How I Built and Sold SALT & STONE

This is our full interview with Nima Jalali, recorded live on TBPN. We discuss how he went from pro snowboarder to building one of the fastest-growing personal care brands in the market, unpack why relentless product obsession, profitability from day one, and brand building over playbook thinking helped the company scale to $165 million in revenue, and debate what aspiring consumer founders can learn from his unconventional path on everything from product development and retail expansion to focus, funding, and building a legacy brand that can last for generations. Sign up for TBPN’s daily newsletter at TBPN.com TBPN.com is made possible by: Ramp - https://Ramp.com AppLovin - https://axon.ai Cognition - https://cognition.ai Console - https://console.com CrowdStrike - https://crowdstrike.com ElevenLabs - https://elevenlabs.io Figma - https://figma.com Fin - https://fin.ai Gemini - https://gemini.google.com Graphite - https://graphite.com Gusto - https://gusto.com/tbpn Labelbox - https://labelbox.com Lambda - https://lambda.ai Linear - https://linear.app MongoDB - https://mongodb.com NYSE - https://nyse.com Okta - https://www.okta.com Phantom - https://phantom.com/cash Plaid - https://plaid.com Public - https://public.com Railway - https://railway.com Ramp - https://ramp.com Restream - https://restream.io Sentry - https://sentry.io Shopify - https://shopify.com Turbopuffer - https://turbopuffer.com Vanta - https://vanta.com Vibe - https://vibe.co Sentry - https://sentry.io Cisco - https://www.ciscoaisummit.com/ai-virtual-summit.html Follow TBPN: https://TBPN.com https://x.com/tbpn https://open.spotify.com/show/2L6WMqY3GUPCGBD0dX6p00?si=674252d53acf4231 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/technology-brothers/id1772360235 https://www.youtube.com/@TBPNLive

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00John Coogan?

  Introduce yourself for those who are not familiar, since it is your first time.

• 0:03Speaker 01

  My name is Nima Jalali. I'm the founder of Salt and Stone.

• 0:06John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  And founder and CEO.

• 0:08John Coogan?

  Yeah, take us back.

• 0:09Jordi Hays?

  And I'll give some context. So I met, Nima recently moved into my area and I think we met within like a week of you moving in. And so I haven't even gotten like the full story, even though we've been hanging out the last couple of weeks.

• 0:24John Coogan?

  Cool.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, full story. I was a pro, yeah, I was a pro snowboarder. I heard you're from Pasadena.

• 0:29John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Is that right?

• 0:30John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  So I'm from La Cuenca.

• 0:31John Coogan?

  No way.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:32John Coogan?

  That's awesome.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  And so grew up there, was obsessed with skateboarding, then got into snowboarding and started going to those local mountains.

• 0:38Jordi Hays?

  Like Mountain High, Big Bear.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  No, like Mount Waterman. And it used to be called Krakka Ridge.

• 0:43John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Have you heard of that?

• 0:44John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so back in the day, you know, when I was in high school, we had, you know, El Nino winters.

• 0:48John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Like a ton of snow and they would actually operate. They don't operate anymore.

• 0:52John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  And so I just, I would just get out of school at 12 every day and go up there, five days a week.

• 0:56John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  And I got good and went off and turned into a pro snowboarder.

• 1:01John Coogan?

  What does that mean? Does that mean like speed competitions, trick competitions? What are you doing? Cause there are multiple, there are multiple ways to become a professional snowboarder, correct?

• 1:11Speaker 01

  More like freestyle.

• 1:12Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, so there's basically like two paths. There's like, think like a lifestyle guy who's just like going around making movies all the time.

• 1:20John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 1:20Jordi Hays?

  And then there's like the competition track.

• 1:22John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:22Jordi Hays?

  And there's some crossover. But generally, there's like, you have sponsors in both departments.

• 1:27John Coogan?

  Yes.

• 1:27Jordi Hays?

  But one, one person is focused on like winning contests, going to the Olympics, going to the X Games.

• 1:32John Coogan?

  Yes.

• 1:32Jordi Hays?

  Doing things like that. And then there's, then there's the more like guys that might do backcountry or street or park, but they're focused on producing.

• 1:40John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:41Jordi Hays?

  Like parts, basically.

• 1:43John Coogan?

  Got it.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  I didn't know you knew so much about it.

• 1:45Jordi Hays?

  I know a lot.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I wasn't the contest guy. I was more in movies and in magazines and stuff.

• 1:50John Coogan?

  Oh, cool.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  So went off and did that.

• 1:53John Coogan?

  How long were you doing that?

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Uh, pro for about 10 years, from about, from about 20 to 30.

• 1:57John Coogan?

  10 years, that's awesome.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it was amazing. I mean, that was like my college, really.

• 2:01John Coogan?

  Yeah, it must be so much fun.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was fun.

• 2:03Jordi Hays?

  What is the, what, I feel like entrepreneurs can probably resonate with what like a pro snowboarder is doing, where your job is to basically produce, right, like a banger part, a season, potentially multiple, and there's like this prep where you're basically like-

• 2:21John Coogan?

  What is part?

• 2:21Jordi Hays?

  Like, that's like a five-minute video-

• 2:23John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 2:24Jordi Hays?

  -that might be released independently or as part of an entire movie.

• 2:27John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 2:28Jordi Hays?

  And so your job is to do enough tricks-

• 2:30John Coogan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:31Jordi Hays?

  -stomp them-

• 2:32John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:32Jordi Hays?

  -as Nemo would probably-

• 2:33Speaker 01

  It's a lot, yeah, it's a lot. There's a lot. I mean, there's, there's, like, you pick out a song, you, you know, that you wanna have in your part. There's first part, and then the most prestigious is being in the la- the last part, you know, in the, in the video. Like, everyone, so it's like, you got this video and everyone's supposed to be on the same, like, kinda like, team to make this best video. There's like probably 10 snowboarders going after it and doing it.

• 2:54John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  But there's a little competition within that, cuz everybody wants to get last part.

• 2:58John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? And so, it's, it's not a team sport, you know? You're really out for yourself, and like, there, there are a lot of lessons that you learn, especially growing up skateboarding, you know, where it's like, fail, fail, fail, fail, like, trying to, like, learning how to kickflip takes you six months of just failing, and then, and then you figure it out, and so-

• 3:17Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, then the other, the other thing is these parts come together. It might be like four or five minutes, right? It's just one trick after another, but you're missing, sometimes they'll include it, but they're missing like the blooper reel, which is like, sometimes you have to fall really, really hard 20 times in a row to land the one that you make it look easy.

• 3:36John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 3:36Jordi Hays?

  And, uh, that gets cut out. So I feel like there's so many, there's so many lessons out of that.

• 3:41John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:41Jordi Hays?

  Uh, you know, a lot of successful entrepreneurs would have, would have, you know, failed miserably for years, and then they have that breakthrough, kind of like, product or feature, or whatever it is. And snowboarding, it's happening on like a day-to-day basis, where you have like one season, right, to put together your part, and you're kind of like racing against-

• 4:00John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 4:00Jordi Hays?

  Uh, Mother Nature in some sense.

• 4:02John Coogan?

  Can you chase the winter into the southern hemisphere effectively?

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:08John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:09John Coogan?

  So you would be, how many days would you actually be snowboarding over a year?

• 4:12Speaker 01

  I mean, five days a week. Like, I, I ended up, I would live, I lived in Tahoe, Mammoth, Utah and all that, but I, I ended up landing in Big Bear just because it was like, the weather's always good for, if you want to just snowboard every day and, and train.

• 4:25John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Um, the weather's always, you know, sunny and nice and it's not like icy or cold. So I would just go there and snowboard every day and then fly out of LAX to wherever I needed to go.

• 4:34Jordi Hays?

  And Big Bear, Big Bear is like basically one left that you're just going around and around and there's

• 4:39John Coogan?

  Just practice.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  The best snowboard park.

• 4:41Jordi Hays?

  Fifty, fifty features you can hit on one. So you like go, you might be hiking like a little bit on one feature.

• 4:47John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 4:48Jordi Hays?

  Uh, but, but you're basically lapping it. So people that like, don't like park go there and they're like, this is the worst mountain ever. Like if you're used to skiing in Mammoth or Tahoe or Colorado.

• 4:57John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 4:57Jordi Hays?

  But if you just want to ride park, Big Bear is incredible.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Jordy, we're gonna have to go, man.

• 5:00Jordi Hays?

  I know, I know. No, I went, I went through, I, I did, I did almost like fifty days, I think my junior year of college, a lot at Big Bear. I would just go up and lap, lap the park.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 5:11Jordi Hays?

  Um, a lot of good memories.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's a project, it's a project that you're... What's that?

• 5:15John Coogan?

  Where do you ski in the southern hemisphere?

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Um...

• 5:18John Coogan?

  If it's, if it's summer here, I imagine that even Big Bear, there's no snow. And so you have to go to the southern hemisphere?

• 5:23Speaker 01

  The only time I snowboarded in the summer was going to Mount Hood where it was like, there's a glacier.

• 5:28John Coogan?

  Okay, so it's still, it's still snow. I don't.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  There's still snow. So it's, it's in, uh, Mount Hood and, and they have like the summer camp.

• 5:34John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  And so all these kids go and a lot of pros go and stuff. But honestly, during the summer, I would just skate, I would skateboard.

• 5:39John Coogan?

  Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Cool. Okay.

• 5:41Jordi Hays?

  Okay, so the reason you're here is because, uh, you built Salt and Stone over the last eight years. Exit, partially exited this week. I don't know, uh, I don't know which, I know the numbers, I don't know what numbers you're, you're disclosing. Um, but, uh, but yeah, take us through, what wa, what was the transition like? I'm assuming you didn't just like retire and immediately start Salt and Stone or was it effectively instantly?

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Um, so I, I had a couple of ventures within that industry, like the, the surf, skate, snow world. And then, you know, Salt and Stone was this idea that I've, that I had had and...

• 6:18Jordi Hays?

  Which is like... I don't know if you can give any context on that, but like brutal industry because every single pro and everybody adjacent also wants to start ventures within the industry.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's true. And but I mean, there's just such a ceiling in that in that world, you know, unless you're like, end up being a Burton or a Quicksilver or something like that, right?

• 6:39Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, and even those brands have struggled.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Totally. So I knew I knew I wanted to do Salt and Stone and, you know, I wanted to do something on my own, to be honest with you. I had, you know, just I had business partners and everything and and I wanted to just see how far I could go if I just went like all in 100% like not have to, you know, worry about waking up at 2:00 in the morning and doing, you know, emails and just just going so hard and and just I could justify that if it's just like all me and I'm just like going for it. And so, yeah, and so transitioned over to that full time. And it's been just a rocket ship, man. It's been such a great, such a great journey.

• 7:12Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, you guys did 165 million last year.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:16Jordi Hays?

  Scaling still. What was the first product?

• 7:18Speaker 01

  The first product was sunscreen, actually. Yeah, so sunscreen was a first.

• 7:22Jordi Hays?

  Again, it's like a brutal, as I would say, like, from my perspective, sunscreen's like a brutal category because like a lot of people use it throughout the year, but like much fewer people actually are using it enough to like need to even be on a subscription. And then oftentimes you're buying it like just in a random hotel, like, you know, retail store because you're on vacation. Anyways, but.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I always wanted to do deodorant and sunscreen was the it just it just happened faster as far as searching for the perfect, you know, chemist, contract manufacturer and all that stuff to bring it to life. And so sunscreen came out, the the brand was profitable from day one. And then when we launched deodorant.

• 8:01Jordi Hays?

  How did you sell? Were you just selling it D to C or?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  So we had some retail on day one. So I had retailers lined up. We had, I think, about 40 to 50 of them. And so as soon as we were shipping orders, we were collecting payment. And so, you know, I funded it out of my own pocket to start, but was able to pay myself back pretty quickly and, you know.

• 8:22John Coogan?

  Were those forty or fifty stores, were those individual stores or chains?

• 8:27Speaker 01

  There were individual stores.

• 8:28John Coogan?

  Individual stores.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And then it was when we launched deodorant was really when it, you know, stores started coming to us.

• 8:34John Coogan?

  Yeah. What's the, what are the economics of like getting one sunscreen product, it sounds like one SKU into one of those stores? Are they buying like a hundred dollar box?

• 8:45Speaker 01

  There was a minute, there's a minimum, you know, like and I, from my memory, I think it was like a case pack of twelve sunscreens. It came out to like three hundred bucks.

• 8:52John Coogan?

  Okay, yeah. And then they can sell it at a markup and then this RP.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 8:56John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 8:57Jordi Hays?

  How, how quickly did you realize that, like my, my experience having invested in CPG over the years is the number one, the number one factor that leads to success is not like operational excellence, it's not always just the team. It's just like how good is the product? And I've seen a lot of like exceptional teams that have like all the operational chops, that have all the experience, come out with a product that might be fine or pretty good, but they just don't go anywhere. They can never reach escape velocity because the product fundamentally like doesn't really sell itself. Like you can sell it, might cost a lot to acquire customers, the sell-through is not that great, retailers don't really love it.

• 9:42Jordi Hays?

  And when I first tried your deodorant, after trying probably like twenty different, like better for you deodorants, I was like, wow, this product is like incredible. And I've like retained across years, even though I, I don't even know that I've, I maybe bought it on the website once, maybe bought it on different stores online, or I just buy it in the grocery store. But I'm like permanently retained because I tried everything else and this is just the best. It like goes on well, it smells good. And so I was just like sold off of that. And you didn't need to be like the best at like email marketing to me, or like have the best like retention flows, because I was just like, it's a good product, I've tried everything else.

• 10:22Jordi Hays?

  And so I'm wondering like how you, how, how quickly you realize that from like a product development standpoint? How much of like, what is your ethos around product development? When is a product ready to actually go to market versus just still on that kind of testing phase?

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's why we launched sunscreen before deodorant because we were just trying to get everything perfect, right? And so we did something in deodorant that hadn't been done before, especially in clean deodorant, you know, whereas deodorants before didn't smell the way I wanted to, right? Like they weren't, they didn't have these sophisticated scents and clean deodorants didn't work or they weren't really like a pleasurable experience to use and they certainly didn't look good.

• 11:00Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, they'd be like mint.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:02Jordi Hays?

  It's like, I don't want to smell like toothpaste.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. It's like, you know, why shouldn't it smell as good as your perfume or cologne, right? And so just hitting it on all cylinders and making sure it's, you know, perfect. And for me, I was really making it for myself, right? Like, what do I want? And it turns out what I wanted was what everybody else wanted, so.

• 11:20Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. Did the company ever almost die?

• 11:24Speaker 01

  No.

• 11:27Jordi Hays?

  This story.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  It's been, it's been a dream come true, right, man?

• 11:33Jordi Hays?

  It's so funny because, because like the, the classic philosophy and We died 25 times. It's like, yeah, we almost, here's this time, we almost died. And in talking to you, like, like getting to know you just, just recently, it just kind of seemed like it was just like permanently up, up into the right. And you, you told me one story that was like, not like kind of annoying around on the, on the capital side, but nothing that was like, I didn't feel like you experienced that much hardship. Just one shot at entrepreneurship. It's amazing. And it's so crazy because I know, I know so many, you started the company at like the peak of the D to C boom. Like this was a time, this was 2017. 2017. Right? And so this was the time that like everyone was like Red antler brands.

• 12:17Jordi Hays?

  Like Red antler, Gin Lane, we're just pumping out brands. There's so much capital flowing. I'm sure you had many competitors. There was like a VC backwater. Yeah, there was a school on the East Coast, I forget, I forget the name of it, but they had like an MBA program that was like every single Not Harvard. It was one.

• 12:36John Coogan?

  No, there were a lot of, there were a lot of MBAs that were.

• 12:38Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, there was like. Every person in an MBA program would be like, I'm building a DTC brand and they were just picking.

• 12:44John Coogan?

  And there were some really good outcomes that people were tracking against like Dollar Shave Club and Harry's. And there were a number of companies where it was like, oh, they did Warby Parker. They raised money. They did the VC playbook and it's sort of penciled out for everyone. But then later people realized like, oh, those were more like one-off exceptions to the rule where you get a Unilever who gets excited and buys Dollar Shave Club for a billion dollars. And maybe it doesn't wind up realizing a billion dollars of value because it's just a young company. So.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, honestly, it's, I feel like it's just the power of, of a founder who's just going to be relentless and go up against the big guys, right? Cause I interview people from the big guys all the time and I'm shocked at like how sleepy some organizations are, right? And so if you even have a team of three people that are just relentless and you guys know from like what you guys do.

• 13:33John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  It's like, you can't compete with that. I don't care how much money you have or what incubator you're in or what VC's, you know, starting you. It's if you have a founder who's just going to be relentless and.

• 13:43Jordi Hays?

  How did, how did the approach to funding evolve? Like, cause you, you said you were like profitable from day one. You did raise at, at a couple of different points, a little bit of money, but did you, did you care about maintaining profitability? Or did you ever go to, go through periods of growth where you thought, okay, we can, we can burn a little bit here to get to the next stage?

• 14:04Speaker 01

  We've always been profitable. That's always been important. Right? I just want to make sure the bank balance is growing. The, the raises were sec, were secondary, right? It was me sort of taking chips off the table. The business has just been so profitable that we didn't really need to inject it with, with, with money, you know? And so it's, it's a healthy business, man. I'm blessed and.

• 14:23John Coogan?

  Venture capital? Not really my cup of tea.

• 14:28Jordi Hays?

  It's just so, it's so crazy. I mean, it just goes back to you guys nailed so many different elements of, of the product. And yet I know, I know people that started deodorant brands during that same period that just didn't, they just didn't, didn't go anywhere.

• 14:43John Coogan?

  So what was the early team like?

• 14:45Speaker 01

  The early team?

• 14:45John Coogan?

  Yeah. Yeah. So, so you have the idea, solo founder, uh, but, and you mentioned co packer. Did you work with a formulator? Do you hire a salesperson first, operations manager, somebody just to help you, personal assistant? Like what was the stack?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. So first two, first three years was myself, just, just myself, right? And, um, and then for, for that, it was really, uh, working with contract manufacturers, chemists, but also, you know, bouncing off my internal like network on like, hey, I got this deodorant sample, like people I trusted, uh, their taste and what, you know, here's the goal. This is what I'm trying to achieve here. Like let's, let's test it. And so, so that, myself, you know, my wife, like constantly we're smelling each other's underarms, you know?

• 15:28John Coogan?

  Is it working?

• 15:29Jordi Hays?

  In the lab?

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, it was just relentless, man. It was like, we, we know what we wanted in a product. We see what else is out there. We have all the other products on our shelf, right? Like to just see what, what they're like. Let's make something better. Right? And so, um, and then three years in, I hired, um, I hired somebody who really took on all the ops, um, all that stuff off my plate. That's not where I excel ops and like finance and like all that. So I'm more a brand product. Anything the customer sees, that's what, what I love. And so when she took all that and she really excels at that stuff, and it was me and her for like three years, four years after that.

• 16:00John Coogan?

  Wow.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Um, or like, like two, three years after that.

• 16:03Jordi Hays?

  Still just a couple of people.

• 16:04John Coogan?

  This is like 2022 and you're still two people?

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Uh, no.

• 16:10Jordi Hays?

  2019.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  No, it was like, yeah, sorry. Nine years or, uh, yeah.

• 16:14John Coogan?

  Three years solo, three years with two people, it's six years.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  No, then we, then we.

• 16:17John Coogan?

  Yesterday.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Then we started hiring. So she came on board and, and it really, I saw how, how it would really excel the business. And I got to focus on what I like to do. She came in and crushed it way better than I could do on the other stuff. 3PL, logistics, all that stuff. And then I saw power of team. And then from there, we just started hiring people, hiring people. And then, and then just got the confidence to keep hiring is, you know, cause the more we hired, you know, we hired the right people, then the business kept growing and growing and growing. And then all of a sudden it's 1066 and we're the best selling deodorant on Amazon.

• 16:43John Coogan?

  How big is the team now?

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Uh, fifty, fifty-five.

• 16:46John Coogan?

  It's still really tight.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  It's really tight.

• 16:48John Coogan?

  It's really good.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  We have a high bar for who we bring in.

• 16:50John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Like, it's, you know, we'll interview people and I'll know within five minutes, like.

• 16:53John Coogan?

  Yeah. Are you in the office or remote?

• 16:55Speaker 01

  No, no office, all remote.

• 16:56John Coogan?

  All remote.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  All remote.

• 17:02Jordi Hays?

  This is like the most insane, the most insane story is.

• 17:07Jordi Hays?

  It's like, you know, most, most of the time you get to this moment, it's just like the most battle scarred.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Tell them, you may or may not, it's been a fun ride.

• 17:16John Coogan?

  Okay, so, uh, wa- walk me through the product, uh, portfolio expansion, how that happens? And then are you subdividing sales reps by region or vertical or channel?

• 17:30Speaker 01

  We don't have sales reps.

• 17:30John Coogan?

  You don't have sales?

• 17:31Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 17:35John Coogan?

  Sales reps never.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  So here's, here's the thing, here's the thing, like, you gotta create a brand that the retailer wants.

• 17:40John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Right?

• 17:41John Coogan?

  Cause they call you.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  You don't wanna go and just like push something down a retailer's throat and have your sales guy knocking on the door and all that stuff.

• 17:47John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  And that was it, like, really focusing, like, this wasn't all just like, oh, it's just happening, it's happening. It's like an obsession, right?

• 17:52John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Like, I got, I turned into an advertising expert for like six months. All I did was want us to have the best ads, the best digital presence.

• 18:00John Coogan?

  Okay.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Right? And I create a brand that the retailers needed to have, right? And then from there, then those retailers need to have you.

• 18:07John Coogan?

  What was that?

• 18:07Speaker 01

  And they come knocking on the door.

• 18:08John Coogan?

  What was that advertising process like? Were you looking, were you reading Ogilvy, looking at the greats?

• 18:12Speaker 01

  It's just looking at all, looking at all the competitors.

• 18:15John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Seeing how they do, right? And, and really, it's like not looking at the other indie brands, like looking at the big brands.

• 18:21John Coogan?

  Sure.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Like, I always wanna take inspiration from the brands like.

• 18:23John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Like the Nikes of the world that are gonna be here in a hundred years. Cause that's what I want this brand to be, right? I don't want, this isn't some like influencer brand, I'm not an influencer, right? I'm not in front of the camera, like, this is something that, um, I, I want to be a legacy brand that's here long after I'm gone.

• 18:36John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  So those are, those are the brands I look at for inspiration.

• 18:39John Coogan?

  And then, uh, how are you actually instantiating your learnings? Like, are you, uh, directing photo shoots? Are you casting models? Are you

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Right now?

• 18:48John Coogan?

  Writing copy? No, no. Once you go through that, that six-month

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:51John Coogan?

  brand exercise, you become the expert. Are you, are you like, you know, taking a project, a brand project from start to finish? Or are you picking an agency or hiring people?

• 19:00Speaker 01

  It was, it was start to finish. So there was a time where I was picking out models, picking out photographers, videographers, helping with the edit, like all that stuff. The edits here.

• 19:08John Coogan?

  Yep.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  And then go in and work with. Yeah, yeah. And if they're static, like still photos, I would go into Figma, drop text overlay, figure out what to say, like all that stuff. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I just threw everything at it. And all I did, I gave up all, like everything, all my hobbies, like snowboarding, skateboarding, like all that stuff. Like I got into golf for a second. All of it ended. Like, it was just like, I'm gonna go in on this. But like, when you get a signal that the thing is working, right?

• 19:32John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Then you want to.

• 19:33John Coogan?

  Cause the bank balance is going up.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Bank balance is going up. You're having fun. It's like really your purpose. It's just like, nothing else I want. Like, I wanna build, I wanna build it, yeah.

• 19:42John Coogan?

  What'd you think about international expansion?

• 19:44Speaker 01

  What do I think about it?

• 19:45John Coogan?

  Yeah. Well, how has your thinking evolved? What's the strategy? Is that something that, uh, a lot of companies, uh, go through this moment where they're like, maybe it's so operationally complex, it'll change the business. So let's put it off. Let's maybe wait until we're at a point where we can team up with a bigger company and through a merger or acquisition and let them bring their operational force so that you don't need, you know, a person in every locality because they will bring that to bear and you're set up for success.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, so we've already expanded internationally and, and

• 20:16John Coogan?

  As I predicted.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Sephora Canada, Sephora UK, spacing K in the UK, Sephora Europe, we just launched.

• 20:23John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Middle East, Southeast Asia, so on, so on. That being said, there's a lot of, a lot more opportunity. And that's one of the reasons I chose Advent to be, to be the, uh, the partner here. It's because they have a strong expertise in international and I feel really great about them. I mean, look, my, my goal was never to just exit out fully and just put it in somebody's hands and let it go to shit. Like, that's not what I want.

• 20:44John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  I want the brand to, I want, I want my grandkids to look at this thing and be like, oh yeah, that's what my grandfather built, you know? And I want it to be around. I want it to be, you know, what it was always meant to be and not turn into some, you know, discount brand.

• 20:56John Coogan?

  So.

• 20:57Jordi Hays?

  Yeah. What, what was the, how, how many?

• 21:01Jordi Hays?

  Did you have a bunch of opportunities to sell prior to this moment? I'm assuming people were just like kind of seeing public metrics and sell-through and all these things and hounding you at different points. What was the process of like knowing when the time was right?

• 21:15Speaker 01

  We had a lot of private equity reaching out, a lot of people reaching out in general. And so I worked with Raymond James, who I love, and I would just forward it to them. And they told me when it was time and it was like, let's go, let's go explore, let's go explore the market, yeah.

• 21:29John Coogan?

  So this was not a story where you met your acquirer like years and years ago?

• 21:33Speaker 01

  We'd been talking for about, you know, for several months, six plus months, you know, and I really, really liked them, you know. And for me, it's when I did the deal with Humble Growth two years ago, you know, we had 15 private equity funds to choose from and I liked them because of who they... No, we had a lot, we had a lot of bidders, you know.

• 21:55Jordi Hays?

  No, no. If you were looking for, you know, the hero's journey of founder stories, this isn't it.

• 22:05John Coogan?

  You can turn it off.

• 22:07Jordi Hays?

  I mean, it is, it is, it is in a way, it's missing some plot points.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  There's a lot more to it. But yeah, I mean, it's just choosing good people to work with, right? People who can do it with integrity and that I want to work with and that like are aligned vision-wise on like what the brand is going to be in the future and let's go build that together.

• 22:26Jordi Hays?

  What advice have you been giving to people that want to follow in your footsteps? That this is like kind of what I feel like every CPG founder imagines is just like, yeah, I'm going to be building for like eight years and then I'm going to sell for, you know, half a billion to a billion to a strategic. And yet, you know, the hit rate is obviously, you know, something probably like, you know, 1%, right? And over the last year, there's, I feel like there's actually been a dip in new brand formation. At least that's what Sean Frank was...

• 23:05Jordi Hays?

  Was I think mentioning on a, on, I think at the end of last year and his point of view, he's the founder or the CEO of Ridge and he's like, okay, in two years are people going to want new brands to choose from and his point of view is like a hundred percent, right? Like there's constantly a desire for newness and that kind of founder-led product development approach that made Salt and Stone what it is today. So yeah, what, what advice are you giving?

• 23:33Speaker 01

  I mean, honestly, like I didn't read any entrepreneurial books or really listen to any like entrepreneurial podcasts or anything until I just went off instinct. Like you gotta fight, we're fighting for our life. My advice would be, would be to go all in. Like you can't, you can't go and be like work-life balance and like, I wanna, you know, check out at five cause like there's gonna be someone right behind you that's gonna come and take, take your place and be that brand that comes in and does what you wanna do if you're gonna just chill. So it's like you gotta, you gotta make sure you love it, you love it cause that's the way you're gonna be able to do it, you know, basically around the clock from the moment you go to sleep to wake up, you know, it's, it's something you gotta love to do and it's gotta be your passion, right? And so you gotta just, just go relentlessly and no, I would say like, forget the work-life balance stuff. You just gotta go hard. You

• 24:18Speaker 01

  gotta go all in and just use your instincts, you know, you just gotta, you gotta be competitive and go after the big guys and don't be afraid and just go, you gotta go for it, go all in.

• 24:27Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, I like to focus on, on the actual incumbents. Like a lot of people will focus too much on like, okay, who are the other new brands in my category and just actually studying like, okay, what, what makes the big players actually successful? It's like, okay, massive retail distribution, like actual like IP on the product side, all, all these things.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, for, for us, it feels like in beauty, there was such a playbook. Like every brand looked the same. All the content was the same. It was like pay the influencer, have the influencer talk about the product, post it on your social, like over and over again, and that's the playbook. And I didn't want to, I didn't even know anything about beauty, really. Like, I'm not, I don't come as skateboarder. You know, I don't come from beauty. I like, I like fashion brands. I like, you know, lifestyle brands. And so coming in and just being inspired by, you know, the Nikes of the world, the, the big brands, um, in- instead of looking at beauty, I think played in our favor because we came out and it was like, oh, this is different, you know?

• 25:19Jordi Hays?

  Did you do any like, community marketing? Because sometimes there's a brand that I love, let's, maybe it's like, uh, I would say like, if a deodorant brand was putting together an event, I don't think I'd be like, I wanna, I gotta be there, but did you, did you do anything that like worked? That broke through that like was material to the business? Because I feel like sometimes it's very distracting for CBQ brands to like do IRL marketing early on. Cause I'm like, I usually will ask a founder like, okay, how many units have you sold in the last month? And they're like, a thousand, a thousand. I'm like, okay, then don't spend thirty thousand dollars on like some activation. Like you should just like make a product that actually sells well and then you'll have opportunities to do things.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, early on, that was my philosophy too. It's like, why are you gonna go waste money on something that you don't know is, is gonna move the needle? So it's like, spend it, like if our ads are going well, like let's just pour more money into that versus like doing some pop up somewhere. But now we're at the point where those IRL pop ups, it's, I think it's, it's good. It's good brand building, you know? And so we, we do that now. Um, we do pop ups.

• 26:21Jordi Hays?

  Yeah, but pop ups are, I would say, different than like a lifestyle event that is just like a bunch of people hanging out.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:28John Coogan?

  What about owned retail, like flagship store? Have you looked into that?

• 26:30Speaker 01

  We're looking into it. So, yeah, yeah. So, so we're looking at, we're looking right now. Yeah, yeah.

• 26:35John Coogan?

  But I mean, it says a lot that you didn't jump into that in year two, for example.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it, it would be tough to do that and maintain profitability, right? And so it's like you're fighting for your life. You wanna make sure it's, it's profitable.

• 26:46John Coogan?

  Yeah, it's balancing act. Like you need enough awareness that you're actually gonna get upside. But then if you have complete awareness, it's probably like you're already stocked everywhere. So it needs to be in the sweet spot.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:57John Coogan?

  Makes sense.

• 26:59Jordi Hays?

  Such an amazing story. Honestly, it's like, it's like a very unique. It's, it's, it's, it's amazing because it's like, it's exactly what people set out to do. And yet it's so uncommon to just like, go up into the, up into the right every month.

• 27:12John Coogan?

  It's great. It's very refreshing. It's like, work hard and don't get caught up in a bunch of, you know,

• 27:19Jordi Hays?

  Stuff that doesn't matter.

• 27:20John Coogan?

  Stuff that doesn't matter.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Do the things that matter, right?

• 27:22Jordi Hays?

  And gone, you're gonna be relieved. He's now a David Senra enjoyer.

• 27:25John Coogan?

  Oh, really?

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Love his podcast.

• 27:27John Coogan?

  He's fantastic.

• 27:28Jordi Hays?

  So he's, he's getting to enjoy David Senra after climbing the mountain.

• 27:31John Coogan?

  That's amazing.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  That's funny, I hear that. It's like, I hear the hustle stuff and like, you gotta do this and you gotta go all in. And I'm like, yeah, like I naturally kind of do that, you know, it makes me.

• 27:41Jordi Hays?

  It works.

• 27:42John Coogan?

  But, but even, yeah, I mean, David talks about this a lot where like, even like a lot of his audience members are not listening to it and saying, oh, I never considered working hard. They're saying like, oh, yes, it's a reminder. It's a, it's a meditation on their current philosophy. And then it's a bunch of other examples and just confidence to continue being different because there's a lot of people, as simple as like, as like focus is, there's a lot of people that feel pressure to continue their golf game.

• 28:10Jordi Hays?

  Oh, I need to have this super complicated seven part strategy.

• 28:13John Coogan?

  That, that, and then also just like the work-life balance thing. Like, there's a lot of pressure to not be that person who's not, who's, who's turning down invites to the golf trip.

• 28:22Jordi Hays?

  Right.

• 28:22John Coogan?

  And that's, and, and so the founders podcast definitely like reinvigorates you to like, add more confidence that you're not crazy, you're not the only person doing this on earth.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. Yeah, I love, I love his passion.

• 28:33John Coogan?

  It's great.

• 28:33Jordi Hays?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna introduce you guys, you guys are gonna have a lot of, a lot of fun.

• 28:36John Coogan?

  Yeah, this'll be great.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Great. Um, brand wise though, we're just getting started, honestly, things like that, you know? And so this partnership's exciting and I can't wait to, to keep building this thing.

• 28:44John Coogan?

  Yeah.

• 28:44Jordi Hays?

  Amazing dude.

• 28:45John Coogan?

  Congratulations. Thank you, yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to come to.

• 28:50Jordi Hays?

  See you back at the ranch.