"Indiana is a Cheat Code” — Why this Founder Left California for Good

Don't smile. Don't move your face. Just stand there. Your heart is beating out of your freaking chest. You go from the free pizza to pitching the Boston Red Sox grand in the company now. It's like you may not get it right, but you'll make it right.

What would you say to the entrepreneur that's looking to relocate and maybe considering the end from South Bin to Evansville and everywhere in between? This is Get In, the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. Mark your calendar. We're headed down to Brown County on July 26th for Hard Truth Bourbon and Barbecue Festival. Get ready for a smoky, savory, and spirited weekend at Hard Truth in Brown County.

Join me at Hard Truth Distilling Co. the weekend of July 25th and 26th for an unforgettable celebration of bourbon, barbecue, and good times. We've got live music rocking from 9 until noon with four different acts, bourbon and barbecue tastings and pairings, bourbon blending and cocktail crafting classes, as well as a VIP bourbon and cigar lounge. They also have interactive competitions and outdoor activities, bourbon barrel roll races, barbecue toss and cornhole tournaments, $10 entry for a $300 prize. If you're a good cornhole player, hit me up. Let's join up.

And they have axe throwing as well. Me and my team are going to be down there and I will be releasing a full weekend itinerary for Nashville/ Brown County. That is guaranteed to be a great time. Tickets for the Hart Truth Bourbon and Barbecue Fest start at $10 for general admission that gets you entered in the festival, the live music, and pay as you go food and drink. For $35, you can get the barbecue sampler pass, tastings from all the barbecue competitors. Or for $75, you can get the VIP ticket where you get VIP lounge access, premium bourbon tastings, and a guided distillery tour by master distiller Brian Smith, previous guest of the show.

I will see y'all in Brown County the weekend of July 25th and 26th. Now, let's get into the episode. Today, I'm joined by Pat Pizzette, co-founder of Grinds Coffee Pouches, a tobacco alternative energy product based right here in Westfield, Indiana. What started as a simple idea in a college apartment has grown into a national brand helping people quit chewing tobacco and boost energy using flavored coffee pouches. From appearing on Shark Tank to scaling a proudly US-made product, Pat's been caffeinating the country and helping people quit nicotine addictions right here in the heartland. Today, we're going to be talking about the startup grind and the story that brought them to Westfield, Indiana, bringing global influence to to the USA and we kind of talked about a story right before we got going of uh going to Denmark and and just the early days of growing a startup and then learn about what has kept them right here in Indiana.

Pat, welcome to Get In. Uh it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm pumped. You got a great setup. Excited to talk with you, dude.

This is going to be May have to steal some of that intro, too. I like some of the verbiage in there. Hey, it's all it's all fair game, right? Uh I always like to try to work in some like the startup grind. A little dad joke, you know, some of that there. What's interesting is I found out about you guys like last year around the Indy500.

I think you guys were actually a sponsor of the whole tailgate thing that we did. And I had never I had never heard of Grinds going into that. you guys, I think Max on your team reached out and I was like, "Oh, this is sweet." And they're based in Westfield. Like, sign me up. Uh, and then after doing some research, realizing that you are originally from the West Coast.

Yep. California. California guy. Who's Northern California? Northern Okay. Northern Northern California.

That uh has been in Indiana for how long now? Uh, it's been about five and a half years. We moved just before CO. So, we kind of snuck in and then the world changed. But uh see that's interesting too because a lot of people I feel like came in during co they're like oh there's you know it's more space blah blah blah like the rent is not that bad and came during co but to already you were already game on before co yes 2019 we we were in San Francisco and Oakland running our our company for a while the product was made in Denmark for 10 years great relationship with those guys and we had you know a couple cool offices in San Francisco and Oakland but as the business was growing and it's just chaos in San Francisco and Oakland trying you know we were putting coffee in a pouch surrounded by tech companies raising millions of dollars and startups and tech. Uh we just were kind of a fish out of water.

We knew we had to make a move. And when we started looking outside of the state, Indiana was on the list. We didn't think it was going to be the winner. It was probably like eight of 10. And it started creeping up and before we knew it, we were packing up moving trucks and shipping this big machine to Westfield. And yeah, all that transpired in 2019.

I guess I'll say now thankfully before COVID. Yeah. Because so many people started moving, you know, just moving to suburbs and out of big cities and we got in right before that big rush. And honestly, I told you earlier, shockingly, we love it here. Shockingly, shockingly, he loves Indiana. But we're going to dive into that.

But I think it the the story of Grinds really starts uh around the college time like in Southern California. Yeah. So, central California, St. Louis Abyspo, Calpali. Uh, it's a little school on the central coast, four hours between San Francisco and LA. Matt and I, uh, were playing college baseball.

We were finance majors. We were good students, probably not great students, but, you know, we we were definitely not athletes first. We took care of our our schoolwork and we were ending our baseball careers. Matt played minor league ball for the Cubs, I think, in Piroy, Illinois, and was a catcher. Uh, I never got anybody to pay me to play baseball, but Matt was wrapping up um I think it was during the off season of his first year playing minor league ball and I was just finished playing baseball at Calpali trying to figure out what the heck do we do from here. We were up late one night procrastinating on this summer school project.

We had one class. We waited till the last day to do it. It was like midnight, maybe 1:00 a. m. and it was a a wild heat wave. It was probably high 90s, which is uncommon.

We didn't want to make coffee. We It was just too hot. So, we just threw coffee in our mouths like a couple idiots. And as we started thinking through this project we were working on, we just were like, "Are you getting something? I'm getting a little caffeine out of this. Is this working for you?"

And the first thing we actually did was come up with the name like, "Well, could you use this like tobacco? What would you call it?" And I think it was Matt. I don't even remember. Uh, alcohol was not involved. And he just was like, "I don't know.

Maybe grinds." I was like, "That sounds right. And, you know, maybe take it to spring training, give it to the guys we know that are still playing." thought nothing of it. Uh, turned in that project the next day and then saw a flyer on campus. Have a cool idea, free pizza.

That's all it took for us. If we hadn't seen that flyer, I don't know if anything would have happened with Grind. Have a cool idea, free pizza. We showed up. We filled out a little questionnaire. We already fell out of place.

There were people doing electric motors for, I think, Ferrari and this new packaging where you could ship anything and it was unbreakable. and we just were putting coffee in a pouch. We filled out our little questionnaire and I think the guy running it, his name is Chris McCann. Shout out to Chris, was like, you know, this one's interesting. Grinds coffee pouches. We're like, man, we didn't think anybody was going to make us talk about our idea.

We're just here for the pizza. And then we, you know, we gave our little what turned into our pitch, just coffee in a pouch, help people quit tobacco. We know baseball. We're going to take the spring training. Who knows what'll happen? And wait, and that was just like, well, I mean, yeah.

Okay, so I guess I cut off the story. There's so more. So, yeah. So, you mean you give that you're going to spring training, you see what happens. What was Chris's feedback to y'all? Well, Chris's thought I I remember cuz we were sitting in the back.

I mean, Matt and I are happy to speak and we have a good presence, but we felt a little bit out of place, right? Like all these entrepreneurs who've been studying it at CalPoly the whole time. We just rolled in there with an idea, filled it out, and the guy Chris was like, you know, sometimes the simplest ideas are the ones that make the most sense. They just kind of click. People understand it. He goes, I think you guys should uh should apply, should actually enter the business plan competition.

We did. There was a few other steps to it. You, you know, you make your elevator pitch. Honestly, early days of like entrepreneurship. Now it's a common, you know, it's ubiquitous. Everyone knows entrepreneurs and the startup grind.

We were unfamiliar with all that. He's like, "Put together a pitch, you know, put on a collared shirt, you know, make your pitch on the on the early entries." And where were you at like in life at this point? Are you still a college student or are you like you're a finance major trying to like get a job in investment banking? you know, stretching out our college careers, I guess, because we were basically both done with school. We had one more quarter.

It's a quarter system, not semester. Trying to figure out what are we doing? Cuz our your whole life your identity as a baseball player. And now people are like, I think your time's up, you know? So, you got to go figure out identity crisis a little bit. You know, who are we if we're not baseball players?

Grimes was a way to stick around. Baseball seemed like a cool idea. We had no clue how we would do it. And we were interviewing accounting jobs, finance jobs. In hindsight, thank God, I would have died behind a desk if I had to do it all day long. But we thought that would be the path.

And this business idea, this the business plan competition, we kept getting positive feedback. You know, there's like the early stage where everybody presents and they whittle it down from maybe 30 people to 10 and like, hey, you made it to the top 10. Nice work. And we thought, great, you know, so we pitched again and we got invited to the finals and we were shocked at that even on its own. and like, "Hey, we want you to come to the finals and pitch in front of all these judges. There's VCs and old alumni.

Um, people have been around the block once or twice and VCs and we didn't know what to do." And they're like, "We want you in the finals, but we got one rule or one ask of you. You have to bring some actual samples." And to that point, we had never, you know, we'd put coffee in cut tea bags and put it in there. It's like nothing I would share publicly. And they said, "You're you're in the finals.

You can pitch, but I need to see samples." We took coffee and hot chocolate. We took it to a seamstress and we took some tea bag paper. And it's so funny. I had a $100 bill in my back pocket. I was like, "This lady is going to laugh us out of the room."

Like, "Guys, I'm not putting this stuff. You're going to put this in people's mouths." We walk in and she's like, "I can do this for you. Come back in, you know, couple hours." And I had the $100 bill cuz I was just ready to be like, "If you need us to pay, we'll do this. We want you to make 10 pouches.

Just sew them together." She's like, "1250." $12. 50 like done shake hands and uh she made these pouches and we brought them in like like handsewn handsewn ziplockc bag. I mean it looked like if you would have seen it on a table looked like drugs and we walked in and we did our pitch and at the end the guy who said you got to bring samples like do you have any samples? We're like yes we do.

And we took these ugly, janky, handsewn, way too big. It fill up half your mouth pouches and we passed them out. They tasted great because we just put hot chocolate mix in it. Wait, hot chocolate and coffee or just hot chocolate? Hot chocolate and ground coffee. There were a few mugs.

So they tasted great. Like imagine taking hot chocolate powder, put it in your mouth. And we saw like the judges Well, we were so nervous like they'd throw it and go, "This is what what the hell's going on?" They were nodding along. Wait, like are are the judges like guys or the judges like I was just imagining like a VC professor with like just like glasses on and like a big suits put together VCs men and women but they again because it's coffee in a pouch. There was not a lot.

It wasn't confusing like if you put Zen in front of somebody or tobacco immediately if they're not a chewer they're like I don't know if that's for me. We just described it as hey it's just coffee. It's just hot chocolate mix. So the men and the women all put it in non- chewers. You could tell because they're like putting two fingers adjusting the like, but they're nodding along and and our our pitch u which eventually was the pitch we used on Shark Tank was just so simple. We I remember Matt and I being up the night before that finalist and I was writing the pitch and we had all these decks and way too much info and Matt hilariously was playing Xbox Call of Duty.

He's like, "It's too long. It's just too long. You got to cut this. I'm not listening. Just give me the headlines. So, we shortened the whole thing.

We had the shortest pitch of anybody there. It's like two minutes of the 10 minutes they give you was I'm Pat. I'm Matt. We played baseball. We have this idea to replace tobacco with coffee and caffeine. And oh, by the way, we know about a dozen guys in the locker rooms that we played with over the years at Kalpali.

We're going to bring it to them and let them find out if minor league baseball and Major League Baseball, you know, will kind of take to the product. And that's what we did. We won that competition. We were shocked. What was what was the prize? 15 grand.

15 gez. All right. And honestly, at the time, we were shocked. I mean, we we were shocked to be invited to the finalists. And then they started announcing uh they said, you know, these five uh didn't make it to the, you know, the top three. And they announced companies and they didn't mention grinds.

And we're like I I remember Matt and I looking at each other like, are we about to make five grand because that was third place? And like third place, you know, ex company. We're like, did we just make 10 grand? Second place or they announced the finals like the winners grinds coffee pies and we were shocked. Um, and Matt and I cuz not every company that won money followed through with their business. We took that as these people are giving us the dollars that everybody applied to.

We better go and was it like just here's 15 grand or was it like uh $15,000 check in our bank account and Matt and I No strings attached. No strings attached. No strings attached. which in in hindsight is also pretty pretty wild. And it was it for college students? College students only.

Yeah. You could have alumni with you or on your team, but you had to be an enrolled college student to apply. And like usually those contests I feel like are like 1500 bucks or like like you know two grand 15 grand like and then what year 23 23 like oh you're like I could live off this for by the way my bank account at that time was you know floating around 300 400 bucks at any given moment. So, that was pretty wild. Um, and you know, it's funny. We took that 15 grand.

We spread that out. We actually, I think from the judges raised another 15 grand cuz two of the guys that tried the pouches, I'll shout out to Carson and Rich, two legends. They've been mentors, guided us for years. Um, they were like, "Hey, we'll, you know, we'll put a little money in, too." So, we had 30 grand. Wait, like put in Did they invest or give it to you?

No, they invested a small percentage of equity. Really small, like micro investors, but Okay. But it was for real equity whereas the 15 grand wasn't. It was just yours to spend. Well, was that how did you go through those terms? First time you're raising 15 grand and you're like what do you know what to value at?

Do you think it's going to be a real thing? Cuz you know that can come back to not bite founders but like it could uh we were very fortunate those guys Rich and Carson they just wanted to see CalPoly entrepreneurs succeed because they were tired of Stanford and you know Berkeley kicking our ass and entrepreneurs. They just wanted to see CalPoly students like kind of make their mark. And they walked us through kind of what a decent valuation would be. And I think at the time they invested at a 200k valuation, which Matt and I at the time were thinking this is nuts. We just sewed these pouches together and now our business were 200k.

In hindsight, it's not worth anything because right, you don't have any sales. But uh it was very favorable terms and those guys just wanted to see the companies do well and they coached us and mentor mentored us for years. Even to this day, we still go back and see him. I haven't seen him in quite a while, but they just basically said, "We're, you know, it wasn't, hey, pat on the back, good luck." It was, "Hey, we're giving you this money and you won that check. We're going to go make sure you're disciplined and you know what you're doing to build this business the right way."

And in hindsight, too, 30K at the time felt nuts, right? We had no jobs. We were painting apartments, making 10 bucks an hour. And it's crazy how long we stretched that money. We made it last, I want to say, like a year and a half. We were just so disciplined not spending money.

You know, the guy that made our website was a designer who lived above us in an apartment and he was like, "I'll make this site for a thousand bucks." In hindsight, he was just wanted to do a good favor. He was a friend of ours. Everything was just as thrifty. And what year is this? Okay.

So, the year is 2010. Started in 2009. We moved to San Francisco. We're living in my grandmother's apartment like with grandma there? No, no, she she had passed at that point, but um uh my family has an apartment b apartment apartment complex in San Francisco owned by many people in my family said, "Hey, we you know, we want to get this business going. Can we live here for I think I was talking to my dad, three months at the time that stretched into a year."

He goes, "Sure, but the deal is because he knew we couldn't afford rent and he was charging us rent. You're going to paint the apartment building." So, we were working on grinds and building the website and getting the branding going and working on samples while painting. You know, when someone would move out of an apartment, Matt and I would roll in there, roll, you know, put the paint on the wall and finish up an apartment to pay for our rent. Nothing like painting painting the apartments to pay to like fund your startup basically with sweat equity. I mean, real sweat equity.

I don't know if you've ever painted. You're painting ceilings. It Yeah, it was uh those shoulders. Oh, killing killing. But that was 2010. At the same time, the Giants are were huge San Francisco Giants fans.

They're making a World Series run. Like that was Tim Lens, Matt Kane, just Buster Posey. Great year for Giants baseball. Grinds the company really was not doing well. We probably had I don't know, we would walk down maybe 10 orders a day to the post office. We were not making any salaries.

But 10 orders a day as like a year old startup like Oh, we loved it. It's not terrible. You're 24 years old. Yeah. We had nothing to lose. Yeah.

At the time, you guys are selling 10 orders a day. You're like a year into the business. You're living in San Francisco. Yep. Uh in your grandmother's apartment, but you have you're getting the rent for free, but you have to pay via sweat equity. Sweat equity.

Painting painting the And and honestly, we were watching our friends also go get great jobs. Cowpali has a good accounting program. Like people just moving up here and they're working downtown. finance, accounting, you know, you know, getting early entry jobs and making good money. And we got peanuts, right? Like, hey, let's go meet for beers.

Like, I got 10 bucks, you know. We'd go to this place called the bus stop because if the Giants won, they had 50 cent PBRs. We're like, Giants are winning. Let's head over to the bus stop because that's all we could afford. But while this is going on, we said we're going to give this to the end of 2010. And if it doesn't start paying our salaries, like I think one of us, maybe Matt was like, I might go get a job.

I'll do this part time and keep doing grinds cuz it just wasn't taking off. We were excited, but there was not enough revenue. I think we did 30,000 in sales, which I was proud of, but it didn't pay the bills. Yeah. It's like a an above average side hustle. Yeah, exactly.

And but at the same time, we weren't making any money. Um, so while this is going on, Giants are making a World Series run and uh, our hitting coach at Calpali, his name's Jared Kruco. His dad, Mike Kru, is the announcer for the Giants. So, he helped us get some product to Bruce Bochi, their manager. And, you know, we sent some cans and a business card. Never heard anything.

That was in the summer. Giants go on this World Series run. Grinds really is still not taking off. Like, some people like it. Most people are saying the product is terrible. You need to improve it because the idea is here.

The product's still down here. We're not sure what to do. Giants win the World Series. It's a great time in San Francisco. Two days after the World Series, get a call. Matt and I are sitting in our apartment.

We're watching some, you know, downloaded movie that we're watching, you know, bootleg. And get a 415 call. I let it go to voicemail. Don't even think about it. Check the voicemail. Sitting on this my grandma's old couch.

And the beginning of the voicemail is, "Hey, Pat, it's Bruce Bochi here." And I pop up, right? Holy You know, and he goes, "Just want to let you know I've been using the grinds. Been meaning to call you and just been busy. Obviously, they just won the World Series." This is two days after two days after.

We found out later earlier that day he was making calls. He called Barack Obama or he got a call from Barack Obama that day and then probably was cleaning out his desk and like, "Oh, I should call the grinds guys. Been using the product. Might be saved my life, you know, keep at it. Wish you guys the best." that just got, you know, you want to talk about renewing your motivation.

That voicemail, which I still have on an old computer, u we still listen to it because it's incredible. It's what sparked us to say, "All right, we got to figure this out." And think about that, like you're a person that has some sort of influence, right? The the manager of the Giants. Yeah. Like he has a lot of influence, but there's lots of people that have influence.

He just makes a throwaway call, you know? Exactly. throwaway call like a minute and he's like I leave a minute long voicemail whatever like 30 seconds and changed our whole trajectory changed our life. Yeah, it changed our life. I don't know if people think about how big of an impact doing things like that can be. Oh yeah, one voicemail.

You said it right, too. It was a throwaway. I'm sure he had the business card on his desk and he said, "I've been using Grind's been helping me quit Copenhagen and probably just said, I'll give him a buzz before I toss and chuck this business card." And that literally I mean the the business changed right then and there. Did you call him back? I called him back but it was a generic Giants business line, right?

So never heard back. And then we said, "All right, we got to figure this out cuz if this guy is using this honestly horrible product and he says, "There's something there. We can figure this out." So we raised a little bit of money for friends and family on that voicemail. Yeah. Like literally this this is the voice.

This is sent the voicemail via email like, "Hey, we're we're we're raising some money. Listen to this." Right. And so we had some friends and family, Matt's folks got involved and and we raised some money and found these guys in Denmark because we said we we got to, you know, everyone says the idea is here, the product's down here. How was the product being made at the time? You know, we had a guy, we'd only made two production runs.

Uh it did not run well. We found a guy in Selma, Alabama. Uh his name is Russell. Um and honestly, he he took a chance on us, too. And he was making it he had this property in Alabama. In hindsight, it wasn't the most uh polished of operations, if you would say.

But he gave us a shot, right? He gave us those first products, but he couldn't make it at scale. He's having trouble running the coffee. Our first order, we wanted, it's so funny now, we wanted 500 cans, which is so small now. I think we only got 200. He couldn't even make it at scale.

And so we said, we need to find someone who can really do this. And we found the machines that you need to make tobacco. We went to this big expo and we found the machine. It's like the 72 pouches per minute. And we said, you know, how much are these machines? They're like, yeah, two 2.

1 million bucks. We're like, okay, uh, who do you sell them to because we can't afford that. And they said, well, you know, they're all over the world. You're not going to find a lot in the US cuz pouches were not popular. And they said, you know, we've got people in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and we just started cold emailing, you know, got on I I don't even know if it was Zoom back in the day. all these random meetings.

Skype. Yeah, we were on Skype. Talk about the ultimate like fumble of the bag. Like Skype was How did Skype get beat by Zoom? Yeah. Sorry, that's a story for another time.

But but you're exactly right. It's like, yeah, just hang in there. But we found these guys. Yeah, there was three companies um these guys in Denmark that we used and honestly two others I can't even remember. And Matt and I are big on half of life is showing up, like take action, right? You can send an email, a phone call.

We would tell these companies, "Hey, we're coming to Denmark or we're coming to Sweden." We didn't have flights or anything, but to let them know if you're interested, we're coming. We want to meet with you. Three of them said, "Great, come on out. We'll set time." And it was actually, we couldn't afford it.

So, only Matt went out the first time. I was telling this story earlier. He took a flight that again was like San Francisco to Dallas to New York to London to Denmark. 36 hours of travel. Um, I actually have one of our first tickets laminated that shows all those routes because it was 900 bucks and 36 hours of travel. He shows up in Denmark.

Two of the meetings cancel while he's already there. Shut up. But, you know, you get a long distance call or like at this point Well, this is 200 what? 200 uh this is like 2011. So, it's like late enough that it's like you pick up a cell phone and give you a buzz. Yeah.

But, but one just flat out no. Didn't even say I'm not having the meeting. Just never responded. And I was like, "Well, it's a 2-hour drive and I haven't heard anything, so I'm not going out there." One of them said, "Hey, they gave us the courtesy. We're going to pass.

It's just not a fit." And then these two brothers, Mark and Patrick Vogle, were like, "Yeah, come on out. We'll host you." How brutal would that have been if everybody If everybody But see, that's again like some of our business beliefs, like playing the game the right way is taking action. Half a life is showing up. You got to show up.

Yeah. Half a life is showing up. So Matt showed up. I told you he was in suit and tie. And the Danes, man, I their culture is awesome. I love their business culture and also just life in general.

They're so laid-back. I mean, jeans, they were laughing at Matt later that he this kid showed up 24 suit and tie and they're like, "Okay, take it easy." Yeah. Okay, bud. Um, but he presented well and these guys just again I told you they they I think they saw younger versions of themselves maybe and Matt and I and just they liked experimenting and they said, "Okay, if you can pay for that production run cash upfront and that took all the money we raised, I think it was maybe 75,000 bucks." So a real amount of money that we raised after that.

You wait your first that first official production run was 75. I believe it was 30,000 units and I forget the conversion rate of euros to dollars, but it was half the money or most of the money. And they just said, "We'll do it so long as you pay up front." Because they knew it ain't no chance in hell it was going to run and it was going to jam up. Uh, and now we're doing that in Westfield and I totally know how they approached it. And they just said, "We'll give you a shot.

We wanted 30,000 units. We wired the money." That was also a crazy feeling. International bank account. You know, Matt had had one meeting and they said, "We'll run it. We'll ship it.

We'll let you know when it's done. We ordered 30,000 units. They didn't even get through 10,000." They're like, "Hey, there's major problems. Uh, we made two of the flavors you want. One of them barely ran, so we're shipping what we've got."

And we're also sitting here going, "Well, we just paid you for 30,000." They sent us some product, and it actually it still had issues, but it was so much better than what we had before. They had it was this is a high-end operation. They were doing millions of cans of tobacco per month. These great machines. They had a great art guy labels.

They really helped us out a ton. They they didn't need to at all. And that product finally got to a point where almost like the cans that I have on the desk now. They just see one of those. Yeah. Here you can show you the uh the mocha or the white pouches.

So this this is what we're working with today. We got spicy mango, double mocha. Like I mean Yeah. It's you everyone I mean I feel like nowadays everyone knows with Zen and with like you know what pouches look like there. We open this puppy up. Well oh that's the Yeah, you that one's open.

You can open up the white one. So we've got the coffee pouches and we've got the white pouches, right? The coffee is coffee and caffeine. They're brown. They're dark. The white pouches everybody knows in.

So now it's familiar like you know how to open a can and put a pouch in. You know with coffee you can just swallow. It's like drinking coffee. you would end up on the road and you know you'd be done or maybe you're flying and you're like I need to throw my pouch somewhere. Discard chamber that came from our guys in Denmark as well. Oh, and uh yeah, it just got to the point where it looked like a real product, right?

It looked like something you'd say, okay, this seems like a legit business. Brought that back to the States, went went back to spring training, got a bunch more positive feedback from players from players. And uh again, kind of shockingly, a few teams, we have good relationships in baseball right now, but some of the teams like the Red Sox uh and the Giants at the time, they were much more um helpful than they needed to be. They're like, "Guys, we appreciate what you're doing. You know, you're helping guys quit tobacco." We were had we had meetings early on with like the Red Sox and the Giants where we're walking in with like Under Armour and New Balance, you know, meetings that we shouldn't have any business being in.

And then I remember the Red Sox meeting, they actually cleared out. They're like, "All right, all brand reps got to go, uh, and this guy for the Red Sox, Pooky, is like, "You guys sit sit tight." So, everybody cleared out. We're in the locker room in spring training with the Red Sox. And this was I mean, I I'm I'm familiar with baseball. I'm comfortable in those locker rooms, but we got to stay in the locker room after batting practice.

Dustin Padroya, David Ortiz, Kevin Ulis, they're just sitting shooting the before our spring training game. And the guy from the Red Sox was like, "Keep your products out. just sit here. I think I was pretending to read the newspaper. He's like, "Just see what the guys think." Praa came up.

Hey, what do we got here? I explained Grinds. Couldn't believe I was pitching Justin Padroya. A few pitchers, I think Tim Wakefield was still there. He used Grinds to quit. Um he he unfortunately passed from his uh tobacco use.

He had health issues. So, sad story there, but we helped him get off tobacco at one point. Um and he used a bunch of And that's one of those where it was like a little like too late at the time. Yeah. Too late. But it it does because we're getting into energy and focus and all these new ingredients, but our core mission was just to help people cut down or quit.

Well, and and I don't know if if there are listeners out there that don't understand the culture, like chewing tobacco is synonymous with baseball. The words in my head synonymous with baseball. Yeah. Um and now it's changed. There's a lot of Zen in the locker room. Zen's replacing.

I feel like Zinn's you I always love seeing like college basketball. You see a coach on the side just like tossing Baker Mayfield on the side of Monday Night Football throwing in a pouch. That actually has transpired. But back then tobacco was everywhere. We even with Zen energy, whatever the thing might be. Obviously grinds like getting people away from the traditional legacy chewing tobacco.

Like that's what you guys did this for in the beginning. I mean obviously it's a business. They wanted to make money. But that was the mission statement cuz we also didn't know. We called it a win when we got that free pizza. It was like someone gave us some free pizza for our idea.

This is kind of wild. Then someone wrote a check. It's like well that's kind of wild. We kept having these times and go I'm calling a win right now. But that was the mission. mission statement was provide a healthy alternative to major mile.

And now you're you go from the free pizza to pitching the Boston Red Sox in their locker room before a spring training game. Yeah, it was wild. You know, still got feedback, improve this, change this, this flavor is bad. But that led to an article in ESPN the magazine. Some reporter saw grinds. We had a connection.

We got this little blurb. They had a quote from I think Bochi and Steven Strawber who we played against at San Diego State. Old pitcher for the Nationals. Yeah. and got a little blurb on ESPN the magazine. It got in this circle of like PR world.

We got into Entrepreneur magazine. They did a full page feature. And at that point, like what's the business doing? Maybe 100K in revenue. So I think Matt and I were paying ourselves 500 bucks a month, which felt great. That's something.

Uh and yeah, so we it was like, okay, showing signs of life. And then ESPN Chicago picked it up and did an article online. We had this good PR and then, you know, I'm fast forwarding a little bit. We got a call. We wanted to apply to Shark Tank. We're like, "How do you apply?

How do you go to casting calls and we were thinking about going down to LA and standing in line like American Idol?" We got same thing phone call. Uh, and I forget the area code, but I answered that one. It's like, "Hey, I'm so and so from Shark Tank. We heard about your product. We're trying to actually They film uh I think at that time they were filming two weeks at a time in the summer.

So they've got like one session and another. We're actually looking for someone like Grinds, meaning younger guys, college kids, something with a sports angle. If you guys can put a video together, we'll get you down here in two weeks and you'll pitch on the show. And so that was really Bruce Bochi was when the business changed and we said, "We're going to do this. We committed all in." The Shark Tank moment was when the business probably got launched out of a cannon.

Um, and we were so small, too, that uh we went down there. We they put you up in a hotel. You're in these unmarked vans and it really it's a black van. They're like don't talk to anybody. You sign you sign pages and pages of non-disclosures. Hey everyone, quick pause in the action to introduce you to Flutterman von Reese, a true hidden gem in Indiana, especially for all you watch aficionados out there.

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You're not supposed to say a word. And you get down there and you're there's probably 40 other companies. They put you in these big giant airplane hanger of a studio and you meet with I think I don't know if it's ABC or Sony general counsel and they're basically going through everything that will go wrong and how your life's going to suck if you tell anybody you're here. Oh, because they don't want you to ruin the show for people. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you start there and so you can't even tell your family. You're not supposed to. We did. We did. Of course.

You know. Oh, yeah. Shocker. Uh but I know that Mark Cuban watches the show, so please don't tell. I love it. Oh, I got a story there about Cuban and and also aside from this, I've got a guy who you're going to want to talk to having on the show.

Well, we have we have a we have a part for that at the end, so it'll be sick. Um, but anyways, we go down there and you know, you you're on the the Sony lot in Culver. It's incredible, right? You're seeing sets and people are driving by in golf carts like you've seen in the movies and then they say, "All right, you're going to be in a certain wave of people to come pitch." They put you up at like a Ramada bootleg hotel off the freeway and you get a call every morning at 7:00 a. m.

and 3 p. m. And that call is either to say, "Get ready. You're picking up in a van. You're it's your time to pitch." Or, "Not today."

We were the last group to go. So, we were getting that call for like four or five days like, "Not today. Not today. What are you doing in the hotel?" All I mean, we're just saying the pitch over and over and over. There was a mall across the street.

You can't focus on anything other than is today the day. And we did that pitch. That seems like so like crazy of like like the stress and the adrenaline when they could just like have a schedule like yeah you're going to be Thursday at three. You're exactly the stress and adrenaline and it's it's because they actually don't know long how long the pitches are going to go. If your pitch goes well you you might be out there for an hour hour and a half. That's how long we were out there.

But if you bomb and it doesn't go well which looks good on TV. It's like 5 minutes because the sharks know when someone's it's genuine. They're like this person is just looking for the publicity. They're not taking this seriously. They're I'm out. I'm out.

I'm out. See you later. And that can speed up the day. But when it's going well, it's a lot longer. And so we're just doing our pitch over and over and over and over again. I could do the pitch right now verbatim.

Matt and I can still do it because he did it so many times. And then finally one day, hey, how old are you guys at this point? Probably 25 maybe. So this is still pretty early. You're young. Oh, way early.

Yeah. Way early. And you get the call. Ring ring. Yeah. Uh you guys are so you chug your coffee and you eat your ramada in breakfast.

Toss in a few pouches. Yeah. And you uh you know brush your teeth, whatever, and you go and uh that experience was a trip, too, cuz they the unmarked van is back. They pick you and three other companies up that you don't know. And they put you in a little green room, not much bigger than this. There's some waters and like sit tight.

We're going to wait till the people in front of you are done. You do a little hair and makeup, which is kind of funny, too. and then finally got right grinds you guys are up and that's when things change. It's it's you know if you've played any background in sports that feeling a huge game, huge venue. You get in the golf cart, they drive you into this again giant airplane hanger of a studio and like all right, you're going to go stand. It's not even a room.

It's four curtains that are in the studio and someone in front of you is is doing their pitch and you can hear everything, right? It's an airplane studio. The whole thing is set up to film. They're like, "You're just going to sit tight. When they're done, we'll walk you in." And the person in front of us had a good pitch that went well.

So it took like an hour and you're just sitting there, you know, not sweating but but literally sweating adrenaline maxed out maxed out and finally they're like, "All right, you're up." And you walk in and it makes sense. Now I I know very little about the TV movie industry, but loud music is playing like it's Flow Rider Whistle was on and it's like this is crazy. They're getting everybody up and they're like, "Is there a studio audience?" No audience. No audience.

In fact, the room is again airplane hanger style studio. The set that you see right, you've got the sharks, you got you walk out that door and you can see like where you set up your product. The other wall is a it looks like a black nothingness and that's where all the cameras, you know, the people running at the restaurant. Yeah. It's like it's like a half like right. They try to set it up.

So, yeah. So, maybe like a Yeah. So, they tell you, hey, you're going to uh those doors that open, they don't go anywhere. So, you actually walk back there and you sit there and they're like, okay, here's what's going to happen. But you're not actually coming out from anywhere. It's like you walk back and then they shut it and then and you're love.

It's incredible to see it all made, right? The magic. Who were the sharks for years? Uh Damon, Robert. Uh so they're the two we made the deal with. Mark, um Barbara and Mr.

Wonderful, right? So the classics. Yeah. Yeah. Dang. Okay.

Uh well that that's not who we made the deal with, but they were the ones that were there. Now there's a lot of different sharks that Yeah. They rotated in. So you they open those doors, you walk out there and the part that no one knows about that I still say was you want to talk about the highest your heart's ever racing. When it starts they open it and they play that music and they're like you're going to walk out and you're going to stand on your mark and we need to get the lighting and the sound right. Don't smile.

Don't move your face. Just stand there for about 30 seconds. Like you can look at them but you know we don't want you to move. Your heart is beating out of your freaking chest. It is incred I mean even now I'm kind of getting that feeling from the black nothingness eventually someone just yells the word go and that's when you take a deep breath and just go through your pitch and you know like your legs get wobbly. We've done the pitch though so many times for four days like we just spit it out.

Matt's great too cuz I started it and I would say something like you know in the locker room of the Red Sox and Chicago Cubs. That was his cue to come in. And when we were debriefing after, he's like, "I didn't hear anything you said except for the word Cubs." And then I said my part because you're so nervous. And then honestly, you sink into it. Um, our pitch was going well.

Cuban was flying through pouches. Like we're we're sitting here watching like this is crazy. He's keeps throwing him in. He's nodding. He's smiling. Like we're going to make a deal with Cuban.

Do you settle in? Cuz I think that one piece just from pitching is making it not seem so scripted. Like it's scripted, but like you want it to feel conversational. Feel natural and conversational. The pitch, they edit it and splice. We were out there for an hour and a half.

They edit it down. So they cut anything that doesn't feel right. Like 12 seconds. But yeah, you do it. It was after we did we did our pitch and then they there's kind of this boring part where they're actually doing this stuff that doesn't end up on TV. Like they don't they have your first name and the name of your company.

So they actually get more oriented with like well who are you really and what are you doing? How'd you get here? Some of that. So there's more of like an a traditional like venture pitch part and a part that's like an hourong meeting where it's like the boring stuff like well hang on go. Is it you sit down or do you stand in the whole time? You're standing the whole time.

And they're sitted or seated just You know what else is funny too? I forgot about this. They do tell you if you ever need a break you just need to say like hey uh can we have 20 seconds to think about this and that buys you like five minutes. You go back behind the doors and it almost is like you can like just sort of recollect yourself. Um, we used that when we were actually going through the offer part. Do you actually sign a deal right there?

You don't. You don't. But do you actually like make terms? Yes. And and honestly, this is all in hindsight. The show has grown so much from here.

It's a handshake deal, right? So afterwards, you're going to go do all the due diligence. Like, you know, they're Are you being truthful about all the stuff? That's basically it. Yeah. And we were.

And we actually went in, we lowered our valuation because we were going to go with I think 75K at a million dollar valuation. And we had these two great producers who are kind of your coaches. They're like, "Hey," they even told us like the sharks are honory today. They're beating everybody up over million-dollar valuations. If you guys are willing to just be a little more humble and lower that, we think you'll actually avoid the hurdle of like, "Why are you worth a million bucks?" Because we were so tiny.

And we lowered our valuation. And so that went smoothly. They're like, "Well, you valued it at 750K. That's reasonable. You know, it shows that you guys are not overzealous." And so things were going well.

And then how about the the layup from or the leu from them when that happened both Matt and I we obviously didn't look at each other like thank god they told us that that was like you get it you guys get it and you do kind of sink into it and then it's like sports like big game or if you even like high school football like kickoff then the game starts somebody hits it and you're like okay now I'm just in the game and that's when it kind of I I don't know if I'll even say fun because it was so stressful but we just got to tell our story um we were we're authentic with what we knew and what we didn't know like hey this is the cost to make the materials Well, how's X and Y going to affect? They're like, you know, we don't know. Good question. We'll figure that out later. And then finally, I think it's like we've been out there for almost an hour and it's Mr. Wonderful who's like clearly either got a signal from like, "All right, let's get down to breast tax."

Like, let's make some offers. Uh Barbara went out cuz she's like, "I don't know what this these pouches are." Yeah. What do you say when when a shark goes out? Uh so that one was easy. We're like total cuz she said something positive.

You guys clearly have energy. I can think you're going to, you know, do something with this, but I don't understand it. I'm not in businesses. I don't understand. Thank you. Get it.

Yeah. Okay, everybody else, what do you got? Uh, and then what was a shocker cuz Cuban's plowing through pouches and nodding along like when we're saying stuff and uh he's like, you know, guys, I think this is going to be a nice business. I think he said something like, "It's going to be a double. Maybe not a home run. It might be, but I'm looking to go even bigger."

And I think Damon and Robert had already made an offer. He goes, "I'm going to make it easier for those guys and I'm going to go out." And I remember being like, "Ah, I thought Cuban was going to be a fit." Uh, and then it was Damon and Robert who were going in on a deal together and Mr. Wonderful wanted this uh licensing deal. Yeah.

Yeah. Every time you sell when I get a quarter till I get my money back. And we knew going in that was not a good deal for us because that that takes cash flow out of a growing business. Yep. Even today we've scaled. We were It kind of like just chokes gives a slight choke on it.

You're not getting as much as you could be getting back in. Even today, we're we're making and selling million cans a year, which is crazy to even say, right? Because I'm reflecting on all this stuff. We we had great coaching. It's like, don't look for a deal like that. Royalties are going to put a slight choke on your business.

The the you know, cash is like feeding a baby. Uh if you use the metaphor of like your business is a small baby growing in hopefully to a teenager one day, you need to just give that thing food and that's money and you don't want to take a royalty deal. So, we passed on that. And I think Damon and Robert wanted more equity. I can't believe I don't remember some of this stuff that we were comfortable with. We set a limit.

I think it was 25%. They wanted 30. And we finally came back, I think, and settled on 15. And that's when Matt and I took our time out because we're like, "Oh we have a real deal. We got to go figure this out." We went back there.

We came here to get a deal. So, let's just take it and we can figure the rest out later. So, we went back, accepted the deal. Um, and then final deal 75k 15% 7 and a2 each. Um, and shook hands. I mean, it was funny too cuz they're beating you up in there, right?

Like some for TV and some because, you know, they're trying to get a good valuation. So, it's tough. And then once it ended, because we made a deal, we had them all sign our bat that we had out there and they all flipped. Like Mr. Wonderful was kicking our ass in there like, "Why doesn't Starbucks squash you like the cockroach you are?" And then it was always like, "Good luck.

you know, you guys are going to do great and like actually like normal like Yeah. They kind You have to play your part, right? Yeah. Exactly. They came out of character a little bit. Yeah.

Um and then from there it was like, you know, sit and wait. It was eight months between when we filmed it and it actually went to air. And in that whole time, you're not supposed to say a word about being on there. When does your investment actually take hold? So, there's a whole another piece. Our deal fell through.

And honestly, in month seven of that 8month window, um mainly because they wanted some more equity and they had some another partner they wanted to bring, it just wasn't a fit for us because we knew exactly what we're going to do with that investment and it fell through in the I mean literally the 11th hour. Um and we were thinking we either just made the biggest mistake we're ever going to make in business or the best choice long term. But they obviously did not cut it from the show. The deal went through in the show Handshake. behind the scenes, the sharks are waiting to see is your episode going to go to air. There's some companies that make a deal on the show.

Yeah. And for whatever reason either the content wasn't there, they get cut. So, you don't actually know if this amazing moment you had is ever going to reach TV in an audience, millions of people watching. Right before then, we're doing due diligence and it just it just fell through. I think uh in hindsight Damon wanted to push and scale quickly and I think Matt and I honestly at the time were you know terrified that that might crush our business. We weren't ready.

The product wasn't there. In hindsight we just weren't ready to scale at all and he's like I want this in Walgreens. I want it in CVS. I'm going to get my guys involved and it just wasn't a fit and I get why it wouldn't be for him. And when we finally went through that, you know, painful process of actually saying no, um it came right when the show was going to air. So, it was like the business was about to get shot out of a cannon.

And And do you owe them anything for the publicity that they give you? We were the last season that had in their contract with uh I forget if it's Sony or Mark Brunette Productions. You you used to sign away 5% equity or 2% royalties forever. That was part of the contract. And our year we were in there, Mark Cuban actually went to bat for companies and said, "Hey, ABC and whoever's involved, you guys are making so much damn money from this show now. you don't need to take equity and royalties for companies.

So, we technically signed that they could take that equity and it was removed from the contract between the time we filmed and the time it went to air. But, I would tell you and I tell anybody even considering going on the show, don't overthink it. If you are going in there with a real valuation, the value you're going to get from that publicity is priceless. So, like yeah, that let's talk about that then. It's the classic uh do you want 100% of a grape or 5% of a water or 50% of a water bottle. of a small pot.

So that airs your deal is by the time it airs do you know your deal is not going through. So you're like this is some free advertising basically two yes but also we we were thinking it's 50/50. It's either the worst decision we're ever going to make. It's going to haunt us forever or it was the right long-term Yeah. play and it was. So you do you have like a watch party?

We did. Uh Matt and I were paranoid. I mean like we didn't want to have a party. It was actually my wife who was like we're having a party. We're we're running out of spot. It's funny because at the time we bank account was really low for the company.

I think we had maybe less than 10,000 bucks. How many units did you have available? We had loaded up on as much inventory as possible for the show and that's why we had no money cuz we said, "All right, it's going to air." You got you got you got product though. Yeah. So, well, we thought we did.

And my wife is like, "We're throwing a party. Like, even if this never goes anywhere, this is going to be an incredible night." uh a buddy of ours who was our one of our first employees was a bartender there at campus named Charles and so we rented out our local bar on a Friday night in San Francisco which was also expensive because that's a a busy night and we had anybody and everybody we knew show up. Um the old mentors from the Cowpoly business competition, our friends and family, we made like a special drink menu like shark shots and it was an incredible party but Matt and I were so nervous. You don't know, you never see the final cut how it's going to edit. We're just terrified.

We wanted to go to the office and just watch our computer and make sure nothing broke. And thankfully, my wife pushed us to throw a party. We did, you know, made it look like red carpet. And the the bar did so well that night, we were supposed to pay him like two grand or something, which is uh 20% of the all the money we had. They said, "We did so well, forget it." Because so many people showed up the bar was slammed.

And then the show aired and it went well. Uh we were flying high. So like Joe's your website just start ripping exploded like like how quickly? Instant. I mean instant. And at the time like you're on screen and like you're getting orders.

Phone is blowing up cuz we we actually ran our our sales through PayPal at that time. All of them. And that's the only reason our website didn't crash. We had pages crash but the part where you put in your credit card and order was through PayPal that can scale and do whatever. And we were we had we would get a ding on our phone every time a PayPal thing. That's a good feeling.

Oh, it's amazing. But then it gets I'm not kidding. You get a pit in your stomach. You're like, I don't know how many orders are coming in. I think we had something like 12,000 orders. That went through all the inventory we had in less than 24 hours.

12. What were they retailing at? 12,000 orders. Like what was the average order value? You know, I think at the time it might have been 30 bucks. And do that math cuz is that like 360K?

Yeah. That's the sales we did that month. But that's all the sales we did because we sold through three times the inventory we had. And we had we were sold out for six weeks because Denmark, we spent all our money buying as much product as we could. We told Denmark, "We're going to air. We'll email you the next day if we need an emergency order."

We emailed them, but they're in Denmark. So, it took three weeks to make it, three weeks to ship it. And that whole time, we were sold out. And I'm not kidding. And I we took a flight from San Francisco to LA. Cleared my voicemail before when I landed.

I had 40 voicemails of people going, "You've got my$,450. Is this a scam? I don't have any product." And we just answered every single email. If you want a refund, I'll do it right now. If you're willing to wait, product will ship.

Whatever you decide. And I mean, they understand. A lot of them understand like we were just on a shark. We sold out. Like, what do you want from us? It's funny.

Everyone understood as long as you sent that message. They was not hearing. And I honestly like Matt and I that's the only couple of times like you I think Matt slept at the office and we were our diet was there was a Walgreens outside our office in San Francisco. We were drinking Red Bull and eating like Cliff Bars for like a month. It was actually nothing but Grinds and Cliff Bars way. It was not a healthy time.

Um and it took a full year to even get on top of inventory because you also have reruns. So we finally got on top back in stock and like hey your your episode's going to rerun on on ABC. We don't have an episode this week. Sold out again. Great for the business. Yeah.

Uh and just shot us out of cannon, man. It was It was incredible. You go from what were you doing pre-shark Tank revenue? Maybe 250K for projected for the year and then we did 350 in that month and that got us above a million in sales and we we stayed there. That was 2012 2013 and we stayed there and then the business started started growing. We started hiring.

Uh everything was focused around like even if people don't like our product, treat them well. Yeah. Great customer service. I'm most proud of one review we had where a guy hated the product. And this is when there was Facebook reviews like I tried this stuff, wanted to like it. It was horrible.

Pouches opened up. The flavor's wrong. Blah blah blah. Brutal. He amended that from a one star to a two star. He goes, "Look, I still hate grinds, but this company knows how to operate.

They treat you well. I had to go back and update my review cuz you may not get it right every time and as long as you take care of people and they know someone cares about what you know the money they're spending um it just goes a long way. You can build you know reputation is gone in a second and takes decades to build it. So yeah. Oh my gosh. One bad thing like you could spend 10 years building a great business and you guys club up and you know send out some bad stuff and they're like oh yeah you're ruined.

Yeah. And that philosophy is still ingrained in the company now. It's like you may not get it right, but you'll make it right. Well, okay. So, so Shark Tank obviously that's the thing that really sets you up over the top, right? Like that that puts you five years company's growing, scaling.

And then at some point in there, uh 2018, 2019ish, you guys start to realize that California is not the place for the future of grinds. Yeah. Let's bring Indiana into the picture, shall we? Business is scaling. You know, we're taking a salary, things are good. We have a nice lifestyle business.

Honestly, we know the market's growing. We see Zen uh launch. At what point? Where did Zen? It's actually 2014. You knew Zen in 2014.

Yeah. Yeah. And and it was not common. They couldn't give Zen away back then. But we saw it coming out and we're like, you know, pouches, people are starting to use alternatives. We're seeing competitors.

We knew we wanted to say, "All right, we don't want a lifestyle company. We're competitive guys play baseball. We want to see how far we can take this." Uh we thought about raising money. We didn't. Um and so at this point, how much equity do you all have versus outside investors?

Matt and I still have I think the equity back then we have almost threequarters of the company and we were well you know if we gave up 20% we'd still have half of it and so we were thinking about it but we we knew that to really control our own destiny and scale it we had to bring production in house and when we thought about doing that in California we found out very quickly ain't no chance in hell you can afford to do that and did you guys have like warehouse like were you shipping all your own orders? Yeah, shipping. Okay. you had a a decent physical footprint, but not like a manufacturing facility. And we kept running like, you know, storage units and extra units for inventory cuz our spot was small and we had more inventory. And then we started looking maybe we can, you know, be a few hours away from the Bay Area and maybe Lake Tahoe, Reno area.

Even that wasn't affordable. And then I think we did hire someone to look at, you know, go a real estate company to say like where can we go? And they put some cities on a list. Indie was I think like number eight or nine out of 10. You had Phoenix, Dallas, I think the Carolas. And we just got on flights and went to go explore places.

And they use that top chamber. Yeah. The disposal chamber. Yeah. Uh uh discard chamber. The discard chamber.

Discard chamber. Yeah. Comes in handy. Yeah. Yeah. But we, you know, we got on flights and started going to Dallas, Phoenix, uh Denver, and I knew I was ready to move with the company.

Matt wasn't moving at the time. Indie. We visited right off the bat. Still love the airport. So easy to get in and out of. It's unreal.

Brand new. So, had you ever been to Indiana before? Not once. You'd never been to Indiana. Who comes with you? Just you and your wife?

Uh, yeah. My wife and I. And and Matt and I came out to go see the facility that we're now in. And we we made a hire here. So, first first visit. Yeah.

Is who? Uh, Matt and I. So, you and Matt show up. First time ever. You're like, "Okay." In the winter, I think it was December.

And you're like, "Well, let's check out Indiana in December." Yeah. No clue. Side unseen. And we ended up, we're in Westfield, right? So, you know, first off, got to the airport quick and easy.

Like, that's not bad. It was freezing. We end up I can't remember the hotel we're at, but we go to see our facility that we're I think we maybe had already signed or we're getting ready. Oh, so you you bet on Indiana sight unseen. Bet on it. Side unseen.

I think we signed the lease when we actually were here just to confirm. But we showed up and we're in Westfield and as you likely know and anyone from Indiana knows, Westfield was brand new. Everything was brand new. They were We're off Oakidge and 32. Yeah. A mile south of Grand Park.

Is that west of 31? Yeah. Okay, I got you. And we couldn't believe it. I mean, it was a brand new facility. I mean, literally just been set up in the last year.

The rent was a third per square foot of where we were at in Oakland for three times the size. Um, we had people who seemed like they were excited to work here, which we had great people in Oakland, but you know, there's so many so much opportunity here. People are excited to join a new company. Uh, I remember actually when we signed the lease, they were like, "Hey, the mayor wants to come out for a ribbon cutting." That blew our mind. I was like, in Oakland, all we got was like the food inspector making sure that we weren't, you know, cutting regulations.

And here it's like the mayor wants to meet with us. So it was just nice to be in a spot where at first what like at first were you like okay what's going on here? It felt a little funny. It's like well wait a minute is this actually so small that you know if the mayor's coming out for grinds I don't know if we we need to be the biggest company here. But in hindsight it's just a reflection on and you probably weren't the biggest company in Westfield. But it's that who's your hospitality right?

100%. Like it's a real thing and I love hearing it from people like you're you're grew up in California lifelong. It's almost like I talk to people and it's like they're like keeping an ardent distance away. Like are people really this nice? Like do you really care? Like what do you want from me?

Who's your hospitality is unbelievable. Um we have our customer service lead Mary Joe. She is who's your hospitality? I mean even I remember we hired like Mary Joe what a quintessential name to get working your customer service. Absolutely. And it's like at the time are you going back and and people from home were like why the hell are you going to Indiana?

No one understood it. Uh probably most of all our families right like because by the way Indiana is much further east than we even thought. I thought it was closer to Denver. Uh, shows how much I know in California, right? But no, you ended we ended up here and just everything started clicking, you know? It's like good quality of life.

We ended up moving to to Zensville downtown. Affordable house on the bricks. On the bricks, man. We're just two blocks off. Affordable housing. The road that I take to work was repaved like while I worked.

I was like, I got brand new, beautiful roads. No traffic, no stress. Uh, quality of life. Sounding cheesy too. Midwestern work ethic. also incredible.

They get these nice people who know what it means to like spend a day's hard work and that's kind of the standard. I mean, I love it. Did any of your California employees stick with the company? How did that Cuz that has to be hard. That was brutal. How How big were you guys up to when you were out there?

Maybe um 10 to 12 people. Still really small, but uh we had some that stayed on during the transition. That was one of the hardest things. And you there's a few things that have been brutal for the company. That was tough cuz we had good people there and we knew the business couldn't couldn't s succeed California and so we had to make the move and some people left while we were transitioning a couple people stayed on even through the transition but in the end only a couple were even considering moving to Indiana and that was really a deal breakaker and then we ended up here with a couple people that overlapped but we kind of started from scratch. Um, and that year was so tough, but honestly, moving to Indiana, I said it to you earlier, feels like a cheat code.

Quality of life has improved. Things are more affordable, affordable housing. There's great infrastructure here. You can get pretty much anywhere you need to get on the East Coast, in the Midwest with a quick flight. Um, it just put life from hard mode to I don't know if I'll say easy mode, but medium. Yeah.

Well, and it's like when you think about like bottom line, you move your company to Indiana, huge expense, but like I would assume margins go up because you have more space or like productivity. I don't know what's that look like. It's way more efficient. Um just again the when you're thinking about the space you're in because your your rent and your cost and materials are always your two highest expenses. We had a great place we knew we could grow into. It was expensive year one, but again, just the quality of the workforce, uh, the ability to scale and grow.

I mean, we're getting the fruits of that now almost 5 years in, and knowing that there isn't going to come a time where we might need to leave this place. It's a home base. I mean, we signed a 20-year lease, which seemed insane at the time. 20 years. Yeah. And now we're sitting here going, man, that might have been the best thing we ever did.

Might have been the that that this warms my heart. I love this. two things as we kind of like wrap out of that and then I have some fun segment questions at the end. That's a hell of a story for starters. Just like going from Cal Poly Sand which most people no one knows it here. It was good baseball.

D1 baseball. Yeah. I mean that's like a Butler basketball type thing. I feel like 100% growing this company getting the chance on Shark Tank that kind of is like a Hollywood California thing, right? It's like you're building this business out there. Not Hollywood but like for us Hoosiers it's like all of California is Hollywood.

They're like entrepreneurial. Yeah. Like a scenarios like oh we went to Shark Tank. we had our idea and then it's like you start to like you know do the whole California entrepreneur thing but to be openminded I suppose enough to like really look at your options and like to end up moving a company from where your family is and where you've been growing to the heartland I think is like takes some serious courage but then you look back five years in hindsight you're like dude great decision great decision what would you say to the entrepreneur that's looking to relocate and maybe considering Indiana. I'll answer that question, but I also need to shout out my wife before that because that was a big deal. Uh, she moved to Indiana without stepping a foot in the state.

Um, so just having her support was huge. Yeah. And, you know, leaving family was the toughest part of it. It still is the toughest part. Just got to go see my family in Disneyland and it was just great to see them. But she was committed, right?

She's like, "Okay, I don't know if I want to be here, but I'm willing to commit and do it and we'll make the most of it." So, I have to give a shout out to her. I'd be foolish not to. Danielle, I love you. You're the best. Thank you for supporting us.

What's her opinion on Indiana? She loves it. She loves it. And I How long did it take for that? Because it's like you kind of have to make it work because you just signed a 20-year lease and you're like, "Oh, baby, isn't this fun? Isn't this fun?"

Oh, totally. When When did it flip where she was like, "Oh, I actually Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you're smart and you have good strategy. Sometimes you get lucky." We moved here and she loves green places. And we were flying in and I remember she was terrified.

I'm moving to a new state. I don't know anybody. We're flying over Indiana, middle of the summer. She came in the summer, not the winter. That was strategic. She's like, "It's so green.

This is beautiful." We ended up in Zansville. She started working for the Zansville's farmers market. She one of her best friends lives, you know, two doors down for us or two blocks down. New new best friend. New best friend.

New best friend. And we just got lucky. It clicked for her. Again, sometimes you get lucky. Scienceville's green. Like that's the color of the high school.

You know, you got you got all sorts of green. And the village off the bricks. It's just beautiful. So, we really enjoyed it. And honestly, it's the people. The people were welcoming.

You know, we made we have great friends that feel like lifelong friends that we've had since we moved to Indiana. And so, she's fit in in some ways in the beginning. She fit in better than I did cuz I was just working, you know, 8 till 8 coming home. We had a newborn. So, it's like parent at night, don't sleep, go to work, high stress for a year. And she actually got to know Zansville and fell in love with just our community there.

Heck yeah. I love that. I think that's really important when you think about teamwork and the risk that she took to help make the dream come to life. Did Matt move out here, too? No, but Matt is moving this summer. He's finally moving.

Five. Welcome to the Heartland. He was convinced. He finally was convinced. Uh where's Is he laying down in Zensville, too? He's going to be in Z about five minute drive away.

There. Look at that. That's economic development, baby. Come on. New Hoosiers coming in. Um, but if there are entrepreneurs out there listening to the podcast thinking, "Hey, we might want to move out of one of these bigger expensive hubs in San Francisco or LA or New York or Boston that are considering the Midwest.

Why is Indiana the right spot?" I've had that conversation with a number of people. I think what they don't realize is that there is a great life that is possible outside of the bubbles of San Francisco, New York, even Austin, Texas. the advantages you will gain moving here. If a if it is a priority to grow your business and you want to have something that sticks and endures for the long term, you need to find a home base. And the Midwest is a great place to do it.

The weather isn't intimidating as you think. There's great people here. It's affordable. Depending on the time of life you are in, it can enable things that you want in your personal life and your work life. buying a home, a home that you can afford in a good neighborhood with good schools, things that I didn't think about when I was starting my business in my 20s, grinding away. Yeah, grinding away.

Shout out. It just enabled all those things to come to fruition and I didn't understand them as much as I do now when I moved. But being here, you just realize again, you're taking life's hard enough on its own. You're just taking the difficulty down 20%, 30%. In your personal life, in your work life, and you can always go visit those places. I fly back to San Francisco a couple times a year.

I love it there. I do miss it, but Indiana's home now. And there is just so much opportunity you are unaware of. You've got your blinders on that Indiana can open up. From a personal perspective, what would you say to the person that's considering moving to Indiana from a coast? I would recommend seeing it first.

I wouldn't go the route I did with, you know, one you kind of had to that you had to come move here. Were you and be honest at first were you what were your what were your feeling like a Well, the weather immediately, I think it was December or February, I was like, it is so damn cold here. I need to upgrade my Patagonia. This ain't going to cut it. But really, it's you're kind of hesitant like, man, is this really going to work? Um, it's a lot quieter.

Sometimes people call indie, you know, sleep town or nap town. Honestly, there what I would say is there is still enough to keep you busy because your life and your priorities, if you, you know, if you want to build a family and have close relationship with friends, you can do that here. If you want to build a business and grow it and scale it here, you can do that here. We're in the right industry, but if even if you're in the tech scene, there's opportunity downtown. I mean, people are moving and it's growing. I think you need to visit a place, see if you can imagine yourself giving it a try.

And even if you just check that back, that box, I a year will fly by. You can always go back. It's not a one-way door. It may seem like a one-way door, but moving your business here, there's always other options. If you truly hate a place, you'll find a way to move, but on the off chance you like it and you love it, it's going to enable so much. And like what was when you were I mean obviously you were in grind mode, but like getting plugged in to really meet Hoosiers and make friends.

I feel like everyone's always worried about making adult friends. It's really hard. What was the advice moving to Indie? I was fortunate through work I just met people. Um, I think it's important to know the neighborhood you're going to live in and think about if there's ways for me to, you know, have these kind of casual run-ins with people I might become friends with because the last thing you have time for running a business and we had a new baby was to go meet people at a networking event. But if you're out there and you're in a place that you enjoy, you like the weather, you like the scenery, you like the environment, you will end up running into good people.

And I know Indiana has good people. Amen. I love Indiana. I don't know if I can say that for every other place that's out there. I only know Indiana, but we love it, man. Well, I mean, coming from the West Coast, too, it's like that's a big culture shock.

And I just have loved the like acquired passion that you have for the Hoosier State. Like, that's We love it, man. I still I should probably stop with the shockingly, but we love it. My wife moved here. She had to fly out without me one trip with our four-month-old. She had the Butler soccer team, women's soccer team.

They were hold she sent me a picture of them holding our our son Luke. Two of them ended up being babysitters for us. Incredible. My wife's at the airport. Someone there at the airport goes, "Hey, you need some help? You look like you got a kiddo."

They helped her get from the gate to her car. That doesn't happen in San Francisco, man. People are head down. I got to do. I got to keep moving. And so we honest, it's just real.

It sounds cheesy, but the who's your hospitality is just a real thing. And man, if you're thinking about Indiana, I think it's a no-brainer, dude. I love it because when I sit here and harp about it, like the lifelong, they're like, "Okay, yeah, you're just like patting yourselves on the back." But like, you've seen I've lived it. I've done I was telling when we talked to the mayor I was like if you need a poster child for why you should move to Indiana. I left the coast and I came here.

I had no idea if it was going to work out. I love it. And I've got a buddy. His name's Brian Riley. You're probably going to have him sitting here. He moved his bike company to Seymour.

Yes. This is Guardian Bikes. Guardian Bikes. Yes. I We need him. Calpali alum.

Shark Tank alum. It's just I'm going to see him in about two weeks. So I'll Yeah, that up. That would be awesome cuz there are like the safe breaking bikes, right? And their company's exploding exploding US manufacturing and Yeah. And he's been at it for 15 years, too.

This is like a whole part, too, of like the fact that both of you have US manufacturing is probably really good, depending on what's going on right now. It definitely is. I don't like to inflate that too much, but yeah, I mean, we we we both knew we want to control our own destiny. His company has exploded from the effect of making products in the United States, probably in more so than grinds, but Indiana is a great home to do it. Amen. I love Did you like Were you in his ear at all when he was thinking about where to he got a deal on Shark Tank with Cuban and he was exploring moving.

I think they were in Southern California, maybe even Austin. I think they were in Texas. Yeah. Yeah. He told me he was already looking at places in Indiana. And I told him what I just told you right now.

If you're considering it, man, it's a no-brainer. Like if you're down to a couple of places, I can vouch for Indiana as a great place for quality of life, for travel, for your business to thrive. And I mean, he is doing it. See more, baby. Go out. It's incredible.

Amen. We'll do that. Dude, uh we're going to the end of the show. We have a couple fun questions here. Man, this has been awesome. An hour and 15 minutes.

Also, go to the Indy500. Holy Oh, yeah. Please. Indy500 blew my mind. I go every year now. I love it.

When was the first time you went? Co year. Did they run the race that year? Mm- There was one year they didn't run it, right? There was one year they ran it with no fans or you had to be up in the stands. That's the first year I went.

We're only stands. Yeah. And so it was a weird experience. We had a weird connection. We had a golf cart that we tagged a sticker on. So someone we knew.

It was a weird way to experience it. We had a golf cart driving around the infield. The Indy500 blew my mind then. And then I I've been back every year and then I went back with fans. My the flyover when they're getting started. I mean I love it.

I'm going every year. We look forward to it. It's a grinds event too. Now we're doing a big tailgate. We'll see you out there. We'll come host you.

We're at uh it'll be in the infield I think on the I'm looking at the track. Northeast side maybe. Uh I don't I actually can't remember if it's turn three or four, but we have a tailgate section. Northeast would be turn three. That's where we're at and we'll host ours again. That'll be sick.

Yeah. Yeah. I I believe it. Maybe we'll link up for it. Yeah, we'll figure it out. Um I love it, man.

Well, hey, thanks for coming on. We have a few fun questions. Uh we're going to hit them rapid fire style. First one, what's your favorite Grinds flavor of all time? Cinnamon roll. I was thinking cinnamon roll.

I should have written that down and like done that because I had this. You guys sent the cinnamon roll last year. It's phenomenal. Favorite shark on Shark Tank. I, you know, I'm partial to Cuban. They all treated us well, so I can't d him.

Barbara's a bulldog, too. Uh Damon was great on there, too. Robert was great. So, they all great. They legitimately great even off the camera. Yeah, totally.

And though Cuban, now that I'm a Hooer, I kind of lean towards him because he cuts the BS. Yeah, that's awesome. Dream grinds celebrity partnership. George KD, tight end, San Francisco 49ers. from the San Francisco Bay area. Yeah, I just love to work with them.

And we we've sent product to him. He's used Grinds. Uh but he's in another stratosphere for partnerships. But we also had Buster Posey at one time using Grinds. I mean, I'm just Barry a kid. So, you get Niners and Giants involved.

Yeah, it's fair. George, let's let's ink a deal, baby. Come on. Make it happen. Longtime listener of the pod. I said that about everyone who we talk about.

Yeah, of course. What's the craziest uh flavor idea you guys have had? We might have just rolled it out. It was dill pickle. Ju just launched for April Fools. We actually made it.

Dill pickle. The craziest one though because we do funny April Fools was a uh tuna tuna fish. Didn't make it. You didn't actually make that one. Okay. We've got some wild stuff coming.

You could honestly make a little like one of the the little cans like look like a like a you know like like chicken of the sea. You might see it next. There you go. Next April Fools. Um, these are the final three questions I ask everyone who sits in the chair. First one, what's something the world needs to know about Indiana?

Oh man, it's just a hidden gem. You do hidden gems. That's the next question. Indiana is a hidden gem. I mean, it's just a great place to live on the coast. I hate that it's it's so cliche.

You don't even know where Indiana is on the map. And I can say that honestly. I didn't know exactly where it was. There's so much happening here that you would assume is just corn fields. And that's what I assume. corn fields and long roads.

Downtown city's great. There's life outside in the suburbs. There's places to go see even though it's flat. There's beautiful places. My wife loves to camp. There's just so much here than you would assume and you need to go experience it.

Yeah. Well, getting into some of those places. You've been here for five years. No, over five years. Six years now. What is a hidden gem in Indiana?

Rivet Coffee out in Zansville and it's uh Have you been over there? Was the OG1 in Westfield? OG1's in Westfield also a great spot. Yeah, because I've had a tough time finding good coffee. Shout out to Rivet. But the Rivet that just uh got set up in Zensville is by where all the race uh headquarters have been built.

And you can go, you know, get your latte, get a little sandwich, and you can go see cars. They've got a showroom. It's incredible. That's awesome. Incredible. The Rivet in Zensville.

Rivet in Zensville. That's a good hidden gem. You You'll be blown away by the cars they let you walk around and see in this coffee shop. That's pretty sick. Uh final question for you. This is how we find new guests.

uh new people we need to know about. Who's a Hoosier we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things. You know the guy I'm going to list? It's Mr. Brian Riley of Guardian Bikes down in Seymour.

Uh we have similar past. You got to talk to him if you can go see their facility. It will blow your mind. Everything's made in Indiana. His game plan was to bring bike manufacturing in the United States, which is non-existent. He's doing it in Seymour.

Bike manu Well, here's what we'll do. uh Seymour or actually Jackson County. So that's the county that Seymour's in. They're hosting the Watermelon Fest in August really with uh Steven Wilson Jr. is one of the headliners and he's from Seymour really. And he's blowing up right now going crazy.

So we'll plan a trip. We'll go to the Watermelon Festival. We'll see Steven Wilson Jr. and we'll check out Guardian Bikes and like see all the stuff that Brian's got going on down there. That's I think that's in August. I think we'll make that happen.

If he if he sees this episode, he's going to blow your mind. Yeah, I love it, man. Uh, we appreciate you coming on. Honorary like who's your by choice? Those are always fun. I always love to uh to get to talk to people that have been out there, seen different things, grown up in different uh places, different life experiences, and choose to build a company, a life, all those fun things right here in Indiana.

Man, we're not going anywhere. We love it, man. 20 I mean, you still got 14 years on a 20-year lease. Uh, appreciate all you're doing and the way that you're speaking about Indiana. That's awesome. I'm really excited to get this episode out into the wild.

Yeah, thanks for having me. We love your stuff. Shout out to intern Max for setting this up and uh keep doing what you're doing. It's incredible to see. Also been watching it grow. Appreciate you, man.

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