from the crossroads of America in the Hoosier State of Indiana this is get in the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovations happening right now in the Heartland I'm Nate spangle head of community at Powder Keg and I'll be one of your hosts for today's conversation I'm joined in Studio by co-host Christopher tof day CEO at Elevate Ventures on the show today is Omar Atia co-founder and CEO of zero carb life it's this concept of Health without worrying about what you're going to get back in return help others trusting that's what you're just supposed to do Omar Atia is the co-founder and CEO at zero carb life an Evansville based company that has developed the world's first zero carb high protein pizza crust in today's show we're going to cover building a consumer product company how to take a physical product from idea to real life and share some startup stories that are sure to inspire and educate you Omar welcome to get in thank you Nate I appreciate you guys having me yeah it's gonna be a blast Omar thanks for coming in today oh I am pumped about today's conversation and just learning about growing a direct consumer brand all the things that you guys are doing with zero carb life before we get into that I want to take it back a little bit right so in my research and learning about kind of your background I know that you've been an entrepreneur since grade school can you tell me some about your earliest experience and earliest exposure to business yeah and at the time I didn't know that's what I was doing I didn't know it was entrepreneurship but I I remember always having this desire to make the deal and to have a hustle and to and I would look at people who have achieved things especially business-wise and think that should be easy for someone who puts their mind to it but I remember for instance in school middle school having an opportunity where I saw people selling candy for their teams I didn't know at the time that you're only allowed to do that if you're doing it for a school team and so I was like these guys are really overcharging for this candy I could I could get that I love it I can undercut this market so I went out bought wholesale candy bars and was selling them for about a day and a half until I was caught that was awesome and it was I was criminalized it wasn't like criminalized police or anything but I was like told hey you're breaking the school rules and I didn't even know I was like well everybody else was selling Omar you're not on the baseball team they're selling for their Sport and I said yeah but their son so expensively why can't we just and So eventually I understood that it was not something I could do but from that moment I realized that I need to have a hustle and and as soon as I was old enough to get a job I got a job but it wasn't it was just because that's what I could do but I was always trying to do something like baseball cards of course everybody that was even close to entrepreneurial built with baseball cards very differently than people who were just collecting them even though I didn't even like baseball as a sport I just knew that's where the valuable cards were absolutely it continued from there and and even when I graduated Purdue chemical engineer and and during that process of deciding what company to go work for everybody else had the company they wanted to work for and they were targeting to get interviews with I looked at it as a numbers game I did have companies I wanted to work for the pngs and the Johnson Johnsons and so on and I ended up with PNG but during the process I was there was a joke in my senior chemical engineering class that I was I had a suit on every single day of first semester of senior year and it's because I had an interview every day and for me it was just like it was a numbers thing I wanted the training on the interviews and I wanted to have as many interviews as possible to have as many options as possible to be able to negotiate my deal and I did I had actually two two departments at PNG compete with each other for me and up my initial salary as a fresh grad which was something that others wouldn't have even thought of having that entrepreneurial Spirit from an early age was that something instilled in your home life were there other entrepreneurs around you growing up that's a really good question to some extent but actually a little bit of the opposite at the same time so I had some relatives that were entrepreneurial minded and but it was less I was more impacted by the fact that my father as an immigrant my father immigrated from Egypt in 1969 to the states he was doing very well in Egypt at the time he was an engineer had a military engineering job which was like very Kush who paid very well he actually supported his his family of origin because he was the one who made it out if you will and when he came to the states for him life is about getting a good job if you're the son of an immigrant daughter of an immigrant it's generally generally it's you're a doctor you're an engineer you're a lawyer for the most part especially from the Middle East Indian subcontinent that's generally what you're expected to do to be successful and then you make money and business is something that you do on the side with available money it's not something that you take the risk and throw away the career to do and that was definitely the set expectation in the home of origin that is that's just amazing what brought your family from Egypt to the states so I think even though my father had a good situation it was clear that because so many people were not in a good situation it was clear that without a lot more opportunity for Education a lot more opportunity for a job market and with sort of the situation needed at the time it was clear that there was dictatorial regimes don't necessarily lead to Great economies unless of course there's just a ton of money available from other sources which that's a different story but the point is that it's it was a foresight that he had that he wanted more opportunity for a family that he's growing who in those early years did you look at and go oh that's interesting besides your father is that your family yeah so I had I had a couple of cases of uncles that were entrepreneurial and they weren't necessarily extremely successful but they tried things and some of them worked were they still in Egypt were they were they no no most of them were in the states being an entrepreneur in Egypt you take more risks than in the U.
S so if we're talking about ecosystem development which we'll talk about later that you're talking about now it's so much better because there's a lot of especially from the Gulf Coast countries there's a lot of trying to bring Talent back to the Middle East but at the time it was much more about nationalizing of companies and even multinational companies coming over it was about building the foothold and the supply of that so there wasn't a ton of you can take the risk and make it out type of mindset you either come from money or you don't come from money if you don't come from money or the labor force you're serving those that come from money and unfortunately that's the general norm and in countries that haven't developed beyond the wars that they went through etc etc you're when you came over over did your father did he have to take a step back to get a foothold initially so he talks about this now I didn't know these stories until after he retired he started telling all his stories but yeah he says the story for instance as an example that look I had to I was an engineer at the top of my class and had an amazing job in Egypt when I came here I had to be a welder for a month before an engineering firm even gave me a job and I wasn't right he said I wasn't about to sit and not have a paycheck so I I became a welder to have a paycheck he said and it paid really well it just wasn't that comfortable of a job but he did that and he's wild it's impressive and he when people would come over that are Engineers he would talk them into he was he became that a hub that people would go to he would bring them in as draftsman for instance or he'd bring them in at the lower end of whatever work had to be done in the engineering firm to prove themselves out even though they did more amazing things where they came from just to prove to either their talent and while they're also getting acclimated with the language and sort of the business culture changes so as the son of an immigrant the standard is typically how usually typically said that you're going to go on to be a doctor an engineer a lawyer but meanwhile you're growing up and you're a hustler right did you feel supported in your early entrepreneurial Endeavors or is it clashing with your dad hey focus on school go to college and get a good job take the safe route versus be the entrepreneur definitely the latter more from my father not that he would stand in the way of things he would just say not at the expense of the typical path don't risk the path do what you want but don't risk the path even when it came to sports and a job he would say look the reason you you're in fortunate enough to be supported by your father financially through high school and even into college when other people may not have that in other countries you're going to focus on being the most successful in that path that's been charted for you type of thing it wasn't in a negative way necessarily it was just him saying make the most of what I've given you without having to take extra risk because you're not forced to for him he came from a world where people who had to take that risk they didn't have another choice they had to hustle in order to eat and that they in order to feed their family and that's often the case people have small what they call Micro Enterprises and and of course we've heard the these stories about firms of charitable causes that have created micro loans for micro Enterprises and very impoverished Nations that's definitely the case of countries like Egypt and so on to where entrepreneurship is seen as for those who don't yet have a paycheck that supports things well enough so why would someone and there's not a seen as the unemployed yeah it's seen us the good-minded strong working person who's not doesn't have employment in the middle class range of jobs uh because there's rare Big Exit options there's rare Big Exit stories so it's not seen as how that's how you make it big now there's a little more of that because there's a little more of tech startups there's more growth startups in the recent 20 years but before that there wasn't a lot of that in the Middle East so Kimmy go did you have something else neat yeah yeah one last thing there I'm just like so fascinated your dad seems like a very wise individual he immigrated from Egypt what do you think one or two of the biggest lessons you've learned from his story so I've learned quite a few things one of them which he never explicitly taught but I've learned now from his stories is something that actually I like I talked about I want us to talk about the vision it's this concept of help without worrying about what you're going to get back in return help others trusting that's what you're just supposed to do like he came to the states he made a great life for himself he did not leave behind one soul in Egypt that wanted to do the same thing except that he would help them significantly and he never talked about it and he never talked I have to like drag it out of him all these things that he had done for others and the reason he did it is because he just believed that if he had people like that it would have been easier for him and so he wanted to make it easier for others that concept of helping without worrying about what you get in return for our ecosystem for instance is huge and I believe in it wholeheartedly so that's one lesson I learned from another one is that stop your whining kind of thing you know what I'm saying come on yes of course all of us have challenges and not to belittle people's anxieties people's hardships Etc everybody's story is different Dave Chappelle's this joke where he says comparative suffering never ends because you can when someone says if I say hey let's get lunch and he says kids are starving in Africa so what I I still I'm still hungry but the reality is you do learn a little more about appreciating the things you have versus looking at the things you don't when you hear when you live through or are the son of a story like that my father genuinely came from a family that had very little and even though they had little he tells me the story of my grandfather who I never met because he passed away before I was born that he would his wife my dad tells me about stories where his mom would get in a fight with his dad because he'd come home from he's supposed to be collecting rent they own like another property it was still in underprivileged conditions and so on so he'd go to collect the rent from the building and come back with two of the 12 rents and his wife would be like why do you only have two of the 12 rents and he'd be like this guy had this problem this guy had that problem so I'm waiting until next month she'll be like what about us we don't have enough to eat that's what we need but that story by itself is very inspiring to me because I have so like we have so much and sometimes we focus on I get a challenge of okay our our in-store sales needs a little bit of boost and I'm like God why isn't it going exactly as I'd hoped this number of units this number per week like it was in this other retailer come on you don't want just a little bit of challenge to work through and as entrepreneurs if you don't have that thick skin and that appreciation for hey trust that there's a solution to everything just work work and work and that's how you become successful you don't become successful doing anything but putting your mind to something and just staying after it day in day out year in year out and sticking to it and you'll definitely succeed at the end it's just about work on believing in in what that work achieves results yeah great if you think of grit right yeah absolutely it that really is what it is it's just having that grit and applying it day in and day out no matter what you feel and how surrounding yourself with people that believe in that I wholeheartedly agree with that that is such a resounding message so but before you were a full-time entrepreneur right you were working for PNG I was working for PNG first chemical engineering grad from Purdue you're bidding png's departments against each other you graduate college what are you doing you're an executive right you're no I was a product research engineer initially which was actually an amazing initial job to have especially for entrepreneurship because I learned the application before data analytics before all this stuff we were very focused on statistics as product research engineer at a PNG your job is leveraging statistics to understand what you need to do to product to get the most quality and the most consumer impact out of the least cost and so it's like the perfect learning for the fresh grad out and kemi and I also got a masters from Purdue part-time as I was working and these are all existing products in Market or these new products are thinking about so we were I was mainly focused on existing products improvements there was one project I worked on with new products but and then of course the craft Foods I worked on new products so I moved from product research engineer at Procter Gamble went to craft Foods as a product development engineer but in productivity so that the job there was what do we have in Market how can we make it cheaper but better at the same time innovating in that way and had a one patent that was actually got the patent on it others that I left craft before I did and each time I would be an r d or operation so I then I navigated a career through different consumer products companies all of them big all of them offering me a big thicker golden handcuff yeah for going and doing something bigger and I feel like that's at the time I'm like okay that's what I need in order to feel like I'm really living my entrepreneurial life I don't know it and I'm not calling it entrepreneur I'm calling it making the bigger impact seeing my worth played out and the impact on people's lives that work for me or the consumer that's how I'm seeing it I didn't realize that what I really needed to do is to take a leap and not work for someone else and build something with people that believed in it with me tell us about that what was the final what was the final Domino that led you from a yeah so there was a few dominoes in between because I always had a side house so I had a restaurant that I launched when I was full-time at p g it was a Mediterranean Moroccan restaurant and working on your yes I had a my first son was born I had the Moroccan restaurant I had the full-time job at p g and I was working on my masters through Purdue and you got eight hours of sleep every night and during my 20s so here's the thing if you're going to get less sleep do it in your 20s yeah and it's okay you end up making up for it but yeah in my 20s I never slept seven hours I never even slept at all I don't think six hours I don't necessarily condone that but if you have to that's the time yeah I'm totally with you in my 20 same way I just I'm like you know what right now building the foundation works like a dog and your body like when you're in your 20s you're like my body's not my body's telling me I'm okay I would literally fall asleep in bars with friends it felt amazing look the nap you take when you fall asleep because your body needs you to sleep no one can ever match that type of a nap and sometimes you take it like waiting in line for something or sitting in your car at a drive-through and it's just the best nap in the world even if it's two minutes but that's the 20s and then in the 30s I had a couple other side houses had a language startup that actually I was a partner in one when I once I had three children wanted I realized that look I spoke Arabic well I'm fluent in Arabic because my dad and my mother had the foresight to go to Egypt When We Were Young we spent some years in grade school there then came back to the States even though we were born here and raised here and we knew our life was going to be here and that made a big difference for me to be connected to Egypt's culture connected to the language and very few people that are children of immigrants have that you lose your language of origin you lose all that stuff I wanted that for my kids but it was very difficult to do to just leave and go live in another like that near impossible in my mind so develop this language startup to help young people learn the language at home at the time a video conferencing was brand new it was in like an 09 and it was getting big and so we leveraged that along with some scribe tools that would go online so leverage some new technology to to develop this language startup and then exited that in 14 not necessarily a big exit or anything just because it needed to continue with someone else and it wasn't that that great and then and then were you working on that full-time so there was a year that I was so at between Dean Foods and me Johnson we got a usaid grant for that startup that basically they wanted us to grow as many jobs as possible especially because we were employing a lot of women as to have sort of their micro Enterprise of teaching and women in Egypt and this was USA in Egypt so they give us a big Grant and they required me to be CEO full-time with everyone so I did that for a year and it went really well and I pulled some people some talent that had helped us make that successful initially to to my future endeavors and then in 2012 I worked for me Johnson Nutrition did great work with them it was a great company but it was still the same itch was there started a consulting firm someone knew about United thinking as a process we took Simplex which is a process developed by some people and I became a master trainer on it and added to it some elements from the manufacturing environment called ignited thinking and some systemic things of follow-up to develop business and to things that you now call we can call them scrum process like they're things that are adjacent to that but it's a whole system it's a whole mindset and culture of how you think innovatively Creative Solutions and it helps grow things so we started consulting firm mainly focused on on partners of mine while I was full-time them being full-time growing relationships especially in Dubai and then found a couple of clients in the US and then it became clear that I needed to be full-time with them because the client base was growing rapidly and I said to myself okay this is my n is to be in Consulting and then the growth startups that I can become a part of will be through this we get cash from the big companies that are able to pay for it and then the smaller startups either ideas that we have or ideas that others have we can develop those without having to require cash from them through our own underwriting of them and that's how we started down the path of I started down the path of Entrepreneurship and brought people with me how long were you working in Consulting that was for six years total so it and it didn't end technically because we still have thought fire and we still do what's called a thought fire for good which is mainly to help non-profits and we have one person who's full-time on that and they have a support staff and that's part time and then Consultants they bring on board and then I help ideation so on because I'm still a master in the process but we've leveraged that process to grow zero carb and we've leveraged that process to just in general to to grow our mindset with regards to where we can go with zero carb but I was in Consulting for six years total where 3 three years of it was growing rapidly in Dubai how'd you come across zero carb how did you decide to yeah so zero carb was that my my passion and love for Foods was always there in food technology and I believe that our I'm not just saying this because we have zero carbon it's successful now I genuinely believe that our part of the country we need to identify what are those core areas of verticals that we can be the LeapFrog of the coasts in and have our growth startup World be centered around those and there was I had a friend who was a partner in something that he was like I lost this much money on it and apparently it was an idea that was started as a restaurant and I was like what was the idea and he's like this and I was like did you guys look at it is it being scaled into into manufacturing and other ideas coming out of it and US innovating more and so on no we don't have any of that this is just my my friend who my cousin who told me my cousin who's he was an accountant but he just had diabetes and invented this crust and he took a really long time and invented and I believed in him and wanted to do something with it and I was like that wasn't the right way to do something with it and he's like can you sit down with him and talk with him and that's how it started so I met Muhammad Ali at that time my co-founder and and then we it started from there understanding the food science of it from my perspective for him it was it's all about just kitchen creation but for me I then brought the food science perspective the scale-up perspective Etc and then we started and then I brought a team around it and then in 2020 kovid shut us down with all clients on thought Fireside because everybody's business shut down so all of the revenue streams of thoughtfire that was supporting everybody being part of the team and growing the company was a screeching halt so then I brought everybody from that and said let's just this thing can be huge and let's just put everybody to work on this did you have to reformulate anything in the original yeah we definitely did for the scale-up process we maintained some of the proprietary nature that was already submitted with the first patent as we scaled up and then of course submitted two more patents because because there was some aspect that the uniqueness is there's no binder and so we figured out how to keep that uniqueness while we scaled up and then we've also then created more product forms and our and we have a mindset of how this same thing can be translated into even other product bases so for the listener that might not be familiar with what zero carb life is can you give us a quick overview of what you're building the products you guys have released yes so zero carb life is all about amazing taste that tastes the same as or better than the carb loaded alternative foods but is high protein low to zero carb and so right now our products are pizza crust and chips and the chips taste the regular chips that you would buy Frito-Lay chips from not to go after one specific company but any amazing chips that you would like but they're zero literally zero carbs that's all protein and its base is mainly chicken breast and it's simple ingredients the ingredient line is just four ingredients and it's all in our process it's all in our patented pen pending process of how we make it to be that way and and our goal is not just to these product forms we have six more product forms that are scheduled to launch but as of course product forms are catching fire in the market we zero in and focus on them even more and so maybe we delay the launch of the others because our goal is really to just provide the market with what is needed for people to live a healthier life without having to give up taste and give up the foods that give them joy and give them sort of comfort so this was originally a restaurant Concept in 2010 to 2011 Muhammad had launched it as a restaurant concept and he was basically making pizza for people to come in and eat at his restaurant okay so then pandemic happens you kind of shift from thought Fire full in on zero carb day one of that okay I'm full time on zero carb now what are you working on so we worked on specifically of course the scale up initially so he had done kitchen top and that's all they were doing at the restaurant is that there was no sort of scaling of it so the very first thing we did is identify how we could build equipment that could scale for high volume because we knew this could grow huge and then the next thing we did is two things worked on our e-commerce side of the business real quick can you get back so you had to build your own equipment customize your own equipment because that those process lines as a result of your the patent you have opinion on how you made the product or how you what's what I want to use like why did you have to build the technology wasn't out there so there's technology out there but there's technology to make pizza crust but we needed technology to transition using our material yeah and to bind so to bind chicken breasts their specific time temperature and their specific product formation that's needed it's not we're not talking about millions of dollars in equipment we're talking about unique alterations to equipment and that's the beautiful thing about what we're doing is that it's not like we can replicate it in other places because we have the unique understanding of how to manage time temperature and this came from of course the kitchen top process to some extent but also my main work in Foods has been on time temperature because I was in Dairy I love this stuff because like an outsider looking I'm not a I'm not a Kimmy I'm not a food expert but you just can't assume it okay if you're gonna make this new product and it's chicken based okay great and you just go buy this piece and that piece of equipment on the market the thing in and put your ingredients in in your gold I know there's a little similarity to for in Tech in the tech world where there's going to be some plug-ins there's going to be some shelf code that works but you still are going to have to write your own code if it's to make it unique yeah it's awesome so what was the traction like pre right pre-pandemic what were you guys doing so we launched post Panda so pandemic hit the shutdowns everything was March of 20.
company official launch was April 20th oh wow yeah so it was in the works for the six months prior we launched the company April 20. and you moved Muhammad from Chicago to Evansville in June of 20. oh wow and you launched in April of a pandemic and through the multi-million dollar Revenue month one right no so it was definitely initially how are we gonna but the beautiful thing about we were already doing sort of some Consulting before we decided what we called crisis to Gold we called it crisis to gold and we said look what people need is to use our process our ignited thinking process our creative process to figure out this is what I was planning to do before the pandemic happened this is what I now need to do not only to make the same amount of money but I could potentially make more because what the pandemic opens up for those who understand entrepreneurship is if you read the market well and pivot appropriately not only should you succeed just as much you may be able to succeed much more because you're going now in a new space that very much fewer people are going to go into and that's really what happens most people are just in crisis mode panic mode right out of there and they're looking at their bank account how minus savings okay I'm getting and it's understandable we're humans right but the reality is if you're an entrepreneur you've got to be ready for Calamity candidly and if you're not you're probably not really an entrepreneur you're probably like a wannabe and it's okay to have that but you've got to switch your mindset if you want to really be in it for the long haul you've got to be ready for the hard hits you've got to be ready to take punches and stand back like I could say all the cliches for 10 minutes right now but you really do have to have that so anyway for April we launched the company we make the decision that there's going to be three Focus areas r d to develop the scale up going to finding one customer to be our trial customer and we had already come from the mindset of how we trained other companies do a pilot as it works grow on it as it doesn't work pivot from the learnings that's the mindset it's the mindset of constant learning constant pivoting and as something works double down and grow it it's a and that's entrepreneurship is actually really simple if you've got the right mindset it's not complex like people make it out to be it's less way less complex than a lot of jobs that people have to do candidly I still agree with that what are the core pillars of that mindset the entrepreneurial Minds number one read do not be humble and read the market and don't read the market to be like oh yeah I gathered today no listen to it like it is your boss then be ready to Pivot even when sometimes people don't want to Pivot when things are going well they should be going incredibly amazing for you to not pivot but you should still be ready to Pivot in a month you should still be ready to put so have a pivot mindset all the time and double down on the things that work and be in constant trial mode constant learn mode like the job of growth startup is to be always learning Gathering data not revenue revenue is a consequence of always learning Gathering data pivoting and doubling down I love that I love I think it goes back but the first business I ever started it was an e-commerce business and we were making laptop cases and I spent all my time not asking people what they wanted us to build I was like you need this is perfect for you and we bought like a thousand laptop cases and I was like this is perfect for you you're gonna buy this it's going to change your life and we sold five they're like still in the storage unit like one day but I totally agree though listen but that's a beautiful story because that's the story probably of 80 of people when they first start because it's really easy to hear these theories and but until you live it you're like oh I probably should have just built that around two customers and then you got to put your hand on the stove and just get burnt like I'm not gonna do this exactly exactly so we go to that customer and it was great because I graduated Purdue I worked at me Johnson my director at the time was actually the father of the founder of asapizza and so we had the Purdue connection we had family friendship connection so I went to them I said look you guys are the best of your Evansville base we're evansville-based be the first ones to bring our crust into your stores and it flew off what was the company a zip Pizza it's pizza backwards so they call it a zip Pizza it's kind of like a blaze concept but yeah and it was actually one of the first ones it was just they didn't grow it as rapidly as a blade and get LeBron James to endorse or whatever but it's but it's great everybody loves it and every of the markets that they have and we they have good product they have attention to detail so we thought they'd be a great partner so we partnered with them and then we launched our e-commerce and we launched our e-commerce with the humility of accepting where we what we understood well and what we did well and then bringing in the talent through contractors or through new people that knew the things we didn't and John Penna is an amazing original co-founder with us on this on zero carve that led that part of things and then so everyone on the team had their expertise that they were really good at and so we focused on those three and very quickly it became clear that the market was validating that this is amazing this is we love this not just the niche market that needs keto celiac disease disease friendly products but in general people who want to eat healthy they were trying our product they were like this is way better than anything that normally I have to buy and begrudgingly eat that's the keys we wanted people to start to believe healthy food to think about healthy food differently than we do today like today you go to the store you buy whatever cauliflower crust pizza or whatever you're doing you're like if you ask kids to eat it they're like really do I have to eat and then they you know they're heaving that should not be the experience it should be it should be that like you're like blown away this is healthy I don't believe it you're checking the back and that's what happens with our product people are checking the back twice and three times there's no way this is chicken there's no way this chicken how are you guys doing this there's no way there's nobody and that's what we want we want to blow people's minds so that they tell 20 people and it grows from there amazing what were a few of those early wins like you're starting to get there you launch on e-commerce you get a zip Pizza yeah talk to us a few of those wins so a few early wins azip we had a timeline with them okay we're gonna launch in three stores and then you guys will tell us when we can expand 11 based on results they came back to us within two weeks they're like guys let's just expand to 11.
these numbers are way too good the second early win is that we got we secured some really solid deals in terms of Distributors as a result of having that first distributor and and then the e-commerce results just flying off the shelf having people that are just loyal followers having influencers that started to help us and seeing the results from influencers in their posts how did you find those people early on yeah so the first influencer some of them reached out to us candidly and saw that this is a good type of thing that that they cared about and they would be willing and then they made us the offers so we made deals initially to not pay as much and to show the results and because they need winning products as well and then of course we discovered that there's agencies and then they eventually introduced us to their agency and so that's how we met more influencers but it's it was all about us always being curious like always being curious about what the market is saying looking for those small wins and celebrating them but then having this mindset of We believe We will be a billion it's not we can be a billion dollar Pro company oh this is going to be a good thing no with or without and we have this joke between JP and I that we have a hit list and most entrepreneurs have the same mindset it's not a negative thing it's not like you you want to go after people and hurt them it's like when there's someone that doesn't believe in you you're like I'm gonna make them in two years feel really embarrassed for not making the right decision and that becomes a huge motivation for you and it's a beautiful thing because it's not negative you want them to then be helped afterwards but like for you to be the one who's humbling them a little bit from their position I I love that and I think yeah that's a very true statement like that hit list is a real thing for entrepreneurs opposite side of the coin not everything in entrepreneurship is all sunshine and rainbows all right tell us about some of those challenges uh no so everything was amazing look the reality is that initially you're founding a company with founder money and founder money means your money means your home it means your livelihood it means use for going paycheck we had a co-founder with me who was often was believed in the idea but we all had a limit to the money we could fund with so it was really about how do you maximize this Runway and get the results to where then you can leverage others that want to invest with you and every single day it's like a fear of the runway running out so that challenge was real especially in that early stage in in a major way because you have to result timeline that you need to hit and the latitude for missing some of those deadlines or missing some of those results is really thin and we'd had some of those we had some where for instance some of the product initially was thicker than we expected and so it was chewier than we expected we got comments even though in all the taste trials it was amazing but initially some product went out and it was chewier or it was sticking and so the kitchen staff wasn't able to release it as easily but we the beautiful thing is when we released initially we released a small enough market to where we could contain and re and double down with those customers and that's how you have to do it and you have to give yourself the latitude to do that some other challenges of course Talent challenges so you know that you can grow extremely quickly if you're able to afford XYZ advertising but you have to make the decision as to I can't really pay for that right now how do we come up with Creative Solutions we need to push azip and we need to push our e-commerce and we need to and we need to pay for shipping and Logistics that costs more than the product initially if we don't have good deals how do we make the choice between where we spend the cash and then of course that shipping Logistics challenge was huge to start now I'm going to layer on top of that the coveted challenges so chicken prices went through the roof our business was chicken we're talking about 91 Chicken in our product that's how much a word dependent on chicken during covet there was the chicken Wars there was bird flu and there was covet itself so we're talking about a price structure that went cost structure that went 1.
5 1. 7 and at a point it was 2. 2 x of where we were and we hadn't built in a ton of margin for ourselves because we really wanted to get pricing well for to gain traction so changing pricing while you're small and or eating into your margin and then going to investors with margins not that having to make those decisions was very tough especially when you're staring a Runway that's running out on you in the face but again with the amazing team with the amazing Creative Solutions we were able to make it through all of that and and then honestly I can't say enough about the ecosystem and its support and I know that's I'm not trying to dovetail us into the next section but it really was that the ecosystem Tov wechsler people early on that believed in us and saw the potential and how we came across for instance how we met Wexler John Wexler for instance I don't know if you know the story but we were in launch Fishers for a meeting with investors that were from the network of John Penna who actually grew up in Fishers and and while we're setting up for that meeting we got some pizza from the azip in Greenwood Indiana so that we could have it fresh for them or he's walking in with the pizza and someone jokingly is asking like oh do you guys have pizza for us and we're like actually so we start walking around with a few you know extra ones and Wexler is one of those people we have no clue who this guy is yeah and this is amazing can I talk to you guys for a minute and we're like yeah and he introduced himself tells us who he is or like okay you're way bigger than the people we're about and he but he was so humble and spent time with us and and introduced to other people and then from there like the network in in the Fishers area Indianapolis area grew hugely just because of that connection that was literally we probably wouldn't have even made it had John not gotten stuck in traffic like he got stuck in traffic coming back with the Ace of pizza and that's why I say do all these things that I talked about as an entrepreneur but luck is so much for me it's from Faith perspectives there's got to be divine liking to what you're getting a a helping hand as well and you have to trust in that but you do everything you can but then you trust that the results will come that are supposed to come your way but sometimes there you can never plan what happens and it happens way better than you can ever play quick break from our normal programming I have Erica schweire CEO from Elevate Ventures here in the studio today Erica thanks for being here yeah thanks for having me and you're going to tell us a little bit about this rally animation conference that's coming out yep so it's the largest cross-sector Innovation conference in the world we're gonna feature six Innovation Studios so think hard tech software Sports Tech Ag and food Healthcare and Entrepreneurship is going to kind of be our catch-all I love that so tell me what is who's it for yeah it's for innovators entrepreneurs investors honestly anybody probably listening to this podcast it's going to be a multi-day thing that's multi-day in downtown Indianapolis yep people coming in from all over the country and maybe even all over the world to be here that's our hope yep and the dates are actually August 29th to the 31st perfect and if people want to find out more information about speakers tickets things like that where can they go yeah so they just go to rallyinnovation.
com and sign up for communications they can also get their tickets I love it you heard it here at rallyinnovation. com we'll see you there so can we dive into ecosystem let's dive into the ecosystem so how important is ecosystem right and what do you still see as missing gaps but how important is the ecosystem when you're trying to start a company and especially you've started a company in a sector where there's been things right in this market but it's not as been as robust as B2B SAS right and I do agree that pendulum is swinging and the excitement in these other sectors is I'm beyond excited with these other sectors so talk about that yeah so I'll talk about on three sort of angles if you guys will allow me and indulge me one is how important it is and how helpful it was to us a second is like you said the verticals and then the third I would like to talk about is also what is still needed especially with regards to underrepresented I'll call it underrepresented Founders because I can't claim that things were amazing in Evansville for an omara Tia founding a company initially until now of course everybody's lining up to support and I'm not saying they weren't initially but there wasn't like that jumping to support initially and it and uh I call it alligator arms yeah yeah you could that's a really good actually that's what it because the arms are there it's just that like you have to do yeah a little more effort than others potentially to reach out just one more step Omar I knew we will yeah and just go here and just go there and if this Hit List ad that's the mindset of the entrepreneur right right yeah so but yeah ecosystem is huge and I'm not saying we need to be handing out to as soon as a kid is I want to start a business okay we got you come on our back no people still need to go through the struggle but we can certainly minimize and leverage the code struggling for the minimum that should happen is there should be a network effect that takes place for those who have been there to support those who are trying to get there and I think tofu obviously exemplified this amazing and I know you didn't pay I just want to make sure everyone knows yeah I did not ask you you didn't slip me any money to say this but maybe but the reason I keep talking about tofu is because and this is nothing against anyone at all but there's just the mindset and the culture of being helpful for the sake of being helpful even when your job is to have a pipeline of deals even when your job is to be to find the best investment so there's going to be a tier of the best investment that's who you invest in as a VC as whatever a person who's made it and you represent the money to be given right or you represent the help to be given that tier isn't the only tier that she had the only way to get a healthy pipeline in a healthy ecosystem is to support all the tears some of them yes will drop out of the ecosystem because they're not even they don't have the core elements to then rise up but the only way for those other tiers to rise up is that they fail but they get as much help along the road of failure and they're not failing in the things we can help easily it's near impossible to have get everything right and limiting the number of things that are already challenges is a way to make the pipeline healthier and still allow people to go through the struggle and to me that's how we we were able to succeed some of the things were planned and supported on purpose some of the things completely unplanned running into people like Alexa and but candidly Elevate from the get-go I think we were in that phase where Elevate was becoming that organization that is way more helpful than it used to be candidly and so we timing for us was good enough to get a lot of that help but I think focusing on how do we get that culture not just for the entities that are supposed to be supporting but so that everyone knows they will benefit when they help others without waiting for anything in return and I'm speaking to myself and speaking to my team in the process as well the SEC an ecosystem has to be there and has to feel it shouldn't feel like a safety net that's going to catch you and just plug in money all the time but there has to be enough Capital to go around for sure there has to be there has to be Capital to go to the major winners but there has to be something that can support those that need a little bit of extension a Runway do you think that has to be capital I think capital is part of it and look every entrepreneur is going to tell you capital is all of it at some stage in their journey and it's just because they haven't they haven't gone to the part where okay you have the capital there's a lot more than just the capital but but definitely cap you can we can't be an ecosystem that does everything else and doesn't do the capital piece of it even in an environment where Capital deployment is like slim to none It's actually an opportunity for us to then figure out creatively how do we make because we can make our Capital go much further now it's worth so much more now but capital is part of it but definitely another part of it is how do you make everyone incentivized and seeing value in giving from what they've learned even if they're not the Big Exit success even if it's a middle tier success how can it help the one that's a little below it in tears so having that ecosystem effect and having and encouraging that through events through meetups through personalities through through Communications through just all the tiers of events not just the formal like the rally which everybody's looking forward to but even the informal and encouraging more of that and then to to that I believe that for us we wouldn't be where we are without ecosystem support that we've had without a doubt whether it's iedc whether it's Elevate whether it's the entrepreneurs that have succeeded in other things like the wexler's and Dave Becker and others of the world and I'm sure there's people that I should be mentioning that I haven't mentioned so maybe you can build We'll add those down yeah we'll get those afterwards but and then you were about to say yeah so if you had advice for there's an entrepreneur that's listening to this it's like feeling on an island they're feeling alone what's your number one piece of advice for them to start to plug into this community I would say just show up number one and look I know what it's like when you're the CEO the founder you've got zero time to do anything other than make the runway go the furthest and make the right decision you're probably doing seven more jobs than you than you should be as a CEO in the initial part of the business just add that to the list because you have to show up you have to have the one-on-ones you have to raise you have to connect with key people you have to be at these things to to suit the stories to talk to the people to connect and one one connection can go very far if it's the right connection when you say show up what does that mean where are some places you plugged into Maybe by accident or on purpose that you're like oh wow that was a moment so I think early on definitely going to some of those coffee meetups in the morning that IDC was doing for instance doing meetings with potential investors even if we knew they weren't going to invest just to go through the iteration building the relationship going through the iteration getting the feedback from them on yeah you we may not be a fit but if we were a fit what's what are the things we still need to improve going through the networking events even if they you look at the list and you're like oh there's no one there that's going to invest in my company go to that event because you may be able to help someone there how did you find David Becker through Wexler okay yeah and so again a lot of because we weren't in Fishers so it's almost like it was help we were helped because of that connection with Wexler who has connected so many people I want to brag on you for a second and I think what you've been there's been an undertone throughout the entire show right from what you learned from your dad of just help people without an expectation for something in return going in there you're raising money you're growing your startup you're not being transactional you're not saying I'm only gonna go and Pitch people that are gonna who could I help when I go there I think that not making these relationships transactional are huge yes and can go so far for entrepreneurs Yes actually that's a great way to put it and I'll even build on it and say look at so this is for me and I don't know how easy it is for other people to do this but look at your entrepreneurial Journey not as the objective itself it's just a means to get more connected to humans and to have more experience with humans and to give value and to gain that humility and that learning and that Curiosity fulfilled from other humans and that's what had attracted me initially to entrepreneurship is that I would actually have more freedom initially in my mind while I was like okay I'll get financial defense so I can impact the lives of more people through charity or through charitable work or through volunteer work and then I realized that the entrepreneurial Journey itself is a way to impact the lives of humans and to have my life be improved in how I impact humans if you come into it with that mindset every single meeting you go to every single networking event you go to will be 10x more in terms of the value and you'll just feel better about life like you won't be waiting on this thing to happen or that thing to happen trusting that it will happen if you keep going through that Journey that way that's interesting I love the transactional word right because it said I hadn't thought about that word in a while and it's so true this that Omar what you're describing it's just back to the old there's an old adage or actually maybe an actual human reaction that we feel better or there's more dopamine released or something in giving than receiving yeah yeah and that's the same principle on a much larger scale absolutely so talking about brings you the value I'm sorry I mean the bonuses that's actually what brings the most value to your startup that's the crazy thing it's like counterintuitive we think if you go in more transactional and focused on the transaction that's how you'll get the most value yeah it's actually not it's actually when you don't focus on the transaction result that's how you'll get the most value sorry man go ahead no I just want to look for advice not money what is that the pit bull lyrics ask for money get advice ask for advice get money twice it's a song that he released thing that sounds pretty sweet yeah so talk to us about the future talk to us about the future of the ecosystem as well as the future for zero carb life are you ready to transform your brand with award-winning video content that captures your vision and connects with your audience check out Alchemy the experts at building your brand using video from story driven social media Snippets that leave a lasting impression to compelling full-length documentaries they have got the expertise to take your brand to the next level Alchemy is actually our video partner here on get in they do amazing work all the videos across social across YouTube all that is done by Alchemy and they're an amazing partner to work with reach out to me Nate at powderkeg or check out alchemyfilmco.
com to get connected with Alden and his team they will take care of all of your video needs beautiful I really believe that Indiana as a and the Midwest in general but especially Indiana because I think that's where we can have the most impact I really believe that we can leap frog and I use that a lot because I I think there's this concept of when there's so much talent and so much resources in some areas how can we possibly match stop worrying about matching start figuring start thinking about what are we actually more better positioned to be but much better much bigger than and everything has its cycle we're at the Virgin end of our cycle and if we understand that and look at it that way and look at that the peak is way higher and we need to start climbing that like where's that we're at the initial tale of the peak but we need to when we get to the peak we need to keep building more Peaks kind of like the age of paradox mindset but it but to me that's the future in the state of Indiana and to me it should be with three focuses and I'm not telling Tov how to think about and and powder cake how to think about this ecosystem development but definitely underrepresented Founders the amount of resourcefulness that an underrepresented founder has and has to have in order to become an entrepreneur in the very first place the amount of hurdles they have to go to they are the I'm not going to say they're better than other candidates but they're absolutely at least equal to the best candidates that can then win supported with resourcing when supported with ecosystem developing their sort of Journey it can be have huge results simply because they've just had to hustle that much more had to struggle that much more so specifically black owned business woman owned and then underrepresented in general like minorities like myself and and then the children of immigrants specifically like to have some kind of mindset shift that doesn't tell them F your parents like garyvee says all the time but at the same time but at the same time makes them feel comfort that they have a community around them so to me that's that underrepresented support and for the future of the ecosystem that has to be a core part of it the second is really being able to understand that we have certain verticals that we are prime prime position to be the leaders of the nation and potentially the world in as a region and we can bring the world to here we can go to the GCC and say we are your representative in the states of this we can go to Europe and say we're the representative in the states for this because we are the experts we have it here we're The Core Business yet we may not have been growth growth start of mindset it may have been all old money that controlled it but we can make that shift easily quickly and with the right mindset if we understand what that will do for the overall ecosystem and then the third thing is to just keep at it from an ecosystem development The Way We Tell entrepreneurs to keep at it with their startup test things out so Omar's saying this is what we should do test it out on a pilot level double down what works pivot from what doesn't and keep that going and bring more Minds into it so every entrepreneur in my opinion should put at least like I know I came to utof and said let me give of my time to support your vision every single entrepreneur it's almost like the military like they need to have a service requirement that goes along with yes make your startup successful and you have a service requirement of this many hour maybe it's not like that exact to support others to help others to give us from your ideation to tell us what's working what's not it's not an option it's a requirement because we're building something together that's going to be good for everybody and that has to be there I still agree with that it mentioned on a previous podcast I think like the power of one if you can just do one thing across the board even if it's receivables you're collecting money one day faster it's still impactful let's go back to your to the to the underserved the to the minority I like to think of like on-ramps yeah so what are there are some things that are top of Mind are what could be implemented or what should be started or changed Etc that could provide more on-ramps more efficient sure on-ramps for those entrepreneurs or folks that want to start a business so very first thing that we cannot neglect and I know sounds either cliche or sounds like already played out but having people like you represented in those things that you're going to ask or going to and I'm not saying we have to force it but we need to almost be very intentful of it below forcing it to have talent that is like those that were wanting to attract in terms of culture mindset look like from similar backgrounds and the reason is because when I would go in Evansville to a meeting and oh where are you from like these things they seem like they're not no one maybe it's very innocent it's not intended to be a microaggression but when you've lived your life told to check a box that you're white when you're in grade school and everybody else tells you you're not and you're also not black and you're not you're a minority but you're being told to check a box that's why because there's not enough of you to make a non-white group that you can choose and you can't even choose other because you're not allowed to choose other because then we can't do our our demographic living a life like that and then coming to a situation where you also are asking or going to ask support or advice and people who don't understand your background don't understand your struggles May empathize with it very sincere Etc but just they don't they've never lived it it's hard to feel a deep connection it's just hard to yeah you can with people like atov right because you just connect with everybody but how many people really connect with everybody you know what I mean out of 100 maybe two is that guy yeah he's one of one of the two or maybe the one but you have to have people that feel like they're they've lived your life or some of it the second thing I think is that we are very explicit that this vertical we need to have this many that are from underrepresented Founders and we're still going to have our standards we're still going to have this has these requirements have to be met we're not going to deploy Capital unless XYZ but then maybe there's extra support to get that those pipeline of startups to get to that level so that they can be supported in that way you need to have the big exits as well you need to have the representative representation of all the tiers yeah and so there may have to be extra resourcing extra effort extra Focus but it will pass in the end because now you're talking about opening the door to so much more that is not being represented in other parts of the country that we can be the ones who bring up and so that's huge as well and then the third thing is to encourage that it's not it doesn't have to be serving a lot of times the mindset is oh what ideas do you have that can serve the community you come from kind of thing someone may have a passion for them but that may not be what their thoughts are let's let's not assume that or not let's not assume they represent everybody from their group also because that's the worst feeling in the world is that you're walking in somewhere and every day I walk in somewhere I'm like okay I don't want them to think that all Arabs do this I don't want them to think that all Muslims do this and I want them to think that all bearded men do this and that's always on my mind everywhere I go and it's never going to change and that's okay there's places in the world where I don't have to feel that way but I chose I choose to be in Indiana I choose to feel that way because I know I want to make the world a better place and that's part one of my struggles so I think being conscious that's the world that people that are underrepresented have to go through yeah Omar that's been an amazing conversation we are at time but do you have two minutes left for the lightning round yeah okay these are these are full of quick hitters we have three questions for you first thing that comes to the top of your mind question number one outside of the amazing entrepreneurial ecosystem what is Indiana known for corn corn money I love it hey I'm proud of corn what is one Hidden Gem in Indiana the Hoosier National Forest hands down I know you need me to say this fast but if someone hasn't been staying in a cabin at the Hoosier National Forest especially in the fall they absolutely have to it's one of the best places in the whole country and I've been to a lot of places in this country for those who don't know where that is so Monroe County Brown County anywhere really but Monroe Lake just stay somewhere in the Hoosier National Forest and enjoy the nature that's there amen it looks like the Smoky Mountains I think it's better I love the especially in the fall there's nothing like it the sunsets in Indiana are amazing enjoying a sunset in the Hoosier National Forest and a log cabin away from everything there's nothing like it oh there's some things like that there's very I love that oh my those sunsets who is someone that we need to keep on our radar someone who is doing big things that's a good question so I would say there's a couple people who come to mind so I think definitely I would say if I was in another context I would say Tov because I really believe in the vision that he's bringing I think Wexler definitely I think there's a couple of Founders that I've met that that have impressed me in Indiana do you remember their names I don't remember their names but I can I I we can plug them in later we'll get them in the show Mystery Founders yeah I know their startups so I'll have to look at them and and then of course everybody on my team is doing amazing things boom there we go like this has been a great conversation if people are looking to get plugged in with zero carb life maybe they want to try out the the products where can they go so go to zero carb life lyfe.
com order and that's one option another option which I recommend is also going to an azip restaurant or going to a fresh time and next month to pick up our life yeah but don't wait for that order online and then go to one of these places we have Sprouts retailer any Sprouts retailer has our pizza on shelf tell all your friends and go to Sprouts retailer and pick up our product if someone out there wanted to try one product if you had one product to give them a chance what do they order I think they should order our barbecue chips if they like barbecue Omar thank you so much this has been great congrats on everything and keep up the momentum thank you Mark it's awesome this has been get in a powder cake production in partnership with Elevate Ventures and we want to hear from you if you have suggestions for a guest or a segment reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana check out our newsletter at powderkeg.
com newsletter and to apply for membership to the powder cake executive Community Check out powdercake. com premium we'll catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world get in since you just listened to this podcast you might be thinking about starting one for your company lucky for you our partners over at cassid have you covered cassid is the first and only podcast in video marketing platform made specifically for B2B Brands I love this about them the platform makes it possible to publish Syndicate amplify and measure the value of your podcast and video content in fact we use it for our podcast here at Powder Keg and if you're a startup you should listen up because cassid for startups is definitely for you they are offering exclusive deep discounts of up to 82 percent off retail price for qualifying startups connect with casted at casted. us slash powderkeg
