[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_138":-5,"_139":-5,"_140":141,"_142":143,"_144":145},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/3072/lean-into-what-differentiates-you-from-a-big-competitor","id",3072,"title","Lean into what differentiates you from a big competitor","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.760\nYou're never gonna beat Amazon on a utilitarian game\n\n2\n00:00:03.760 --> 00:00:06.440\nof just pure convenience and assortment.\n\n3\n00:00:06.440 --> 00:00:09.160\nAnd so, you know, we're Amazon zigz, we zag.\n\n4\n00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:11.360\nAmazon is the infinite assortment, right?\n\n5\n00:00:11.360 --> 00:00:12.960\nThey wanna be the everything store.\n\n6\n00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:15.360\nI sometimes called us the uneverything store, right?\n\n7\n00:00:15.360 --> 00:00:19.800\nSo we have, you know, a thousand ingredients\n\n8\n00:00:19.800 --> 00:00:21.680\nthat we restrict on the site.\n\n9\n00:00:21.680 --> 00:00:23.320\nWe have more than 700 ingredients that we ban.\n\n10\n00:00:23.320 --> 00:00:26.600\nWe're exclusively non-GMO across the entire catalog.\n\n11\n00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:29.200\nWe're in like 98, 99% organic.\n\n12\n00:00:29.200 --> 00:00:31.160\nSo by having these high quality standards,\n\n13\n00:00:31.160 --> 00:00:33.040\nwe reduce the size of the assortment.\n\n14\n00:00:33.040 --> 00:00:35.920\nWe're not only a lot less than Amazon,\n\n15\n00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:37.400\nwe're like in order of magnitude,\n\n16\n00:00:37.400 --> 00:00:40.680\nlower SKU count on the same categories\n\n17\n00:00:40.680 --> 00:00:42.960\nas a traditional grocery store would be.\n\n18\n00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:44.720\nBut in the case of healthy living,\n\n19\n00:00:44.720 --> 00:00:47.400\nthat's actually a benefit to the consumer\n\n20\n00:00:47.400 --> 00:00:48.720\nbecause they're not looking to see\n\n21\n00:00:48.720 --> 00:00:49.960\n40 options of almond butter.\n\n22\n00:00:49.960 --> 00:00:51.560\nThey wanna know which one's the best.\n\n23\n00:00:51.560 --> 00:00:53.280\nThey wanna find the one that's the highest quality.\n\n24\n00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:55.680\nAnd so they can outsource their trust to us.\n\n25\n00:00:55.680 --> 00:00:57.520\nIt's very different than Amazon,\n\n26\n00:00:57.520 --> 00:00:59.720\nbut it's actually a stronger value proposition\n\n27\n00:00:59.720 --> 00:01:00.720\nfor healthy living.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",1351409,"end_time",1411849,"keywords","Product, marketing, differentiation, amazon, competition, competitor","slug","lean-into-what-differentiates-you-from-a-big-competitor","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","6400Awl02J01Gn27i4RMUwaoJ9Pq7YIotAdfB00ChA017OrM","mux_asset_id","Y00P9aCp5F5Hu7S8unAeTL1KAP6u7Y00IrxXhvoV00PlZw","leader_id",248,"episode_id",400,"updated_at","2025-10-09T17:35:17.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/3072/lean-into-what-differentiates-you-from-a-big-competitor","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_102":103,"_104":105,"_106":107,"_25":108,"_109":110,"_61":111,"_58":111,"_112":113,"_68":114,"_39":115,"_116":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_117":118,"_90":119,"_44":120,"_121":122,"_123":124,"_46":-5,"_125":126,"_127":128,"_94":129,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":-5,"_58":59,"_60":-5,"_61":59,"_62":-5,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":-5,"_68":-5,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":74,"_35":36,"_39":75,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_76":77,"_78":79,"_80":81,"_82":83,"_84":-5,"_85":-5,"_86":87,"_88":89,"_90":-5,"_46":-5,"_91":92,"_93":-5,"_94":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","The business model matters","the-business-model-matters","Listen to this leadership podcast with Nick Green, Cofounder and CEO of Thrive Market, and discover the power of the right business model for your big idea.","summary","

At age 25, he walked away from a successful seven-figure business, and took a big swing on a risky idea.

Thrive Market Cofounder and CEO Nick Green knew he wanted to make healthy food more accessible. But at a time when everyone was chasing speed and scale, he made a big bet on the membership model. 1.7 million members later, it’s safe to say it worked.

In this episode, he shares:

His early career failures and what they taught him
The power of the right business model
The weird way he uses ChatGPT
Why you should take big swings

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.350\nThere were definitely times, honestly, where I overshot and I was out of my\n\n2\n00:00:03.350 --> 00:00:05.200\ndepth and things got\n\n3\n00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.480\nlike messy and chaotic. There were moments where I just thought, what have I\n\n4\n00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:09.040\ndone? What kind of\n\n5\n00:00:09.040 --> 00:00:19.200\nmistake did I make? Now, you grew up in Minnesota and you know, I actually\n\n6\n00:00:19.200 --> 00:00:19.520\nlived in\n\n7\n00:00:19.520 --> 00:00:23.480\nChristian, Minnesota, Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, and you know, I went to the\n\n8\n00:00:23.480 --> 00:00:24.160\nstate fair. It seems\n\n9\n00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:28.120\nlike everything you get to the state fair is you get food on a stick. It's on a\n\n10\n00:00:28.120 --> 00:00:29.600\nstick and it's fried.\n\n11\n00:00:29.600 --> 00:00:34.950\nOkay, so what's your favorite food to eat on a stick? All right, well, this is\n\n12\n00:00:34.950 --> 00:00:36.160\nstarting out in\n\n13\n00:00:36.160 --> 00:00:41.520\na very unhealthy direction, but they have deep-fried Oreos, which are, I mean,\n\n14\n00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:42.880\nexactly as you'd imagine.\n\n15\n00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:48.320\nBut my favorite is actually deep-fried pickles. There you go. Well, okay, we're\n\n16\n00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:49.040\ngoing to segue\n\n17\n00:00:49.040 --> 00:00:53.000\nnow. We're going to move to healthy food and I checked your food out. And these\n\n18\n00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:54.720\ngreen pitted\n\n19\n00:00:54.720 --> 00:01:00.170\nolives. I mean, God, Almighty, these are like, they're addicting, you know, and\n\n20\n00:01:00.170 --> 00:01:01.520\nthen these,\n\n21\n00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:08.760\nthese kettle sweet potato chips. I mean, how in the world do you make food that\n\n22\n00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:09.120\ntastes\n\n23\n00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:13.430\nthis good? Okay, that's healthy for you. Yeah, I mean, the answer is we use\n\n24\n00:01:13.430 --> 00:01:14.720\nreal food and we\n\n25\n00:01:14.720 --> 00:01:18.040\nkeep it really simple and we source from really high quality suppliers. So\n\n26\n00:01:18.040 --> 00:01:19.040\nthose two products that\n\n27\n00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:22.960\nyou just pointed out, those are under the Thrive Market brand. We also carry,\n\n28\n00:01:22.960 --> 00:01:23.760\nyou know, hundreds of\n\n29\n00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:29.160\nthird party brands that we curate and hold to ultra high quality standards. But\n\n30\n00:01:29.160 --> 00:01:30.320\non our own brand,\n\n31\n00:01:30.320 --> 00:01:34.480\nthe cool thing is we're able to go up the supply chain and work with, you know,\n\n32\n00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:35.680\namazing producers\n\n33\n00:01:35.680 --> 00:01:40.290\ndirectly with farmers and kind of reinvent products. So the olives that you\n\n34\n00:01:40.290 --> 00:01:42.080\nhave there are super simple,\n\n35\n00:01:42.080 --> 00:01:45.290\nbut they passed a very important test even beyond our quality standards, which\n\n36\n00:01:45.290 --> 00:01:46.240\nis that my wife,\n\n37\n00:01:46.240 --> 00:01:50.970\nwho is from Spain, where they eat a lot of olives, approved them. And so they\n\n38\n00:01:50.970 --> 00:01:51.680\nare, you know,\n\n39\n00:01:51.680 --> 00:01:54.080\nthey're great tasting and then they're really high quality, right? So you're\n\n40\n00:01:54.080 --> 00:01:54.480\ngoing to have an\n\n41\n00:01:54.480 --> 00:01:57.980\norganic standard, you're going to have high, high quality supply chain. The\n\n42\n00:01:57.980 --> 00:01:58.720\nchips are a really\n\n43\n00:01:58.720 --> 00:02:02.390\ninteresting one, because that's a product, as you know, comes in a bag that\n\n44\n00:02:02.390 --> 00:02:03.440\nsize, it's a snack,\n\n45\n00:02:03.440 --> 00:02:07.410\nit's a salty, you know, oily snack, like those are usually really unhealthy\n\n46\n00:02:07.410 --> 00:02:09.040\nproducts. But you swap\n\n47\n00:02:09.040 --> 00:02:13.650\nout a standard potato with a sweet potato, better glycemic index, you replace\n\n48\n00:02:13.650 --> 00:02:15.760\nunhealthy seed oils\n\n49\n00:02:15.760 --> 00:02:20.090\nwith avocado oil or coconut oil. And you reduce some of the other additives\n\n50\n00:02:20.090 --> 00:02:21.360\nthat are in there and\n\n51\n00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:24.500\nall of a sudden you have something that is, you know, really, really tasty, but\n\n52\n00:02:24.500 --> 00:02:25.440\nalso healthy.\n\n53\n00:02:25.440 --> 00:02:28.260\nWell, I got to tell you, you kick butt on both of these. These are freaking\n\n54\n00:02:28.260 --> 00:02:30.000\ngood. These are really\n\n55\n00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:35.600\ngood. And I love olives and unbelievable. I don't really like sweet potato\n\n56\n00:02:35.600 --> 00:02:36.800\nfries and chips, but these\n\n57\n00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:40.920\nare damn good. I mean, you really, really met your, bet your challenge here. I\n\n58\n00:02:40.920 --> 00:02:42.160\ncan't wait to hear how\n\n59\n00:02:42.160 --> 00:02:45.040\nyou're leading Thrive Market. But first, I want to take you back to your\n\n60\n00:02:45.040 --> 00:02:46.880\nbeginning. Tell us a\n\n61\n00:02:46.880 --> 00:02:50.840\nstory from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are today. I mean,\n\n62\n00:02:50.840 --> 00:02:52.000\nthe story that\n\n63\n00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:57.230\nshaped my journey to Thrive Market is really the story that starts with my mom.\n\n64\n00:02:57.230 --> 00:02:57.840\nSo I grew up in\n\n65\n00:02:57.840 --> 00:03:01.800\nMinneapolis, Minnesota. The state fair is like the pinnacle of unhealthy food,\n\n66\n00:03:01.800 --> 00:03:02.640\nbut there's plenty\n\n67\n00:03:02.640 --> 00:03:07.650\nof unhealthy food back in the 90s. The memory that I have as a kid, which at\n\n68\n00:03:07.650 --> 00:03:09.120\ntimes was an unhappy\n\n69\n00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:13.480\nmemory, to be totally honest, was being that one house on the block that didn't\n\n70\n00:03:13.480 --> 00:03:14.160\nhave sugar\n\n71\n00:03:14.160 --> 00:03:18.800\ncereal that didn't have soda on the kitchen table, where my mom was reading the\n\n72\n00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:19.680\ningredients,\n\n73\n00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:24.290\nreading the labels. And we always thought it was a little bit crazy. And at the\n\n74\n00:03:24.290 --> 00:03:25.040\ntime, compared to\n\n75\n00:03:25.040 --> 00:03:28.420\nothers, it really did seem that way. But she was determined to make healthy\n\n76\n00:03:28.420 --> 00:03:30.560\nchoices. And I remember\n\n77\n00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:34.520\ngoing to the grocery store and she's going up the aisle, reading the labels,\n\n78\n00:03:34.520 --> 00:03:35.440\nlooking for the right\n\n79\n00:03:35.440 --> 00:03:39.400\nproducts. I remember the way that she would just monitor what was in the fridge\n\n80\n00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:39.920\nat home,\n\n81\n00:03:39.920 --> 00:03:44.960\nwhat was on the table, always looking for recipes to make the food palatable so\n\n82\n00:03:44.960 --> 00:03:45.760\nwe as kids would eat\n\n83\n00:03:45.760 --> 00:03:49.720\nit. And I just saw how hard she had to work. And so that was, it's not a single\n\n84\n00:03:49.720 --> 00:03:50.080\nanecdote,\n\n85\n00:03:50.080 --> 00:03:55.480\nbut it was an ongoing memory for me, that one, it was one example of where I\n\n86\n00:03:55.480 --> 00:03:56.240\nwas seeing how hard\n\n87\n00:03:56.240 --> 00:04:00.500\nmy mom worked in general to do things right to make a difference for her family\n\n88\n00:04:00.500 --> 00:04:01.920\n. And that I think\n\n89\n00:04:01.920 --> 00:04:06.000\nwas her leadership, which inspires my leadership. But then very specifically,\n\n90\n00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:07.680\nit got me realizing\n\n91\n00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:11.640\nhealthy food makes a difference. I made a huge difference in our lifestyle and\n\n92\n00:04:11.640 --> 00:04:12.880\nour health outcomes.\n\n93\n00:04:12.880 --> 00:04:16.840\nYou know, my mom came from a family where a lot of folks had diabetes and\n\n94\n00:04:16.840 --> 00:04:17.760\nobesity and\n\n95\n00:04:17.760 --> 00:04:21.760\nhypertension and other stuff. And our family was able to get past that by\n\n96\n00:04:21.760 --> 00:04:23.280\nhaving this healthy lifestyle.\n\n97\n00:04:23.280 --> 00:04:27.320\nAnd then, you know, on the thrive side, it really inspired what we ended up\n\n98\n00:04:27.320 --> 00:04:28.240\nbuilding. Because the\n\n99\n00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:32.880\nwhole goal of thrive is how do we make it easier for people, for moms,\n\n100\n00:04:32.880 --> 00:04:35.120\nbasically, and heads of\n\n101\n00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:39.760\nhousehold and individuals who just want to get healthier. Now that's a great\n\n102\n00:04:39.760 --> 00:04:40.400\nmission that you've\n\n103\n00:04:40.400 --> 00:04:43.470\ngot there. And I want to get to that. But you know, I got to ask you first, you\n\n104\n00:04:43.470 --> 00:04:45.520\nknow, tell us a\n\n105\n00:04:45.520 --> 00:04:52.600\nstory about this kid from Minneapolis ended up at Harvard. Well, again, the\n\n106\n00:04:52.600 --> 00:04:53.360\nstories I'll go back\n\n107\n00:04:53.360 --> 00:04:57.990\nto my mom. So the two things she cared most about were healthy eating and\n\n108\n00:04:57.990 --> 00:05:00.560\neducation. And, you know,\n\n109\n00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:06.610\nshe had kind of a perfect pupil in me. I was a very conscientious kid. And, you\n\n110\n00:05:06.610 --> 00:05:07.680\nknow, I would\n\n111\n00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:11.150\nlike be the kid. I would go to a sleepover and I'd be afraid to eat anything\n\n112\n00:05:11.150 --> 00:05:11.920\nthat my mom wouldn't\n\n113\n00:05:11.920 --> 00:05:15.920\napprove of. And then in school, I was a very studious conscientious kid. Yeah,\n\n114\n00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:16.480\nI can remember\n\n115\n00:05:16.480 --> 00:05:21.200\neven as an elementary school kid. You know, if I got a grade that wasn't good\n\n116\n00:05:21.200 --> 00:05:22.320\nor I didn't do well\n\n117\n00:05:22.320 --> 00:05:26.690\non a test, I mean, I would feel literally viscerally ill about it. And so I\n\n118\n00:05:26.690 --> 00:05:27.760\nhave a lot of memories\n\n119\n00:05:27.760 --> 00:05:33.100\nlike that of like just being just wound up even at a young age. And that's\n\n120\n00:05:33.100 --> 00:05:34.000\ninteresting as it relates\n\n121\n00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:37.960\nto my entrepreneurial career, because in a sense, going to Harvard was my was\n\n122\n00:05:37.960 --> 00:05:38.720\nthe start to my\n\n123\n00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:41.680\nentrepreneurial career, because I started a company called Ivy Insiders helping\n\n124\n00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:42.560\nother kids get into\n\n125\n00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:47.970\nplaces like Harvard and get better test scores at affordable prices. But it\n\n126\n00:05:47.970 --> 00:05:50.480\nalso was in a way,\n\n127\n00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:54.660\nI think the thing I had to unlearn to be an entrepreneur and to be a great\n\n128\n00:05:54.660 --> 00:05:55.920\nleader, you know,\n\n129\n00:05:55.920 --> 00:05:58.180\nwhen you're trying to get into a place like Harvard, you're always trying to be\n\n130\n00:05:58.180 --> 00:05:58.480\nperfect.\n\n131\n00:05:58.480 --> 00:06:03.330\nAnd that is absolute, you know, the death knell if you are trying to build a\n\n132\n00:06:03.330 --> 00:06:03.840\ncompany,\n\n133\n00:06:03.840 --> 00:06:07.800\nor you're trying to lead other people. And so I've often described that I was\n\n134\n00:06:07.800 --> 00:06:08.320\nan accidental\n\n135\n00:06:08.320 --> 00:06:12.880\nentrepreneur. I would say I also had to unlearn a lot of, you know, a lot of\n\n136\n00:06:12.880 --> 00:06:13.760\nthe things that I\n\n137\n00:06:13.760 --> 00:06:17.150\nlike prided myself when I was a school school age kid in order to be an\n\n138\n00:06:17.150 --> 00:06:18.160\nentrepreneur.\n\n139\n00:06:18.160 --> 00:06:22.820\nSo what made you start this business in college? I mean, you know, you're at\n\n140\n00:06:22.820 --> 00:06:24.080\nHarvard, you know,\n\n141\n00:06:24.080 --> 00:06:27.540\nmost people maybe go give a job somewhere else. But you know, you said, hey, I\n\n142\n00:06:27.540 --> 00:06:28.000\n'm going to start\n\n143\n00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:32.240\nmy own company even back then. Yeah, well, I was, I mean, I was a pretty self,\n\n144\n00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:34.160\nself-motivated kid.\n\n145\n00:06:34.160 --> 00:06:38.770\nAgain, I was like that from a very young age. And I think my mom was a major\n\n146\n00:06:38.770 --> 00:06:39.120\ninspiration.\n\n147\n00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:42.640\nShe was super self-driven herself and kind of set that tone in our family.\n\n148\n00:06:42.640 --> 00:06:48.920\nAnd so I had never had a real job, to be honest. I had mowed lawns, I had a mow\n\n149\n00:06:48.920 --> 00:06:48.960\non\n\n150\n00:06:48.960 --> 00:06:54.560\nmowing business when I was a kid and saw how that scaled up. And I was big into\n\n151\n00:06:54.560 --> 00:06:55.040\nsavings.\n\n152\n00:06:55.040 --> 00:06:59.650\nIt actually was before I even went to Harvard that I did real well in the SAT.\n\n153\n00:06:59.650 --> 00:07:00.000\nAnd I said,\n\n154\n00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:03.940\nI'm going to start, you know, I'm going to start tutoring. And pretty soon, you\n\n155\n00:07:03.940 --> 00:07:04.000\nknow,\n\n156\n00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:07.960\nkids would work for other kids. And all of a sudden I had too many students to\n\n157\n00:07:07.960 --> 00:07:08.800\nhave individually.\n\n158\n00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:13.040\nSo I had a class. And once I had a class, I needed a credit curriculum. And\n\n159\n00:07:13.040 --> 00:07:13.360\nthis is where\n\n160\n00:07:13.360 --> 00:07:16.720\nI say I'm an accidental entrepreneur, because one thing led to the other. And\n\n161\n00:07:16.720 --> 00:07:17.280\nall of a sudden,\n\n162\n00:07:17.280 --> 00:07:23.280\nI'm working with literally a couple hundred kids in my hometown the summer\n\n163\n00:07:23.280 --> 00:07:24.160\nafter my freshman year\n\n164\n00:07:24.160 --> 00:07:28.120\nat Harvard. And it was the coolest experience. Because, you know, I came from a\n\n165\n00:07:28.120 --> 00:07:28.800\nplace where\n\n166\n00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:32.320\nthere was a handful of kids that would do like cap on a Princeton Review. But\n\n167\n00:07:32.320 --> 00:07:33.120\ngenerally speaking,\n\n168\n00:07:33.120 --> 00:07:37.080\nif you're middle class in the West, you're not spending $1,000 on test prep,\n\n169\n00:07:37.080 --> 00:07:37.840\nlet alone the,\n\n170\n00:07:37.840 --> 00:07:42.000\nyou know, hundreds of dollars an hour that a lot of, you know, wealthier kids\n\n171\n00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:43.040\nare spending to do\n\n172\n00:07:43.040 --> 00:07:47.040\nindividual tutoring. What I ended up doing was basically chopping the price of\n\n173\n00:07:47.040 --> 00:07:47.760\ncap on a Princeton\n\n174\n00:07:47.760 --> 00:07:52.000\nReview. And eventually it was in half, but initially it was like in a quarter.\n\n175\n00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:52.960\nAnd just making a\n\n176\n00:07:52.960 --> 00:07:58.300\nreally accessible program that, that got kids better scores, and then ended up\n\n177\n00:07:58.300 --> 00:07:58.960\nhiring other\n\n178\n00:07:58.960 --> 00:08:01.870\nundergrads first from Harvard, and then across the Ivy League, and then\n\n179\n00:08:01.870 --> 00:08:02.720\neventually across, you know,\n\n180\n00:08:02.720 --> 00:08:08.050\n20 plus colleges and universities to basically go home for the summer and run\n\n181\n00:08:08.050 --> 00:08:08.320\nwhatever were\n\n182\n00:08:08.320 --> 00:08:13.920\nessentially franchise businesses for the insiders. That's fantastic. And as I\n\n183\n00:08:13.920 --> 00:08:15.200\nunderstand it, you\n\n184\n00:08:15.200 --> 00:08:20.050\ngrew that startup that the 500 locations in 43 states in under three years,\n\n185\n00:08:20.050 --> 00:08:21.280\nwhich is amazing.\n\n186\n00:08:21.280 --> 00:08:26.480\nWhat's the biggest lesson you learned about growth that you think about today?\n\n187\n00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:27.840\nAs you make\n\n188\n00:08:27.840 --> 00:08:32.690\ndecisions at Thrive Market, you know, you look back at that experience, and is\n\n189\n00:08:32.690 --> 00:08:33.200\nthere anything\n\n190\n00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:36.410\nthat you really took with you? Well, there was, there was some advantages I had\n\n191\n00:08:36.410 --> 00:08:37.520\nin that business\n\n192\n00:08:37.520 --> 00:08:42.140\nthat I didn't fully appreciate then, but in retrospect, in retrospect, I\n\n193\n00:08:42.140 --> 00:08:42.800\nrealized how\n\n194\n00:08:42.800 --> 00:08:48.400\nvaluable they were. One was not a capital intensive business. So the very\n\n195\n00:08:48.400 --> 00:08:49.520\ncapital efficient business\n\n196\n00:08:49.520 --> 00:08:53.590\nwas a services business, low startup costs. And because we hired these undergr\n\n197\n00:08:53.590 --> 00:08:54.480\nads to kind of run\n\n198\n00:08:54.480 --> 00:08:59.460\ntheir own businesses, you know, it was, it was very scalable. And so I think\n\n199\n00:08:59.460 --> 00:09:01.440\nthe, the benefits that\n\n200\n00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:05.720\nI had from just kind of stumbling onto a model that didn't require raising\n\n201\n00:09:05.720 --> 00:09:06.800\noutside capital,\n\n202\n00:09:06.800 --> 00:09:12.800\nand that was very scalable, were, was super, super valuable. One of the lessons\n\n203\n00:09:12.800 --> 00:09:13.520\nthat I learned\n\n204\n00:09:13.520 --> 00:09:18.270\nearly on was about scalability. And, you know, what does it really take to make\n\n205\n00:09:18.270 --> 00:09:19.600\na model scalable?\n\n206\n00:09:19.600 --> 00:09:22.240\nAnd in theory, you know, when you're doing like a franchise-esque model, and\n\n207\n00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:22.560\nyou know,\n\n208\n00:09:22.560 --> 00:09:26.520\nthis better than anyone, I'm sure from, from your young days, but you got like\n\n209\n00:09:26.520 --> 00:09:27.360\nthat restaurant,\n\n210\n00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:31.320\nif you get that single unit dialed, you should then be able to just replicate a\n\n211\n00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:31.760\ncookie cutter\n\n212\n00:09:31.760 --> 00:09:36.460\nstyle. In practice, it's, it's a lot harder than that. And the more you can\n\n213\n00:09:36.460 --> 00:09:38.080\nsimplify and iterate\n\n214\n00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:42.960\nand test into and hone that the unit model, the, the easier it's going to scale\n\n215\n00:09:42.960 --> 00:09:43.520\nand the more kind\n\n216\n00:09:43.520 --> 00:09:47.000\nof dummy proof it's going to be as you grow it out. And so we had a lot of\n\n217\n00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:47.920\ngrowing pains to be\n\n218\n00:09:47.920 --> 00:09:51.880\ntotally honest that were related to my assumptions about how easily it should\n\n219\n00:09:51.880 --> 00:09:52.720\nscale. And then the\n\n220\n00:09:52.720 --> 00:09:56.090\npractical reality of what does it mean when we try to do this a hundred times\n\n221\n00:09:56.090 --> 00:09:56.800\nover in a single\n\n222\n00:09:56.800 --> 00:10:00.760\nsummer? But she did know that you had to scale it. And that learning was very\n\n223\n00:10:00.760 --> 00:10:01.680\npowerful, right?\n\n224\n00:10:01.680 --> 00:10:04.820\nThat she said, hey, the only way we're going to be able to do this is to scale\n\n225\n00:10:04.820 --> 00:10:05.680\nit. Well, so one,\n\n226\n00:10:05.680 --> 00:10:09.110\nI think one of my, like, again, I made a ton of mistakes, but I think one of\n\n227\n00:10:09.110 --> 00:10:10.160\nthe things that has\n\n228\n00:10:10.160 --> 00:10:14.530\nalways been a quality of mine is I think big. It's actually one of our four\n\n229\n00:10:14.530 --> 00:10:15.440\ncore values at\n\n230\n00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:18.770\nThrive Market is think big. And when I think think big, it's not like a\n\n231\n00:10:18.770 --> 00:10:20.160\npercentage bigger. It's like\n\n232\n00:10:20.160 --> 00:10:24.120\nan order of magnitude bigger, right? So how, and I don't know, the phrase is\n\n233\n00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:24.560\nlike, you know,\n\n234\n00:10:24.560 --> 00:10:27.840\nshoot for the, shoot for the moonland and the stars. That's been, I think, kind\n\n235\n00:10:27.840 --> 00:10:28.480\nof the story\n\n236\n00:10:28.480 --> 00:10:34.160\nof my career where I just, I go for it. And in that case, there were definitely\n\n237\n00:10:34.160 --> 00:10:34.880\ntimes, honestly,\n\n238\n00:10:34.880 --> 00:10:40.480\nwhere I, I overshot and I was out of my depth. And things got, like, messy and\n\n239\n00:10:40.480 --> 00:10:41.440\nchaotic. And,\n\n240\n00:10:41.440 --> 00:10:45.440\nand sometimes I remember, like, in the early days of that business, especially\n\n241\n00:10:45.440 --> 00:10:46.960\nonce I graduated\n\n242\n00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:50.920\nand turned down real jobs to go do that, do my company. I mean, there were\n\n243\n00:10:50.920 --> 00:10:51.280\nmoments where I just\n\n244\n00:10:51.280 --> 00:10:54.060\nthought, what, what have I done? What kind of mistake did I make? But I do\n\n245\n00:10:54.060 --> 00:10:54.880\nthink that was another\n\n246\n00:10:54.880 --> 00:10:59.630\nthing that I learned and ultimately built confidence around was that if you, if\n\n247\n00:10:59.630 --> 00:11:01.600\nyou go for it, there's\n\n248\n00:11:01.600 --> 00:11:04.660\nalways a path to making it work. And it may not work out the exact way you\n\n249\n00:11:04.660 --> 00:11:06.160\nexpected. It may not be\n\n250\n00:11:06.160 --> 00:11:09.850\nquite as successful as you had, you know, imagined in your wildest dreams, but\n\n251\n00:11:09.850 --> 00:11:10.800\nyou will end up doing\n\n252\n00:11:10.800 --> 00:11:15.840\nsomething that is pretty spectacular. Hello friends, it's Kula. Stay tuned to\n\n253\n00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:16.720\nthe end of the episode\n\n254\n00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:19.550\nbecause David and I are going to debrief some of the concepts that he talks\n\n255\n00:11:19.550 --> 00:11:20.640\nabout with Nick Green.\n\n256\n00:11:20.640 --> 00:11:24.600\nSo if you're curious, what does David think about this? Or I'm curious, but he\n\n257\n00:11:24.600 --> 00:11:25.360\ndid it young brands.\n\n258\n00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:28.320\nWhat's his perspective on this topic? We're going to talk about all that stuff\n\n259\n00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:28.960\nat the end of the\n\n260\n00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:32.920\nepisode. We did it last week. You guys loved it. So we're doing it again. Stay\n\n261\n00:11:32.920 --> 00:11:33.520\ntuned to the end\n\n262\n00:11:33.520 --> 00:11:37.480\nof the episode so you can hear the debrief. And well, you end up selling this\n\n263\n00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:38.160\ncompany and you\n\n264\n00:11:38.160 --> 00:11:42.770\nmoved to L.A. And, but, you know, thinking of speaking of thinking big, did you\n\n265\n00:11:42.770 --> 00:11:43.760\nalready have\n\n266\n00:11:43.760 --> 00:11:47.780\nhave this next big idea in your mind when you, when you moved out to L.A.? Well\n\n267\n00:11:47.780 --> 00:11:48.320\n, so I,\n\n268\n00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:51.610\nit's interesting. When I sold the company, I think I sold it too early. And it\n\n269\n00:11:51.610 --> 00:11:51.840\nwas,\n\n270\n00:11:51.840 --> 00:11:56.560\nit was one example where I maybe wasn't thinking big enough. And I, and I was\n\n271\n00:11:56.560 --> 00:11:58.000\ntempted by a great\n\n272\n00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:01.380\nfinancial outcome and a quick win and a success. I was three years into\n\n273\n00:12:01.380 --> 00:12:02.880\nbuilding that business post\n\n274\n00:12:02.880 --> 00:12:07.490\ncollege. And it, it then, you know, I moved out to L.A. Like sunny Southern\n\n275\n00:12:07.490 --> 00:12:08.160\nCalifornia,\n\n276\n00:12:08.160 --> 00:12:11.120\nI'm on an earnout. It was like sort of the perfect thing. I was in my mid 20s.\n\n277\n00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:11.840\nI should be\n\n278\n00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:17.170\nreally happy. And I was miserable. And so the motivation for me at that point\n\n279\n00:12:17.170 --> 00:12:17.200\nwas\n\n280\n00:12:18.080 --> 00:12:22.040\nI, I don't want to do a quick flip again. Like, if I'm going to invest in\n\n281\n00:12:22.040 --> 00:12:22.880\nbuilding something,\n\n282\n00:12:22.880 --> 00:12:26.000\nI want it to be the thing I'm going to spend, you know, that I could spend the\n\n283\n00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:26.720\nrest of my career\n\n284\n00:12:26.720 --> 00:12:30.680\nbuilding. So I wanted to be something even more scalable. I wanted to be an\n\n285\n00:12:30.680 --> 00:12:31.600\nopportunity that's\n\n286\n00:12:31.600 --> 00:12:34.800\neven bigger. Test print was, it's a big market, but it's not as big as most\n\n287\n00:12:34.800 --> 00:12:35.840\npeople think. It's like\n\n288\n00:12:35.840 --> 00:12:40.450\nthe total size is only single, single billions. So we were already, we were\n\n289\n00:12:40.450 --> 00:12:42.160\nmuch smaller than that.\n\n290\n00:12:42.160 --> 00:12:47.040\nBut you know, the market, market size was a constraint there. And I, and I\n\n291\n00:12:47.040 --> 00:12:48.080\nwanted the mission to resonate\n\n292\n00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:52.430\neven more deeply. And, and the only thing for me that felt more fundamental\n\n293\n00:12:52.430 --> 00:12:54.080\nthan education was\n\n294\n00:12:54.080 --> 00:12:58.160\nhealth. And, and the interesting thing, when I moved out to L.A., you know, I\n\n295\n00:12:58.160 --> 00:12:59.360\nhad spent the prior\n\n296\n00:12:59.360 --> 00:13:02.450\nfew years running this, this business out of Boston, you know, working out of\n\n297\n00:13:02.450 --> 00:13:03.040\nthe dorm room,\n\n298\n00:13:03.040 --> 00:13:07.350\nwhen I was in, in college, and like, you know, my mom would be horrified if she\n\n299\n00:13:07.350 --> 00:13:08.000\nknew what I was\n\n300\n00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:11.960\neating at the, at the time. But, you know, I'm like, pounding Mountain Dew and\n\n301\n00:13:11.960 --> 00:13:12.640\nlike doing whatever\n\n302\n00:13:12.640 --> 00:13:16.810\nit took. Come on, Mountain Dew's good. I sold a lot of that my day. I mean, I,\n\n303\n00:13:16.810 --> 00:13:17.600\nI agree. It's good.\n\n304\n00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:23.050\nIt is, it's so bad, but so good. And, but yeah, that would, I mean, I, I kind\n\n305\n00:13:23.050 --> 00:13:24.480\nof lost touch with my\n\n306\n00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:27.370\nhealth and wellness roots. Let's put it that way. And got back into it when I\n\n307\n00:13:27.370 --> 00:13:28.400\ncame to L.A. You know,\n\n308\n00:13:28.400 --> 00:13:31.760\nit's like, I came out, there's air one, there's, there's farmers markets, there\n\n309\n00:13:31.760 --> 00:13:32.320\n's just this whole\n\n310\n00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:37.020\nwealth and health and wellness lifestyle. Like, this is amazing. And, and, and\n\n311\n00:13:37.020 --> 00:13:37.920\nyet I also knew\n\n312\n00:13:37.920 --> 00:13:43.760\nthat for millions, for tens of millions of Americans, like my mom, and like,\n\n313\n00:13:43.760 --> 00:13:44.560\nwhere, you know, around\n\n314\n00:13:44.560 --> 00:13:47.920\nwhere I'd grown up, it wasn't really an option yet. And there's, there's so\n\n315\n00:13:47.920 --> 00:13:48.960\nmany barriers. The\n\n316\n00:13:48.960 --> 00:13:52.250\nwhole idea of thrive was, let's break down those barriers. Let's bring this\n\n317\n00:13:52.250 --> 00:13:53.200\nhealth and wellness\n\n318\n00:13:53.200 --> 00:13:57.450\nlifestyle to, to everyone. When did you have that aha moment, or did you? I\n\n319\n00:13:57.450 --> 00:13:58.080\nmean, you know,\n\n320\n00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:02.030\nwere you driving down a, you know, looking at all these things? Hey, here it\n\n321\n00:14:02.030 --> 00:14:02.960\ncomes, you know,\n\n322\n00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:06.920\nwhen did you have that moment? You know, I wish that, I wish I could say I had\n\n323\n00:14:06.920 --> 00:14:07.360\nthe moment,\n\n324\n00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:10.200\nbecause I feel like there's so many entrepreneurs that like the light bulb goes\n\n325\n00:14:10.200 --> 00:14:12.000\noff. But I, I didn't\n\n326\n00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:15.440\nactually have that moment. I was primed though. And then I, I met my, I met my\n\n327\n00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:16.240\nco-founder.\n\n328\n00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:20.850\nSo thrive market was his idea. And it started out, he was, he wanted to build a\n\n329\n00:14:20.850 --> 00:14:21.200\ngroup on for\n\n330\n00:14:21.200 --> 00:14:24.580\nhealthy food was the original idea. But with the same mission, make healthy\n\n331\n00:14:24.580 --> 00:14:26.080\nliving easy accessible.\n\n332\n00:14:26.080 --> 00:14:29.960\nAnd so the light bulb moment for me was when I, in that first meeting talking\n\n333\n00:14:29.960 --> 00:14:31.440\nto him. And actually\n\n334\n00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:34.960\ninitially he was pitching me as an investor. And the, and the idea was like a,\n\n335\n00:14:34.960 --> 00:14:36.080\nyet an exact summary,\n\n336\n00:14:36.080 --> 00:14:39.250\nwe're like going through it. And by the end of that meeting, I was pitching him\n\n337\n00:14:39.250 --> 00:14:40.560\non doing it together,\n\n338\n00:14:40.560 --> 00:14:45.170\njust because that mission resonated so deeply. And it was this coming together\n\n339\n00:14:45.170 --> 00:14:46.160\nof, you know,\n\n340\n00:14:46.160 --> 00:14:50.120\nmy time growing up, what I was looking for in a business, the lifestyle I was\n\n341\n00:14:50.120 --> 00:14:50.800\nnow embracing,\n\n342\n00:14:50.800 --> 00:14:55.170\nyou know, myself and in LA. And I said, I said, I don't like the business model\n\n343\n00:14:55.170 --> 00:14:56.000\n. I'm not like,\n\n344\n00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:00.240\nI think the group on thing doesn't make sense. But I love this mission. Like,\n\n345\n00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:00.720\nwhat do you think\n\n346\n00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:03.960\nabout doing something together? I got to ask you what was like, here you are in\n\n347\n00:15:03.960 --> 00:15:05.120\nyour mid 20s.\n\n348\n00:15:05.120 --> 00:15:09.120\nYou got somebody pitching you to invest in their company. That's pretty heady\n\n349\n00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:09.840\nstuff. I know,\n\n350\n00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:13.800\nI know you went to Harvard, but what was that like when you sort of got flipped\n\n351\n00:15:13.800 --> 00:15:14.080\n? You know,\n\n352\n00:15:14.080 --> 00:15:18.240\nyou were selling the company. Now you got somebody selling you. It was, it was\n\n353\n00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:18.960\na period of time,\n\n354\n00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:23.040\nand I made a lot of mistakes. I'll say that. Like, you know, it's so easy to\n\n355\n00:15:23.040 --> 00:15:23.920\nhave a little bit\n\n356\n00:15:23.920 --> 00:15:27.880\nof success go to your head, especially if you have it early, and you don't\n\n357\n00:15:27.880 --> 00:15:28.880\nunderstand, you know,\n\n358\n00:15:28.880 --> 00:15:32.990\nmaybe think it's easier than it, than it actually is. So I will say like, I\n\n359\n00:15:32.990 --> 00:15:34.400\nmade a lot of bad investment\n\n360\n00:15:34.400 --> 00:15:38.360\ndecisions right after selling my company. And I enjoyed, of course, being able\n\n361\n00:15:38.360 --> 00:15:39.520\nto think, all right,\n\n362\n00:15:39.520 --> 00:15:43.600\nI'm like, like, gonna make investments. And you know, most of those decisions,\n\n363\n00:15:43.600 --> 00:15:43.920\nby the way,\n\n364\n00:15:43.920 --> 00:15:48.240\nit's interesting. And this is another lesson for, for whatever it's worth. When\n\n365\n00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:48.880\nI'm, you know,\n\n366\n00:15:48.880 --> 00:15:52.840\nif you're stuck in your head thinking about business, you can kind of rational\n\n367\n00:15:52.840 --> 00:15:53.600\nize anything.\n\n368\n00:15:53.600 --> 00:15:58.210\nAnd so I find if I'm thinking too hard about an investment or a business\n\n369\n00:15:58.210 --> 00:15:59.760\ndecision or whatever,\n\n370\n00:15:59.760 --> 00:16:03.280\nit's usually I'm trying to convince myself of something where the best\n\n371\n00:16:03.280 --> 00:16:04.560\ndecisions, I would say\n\n372\n00:16:04.560 --> 00:16:09.420\nstrategically in, in our business, and in my life personally, whether it's like\n\n373\n00:16:09.420 --> 00:16:10.240\ngetting married,\n\n374\n00:16:10.240 --> 00:16:14.850\nhaving kids, business partner, business ideas, they're, they're actually like\n\n375\n00:16:14.850 --> 00:16:15.680\nemotional decisions.\n\n376\n00:16:15.680 --> 00:16:21.440\nAnd, and so I think I made a lot of bad, bad decisions on my head. And that\n\n377\n00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:22.000\ninteraction with\n\n378\n00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:25.960\nguitar, that first conversation was like the most heartfelt, like, whoa, I'm\n\n379\n00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:27.440\nenergized by this.\n\n380\n00:16:27.440 --> 00:16:32.300\nAnd, you know, for your listeners, like when you feel that feeling, that's\n\n381\n00:16:32.300 --> 00:16:34.080\nspecial and follow it.\n\n382\n00:16:34.080 --> 00:16:37.680\nYeah, that's, that's a great story. You don't, so give me a snapshot of\n\n383\n00:16:37.680 --> 00:16:41.930\nThrive Market in the business that you lead today. Yeah, so, you know, it\n\n384\n00:16:41.930 --> 00:16:43.600\nstarted with the same\n\n385\n00:16:43.600 --> 00:16:47.130\nmission that we are working at today, right, which is we want to make healthy\n\n386\n00:16:47.130 --> 00:16:47.840\nliving easy,\n\n387\n00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:51.840\naffordable and accessible to anyone. We, you know, basically wiped clean that\n\n388\n00:16:51.840 --> 00:16:52.480\nbusiness model.\n\n389\n00:16:52.480 --> 00:16:57.810\nSo we were initially thinking group on. So group buying events, we started to\n\n390\n00:16:57.810 --> 00:16:58.160\niterate\n\n391\n00:16:58.160 --> 00:17:02.440\naround how can we make healthy, explain group on for everybody. Yeah, by the\n\n392\n00:17:02.440 --> 00:17:03.040\nway, group on,\n\n393\n00:17:03.040 --> 00:17:05.480\nit was a household name at the time. Some people today probably haven't even\n\n394\n00:17:05.480 --> 00:17:06.480\nheard of it. It was,\n\n395\n00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:12.080\nit was basically a sales event site. So you'd go on and get a daily deal. And\n\n396\n00:17:12.080 --> 00:17:13.120\nour idea was, all right,\n\n397\n00:17:13.120 --> 00:17:17.240\nif we can, the power of Groupon, by the way, was that if you pool a bunch of\n\n398\n00:17:17.240 --> 00:17:18.320\npeople together,\n\n399\n00:17:18.320 --> 00:17:24.000\nGroupon then has the buying power to then get better pricing with, you know, a\n\n400\n00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:26.240\nlocal,\n\n401\n00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:31.840\na local event provider or a local store. And so there's a lot of local based\n\n402\n00:17:31.840 --> 00:17:32.720\nevents and deals.\n\n403\n00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:38.770\nAnd you'd get like pretty fantastic savings. And so the idea was, could we take\n\n404\n00:17:38.770 --> 00:17:39.040\nthis to\n\n405\n00:17:39.040 --> 00:17:44.380\nNational Organic Products, where the price premium is typically 25 to 50%. And\n\n406\n00:17:44.380 --> 00:17:45.040\nby pooling\n\n407\n00:17:45.040 --> 00:17:49.750\npeople together, we can do big sales on individual brands, people sign up and\n\n408\n00:17:49.750 --> 00:17:50.640\nbuy the things they\n\n409\n00:17:50.640 --> 00:17:54.600\nwant. And then we get a wholesale account and buy the products. The big\n\n410\n00:17:54.600 --> 00:17:55.840\nchallenge in applying\n\n411\n00:17:55.840 --> 00:18:00.700\nthat model to groceries is, you know, to fulfill on that, you basically need\n\n412\n00:18:00.700 --> 00:18:01.440\nthe time to run the\n\n413\n00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:05.400\nevent, the time to then purchase the product, procure the product, and then you\n\n414\n00:18:05.400 --> 00:18:05.680\nneed to do\n\n415\n00:18:05.680 --> 00:18:10.530\nthe fulfillment to ship it out. Nobody wants to wait a week or two or three or\n\n416\n00:18:10.530 --> 00:18:12.240\nmore to get product\n\n417\n00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:16.200\nthat's basically like, you know, everyday essentials. So we did, we ran some\n\n418\n00:18:16.200 --> 00:18:17.120\ntests on that, we had\n\n419\n00:18:17.120 --> 00:18:20.750\nsome mixed success. But the, and the fundamental thing we were trying to solve\n\n420\n00:18:20.750 --> 00:18:21.600\nfor was actually\n\n421\n00:18:21.600 --> 00:18:25.560\nprice. How do we bring National Organic Products at or below the price of\n\n422\n00:18:25.560 --> 00:18:26.720\nconventional equivalents\n\n423\n00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:30.680\nso that middle class and middle America can afford this? And the model that we\n\n424\n00:18:30.680 --> 00:18:30.880\nlanded on was\n\n425\n00:18:30.880 --> 00:18:35.360\nmembership. And with the playbook that we studied was Costco, where, you know,\n\n426\n00:18:35.360 --> 00:18:36.800\nyou pay $60 a year,\n\n427\n00:18:36.800 --> 00:18:42.720\nyou get access to a hyper curated assortment. And by simplifying the assortment\n\n428\n00:18:42.720 --> 00:18:43.600\nand concentrating\n\n429\n00:18:43.600 --> 00:18:48.210\nthe purchasing power and driving margin to the membership as opposed to product\n\n430\n00:18:48.210 --> 00:18:48.640\nsales,\n\n431\n00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:55.040\nthey're able to offer a very, very accessible price point. And so that was the\n\n432\n00:18:55.040 --> 00:18:55.840\ninitial impetus\n\n433\n00:18:55.840 --> 00:18:59.170\nfor doing the membership model. We've since discovered all sorts of other\n\n434\n00:18:59.170 --> 00:18:59.920\nbenefits to the\n\n435\n00:18:59.920 --> 00:19:03.920\nmembership model, which has, you know, structurally the core of what we do. One\n\n436\n00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:04.800\nis that every paid\n\n437\n00:19:04.800 --> 00:19:08.340\nmembership can sponsor a free membership for a low income family. Another is\n\n438\n00:19:08.340 --> 00:19:09.440\nthat front loads\n\n439\n00:19:09.440 --> 00:19:15.170\nare working capital for cash payback for marketing. Another is that it, when\n\n440\n00:19:15.170 --> 00:19:16.240\npeople invest in a\n\n441\n00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:20.850\nmembership, they tend to be evangelists for that membership. So, you know, over\n\n442\n00:19:20.850 --> 00:19:21.680\n25% of our new\n\n443\n00:19:21.680 --> 00:19:25.620\nmembers come in referred by existing members. But at the time, all we knew was\n\n444\n00:19:25.620 --> 00:19:26.240\nwe need to make\n\n445\n00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:30.260\nit affordable. And that's what did it. So, you know, the model of thrive to\n\n446\n00:19:30.260 --> 00:19:31.680\nfast forward to today\n\n447\n00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:36.290\nis still fundamentally the same. It's you pay an annual fee, $60, you get\n\n448\n00:19:36.290 --> 00:19:37.200\naccess to a curated\n\n449\n00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:40.430\nassortment of the best healthy natural organic products that you find in a\n\n450\n00:19:40.430 --> 00:19:41.600\nhealth food retailer.\n\n451\n00:19:41.600 --> 00:19:47.200\nYou then have another mixed in set of products that we have curated ourselves.\n\n452\n00:19:47.200 --> 00:19:48.080\nSo about 600\n\n453\n00:19:48.080 --> 00:19:51.660\nthrive market branded products that are over 20% of our sales, where we raise\n\n454\n00:19:51.660 --> 00:19:52.640\nthe bar even higher,\n\n455\n00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:55.430\nwe do a bunch of innovation, you pointed out a few of these products at the\n\n456\n00:19:55.430 --> 00:19:56.640\nbeginning of the call.\n\n457\n00:19:56.640 --> 00:20:02.480\nAnd then you get it shipped to your house at better than retail prices and with\n\n458\n00:20:02.480 --> 00:20:02.720\ncarbon\n\n459\n00:20:02.720 --> 00:20:08.000\nneutral shipping in two days or less. And so there's a bunch that's been a lot\n\n460\n00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:08.800\nthat's been added to\n\n461\n00:20:08.800 --> 00:20:13.030\nthat, but that core of the e-commerce like pride market membership experience\n\n462\n00:20:13.030 --> 00:20:14.560\nis the same. The\n\n463\n00:20:14.560 --> 00:20:18.560\ndifference now is we're a lot bigger. So we have over 1.7 million paid members.\n\n464\n00:20:18.560 --> 00:20:20.400\nWe have scaled to\n\n465\n00:20:21.120 --> 00:20:25.200\nhundreds of millions of dollars in sales. And we're I think they say still\n\n466\n00:20:25.200 --> 00:20:26.400\nearly, but on our way to\n\n467\n00:20:26.400 --> 00:20:30.580\nachieving that mission of making healthy living accessible to anyone. I love\n\n468\n00:20:30.580 --> 00:20:32.240\nhow you went to Costco,\n\n469\n00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:35.770\nsaw their membership model, and then did the pattern thinking said, okay, how\n\n470\n00:20:35.770 --> 00:20:36.800\ncan we apply it\n\n471\n00:20:36.800 --> 00:20:42.160\nto our business? I think that is so cool that you did that. And then, you know,\n\n472\n00:20:42.160 --> 00:20:42.960\nobviously whole\n\n473\n00:20:42.960 --> 00:20:48.810\nfoods is obviously a major player in your space. And then the best online\n\n474\n00:20:48.810 --> 00:20:50.320\nretailer of all time,\n\n475\n00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:58.170\nAmazon acquires them. Can you share a story about the pressure you might have\n\n476\n00:20:58.170 --> 00:20:58.960\nfelt?\n\n477\n00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:03.200\nYeah, it's not it's not might have felt. It was I did feel like very acutely.\n\n478\n00:21:03.200 --> 00:21:04.000\nAnd like, you know,\n\n479\n00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:08.750\nwe had all of our investors basically emailing us the next day saying, what are\n\n480\n00:21:08.750 --> 00:21:09.280\nwe going to do?\n\n481\n00:21:09.280 --> 00:21:15.120\nI think that was in 2017, right? So we were at that point two, two and a half\n\n482\n00:21:15.120 --> 00:21:15.760\nyears into\n\n483\n00:21:15.760 --> 00:21:20.370\nin the since the post launch. And you're right, like whole foods for us was a\n\n484\n00:21:20.370 --> 00:21:21.360\ntotal touchstone in\n\n485\n00:21:21.360 --> 00:21:24.480\nterms of the quality. They had been the leader in the natural organic movement.\n\n486\n00:21:24.480 --> 00:21:25.040\nAnd the only\n\n487\n00:21:25.040 --> 00:21:29.260\nchallenge they'd always had was their price points weren't accessible. And they\n\n488\n00:21:29.260 --> 00:21:30.000\nwere located\n\n489\n00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.960\nbasically and still are in affluent areas that have the population density. So\n\n490\n00:21:34.960 --> 00:21:35.520\nmost people aren't\n\n491\n00:21:35.520 --> 00:21:39.150\nwithin driving this whole foods. And so when Amazon bought whole foods, it's\n\n492\n00:21:39.150 --> 00:21:40.480\nlike, oh my gosh,\n\n493\n00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:44.160\nyou know, they're going to roll out whole foods stores everywhere. Like what's\n\n494\n00:21:44.160 --> 00:21:44.560\nwhat's going to\n\n495\n00:21:44.560 --> 00:21:49.910\nhappen. But I think that the truth is we've never like Amazon is also a touch\n\n496\n00:21:49.910 --> 00:21:51.440\nstone for us in many\n\n497\n00:21:51.440 --> 00:21:55.540\nways, right? Like Amazon is the most customer centric company in the world.\n\n498\n00:21:55.540 --> 00:21:56.320\nThey are the, you\n\n499\n00:21:56.320 --> 00:22:02.070\nknow, undisputed leader in e-commerce, arguably the best retailer in the world.\n\n500\n00:22:02.070 --> 00:22:03.840\nAnd nobody can\n\n501\n00:22:03.840 --> 00:22:08.140\nout Amazon. Right. And I think one of the things that we did right from the\n\n502\n00:22:08.140 --> 00:22:10.000\nvery beginning is that\n\n503\n00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:13.960\nwe didn't try. I think so many businesses that have tried to compete head-head\n\n504\n00:22:13.960 --> 00:22:14.560\nwith Amazon,\n\n505\n00:22:14.560 --> 00:22:19.890\nit just doesn't work. Like the Amazon is too big, the culture is too strong,\n\n506\n00:22:19.890 --> 00:22:21.040\nthe head start is too\n\n507\n00:22:21.040 --> 00:22:25.200\nis too significant. Well, how'd you go about that? How'd you go about rallying\n\n508\n00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:26.080\nyour team around\n\n509\n00:22:26.080 --> 00:22:29.620\nthe strengths that you had and the reasons that you thought you could win? It\n\n510\n00:22:29.620 --> 00:22:30.480\nwas the mission,\n\n511\n00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:33.920\nright? So like, you're never going to, you're never going to beat Amazon on a\n\n512\n00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:35.040\nutilitarian game\n\n513\n00:22:35.040 --> 00:22:39.650\nof just pure convenience and assortment. And so, you know, we're Amazon zigs,\n\n514\n00:22:39.650 --> 00:22:41.440\nwe zag. Amazon is\n\n515\n00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:44.210\nthe infinite assortment, right? They want to be the everything store. I\n\n516\n00:22:44.210 --> 00:22:45.280\nsometimes called us the\n\n517\n00:22:45.280 --> 00:22:50.140\nuneverything store, right? So we have, we have, you know, a thousand\n\n518\n00:22:50.140 --> 00:22:52.560\ningredients that we restrict\n\n519\n00:22:52.560 --> 00:22:55.730\non the site. We have more than 700 ingredients that we ban. We're exclusively\n\n520\n00:22:55.730 --> 00:22:56.560\nnon-GMO across the\n\n521\n00:22:56.560 --> 00:23:01.220\nentire catalog. We're in like 98, 99 percent organic. So by having this high\n\n522\n00:23:01.220 --> 00:23:02.320\nquality standards,\n\n523\n00:23:02.320 --> 00:23:06.930\nwe've reduced the size of the assortment. We're not only a lot less than Amazon\n\n524\n00:23:06.930 --> 00:23:07.600\n, we're like an\n\n525\n00:23:07.600 --> 00:23:12.210\norder of magnitude lower SKU count on the same categories as a traditional\n\n526\n00:23:12.210 --> 00:23:13.520\ngrocery store would be.\n\n527\n00:23:13.520 --> 00:23:18.850\nBut in the case of healthy living, that's actually a benefit to the consumer,\n\n528\n00:23:18.850 --> 00:23:19.280\nbecause they're not\n\n529\n00:23:19.280 --> 00:23:22.370\nlooking to see 40 options of almond butter. They want to know which one's the\n\n530\n00:23:22.370 --> 00:23:23.200\nbest. They want to\n\n531\n00:23:23.200 --> 00:23:26.540\nfind the one that's the highest quality. And so they can outsource their trust\n\n532\n00:23:26.540 --> 00:23:27.520\nto us. It's very\n\n533\n00:23:27.520 --> 00:23:30.970\ndifferent than Amazon, but it's actually a stronger value proposition for\n\n534\n00:23:30.970 --> 00:23:33.040\nhealthy living. So for us,\n\n535\n00:23:33.040 --> 00:23:37.190\nlike, that's one example, but everywhere that we, that everything that we do\n\n536\n00:23:37.190 --> 00:23:38.560\ngoes to the filter\n\n537\n00:23:38.560 --> 00:23:42.520\nof how do we make healthy living easier. And that's something we know will be\n\n538\n00:23:42.520 --> 00:23:43.200\nbetter than Amazon\n\n539\n00:23:43.200 --> 00:23:46.550\nat. That's something that we know that would be better than anyone else at. And\n\n540\n00:23:46.550 --> 00:23:47.200\nI think actually\n\n541\n00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:51.140\none evidence, one piece of evidence there is that Amazon bought whole foods,\n\n542\n00:23:51.140 --> 00:23:51.920\nyou know, seven or eight\n\n543\n00:23:51.920 --> 00:23:56.160\nyears later, we're still better at that than Amazon is. And what Amazon has\n\n544\n00:23:56.160 --> 00:23:57.120\ndone with whole\n\n545\n00:23:57.120 --> 00:23:59.940\nfoods, which is there's something wrong with this. This is, I think, probably\n\n546\n00:23:59.940 --> 00:24:00.960\ntheir intention.\n\n547\n00:24:00.960 --> 00:24:05.280\nThey've kind of Amazonified whole foods. So at Whole Foods, you can now buy\n\n548\n00:24:05.280 --> 00:24:05.680\nAmazon\n\n549\n00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:10.560\nEchoes. You can buy Honey Nut Cheerios. They've centralized the buying. They've\n\n550\n00:24:10.560 --> 00:24:11.600\nloosened the quality\n\n551\n00:24:11.600 --> 00:24:16.250\nstandards a bit. It's still, you know, by all means, a great grocery store for\n\n552\n00:24:16.250 --> 00:24:17.040\nquality,\n\n553\n00:24:17.040 --> 00:24:21.200\nbut they've made it more Amazon-esque. And it's actually opened an opportunity\n\n554\n00:24:21.200 --> 00:24:22.560\nfor us to step in\n\n555\n00:24:22.560 --> 00:24:26.520\nand be that place that new brands launch first, that is really known for\n\n556\n00:24:26.520 --> 00:24:27.440\ninnovation, where the\n\n557\n00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:31.520\nquality standards are sky high, and the members look forward for trust.\n\n558\n00:24:31.520 --> 00:24:35.480\nYou know, it's interesting. This could be on your website. It could be a\n\n559\n00:24:35.480 --> 00:24:36.320\nmarketing line,\n\n560\n00:24:36.320 --> 00:24:40.930\nbut you said this, and I always listen to things that you said, outsource your\n\n561\n00:24:40.930 --> 00:24:41.680\ntrust to us,\n\n562\n00:24:41.680 --> 00:24:48.240\noutsource your trust to us. Is that a big part of your marketing pitch?\n\n563\n00:24:48.240 --> 00:24:51.600\nWell, we haven't used that word. It kind of rhymes a little bit.\n\n564\n00:24:51.600 --> 00:24:58.240\nYeah. I say it because I think that's, it's a very high bar. It's like, what do\n\n565\n00:24:58.240 --> 00:24:59.280\nyou have to do\n\n566\n00:24:59.280 --> 00:25:05.040\nfor a customer, in our case, a member, to be willing to fully trust you, to say\n\n567\n00:25:05.040 --> 00:25:05.760\n, I don't need\n\n568\n00:25:05.760 --> 00:25:11.730\nto worry about whether this meets my gluten-free diet, or whether this will be\n\n569\n00:25:11.730 --> 00:25:12.720\nsafe for my kid who\n\n570\n00:25:12.720 --> 00:25:17.640\nhas a nut allergy, or whether this will meet the keto diet I'm trying to do for\n\n571\n00:25:17.640 --> 00:25:18.720\nthe next month.\n\n572\n00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:22.610\nThey even just know if I use the filter for any one of those things on Thrive,\n\n573\n00:25:22.610 --> 00:25:23.280\nit's going to filter\n\n574\n00:25:23.280 --> 00:25:28.730\ndown. And to be honest, it's even more of a thing today, because so much of our\n\n575\n00:25:28.730 --> 00:25:29.520\nshopping\n\n576\n00:25:29.520 --> 00:25:35.390\nexperience is becoming imbued with AI, and with the personalization that can\n\n577\n00:25:35.390 --> 00:25:36.640\nhappen there.\n\n578\n00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:40.640\nIf our members don't trust that we have their interests at heart, that our\n\n579\n00:25:40.640 --> 00:25:41.600\nquality standards are\n\n580\n00:25:41.600 --> 00:25:45.600\nreal, that we're doing the homework, they're not going to use features like our\n\n581\n00:25:45.600 --> 00:25:46.640\nAI card builder,\n\n582\n00:25:46.640 --> 00:25:51.520\nthat, for example, on First Order today, our new members, over 40% of what they\n\n583\n00:25:51.520 --> 00:25:51.920\nput in the\n\n584\n00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:57.320\nFirst Order, is actually added by an AI card builder that uses their health\n\n585\n00:25:57.320 --> 00:25:58.560\ninputs, and helps\n\n586\n00:25:58.560 --> 00:26:02.520\nthem build the right assortment. Yeah. We don't use outsourced trust as the\n\n587\n00:26:02.520 --> 00:26:03.680\nmarketing phrase,\n\n588\n00:26:03.680 --> 00:26:07.640\nbut I do think that's the bar that we want to reach. Well, it's outsourced your\n\n589\n00:26:07.640 --> 00:26:08.480\ntrust to us.\n\n590\n00:26:08.480 --> 00:26:12.660\nThat's the line. It kind of reminds me when I heard think outside the bun at\n\n591\n00:26:12.660 --> 00:26:13.200\nTaco Bell,\n\n592\n00:26:13.200 --> 00:26:16.880\nI thought that was pretty good with too. Stay on Amazon for a second. What's\n\n593\n00:26:16.880 --> 00:26:17.680\nthe best practice\n\n594\n00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:21.820\nyou picked up from seeing how Amazon engages with their customers? You\n\n595\n00:26:21.820 --> 00:26:22.880\ndescribed it as the\n\n596\n00:26:22.880 --> 00:26:29.010\nbest retail in the world. I think everybody would say that as well. What's the\n\n597\n00:26:29.010 --> 00:26:29.760\nbest practice that\n\n598\n00:26:29.760 --> 00:26:34.520\nyou've been able to incorporate into the Thrive Market model? I think it's\n\n599\n00:26:34.520 --> 00:26:35.760\ncustomer obsession.\n\n600\n00:26:35.760 --> 00:26:40.800\nI mean, that's a big thing. It's paradigmatic. And I do believe that's the\n\n601\n00:26:40.800 --> 00:26:41.600\nfilter that every\n\n602\n00:26:41.600 --> 00:26:48.190\ndecision they make goes through. I heard an anecdote a while ago that Jeff\n\n603\n00:26:48.190 --> 00:26:49.680\nBezos used to\n\n604\n00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:54.000\nhave an empty chair in the conference room. He says, \"This is the chair of the\n\n605\n00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:54.880\ncustomer.\"\n\n606\n00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:58.880\nSo just always be thinking they're here with us even if they're not. And maybe\n\n607\n00:26:58.880 --> 00:26:59.680\nthat's apocryphal,\n\n608\n00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:07.590\nbut I do think it goes that deep in their culture. One thing to learn is\n\n609\n00:27:07.590 --> 00:27:08.640\nanything that goes that\n\n610\n00:27:08.640 --> 00:27:15.560\ndeep in a culture is super powerful. I always blew my mind reading Bezos'\n\n611\n00:27:15.560 --> 00:27:16.880\nshareholder letters\n\n612\n00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:23.590\nis the themes in 1998 are the same themes that he's talking about in 2018. It's\n\n613\n00:27:23.590 --> 00:27:25.520\njust that clear\n\n614\n00:27:25.520 --> 00:27:29.000\nand that deep commitment, particularly to the customer and there's other facets\n\n615\n00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:29.520\nas well.\n\n616\n00:27:29.520 --> 00:27:35.120\nAnd so I think that they have a very clear culture. They are truly customer\n\n617\n00:27:35.120 --> 00:27:36.080\nobsessed. And I think a\n\n618\n00:27:36.080 --> 00:27:39.660\nlot of other companies would give that lip service, but it's not deep, deep,\n\n619\n00:27:39.660 --> 00:27:40.640\ndeep in the culture.\n\n620\n00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:45.280\nAnd I'd say for us, the reason that is so important to learn from is that when\n\n621\n00:27:45.280 --> 00:27:46.240\nyour members are paying\n\n622\n00:27:46.240 --> 00:27:50.220\na membership model, which I guess Amazon has with Prime as well, the\n\n623\n00:27:50.220 --> 00:27:52.320\nexpectations of the customer\n\n624\n00:27:52.320 --> 00:27:57.670\nare significantly higher. And the opportunities to let them down, if you don't\n\n625\n00:27:57.670 --> 00:27:59.760\nmeet the bar,\n\n626\n00:27:59.760 --> 00:28:04.080\nI think are more significant. So that's probably the number one thing I've\n\n627\n00:28:04.080 --> 00:28:04.560\nlearned.\n\n628\n00:28:04.560 --> 00:28:09.410\nWhat I would say is very different about the way the lens that we view the\n\n629\n00:28:09.410 --> 00:28:10.640\ncustomer through\n\n630\n00:28:10.640 --> 00:28:14.720\nis that for us, we are laser focused on their healthy living needs. And again,\n\n631\n00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:18.180\nwe're not going to be better at serving the customer across every single\n\n632\n00:28:18.180 --> 00:28:18.800\ndimension.\n\n633\n00:28:19.840 --> 00:28:24.690\nAgain, you're not going out Amazon Amazon, but what we can do is be the best\n\n634\n00:28:24.690 --> 00:28:25.120\nplace,\n\n635\n00:28:25.120 --> 00:28:30.640\nthe most trusted place to find the healthiest, organic, better for you products\n\n636\n00:28:30.640 --> 00:28:30.640\n,\n\n637\n00:28:30.640 --> 00:28:34.990\nand particularly for families, what we're finding. When you have parents, you\n\n638\n00:28:34.990 --> 00:28:35.360\nhave\n\n639\n00:28:35.360 --> 00:28:40.080\nmoms who are pulled in a thousand different directions, work and family and\n\n640\n00:28:40.080 --> 00:28:40.800\nactivities and\n\n641\n00:28:40.800 --> 00:28:44.880\nall this stuff, the ability to outsource their trust, to have a place that they\n\n642\n00:28:44.880 --> 00:28:45.680\nknow makes it\n\n643\n00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:50.320\neasy to put the right products in their home and on their table. That's where\n\n644\n00:28:50.320 --> 00:28:51.600\nwe can really shine.\n\n645\n00:28:51.600 --> 00:28:54.960\nAnd it's the reason why our members not only renew at a higher rate, but also\n\n646\n00:28:54.960 --> 00:28:55.600\nour evangelists\n\n647\n00:28:55.600 --> 00:29:00.160\nfor the brand. So you're obsessed with the customer. Can you give us an example\n\n648\n00:29:00.160 --> 00:29:01.040\nof a friction point\n\n649\n00:29:01.040 --> 00:29:07.360\nthat you identified by listening to your customers and the story of how you and\n\n650\n00:29:07.360 --> 00:29:09.120\nyour team solve it?\n\n651\n00:29:09.120 --> 00:29:13.730\nSo there are big things you'll find in your business that are just obviously\n\n652\n00:29:13.730 --> 00:29:14.160\ndetrimental\n\n653\n00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:17.520\nto the customer. And those are the things that are actually, they're not easy\n\n654\n00:29:17.520 --> 00:29:18.640\nto solve, but they're\n\n655\n00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:24.310\neasy to allocate the resources to solve. Sometimes the hardest things are, I\n\n656\n00:29:24.310 --> 00:29:26.000\ncall them the paper cuts.\n\n657\n00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:30.720\nSo it's all the little things, like the points of friction that are created in\n\n658\n00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:31.920\nyour experience,\n\n659\n00:29:31.920 --> 00:29:36.010\nwhere you're not totally letting down the customer, but the sum of fact, if\n\n660\n00:29:36.010 --> 00:29:36.880\nthere's every single\n\n661\n00:29:36.880 --> 00:29:40.250\none of those that you're piling up to some threshold, where you're no longer\n\n662\n00:29:40.250 --> 00:29:41.040\nmeeting their\n\n663\n00:29:41.040 --> 00:29:45.680\nexpectations or no longer wowing them in a positive way. And so that's actually\n\n664\n00:29:45.680 --> 00:29:46.560\na really relevant\n\n665\n00:29:46.560 --> 00:29:52.490\none for us recently, because we, in line with our thinking big value, we have\n\n666\n00:29:52.490 --> 00:29:53.600\nbig swings every\n\n667\n00:29:53.600 --> 00:29:57.310\nyear as a company and three to five of these that are our big tent pole, like\n\n668\n00:29:57.310 --> 00:29:58.560\nwe've planted our flag.\n\n669\n00:29:58.560 --> 00:30:02.190\nThis is where we're going to go after. And most of them are focused on adding\n\n670\n00:30:02.190 --> 00:30:02.400\nto the\n\n671\n00:30:02.400 --> 00:30:06.480\nThrive Market Value Proposition. And a couple quarters ago, we've been really\n\n672\n00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:07.040\nperforming well\n\n673\n00:30:07.040 --> 00:30:10.400\nas a business. We've been feeling really great and kind of taking victory laps\n\n674\n00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:11.120\nevery quarter about\n\n675\n00:30:11.120 --> 00:30:15.440\nhow it's going. A couple quarters ago, I came to the company and I said, I want\n\n676\n00:30:15.440 --> 00:30:15.920\nto say something\n\n677\n00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:19.040\nprovocative. This was in our quarterly business review. We're doing a great job\n\n678\n00:30:19.040 --> 00:30:19.680\non big swings.\n\n679\n00:30:19.680 --> 00:30:22.560\nWe're doing a great job adding to our value proposition. But I want to suggest\n\n680\n00:30:22.560 --> 00:30:23.040\nthat we are\n\n681\n00:30:23.040 --> 00:30:26.490\nnot doing a good enough job at delivering in our core existing value\n\n682\n00:30:26.490 --> 00:30:28.880\nproposition. And we basically\n\n683\n00:30:28.880 --> 00:30:32.840\nlooked at an example of the member journey and all the different points,\n\n684\n00:30:32.840 --> 00:30:33.680\nopportunities that you\n\n685\n00:30:33.680 --> 00:30:37.580\nhave to either come through for the customer member or let them down. And then\n\n686\n00:30:37.580 --> 00:30:39.520\nwe had a line up of all\n\n687\n00:30:39.520 --> 00:30:44.390\nthe, we call them RFCs, but reasons for contact from our, from member services.\n\n688\n00:30:44.390 --> 00:30:45.280\nAnd how many tickets\n\n689\n00:30:45.280 --> 00:30:48.190\nare we getting across each of those different areas? And if you just concaten\n\n690\n00:30:48.190 --> 00:30:48.880\nate them along,\n\n691\n00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:53.190\nwhat is the average experience that a members have having? And between an out\n\n692\n00:30:53.190 --> 00:30:53.920\nof stock,\n\n693\n00:30:53.920 --> 00:30:59.270\nor an empty search result, or a damaged item, or a member, an order\n\n694\n00:30:59.270 --> 00:31:00.400\ncommunication that didn't go\n\n695\n00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:05.840\nquite right, what's the chance that we're basically hurting our members to just\n\n696\n00:31:05.840 --> 00:31:06.000\nlike\n\n697\n00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:09.920\nthousand paper cut phenomenon? So long explanation, but the upshot of this was\n\n698\n00:31:09.920 --> 00:31:11.120\nwe created a BHAG this\n\n699\n00:31:11.120 --> 00:31:16.010\nyear that's cutting our service tickets per order in half. There's no single\n\n700\n00:31:16.010 --> 00:31:17.600\nproject that will take,\n\n701\n00:31:17.600 --> 00:31:22.450\nyou know, that'll even move us a step, step of the way there. It's a bunch of\n\n702\n00:31:22.450 --> 00:31:23.360\nmicro steps\n\n703\n00:31:23.360 --> 00:31:28.240\nthat are happening. And I actually believe that's the like devil in the details\n\n704\n00:31:28.240 --> 00:31:29.200\nthat that many\n\n705\n00:31:29.200 --> 00:31:32.740\ncompanies certainly that our business has not done a good enough job at. And\n\n706\n00:31:32.740 --> 00:31:33.120\nthen we're getting\n\n707\n00:31:33.120 --> 00:31:37.080\nbetter at it. So thinking big, and you call it the BHAG, which is a big, hairy\n\n708\n00:31:37.080 --> 00:31:38.000\naudacious goal,\n\n709\n00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:42.240\nI think from Jim Collins, good to great book, you know, and now here you are,\n\n710\n00:31:42.240 --> 00:31:43.600\nyou've got 1.6\n\n711\n00:31:43.600 --> 00:31:48.800\nmillion members and and and fried market club. I mean, that's a hell of a hell\n\n712\n00:31:48.800 --> 00:31:50.320\nof an accomplishment.\n\n713\n00:31:50.320 --> 00:31:53.630\nYou know, looking back, what do you think was the single biggest strategic\n\n714\n00:31:53.630 --> 00:31:55.200\ndecision you've made\n\n715\n00:31:55.200 --> 00:31:59.920\nin the past 11 years has had the biggest difference? I think the biggest\n\n716\n00:31:59.920 --> 00:32:01.680\nbesides the focus on the\n\n717\n00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:05.760\nmission itself, I mean, that's like the that's the filter for everything we do.\n\n718\n00:32:05.760 --> 00:32:06.320\nThe biggest\n\n719\n00:32:06.320 --> 00:32:14.230\nstrategic decision was to do membership. That's the core and core model that we\n\n720\n00:32:14.230 --> 00:32:15.600\nrun on and around\n\n721\n00:32:15.600 --> 00:32:20.210\nwhich so many flywheels in the business really turn. Again, it's our we have\n\n722\n00:32:20.210 --> 00:32:20.960\nour one for one\n\n723\n00:32:20.960 --> 00:32:26.720\nmembership. The annual membership gives us a full year to show value. It front\n\n724\n00:32:26.720 --> 00:32:27.840\nloads the cash it\n\n725\n00:32:27.840 --> 00:32:32.450\nimproves our cash flow dynamics. It offsets marketing costs. It's a forcing\n\n726\n00:32:32.450 --> 00:32:33.200\nfunction for\n\n727\n00:32:33.200 --> 00:32:36.340\ndelivering real value because you know that members going to come up for\n\n728\n00:32:36.340 --> 00:32:37.920\nrenewal. It gives you very\n\n729\n00:32:37.920 --> 00:32:40.970\nclear feedback. If you're not coming through for your members for your\n\n730\n00:32:40.970 --> 00:32:42.560\ncustomers in the right way.\n\n731\n00:32:42.560 --> 00:32:46.840\nSo I think that is if I had to pick one, it's that decision to structurally\n\n732\n00:32:46.840 --> 00:32:48.320\nfocus on the membership.\n\n733\n00:32:48.320 --> 00:32:51.870\nBut honestly, there's been so many, you know, there's been a lot of honestly,\n\n734\n00:32:51.870 --> 00:32:52.240\nthere's been a lot of\n\n735\n00:32:52.240 --> 00:32:56.200\nthings that we've done. We've made mistakes on and then come back and fixed,\n\n736\n00:32:56.200 --> 00:32:57.520\nyou know, like we\n\n737\n00:32:57.520 --> 00:33:03.170\nwe for a long time had a trial membership, which was, you know, really great\n\n738\n00:33:03.170 --> 00:33:03.920\nfor getting a lot of\n\n739\n00:33:03.920 --> 00:33:07.880\npeople in the door, not as great for building commitment and quality in our in\n\n740\n00:33:07.880 --> 00:33:08.320\nour membership.\n\n741\n00:33:08.320 --> 00:33:11.570\nSo that's like something that we changed. How do you think about that? Because\n\n742\n00:33:11.570 --> 00:33:12.480\nthat's really a good,\n\n743\n00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:15.750\ngood, good thing you just brought up there. You know, how do you think about\n\n744\n00:33:15.750 --> 00:33:16.560\nbringing in new\n\n745\n00:33:16.560 --> 00:33:22.160\nmembers and and also retaining the members you have? Where do you how do what\n\n746\n00:33:22.160 --> 00:33:22.880\ndo you spend the most\n\n747\n00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:26.840\ntime thinking about the things that you do to retain the members you have are\n\n748\n00:33:26.840 --> 00:33:27.280\nimproving your\n\n749\n00:33:27.280 --> 00:33:32.010\nvalue proposition, which actually over time will bring in more members, right?\n\n750\n00:33:32.010 --> 00:33:33.120\nSo as we deliver more\n\n751\n00:33:33.120 --> 00:33:37.140\nvalue to our existing members, that also creates more value for any new members\n\n752\n00:33:37.140 --> 00:33:37.760\nthat come in.\n\n753\n00:33:37.760 --> 00:33:41.720\nThe other thing is, as your member base gets bigger, a larger and larger\n\n754\n00:33:41.720 --> 00:33:42.400\npercentage of your\n\n755\n00:33:42.400 --> 00:33:47.250\nnew members are coming in, as I said before, referred by existing members. So\n\n756\n00:33:47.250 --> 00:33:48.000\nthat member,\n\n757\n00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:52.230\nthat existing member base is basically an asset for customer acquisition,\n\n758\n00:33:52.230 --> 00:33:54.240\nbecause it's free or\n\n759\n00:33:54.240 --> 00:33:59.120\nnear free referrals and word of mouth. And on the flip side, if you're not\n\n760\n00:33:59.120 --> 00:33:59.840\ndoing well with your\n\n761\n00:33:59.840 --> 00:34:03.320\nmembers, you've got a you have sort of a double whammy of one, your churn is\n\n762\n00:34:03.320 --> 00:34:04.320\ngoing to be high.\n\n763\n00:34:04.320 --> 00:34:09.180\nThis is the number one reason why membership base or subscription based\n\n764\n00:34:09.180 --> 00:34:11.520\nbusinesses online have\n\n765\n00:34:11.520 --> 00:34:16.380\nbeen have not been successful over the last decade. And there's like too many\n\n766\n00:34:16.380 --> 00:34:17.280\nto name that have kind\n\n767\n00:34:17.280 --> 00:34:22.130\nof gone up. And then churn just really takes them down. You can grow, you go\n\n768\n00:34:22.130 --> 00:34:23.520\nreally fast for a while\n\n769\n00:34:23.520 --> 00:34:27.080\nwith a high churn model. But at some point, if you have a high percentage of\n\n770\n00:34:27.080 --> 00:34:28.080\npeople leaving each\n\n771\n00:34:28.080 --> 00:34:32.690\nyear, that starts to just be this like leaky, I call it leaky bucket syndrome.\n\n772\n00:34:32.690 --> 00:34:33.680\nBut it's like the\n\n773\n00:34:33.680 --> 00:34:38.290\nleaks are too fast to be keeping the water water level rising. But then the\n\n774\n00:34:38.290 --> 00:34:40.240\ndouble edge, the double\n\n775\n00:34:40.240 --> 00:34:44.200\nwhammy there is one, you lose members, but two, they tell about those\n\n776\n00:34:44.200 --> 00:34:46.000\nexperiences. And as I said\n\n777\n00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:48.990\nbefore, if you let down someone who paid a membership fee, they're going to\n\n778\n00:34:48.990 --> 00:34:49.920\ntalk about it,\n\n779\n00:34:49.920 --> 00:34:52.640\nlike in a way that they wouldn't if they hadn't paid that membership fee.\n\n780\n00:34:52.640 --> 00:34:56.640\nThe wrong kind of talked about marketing, the wrong kind of talk. The other\n\n781\n00:34:56.640 --> 00:34:57.360\nside is true too,\n\n782\n00:34:57.360 --> 00:35:00.880\nright? If you come through for them. And particularly for us, like we find our\n\n783\n00:35:00.880 --> 00:35:01.520\nmembers,\n\n784\n00:35:01.520 --> 00:35:04.800\nnot only, you know, we come through that for them on a practical way and that\n\n785\n00:35:04.800 --> 00:35:05.280\nthey're getting\n\n786\n00:35:05.280 --> 00:35:08.780\nvalue from the membership, but we also align with their values. So there's a\n\n787\n00:35:08.780 --> 00:35:09.520\npride aspect\n\n788\n00:35:09.520 --> 00:35:12.160\nwhere they actually want to share a thrive market, because they're proud to be\n\n789\n00:35:12.160 --> 00:35:13.040\nthrive market members.\n\n790\n00:35:13.040 --> 00:35:18.400\nAnd so yeah, I'd say, look, we have a fantastic customer acquisition engine. We\n\n791\n00:35:18.400 --> 00:35:18.800\nuse health\n\n792\n00:35:18.800 --> 00:35:22.760\nand wellness influencers. We're really, really good at creative iteration on\n\n793\n00:35:22.760 --> 00:35:23.920\npaid media. We're\n\n794\n00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:28.530\nvery proud of that effort. But by far, the most important thing, and we'll be\n\n795\n00:35:28.530 --> 00:35:29.280\nincreasingly\n\n796\n00:35:29.280 --> 00:35:32.400\nimportant as we scale is how much value we deliver to existing members.\n\n797\n00:35:32.400 --> 00:35:37.010\nYou mentioned earlier that AI is giving you the capability to personalize a lot\n\n798\n00:35:37.010 --> 00:35:37.520\nof information\n\n799\n00:35:37.520 --> 00:35:43.120\nwith your members. And, you know, how are you thinking about AI and its impact\n\n800\n00:35:43.120 --> 00:35:44.480\non your business?\n\n801\n00:35:44.480 --> 00:35:48.440\nYeah, well, I mean, like every business, it's gonna, it's going to create\n\n802\n00:35:48.440 --> 00:35:50.400\nincredible leverage\n\n803\n00:35:50.400 --> 00:35:55.100\nfor teams. So we're seeing that just in spades in terms of the ability to\n\n804\n00:35:55.100 --> 00:35:56.640\ncreate content,\n\n805\n00:35:56.640 --> 00:36:02.070\ncreate about put testing on our, you know, landing pages, funnels, marketing in\n\n806\n00:36:02.070 --> 00:36:02.960\ngeneral.\n\n807\n00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:08.560\nWe also are seeing benefits to AI when you think about the way that you can\n\n808\n00:36:08.560 --> 00:36:09.520\nmanage supply chains\n\n809\n00:36:09.520 --> 00:36:14.880\nand do predictive analytics and understand and forecast your business.\n\n810\n00:36:14.880 --> 00:36:19.040\nBut the number one thing that we see that I think is, you know, kind of unique\n\n811\n00:36:19.040 --> 00:36:19.760\nto consumer\n\n812\n00:36:19.760 --> 00:36:25.210\nbusiness is the ability to create personalized user experience. And for us,\n\n813\n00:36:25.210 --> 00:36:26.000\nwith that focus on\n\n814\n00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:29.130\nhealth and wellness, the stakes are even higher, because health is different\n\n815\n00:36:29.130 --> 00:36:30.480\nfor different people,\n\n816\n00:36:30.480 --> 00:36:34.440\nright? And I think so much of what people struggle with is these like generic\n\n817\n00:36:34.440 --> 00:36:35.840\nprescriptions that say,\n\n818\n00:36:35.840 --> 00:36:39.360\noh, you need to go do this diet, or you need to reduce the calories here, or\n\n819\n00:36:39.360 --> 00:36:40.800\nthe key is protein.\n\n820\n00:36:40.800 --> 00:36:45.840\nAnd that's like, it's not one size fits all for every person. And so our\n\n821\n00:36:45.840 --> 00:36:47.280\nability to, you know,\n\n822\n00:36:47.280 --> 00:36:50.820\nwe have an onboarding assessment that our members take, and then we map their\n\n823\n00:36:50.820 --> 00:36:51.360\nresponses\n\n824\n00:36:51.360 --> 00:36:56.250\nto all of our existing members, and then create from the very first instance a\n\n825\n00:36:56.250 --> 00:36:57.440\npersonalized\n\n826\n00:36:57.440 --> 00:37:02.770\nrecommender engine. And that AI driven recommendations has gotten so good now\n\n827\n00:37:02.770 --> 00:37:03.520\nthat we're actually helping\n\n828\n00:37:03.520 --> 00:37:07.480\nbuild the card on behalf of the members in the first order. Over half of our\n\n829\n00:37:07.480 --> 00:37:08.160\norders now are\n\n830\n00:37:08.160 --> 00:37:12.530\non a scheduled basis. They're like auto ship orders. And so that's using AI to\n\n831\n00:37:12.530 --> 00:37:13.280\npredict when\n\n832\n00:37:13.280 --> 00:37:17.280\npeople are going to need which items. That to me, I think is the like real\n\n833\n00:37:17.280 --> 00:37:19.200\nfuture of AI for shopping.\n\n834\n00:37:19.200 --> 00:37:23.480\nAnd what's exciting for us is that we have a data set for the health and\n\n835\n00:37:23.480 --> 00:37:25.120\nwellness focus consumer\n\n836\n00:37:25.120 --> 00:37:29.730\nand the health and wellness focus assortment going back now a decade than no\n\n837\n00:37:29.730 --> 00:37:30.400\none else has.\n\n838\n00:37:30.400 --> 00:37:34.360\nAnd because it's on members membership model, those members work with us over\n\n839\n00:37:34.360 --> 00:37:35.200\nor engage with\n\n840\n00:37:35.200 --> 00:37:39.920\nus over a long period of time. The data is really, really rich. And you know,\n\n841\n00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:41.120\nour my third co-founder\n\n842\n00:37:41.120 --> 00:37:45.730\nis our CTO. So we are a retailer, we are a CPG brand, but we also are a tech\n\n843\n00:37:45.730 --> 00:37:46.560\ncompany. And we've\n\n844\n00:37:46.560 --> 00:37:52.240\nhad that data capabilities since day one. So yeah, I'm incredibly excited about\n\n845\n00:37:52.240 --> 00:37:53.920\nAI in general,\n\n846\n00:37:53.920 --> 00:37:57.880\nbut specifically the ability to now, you know, when we think about making\n\n847\n00:37:57.880 --> 00:37:59.200\nhealthy living easy.\n\n848\n00:37:59.200 --> 00:38:03.810\nBut one of the hardest things is how do you personalize that? Not everyone can\n\n849\n00:38:03.810 --> 00:38:04.560\nhave a\n\n850\n00:38:04.560 --> 00:38:10.470\nnutritional coach, right, or a concierge shopper. But with AI, we can get to a\n\n851\n00:38:10.470 --> 00:38:11.280\nplace where\n\n852\n00:38:11.280 --> 00:38:14.000\nthrough market, you're going to have something very, very similar.\n\n853\n00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:18.080\nBefore I move off AI, you know, it's such a hot topic. And you're obviously a\n\n854\n00:38:18.080 --> 00:38:19.120\nvery current leader,\n\n855\n00:38:19.120 --> 00:38:24.080\nand you're on top of, you know, what's happening in the world of business today\n\n856\n00:38:24.080 --> 00:38:25.120\nin a very contemporary\n\n857\n00:38:25.120 --> 00:38:31.120\nway. You know, what are some of the ways you're personally using AI to make you\n\n858\n00:38:31.120 --> 00:38:31.840\nan even more\n\n859\n00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:35.800\neffective leader? I mean, what kind of advice can you give people on how to\n\n860\n00:38:35.800 --> 00:38:37.520\nreally get good at AI?\n\n861\n00:38:37.520 --> 00:38:40.560\nI don't know if I'm the best person to give advice on how to get good at AI,\n\n862\n00:38:40.560 --> 00:38:46.010\nbut I will say I use it a lot. And, you know, I started out, my business career\n\n863\n00:38:46.010 --> 00:38:46.960\nstarted and my\n\n864\n00:38:46.960 --> 00:38:51.570\nstrengths early on were never as a leader as always as a doer. I was not good\n\n865\n00:38:51.570 --> 00:38:52.720\nat delegating.\n\n866\n00:38:52.720 --> 00:38:56.880\nI was not patient. And I wasn't, I wasn't great at developing people. I had a\n\n867\n00:38:56.880 --> 00:38:57.600\nreal interest in it,\n\n868\n00:38:57.600 --> 00:39:04.510\nbut I wasn't great at it. So leadership for me has been an acquired skill. And\n\n869\n00:39:04.510 --> 00:39:05.280\nI still look around\n\n870\n00:39:05.280 --> 00:39:08.810\nand there are leaders that for me are touchstones and always remind me how much\n\n871\n00:39:08.810 --> 00:39:10.320\nfurther I have to go.\n\n872\n00:39:10.320 --> 00:39:14.930\nBut the way that I've gotten better at it over time has been working at it.\n\n873\n00:39:14.930 --> 00:39:16.080\nLike actually just\n\n874\n00:39:16.080 --> 00:39:18.640\nhaving a practice of getting better. And one of the things, and this is going\n\n875\n00:39:18.640 --> 00:39:19.520\nto lead to AI,\n\n876\n00:39:19.520 --> 00:39:23.480\nbut one of the things is I've throughout my leadership career worked with\n\n877\n00:39:23.480 --> 00:39:24.080\ncoaches.\n\n878\n00:39:24.080 --> 00:39:30.000\nAnd I just find that so helpful, whether it's on a weekly or a monthly cadence\n\n879\n00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:30.880\nto be getting\n\n880\n00:39:30.880 --> 00:39:34.840\nfeedback, you don't always get it from your team. And the coach can facilitate\n\n881\n00:39:34.840 --> 00:39:35.920\nthat. They can also\n\n882\n00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:39.560\njust talking through, give you different perspectives on situations and help\n\n883\n00:39:39.560 --> 00:39:40.800\nyou reflect and reframe\n\n884\n00:39:40.800 --> 00:39:46.240\nand mirror what's going on. So I have actually found AI, and this is going to\n\n885\n00:39:46.240 --> 00:39:46.720\nmake me sound\n\n886\n00:39:46.720 --> 00:39:50.990\nlike a little bit of a crazy person, but I found AI to be a great coach. And\n\n887\n00:39:50.990 --> 00:39:52.640\nwith like the JET-GBT,\n\n888\n00:39:52.640 --> 00:39:57.250\nthe more you talk to it, the more it knows about you. Yeah, the, you know, as\n\n889\n00:39:57.250 --> 00:39:58.240\nthe prompt space has\n\n890\n00:39:58.240 --> 00:40:02.440\ngotten larger, you can give it a lot of context on a given situation. And you\n\n891\n00:40:02.440 --> 00:40:03.520\nknow, it can veer\n\n892\n00:40:03.520 --> 00:40:11.930\ninto the kind of glib kind of axioms. It can be a little bit sycophantic. So I\n\n893\n00:40:11.930 --> 00:40:12.480\nthink all those\n\n894\n00:40:12.480 --> 00:40:20.040\ncriticisms are really valid. But I do find it to be pretty uncannily precise on\n\n895\n00:40:20.040 --> 00:40:20.560\nlike,\n\n896\n00:40:20.560 --> 00:40:24.000\nwhat are the issues at play in a given situation? What are some things you can\n\n897\n00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:24.800\nconsider?\n\n898\n00:40:24.800 --> 00:40:27.170\nAnd even if it doesn't get you all the way there, I think it's great for\n\n899\n00:40:27.170 --> 00:40:27.920\nthought starters,\n\n900\n00:40:27.920 --> 00:40:31.190\nand it's great for thought partnerships. I agree. It's been good for me too. I\n\n901\n00:40:31.190 --> 00:40:31.680\nwent on\n\n902\n00:40:31.680 --> 00:40:35.200\nand said, \"How could I make Hell leaders lead a better podcast?\" And it gave me\n\n903\n00:40:35.200 --> 00:40:36.560\nsome good things\n\n904\n00:40:36.560 --> 00:40:41.420\nto think about. You know, and I was shocked at just how much coaching I got and\n\n905\n00:40:41.420 --> 00:40:42.880\nhow relevant it was.\n\n906\n00:40:42.880 --> 00:40:48.210\nYou know, you mentioned earlier, one of your core values is to think big. You\n\n907\n00:40:48.210 --> 00:40:48.800\nknow, you really\n\n908\n00:40:48.800 --> 00:40:53.410\nwant people to be step-change thinkers. You know, what's the single biggest\n\n909\n00:40:53.410 --> 00:40:55.040\ncultural core value\n\n910\n00:40:55.040 --> 00:41:01.360\nthat you're really trying to make happen across your organization today? Is it\n\n911\n00:41:01.360 --> 00:41:02.000\nthink big?\n\n912\n00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:06.240\nWell, I mentioned at our quarterly business review two quarters ago, the kind\n\n913\n00:41:06.240 --> 00:41:06.880\nof flag I wanted\n\n914\n00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:11.490\nto plan was actually a number first, which is another core value of ours. And\n\n915\n00:41:11.490 --> 00:41:13.040\nin a sense,\n\n916\n00:41:13.040 --> 00:41:17.040\nas I told you about that B-HAG, it was actually to say, \"We need to think\n\n917\n00:41:17.040 --> 00:41:17.920\nsmaller. We need to think\n\n918\n00:41:17.920 --> 00:41:23.300\nabout these paper cuts.\" So I would maybe flip it a little bit and say, \"We're\n\n919\n00:41:23.300 --> 00:41:23.920\nactually really\n\n920\n00:41:23.920 --> 00:41:27.880\ngood at thinking big.\" Like, we take big swings, and I told you at the\n\n921\n00:41:27.880 --> 00:41:28.880\nbeginning of this conversation,\n\n922\n00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:33.490\nlike, that's actually a towering strength for me. I just like, I naturally\n\n923\n00:41:33.490 --> 00:41:34.880\nthink big. And I do think\n\n924\n00:41:34.880 --> 00:41:40.240\nbusinesses tend to reflect the values that their leaders have. And that's when\n\n925\n00:41:40.240 --> 00:41:40.960\nit comes naturally\n\n926\n00:41:40.960 --> 00:41:45.680\nto me. And I think it's come naturally to our organization. The kind of stretch\n\n927\n00:41:45.680 --> 00:41:46.080\nthat we're in\n\n928\n00:41:46.080 --> 00:41:50.840\nright now is a little bit of complementing that or maybe creating some dynamic\n\n929\n00:41:50.840 --> 00:41:52.000\ntension between\n\n930\n00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:56.160\nthinking big and doing the next big thing, and really solidifying the core and\n\n931\n00:41:56.160 --> 00:41:57.200\nthe foundation\n\n932\n00:41:57.200 --> 00:42:02.800\nof what we do, specifically from a member-centric lens. And I think for us\n\n933\n00:42:02.800 --> 00:42:03.120\nright now,\n\n934\n00:42:03.120 --> 00:42:07.730\nat the scale that we're at, continuing to grow very fast, we've been profitable\n\n935\n00:42:07.730 --> 00:42:08.240\nthe last few\n\n936\n00:42:08.240 --> 00:42:12.200\nyears and are expanding the profitability meaningfully. Like, we're building a\n\n937\n00:42:12.200 --> 00:42:12.480\nreally\n\n938\n00:42:12.480 --> 00:42:17.380\nreal long-term, hopefully generational business that can transform healthy\n\n939\n00:42:17.380 --> 00:42:18.320\nliving in this country.\n\n940\n00:42:18.880 --> 00:42:23.490\nThe stakes just keep getting higher. And so I do think, for us, thinking about\n\n941\n00:42:23.490 --> 00:42:24.640\nhow do we make\n\n942\n00:42:24.640 --> 00:42:28.170\nsure that in that context, we are doing it. We're not losing sight of the\n\n943\n00:42:28.170 --> 00:42:30.240\nmember. It's so easy\n\n944\n00:42:30.240 --> 00:42:36.020\nin business for metrics to become an abstraction, to become focused on all\n\n945\n00:42:36.020 --> 00:42:38.320\nthese kind of financialization\n\n946\n00:42:38.320 --> 00:42:42.400\nof your business performance. And it's not that that stuff's not important. It\n\n947\n00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:42.800\nreally is.\n\n948\n00:42:43.360 --> 00:42:49.080\nBut that it needs to follow from delivering value to your customer, not be a\n\n949\n00:42:49.080 --> 00:42:50.000\nzero sum\n\n950\n00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.960\nwhere you're extracting value. And so I think the most important value for us\n\n951\n00:42:54.960 --> 00:42:55.840\nright now,\n\n952\n00:42:55.840 --> 00:43:00.450\nand we just hit last year, we hit our 10-year mark. As I think about the next\n\n953\n00:43:00.450 --> 00:43:01.840\n10 years, the one\n\n954\n00:43:01.840 --> 00:43:05.710\nthing we cannot lose sight of, we will continue to think big, or another value\n\n955\n00:43:05.710 --> 00:43:06.800\nis being tenacious.\n\n956\n00:43:06.800 --> 00:43:12.140\nWe will always be tenacious. Our third one is authenticity, which I think also\n\n957\n00:43:12.140 --> 00:43:12.560\ncomes pretty\n\n958\n00:43:12.560 --> 00:43:16.960\nnaturally. But the one that we cannot lose focus on is member first.\n\n959\n00:43:16.960 --> 00:43:23.440\nThat's great. And speaking of authenticity, there's a person now in the lead in\n\n960\n00:43:23.440 --> 00:43:24.160\nyour industry\n\n961\n00:43:24.160 --> 00:43:28.160\nto certain extent in the government. What's your take on Robert F. Kennedy, Jr\n\n962\n00:43:28.160 --> 00:43:28.800\n., and what he's\n\n963\n00:43:28.800 --> 00:43:33.520\ndoing in the industry right now? I don't have a take on RFK specifically. Well,\n\n964\n00:43:33.520 --> 00:43:34.080\nhe's got to take\n\n965\n00:43:34.080 --> 00:43:38.960\non a lot of things. So there's things that I think we think are good that they\n\n966\n00:43:38.960 --> 00:43:39.840\n're doing,\n\n967\n00:43:39.840 --> 00:43:44.880\nbut a lot of things that maybe we don't have as much of an opinion on. I think\n\n968\n00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:45.520\nwhen it comes to\n\n969\n00:43:45.520 --> 00:43:51.920\nfood specifically, I think Maha is a reflection of where the consumer is today.\n\n970\n00:43:51.920 --> 00:43:53.280\nI think fundamentally\n\n971\n00:43:53.280 --> 00:43:58.880\nit's a consumer movement. It was a grassroots bottoms up, largely parent and\n\n972\n00:43:58.880 --> 00:44:00.400\nmom driven movement.\n\n973\n00:44:00.400 --> 00:44:05.680\nAnd so while it's now become a political endeavor, and I think could actually\n\n974\n00:44:05.680 --> 00:44:06.800\ndo a lot of good\n\n975\n00:44:06.800 --> 00:44:13.710\nin changing nutritional standards and reforming quality standards and putting a\n\n976\n00:44:13.710 --> 00:44:13.920\nreal\n\n977\n00:44:13.920 --> 00:44:18.960\nemphasis on getting away from ultra processed foods and getting away from\n\n978\n00:44:18.960 --> 00:44:20.080\nchemicals and foods,\n\n979\n00:44:20.080 --> 00:44:24.430\nthe fundamental thing came from consumers waking up and saying, these things\n\n980\n00:44:24.430 --> 00:44:25.200\nare important to us.\n\n981\n00:44:25.200 --> 00:44:28.800\nAnd what we've seen in our businesses, they've been voting with their dollars\n\n982\n00:44:28.800 --> 00:44:33.660\nwell before this became a political issue in that direction. And I think Thrive\n\n983\n00:44:33.660 --> 00:44:34.000\nMarket has proven\n\n984\n00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:37.960\nthat it's not just people in LA and New York and San Francisco, it's not just\n\n985\n00:44:37.960 --> 00:44:38.960\naffluent people,\n\n986\n00:44:38.960 --> 00:44:42.920\nit's not just liberals, it's all across the political spectrum, the\n\n987\n00:44:42.920 --> 00:44:43.520\nsocioeconomic spectrum,\n\n988\n00:44:43.520 --> 00:44:47.690\nthe geographic spectrum, people want to get healthier. And I think it's now\n\n989\n00:44:47.690 --> 00:44:48.640\nundeniable that\n\n990\n00:44:48.640 --> 00:44:53.120\nultra processed foods and chemicals and foods are not conducive to that. Yeah,\n\n991\n00:44:53.120 --> 00:44:54.160\nI don't think we're\n\n992\n00:44:54.160 --> 00:45:01.370\nnot embracing Maha wholesale. And there's a lot of things that RFK is taking a\n\n993\n00:45:01.370 --> 00:45:02.240\nstand on that have\n\n994\n00:45:02.240 --> 00:45:06.560\nnothing to do with our mission. But specifically on the get chemicals out of\n\n995\n00:45:06.560 --> 00:45:07.440\nfood, get ultra\n\n996\n00:45:07.440 --> 00:45:11.400\nprocessed ingredients out of foods, clean up the food system, I think it's a\n\n997\n00:45:11.400 --> 00:45:12.160\nconversation that\n\n998\n00:45:12.160 --> 00:45:17.510\nneeds to be happening. And it's been taking place with people adopting\n\n999\n00:45:17.510 --> 00:45:19.360\nbusinesses like ours.\n\n1000\n00:45:19.360 --> 00:45:21.920\nIt's exciting that it's now happening in the political lens as well.\n\n1001\n00:45:21.920 --> 00:45:28.320\nYeah, well, Maha, make America healthy again. That's a trend that you're\n\n1002\n00:45:28.320 --> 00:45:29.600\nobviously leading on.\n\n1003\n00:45:29.600 --> 00:45:33.560\nYeah, and I think again, there's a lot of, we can quibble with a lot of the\n\n1004\n00:45:33.560 --> 00:45:33.920\ndifferent\n\n1005\n00:45:33.920 --> 00:45:37.040\nfactions that are in Maha and are they doing exactly what they're doing? But\n\n1006\n00:45:37.040 --> 00:45:38.560\nthe general focus,\n\n1007\n00:45:38.560 --> 00:45:42.800\nI think, it should be something that transcends politics. Everyone should be\n\n1008\n00:45:42.800 --> 00:45:43.680\nable to agree\n\n1009\n00:45:43.680 --> 00:45:47.920\nthat we should have less artificial chemicals in our food system, that we\n\n1010\n00:45:47.920 --> 00:45:49.200\nshould have fewer\n\n1011\n00:45:49.200 --> 00:45:53.310\nultra processed foods going to our kids. There's a study came out a few days\n\n1012\n00:45:53.310 --> 00:45:54.720\nago that 60% of the\n\n1013\n00:45:54.720 --> 00:45:59.330\ncalories that the average kid in America gets are from ultra processed food.\n\n1014\n00:45:59.330 --> 00:46:00.320\nKids eat more\n\n1015\n00:46:00.320 --> 00:46:04.930\nultra processed food than any other age group in this country. That has to\n\n1016\n00:46:04.930 --> 00:46:05.440\nchange.\n\n1017\n00:46:05.440 --> 00:46:12.350\nYou know, and mentioned earlier that you really appreciate coaching. You look\n\n1018\n00:46:12.350 --> 00:46:13.120\nfor coaching.\n\n1019\n00:46:13.120 --> 00:46:16.490\nWhat's something that you've done lately that's really stretched you as a\n\n1020\n00:46:16.490 --> 00:46:18.480\nleader? Maybe a practice\n\n1021\n00:46:18.480 --> 00:46:22.810\nor a discipline that's been hard, but it's been worth it for you. Well, I've\n\n1022\n00:46:22.810 --> 00:46:23.440\nbeen working with a\n\n1023\n00:46:23.440 --> 00:46:28.770\ncoach who's been fantastic. On the chat GPT side, one thing I would encourage\n\n1024\n00:46:28.770 --> 00:46:30.000\npeople to do is very\n\n1025\n00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:35.680\nimportant is when you get feedback, explicitly tell the AI, give it to me\n\n1026\n00:46:35.680 --> 00:46:37.280\nstraight. I don't\n\n1027\n00:46:37.280 --> 00:46:41.890\npull any punches. I want your candid feedback. And then whatever feedback they\n\n1028\n00:46:41.890 --> 00:46:43.040\ngive you, it gives\n\n1029\n00:46:43.040 --> 00:46:47.960\nyou, make sure you get, like, give me the give me the give me the opposite take\n\n1030\n00:46:47.960 --> 00:46:48.960\n, right? So like,\n\n1031\n00:46:48.960 --> 00:46:52.230\nalways push it to give you multiple perspectives because it's very, it's very\n\n1032\n00:46:52.230 --> 00:46:53.520\npersuasive at whatever\n\n1033\n00:46:53.520 --> 00:46:56.870\nit's saying. But I would say the honestly, the thing that's challenged me most,\n\n1034\n00:46:56.870 --> 00:46:58.000\nso like coaching\n\n1035\n00:46:58.000 --> 00:47:02.660\nis great. But the best source of, it's not coaching with a capital C, but I'd\n\n1036\n00:47:02.660 --> 00:47:03.840\nsay it's like coaching\n\n1037\n00:47:03.840 --> 00:47:08.530\nwith a lowercase C that I get is actually from my fellow executives. And we\n\n1038\n00:47:08.530 --> 00:47:09.680\ntalked about Amazon\n\n1039\n00:47:09.680 --> 00:47:14.530\nearlier over the last two years, we've hired three X Amazonians to our\n\n1040\n00:47:14.530 --> 00:47:15.680\nexecutive team\n\n1041\n00:47:16.640 --> 00:47:20.880\nand actually brought over other other Amazon folks throughout the org. And we\n\n1042\n00:47:20.880 --> 00:47:21.280\nfound,\n\n1043\n00:47:21.280 --> 00:47:27.670\ndespite how different the businesses are, the DNA is really, really valuable.\n\n1044\n00:47:27.670 --> 00:47:28.400\nAnd the caliber\n\n1045\n00:47:28.400 --> 00:47:31.470\nof talent, like just to have gone through the filter of Amazon, in the case of\n\n1046\n00:47:31.470 --> 00:47:32.000\nour execs,\n\n1047\n00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:35.520\nspend their pretend plus years, they're just really talented people who have\n\n1048\n00:47:35.520 --> 00:47:36.160\nlearned a lot.\n\n1049\n00:47:36.160 --> 00:47:41.490\nAnd it's been very humbling for me. But also it's like, I'm on the steepest\n\n1050\n00:47:41.490 --> 00:47:41.920\npart of my learning\n\n1051\n00:47:41.920 --> 00:47:46.160\ncurve that I've been on a long time, because I'm around these brilliant people\n\n1052\n00:47:46.160 --> 00:47:47.680\nwho are at a great\n\n1053\n00:47:47.680 --> 00:47:53.280\nbest in class company, who don't pull any punches, you know, as part of the\n\n1054\n00:47:53.280 --> 00:47:54.160\nAmazon culture.\n\n1055\n00:47:54.160 --> 00:47:58.480\nAnd it's forcing me to get better. So that's, that's probably the most recent,\n\n1056\n00:47:58.480 --> 00:48:00.480\nmost recent and biggest impact I can make for me.\n\n1057\n00:48:00.480 --> 00:48:03.520\nYou got a mission that lights people up. And now as I understand it, you're\n\n1058\n00:48:03.520 --> 00:48:04.560\nprimarily a,\n\n1059\n00:48:04.560 --> 00:48:11.010\na, a, a business that's run remotely. How have you kept that energy in a remote\n\n1060\n00:48:11.010 --> 00:48:12.400\nworkload?\n\n1061\n00:48:12.400 --> 00:48:16.360\nWell, part of it is, is not giving up on the in-person interactions. Like there\n\n1062\n00:48:16.360 --> 00:48:16.560\nis, like,\n\n1063\n00:48:16.560 --> 00:48:20.520\nyou just have to acknowledge there's certain things that can't do on a zoom\n\n1064\n00:48:20.520 --> 00:48:22.080\nscreen. And so we do,\n\n1065\n00:48:22.080 --> 00:48:26.470\nwe have the exec team is on site once a month, leadership team is on site once\n\n1066\n00:48:26.470 --> 00:48:27.040\na quarter,\n\n1067\n00:48:27.040 --> 00:48:31.650\nwhole company is on site twice a year. And then the teams, smaller teams do in\n\n1068\n00:48:31.650 --> 00:48:32.800\nperson so that\n\n1069\n00:48:32.800 --> 00:48:37.660\nnobody is going without in person interaction for, for more than, you know, a\n\n1070\n00:48:37.660 --> 00:48:39.520\nfew weeks. And the,\n\n1071\n00:48:39.520 --> 00:48:42.750\nthe key is because you have so much less time in person, you have to basically\n\n1072\n00:48:42.750 --> 00:48:43.440\nbe more, I think\n\n1073\n00:48:43.440 --> 00:48:46.970\nyou have to be more deliberate. And it can end up being a little, it can feel a\n\n1074\n00:48:46.970 --> 00:48:48.160\nlittle bit forced\n\n1075\n00:48:48.160 --> 00:48:50.890\nbecause you sort of have to do things explicitly that you'd rather have to\n\n1076\n00:48:50.890 --> 00:48:51.760\nhappen naturally.\n\n1077\n00:48:51.760 --> 00:48:57.210\nBut we just developed that capability. Sometimes it's, it's doing like ice\n\n1078\n00:48:57.210 --> 00:48:58.240\nbreakers and go deep\n\n1079\n00:48:58.240 --> 00:49:02.200\nactivities that give people the personal, personally connect in those settings.\n\n1080\n00:49:02.200 --> 00:49:04.400\nAnd then the other\n\n1081\n00:49:04.400 --> 00:49:10.250\nside of it is, is, is online, online, like how do you create communication that\n\n1082\n00:49:10.250 --> 00:49:12.240\nfosters authenticity\n\n1083\n00:49:12.240 --> 00:49:16.570\nand like intellectual honesty? Because there's a lot of, there's, when you don\n\n1084\n00:49:16.570 --> 00:49:16.960\n't have the\n\n1085\n00:49:16.960 --> 00:49:22.310\nrelational fiber, which invariably will not have across some subset of the\n\n1086\n00:49:22.310 --> 00:49:23.040\nteams, there's stuff\n\n1087\n00:49:23.040 --> 00:49:27.000\nthat doesn't get said that if you were in person every day, would. And so it's\n\n1088\n00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:27.360\nlike, how do you\n\n1089\n00:49:27.360 --> 00:49:31.970\ngrease those skids in a remote environment? And like the other, the last part I\n\n1090\n00:49:31.970 --> 00:49:32.880\nwould say is you\n\n1091\n00:49:32.880 --> 00:49:36.840\nhave to accept that there are certain things that just won't be as good. And\n\n1092\n00:49:36.840 --> 00:49:37.760\nyou have to make up for\n\n1093\n00:49:37.760 --> 00:49:42.370\nthat by having just extraordinary talent. And that's the, the single biggest\n\n1094\n00:49:42.370 --> 00:49:43.040\nbenefit of being\n\n1095\n00:49:43.040 --> 00:49:47.230\nremote first is you can hire anywhere, you know, literally anywhere. So like\n\n1096\n00:49:47.230 --> 00:49:48.400\nour CFO was the first\n\n1097\n00:49:48.400 --> 00:49:53.010\nAmazonian that we hired, you know, he's 15 years ex Amazon, he lives in Seattle\n\n1098\n00:49:53.010 --> 00:49:53.680\n. There was no\n\n1099\n00:49:53.680 --> 00:49:57.120\nworld. He's got two kids in the middle school. There's no world where he would\n\n1100\n00:49:57.120 --> 00:49:57.600\nhave come down\n\n1101\n00:49:57.600 --> 00:50:01.630\nto LA. But had we not hired him, not only would we, he's like an extraordinary\n\n1102\n00:50:01.630 --> 00:50:02.400\nleader himself,\n\n1103\n00:50:02.400 --> 00:50:06.480\nbut we wouldn't have hired all these other Amazonian ex Amazonians that have,\n\n1104\n00:50:06.480 --> 00:50:06.800\nyou know,\n\n1105\n00:50:06.800 --> 00:50:10.240\nchanged the trajectory of the business. So I do think like, I don't know how\n\n1106\n00:50:10.240 --> 00:50:10.800\npopular this,\n\n1107\n00:50:10.800 --> 00:50:15.360\nthis perspective would be, I do think kind of talent Trump's all and remote is\n\n1108\n00:50:15.360 --> 00:50:16.480\na super power\n\n1109\n00:50:16.480 --> 00:50:20.160\nfor talent. Nobody has ever said that on this podcast. That's a great point.\n\n1110\n00:50:20.160 --> 00:50:20.800\nYou're a really\n\n1111\n00:50:20.800 --> 00:50:25.650\nyoung guy. Do you have a hard time managing and leading people that are older\n\n1112\n00:50:25.650 --> 00:50:26.480\nthan you?\n\n1113\n00:50:26.480 --> 00:50:29.920\nYou know, it's funny that you mentioned that because I turned 40 this year. And\n\n1114\n00:50:29.920 --> 00:50:30.480\nI've always\n\n1115\n00:50:30.480 --> 00:50:34.440\nfelt like I was the young one in the room. And sometime in the last like two or\n\n1116\n00:50:34.440 --> 00:50:34.880\nthree years,\n\n1117\n00:50:34.880 --> 00:50:38.180\nI don't know if it's having kids or turning 40, but I, I don't feel so young\n\n1118\n00:50:38.180 --> 00:50:39.520\nanymore. So\n\n1119\n00:50:39.520 --> 00:50:44.480\na lot in my career early on, I did feel that. How did you get over it? I guess\n\n1120\n00:50:44.480 --> 00:50:45.280\nyou can't, I mean,\n\n1121\n00:50:45.280 --> 00:50:48.600\nit's, if it's something, it was legitimate, honestly. Like there was a sense in\n\n1122\n00:50:48.600 --> 00:50:49.520\nwhich it's a little\n\n1123\n00:50:49.520 --> 00:50:53.150\ncrazy, you know, if I've got 10 years less of experience for me to tell someone\n\n1124\n00:50:53.150 --> 00:50:53.760\nI know what,\n\n1125\n00:50:53.760 --> 00:50:57.720\nI know what they should do. So you, I think my, I didn't really get over that\n\n1126\n00:50:57.720 --> 00:50:58.960\nwas just open-minded.\n\n1127\n00:50:58.960 --> 00:51:03.040\nI would have, I would come in with a perspective, but make sure it didn't, you\n\n1128\n00:51:03.040 --> 00:51:03.600\nknow, it didn't,\n\n1129\n00:51:03.600 --> 00:51:09.670\nit's preposterous for me when I was 30 to be to come in utterly, like totally\n\n1130\n00:51:09.670 --> 00:51:10.240\nconvinced that I\n\n1131\n00:51:10.240 --> 00:51:13.540\nknew what I was doing. But to be honest, I feel the same way at 40. So it's\n\n1132\n00:51:13.540 --> 00:51:14.480\ninteresting because now,\n\n1133\n00:51:15.040 --> 00:51:19.350\nI feel the same way at my age. It's not, it's not like I have it all figured\n\n1134\n00:51:19.350 --> 00:51:20.080\nout now.\n\n1135\n00:51:20.080 --> 00:51:24.690\nI'm a little closer and aged my execs than I was at the beginning of Thrive.\n\n1136\n00:51:24.690 --> 00:51:25.920\nBut again, it's like,\n\n1137\n00:51:25.920 --> 00:51:29.880\nyeah, it's, it's so equally humbling. So, you know, this has been so much fun.\n\n1138\n00:51:29.880 --> 00:51:30.640\nAnd I want to have\n\n1139\n00:51:30.640 --> 00:51:34.520\nsome more with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this? Let's\n\n1140\n00:51:34.520 --> 00:51:35.360\ndo it. All right,\n\n1141\n00:51:35.360 --> 00:51:41.310\nthe three words that best describe you. Intense, ambitious, caring, your\n\n1142\n00:51:41.310 --> 00:51:42.320\nbiggest pet peeve.\n\n1143\n00:51:42.880 --> 00:51:47.440\nIndecisiveness. Who would play you in a movie? I've been told that the actor,\n\n1144\n00:51:47.440 --> 00:51:51.400\nSilly and Murphy are killing and Murphy. That's pretty good one. What's the Th\n\n1145\n00:51:51.400 --> 00:51:52.720\nrive market product\n\n1146\n00:51:52.720 --> 00:51:57.580\nyou order the most of? The olives are a staple in our house, but the olive oil,\n\n1147\n00:51:57.580 --> 00:51:57.760\nwhich is,\n\n1148\n00:51:57.760 --> 00:52:02.370\nthere's a whole story on that. It's fourth generation farm in Crete. So the\n\n1149\n00:52:02.370 --> 00:52:02.800\noldest olive\n\n1150\n00:52:02.800 --> 00:52:06.140\nproducing region in the world, that is my go-to product. And I literally will\n\n1151\n00:52:06.140 --> 00:52:07.200\ndo a spoonful of it\n\n1152\n00:52:07.200 --> 00:52:10.640\nevery day. What's the thing you appreciate the most about growing up in\n\n1153\n00:52:10.640 --> 00:52:11.360\nMinnesota?\n\n1154\n00:52:11.360 --> 00:52:14.000\nPeople are really nice. It's a great place to be a kid.\n\n1155\n00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:18.530\nMinnesota Nice. I had a guy who was our CFO. I called it Minnesota Nice. What's\n\n1156\n00:52:18.530 --> 00:52:18.880\n, what's the\n\n1157\n00:52:18.880 --> 00:52:23.490\none thing you do just for you? I read. I read a lot. Besides your family, what\n\n1158\n00:52:23.490 --> 00:52:24.320\n's your most prized\n\n1159\n00:52:24.320 --> 00:52:28.280\npossession? The thing that comes to mind is actually going back to Minnesota,\n\n1160\n00:52:28.280 --> 00:52:28.720\nspending time\n\n1161\n00:52:28.720 --> 00:52:32.680\nin Minnesota. It's not a possession, but honestly, like, you know, family, it's\n\n1162\n00:52:32.680 --> 00:52:33.200\nfamily, family, family,\n\n1163\n00:52:33.200 --> 00:52:37.370\nfamily, and then those roots in Minnesota. If I turned on the radio in your car\n\n1164\n00:52:37.370 --> 00:52:38.560\n, what would I hear?\n\n1165\n00:52:38.560 --> 00:52:43.280\nSilence. I don't listen to the radio. What's something about you a few people\n\n1166\n00:52:43.280 --> 00:52:44.000\nwould know?\n\n1167\n00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:46.560\nI mean, this is probably isn't going to be a surprise, but most people don't\n\n1168\n00:52:46.560 --> 00:52:47.040\nknow it. I'm an\n\n1169\n00:52:47.040 --> 00:52:52.390\nabsolute health nut. So in my personal life, I'm like, you know, every\n\n1170\n00:52:52.390 --> 00:52:54.080\nsupplement, every new product\n\n1171\n00:52:54.080 --> 00:52:59.880\non Try If I Try, every new diet and exercise trend I'm investigating. What's\n\n1172\n00:52:59.880 --> 00:53:00.640\none of your daily\n\n1173\n00:53:00.640 --> 00:53:04.840\nrituals, something that you'd never miss? It's reading again. So I read when I\n\n1174\n00:53:04.840 --> 00:53:05.840\nwake up, like in\n\n1175\n00:53:05.840 --> 00:53:10.700\nbed, and it's like not advice, but on my phone, I read every morning in bed,\n\n1176\n00:53:10.700 --> 00:53:11.280\nand I'll actually\n\n1177\n00:53:11.280 --> 00:53:15.240\nlike open Kindle and just like read, and I do the same thing when I go to bed.\n\n1178\n00:53:15.240 --> 00:53:15.680\nAnd for me,\n\n1179\n00:53:15.680 --> 00:53:21.280\nthat disconnection, and it's always fiction. It's something that I never like,\n\n1180\n00:53:21.280 --> 00:53:21.760\noh,\n\n1181\n00:53:21.760 --> 00:53:25.920\nfantastic. You're out of the lightning round. Good job here. You know, I got to\n\n1182\n00:53:25.920 --> 00:53:26.880\nask you, you know,\n\n1183\n00:53:26.880 --> 00:53:32.550\nwhat advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs on how to find the big idea\n\n1184\n00:53:32.550 --> 00:53:33.440\nto pursue?\n\n1185\n00:53:33.440 --> 00:53:36.720\nI mean, it sounds really cheesy, but you're not going to find it. It finds you.\n\n1186\n00:53:36.720 --> 00:53:44.280\nAnd I think the important thing is understanding yourself. And I'm not to say\n\n1187\n00:53:44.280 --> 00:53:44.800\nthat you would get\n\n1188\n00:53:44.800 --> 00:53:48.320\nall the answers about who you are and exactly what you care about, but I like\n\n1189\n00:53:48.320 --> 00:53:48.960\nthe concept of\n\n1190\n00:53:48.960 --> 00:53:54.290\nrevealed preferences, like feel into what energizes you. Not not who you'd like\n\n1191\n00:53:54.290 --> 00:53:55.200\nto be or what you've\n\n1192\n00:53:55.200 --> 00:53:59.160\nbeen told is right or whatever, but like, what are the times that you feel just\n\n1193\n00:53:59.160 --> 00:54:00.160\nabsolutely lit up?\n\n1194\n00:54:00.880 --> 00:54:04.880\nAnd if you know what those things are, and you're attuned to that feeling, you\n\n1195\n00:54:04.880 --> 00:54:05.600\nknow what that feels\n\n1196\n00:54:05.600 --> 00:54:10.950\nlike, and you get out and have the meetings, talk to the people, explore the\n\n1197\n00:54:10.950 --> 00:54:12.240\nopportunity space,\n\n1198\n00:54:12.240 --> 00:54:16.570\nthe opportunity will come to you. And, you know, for me with Thrive, it took\n\n1199\n00:54:16.570 --> 00:54:17.360\nover a year. Like,\n\n1200\n00:54:17.360 --> 00:54:21.970\nit was a year of kind of bushwhacking through the jungle looking for the right\n\n1201\n00:54:21.970 --> 00:54:23.040\nnext opportunity,\n\n1202\n00:54:23.040 --> 00:54:25.280\nbut when it hit, it was utterly clear.\n\n1203\n00:54:25.280 --> 00:54:29.470\nI can't believe it. I almost forgot to ask you this one, but you know, you were\n\n1204\n00:54:29.470 --> 00:54:31.040\nthe first online\n\n1205\n00:54:31.040 --> 00:54:35.760\ngrocer to accept food stamps, you know. What did it take to make that happen?\n\n1206\n00:54:35.760 --> 00:54:36.480\nWas that a big\n\n1207\n00:54:36.480 --> 00:54:40.620\nhairy audacious goal for you? That was a beag. It was a big swing. It was a\n\n1208\n00:54:40.620 --> 00:54:41.280\nthinking big,\n\n1209\n00:54:41.280 --> 00:54:45.240\nand it was a long time. It was that was literally a 10-year process. So we in\n\n1210\n00:54:45.240 --> 00:54:46.640\n2015, we petitioned the\n\n1211\n00:54:46.640 --> 00:54:51.990\nUSDA to accept food stamps online. We got 300,000 signatures in under three\n\n1212\n00:54:51.990 --> 00:54:52.960\nmonths. And our whole\n\n1213\n00:54:52.960 --> 00:54:58.720\nthing was it's crazy that you can go to, you know, the corner mark and buy soda\n\n1214\n00:54:58.720 --> 00:54:59.680\nwith your food stamps,\n\n1215\n00:54:59.680 --> 00:55:04.610\nbut you can't buy healthy food online. And we thought this is so obvious, like\n\n1216\n00:55:04.610 --> 00:55:05.440\nit has to happen\n\n1217\n00:55:05.440 --> 00:55:11.210\nsoon. And it wasn't until 2024, the beginning of 2024. So like eight years\n\n1218\n00:55:11.210 --> 00:55:12.160\nafter we did that\n\n1219\n00:55:12.160 --> 00:55:16.540\npetition, nine years after we did that petition, that the USDA finally opened\n\n1220\n00:55:16.540 --> 00:55:17.440\nit up, and we became\n\n1221\n00:55:17.440 --> 00:55:23.040\nthe first pure play e-commerce retailer to be accepted. So that's why tenacity.\n\n1222\n00:55:23.040 --> 00:55:23.600\nTenacity is\n\n1223\n00:55:23.600 --> 00:55:27.280\none of your core values, right? Tenacity is one too. Like that one we was like,\n\n1224\n00:55:27.280 --> 00:55:28.000\nit felt like beating\n\n1225\n00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:32.230\nyour head against a wall, like for years, but so rewarding to see it happen.\n\n1226\n00:55:32.230 --> 00:55:33.120\nAnd like, you know,\n\n1227\n00:55:33.120 --> 00:55:36.170\nour hope there, we obviously want to be part of it, but our hope is that a lot\n\n1228\n00:55:36.170 --> 00:55:37.200\nof other e-commerce\n\n1229\n00:55:37.200 --> 00:55:41.440\nplayers get into the mix and sort of change the landscape. That's fantastic.\n\n1230\n00:55:41.440 --> 00:55:43.120\nAnd you know, if you\n\n1231\n00:55:43.120 --> 00:55:47.080\ndon't mind sharing, you can you tell me a little bit about your immediate\n\n1232\n00:55:47.080 --> 00:55:48.720\nfamily? And I'll ask you\n\n1233\n00:55:48.720 --> 00:55:53.020\nthis question in so doing, you know, what's something that you've learned about\n\n1234\n00:55:53.020 --> 00:55:54.320\nwork at leadership\n\n1235\n00:55:54.320 --> 00:55:58.540\nthat you try to bring, try to bring home? I met my wife in college. I don't\n\n1236\n00:55:58.540 --> 00:55:59.440\nthink I would have\n\n1237\n00:55:59.440 --> 00:56:02.990\nstarted my first company or had the courage to start this business had we not\n\n1238\n00:56:02.990 --> 00:56:03.920\nbeen together.\n\n1239\n00:56:03.920 --> 00:56:10.210\nI'm one of those people. It's like having that part of your life solved and\n\n1240\n00:56:10.210 --> 00:56:11.120\nhaving someone that\n\n1241\n00:56:11.120 --> 00:56:15.260\nis your rock that understands you, that is your partner through everything. I\n\n1242\n00:56:15.260 --> 00:56:16.560\njust, you just get\n\n1243\n00:56:16.560 --> 00:56:20.520\ncan overstate what it different, at least for me, what a difference that has\n\n1244\n00:56:20.520 --> 00:56:22.000\nmade in being able to\n\n1245\n00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:26.610\nbe bold and take risks and be an entrepreneur, be a leader. So my wife and I\n\n1246\n00:56:26.610 --> 00:56:27.600\nhad been together\n\n1247\n00:56:27.600 --> 00:56:32.310\nalmost 20 years, been married for more than 10. We have four kids. Our oldest\n\n1248\n00:56:32.310 --> 00:56:33.680\nis eight. Our youngest\n\n1249\n00:56:33.680 --> 00:56:40.600\nis six months. It is a constant balancing act. And I think, you know, I have so\n\n1250\n00:56:40.600 --> 00:56:42.560\nmuch empathy\n\n1251\n00:56:42.560 --> 00:56:45.510\nfor the parents out there that are also trying to start businesses, because a\n\n1252\n00:56:45.510 --> 00:56:47.440\nbusiness is a child\n\n1253\n00:56:47.440 --> 00:56:51.010\nin its own way. I think the challenge of being an entrepreneur being a parent\n\n1254\n00:56:51.010 --> 00:56:51.760\nis that, you know,\n\n1255\n00:56:51.760 --> 00:56:55.700\nyou can't be in two places at once. And there's just no, you know, there's some\n\n1256\n00:56:55.700 --> 00:56:56.640\nzero-sumness in\n\n1257\n00:56:56.640 --> 00:57:00.600\nthe time side. But I think the advantage of being an entrepreneur is if you're\n\n1258\n00:57:00.600 --> 00:57:01.520\ndoing something you\n\n1259\n00:57:01.520 --> 00:57:05.760\ncare about, you love. Like on those days that I come home energized from work,\n\n1260\n00:57:05.760 --> 00:57:06.320\nand it's not\n\n1261\n00:57:06.320 --> 00:57:09.860\nevery day, but it's a lot of days, I am a better parent. Like I am the best\n\n1262\n00:57:09.860 --> 00:57:11.600\nversion of myself. I\n\n1263\n00:57:11.600 --> 00:57:17.260\nhave the, you know, what kids, I think what kids need is just adults that are\n\n1264\n00:57:17.260 --> 00:57:18.720\nfully themselves,\n\n1265\n00:57:18.720 --> 00:57:22.090\nright? And that that are having fun with life, that are engaged in what they do\n\n1266\n00:57:22.090 --> 00:57:23.120\n, that are curious,\n\n1267\n00:57:23.120 --> 00:57:27.760\nthat are still learning. I'm not always that way. No, no, no parent is, but\n\n1268\n00:57:27.760 --> 00:57:28.880\nwhen things are going\n\n1269\n00:57:28.880 --> 00:57:32.080\nwell at work, that actually is something that I bring home. Is that just like\n\n1270\n00:57:32.080 --> 00:57:32.400\nkind of\n\n1271\n00:57:32.400 --> 00:57:37.730\nthat optimism in that passion? Last question here. What's one piece of advice\n\n1272\n00:57:37.730 --> 00:57:38.160\nyou'd give to\n\n1273\n00:57:38.160 --> 00:57:42.530\nanyone who wants to be a better leader? Just work at it. I mean, it actually,\n\n1274\n00:57:42.530 --> 00:57:43.120\nthat sometimes\n\n1275\n00:57:43.120 --> 00:57:46.580\nreally basic, but there are some people that are just talented that maybe are\n\n1276\n00:57:46.580 --> 00:57:47.280\nmagnetic or\n\n1277\n00:57:47.280 --> 00:57:51.890\ncharismatic. There's some people that are real empaths and are able to just\n\n1278\n00:57:51.890 --> 00:57:53.040\nnaturally do a lot\n\n1279\n00:57:53.040 --> 00:57:57.950\nof it. I feel like for me, it really was an acquired skill. And I feel really\n\n1280\n00:57:57.950 --> 00:57:58.960\nproud of the fact that\n\n1281\n00:57:58.960 --> 00:58:02.920\nI've worked at and I've gotten better. And if you compare yourself to, you know\n\n1282\n00:58:02.920 --> 00:58:03.600\n, your touchstone\n\n1283\n00:58:03.600 --> 00:58:06.730\nleaders, you'll feel bad about yourself. But if you can compare yourself to\n\n1284\n00:58:06.730 --> 00:58:08.080\nyour former self,\n\n1285\n00:58:08.080 --> 00:58:11.440\nand every year you're getting better, it's like any other domain, you know,\n\n1286\n00:58:11.440 --> 00:58:12.720\nthat's kind of the key.\n\n1287\n00:58:12.720 --> 00:58:17.840\nAnd, and I think the cool thing today is there's so many resources. That's like\n\n1288\n00:58:17.840 --> 00:58:18.240\nI said, you can\n\n1289\n00:58:18.240 --> 00:58:22.480\nlike chat GPT can be your coach, you know, you can interact with the best, best\n\n1290\n00:58:22.480 --> 00:58:23.280\nleaders in the world\n\n1291\n00:58:23.280 --> 00:58:27.240\non YouTube, right? Like there's just so many resources if you want to get\n\n1292\n00:58:27.240 --> 00:58:28.160\ninspired and build\n\n1293\n00:58:28.160 --> 00:58:32.920\nthat skill set. So yeah, just go for it. Well, I got to tell you, Nick, I wrote\n\n1294\n00:58:32.920 --> 00:58:34.000\nthis book called,\n\n1295\n00:58:34.000 --> 00:58:37.500\nyou know, how leaders learn. And it's all about active learning. It's not\n\n1296\n00:58:37.500 --> 00:58:38.400\nenough just being\n\n1297\n00:58:38.400 --> 00:58:41.510\never learned. You want to, you want to learn and do something with it, you know\n\n1298\n00:58:41.510 --> 00:58:43.440\n, and you've provided\n\n1299\n00:58:43.440 --> 00:58:48.780\nso many good insights on on how you've learned and then put it to put it to use\n\n1300\n00:58:48.780 --> 00:58:49.600\nand made big\n\n1301\n00:58:49.600 --> 00:58:53.040\nthings happen. And I think that's actually a great it's a great point. Like the\n\n1302\n00:58:53.040 --> 00:58:53.760\nconversation\n\n1303\n00:58:53.760 --> 00:58:57.190\nwith chat TPT or coaches on enough, certainly watching a YouTube video is not\n\n1304\n00:58:57.190 --> 00:58:58.080\nenough. The way\n\n1305\n00:58:58.080 --> 00:59:01.520\nthat you learn is it's like it's one of those in the arena activities, right?\n\n1306\n00:59:01.520 --> 00:59:02.880\nYeah, well, you are\n\n1307\n00:59:02.880 --> 00:59:06.840\nin the arena, you're making it happen. And I personally found you very\n\n1308\n00:59:06.840 --> 00:59:08.720\ninspirational. And so\n\n1309\n00:59:08.720 --> 00:59:12.410\nthank you for taking the time to be on this podcast. I really appreciate it. It\n\n1310\n00:59:12.410 --> 00:59:13.120\n's a real honor.\n\n1311\n00:59:13.440 --> 00:59:22.070\nWell, David, it's time to debrief your episode with Nick Green. At the end\n\n1312\n00:59:22.070 --> 00:59:22.880\nthere, you said that\n\n1313\n00:59:22.880 --> 00:59:27.490\nyou personally found Nick to be super inspirational. I did too. But I'm curious\n\n1314\n00:59:27.490 --> 00:59:28.320\nwhat struck you so\n\n1315\n00:59:28.320 --> 00:59:32.280\nmuch about your conversation with Nick. I just love the fact he's such an\n\n1316\n00:59:32.280 --> 00:59:33.760\nactive learner. Yeah.\n\n1317\n00:59:33.760 --> 00:59:42.000\nYou know, I think he really goes outside of his own person, his own business to\n\n1318\n00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:43.040\nlearn from other\n\n1319\n00:59:43.040 --> 00:59:47.900\npeople and to learn from other businesses. And he ended up with a company that\n\n1320\n00:59:47.900 --> 00:59:48.080\n's\n\n1321\n00:59:48.080 --> 00:59:53.360\nthriving, no pun intended. He's doing great. I mean, I love those green olives\n\n1322\n00:59:53.360 --> 00:59:54.480\nof his are fantastic.\n\n1323\n00:59:54.480 --> 00:59:59.850\nBut he, I love it when I see people who are so passionate about what they do.\n\n1324\n00:59:59.850 --> 01:00:00.720\nThey want to get\n\n1325\n01:00:00.720 --> 01:00:05.610\nbetter. And they know that they get better by learning. And I also like the\n\n1326\n01:00:05.610 --> 01:00:06.720\nfact that he says,\n\n1327\n01:00:06.720 --> 01:00:09.840\nyou know, you got to work hard at it. If you're going to be a leader, work hard\n\n1328\n01:00:09.840 --> 01:00:10.400\nat it. And that\n\n1329\n01:00:10.400 --> 01:00:14.960\nmeans learning. And that's what I loved about him. And that's what inspired me.\n\n1330\n01:00:14.960 --> 01:00:15.760\nI get inspired by\n\n1331\n01:00:15.760 --> 01:00:21.440\npeople who who want to get better. He was so forward and somewhat vulnerable,\n\n1332\n01:00:21.440 --> 01:00:21.920\nsaying like,\n\n1333\n01:00:21.920 --> 01:00:26.160\nleadership doesn't come naturally to me. And I have to work at it every day.\n\n1334\n01:00:26.160 --> 01:00:27.280\nAnd you kind of just\n\n1335\n01:00:27.280 --> 01:00:31.280\ninto it that that's the case for most leaders. But I think it's rare that you\n\n1336\n01:00:31.280 --> 01:00:31.840\nfind someone who\n\n1337\n01:00:31.840 --> 01:00:34.820\nsays, Hey, this is a really hard thing for me. And I have to intentionally\n\n1338\n01:00:34.820 --> 01:00:35.760\ncarve out space to do.\n\n1339\n01:00:35.760 --> 01:00:40.800\nI mean, everyone does it. But the way that he's so aware and forthcoming with\n\n1340\n01:00:40.800 --> 01:00:41.520\npay, this is actually\n\n1341\n01:00:41.520 --> 01:00:45.150\nreally hard. And the great news is it's a skill that you can learn developing\n\n1342\n01:00:45.150 --> 01:00:46.640\nit better at. So I'm\n\n1343\n01:00:46.640 --> 01:00:51.250\nwith you. I think it's so cool how he has kind of created his little coaching\n\n1344\n01:00:51.250 --> 01:00:52.400\nmechanism for getting\n\n1345\n01:00:52.400 --> 01:00:58.240\nbetter at leadership. And the way I said that he's, you know, that he has to\n\n1346\n01:00:58.240 --> 01:00:59.440\nwork at it doesn't come\n\n1347\n01:00:59.440 --> 01:01:02.750\nnaturally that shows vulnerability. You know, vulnerability is a big buzzword\n\n1348\n01:01:02.750 --> 01:01:03.360\nwhen you talk\n\n1349\n01:01:03.360 --> 01:01:07.320\nabout leadership today. But I think there's a reason for that. When you open\n\n1350\n01:01:07.320 --> 01:01:07.920\nyourself up,\n\n1351\n01:01:07.920 --> 01:01:12.430\npeople know that you know that you're not perfect. And that makes them like you\n\n1352\n01:01:12.430 --> 01:01:13.040\n. And that makes them\n\n1353\n01:01:13.040 --> 01:01:18.800\nwant to get behind you. And I'm sure he has a lot of fans at his company. Oh,\n\n1354\n01:01:18.800 --> 01:01:19.680\nthere's no doubt about\n\n1355\n01:01:19.680 --> 01:01:24.050\nthat. I love some of the kind of main themes that Nick continued to bring up in\n\n1356\n01:01:24.050 --> 01:01:25.440\nthe conversation.\n\n1357\n01:01:25.440 --> 01:01:28.960\nIt's really clear that Nick is the type of leader who likes to take really big\n\n1358\n01:01:28.960 --> 01:01:29.600\nswings.\n\n1359\n01:01:29.600 --> 01:01:33.840\nHe dreams big. He says, you know, that old adage, shoot for the moon even if\n\n1360\n01:01:33.840 --> 01:01:34.720\nyou miss your land\n\n1361\n01:01:34.720 --> 01:01:39.600\namong the stars. And he really finds resonance with that and and lives that.\n\n1362\n01:01:39.600 --> 01:01:41.040\nAnd I love in the\n\n1363\n01:01:41.040 --> 01:01:45.900\nepisode, he says, instead of thinking a percentage bigger, you got to think an\n\n1364\n01:01:45.900 --> 01:01:47.040\norder of magnitude\n\n1365\n01:01:47.040 --> 01:01:51.180\nbigger. And I think that that in and of itself is an innate skill that a lot of\n\n1366\n01:01:51.180 --> 01:01:52.400\npeople have. So,\n\n1367\n01:01:52.400 --> 01:01:57.390\nand that some people don't have. So David, I'm curious, you know, as you think\n\n1368\n01:01:57.390 --> 01:01:58.480\nabout dreaming\n\n1369\n01:01:58.480 --> 01:02:04.310\nand casting vision and taking big swings, how do you know when a goal is big\n\n1370\n01:02:04.310 --> 01:02:05.440\nenough?\n\n1371\n01:02:05.440 --> 01:02:10.720\nWell, I think so many times we set goals that are incremental, you know, they\n\n1372\n01:02:10.720 --> 01:02:11.520\n're just a little\n\n1373\n01:02:11.520 --> 01:02:15.550\nbit better than a year ago, or frankly, just as good as you were the year\n\n1374\n01:02:15.550 --> 01:02:16.800\nbefore. If you grew\n\n1375\n01:02:16.800 --> 01:02:22.130\n3%, you're going to go 3% this year and you kind of get into into that rut. You\n\n1376\n01:02:22.130 --> 01:02:23.200\nknow, and I actually\n\n1377\n01:02:23.200 --> 01:02:27.510\nfound young brands to be in that rut for a while. And I felt we needed to break\n\n1378\n01:02:27.510 --> 01:02:28.240\nout of it.\n\n1379\n01:02:28.240 --> 01:02:32.720\nAnd I met this guy named John O'Keefe, who was from the UK, and he had worked\n\n1380\n01:02:32.720 --> 01:02:33.120\nat Proctoring\n\n1381\n01:02:33.120 --> 01:02:36.190\nGamble, but he'd put together a training program called Achieving Breakthrough\n\n1382\n01:02:36.190 --> 01:02:37.600\nResults. So,\n\n1383\n01:02:37.600 --> 01:02:45.280\nhe had a lot of really, you know, big ideas and training tools to get people to\n\n1384\n01:02:45.280 --> 01:02:46.640\nthink about how\n\n1385\n01:02:46.640 --> 01:02:53.020\nyou could get more dramatic results and break out of the incremental. And one\n\n1386\n01:02:53.020 --> 01:02:53.760\nof those was,\n\n1387\n01:02:55.040 --> 01:03:01.200\nare you a step change thinker or not? Okay. And his whole thing was, you know,\n\n1388\n01:03:01.200 --> 01:03:02.720\nthat you don't set\n\n1389\n01:03:02.720 --> 01:03:08.050\nthese little tiny goals. If you're growing 5%, you say, okay, let's think about\n\n1390\n01:03:08.050 --> 01:03:08.640\nhow we could grow\n\n1391\n01:03:08.640 --> 01:03:13.990\n15%. And then if you think about all the things you'd have to do to grow 15%,\n\n1392\n01:03:13.990 --> 01:03:16.000\nyou're certainly going\n\n1393\n01:03:16.000 --> 01:03:21.600\nto get at least five, okay? But it really makes you, you know, think bigger and\n\n1394\n01:03:21.600 --> 01:03:24.160\ndream bigger. And\n\n1395\n01:03:24.160 --> 01:03:27.640\nthink about the things that if you did these, you could grow a heck of a lot\n\n1396\n01:03:27.640 --> 01:03:29.600\nfaster. And, you know,\n\n1397\n01:03:29.600 --> 01:03:33.040\nthat's how you get breakthrough results. So, you know, I think I was always a\n\n1398\n01:03:33.040 --> 01:03:33.680\nbig proponent,\n\n1399\n01:03:33.680 --> 01:03:38.000\nand we always talked about having step change goals, you know, not those little\n\n1400\n01:03:38.000 --> 01:03:39.040\ntiny, tiny\n\n1401\n01:03:39.040 --> 01:03:43.340\nincremental moves. But how do we do something that really takes a step change\n\n1402\n01:03:43.340 --> 01:03:44.160\nas a brand?\n\n1403\n01:03:44.160 --> 01:03:48.400\nAnd I think that's what he's getting at. And I think it makes a lot of sense.\n\n1404\n01:03:48.400 --> 01:03:52.160\nAbsolutely. And the conversation with Nick, you brought up a really interesting\n\n1405\n01:03:53.360 --> 01:03:56.880\npoint, which is that they're in this health food space, right? They're an\n\n1406\n01:03:56.880 --> 01:03:58.560\nonline retailer where\n\n1407\n01:03:58.560 --> 01:04:01.920\nyou become a member of Thrive Market, and then you get access to all of their\n\n1408\n01:04:01.920 --> 01:04:02.720\nhigh quality,\n\n1409\n01:04:02.720 --> 01:04:06.680\nhealthy foods. Well, their biggest competitor is Whole Foods. Whole Foods gets\n\n1410\n01:04:06.680 --> 01:04:07.920\nbought by Amazon,\n\n1411\n01:04:07.920 --> 01:04:11.360\nand you asked Nick in the episode, like, what do you do when the biggest\n\n1412\n01:04:11.360 --> 01:04:12.960\nretailer in the world\n\n1413\n01:04:12.960 --> 01:04:17.570\nsuddenly invests in your biggest competitor, and now all of a sudden, healthy\n\n1414\n01:04:17.570 --> 01:04:18.320\nfood is accessible\n\n1415\n01:04:18.320 --> 01:04:22.930\neverywhere. And I loved his response to that question. He says, \"No one is\n\n1416\n01:04:22.930 --> 01:04:24.320\ngoing to out Amazon,\n\n1417\n01:04:24.320 --> 01:04:29.650\nAmazon.\" And so what they had to do is really focus on what they were best at,\n\n1418\n01:04:29.650 --> 01:04:29.920\nwhich is\n\n1419\n01:04:29.920 --> 01:04:37.680\nfew high quality ingredients and fewer higher quality products. And I love this\n\n1420\n01:04:37.680 --> 01:04:38.160\n, you know,\n\n1421\n01:04:38.160 --> 01:04:43.760\nwe're never going to do e-commerce or online retail better than Amazon does.\n\n1422\n01:04:43.760 --> 01:04:45.440\nBut we can do this\n\n1423\n01:04:46.080 --> 01:04:49.440\nbetter than Amazon does. When a person goes shopping at Thrive Market, they're\n\n1424\n01:04:49.440 --> 01:04:50.560\nnot looking for 40\n\n1425\n01:04:50.560 --> 01:04:54.880\njars of almond butter. They're looking for one jar of almond butter. And I just\n\n1426\n01:04:54.880 --> 01:04:55.680\nlove this concept\n\n1427\n01:04:55.680 --> 01:04:59.600\nbecause it forces them to figure out what it is that they were really good at.\n\n1428\n01:04:59.600 --> 01:05:00.320\nAnd I'm curious to\n\n1429\n01:05:00.320 --> 01:05:03.630\nsay that as you reflect on that part of the conversation, what's the real\n\n1430\n01:05:03.630 --> 01:05:04.720\nlesson there for\n\n1431\n01:05:04.720 --> 01:05:09.520\nother leaders who might be trying to be something that they're just not?\n\n1432\n01:05:09.520 --> 01:05:14.400\nI think you really have to understand who you are and understand what your\n\n1433\n01:05:14.400 --> 01:05:15.600\ndifferentiation is,\n\n1434\n01:05:15.600 --> 01:05:19.920\nand then stay true to it for as long as you can, as long as it's working. And\n\n1435\n01:05:19.920 --> 01:05:20.560\nthen if it's not\n\n1436\n01:05:20.560 --> 01:05:24.520\nworking, then you've got to fine tune and figure out what else you may need to\n\n1437\n01:05:24.520 --> 01:05:24.720\ndo.\n\n1438\n01:05:24.720 --> 01:05:29.680\nBut he also said he learned a lot about Amazon. You know, he learned a lot from\n\n1439\n01:05:29.680 --> 01:05:30.400\nthem, you know,\n\n1440\n01:05:30.400 --> 01:05:37.310\nhow they distribute, how they build their customer base, you know. And he tried\n\n1441\n01:05:37.310 --> 01:05:38.160\nto take all the good\n\n1442\n01:05:38.160 --> 01:05:43.520\nfrom them that he could find and then realize that they were different. And\n\n1443\n01:05:43.520 --> 01:05:44.480\nwhat could they do\n\n1444\n01:05:44.480 --> 01:05:49.090\nthat would keep them different? And, you know, I think that's how he's\n\n1445\n01:05:49.090 --> 01:05:50.080\ndifferentiating himself\n\n1446\n01:05:50.080 --> 01:05:54.930\nfrom Whole Foods today. And one of the things that Amazon has done with Whole\n\n1447\n01:05:54.930 --> 01:05:55.760\nFoods is they\n\n1448\n01:05:55.760 --> 01:06:01.480\nbroaden their offerings to include a lot of stuff that isn't necessarily that\n\n1449\n01:06:01.480 --> 01:06:02.480\nhealthy.\n\n1450\n01:06:02.480 --> 01:06:08.420\nAnd so, you know, he doesn't deal with anything that isn't in the Thrive Wheel\n\n1451\n01:06:08.420 --> 01:06:10.000\nhouse. And he thinks\n\n1452\n01:06:10.000 --> 01:06:14.610\nthat differentiation, that purity really is a competitive edge over the long\n\n1453\n01:06:14.610 --> 01:06:14.960\nterm.\n\n1454\n01:06:14.960 --> 01:06:21.510\nWell, I mean, clearly they have over 1.7 million Thrive Market members, which\n\n1455\n01:06:21.510 --> 01:06:22.880\nis crazy. And when\n\n1456\n01:06:22.880 --> 01:06:26.100\nyou guys talked about, you know, how do you think about customer retention\n\n1457\n01:06:26.100 --> 01:06:27.840\nversus customer acquisition,\n\n1458\n01:06:27.840 --> 01:06:33.180\nhe said they really focus, you know, on retaining customers because 25% of new\n\n1459\n01:06:33.180 --> 01:06:34.560\nbusiness comes from\n\n1460\n01:06:34.560 --> 01:06:38.850\nexisting members. And so, David, as you think about other brands who might not\n\n1461\n01:06:38.850 --> 01:06:40.160\nhave this membership\n\n1462\n01:06:40.160 --> 01:06:45.550\nmodel, what can they learn from Nick and his team at Thrive Market's emphasis\n\n1463\n01:06:45.550 --> 01:06:46.000\non, hey,\n\n1464\n01:06:46.000 --> 01:06:49.960\nwe are serving the customers that we have because we know when we do well with\n\n1465\n01:06:49.960 --> 01:06:50.400\nthose,\n\n1466\n01:06:50.400 --> 01:06:54.360\nthe lifetime value of those customers increases and over time that will take\n\n1467\n01:06:54.360 --> 01:06:55.200\ncare of our acquisition\n\n1468\n01:06:55.200 --> 01:06:59.810\nproblem. So many people want to grow their business by bringing in new users.\n\n1469\n01:06:59.810 --> 01:07:00.720\nAnd that's really a\n\n1470\n01:07:00.720 --> 01:07:06.320\nnoble goal. But damn, is it hard. You know, it's a lot easier to take the users\n\n1471\n01:07:06.320 --> 01:07:07.200\nthat you have and\n\n1472\n01:07:07.200 --> 01:07:11.220\ncultivate them and get them to use you more often than it is to bring in\n\n1473\n01:07:11.220 --> 01:07:12.800\nsomeone totally new into\n\n1474\n01:07:12.800 --> 01:07:18.560\nthe fold. He understands that and knows that that's the key to their success.\n\n1475\n01:07:18.560 --> 01:07:19.920\nAnd at the same time,\n\n1476\n01:07:19.920 --> 01:07:23.880\nyou know, they're really bringing in new users. But guess where a lot of those\n\n1477\n01:07:23.880 --> 01:07:24.800\nnew users come from,\n\n1478\n01:07:24.800 --> 01:07:29.180\nword of mouth, you know, people talk, their current users are telling the new\n\n1479\n01:07:29.180 --> 01:07:30.160\nusers all about it.\n\n1480\n01:07:30.160 --> 01:07:35.500\nAnd then that's why they jump into the fold. Yeah. One of their values is\n\n1481\n01:07:35.500 --> 01:07:37.120\nmember first. And so this\n\n1482\n01:07:37.120 --> 01:07:41.730\nethos around serving the people that are already our power users to use one of\n\n1483\n01:07:41.730 --> 01:07:43.840\nyour phrase is really\n\n1484\n01:07:43.840 --> 01:07:48.360\njust ingrained in every aspect of their business. So every decision they make\n\n1485\n01:07:48.360 --> 01:07:49.440\nis filtered through,\n\n1486\n01:07:49.440 --> 01:07:52.960\nhow is this going to serve our members and how can we make whatever we're doing\n\n1487\n01:07:52.960 --> 01:07:54.400\n? Take a member\n\n1488\n01:07:54.400 --> 01:07:57.310\nfirst approach to that. Yeah. And they really thought through their culture.\n\n1489\n01:07:57.310 --> 01:07:58.560\nAnd I love that\n\n1490\n01:07:58.560 --> 01:08:01.840\nmember first being one of the biggest things that they were really trying to\n\n1491\n01:08:01.840 --> 01:08:03.520\ndrive as a core value.\n\n1492\n01:08:03.520 --> 01:08:10.880\nAnd he put that, put the cultural values into very simple language as well,\n\n1493\n01:08:10.880 --> 01:08:11.600\nwhich I think is\n\n1494\n01:08:11.600 --> 01:08:15.560\nreally important. That makes them different. Well, David, you asked Nick this\n\n1495\n01:08:15.560 --> 01:08:15.920\nand lightning\n\n1496\n01:08:15.920 --> 01:08:19.900\nround. And so I'm going to ask you this as part of the debrief. What is your\n\n1497\n01:08:19.900 --> 01:08:20.800\nfavorite\n\n1498\n01:08:20.800 --> 01:08:23.950\nThrive Market product that you've ever bought? Well, I told you I'm a friend. I\n\n1499\n01:08:23.950 --> 01:08:24.960\nlove those olives.\n\n1500\n01:08:24.960 --> 01:08:29.600\nIt's the olives. It's the olives. Yeah, it's the olives. I also didn't know\n\n1501\n01:08:29.600 --> 01:08:30.560\nthat you didn't like\n\n1502\n01:08:30.560 --> 01:08:34.910\nsweet potato fries, which was shocking to me. Yeah, but his were pretty good.\n\n1503\n01:08:34.910 --> 01:08:36.160\nHis were pretty\n\n1504\n01:08:36.160 --> 01:08:40.750\ngood, which was shocking to me. You know, hey, hey, I always believe this. If\n\n1505\n01:08:40.750 --> 01:08:42.000\nyou can make really\n\n1506\n01:08:42.000 --> 01:08:49.200\nhealthy food, taste great. So there's no trade off. It's a gold mine. It's very\n\n1507\n01:08:49.200 --> 01:08:50.160\n, very hard to do,\n\n1508\n01:08:50.960 --> 01:08:55.920\nvery hard to do, because people like salt, people like it, you know, all the\n\n1509\n01:08:55.920 --> 01:08:56.640\nthings that you could\n\n1510\n01:08:56.640 --> 01:09:03.190\ntry sugar. I made a lot of money for in our brands by capitalizing on those\n\n1511\n01:09:03.190 --> 01:09:03.520\nthings.\n\n1512\n01:09:03.520 --> 01:09:08.150\nSo we didn't have any green olives at any one of our restaurants. I could tell\n\n1513\n01:09:08.150 --> 01:09:08.480\nyou that.\n\n1514\n01:09:08.480 --> 01:09:11.520\nWell, that's what Nick Green and his team at Thrive Market are for.\n\n1515\n01:09:11.520 --> 01:09:15.570\nBut you know, we did have though, you know, one of the things we did have at\n\n1516\n01:09:15.570 --> 01:09:16.240\nTaco Bell,\n\n1517\n01:09:16.240 --> 01:09:19.600\nwhich is very successful, and it really went after people are looking for\n\n1518\n01:09:19.600 --> 01:09:20.160\nhealthy,\n\n1519\n01:09:20.160 --> 01:09:24.830\nhealthier foods is, you know, we had like five, five items under the fresco\n\n1520\n01:09:24.830 --> 01:09:25.760\nmenu. I think it was\n\n1521\n01:09:25.760 --> 01:09:31.120\nlike we had five items under, you know, you have 10 fat grams, or I forget\n\n1522\n01:09:31.120 --> 01:09:32.720\nexactly what it was,\n\n1523\n01:09:32.720 --> 01:09:37.350\nbut you know, they tasted good. And you know, we sold a lot of it. But I'll\n\n1524\n01:09:37.350 --> 01:09:37.680\ntell you what,\n\n1525\n01:09:37.680 --> 01:09:40.320\nif you try to sell stuff that doesn't taste good, you're in deep water.\n\n1526\n01:09:40.320 --> 01:09:48.560\nWell, David, I loved this episode. Excellent job per usual. Nick Green is just\n\n1527\n01:09:48.560 --> 01:09:49.680\na fascinating\n\n1528\n01:09:49.680 --> 01:09:53.840\nguy who is trying to make healthy living accessible to everyone on the planet,\n\n1529\n01:09:53.840 --> 01:09:57.520\nand it's such a noble cause. And I'm a huge fan of Thrive Market.\n\n1530\n01:09:57.520 --> 01:10:01.480\nYeah, and I'm a huge fan of Nick. He's a terrific leader, and I think the best\n\n1531\n01:10:01.480 --> 01:10:02.720\nis yet to come for him.\n\n1532\n01:10:02.720 --> 01:10:07.120\nAbsolutely. Well, that does it for our episode of How Leaders Lead for today.\n\n1533\n01:10:07.120 --> 01:10:10.800\nThank you so much for tuning in, and we'll see you next week.\n","is_pinned",false,"pinned_at","is_featured","featured_at","mix_url","https://chtbl.com/track/DCB44F/traffic.megaphone.fm/DVL7694290990.mp3","dx_media_id",2510,"video_media_id","thumbnail_image_media_id","published_date","2025-10-09","itunes_episode_id",260,"youtube_id","gNhdXFAvi40","2025-10-09T15:50:39.000000Z","dx_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/vRp48pJZwXa02eB0LdkzXrUWbx1xPUXLcYqxuDZR.mp3","dx_filename","vRp48pJZwXa02eB0LdkzXrUWbx1xPUXLcYqxuDZR.mp3","dx_mux_playback_id","p4Dj8BUpLGUsu02Hs0001BbKwLaX02t5dfhrPNA01BXz9HIk","dx_waveform_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/waveforms/2510.json","video_url","video_mux_playback_id","duration",4210825,"thumbnail_url","https://img.youtube.com/vi/gNhdXFAvi40/maxresdefault.jpg","thumbnail_image_url","dx_media",{"_13":66,"_95":79,"_96":77,"_97":-5,"_31":81,"_33":98,"_99":-5,"_100":83,"_86":87,"_101":-5},"video_media","thumbnail_image_media","filename","url","status","y01BDGbE5mVJkES73UWDscOwCemEmOVZcS1GjnsadYB00","mux_upload_id","waveform_url","preview_media_id","first_name","Nick","last_name","Green","job_title","Thrive Market, Cofounder and CEO","Nick Green, CEO, Cofounder, entrepreneur, Thrive Market, grocery, food, ecommerce, latino","external_links","https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasgreen",0,"image_media_id",2495,2496,"2026-07-20T20:42:23.000000Z","send_push_notification_at","image_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/pY01dmg50aiWURh6bUL9vSNZIawnYTGiVr80GY1w.jpg","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/35SrdfCVs6pUO0JS36m9gqA2c448YufhojFNHiV7.jpg","https://www.howleaderslead.com/leaders/248/nick-green","industry_id",4,"industry",{"_13":122,"_133":134,"_135":137},"industries",[132],"image_media",{"_13":113,"_95":131,"_96":118,"_97":-5,"_31":-5,"_33":-5,"_99":-5,"_100":-5,"_86":-5,"_101":-5},{"_13":114,"_95":130,"_96":119,"_97":-5,"_31":-5,"_33":-5,"_99":-5,"_100":-5,"_86":-5,"_101":-5},"35SrdfCVs6pUO0JS36m9gqA2c448YufhojFNHiV7.jpg","pY01dmg50aiWURh6bUL9vSNZIawnYTGiVr80GY1w.jpg",{"_13":122,"_133":134,"_135":136},"name","Retail and E-commerce","pivot",{"_35":36,"_121":122},{"_35":36,"_121":122},"user","token","favorites",[],"collections",[],"env",{"_146":147,"_148":149,"_150":151,"_152":153,"_154":155},"GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID","644017954836-qpllhu38r0tsrtfq85ukntcvsb0akbht.apps.googleusercontent.com","APPLE_CLIENT_ID","com.howleaderslead.webapp","APPLE_REDIRECT_URI","https://www.howleaderslead.com/auth/apple-callback","APP_URL","https://howleaderslead.com","GTM_ID",""]