0:00

My name is Alex, and I am an entrepreneur.

0:03

No, no,

0:06

alright, it will be

0:09

alright forever. Nor

0:16

right, no will be alright

0:19

forever. I

0:22

guess I kind of fell into it. I didn't really like,

0:25

no, you know, I didn't come out of the womb being like, I'm

0:27

an entrepreneur, I'm gonna have a business. Um.

0:29

But I obviously I loved music

0:32

ever since I can remember, and ever since I can

0:34

remember, the only thing I ever wanted to do was make

0:36

music, and I wanted to share that music

0:38

with other people, and I wanted to perform for other people.

0:41

And obviously as I as I

0:43

grew up, I stuck to that, and I

0:46

moved out to Los Angeles when I was fourteen,

0:48

um going on fifteen. I

0:51

you know, I met my managers, which I still have to

0:53

this day, and we got working

0:55

immediately. And I never really saw it as anything

0:58

other than like following my dream. I didn't

1:00

really put the business aspect into it. I didn't

1:02

really put the money or financial aspect into

1:04

it or the other responsibilities outside of

1:07

writing music, performing that music

1:09

and kind of being a musician.

1:12

And it wasn't until I started signing

1:15

contracts and I had to create ll c

1:17

s, and I got a business manager to help work with

1:19

me on on taxes and all

1:22

of these things that I realized, Wow, I'm actually like a

1:24

businessman. This is pretty cool. And I started

1:26

taking meetings um and now to

1:28

this day, I'll take meetings as as an

1:30

investor, or I'll take meetings as a

1:32

consultant, or I'll take meetings as still

1:35

as an artist obviously, or a writer or

1:37

a producer or any of those things.

1:39

And I realized kind of throughout

1:41

this process that not only am

1:43

I a musician or an actor or

1:45

a writer or a producer, I'm also

1:47

an entrepreneur. You know, I have a business.

1:50

And now that I have a business, I have to you know,

1:52

pay employees, and I have to you

1:54

know, have insurance, and I have to cover

1:57

you know, unemployment, like a lot

1:59

of things that I never realized I would

2:01

ever have to face. And it's really really interesting

2:04

because especially in today's world

2:06

with social media and you have

2:08

your Gary vs and your Grant

2:10

cardones and and all of those

2:13

incredible sources of information to help

2:15

you kind of get your business off the ground and follow

2:17

your dreams and and chase real true happiness

2:20

based off of you know what your passions are

2:22

in life. I'm seeing

2:24

more and more entrepreneurs left and right, and

2:26

they're looking for, you know, for answers

2:28

or for pathways. And so I thought this episode would

2:30

be really, really amazing to do

2:32

because it could help anybody who's a listener

2:35

who is maybe at a job

2:37

they hate and has a real passion in life,

2:39

or anybody who you know, they have an idea

2:41

in their head and they want to take it to the next level,

2:43

or they want to start their own business, or they want to chase

2:46

something that isn't kind of the regular

2:48

nine to five clock in and clock out.

2:51

And so I wanted to do this episode featuring two

2:53

amazing entrepreneurs and just kind

2:55

of get a feel for what it really means to be

2:57

an entrepreneur. So that got me thinking, what

2:59

does does it really mean to be an entrepreneur?

3:02

No, welcome

3:05

back, This is let's get into it. I'm alex

3:07

Iono and we're talking about entrepreneurship.

3:10

I'm so hyped about today because

3:13

maybe I'm wrong, but I think a lot of listeners are a

3:15

lot of people on Earth right now are on the fence

3:17

about starting a new business. And there's everybody

3:20

doing everything from four x to trying

3:22

a new company, to drop shipping to you

3:24

know, flipping or garage sales and

3:27

all of these things. And so I think this episode will be amazing

3:29

to talk to two people who have experience

3:32

in being an entrepreneur. But I want to introduce

3:34

you to them right now. Um. First

3:36

off, I have an m b A

3:38

holding Harvard Business School

3:40

alumni, studied economics at Smith

3:43

College and at the London School of Economics. She's

3:45

also the owner of Cahawa Coffee

3:48

and she's working to revolutionize the global

3:50

coffee trade from the ground up.

3:53

The One and Only Maggie near Mumbo.

3:55

Maggie, how are you. I'm doing

3:58

well. I'm telling you I'm

4:00

also doing well. I'm so excited that

4:02

you're here because I'm I'm just baffled

4:05

by your your repertoire. I mean, we're

4:07

talking Harvard Business School, We're talking Smith College,

4:10

London School of Economics. I'm so hyped

4:12

to dive into it. And I'm also excited for our

4:14

other guests. He is not only the founder

4:16

and CEO of Beat Kicks. He's

4:18

not only a former Indiana

4:21

University starting

4:24

baseball pitcher. He is not only

4:27

a Peloton monster. And not only did we

4:29

get our first call of duty win last

4:31

night, he's also my brother in law,

4:33

my sister's husband, the one and only Josh

4:35

Louis. What's up it, hey man? Thanks for having

4:38

me up to your house to yeah the long

4:40

drive. We live

4:42

ten minutes away from each other with no traffic, which

4:44

is great. Guys, I'm so excited to have both

4:46

of you here. We have some awesome topics we're gonna get into.

4:48

First, Josh, you and I are going to talk about from

4:51

side hustle to day job is what we call this

4:53

category, talking about the transition

4:56

from doing a regular nine to five or

4:58

a regular day job and switching over to being

5:00

a full time entrepreneur. Then,

5:02

Maggie, you and I are gonna be talking about goodbye

5:04

status quo, breaking that status quo, of

5:07

of you know what it really means to be an entrepreneur.

5:09

And lastly, all three of us are going to talk

5:11

about blood, sweat and tears,

5:14

what it really takes to run your own

5:16

business, to be your own boss. But

5:18

before we get into those topics, I have a question that I

5:20

ask all of my guests, and that

5:23

question is what are you doing this week

5:25

to improve yourself. Um,

5:28

I will start just so you guys have

5:30

some time to think. If you watch this or if

5:32

you listen to this podcast often, you'll know that a

5:35

lot of them are about being healthy and like really

5:37

sticking to my diet or you know, any of those

5:39

things. I was talking my therapist this week and

5:43

he was actually he told me, I need to give myself

5:45

a little bit more of a break. And so I last

5:47

night is what I did. Last night. I ordered

5:49

two dozen and you probably don't know this company,

5:52

but look them up because they're delicious. I ordered two dozen

5:54

Diddy Reese cookies and

5:56

I ate as many as I could. It was only

5:58

three, but I I enough until

6:00

my stomach hurt, and I was like, you know

6:03

what, this is good for me? Um. So that's

6:05

what I've been doing this week. UM.

6:07

I know it's not a great example, but Maggie,

6:09

do you have something that you've been doing this week to improve yourself?

6:12

Yeah? So this week I've actually

6:14

been doing a lot of writing, so

6:17

I channel a lot of my energy and an

6:19

introvert, so I channeled a lot

6:21

of my energy into internally.

6:23

That's how we rest introverts when

6:25

we are kind of at peace with ourselves.

6:28

So I've been doing a lot of writing. It's a piss

6:30

that's been on my mind for over two years.

6:32

I've wanted to write essentially

6:35

a guide to the coffee industry, um,

6:37

so people can really understand what's

6:40

going on, how they

6:42

can, you know, make better coffee, but also

6:44

how they can understand the history of coffee.

6:46

So I have all this information from

6:48

sort of my perspective as are

6:51

as a farmer and also as someone

6:53

with the background in economics, and wanted to bring

6:55

all of that into one piss that people

6:58

can really understand. So I've been kind

7:00

of writing that and now I'm like twenty pages

7:03

in and it's like not an essay, it's not an

7:05

article, it's not a book. So trying

7:07

to figure out like what is it exactly,

7:10

But that's really what I've been doing. It's like writing

7:12

and getting all my creative energy on

7:15

paper. That sounds amazing.

7:17

Also, as a somebody who drinks coffee multiple

7:20

times a day, I absolutely have to figure

7:22

out the guide to starting a coffee business because

7:24

I might I might have to start one, and I might be I'm

7:27

not gonna lie, I might be a competitor later in life,

7:29

So don't I'm just saying,

7:31

game on. We love more

7:33

people into coffee, so you'll definitely

7:35

not be a competitor. You would love to have

7:37

you. I don't have three

7:40

degrees in college. I also I don't even have

7:42

one degree and I hardly have a high school

7:45

diploma. But I still am an entrepreneur.

7:47

So so don't count me out of Josh,

7:50

you've got something for me on what you're doing this week to improve

7:52

yourself. Yeah, as you know, Alex, we got

7:55

our sixteen month old at the house, so getting

7:57

sleep has been a little hard, especially

7:59

during courd teen with working from home

8:01

and and everything. But I've been trying

8:03

to get up a little earlier to you know,

8:06

for myself, to get time to think about the

8:08

day and obviously be a better dad to

8:10

my girl. Uh, spend a little more time with her

8:12

before the the wife wakes up,

8:14

and you know, just click my thoughts for the day when I need to

8:16

get done. A lot of that has helped me

8:19

plan out the rest of that week, and then you know, it's

8:21

just just been really good. Yeah, man, I mean,

8:23

I I applaud you for that, obviously, I

8:25

know the inside because your wife happens to be my sister.

8:27

But she's been working a lot this week as well, which means

8:30

you're not only working from home, but you're working

8:32

from home and being a dad at home. And

8:35

my favorite thing about your daughter, my niece,

8:37

is that she loves being with other

8:39

people. She's just like me, and she almost

8:41

does not she can't handle being by herself.

8:43

So I applaud you for getting work done

8:45

while Mila is yeah,

8:48

or or the lack thereof getting dubs. That's all. That's

8:50

all that matters, guys, call of duty, dubs, It's

8:52

all we care about these days. Well,

8:54

I'm so glad. Both of those are great. Better than

8:56

me eating three cookies at once,

8:59

but great. We're all improving. That's what matters.

9:02

Uh. Well, Maggie will be with you in just a second.

9:04

But Josh, I think it's time for us to go one on one. We're

9:06

talking side hustle today, job.

9:08

But before we get into that, I want to dive a little

9:10

bit deeper. You were the first in law in our family.

9:13

Um, you were the first person to kind of come into

9:15

our circle. This is how are

9:17

you? Six years now? Six

9:20

years now you've been married to my sister. Um.

9:22

I will take credit that I knew you before her

9:24

because we played basketball. We played basketball,

9:26

and I was like sixteen years or seventeen

9:28

years old. Um, and then my

9:30

sister was like, oh, I'm dating this new guy. And I was like, I

9:33

know that guy. That's the guy who played basketball

9:35

with But you got quite a history,

9:37

man, I mean you, and

9:39

I'll let you tell the story. But long story

9:41

short, when you were in college, you were planning

9:43

on going you're planning on playing

9:45

MLB baseball. Talk about that. Yeah, just

9:49

rewinding a little bit. Like the high school. My sophomore year, I

9:51

had just a freak not really

9:53

an injury, you wouldn't call it, but how to paint in my knee,

9:55

and I found out that I had a vascular

9:58

necrosis, which is basically dying bones. So I

10:00

had to have a like not emergency surgery, but had to have surgery.

10:02

Couldn't play my sophomore year. So it came in my junior year,

10:04

not really knowing if I was even good at baseball, you know what

10:06

I mean, because been a year off. I don't

10:08

even remember filling out many college applications.

10:10

But anyway, I got a scholarship, went to school.

10:14

Uh, start as a freshman, had a pretty

10:16

good career my junior year. A couple of days

10:18

before the draft, that same knee I had surgery

10:20

on started hurting. Yet I just and

10:22

I've always had pain, you know, just normal pain,

10:25

just having a bad knee. But it got

10:27

progressively worse throughout the day, and it was just got

10:29

to the point at night when I was in like little

10:31

tears on the couch because I couldn't even I don't even

10:33

know what was going on. I remember having friends at the house, like

10:36

getting ready to go to a movie because we were like, we plan

10:38

to go to a movie. That's how fast, That's how rapid had happened,

10:40

just like plans of the midday. Nighttime,

10:43

I'm in the er because my knee was so bad. Long

10:46

story short, found out I had lime disease. My knee

10:48

was like the size of a balloon. I couldn't walk for

10:50

two months. The draft caming went, I

10:53

got invited to play in like an uh invite

10:55

only college league, which only only people

10:57

that can get invited are usually the best in college. Couldn't

11:00

do that, so I couldn't do anything

11:02

all summer. Usually you're playing all summer to get in front

11:04

of Scots and just get better, right, And then came

11:07

into my senior year literally not doing any all summer

11:09

before my senior year, and we got a new coach, had

11:12

a decent senior year, thought I had

11:14

a good enough resume to get drafted. That came

11:16

and went, didn't happen. I got some offers to play independent

11:19

league ball, which is similar to the minor leagues. It just doesn't feed

11:22

the major leagues, but a lot of guys go there and kind of work their

11:24

way in. But to be honest, dude, I was

11:26

just so upset and just

11:28

mad. Yeah, that's gotta be insanely

11:31

crushed, because I think, in my mind, the way that I see

11:34

it, the same way that I see myself as an entrepreneur,

11:36

a professional athlete or somebody chasing

11:38

that is also an entrepreneur. Honestly,

11:40

to me, I don't know what the definition of an entrepreneur is, but

11:42

I think anybody who's not like going for

11:44

a kind of traditional

11:47

job. I don't know if that's the that's appropriate

11:49

term to say, but like, anybody's not going for a traditional

11:51

job, in my mind, is in essence

11:53

an entrepreneur. So for something that you

11:56

had dreamed about up until your senior

11:58

year or the end of your senior year even and for

12:00

that to kind of all crush. How did you battle

12:02

your own like kind of self confidence out

12:04

of that hole that I'm sure it probably took

12:07

you to. Yeah, I mean it

12:09

was rough because I mean I remember flying to Utah to go

12:11

to be with my family for the draft because I thought

12:13

for sure I was because I like advisors that advising me,

12:16

telling me, oh, yeah, this team, this team, this team. But nothing

12:18

happened. And it was like the most embarrassing thing ever, you

12:20

know what I mean, Because you go from high school being a star, you go to college,

12:22

you're not like a star, but like you're good, you know,

12:24

and you're like you're this close to like maybe living your

12:26

dream. It's like I went back to school

12:29

after that didn't work out, I think

12:31

it might degree, and then came home in January. It was

12:33

like no clue what I wanted to do, you know.

12:35

But I had some opportunities in l A with the job.

12:38

I remember, just like one day was like all right, taking it.

12:40

Three days later, I packed my car and drove l A by

12:42

myself, like a little hand a chord, look

12:44

at you and and now. So then, so that

12:46

job is the job that you then had for No,

12:49

So I came out worked in real estate for a little while, but

12:51

that was during two thousand and eight, thousand and ten with economy

12:53

just right,

12:57

So I'm trying to learn

12:59

the industry. You know, people

13:01

I knew were making tons of money the business. We're making zero

13:03

dollars for years and years, right because nothing was happening.

13:05

So I had to get out of that, you know, worked

13:08

at an agency for a few months here and there, but then

13:10

yeah, I fell into medical sales, which some teammates

13:12

like, you know, they like, dude, you would love

13:14

this, and they love athletes and it was really

13:16

competitive, and so yeah, I got

13:18

my first job and think it was two thousand ten. Yeah,

13:21

and so you and then you did that obviously you did

13:24

that job for how many years? Six seven years?

13:26

It was nine? Yeah, I was like two thousand eighteen

13:29

I think when I left the job, and

13:32

when full time on beat Kicks, right, And

13:34

so that's where we're gonna get into right now, which is beat

13:36

Kicks. And let's let's rewind to the

13:38

birthplace of beat Kicks before we get

13:40

into it. I'm gonna try my best as your brother

13:43

and as a user if you watch any of

13:45

my YouTube videos or right now, if you were to

13:47

see me recording this, I'm using

13:49

beat Kicks products. UM. Beat Kicks

13:51

are headphone covers um that

13:53

protect your headphones from usual

13:56

sweat. It's very popular now in gym's if

13:58

you'll see a bunch of athletes on on the field

14:00

or on the court wearing over ear headphones

14:03

and and the the original products,

14:05

as you've obviously now branched out into different

14:08

products, was to protect those from sweat,

14:11

um from the damage that the sweat

14:13

can cause. And I've had the same pair

14:15

of beats since you started the company and they've protected

14:17

them. Uh, perfectly. Did I do a good job

14:21

on the spokesperson? Now? I just got a job

14:23

as a spokesperson for beat Kicks, UM, but

14:25

tell me how the hell did you come up with this

14:27

concept? Yeah? It's funny. I mean when your intro

14:30

with entrepreneurship, it's you know, a lot of

14:32

people do something that they're passionate about or that

14:34

you know they're just really good at. Like it

14:36

wasn't like I was like some headphone of ficionado

14:39

or like anything, you know what I mean, Like honestly, at the gym,

14:41

I was wearing you know those earbuds. It just wrapped

14:43

around your neck and you put them in your ear. But I would

14:45

see people at the gym wearing their headphones, and I know

14:47

they're expensive, three all you know, beats or three dollars

14:49

bows or four dollars. And

14:51

it's funny because i'd see people that would wear their

14:54

headphones and in a way to protect them, they put

14:56

a towel over their head and then put their headphones over towel.

14:58

Maybe you've seen those guys at the gym,

15:00

or I've honestly seen people where napkins

15:03

on their ears and then put their headphones over there. Like. Um

15:06

So, it just kind of like and that's really silly.

15:08

Maybe there's a way to like fix that and make

15:11

it look cooler, you know what I mean. Um So, it's kind of

15:13

how it started. Like I said, it wasn't like passion

15:15

of mine or just kind of like I was an idea. Maybe let's

15:18

literally like no idea, what's going to happen with this?

15:20

Let's just see how it goes. You went

15:22

from being an entrepreneur baseball wise, to

15:24

working a few jobs with a

15:26

boss you know your traditional based jobs

15:29

and then now you're doing a whole new thing something

15:31

like you had mentioned, you're not like an aficionado you in

15:34

creating businesses, not much

15:36

experience. How did you navigate through? Like

15:39

what the next right thing to do? Was? Well?

15:41

Interesting thing is the job that I had before, I was technically

15:43

an independent contractor and every one of those. So

15:46

in the real estate world, I was an independent contract

15:48

I was technically I worked under this agency,

15:50

but I was an independent so I'd pay for my insurance.

15:52

Right. Moving into medical sales, same

15:55

thing. I sold for a company, but I worked

15:57

under a distributor, which was made me an independent

15:59

contract so in a way I was technically I

16:01

mean, listen, I wasn't my own boss, but yeah, but

16:04

you were like it was like it was if any

16:06

I guess, if anything, it was training for becoming

16:09

truly owning your own business and the great

16:11

thing. And listen, when I came to l A, I mean, like I said,

16:13

I told you had to put baseball away, and like forgot

16:15

about it for two years, and I think that helped me to just

16:17

put my head down to work because like otherwise

16:20

you know, who knows what I mean? So but yeah.

16:22

I mean, like the medical sale was great because even though I had

16:24

a technical boss, but I kind of was on

16:26

my own pretty much every day working at my hospitals

16:28

and surgeries doing a thing. So I

16:31

was able to manage my time kind of on my own and

16:33

you know, be able to do my own thing. But yeah, I mean

16:35

you add this to it's just it's a whole new

16:37

world. I mean, it's a different ball game, Like because

16:40

you are it, you know what I mean, that's it. Wow.

16:43

So obviously beat Kicks has

16:45

become what it is now, which

16:47

is you're over a million dollars in sales

16:49

and you've been at

16:52

the biggest athletes. Mr. Olympia

16:54

wears Beat Kicks. At this point,

16:56

it is you've taken over the fitness

16:59

industry when it comes to headphone protection.

17:02

But on that journey you had, obviously

17:05

you had to stay committed even when sales

17:07

weren't what you had dreamed of or

17:09

things weren't moving as fast as you wanted to. What

17:13

gave you that kind of confidence to like keep

17:15

pushing to where you are now with a million

17:17

dollar company. I think I'm a pretty determined

17:19

guy, you know, Like I don't I don't like letting people

17:21

down. I feel like if I'm not doing a good job and people see

17:23

that, it's like it didn't work out like that. To

17:26

me, that's like that just I don't like that. So

17:28

like at the very beginning, I mean I was medical

17:30

sales. You know, you were, I was married to your sister.

17:32

I mean, you know, I mean my schedule was crazy in medical sales.

17:34

I was literally sitting on the couch phone

17:36

call I'm gone, you know what I mean. I'd go to hospital and do

17:38

the case right then I would come home. You

17:41

know. I would work literally from what ten thirty until

17:43

three in the morning for two straight years, like because

17:45

I was a filling orders from that loft upstairs in that apartment.

17:48

So um, you know, you you

17:50

you know, and as you go you learned how to like make

17:52

things more efficient. But it was definitely

17:55

a struggle in the beginning. And like yeah, like you said, like getting

17:57

to that point where your things may not going well, It's like,

17:59

I just think I'm prettydetermined, and I think you to be an entrepreneur,

18:02

you have to be determined, otherwise you're not.

18:04

You know, they're gonna have rough days. I remember I

18:07

used to get a sales on my phone like back in the day,

18:09

Like it was like I had to like just

18:11

get rid of those notifications because like I can't

18:13

let that dictate how my day goes. I

18:15

need to think about the future. And if I'm thinking about

18:17

every sale it comes through and if it's a bad day, like it's

18:19

letting it's putting me in a bad mood or like I

18:22

don't want that negativity, you know what I mean, And like negativity

18:24

can crush on entrepreneur. Oh absolutely, I was

18:26

just gonna say, I think obviously

18:28

we're brothers now and we've seen

18:30

each other for the last six years in the way that we work,

18:33

and it's and I think we can both say for each other, but I

18:35

can absolutely say and that's

18:37

why I want to transition into you know, from

18:39

from side hustle to day air to your day

18:41

job, because there were two and a half years

18:44

where you were coming

18:46

home from your job to start

18:48

your other job like that, and that's the level

18:50

of tenacity that you really do

18:52

need to have. And the same thing,

18:55

you know, it's like we've we've missed

18:57

both of us. We've missed weddings and

18:59

we've missed day parties and We've missed things.

19:02

We've missed family dinners and all these things because we

19:04

knew we needed to get the work done. Um,

19:06

and so I want to transition over into that. For

19:08

two and a half years, obviously you kept both your

19:11

side hustle. I mean, you kept your your day

19:13

job and you kept Beat Kicks obviously alive

19:15

and moving. How did you

19:17

know it was the right time to

19:20

transition out of your day to day kind

19:22

of medical sales job into

19:25

full time CEO Beat

19:27

Kicks. It was a tough time to

19:29

know. I mean, I mean, just staring

19:31

you in the face of sales numbers. You have to have a certain number of sales,

19:33

right, because I have to be able to live off something, you know what I

19:35

mean, Like I'm leaving you know, decent

19:37

six figure salary and medical sales too. No,

19:40

I'm not going to pay myself pretty much anything,

19:42

right, you know, and we live in l A and it's

19:44

expensive. But honestly, it was just to a point

19:46

where it like the revenue coming in was

19:49

consistent enough that I felt comfortable and you know,

19:51

I ran through the numbers as you have to do as an entrepreneur

19:53

that you know I can do this. We can live off.

19:55

This is gonna be tied. But luckily we had some savings

19:58

or whatever. But having that that read

20:00

them, you know, at peace of mind to like doing this stuff

20:02

when you need to do it. Um, that was another

20:04

check in the box like, yeah, I'm not gonna make some mo money,

20:06

but I have more time to work on this. And if I can work on this

20:09

every single day for ten hours or whatever, how

20:11

much further kind of grow? Because I literally grew the thing from

20:13

an operating room on my cell phone, you know,

20:15

I mean I literally ran the Instagram. I mean I

20:17

was responding to customers literally in surgeries while

20:19

I'm like a work like

20:22

I'm they're flatlining in the hospital's

20:24

like, hey guys, that wasn't my

20:26

job. That was those guys job. But

20:28

you know, I'm you know, the great thing about

20:31

social media and technologies that I was able to run

20:33

my business through my phone at my other

20:35

job and then when I came home I could do to fulfillment

20:37

right. Um, But yeah, I was really

20:39

just crunching the numbers and be like we can do it. You

20:41

know, we'll it'll be tight. We'll have to live a little bit more

20:44

for ruble whatever for a while. But you know

20:46

the end game. You're always looking at the end game, right, So

20:49

I think the thing that I that I find beautiful

20:51

about the process, the entrepreneurial

20:53

process, that a lot of people

20:56

don't see, especially like I'm I'm fortunate

20:58

enough to have seen

21:01

what you have created

21:03

out of nothing, out of an idea. I

21:06

remember when you first had a sock

21:08

like as your first model of what a what a

21:10

headphone cover would look like. I remember when you first got

21:12

your first set of beat Kicks. Like a

21:14

lot of people I think, who

21:17

aren't entrepreneurs or want to be entrepreneurs,

21:19

or a judgmental entrepreneurs, do not

21:21

know or appreciate how

21:24

hard and how dedicated

21:26

you must be in the darkness before

21:30

you even touch a sliver of light.

21:32

And a lot of people only see the light, you know what I mean?

21:34

A lot of people. I think we could name

21:36

collectively thirty people who

21:39

you told about beet Kicks and then never

21:42

talk to you again until they hit you up and

21:44

we're like, yo, can I get a pair of those beat Kicks?

21:46

Like now that it's a popular company, and

21:49

uh, and it's insane how how much

21:52

effort truly goes into it and

21:54

and that isn't something that I want to say for the listeners

21:56

to to shy away from becoming

21:58

an entrepreneur. I'd just want to set the

22:00

expectations right so that you know that

22:03

being an entrepreneurs I would say the hardest

22:06

job in the whole world, because you have to

22:08

stay motivated, you have to stay

22:10

passionate, you have to stay confident. Like you had mentioned, there

22:12

were days where you were you had to turn off your phone

22:14

because the sales. There's also days. I think

22:17

my favorite memory of Beat Kicks, as

22:20

I believe it was, it was either Thanksgiving or it was

22:22

Christmas, and we were watching a movie a pirate

22:24

Don't don't arrest us, but a pirated

22:26

movie. Um during the holidays,

22:29

off of your phone. Don't arrest him.

22:31

I didn't do it, but that

22:34

phone's gone, don't track the IP address.

22:37

But we were watching a movie off of your cell

22:39

phone, and the notifications were on,

22:42

and you had like a sale going and we were counting

22:44

it. It was always Black Friday, that's

22:46

what it was. We're counting the Black Friday sales and

22:48

we were just like every it

22:51

was it was coming. They couldn't

22:53

even stay on the screen long enough for you to read who

22:55

the who bought the product like it was just

22:57

rapid fire, rapid fire, rapid fire, and

23:00

moments like that. I can attest

23:02

to not that moment, but to moments like that.

23:04

It's the most gratifying. There's nothing more gratifying

23:07

than building something like that. So as

23:09

we close out before we take this break, my last

23:11

question is what advice do you have for people who are

23:13

out there who want to be entrepreneurs

23:15

or I feel like they could be an entrepreneur,

23:18

have an idea, um, but are where

23:20

you were five and a half years ago? Anybody

23:23

who is in that same place, or the advice that you would

23:25

have given yourself now, what is?

23:27

What is that advice? You know? It's

23:29

interesting. I think a lot of people have great

23:32

ideas. I think a lot of people want to

23:34

be entrepreneurpreneurs, but there's a

23:36

few things holding them back. Could it be financial reasons,

23:38

could it be you know, not of time? Right.

23:40

I think a lot of people have so many good ideas, it's just

23:43

just taking that leap of faith really to be

23:45

like I'm gonna do it. I want to do it, you know, and

23:47

some people just can't write whatever. I mean, family issues

23:49

too many kids. You can't worry you have to work any of

23:51

job. You just stabilize your family. Uh.

23:54

Unfortunately for me, it wasn't enough financial

23:56

wise, It wasn't a high cost out of pocket

23:59

in the beginning um to do it. But I

24:01

mean, honestly, you've gotta be a savage, you really do. You've

24:03

got to be a savage to be an entrepreneur,

24:06

you really. I mean, like you said, in

24:08

the dark, people don't see it. All they see is your

24:10

Instagram posts and like, oh, he's

24:12

at a convention. That must he must be

24:14

doing well, Like you know what I

24:16

had to do to get to that point, you know what I mean? People don't

24:18

see that part, right. They see these cool companies pop up

24:20

out of nowhere, and it's like, do you realize what that company had

24:22

to do for you to see that and see everybody liking

24:24

those pictures and reposting it and all that stuff.

24:27

I mean, you gotta you really just gotta

24:29

have that mentality of like, nothing's going

24:31

to stop me, and I'm gonna put my head down

24:33

to just work. Absolutely. I mean, that's

24:35

that's what we're gonna Our whole last

24:37

segment is going to be that

24:40

exact thing. And again, I

24:42

don't want anything that we say today to scare

24:44

you away from doing, you know, from

24:46

chasing your dream anything. We want to, all three

24:49

of us here on this episode want to encourage

24:51

you to chase your dreams and be that

24:53

entrepreneur and follow it. But

24:56

I think all three of us would be remissed today

24:58

if we did not let you know

25:00

that it's not a walk in the park, um,

25:02

that it's not as easy as it looks,

25:04

and that it's going to be a big work. But Josh,

25:07

I love you, bro. We'll see you in the sec We're gonna take

25:09

a quick break. When we come back, we'll be speaking with Maggie.

25:11

Don't go anywhere. Welcome

25:14

back to Let's get into it. I'm Alex I O no

25:16

and we have Maggie new Mumbo with

25:18

me. Maggie, how are you. I'm

25:20

doing well. You're up in San Francisco

25:23

right, Yes, I want to. I want to point

25:25

out as all I believe, all four of us, including

25:27

Catherine, our producer on this on

25:29

this zoom right now, all live in California. And

25:32

I saw a funny tweet that I talked about earlier.

25:34

Because it's so cold in California. For some

25:37

reason, I saw a funny tweet that said, sixty

25:39

degrees in California is way colder than

25:41

four dy degrees in New York. And you cannot argue

25:43

with that. And I don't know why. It just makes sense.

25:46

It just makes the building so

25:48

in New York is all this steam coming

25:50

out from under the and

25:54

it's why it smells so bad. Oh

25:58

man, Well, Maggie, enough of out New York.

26:00

Enough about smells. I want to talk about

26:03

I want to talk about the great smells of

26:05

kahawa Ere. You are the owner

26:07

of this this coffee company,

26:10

but you've also lived multiple lives,

26:12

you know, quote unquote multiple lives, having

26:15

left a successful career on Wall Street

26:17

to start your company. But you also are a

26:19

third generation Kenyan coffee

26:21

grower. So I think it's

26:23

to me, it makes uh, makes

26:25

pretty good sense of why you were working in

26:27

the coffee industry. But I

26:30

don't know if that's necessarily the only reason why

26:32

you wanted to start a coffee business. So

26:34

what made you want to start khawa

26:36

Ee? Yeah?

26:39

So I was actually working

26:41

on Wall Street and I

26:43

used coffee as a drug. So it's

26:45

something that I

26:48

drink this day. A week and I was doing investment

26:51

banking and a typical

26:53

day, I'd be leaving the office at sunrise,

26:55

that been going home at six am. So coffee

26:58

was like such a drug. I used to

27:00

just stay away, give me productive. And

27:03

I got into coffee actually from

27:06

it was. I attended like a weekend competition

27:09

for the Startup Competition

27:12

UM, and it was about social impact

27:14

UM. And at that competition that you had to come

27:16

up with an idea that had a social impact.

27:19

And that was really the first time I thought

27:21

about business because I've always

27:24

thought about just a background

27:26

on me. Grew up on a coffee farm

27:28

in Kenya, and because my parents

27:30

were entrepreneurs, they were on the

27:32

opposite side of the spectrum where they were

27:35

like, do not become an entrepreneur, got

27:37

to school, get educated, get a real

27:40

job. And so the idea was

27:42

to always like run as far away from

27:44

entrepreneurship and coffee as possible.

27:47

But after that competition, we actually like

27:49

we're like number two on that and

27:51

I started thinking about, actually this could be a

27:53

business. So I started talking

27:55

to coffee people in New York,

27:58

going to workshops, and I struck up

28:00

a friendship with a roster in New

28:02

York, who actually has been the business since the eighties.

28:05

He helped Stabbuts open their like third

28:07

store in Seattle, So that's how

28:09

long he's been around. And he loved Kenyon

28:12

coffee. So he took me under his arm and really

28:14

showed me the business. And as

28:16

I got more comfortable and a lot more, I got

28:19

intrigued by that, by the

28:21

by the business um, and especially because

28:24

I saw sort of a huge opportunity to essentially

28:26

improve the lives of farmers who do a

28:28

lot of work to make coffee possible.

28:31

I mean, so in essence, you're you're you're flipping

28:33

the whole status quo when it comes to how

28:36

farmers are treated. The term fair

28:38

trade, I know that. I think everybody's

28:40

heard that term, but if you asked people

28:42

to define it, I don't know. I don't know what fair

28:45

trade means. So can you give me an idea

28:47

of what that looks like? Kind of from

28:50

your boots on the ground perspective. Yeah.

28:52

So, the so the coffee industry

28:55

for a long time, the market has been

28:58

really very very hotel

29:00

So the coffee prices are set in New York on

29:03

Wall Street, and then the farmers

29:05

have to essentially sell their coffee at that price,

29:07

and what has happened for a long time is that

29:09

price is below the cost

29:12

of production. So imagine, Josh,

29:14

if you're to sell your products below

29:16

what you produced them at, that's

29:19

kind of like what the farmers have

29:21

to contend with. And so and for

29:23

me personally, sort of growing up on the farm

29:26

and seeing that all of the work really

29:28

on the farm about is done by

29:30

women and then they don't get paid. So

29:33

I was like, we have to do something about it,

29:35

um, And so that's when I started er. I

29:37

wanted to very specifically figure

29:40

out a way where we can get the money back to

29:42

the farmers. So when you

29:44

buy our coffee, we have like a

29:46

QR code on there that you can

29:48

scan and tip the farmers um.

29:50

And so the idea is it's almost like a type

29:53

of fair trade. So fair trade is when you

29:55

buy the coffee, you you

29:57

pay a certain price above market

30:00

so that the farmers can make money. So in

30:02

this case, it's like a tip, the way that you can tip

30:04

your barista, the way that you can tip someone

30:07

at the restaurant. This is the way of recognizing

30:09

the farmers are not making enough. You can send

30:12

them like five dollars ten dollars on each

30:14

bag, and that way they can actually make

30:17

a living from coffee. And especially

30:19

for us, for the women that we work with, we

30:21

have a fund for them and they're able to kind of use

30:23

those funds to to develop themselves.

30:26

We're educating some girls on the ground.

30:28

So it it was really for me something of like,

30:31

we have a market that we can't really affect

30:33

right now, but how can ask consumers?

30:36

How can I invite other fellow

30:38

coffee lovers to essentially participate

30:41

and make good ethical choices around

30:43

coffee. So that was really the model

30:45

that we built around. That's around

30:48

coffee. That's something that I really loved

30:50

in my research, which was you

30:52

had mentioned how you can help

30:54

the women in the coffee industry. In

30:57

in the coffee trade in Kenya, women do

30:59

most of the work, but men are

31:01

getting paid and you have way

31:03

more ownership than the women do, and

31:06

you're talking about all of these things. How else are you guys

31:08

working to reverse that more so

31:10

than just helping the women make a

31:12

little bit more. Yeah, So the other way that we're

31:14

doing is essentially investing

31:17

in them so that they

31:19

can produce specialty coffee. Um,

31:21

so, as you know, specialty coffee is where

31:24

farmers can actually earn better

31:26

prices for their coffee. Um. And so

31:29

because the farmers had not been paid

31:31

well for a while, so the machines were down,

31:33

they didn't know how to process. So it was

31:35

really very very for

31:37

me, very very fulfilling to go on the ground

31:40

and I worked directly with the farmers and we

31:42

improved the quality of their coffee.

31:44

We even sold it to Blue Battle. So like our

31:46

coffee is like Blue Bottle quality. By the way

31:49

you beat me to it. I love, I have

31:51

to I have to shout out. I know. I make

31:53

coffee at my house, Um, nothing, nothing

31:56

fresh. I have an espresso machine. But

31:58

when I do feel bougie and want to go and buy

32:00

my own coffee, Blue Bottle is where I go.

32:02

And I think that it's amazing that you work with companies

32:05

like Blue Bottle because they really

32:07

are that that next level. I mean to me,

32:09

like, I love, I could have a Starbucks

32:11

coffee and I won't throw a fit, But if you give

32:13

me a Blue Bottle coffee, we're best friends.

32:16

Um. How did you go about developing

32:18

relationships like that to build your brand? Yeah,

32:21

so it was essentially again you

32:24

know, just approaching the bronze and

32:26

kind of talking to them about so they are aware

32:28

of the sort of this this issue with farmer

32:31

is not getting a fair price, and so in this case

32:33

with True Bottle is approaching

32:36

them and kind of telling them about the vision

32:38

that I had in the mission that I had on the ground

32:41

UM and they were on board with it. I actually traveled

32:43

with a coffee buyer from Blue Bottle back

32:46

to the farm and Kenya, I wish

32:48

and met the women UM and we essentially

32:51

you know, give them tips, give them a new

32:53

new ways of like processing UM.

32:55

And so it was really just talking

32:58

about the mission to people and then

33:01

essentially and a lot of people want to help and a

33:03

lot of people want to adopt

33:05

new solutions, and so this is just a case of

33:08

presenting another way of

33:10

doing things and very very surprised

33:13

by by the reception. Even

33:15

in California. We've worked

33:17

with other tech companies like Facebook,

33:20

Twitter, we served before Covid,

33:22

we served our coffee in their cafes in

33:24

the in the campuses, UM.

33:26

And that was really just companies that are into

33:29

the mission and they understand what we're trying to

33:31

do and they want to be part of part of that solution

33:34

and sort of fun fact, we actually it's to the

33:36

coffee that we really helped improve the

33:38

quality got got

33:40

like from a blind test. There's like a coffee

33:43

rankings website that's similar to the wine rankings

33:46

um that we submitted like our coffee and

33:48

for blind tasting, and it came out as one of

33:50

the top coffees in the country. So that

33:52

was right for us and so

33:54

our and that was the first time, like our

33:57

coffee we put this like our our

33:59

farm on the up. Before then,

34:01

like our coffee had never been served

34:03

as a single origin ever

34:05

in the world. It was always like and

34:08

branded. So this was the first time

34:10

that like we could put that like village

34:12

coffee on the map, and like other roasters

34:15

were like now reaching out and wanting to serve that

34:17

coffee. So it was really like

34:19

Josh said, it's just like you gotta start

34:21

it, you gotta believe it, and then like people

34:24

will start to like take notice

34:26

and also just like be invested.

34:29

So people are just looking for a leader that can

34:31

kind of help them build

34:34

around a similar vision and a CineMo mission

34:36

as well, right, And that's why I think

34:38

it's so interesting. And obviously every entrepreneur

34:41

is going to have their own story. But the thing that I love

34:43

about your story and a lot of stories like yours,

34:46

is that you are trying to

34:48

make the world better. Like you're You're obviously creating

34:50

a business, but you're trying to make the world better. And

34:52

I know that you said you were surprised that a lot of companies

34:55

wanted to do more um

34:57

kind of collective mindset things. I'm

35:00

not as surprised in the sense of I

35:02

think when you offer like the same way that when

35:04

you're at a grocery store and they say, hey, do you want to donate

35:06

two dollars to the blank blank blank

35:08

foundation, I all like to me, I'm always

35:11

like, yeah, sure, why not. I

35:13

think a lot of people do want to do the right thing, and

35:15

that's what I love about your company. Um. Your company

35:17

also sells uh, single serving

35:19

coffee tea bags, which is something I've never

35:22

ever seen before. I didn't even know that

35:24

you could do that. I thought that I thought you got arrested

35:26

if you put coffee in a tea bag. Um,

35:29

But they're super convenient and they're environmentally

35:32

friendly, way better than you know your

35:34

k cups. Luckily, I want to point out I

35:36

do have an espresso, and I recycle the pods.

35:38

I take them back to an espresso. So I'm doing the

35:40

best that I can, UM, but still

35:43

not as good or environmentally friendly as

35:45

the tea bags that you guys serve your coffee

35:47

in. I think what I love about

35:49

your company is that your company starts at doing

35:51

the right thing and people

35:53

genuinely seem to follow that. Is that something

35:55

that you would agree with? Yeah, I would say, and

35:57

even um, you know with this QR

36:00

code. Um, it's the idea

36:02

was you know, there's a lot it's

36:04

a very long supply chain. There's like, you

36:07

know, almost twenty people between the farmer

36:09

and the consumer. Um, and so

36:12

the whole idea was like, you know, you want to

36:14

make a difference, but like there isn't always

36:16

like an easy way to do it at the grocery.

36:18

So and this is one of those ways where like it's like

36:20

having you know, a

36:23

backet at the cash registrate,

36:25

just like making it really easy for people to

36:27

have an impact. But also um

36:31

for the coffee tea bags, which people really

36:33

love. I mean, I'll tell

36:35

you the story behind it. So

36:38

the story behind it was I

36:40

remember giving so when I started the coffee company,

36:42

And again, coffee is actually something that

36:44

even though coffee was discovered

36:46

in East Africa, so like you know,

36:48

e Europians the bathplace of coffee. We

36:51

give coffee to the world, but

36:53

Black people in general were not that

36:55

prominent in coffee. Coffee

36:57

was not the choice of drink in

37:00

the black community. We get like sprite,

37:02

it's like the is what gets

37:05

advertised in the black

37:07

community. Um, so coffee

37:09

is like not something that people were on top of. So I

37:11

remember gifting my friend a bag

37:13

of coffee. It was like whole

37:15

being coffee. And then I went

37:17

over to her place to make it and she

37:20

was about to make it without grinding it.

37:22

She did not know you had and

37:26

so and at that moment I

37:28

realized that, like when I joined the coffee business

37:30

and I'm actually one of like very few black

37:33

women in coffee, I realized that was

37:35

such a huge gap in like coffee

37:37

knowledge in the industry where you

37:40

know, in the specialty coffe industry is

37:42

very very like white brower culture.

37:45

It's very hipster um.

37:47

And so I really wanted to create that bridge

37:49

between sort of the average person who really

37:51

wants to enjoy specialty coffee, but it's very intimidated

37:54

by all of the trappings of that. Right.

37:57

So this the coffee tea bag is

38:00

that whether you can make coffee, it's like a French press,

38:02

but already has a filter around it pretty much.

38:05

Um. And so that was a way where the coffee

38:07

is you know, kind of trapped in there and it

38:09

stays fresh for a long time because it's like

38:11

nitrogen flash. And so for me, that

38:14

was one way I could easily share coffee with people

38:16

and really introduced them in a

38:18

like a non intimidating way to

38:21

coffee. So I really love that as like a way

38:23

of introducing people to specialty coffee,

38:26

especially for communities that are you

38:28

know, previously having been um, sort

38:30

of partaking in coffee because it's intimidating

38:33

to them. Yeah, no, I that

38:35

makes absolute sense. And again you're

38:39

making the world better by you know, kind

38:41

of removing that

38:43

that I'm I'm sure

38:45

as hell I'm not moving outside of mine espresso when it

38:47

comes to me making coffee, Like it is so intimidating

38:50

to make it because you have your French presses and you

38:52

have your poor overs, and you have your you

38:54

know, your this, that, and the other. It's intimidating.

38:57

So the fact that you made these you know, again, I

38:59

want to reiterate the idea that when

39:02

you start by doing something right or doing

39:04

something good, whether it's something as environmentally

39:06

friendly or or convenient

39:09

like a tea bag or you know, trying to

39:11

switch the status quo, people

39:13

generally tend to follow. But I

39:16

also, again I want to point out not only the good

39:18

side, but also the bad side, is that when you switch the

39:20

status quo, there's also another end,

39:22

another side of people who are not happy

39:24

with that, who like things the way that they've been.

39:27

Have you had any pushback from kind

39:29

of the opposing side of of you

39:31

know, whether it's people who still

39:33

want to make the same amount of money, or it's you know,

39:36

big coffee industries who are who

39:38

are not wanting things to be shaken up.

39:41

Yeah, no, I think there's a lot of So

39:43

another thing that I'm part of, like I

39:45

mession, I'm writing an article. Part of the

39:47

article that I'm writing is essentially, you

39:50

know, taking people through my learning process,

39:52

and I'm calling it I'm learning coffee

39:54

industry myths. So there's a lot

39:56

of myths about the industry. Um And

39:59

as I become an expert in the industry,

40:01

I'm starting to like essentially break them my

40:03

path and realize some of this was sort of essentially

40:06

created to like isolate or

40:08

keep other people out. Um.

40:10

And so I'm learning as I learned more, I'm

40:12

like really surprised by all of that,

40:15

but at the same time, like not very surprised

40:17

because it's a very competitive industry.

40:20

UM. So I think the only uh, I

40:22

think pushback that I would say

40:24

I've received is around

40:26

I think when we came out with the tea bags,

40:29

it's like the snobby people being like, oh, you

40:31

can't put coffee and tea bags for instance. On

40:33

the other side, um, it's also just recognizing

40:36

that, you know, you know, people

40:38

are just like used to doing things a certain

40:40

way, so there's gonna be a resistance

40:42

to the old too, you know, shaking up

40:45

the system. But that's something that

40:47

we actually want to do more of because

40:50

it's it's a gentle push over. And I'm really

40:52

very very inspired by like the new generation

40:56

gen Z that's kind of like does

40:58

not care. I think Maggellennio

41:01

and like my generation we were like

41:04

there was like this whole thing of like, don't buy five dollar

41:06

Starbucks because you can say for your mortgage.

41:10

And I feel like gen Z is really like

41:13

shaking up a lot of status school just

41:15

as a generation, and that's kind

41:18

of helping us a lot because nothing is

41:20

taken for granted anymore. So I

41:22

really like kind of like, well your generation

41:25

is doing with just shaking

41:27

up the status school, so that for us was

41:29

shaking it. It's not an earthquake.

41:32

Um, right, right, man,

41:35

I I really, Maggie, I'm so

41:37

just I love your story

41:39

and I love the love what you're

41:42

doing, and I think it's incredible and I'm so lucky

41:44

that you're here as a guest. Um. I cannot

41:46

wait to hear your advice or what it

41:48

really truly takes to be an entrepreneur. Um.

41:51

But we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, because

41:55

I wanted to show you something. Yeah,

41:57

I want to show you this

42:00

new mag that I have. It's part

42:02

of like my Gentle So this is like

42:04

a coffee Mac. Can you see it? Yeah?

42:07

But then look at what it says, all

42:10

right, so you can't you guys can't see this, But it says the revolution

42:13

will be brewed and that is incredible,

42:16

like, oh, a gentle way of just saying

42:18

that, like there is an oncoming revolution.

42:22

I thought I thought I

42:24

could not love your company and your story

42:26

more, and you just proved me wrong.

42:29

Maggie Kaw. I'm

42:31

so hyped to try some of it, um, but we're

42:33

gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk

42:35

about what it really truly takes

42:38

to be an entrepreneur. Don't go anywhere, Welcome

42:42

back. This is let's get into it. I'm alex Iono,

42:44

and we've had some incredible conversations,

42:47

but it's time to kind of strip

42:49

the pretty away and get down to the nitty gritty,

42:51

which is why we're calling this segment blood, Sweat

42:54

and Tears. We got Josh here with

42:56

me, my brother in law, also the founder and CEO

42:58

of beat Kicks, protecting your over

43:00

the ear headphones and now also have headbands,

43:03

towels, masks, which

43:05

was a major thing which I want to talk

43:08

about in this segment. Uh and also

43:10

now if you have air pods, both the

43:12

air Pods regular and the air Pods pros, you can

43:14

protect the case of those air

43:16

pods. They're they're dope. I can't find my air

43:18

pods right now. I'm pretty sure they're lost, but I'll have to

43:21

buy some new ones so that I can put them on. But we're

43:23

here with with Josh and also with

43:25

Maggie new Mumbo Uh, the founder

43:27

and CEO of Kaha Coffee,

43:31

and we're talking about what it really truly takes being

43:34

an entrepreneur. Like I said before,

43:36

I really do believe it's the hardest job

43:38

from a to z um and anybody

43:40

who started their own business knows

43:42

that, and they know that you really do. I

43:44

know this saying has kind of been thrown around blood

43:46

sweat and tears, but you really do put

43:49

your blood, sweat and tears into it. Josh

43:52

mentioned that he had spent you know, holidays

43:54

answering emails, that he spent ten

43:56

pm to three am s you know,

43:59

working and packaging his product

44:01

and printing labels, and the

44:03

amount of effort that I've seen Josh

44:05

go into, and obviously the amount of effort that I

44:08

know that I've put into my own career. And

44:10

talking with you, Maggie, from flying executives

44:13

of other companies back to your homeland

44:16

of Kenya to show them how beautiful

44:18

the culture is of coffee in East

44:20

Africa. There's so many,

44:23

so many things, and we mentioned

44:25

it in the first segment of Like the Darkness,

44:27

so many things that nobody gets to

44:29

see, and nobody really does see unless

44:31

you show them that. It goes

44:34

into, you know, creating

44:36

your own business, being your own boss, really

44:38

truly being an entrepreneur. So my first

44:40

question is to this day,

44:43

what keeps you motivated on a daily

44:45

basis? Maggie. It's tough,

44:47

you know, why do it right? Why why should

44:49

you do this instead of, you know, a day

44:52

job where you're guaranteed a paycheck.

44:55

And I think for me, it's just

44:57

looking on my life and thinking about what kind

44:59

of leg see do I want to

45:01

live behind, Like what's my purpose in this

45:03

world? Um? And when I thought about

45:06

um sort of my journey and what I wanted

45:08

to give back, I figured that

45:10

there was actually a way for me to do those

45:12

concurrently. So there was a way for me to build

45:15

a business around coffee and then

45:18

use that as sort of a way to

45:20

engage the larger community

45:22

around social issues

45:24

that I care about, so like helping

45:27

women making sure that there was gender

45:29

equality in coffee. So for

45:31

me, coffee isn't really

45:33

just a business that I run. It's

45:36

everything that I do, so I bring

45:39

all my values to it and being

45:41

able to make a difference. So in a

45:43

perfect world in the future

45:45

for me is where we get

45:47

to a place where I

45:49

think, I think a little bit of ourselves

45:52

as almost like Tesla, but not aggressive.

45:55

You know how Tesla went from like we

45:57

need to like get rid of force of falce, we need

46:00

like clean energy and that there's a world where

46:02

we can have nice cars

46:05

that you know, run on clean full

46:07

like that's a thing. So I feel like

46:09

in a future in coffee,

46:11

I think there's a future where we can have

46:14

delicious coffee, specialty coffee, and

46:17

in that paradigm also

46:19

have you know, farmers fairly compensated,

46:22

so like being able to like build that into

46:24

our system and like removing sort of the old

46:27

colonial system and replacing

46:29

it with like a modern system where

46:31

everyone's like paid fairly for

46:33

their wages. That women are getting this like gender

46:35

equality in the industry. So

46:38

for me, I think being able to emerge a future

46:40

where that's possible and realizing

46:42

that actually I'm building the blocks

46:45

towards that that that's what keeps me

46:47

up at night. And also that's like what makes

46:49

me go to bed thinking that I've achieved

46:52

something for the day, right,

46:54

right, And I think that that's more

46:56

than enough to keep you motivated. Something as

46:58

big as you know, chase seeing down a

47:01

dream like that, or if there's a problem in

47:03

the industry now and we need to fix that

47:05

problem. Josh, your story is obviously

47:07

different. You had a problem, you saw a problem in the

47:10

gym, and you fix that problem, and

47:12

that problem is pretty much fixed like you, I mean like you.

47:14

If somebody has that problem now, they can

47:16

fix that problem. So

47:18

having done that, you know, you fix that problem

47:20

before you went into headbands and towels

47:22

and masks and all that. Once you

47:25

hit that point, you're a million dollar company.

47:27

What keeps you motivated to keep trying

47:29

to reach that next level or hit that next

47:31

thing? More than obviously money, it's always

47:33

a good motivator, but you your heart

47:36

is in this. You've had offers for people who want to

47:38

come and and buy, you know, pieces

47:40

of your company or your whole company, but you obviously

47:42

have said no to those things and stuck to it

47:44

to build it into an even bigger empire.

47:46

What keeps you motivated? Yeah, I think

47:49

for me, it's the athlete of me. That the

47:51

thing thing I keep thinking about. It's the competitiveness

47:53

and wanting to because like right now, what

47:55

you said, we're we're in the fitness base pretty

47:58

much. You fallow fitness, you see it, right, But

48:00

I mean there are so many different areas that we can

48:02

hit and we were starting to hit. So

48:05

for me, that's that's the motive. It's it's

48:07

the drive to get in those

48:09

different spots. Like you remember times when I was, oh

48:11

I got this implement or to try them, and where I'm now, they're

48:13

like wanting to be a part of the brand, Like how cool that was?

48:15

Like there's so many different areas

48:17

that I think we can we can get into and

48:19

industries And for me, that's

48:22

in driving force. It's you know, because you get that little

48:24

bit. It's a little honestly, it's like a high right, you get

48:27

all this big influencer, million followers. They want

48:29

to be a part of it, like oh my gosh, like okay,

48:31

I want the next one. Where's the next one? Where's the next

48:33

one? Right? And then you know, building

48:35

a brand like you know, the covers are a baby and that's what

48:38

we do, and that's what everybody knows for. But yeah, I'd love to

48:40

just be a brand that represents

48:42

different products. We're getting there, but you know,

48:44

it's a ton of work. It's a lot of work. I want

48:46

to talk next about about the financial

48:49

aspect of it, and a lot of people um

48:51

for I would say for most entrepreneurial

48:55

businesses, you have to start by shelling

48:57

out of your pocket or taking out a loan or

49:00

ending it, you know, financially, really taking

49:02

a risk. And

49:05

the other thing that I think is funny as a total side

49:07

note is um and I'm gonna out you,

49:10

Josh, but I'm also gonna out me. We love

49:12

Josh and I love blackjack like we love

49:15

and I'm guilty of it. I love going to the casino

49:17

and playing black jack. But I think

49:19

that that's something that really feeds into our entrepreneurial

49:21

spirit because you have to be willing to take a risk,

49:24

a big risk. And Maggie, that even translates. I

49:26

don't know if you like black jack. I hope you do, so one day

49:28

we can all have some Kaha coffee

49:31

and play some black jack. But you had to say

49:33

you're taking a risk every day by shaking

49:35

up a full industry and changing

49:37

that status quo. But financially

49:40

specifically, you have to shell

49:42

out your own money. I last year, Josh, Josh

49:45

knows this because he's my brother. Like, I had to spend

49:47

a lot of my own money to put together

49:49

a tour um the fund to three

49:52

tour because I had a dream

49:54

and I wanted that dream to come to life

49:56

and have a screen on stage, and so I put my

49:58

own money into it, knowing that it was a risk.

50:01

And sometimes those risks work, sometimes those

50:03

risks don't work. Josh, what were your

50:06

financial fears or struggles? You were

50:08

married at the time, and I know that as cool

50:10

as my sister Sydney is, you know, spending

50:13

family money and knowing you're dipping into savings

50:15

and knowing that if it doesn't work, then

50:17

this will happen, or if it does work, then that will happen.

50:20

What struggles or fears did you have when you were

50:22

starting B Kicks? Yeah, I mean

50:24

it's like like I mentioned before, it's going from you

50:26

know, a job that pays a decent salary or commissions

50:29

whatever, and knowing that I'm going to pay myself

50:31

you know a fifth of that, You know what I mean? For

50:33

the foreseeable future and not worth really no end in sight,

50:36

you know, and then you just go into the workings of the business.

50:39

And listen, we all heard the saying you've got to spend

50:41

money to make money, right And I

50:43

don't know about Maggie, but I boostrapped this whole thing from

50:45

I didn't raise any money. It's all been my money. And

50:48

you know, so you've got to be really picky and where you spend that

50:50

money. You know, you can't you know, whether

50:52

it's marketing dollars or you know, influencers

50:55

which falls into marketing whatever. But yeah,

50:57

there's been times where it's like, I don't

50:59

know if this is a right move, but like, how

51:01

many eyeballs would see this if I pay this amount

51:04

of money, you know what I mean? Like, listen, I've had multiple

51:06

mistakes, you know, trial and error,

51:08

spent money, didn't work out. But I mean,

51:11

like you said, you got to take those risks. I mean, you're never

51:13

going to see where your idea can go. Dude,

51:15

you came out of fourteen like with a guitar and

51:17

like, you know what I mean, and now you're doing what

51:20

you're doing. That's why I think is interesting, is

51:22

I like for me, I've all I've ever known

51:24

was my entrepreneurship. Right. But

51:27

for both of you, Josh and for you, Maggie,

51:29

you both had good jobs like you

51:31

guys. You guys weren't like in a place

51:34

where you were like, oh man, what am

51:36

I gonna do? I guess I'll guess I'll have to

51:38

start my business, like you both had the

51:40

option to or not to

51:42

become entrepreneurs. So, Maggie, coming

51:45

from Wall Street to starting your business,

51:47

what was that financial fear slash struggle?

51:49

Like you had a good job like you were, You're on Wall

51:51

Street. People people died to

51:53

believe it was to work on Wall Street. Meanwhile,

51:56

you're starting your own business and leaving it

51:58

so similar I strapped

52:01

like Josh, um And I think that part

52:03

of that is, I think we're gonna have to acknowledge

52:05

it is a little bit of a privilege that you

52:08

know, to be in that position. Um. I think

52:10

for me to be in a position where I had had had

52:12

worked in jobs that allowed me to

52:14

save, so I had a financial safet

52:16

in it. So that's not true for a

52:18

lot of people. So I think for me, I

52:21

felt comfortable doing it because I felt

52:23

like I had saved enough money

52:25

to be able to essentially bootstrap

52:28

this and kind of build it, especially building this business

52:30

where it's a lot of about

52:33

about values and I have to

52:35

be very picky about who I work with

52:37

UM, So having financial backuds

52:40

that have different you know, interests

52:42

and motivations would not be the

52:44

best situation. So it was it was

52:47

very you know, it was again like George said,

52:49

you get very creative. You really

52:51

think about is this what doing? What's

52:54

the arrow I on this? But I think the

52:56

beauty of this looking at it, you

52:59

know when I now reflect act upon it. The

53:01

beauty of having the opportunity to

53:03

build that with you know, limited

53:05

resources, is that you become very

53:08

very intentional. But also you build

53:10

a stronger community because it's

53:12

very you become very authentic because

53:14

you don't have not like you have a limited

53:16

bank account to be flushy.

53:19

You really work with the scraps, and I think that's

53:21

something that really radiates and allows you to

53:24

build a stronger brand. So you're not buying

53:27

you're not buying followers, you're not buying UM

53:30

you know, you're not buying people with sales or

53:32

with like you know, giving huge discounts

53:34

or you're essentially giving people products for free.

53:37

You you essentially cultivate

53:39

a very very strong following

53:41

and a strong community. So I think that there's

53:44

definitely as a as a person,

53:46

if I was starting out, I would advise people

53:48

that sometimes I think gets stressed about not having

53:50

enough capital to think about

53:53

that has an advantage, not a disadvantage.

53:56

It really pushes you to focus on like what's

53:58

the most important thing um and

54:01

to focus on the right things, because otherwise

54:03

you maybe get distracted and you know, make

54:05

really some companies have been killed

54:08

by having too much money, like Quibi

54:14

companies. So I think that there

54:17

is some advantage of being bootstrapped

54:20

and being under resourced at the beginning.

54:22

But obviously i'd be remiss Alex

54:25

if I don't mention that I know, for

54:28

a person like me still even

54:30

with like my education, my privilege,

54:33

I still feel that I

54:35

fall into the same troubles

54:37

that other you know, entrepreneurs of color.

54:39

As you know, less than one person

54:41

of funding goest to women, less than point

54:44

one person goes to women of color. So

54:46

it's it's it's like a huge gap where

54:49

if you started to like spend your time looking

54:51

for money like you would just like it's

54:53

not it's not a good odds. We come back to black

54:55

tack, you have better odds. Focusing

54:58

on raising money from customers. I'm

55:00

doubling down at that point, I'm doubling down.

55:02

I'm splitting. I'm doubling each of the splits.

55:05

We're going hard. So I got one thing that

55:07

that one thing. Yeah, So it's

55:09

funny, it's like the word and we have to be nimble, right,

55:11

I mean, even to this day, you

55:13

know, I think to myself, what do people care

55:15

about when they get my product? They just care about getting it into

55:17

being good quality. So in my even in our packaging,

55:20

even to this day, like it's not the greatest

55:22

packaging, but like I just know they bought it because

55:24

they want it, and when they get it, it's gotta be good quality.

55:26

So those things are good for me. That's enough.

55:28

I don't need to spend that extra capital right now

55:31

to give them this awesome package box

55:33

that costs another fifty cents every order, you know what I mean.

55:35

So, like you know, we've done in the past, but it's

55:37

like is it worth it right now? Like

55:39

you know, so like small things like that, it's like you

55:42

know, what what what does the customer really want?

55:44

Like you know, we both boost trapped it, so we had to

55:46

be like pretty nimble and how we do things so you can

55:48

see what really is the most important

55:51

thing and what do the customers what do they want? You

55:53

know what I mean, That's the question I think all entrepreneurs are trying

55:55

to answer. There's a lot of movement that

55:57

you have to that you might not be like

56:00

that. There's so many things that I didn't realize I had to

56:02

do as a musician, so many things, like you said, you didn't

56:04

realize, like, oh man, I got to think about the

56:06

packaging. I remember you had boxes, and

56:08

then you had certain like certain cool

56:10

plastic, and then you had like they you

56:12

were um you had the like labels

56:15

that were going around it or on top of it. And at

56:17

the end of the day, those are things that you have to really

56:19

think about as an entrepreneur. Another

56:21

thing that a lot of people have to think about as an entrepreneur, or

56:23

more so deal with, not think about, is

56:26

the naysayers, the haters,

56:28

the oh man, I really think you

56:30

should do this, Josh, You and I both know how

56:33

many people and I don't know as much

56:35

as you know, but I've witnessed it firsthand.

56:37

How many people have told you you need to do this,

56:39

you need to do that, don't do this, that's

56:42

not gonna work. And I'm sure you had the same

56:44

thing, Maggie. A question

56:46

for both of you, how do you tune

56:48

that out? Because I know, like as some I've

56:51

had naysayers my own way, you know,

56:53

for my own career as well. But how do

56:55

both of you guys tune it out? Yeah?

56:57

I mean, honestly, I just don't care to be honest

56:59

with do

57:02

you know what I mean? Like, listen, there are times where if

57:04

it's a specific product thing, like maybe

57:06

there's an issue with something like obviously I want

57:08

to resolve that. I don't want to just throw it to but

57:10

like yeah, like these are too expensive

57:13

or why is a logo so big? You know what I mean?

57:15

Like you gotta tell your you got to think,

57:17

like how what's the percentage of people

57:19

that are actually complaining about these small things? And

57:21

it's like that's why I just do it. In my head, I'm like,

57:23

listen, it's under one percent of people that are complaining

57:25

about this or that the other It's like you kind of have just

57:28

pick and choose the things that really matter, Like listen,

57:30

if it's a like a quality control issue,

57:32

like if something broke, ripped or whatever, We're

57:35

going to fix that as fast as possible. We're gonna

57:37

talk to manufacturer and make sure hey, like be

57:40

more careful, right, you know what I mean.

57:42

It's just there's trolls out there, and it's like they

57:44

get a high on like trying to make you feel

57:46

a little bit of negativity. Right, So

57:48

I'm just like, you know what, press

57:51

on man, you know what I mean, absolutely

57:54

absolutely, Maggie, have anything to add to that, Yeah,

57:56

I saying I think you really got to tune

57:58

it out. I think when I started UM,

58:00

for I think a lot of people, it was like

58:03

I was not who you think you

58:06

know sells coffee, Like I was not the face

58:08

of coffee. So for a lot of people, they've

58:10

only seen two you know, two types of coffee.

58:12

Was either like big coffee stuff. But so they had

58:14

seen like Hollywood celebrity

58:17

like starting a coffee brand, like for

58:19

charity. So they were like these two spectrums

58:21

of like charity coffee and then big coffee.

58:24

So when people, I think when I started,

58:26

they were like, oh, is it a nonprofit? UM

58:29

is it, like, are you gonna make money? Like you're not rich.

58:32

So there was a lot of people that were worried

58:34

that I was, like, not a Hollywood celebrity

58:37

doing this for charity. So

58:39

that was trying to like explain

58:41

to people that this can work. But also

58:44

like just you have to at

58:46

the beginning. You just have to know that not everyone

58:48

will see the vision until

58:51

it Like you said, you know, there's a lot of like working

58:53

in the dark. There's a lot of small moving

58:55

paths to building a brand. So

58:57

I think it's just you know, I think

59:00

just giving people time to really warm

59:02

up to it, and you know, it takes time. So I think

59:04

that I having that attitude

59:06

of like, you know, they're seeing

59:08

a half drawn painting, so

59:12

like when it's fully drawn and

59:14

then they might appreciate it more. So I think

59:16

it's just knowing that that's it's

59:18

natural for people to want to be protective

59:21

of the status quo. Yeah, totally.

59:23

I mean I think again, nobody sees nobody sees

59:25

the darkness. Everybody only sees the light. You know that nobody

59:27

sees what happens behind closed doors, and so it's

59:29

important to just stick to your guns, trust

59:32

yourself try and just you know,

59:34

whether it's avoiding comments in your

59:36

comments section, whether it's listening

59:39

with you know, with half an ear to your

59:41

your weird friend or family member

59:43

who thinks that they know your business better than

59:46

you do, whatever it is. I think the

59:48

last thing I want to talk about is like,

59:50

we're here and we're in the middle of a pandemic. We

59:52

have so many businesses closing down, and

59:54

even in good times, new business is very

59:56

rarely turn out successful.

59:59

John, she mentioned being nimble. I think one of the smartest

1:00:02

things and from the outside that you

1:00:04

did this year is you started producing

1:00:06

masks. Masks was not something

1:00:08

that you did at all, but somehow it works perfectly

1:00:11

with protecting your beats, protect your face,

1:00:13

protect your you know, your immune system.

1:00:16

That nimbleness, How did you

1:00:18

come to that? How did you keep

1:00:20

your mind and your and your options so nimble

1:00:23

that you could have an option like that that you go, yes, we need

1:00:25

to jump on that, and and your masks sold

1:00:27

out immediately when you dropped them. Tell

1:00:29

me about that. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I

1:00:31

was fortunate that my manufacturer had

1:00:33

a customer who was doing mass so I was able

1:00:36

to and listen. I didn't early on, I just didn't

1:00:38

even think about it. I just I was doing my business, you

1:00:40

know, with what I go down there look at my inventory or whatever. But

1:00:43

you know, it's like, you know, in Februarily

1:00:45

March came around, it was just kind of like this thing

1:00:47

is maybe a real thing, you know what I mean. I was like, you

1:00:50

know, maybe we should do it. And listen,

1:00:52

because of the high costs of manufacturer, I had to put

1:00:54

down it up front the money, and

1:00:56

they weren't cheap, mask. I mean everything's getting made

1:00:58

down town l A. I mean, these

1:01:00

were not cheap, like they're good Mass. I want I want

1:01:02

to voice said, it's it's the Mass that I endorsed

1:01:05

myself. Um.

1:01:07

So, I mean, listen, March was terrible

1:01:10

for me. Let's be on. I mean, my my product

1:01:12

is mainly in the fitness space. Gym's closed, right,

1:01:14

people were freaking out, like going to

1:01:16

the banks taking thousands dollars put in their under their own mattress

1:01:18

because they were like, what's going to happen? Right, So no

1:01:20

one spending money and gyms were closed. So for me, it was like

1:01:23

the worst month I've had in probably ten months. Um,

1:01:27

but then we decided to make masks, and April

1:01:29

was my biggest month in eight months. The

1:01:32

day I launched a mass I never promoted it. I just

1:01:34

put it up and we had a bigger day than my Black Friday,

1:01:36

which is crazy. So

1:01:39

yeah, I mean, honestly, I was fortunate enough to have that opportunity

1:01:41

because if they weren't doing it doing it, I wouldn't have had that opportunity.

1:01:44

But but listen, I had to make the call, right,

1:01:46

I had to say, Hey, I'm gonna spend this much amount of money to

1:01:48

do this, and who knows, Like, I

1:01:51

mean, luckily, like Maggie was saying, you build

1:01:53

that customer base and that loyal following

1:01:56

that, you know, I just put up in Boom

1:01:58

and like they're listen, they're expensive, like compared to other masks,

1:02:00

they're pretty expensive, but they just took it. Was

1:02:03

I'm not gonna say it's saved the business, but like it's

1:02:05

almost a blessing in disguise for me because

1:02:08

at the time my manufacturing shut down, my

1:02:11

covers and everything else, all they did was making mass

1:02:13

It was like it was like a factory of mass making. So

1:02:15

luckily I had enough inventory on handle the covers

1:02:17

that the orders it did come in, we were able to fulfill. So

1:02:20

I was able to lower my inventory and everything and that was profit.

1:02:22

And then we had masses. We had another product to sell and

1:02:25

was sold like crazy. It was like we were able to

1:02:27

actually come out of it a little better I think than most

1:02:29

people, just because we had that ability. Yeah.

1:02:32

No, I mean a lot of companies came

1:02:34

and went or we're here and left

1:02:36

and and uh and so I think that

1:02:38

nimbleness is what keeps companies

1:02:40

alive. And and that's why I think it was amazing.

1:02:43

I had to point it out because the wrench

1:02:45

was thrown into this year. This year has been the worst.

1:02:47

And so for a company like Bee Kicks, where you were

1:02:49

working, you were a fitness based

1:02:52

company or where that's where you started from,

1:02:54

and then the thing that kind of powers that

1:02:57

goes away, you have to move quick.

1:02:59

You have to act quick, Maggie. On

1:03:01

top of the pandemic, we are also

1:03:03

in a year that people are trying to obviously

1:03:07

we are. We have unearthed um

1:03:09

racial injustice here in America and

1:03:12

racism in general. There are

1:03:14

so many fights for taking

1:03:17

away women's rights and women's reproductive

1:03:19

rights. And on top of that, you come from an immigrant

1:03:22

family, the cards were

1:03:25

not sent in your favor. How

1:03:27

have you, as a CEO and a

1:03:29

founder of a company powered

1:03:31

through that. Yeah. I

1:03:34

actually posted on our Instagram that

1:03:36

when the elections came out, now that

1:03:38

we have Kamela the first black

1:03:42

and Indian immigrant

1:03:46

vice president, I was saying, oh, twenty twenty

1:03:48

is definitely UM. It's

1:03:50

going to be interesting when we discussed it because we

1:03:53

saw the worst and it's also now historic.

1:03:56

So I think that the reason election was such

1:03:58

a you know, a breath of relief,

1:04:00

I think, especially for a lot of people whose lives

1:04:03

were UM sort of in

1:04:05

a non territory because of the

1:04:08

last four years. UM. For

1:04:10

us from a business perspective, obviously

1:04:12

the coffee industry was massively impacted

1:04:15

with coffee shops can't open up,

1:04:17

shut down UM. So for us,

1:04:20

we UM as a nation. We used to serve offices

1:04:22

in the Bay Area, so we had a huge

1:04:25

office business which went

1:04:27

away immediately because no one's going

1:04:29

into the office. But again, like

1:04:31

Joe said, it's a blessing in disguise

1:04:34

because it really pushed us

1:04:36

to do direct to consumer, which

1:04:38

was which is a beast of its own, but

1:04:41

it's once you start to do it, you start

1:04:43

to love it, especially interacting directly

1:04:45

with customers and you know, even

1:04:48

emailing with Catherine, when customers

1:04:50

like message me their thoughts or

1:04:52

asked me questions, it's very very

1:04:54

fulfilling. So that was for me

1:04:57

going through transitioning from sort

1:04:59

of more are b to be and doing

1:05:01

more direct to consumer, which you

1:05:04

know has as now

1:05:06

with the Black Lives Matter movement and

1:05:08

sort of people really um looking

1:05:11

to support brands that you know, share values

1:05:13

with them. So it's been really interesting

1:05:15

time for us, I think, to be an outspoken

1:05:18

activists for a lot of these issues and

1:05:20

very very like refreshing. So is

1:05:23

a very mixed year for me, But I think it's

1:05:25

gonna in a good note. I

1:05:27

sure hope so, and I think for all three of

1:05:30

us, I do have a good feeling it's going to continue

1:05:32

trending upwards. I think my biggest

1:05:34

takeaway from this is that an entrepreneur

1:05:37

is so much more about the spirit

1:05:40

that you have. There's so many ways in

1:05:42

which you can be an entrepreneur, and so I think

1:05:45

my takeaway with that is also the

1:05:48

dedication that you have to prepare yourself

1:05:50

to have in being an entrepreneur. It's

1:05:52

amazing. And so I really implore you

1:05:55

if you have even an ounce of yourself that wants

1:05:57

to explore being an entrepreneur. You don't

1:05:59

have to a full time Josh didn't go full time

1:06:01

for two and a half years. You don't have

1:06:04

to have a groundbreaking idea.

1:06:07

Uh. You can simply find

1:06:09

something you're passionate about and see if there's a

1:06:11

business in that. Um and and

1:06:13

that's really my takeaway. Uh. And I hope

1:06:15

you like this. I've really, I really loved

1:06:17

this episode. I thought it was amazing time.

1:06:19

Thank you Maggie, thank you Josh, both of you for

1:06:21

your insight and sharing your experiences with

1:06:23

this. I want to point out before we get

1:06:25

into my favorite part of the show. Both

1:06:29

gifts, both Khawa Coffee

1:06:31

and Beat Kicks, whether it's the headphone

1:06:33

protectors, that air pods covers,

1:06:36

the headbands, or the towels

1:06:38

or the masks, are incredible holiday

1:06:40

gifts. We're going to the holidays right now, ladies and gentlemen. Make

1:06:42

sure you guys get you get get your man's

1:06:44

or your woman's or your or your person. Some

1:06:47

headphone covers and some coffee, and I can guarantee

1:06:49

you they're gonna smile, You're gonna have a great holiday. It's gonna

1:06:51

be incredible. That being said, it is time

1:06:54

for the shameless not so shameless

1:06:56

promo. Basically, I just give you guys

1:06:59

each time just to ug everything you want.

1:07:01

You don't. I'm already buying it, so you don't

1:07:03

have to sell me on it. But it's time for you to just sell

1:07:05

it to the listeners. Maggie hit Us with

1:07:07

some not so shameless promo. I

1:07:09

mean, I think that we have the best

1:07:11

coffee in the world. Seriously,

1:07:16

I think that you know, you should

1:07:19

check it out. Um, it's I

1:07:21

sometimes wonder, you know, I

1:07:23

feel bad for people that haven't discovered it yet.

1:07:27

That should be a slogan. That should be a slogan.

1:07:29

If you haven't tried it, I feel bad for you. I

1:07:35

love that. Josh hit Us with some not so shameless

1:07:38

promo. Listen. So most

1:07:40

people listen to music, and that's you know, and

1:07:42

everybody likes to customize things. We're all trying to match

1:07:44

things, right, I mean, whether you're trying to protect your

1:07:46

headphones, they're good for that, but

1:07:48

also just to match something we have multiple

1:07:51

designs. We also have a customization

1:07:53

aspect. Now we can go in and make your own not

1:07:55

only covers, you can make your towels, you can make headbands.

1:07:58

So yeah, I mean we're here for you. We protect

1:08:00

you, we got you covered. Oh my

1:08:03

gosh, you guys are just professionals. Check

1:08:05

this out. If you like music, if you

1:08:07

like big teeth, if you like

1:08:10

Polynesian men, and

1:08:13

you like an i heeart radio podcast, let's

1:08:15

get into it as the podcast for you. Um,

1:08:19

you guys already know where you can follow me. Uh,

1:08:21

you can follow me at alex Iono on all platforms.

1:08:25

Do you guys have an Instagram or a or a social media platform?

1:08:27

Here and it is at

1:08:30

Cahawa nine three Josh, you gotta you gotta

1:08:32

social media platform for Beat Kicks Instagram,

1:08:35

Beat dot Kicks, Beat dot Kicks,

1:08:37

alex a i O n Oh. You can

1:08:39

find and follow all three of us. But more

1:08:41

importantly than me, following me on

1:08:43

Instagram makesure you follow Khawa and

1:08:46

follow beat dot Kicks on Instagram.

1:08:48

You can also rate our podcast and subscribe. It's

1:08:50

the it's the way that we grow, and you can give us

1:08:52

a nice review, especially after this episode.

1:08:55

But thank you so much for listening. I I

1:08:57

love you guys so much and we'll see you next

1:08:59

time piece. We

1:09:06

really want you to get the help you need, so if you

1:09:09

need help, please seek independent advice from

1:09:11

a competent healthcare or mental health professional.

1:09:13

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely

1:09:16

those of the podcast author or individuals participating

1:09:18

in the podcast, and do not represent the opinions of I

1:09:20

Heart Media or its employees. This podcast

1:09:22

should not be used as medical advice, mental health advice,

1:09:24

counseling, or therapy. Listening to the podcast

1:09:27

does not established dr patient relationship with

1:09:29

hosts or guests of alex Iona Let's Get Into

1:09:31

It or I Heart Media. No guarantee is

1:09:33

given regarding the accuracy of any statements

1:09:35

or opinions made on this podcast. Well,

1:09:38

if that's a doozy