life.
It is so beyond just a healthy meal program, and
I cannot wait to see what's next for them. Thank
you so much for listening to Climbing in Heels. If
you haven't already, please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
(52:31):
the iHeart app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You
don't miss a single episode this season. Be sure to
follow me on Instagram at at rachel Zo and the
show at Climbing Inhales pod for the latest episodes and updates.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
I will talk to you soon. One
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