Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
I he said, which I put
on the business card? I said, I
don't care. Actually, whateveryou want to put on the business
card. I mean, that sounds great.
And he put Chief OperatingOfficer. And that was how it
happened. That was it. In
Dave Crenshaw (00:16):
this episode,
you'll get to know Kara golden,
the undaunted entrepreneur, andyou'll hear the story of how she
turned her concern about herfamily's health into a multi
million dollar beverage empire.
I'm Dave Crenshaw, and this ismy success Show. Welcome back,
friends, to the Dave CrenshawSuccess Show. This is where I
(00:38):
speak to some of the mostsuccessful people I've met in my
life's journey, and I'm on amission to find universal
principles of success that canhelp both you and my family
succeed. In case it's your firsttime here and you're not
familiar with me, I'm a bestselling author. I speak around
the world to Fortune 500companies, and I've taught
millions of people how to besuccessful through my online
(01:00):
courses in particular onLinkedIn. Learning with this
show, I wanted to createsomething a little different, a
legacy project, to help myfamily succeed, in particular,
my children, but I thought you'dalso enjoy learning along with
them. And I interview people whohave multi faceted success in
many areas of their lives, sothey're not just financially
(01:20):
successful and don't just have agreat career, but they also have
a wonderful, well rounded lifeas well. And if you think of
someone you think would make agreat guest, you can email your
suggestion to guest at Davecrenshaw.com now as you listen
to today's episode, I want youto do something important. Look
for something you can do. Lookfor an action you can take today
(01:42):
or this week to make my guestsuccess story a part of your
success story. And today's guestis very special. Kara golden is
the founder of hintIncorporated, best known for its
award winning and I'll adddelicious hint water, the
leading unsweetened flavoredwater. She's been named one of
Fast Company's most creativepeople in business, Fortune's
(02:05):
Most Powerful WomenEntrepreneurs and E wise
Entrepreneur of the Year inNorthern California. She's an
active speaker, author of TheWall Street Journal, best
selling book, undaunted, andhost of the podcast the Kara
golden show. She lives in theSan Francisco Bay Area and
enjoys hiking and spending timewith her husband and kids. Kara,
(02:26):
it's such an honor to have youon the show today. Thank you for
being here. So thrilled
Unknown (02:32):
to be here. So very
nice for you to invite me. It's
Dave Crenshaw (02:36):
not often that I
get to interview someone where
I'm a huge fan of their product,and so if you can't see on video
right now, but I'm holding up mytwo favorite hint water flavors.
I've got crisp apple and thenthe clementine hint. Plus, I am
not getting paid for this. I'mjust a huge fan of what you
created. So it's a real honor totalk to you.
Unknown (02:59):
Thank you. Well, those
are two of my favorites,
although I will tell you thatthe crisp apple one. Every time
we have it in our refrigerator,my dogs end up wanting that one.
I swear they can actually lookat it or smell it when I crack
it open and they're they'reobsessed with apples, and so I
always take the crisp apple onhikes, and they ended up
(03:23):
consuming it. So they don'treally like the clementine one
as much, but they also don'tlike clementines very much so,
but they're obsessed withapples, and they smell them, and
it's yeah, they go crazy. Well,we have
Dave Crenshaw (03:36):
a cat that acts
like a dog, but I'm not sharing
this with him at all. So tostart this off, I always ask
every guest the same question,which is, it's the question that
we got asked when we were kids,when you were young, what did
you want to be when you grew up?
Where were you thinking you weregoing to head with your career?
Unknown (03:56):
I thought I was going
to be an attorney. And that
started I have a brother that's14 years older than me, and I
think I I was partly inspired bywatching him start his journey
and going to law school. And Ithought it was really hard, but
really interesting. And then,frankly, as he started to
(04:19):
practice law, I became lessinterested in. So I had, in
many, many ways, having somebodywho was that much older than me,
I was able to really watch andtake notes on what I wanted to
do and also what I didn't wantto do. But he also had an
(04:40):
entrepreneur side of him, too.
So I think he definitely had animpact on me.
Dave Crenshaw (04:45):
That's
interesting that you were that
observant, though, at that age,and taking notes for me. There
was a time where I thought I wasgoing to go into law, and then I
realized it's not Matlock.
You're sitting in the office andgoing through paperwork, and
Unknown (04:58):
I ended up marrying an.
Attorney. Oh, okay, I laughbecause he says he's a
recovering attorney. He becameour chief operating officer of
our of hint.
Dave Crenshaw (05:08):
So you started to
decide that you didn't want to
be an attorney. So what did youend up studying in college? I
Unknown (05:16):
was a journalism major,
and I don't know if it's that I
didn't have as much exposuregrowing up or I think the high
school that I went to in Arizonawas pretty good at math, but I
just never really focused thatmuch on math as much as I was
focusing on writing andstorytelling. And so I just
(05:37):
hadn't really used that side,the sort of finance side of my
brain, but when I went off touniversity, it seemed like a lot
of my friend group was infinance classes. And so I had an
opportunity, because it fit intomy schedule to take some finance
classes, and they were thehardest classes that I was
(05:59):
taking in university. I was justreally buried in so much work,
journalism and all my writingclasses were fairly they weren't
easy, but they were easier thanthe finance classes. And
ironically, I was taking so manyof these classes because maybe
the competitive side of mestarted to come out to you that
I'm like, I can do better thanthan this, and so I ended up
(06:22):
getting a minor in finance bythe time I graduated. That's
Dave Crenshaw (06:27):
fascinating. And
I'm gonna call this out if
people have been listening tothe show for a while, here we go
again. We have someone who'shighly successful. And what did
they do in school? They spenttime studying business. This is
a I'm bringing this out Kara,because this is a recurring
pattern. Part of what I'mlooking for are patterns of
success. Studying business isone of those that not all, but
(06:49):
most of the people that Iinterview do. So I tell my kids,
they can study whatever theywant in school, but at least a
minor in business is arequirement if I'm going to help
them pay for that educationsounds like you'd agree with
that. I
Unknown (07:02):
totally agree with
that. The one other thing that I
would add is that you know youwant to take that opportunity.
It's something that I say to mykids and any of their friends
who will listen to me, you wantto take that time to find things
that are interesting to you,that you want to learn, like I
could have continued in my majorand done what I was doing, but
(07:26):
what I found is that if I wentand challenged myself a little
bit with something that I didn'thave that much knowledge about
it, and when else are you goingto learn that right? When else
would I have taken these financecourses? So and I do agree with
you that the people, especiallythe people that I've met along
(07:46):
the way, who have started acompany inside of Silicon
Valley, you can't be anengineer, and you could co found
a company. That's definitelyhappened, but you're not going
to run your own startup unlessyou really understand business
fundamentals, you will have thatcompany taken away from you in
about four minutes, right? Andso I'm always encouraging
(08:08):
people, especially when I'minterviewing on college
campuses, find those classesthat you just don't really
understand. When you're in acircle and people are talking
say you're an engineer, you'retalking about marketing. Go take
some marketing classes andreally understand how does what
you know how to do that you'repretty good at that. Things are
(08:31):
a little easier for you. Yourbrain has adjusted to it. And go
find those things that you don'tknow much about it. And I think
that that's you'll be a betterbusiness person for it, but
you'll also be much morereceptive to people down the
road who are doing differentthings than you. That's
Dave Crenshaw (08:50):
a fantastic
perspective. Thank you for
sharing that. So when yougraduated from college, where
did your career begin? What didyou start doing? I
Unknown (09:00):
had been reading the
Wall Street Journal and also
Fortune magazine. So when I wasgraduating, I thought maybe
there's a way to actually takeboth my communication and
writing skills and my interestand minor in finance. And so I
reached out to Fortune Magazine,and I looked in the masthead of
(09:22):
the magazine, and ended upreaching out to the managing the
then managing editor, and said,I'd love to work for your
publication, and I'd love to bea writer. And he wrote me a very
nice note back and said, ifyou're ever in the New York
area, let me know. And littledid I know that that was sort of
(09:45):
a brush off a dear John. Henever thought I was going to
actually come out to New York. Iwas this girl in Arizona, and so
I but I did, and I wrote him acouple times, and I just figured
he's not responding back. Hemust be very. Busy, because he
puts out a great publication,and so instead, I'll just go to
the time in life building wherethey were housed, and go to the
(10:09):
HR department, because isn'tthat where jobs are. So that was
sort of this start. I never didget a job at Fortune Magazine,
but it was during that try thatI said, and I was in the
building and the head of HR fortime publications, which
included fortune I said, Isthere anything else available in
(10:33):
the building? It was after thatquestion that the head of HR
said to me, well, there is arole at Time Magazine, so maybe
that is something you would wantto interview for. I said, Sure.
Why not?
Dave Crenshaw (10:48):
There are a bunch
of things that I want to unpack
here with this story. First ofall, that willingness to go
wherever you want to go, toforge your own path and not wait
for someone to come to you,right? Like you said, Fortune
wasn't at Arizona State. Theydidn't set up a booth. You said,
I want to go work for them. Soyou went and pursued it. That's
(11:11):
the first thing. The secondthing is, when you got there,
asking the question, is thereanything else available? I think
a lot of people, when they getthat, no, they give up and they
go back home, they lick theirwounds, they feel bad for
themselves. And what you'redoing is going okay, well, if
this didn't work out, but what'sthe next possible opportunity,
right? And you kept pursuing it,and then that aspect of you
(11:33):
saying, here is my ultimategoal, here's what I'm aiming
toward, and eventually I'm goingto get that. There's a lot of
drive in there. And I know evenyou use the term undaunted for
yourself, where did that comefrom? For you? Was that nature,
or was it nurture? Or was it acombination of both? So
Unknown (11:55):
being the last of five
kids, I think has a lot to do
with it. I don't know if it's ifI was born with it or not, but I
think having that experience asthe last of five kids also, I
always felt like my olderbrother and sister were getting
more opportunities than me, so Ialways felt like, why do they
(12:16):
get to do things and I don't getto Do things? And even though I
was significantly younger. So myparents would always say to me,
Well, you know, if you want togo do something, then you need
to go figure out how you'regoing to do it. And that was
great training, I guess, to bean entrepreneur, because I look
(12:37):
back on I mean, a great exampleof this was I wanted to be able
to buy things. I wanted to beable to go and buy clothes. I
didn't have any money. I'd get avery, very small allowance, but
I didn't have any money, and soone of my parents said to me,
Well, if you had a job, then youcould actually save some money
(12:59):
and be able to do all of thosethings. They probably didn't
think that. I took that veryseriously, and that's when I
went down to ABC toy store andapplied for a job at age 14.
Little did I know I thought Iwas doing the cash register on
Sundays, which I thought wouldbe a really cool job to be able
to work. But little did I knowthat the owner of the small toy
(13:24):
store in Old Town, Scottsdale,actually needed more help,
including taking me to buyingexperiences for toys. Here, I
was a 14 year old kid, right? Iknew a lot about toys, and she
picked up on it very, very fast,that I should actually go with
her to figure out what shouldthe merchandise be in the
(13:46):
stores, because I had a reallygood eye for it. I love
Dave Crenshaw (13:50):
that your
supervisor saw those gifts in
you and gave you an opportunityto express them, even at a young
age. I think that's prettyinsightful, and not a choice
that many leaders make, right?
They hold people back becausethey're not old enough or don't
have experience or that sort ofthing. But I think we all have
opportunities to encouragesomeone who's new or fresh,
(14:10):
regardless of their age, toexpress their gifts and grow. It
sounds like that was a formativemoment in a small way in your
future career.
Unknown (14:22):
I think another and
you'll probably relate to this
that, I think another piece thatI was really exposed to was that
everybody around me, my dad, myother people that I talked to
whose parents were workinginside of large companies
couldn't believe that I got ajob at age 14, and I was given
(14:43):
all of this experience. I mean,I learned about margins on
different categories, like allthese things that I wasn't
learning as a 14 year old inschool. And the thing about
that, I take away from that, andagain, the dots connect later on
in life. Is that that was anopportunity to work for a small
business. So she was running thestore. I mean, there wasn't some
(15:07):
big corporation. You weren'ttalking about Toys R Us or
Amazon, and so she could kind ofdo whatever she wanted, and at
the end of the day, she neededsomebody to solve these problems
for and I think it's theadvantage, really, of working
for a small business versus alarge corporation. You're able
to see just different things andkind of show up and there aren't
(15:30):
as many rules. There aren't asmany barriers, I guess, on the
sides, to kind of keep you inyour lane.
Dave Crenshaw (15:37):
That's a great
point about the value of working
for a small business. Peopleoften talk about, go support a
small business by buying thingsfrom them. But that's beautiful,
that you also gained careerlessons by working for a small
business. I love that. Let'sshift gears to go back to the
beginning of your career inmedia industry. I know that the
(16:00):
early 2000s are a big part ofyour origin story. For hint
water. Can you talk to us alittle bit about how the genesis
of that idea came about? So
Unknown (16:12):
I left media, not
really consciously. I went from
time to CNN and then moved toSan Francisco, worked for a
little startup that was a SteveJobs idea that was a spin out of
Apple, and in 2001 I said, I'mspending way too much time on
(16:33):
the plane, and I live in SanFrancisco. My husband was an
attorney, had passed theCalifornia bar, so we weren't
gonna go and move to anotherstate at that point. And we were
just starting our family. I'dhad my second child and was
pregnant actually with my third,and that was when I said, You
(16:54):
know what? I think I'm going tospend some time trying to figure
out something that's much morelocal. So that was kind of where
the thinking was. I neverthought I was going to start a
beverage company. I actuallyreally thought that I was going
to go and do something else intech. But it was when I started
(17:17):
living my life, waking up everysingle day, and looking at the
food and drinks that I wasputting into my young family
system, that's when I reallystarted to kind of question, why
would I put apple juice in mychild's sippy cup and then go to
(17:39):
the park and have them bouncingoff the walls, I'd start to see
patterns. But what I found wasthat I started really looking at
ingredients, without consciouslylooking at ingredients, and
seeing that sugar was somethingthat we had quickly addicted our
kids to. So that was the momentwhen I thought, maybe water is
(18:03):
actually better, but I couldn'tget them to drink water, so I
started throwing fruit in thewater. And again, still didn't
think of this as a business. Ihad been drinking my own sweet
stuff, but not really thinkingthat it was sugar, but it was
definitely sweet, and it wasdiet soda, and so when I decided
(18:26):
that I was a hypocrite, that'swhen I started drinking exactly
what they were drinking. I washaving my homemade hint. That
was the early days of kind ofincubating a company, but not
really knowing that I wasactually doing it at the time
Dave Crenshaw (18:42):
that was
affecting your health as well,
right? Yeah, so I
Unknown (18:46):
noticed, like many
women who have children, it's my
whole system had changed. I hadbeen a gymnast and a runner
growing up, I never had a weightissue, but I was excellent at
gaining weight through all of mypregnancies, I was terrible at
losing weight, and I had hadkids really close to one
another, and it just compounded,right? So it was something that
(19:09):
bothered me, and none of it madesense to me, so I kept kind of
digging for do I need to gorunning more? Do I I never
really looked at what I wasdrinking. I had been looking at
what I was eating, and I thinkthat the reason why I wasn't
looking at what I was drinkingwas that I had been fooled by
the word diet. I thought dietequated to health, and I finally
(19:37):
switched over to my hintconcoction that I was making in
my kitchen with water withsliced up fruit, and I was
drinking it. My kids weredrinking it. People were coming
over for play dates and parentsas well, and it was really just
for taste more than anythingelse.
Dave Crenshaw (19:57):
How do you go
from that to the. Prototype of I
mean, that's a big jump in mymind from making it in my home
with a pitcher of water tocreating something that can be
bottled. So how did you get tothat first prototype version of
hint that could found a beveragecompany?
Unknown (20:18):
So I convinced myself
that I had no idea what I was
doing and at that point, andthat I was a tech executive, I
was not a beverage executive.
And so while this was an areathat I was very curious about,
and when I went groceryshopping, that's when I used the
grocery shopping experience askind of my research center in my
(20:40):
lab, and I started looking for aproduct, like hint, and I was
amazed at the fact that therewasn't anything else like this
on the shelf. And so I startedcreating it in my kitchen and
buying bottles and trying tofigure out, like, how can I get
(21:02):
some sort of prototype for it? Ikept thinking that, if I
actually go through this processof developing a prototype, it
was sort of satisfying mycuriosity, but it was also I
kept thinking that I would findthe product, and so I wasn't
actually sure that I would bethe one that was launching what
would be known as hint. Instead,I thought, you know, maybe I
(21:26):
should just actually get it asfar as I can get it. And then
I'm sure somebody else is doingthis that's going to know a lot
more than me. It's interesting,because we ended up moving from
I got the bottle on the shelf atWhole Foods that had just come
into San Francisco, and thatwas, you know, super exciting on
many levels, but the key thingis that I didn't understand, and
(21:50):
I kept doing research on waslike shelf life. So I was doing
it in my kitchen. Initially, wehad gotten a small bottling
manufacturer down in Santa Cruzwho was helping us. Do you know
the early cases of hint? We alsohad somebody that we were
testing without in Chicago, sothat was doing some early
aseptic failing. And so I waslearning a lot of this
(22:16):
terminology that I wasn't thatfamiliar with, but we still
hadn't kind of mastered it, andthat's when I decided I'm gonna
reach out to Coca Cola, becausethey must have a lot of people
like me that have moved fromdiet into trying to drink water.
I can't be the only person outthere. And so friend connected
(22:37):
me with somebody at Coca Cola,who clearly understood about
consumers and about buyingtrends. I feel like I had been
immersed in that. And I feltlike if I could just get him on
the phone and talk to him abouthow he's missing certain
consumers like me, maybe hewould launch this product, and
(22:58):
frankly, I practically gave himthe company, I mean, and he
wasn't interested. Yeah, I was
Dave Crenshaw (23:06):
going to ask
about that, like, the risk
associated with that of sharingthis amazing idea with someone.
Was there any concern on yourpart that they could just take
it and run with it themselves?
I'd be
Unknown (23:16):
interested to hear what
you say about this. But I think
that that was another reallyearly lesson that I've learned
along the way is that ideas area dime a dozen. I mean, I have a
million ideas going on. It'slike you have to take that extra
step with that idea and commit,right? You have to actually go
(23:38):
and figure out how you're goingto execute on that. So people
have been, over the years, soconcerned about ideas. Ideas
aren't really what ultimatelyyou should be worried about and
giving these ideas away, it'syour ability to actually
execute. Now, Coca Cola had alot more money than I did,
especially back then, to go anda lot more people, and they had
(24:02):
a lot more experience, but theyalso had other products that
they had invested in that werebasically they weren't ready to
see that consumer go to the nextthing. And I think that that's,
you know, another lesson learnedas well that I I share with new
(24:24):
entrepreneurs, is if you canactually get those opportunities
to talk to people who maybe youperceive as your competitors,
maybe you perceive as somebodythat's eventually going to buy
you, however you want to look atit, it's a very, very valuable
they're not necessarily handingyou everything that they're
(24:44):
going to do, but when youunderstand somebody's thinking,
you'll start to understand thestrategy, and especially if
they've invested in a certainstrategy, maybe they're running
a team or a company right arounda certain. Certain thought for
them to actually completelypivot and go in a different
(25:06):
direction, or a side direction,they probably won't be doing
that very fast.
Dave Crenshaw (25:12):
And there's that
undaunted theme, again that we
saw originally when you wereapplying to Fortune. Now we're
seeing it here you go to a placeyou're trying to work with Coca
Cola, they're saying no, andyou're not giving up. You're
saying, All right, well, I guessI'm gonna have to make this
happen myself, right? And thatsays a lot about who you are.
Unknown (25:33):
Yeah, absolutely. And I
think there definitely is a
theme. I think I took that as achallenge, right? That that was
I was seeing signs that theyweren't going to do this right
away, but then I had a choice atthat point. I either not
continue to move forward, or Icould throw my foot on the gas
(25:56):
and go as fast as I can, becauseeventually he's going to get it.
He's very smart, and he's gotlots of people and team, and
he's going to see what I see,which is that, when this
consumer figures out that diet,if it's not getting them
hydrated, if it's not helpingthem with their weight issues,
(26:17):
then why are they drinking it?
Yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (26:20):
and there we go
again, your ability to recognize
patterns and see these thingshappening that inspired you to
create this business. Let's talkpractical pragmatic for a
second. That's a very difficultleap to go from someone making
their product in their kitchen,putting in a grocery store, to
now scaling right and creating aproduct that you can distribute
(26:45):
around the country, that sort ofthing, and have the team. Did
you bootstrap? Did you getfunding? How did you make that
initial leap and put your footon the gas? So
Unknown (26:55):
you have to understand,
I was known as a tech executive.
I think this is, this issomething that maybe people can
relate to, whether you're a techexecutive or something in an
industry, right? Peoplecategorize you because it's
easy, right? You're, you know,you're a beverage person, you're
a this, you're a this. And Ikept thinking, I didn't intend I
(27:20):
didn't graduate from schoolthinking I was going to go be a
beverage executive. But why isit that everybody feels that I'm
a tech executive? It's not thatI hated being a tech executive.
I learned a ton. But how did Iget here, and do I want to stay
here for the rest of my life? SoI felt like I couldn't really go
(27:41):
and raise money for this ideabecause I wasn't even sure that
I knew what I was doing. Therewere so many questions in front
of me that I every day I woke upand I was super interested to
solve that. I didn't feelcomfortable actually asking
people to hop in and investedthis idea. Because if, in my
(28:04):
mind, I didn't believe that ifyou have a ton of questions,
that's okay, right? That as Isay, you fly the plane as you're
building it, right? I thoughtyou have to have them all
solved, right? Doesn't everyentrepreneur have all of these
questions solved. So until Ihave all the questions solved,
Dave Crenshaw (28:25):
absolutely not is
the answer no. And and the best
entrepreneurs,
Unknown (28:30):
I think, keep coming up
with new questions to solve, or,
as I always say, like, expandthe puzzle, right? Keep building
on it. That's, that's how youend up growing your business?
You said
Dave Crenshaw (28:42):
you weren't
comfortable with going and
asking people, so where's thatself funded? Did you get loans?
Like, how did you get thefunding necessary to scale?
Unknown (28:51):
Yeah, so we self
funded. It initially, some of it
with money that we had in thebank, but then as we started to
really scale the company in thefirst few years, that's when we
use credit cards. AmericanExpress was my best friend. I
encourage everybody to make surethat you have, you know, good
(29:13):
credit because, you know, wejust kept making sure that we
paid down our balances so thatwe could actually continue to
take out more. My husband hadleft his job at Netscape as well
and was helping me, but itwasn't until we actually
launched the product that hesaid, Gosh, you need a lot more
help. You have four kids underthe age of six that you're
(29:36):
trying to manage. Your reallyinteresting questions that
you're coming up with. But youknow, these are questions that
I'm super interested in andhelping you. So that's when he
he said, I I'm delivering casesto whole foods as well, and they
keep asking me for a businesscard. Remember business cards
right back when? And so he said,which I put? On the business
(30:00):
card. I said, I don't care,actually, what whatever you want
to put on the business card. Imean that that sounds great. And
he put Chief Operating Officer,and that was how it happened.
That was it. What
Dave Crenshaw (30:16):
was a mistake
that you made during some of
those early years, somethingthat you go, Well, I really had
to learn from that, that onceyou, once you learn from that
mistake help things get betterin the future.
Unknown (30:31):
Yeah, probably one of
the biggest, I would say it was
a mistake, but then it was alsoa massive lesson, and something
that was sort of a meant to be.
Was our story with Starbucks. Sowe got into Starbucks. I had
wanted to get into Starbucks forprobably a couple of years, and
I kept, you know, working reallyhard to try and make that that
(30:56):
happen. Cold calling them. Noone was returning our phone
call. Finally, I ended upgetting an email back from
somebody at Starbucks who said,so we're super interested in
launching a kids product, and weknow that you do hint water, and
you know these 16 ounce bottles.
(31:19):
So could you do a smallerversion of the product? And I
said, sure. She said, so. Isaid, we're gonna have to do a
prototype for you. And she said,Great, while you're doing it,
can you do it in like a Tetrabox, which, by the way, is a
lot, right? But I thought, okay,it'll be a couple months for us
to actually go and figure thisout, but I'm sure we can figure
(31:42):
it out, because again, I thoughtthere's a Starbucks on every
single corner. So once weactually got the prototypes
figured out, we actually didn'tput the hint water in there for
the prototypes, but we got thepackaging done and sort of
mocked it up so that they couldsee what it would look like in
the case. And that's when wewent to Starbucks. And I'll
(32:05):
never forget that the buyersaid, By the way, when you come
into the meeting, it's reallyimportant, don't try and sell us
on hint. And I said, What do youmean? I mean, we're we're doing,
uh, hint, kids, is exactly thesame. We're not changing the
product at all. And she said, Iknow, but this is something very
specific. We're not going to puthint water in to the cases.
(32:27):
We're only going to be puttinghint kids, if anything, into the
cases. And I said, okay, sure,no problem. And I remember
flying up to Seattle from SanFrancisco, and my husband was
with me, and we had this, youknow, big meeting with the
prototypes from hint kids. Andhe said, So let's run the whole
(32:48):
foods and bring some hint withus into the meeting. We weren't
in airport locations yet. And Isaid, Oh, but we can't bring any
hint into the meetings becausethe buyer from Starbucks
specifically said, don't bringany in to the meetings. And we
ended up bringing in the bottlesof hint. I thought we were going
(33:08):
to get kicked out of themeeting, and I figured I'll just
start drinking hint and see whatshe says. I'm not trying to sell
them. I just have it. And that'swhen another person that was in
the meeting said, Hey, do youhave an extra one of those? By
any chance? I'm I'm reallythirsty. And I said, you know,
is this a trick question? Andso, of course, I handed them the
(33:31):
bottle. The meeting ended. Wethought it went really well with
showcasing the TETRA packs. Andthen they called us and said, so
we're not going to put hint kidsin, but we'd actually like to
put hint in. So you always haveto be prepared for, you know,
(33:51):
plan B, I guess, is, is thebottom line. So
Dave Crenshaw (33:55):
when we started,
we were talking, and you asked
me the question, How did youfirst get introduced to hint as
someone who uses the productregularly, and for me, it was at
the airport. I even rememberwhat I drank first. It was the
pair one, and I had it, and Ithought, Oh, that was so
fantastic. And so I kept buyingit, of course. How have you
(34:16):
found the best way to get newcustomers? Has it been through
organic experience like that?
Has it been through advertising?
What's worked best? One
Unknown (34:26):
of the key distribution
points was Google. And it's
funny because as I was trying tosolve this puzzle around shelf
life and coming out of veryfrustrating meetings with people
that I felt knew a lot more thanI did, somebody who was working
(34:48):
at Google, who had actuallyworked with my husband at
Netscape, and knew what I hadbeen doing at AOL, and was
interested in potentially havingme join Google and. And he kept
reaching out to me, and Ithought, What the heck? So I
decided to go and meet with themto potentially talk about doing
(35:08):
something at Google. And I had abottle of cucumber hint in my
bag, and I took it out, andwhile he was talking to me,
that's when I started drinkingthe cucumber hint. And he said,
What are you drinking? And Isaid, Oh, I'm drinking this
product. It's called hint. Andhe said, I've never seen it
(35:31):
before. Where did you get it?
And I said, Well, I actuallymake it. And he said, Wait, what
you make this product? And Isaid, yeah, no, it's kind of
crazy. And he said, Wait, tellme about this. I thought you
were at America Online. I didn'tknow you were creating
beverages. And I said, it's justkind of a side hustle. We didn't
call it that Ben, but I didn'ttake it that seriously. And I
(35:54):
explained to him why I had beenso curious about this industry
and explaining my journey of,you know, having kids, and just
decided to go and try and he'slike, Okay, this is so crazy
that you're talking to me aboutthis right now, because he had
been tasked with getting somechefs to come in and cook for
(36:17):
people so they don't have to goout for lunch, but we haven't
sort of thought about drinksyet. And we thought, well, we
should probably have somedrinks, but I don't even know
where to start with the drinkside of it. And I I kind of joke
like, Oh well, I'll solve thatproblem for you. And he said,
there's this guy that is sort ofour lead chef. His name's
Charlie at Google, who Charliebecame very famous for the micro
(36:40):
kitchens and really changed techfirms and sort of the
expectations for offices aroundhaving food. And so he said,
Call Charlie and see what hesays. And so Charlie said, Omid
dropped a few samples to me, andI love it. And can you deliver
or have your distributordeliver? And few cases. And I
(37:03):
said, I don't have adistributor. I make it in my
kitchen. And he was like, Wait,what are you a chef? I mean, how
did you know how to do this? Andso we got this whole
conversation. So I drove 10cases down to him. He paid me
right away and said, Let mewe'll give it a try. And the
(37:25):
next day he called me and hesaid, Can we get 30 cases end of
the week? He said, I think weshould get 50 cases. And I'm
like, Okay, how much do you guysthink you're going to be
ordering? Because I don't havethat much in my garage right
now. And little did I know thatwhat was happening right there,
Google became our largestretailer. You
Dave Crenshaw (37:47):
mentioned, you've
mentioned several times the
influence that your children hadand the business idea and how
you were juggling spending timewith them. Can you talk a little
bit about how you've made thatwork, making sure that you're
there for your kids, whileyou're growing such a successful
business, you
Unknown (38:04):
know, I mentioned small
businesses, and that experience
that you gain from working insmall businesses, it's not that
you don't work as hard or aslong hours, however, you know,
you you view it starting yourown company, for sure, you
probably work a lot harder andhave longer hours, but you have
(38:25):
the flexibility to really lookat your schedule and create the
schedule that you need. And somy schedule would be a little
earlier in the morning beforethey got up and got moving, and
they were at that point, allheaded off to school, and so I
was able to really work onthings while they were at
(38:46):
school. And you know, as timewent on after school activities,
I had a nanny for sure throughthis entire process. But as they
were doing things like tennistournaments and things, I made
time to take a break so that Icould go and watch them. I don't
think if I was working in alarge company that I'd be able
(39:10):
to to do that. What I didn'tknow until much later, because I
certainly had that guilt, like Ithey'd go to bed at night. I was
continuing working, trying tofigure different things out. You
know, we were still very much astartup back in those days, but
I didn't really realize how muchkids were sponges, right? I i
(39:30):
would be listening to all ofthis regret that a lot of people
had, like, you know, don't losethese years, which is true to to
an extent, but nobody said to methat your kids are watching you
and what they're learning fromyou by watching you grow a
business will be incrediblyvaluable for them. I didn't
(39:54):
learn until much later, and I'llnever forget my son, Keenan, was
in high school. People. And he,I think he was watching Sheryl
Sandberg talk about how women,very few women, run companies.
And he said, Gosh, I didn'trealize that women don't run
companies like you've always rana company ever since I can
(40:16):
remember. And so we had thisdiscussion around it. And he
said, Well, why isn't it thatwomen run companies? And so I
jumped into that. And he said,Well, none of that makes sense.
I mean, it's sort of he quicklyequated this, by the way, to
something that he spent a lot oftime doing, which was tennis.
(40:37):
And he said, Well, that leads meto, why is it that we can't play
with women? Why aren't women putin in tennis and our high school
tennis teams, as you know, thebest players? Because there's
clearly women, some women, thatare better than some of the men,
and instead, you know, we canpractice with them, but we can't
(40:57):
actually play. And it was kindof like patterns and critical
thinking that made him start toreally think about that. And so
he's graduating in a couple ofweeks and a business major. I
don't know if he'll be anentrepreneur or not, but he's
thinking differently aboutthings for sure.
Dave Crenshaw (41:17):
So unfortunately,
we need to wrap up here. I could
talk to you for hours aboutthis, but I do want to ask
before we wrap up, what's aheadfor you. If you look five years
into the future, where do youwant to be at that point?
Unknown (41:31):
I'm constantly looking
at different businesses. I'm a
creator, and I love launchingideas, and with each of them,
they have, you know, pluses andminuses and and I've learned
just a ton. I'm still veryinvolved in boards, and
(41:51):
including being on the board ofthe company that I ran for 17
years. Hint, so I want todisrupt. I want to continue to
disrupt and show people thatthings can be better. I'm I
would say that, unlike when Ilaunched hint, I'm very
interested in health. I thinkthat health is something that if
(42:13):
you don't have, it seemsimpossible. And so if I can do
something that really helpspeople to gain health, helps
their family gain health in someway that for me, I think, would
be a really powerful thing.
Dave Crenshaw (42:29):
Well, thank you
for creating a product that's
helping people get healthy. Iknow it's helped me get healthy,
healthier, I should say. Andthank you for always innovating
and looking to create companiesthat help people with that.
Okay, so now is the point in theinterview where I want to point
out some possible action itemsfor people. So the perspective I
(42:53):
come from Kara is that whileit's wonderful to hear the story
and it's wonderful to gain theknowledge, it's most important
that someone who is listening tothis take an action. Do
something they can do today,something this week, so they can
make your success story a partof their success story. So what
I'm going to do is, based on theinterview that we've had so far,
I'm going to suggest threepossible actions that stood out
(43:15):
to me, and then after that, I'dlike you to add one additional
action that you would suggestsomeone can take immediately.
Sound good? Yes. All right, sothe first thing is going back to
our conversation about youreducation and what you did in
college and how you explored newthings. And so what I would
(43:37):
suggest someone can do is tochallenge themselves, as you
said, to try something new. Trya new class, something that
isn't required. Now, maybesomeone listening to this,
they're not in school anymore.
Well, a lot of people who arelistening to this take my
courses on LinkedIn learning,and I would say, take a course
that doesn't relate to the workthat you're doing. Just take a
(43:59):
course that just looksinteresting to you and explore
it, and that will challenge youto try something new, and maybe
it will create new opportunitiesthat you hadn't considered
before. The second one is toreach out to people and make a
connection. We saw this patternin Kara's story as she reached
out to Fortune, she reached outto Coca Cola, she reached out to
(44:21):
lots of people, and didn't waitfor them to come to her. She
went and made that connectionhappen. And then that either
opened up new opportunities, orit just taught her something new
that she didn't have before, andthat helped push her success
forward. And then the last oneis, it's sort of a follow up to
(44:41):
this, but to be persistent, orto use Kara's word undaunted,
the idea that when you havethese connections and it doesn't
work out and it doesn't go theway that you wanted, you say,
well, what could work? What is apossible next? Up that I can
take and just keep going anddoing that will open more doors
(45:03):
for you. So those are three thatstood out to me. Kara, what's
something that you would add asa possible action? I
Unknown (45:13):
think that one key
thing is that you don't have to
have all the answers, right? Soif you're sitting here thinking
to yourself, there's no way Icould go and do a company or I
couldn't try something new,because that's just not my
personality or or whatever itis, I think that the key thing
(45:36):
is just to take a step and seewhat happens and be very, very
consistent about taking stepsand be willing to make mistakes,
turn around, go anotherdirection. And I think that,
coupled with Have fun, enjoywhat you're doing along the way.
(45:59):
Because I think that if youdon't enjoy it, it's very hard
to venture into new you're goingto do all of the things that you
mentioned, meeting new people,you know, trying new things, all
of those things. But the keything is, is that if you're not
really enjoying what you'redoing, then it's very hard to
(46:20):
kind of put yourself out thereand try new things and fail and
spend a long, long hours doingall of these things too. I think
it's just if you can sit thereand hone in on what you really
love and what you're curiousabout, you'll be better off for
it.
Dave Crenshaw (46:35):
Yeah, that's so
true. When you're passionate
about what you're doing, you'rewilling to do the work that
others will not because you justkeep going, because you're
having fun. Why not? Right?
Kara, what's the best way forpeople to follow you? Certainly
to subscribe to your podcast,the Kara, golden show, right?
What Are there any other placesyou would like people to go who
want to follow you and continueto learn from you?
Unknown (46:58):
Absolutely, on all
social channels, especially for
business, I talk on LinkedIn,whether it's motivation or
stories, and you can always DMme there.
Dave Crenshaw (47:11):
Fantastic. Kara,
thank you so much for taking a
moment from your very demandingschedule to share your wisdom
with all of us. Thank you somuch, and thank you everyone for
listening. Remember, it's not somuch about the knowledge that
you gained, but it's more aboutthe action that you take. So do
something from what you heardfrom Kara's story, and you'll
(47:33):
make her success story a part ofyour success story. Thanks for
listening.
Unknown (47:40):
You've been listening
to the Dave Crenshaw Success
Show, hosted by my dad, DaveCrenshaw, and produced by
invaluable incorporated researchand assistant production by
Victoria Bidez, Sound Editing byNikic Wright, voiceover by me
Darci Crenshaw, and the music isby Ryan Brady via Pon five.
(48:00):
Licensing, please subscribe tothe Dave Crenshaw success show
on Apple podcasts Spotify,wherever you like to get your
podcasts. If you have asuggestion for someone my dad
might like to interview, pleasesend it to guests at Dave
crenshaw.com and please don'tforget to leave us a five star
review. See you next time you.