#235 Secrets behind the success of leading creative minds in business | Kara Goldin

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Bootstrapping Your Dreams Show

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(0:33)Introduction -Kara is the founder and CEO of hint Inc, which is best known for its award-winning hint water. Kara is skilled in entrepreneurship, brand management, sales, e-commerce, marketing leadership, and public speaking and has been involved in the sales department for leading companies like CNN, and Time Magazine. Kara has been named one of the InStyle badass 50 fast company's most creative people in business fortune's most powerful women entrepreneurs fortune, most innovative women in food and drink, and Ei Entrepreneur of the Year for Northern California. The Huffington Post listed Kara as one of the six disruptors in business alongside Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. Kara has successfully navigated the world of large companies and startups in many industries including media, tech, and consumer products. In addition, she understands retail and is direct to the consumer market as well. She's an active speaker and writer and hosts the podcast, the Kara Goldin show where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs, and other disruptors across various industries. kara's first book undaunted, overcoming doubts and doubters, published by Harper leadership was released in October 2020. and is now a WSJ and Amazon bestseller.The interview-(2:06)1. So you've had a very successful career. And you know, you've done some amazing things. Help us? How did it all come about? Maybe walk us down Memory Lane? How did it all get started?(2:25) I started my career in New York City and media, and I was at a magazine called Time Magazine. And I actually wrote about it in my book that I wanted to work for Fortune Magazine, but they wouldn't hire me. So that was probably my first big hit where I thought, why won't they hire me? I mean I'm a great writer and I thought of it when I was at age 21. I was very interested in finance, and I would love to work for them but they weren't hiring people unless you had experience. I ended up getting a role at Time Magazine in circulation, which was direct to consumer businesses and subscriptions. That was really where I was trained. in sort of that first role. I left after a few years, was recruited out to a late-stage startup called CNN. I was there at a time when Ted Turner was still running around the office, he was bouncing between Atlanta and New York. It was definitely my first experience with a visionary entrepreneur, there were plenty of people who thought that he wouldn't be able to do what he was setting out to do, that he wanted 24-hour news across the world. He was lucky at this point to have it in 50% of the households because people didn't have cable. So watching somebody who I believed in, but I also thought there was a chance that it's not really going to play out the way that he wants it to. I watched him build the brand, put stakes in the ground, and he never floundered. I mean, he was always very consistent about his messaging and what he believed was such a pleasure to even see him and hear him talk in the kitchen because you think like, he is a little crazy, but he believes and I believe, because he believes I got to spend more time with this person. Anyway, it was then the Gulf War rolled around when Iraq learned that they were being bombed, frankly, that's that, they turned on CNN, and now really the hockey stick for CNN and I was there during that time. So I was there for a few more years. And then I decided to move to Silicon Valley and was engaged. My husband had just graduated from law school and wanted to do technology law. So we moved out to Silicon Valley, the only person that I thought of when I thought about Silicon Valley was Steve Jobs and I had had in college, a computer, one of the first Macintosh computers. I was fascinated by how small it was a little bigger than they are today. But also just that it was, it was aesthetically interesting. It was simpler than the rest of the computers out there. So I thought, How do I get a job at Apple? And I couldn't figure that out. But instead, in my research, I saw that there was this little company that was doing CD ROM shopping that had spun out of Apple that was halfway between Silicon Valley and San Francisco where I was living. So I picked up the phone and called one of the people that was quoted in this wall street journal article, and I said, I think I probably hoped it was going to be Steve Jobs on.It wasn't. And instead, I said, Hey, I'm really interested, I know that there's this whole idea of broadband dial-up services are out there, I and you know, more than anything, I love the idea that graphics could be put onto a disk and then basically, you're telling consumers to insert it into the machine, which is a little known Steve Jobs idea. And I thought, I would get it, I'd love to just grab coffee with you, I'm not really looking for a job, but it'd be great to do that. So I go for coffee. And suddenly, I have a job offer. And my job offer was, you know, to go out to cataloguers and retailers. And I remember thinking, What in the world am I going to do? While I'm here, right? I mean, it's just crazy. I don't have any experience in tech or technology. I'm not an engineer, but what the heck, I mean, what's the worst that could happen? and see what happens.  Instead, I took on this role, and it was a business development sales role. And my job was to call the crew and all the gaps and LL Bean and all kinds of retailers and help really build out this kind of online mall. One of our investors, America Online, invested in the name of the company, alongside apple. And then they acquired us when we needed more money. And part of the acquisition was to build out exactly what we had done on the CD ROM on America Online. They invited me to come and run their retail partnerships for America Online. There was a small period of time where I was running the disk, as well as the online partnerships. The idea was that we could offer retailers to different platforms, while broadband was catching up and all the different technologies. I think more than anything, what I learned during that time, was watching people like Ted Turner either working directly or indirectly, for people like Steve Jobs, then Steve Case, incredible entrepreneurs, who there was a chance none of this was gonna happen and they were having fun. They were learning along the way. And they made mistakes, and they made failures. I loved all of those experiences because I thought, you know, it's risky, maybe to some, but I'm enjoying it every day. We're building and continuing to go on. Well, at the end of seven years at America Online, that's when it was a billion dollars in revenue. many stories from working with retailers, including working with Jeff Bezos, where I was helping build a bookshelf up in Seattle with them because I took the time to his time, basically at 5:30 in the afternoon to do so many amazing stories along the way. But basically, it was a billion dollars in revenue after seven years, and I decided to take a little time off. It was at that moment when I didn't plan on launching my own company or and certainly not launching a beverage company, I really thought that I was probably going to do something else in tech. But it was one I looked at my own life and what I really cared about and really kind of the puzzle that I was trying to solve in my own life around my own health. I was trying to lose weight and to clear up my skin that had developed terrible acne and my energy levels and I thought I never used to be like this. Why am I like this now? And when I started looking at everything that I was eating, and drinking, I finally stumbled upon my diet soda, my diet killer. I thought if I can just do this little test to swap it out for plain water, maybe it will make a difference. It made a huge difference in two and a half weeks, I not only got my energy back and cleared up my skin, but I lost 24 pounds. In two and a half weeks holy cow by getting off of diet sweeteners. The last thing I'll say is that the idea of stumbling onto something that I didn't really expect to stumble on, my curiosity was piqued and I thought, why is it just by giving up diet sweeteners? Am I able to get healthy when there's a whole industry out there? That has been telling me that if I drink diet, low fat and vitamins and all the rest, that I'm going to be healthier? Isn't that the opposite of what really happens? So I became really interested in this.The only problem was that plain water for me was boring. It was something of a chore to drink it. So I started slicing up fruit and throwing it in the water. And then I would share with people about this, what I had created because people were noticing that I had lost this weight and my skin cleared up.I would like to share my story and they'd say, That's incredible. Can you make some for me? and then I thought while I'm taking a hiatus from Tech, maybe I'll maybe go get a product on the shelf at Whole Foods. I mean, how hard could it be? I never thought about taking on the soda industry taking on big sugar, you know, all the things that I'm known for today, I never really thought about that. Instead, I just thought I'm gonna try, I'm gonna go get it on the shelf. And it kind of be a kick, if it actually worked if someone else bought it.But more importantly, if I was helping people. That's how I really thought about it. It would make me feel good to know that I was helping people with something that is as important as health. And I think having my own experience, having my own, you know, challenges, that that was the thing that I was most passionate about. It's a lot of what I talked about in the book as well, that while I thought it would work against me to actually come from Tech and not having been in the beverage industry, what I realized was actually a lot of the skills that I had developed, combined with my own passion and my own curiosity and interest in health and the change was exactly what was needed to go in and disrupt an industry and not only was developing a new product but also developed an entirely new category for in the beverage industry, which hadn't been developed called unsweetened flavored water. Yeah, so that is the story.(14:58)2. You know, the more people the more successful entrepreneurs I talk about, or talk to, in my own journey, I find that same common thread like there is something that happens in their life, which sort of gives them the passion to keep pushing forward. Because as you said, it's not easy at all. I mean, you know, once you reach a certain stage, people just look at the tip of the iceberg, but they fail to see all the struggles and the failures behind the scenes. But if that passion was not fueling it, you know, it's very easy to give up, isn't it?(16:06) I describe the journey of an entrepreneur like this, and I know you're a serial entrepreneur, so let me see if this resonates with you. But it's like, if you don't enjoy doing puzzles, yeah, then you won't really love being an entrepreneur. Maybe you don't get a chance to do puzzles very often, but it is a good gauge for me whether or not you allow yourself to do and I should say, a new puzzle that you've never done.No one's given you the picture, no idea what's in front of you, but you think I'm gonna go try. And then along the way in your journey, somebody walks up, and they take a handful of the puzzle pieces, and you're like, Wait, what? Where are you going? You can't do that. With this, everything's going great, everything's wonderful. You know, I'm not going to be able to finish the puzzle if you don't give them back, but they never do, and they walk away. you just keep trying and thinking, what else can I do along the way to finish this puzzle, then you find out that those puzzle pieces, you didn't even need them. Right, they left, you were very upset about him, but you kept going and you kept figuring it out. Along the way, you find out that those puzzle pieces end up coming back, and then you're like, awesome, they ended up coming back, because I was able to finish the rest of the puzzle. Now they're coming back, and now I see the full picture. Things like that, I think, are the mindset no matter what industry you're in. if you need the picture to solve the puzzle, if you can't handle the fact that someone is going to come in and take things from you, you just continue to figure out how to move on, then being an entrepreneur isn't for you. Part of the reason why I wrote my book as well as really to share this idea with people. I think that the glamour of being an entrepreneur is often overstated. I always say to people, there are ways to make money. you can't, it's not a nine-to-five job. Even as you're building along the way, if you don't really understand every single role in this company that you're working in, that you've built, then you know, somebody can leave and you have to be able to do that job, right? I mean, that's what happens along the way. you have to make payroll, there's a lot of things that you have to be able to do along the way. I think that the idea of, I guess, my background in working for other entrepreneurs, I never really get a renewed interest and appreciation for other entrepreneurs when you set out to do it. I also tell people, there's always a chance in an entrepreneur's head, that you could fail, there's always that doubt. But the worst thing they can do is surround themselves with doubters that are gonna feed into that. The most important thing for an entrepreneur to be able to do is to knock down the walls in front of them, figure out how to go around the wall, constantly innovating in order to get through something. I have a lot of people who talk about hustle and about never stopping. I think it's okay, actually, to slow down sometimes to stop and think you talked about, having a situation in front of you where you don't exactly know what to do. I think that the best entrepreneurs are able to kind of look at what's in front of them, and the fork in the road and make decisions. Also know that they can go one way, and they're hopeful that that way is going to work. But they also know that they can't make the same mistake twice. So they're going to turn around and maybe go the other way, even if it'll take them a little bit longer to assess the situation. That is the most important thing, I think, in not only building a new company and being an entrepreneur but also building something totally new, like a new category.(20:56)3. So it's a very dynamic environment like that. And I think the way I look at it is, it's almost like a discovery of yourself, you know, self discovery in the sense. Okay, what are you made of? What are you capable of? Right?(22:04) Absolutely, these challenges and failures along the way build resilience. It's important to look back on those times. I still have those times today, when I've had many challenging moments, but I'll have challenges that maybe I didn't expect the pandemic, for example, when we're an FDA regulated company, that is that we've always known we were an essential product, but there are regulations in the US around being an essential product and your responsibility to actually stock shelves and have enough supplies for stores for consumers to be able to access. So people said to me, You seem very calm in this process. I think I joked one day and said, when you've been through the 2008 2009 financial crisis when you almost had your shot, your company shut down, when you have had to, you know, go in and deliver your fourth child on your way to get your product on the shelf that you just sort of roll, right? And then you just learn that it's important to think about those times, and maybe you didn't think that it was all going to work out. But then it did and maybe it turned out a little bit different than you had thought. And, and so more importantly, I think, even shows like this are ones where it helps people to know, and especially the people who are going through dark moments that are really challenging, if you're not, and you've never been through those times, some of the stuff that we talked about here, or we talked about on my podcast, don't make sense to people until you've been through it. The people that are going through really, really challenging times. That's the, that's where it's like misery as company is, as you know, the saying goes, it's it to be able to hear the stories that people had moments that were really dark, when they didn't know how they were going to get through. But then this happened. And then this happened. That's what people need to know in order to know that they can go on. So it's a really, really important piece of it.(24:26)4. Now let's move on to your book, which is sort of the theme. You know, undaunted, what made you write it? And I'm sure, like, it is all about what we talked about already. But tell us what prompted that and what are some of the you know, some of the key things that people can take away from that book?(25:38) The main key thing so it really is my journey. And it's from the start, I grew up in Arizona and had these dreams of being a writer. I didn't even have a dream of being in tech until I just got in and I found what I was interested in and so actually making the moves to start somewhere, I think is a really important lesson in this book. One of my chapters is called build the plane, build the aeroplane as you're flying it. I talk all the time that it's, you know, that the lessons I've learned in not only my company but in other companies that I worked for is that you don't always have the roadmap and you spoke about the support that you get inside of your company. If you don't have people that are a little bit bendable? Maybe they've, I used to think, because this was my first startup that I had started, I used to think that I've got to go and hire lots of people from Coke and Pepsi to come into my company, not having experience. They joined the company. But then those people were not the right people, because they were used to following orders. Right? They were used to thinking that this is the way you do it, versus actually saying, could we do it this way? They'd say no. And I'd say why. And then they didn't have the answers, because no one had gone through that process. so you need people who are curious, you need people who are willing to fail, you need people who are excited and passionate about your product, but also excited and passionate about you and believe that you are going to do this, but also are willing to test things along the way. Those are the stories that I tell in the book to not only my own experience, but also finding the right people to recognize that, you know even if, in our case, when we had one of the stories in the book we were getting kicked out of Starbucks. we were in Starbucks, and you know, almost 7000 stores across the US. And as we were, that was a very exciting day, when we got in there we were surpassing our goals in Starbucks. But when they got a new buyer and they started having strategic discussions internally at Starbucks, they decided they wanted to offer food. In their case, they didn't have food prior to us being there, that was a couple of cookies, but they didn't have any sandwiches. so when I got the news that they were going to pull us out of the case, that was a bad day, I thought you can't do this. We've been meeting all of the expectations, but they had expectations for their business too. so it's a story about learning. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Things can happen when people change strategies that are better for them. also become aware that you can't stop, you need to figure out what else I can be doing. And that's when we got an email about two weeks after the Starbucks situation from Amazon. Amazon was just starting their grocery business, and they hadn't launched beverages online. And the buyer from Amazon said to me, You know, I buy your product every morning at Starbucks. Now, I didn't know if I should share with him that we had just been eliminated. I just said, Oh, that's, that's terrific. And I'm thinking, Oh, what if he finds time? I said, I have a lot of extra products that we can ship out to you right now. Like this minute, I can ship it out to you. And he said, Oh, that's great. I'll wire you the money right now. That's terrific, because we really want to get lunch. So again, understanding that if you were open to other possibilities along the way, we didn't have online direct to consumer in our plan today, during the pandemic, that business tripled. For us, almost 50% of our business is direct to the consumer. Yeah, and having that relationship with the consumer, versus going through a store for 100% of your distribution is not only important for you to have that consumer relationship during normal times, but during a pandemic, when things are out of control in terms of you know, where this virus sits if stores are closing down, the safest way to get products to consumers, etc. So, lots of lessons in the book about that.(30:47)5. There's one question I have is, you know, the other part the other part of the title is doubters and doubt and doubters. And you also talk about fearless risk-takers, entrepreneurs are fearless risk-takers. At the same time you also say you know you, you have been through times where things didn't look as good and you know, Fear sets in anxiety set. And so these are two different dimensions. So how do you reconcile them? How do you know, overcome these fears? And then keep on taking these risks? (31:22) It's so the name of the book is undaunted, overcoming doubts and doubters and I think there's always been this idea out there about entrepreneurs that they are fearless risk takers that they don't have doubts. they'll just go and do whatever because they know they'll be successful. I've always shared with people that I actually think that most entrepreneurs actually do have doubts, and they do have fears. But the fun of going and trying the adrenaline of going out into a world that hasn't been tackled before, is consistent with what I've seen in so many entrepreneurs. It's not that they don't think that, that, you know, they're going to fail, or there's a tiny little bit of doubt sitting in their head. But instead, it's figuring out, what if it could actually happen? Wouldn't that be amazing? think about Steve Jobs, and how many people thought he was crazy, putting this computer together and sticking a little apple on it. I mean, it's just crazy, right? And, and I just think like things, thinking about those people. knowing their stories, and ones that I've been very fascinated with for so many years, are the things that have allowed me to know, I could go do it.probably the most surprising thing for me, if you don't mind me. Say about my book that I knew it would be great for beverage entrepreneurs, or people in the food space, or maybe even female entrepreneurs, or maybe even mothers who wanted to go and launch a company. But the most fascinating thing for me about this book, for the feedback that I've gotten on the book, is that there are so many executives that have hit C suite, who have read the book, who have said to me, I'm questioning why I haven't gone out and done my own thing, right? I've made enough money. I'm not very challenged, I'm not learning along the way, why can't I go and take a chance. do they come to their own conclusion about the fear that they have, the fear of failure for people, and the higher you get in an organisation when you've never really failed? Yeah, it's a big one, right? Where you think to yourself, I don't want to look stupid, why would I want to go and do that? Yet, the intrigue of it, the excitement of doing something, in the case of him doing something that actually betters people's health, where you feel that it's actually helping people to drink water and, and get healthier.That's a powerful poll for me. So I wanted to be able to share that story with people and, and also just the one last thing on that to my concern, the concern of even my publisher, when this was first out there was that, you know, there, it's a female isn't going to be too focused on female entrepreneurs, um, which, of course, is is a big topic, worldwide. But the number of men who have reached out to me touching on the topic that you talked about in the beginning about not having it all figured out. And therefore, they or maybe they've had failures in the past, and they don't talk about those things. I think it's, it's a, it's a big conversation, that owning your own hard times and your own challenges, it doesn't mean that you can't do something better going forward. In fact, those are the people that we all root for, right, that have had challenges and failures. And therefore they've learned from their own experience. So it's an exciting day, you know, the book launched last October, it's still going very strong, and very, very exciting. Thank you for having me on to this show.(35:50)6. Can you tell us if people want to reach out to you? How can they do that?(37:11) All over social media platforms where we actually met Kara golden with an eye. And absolutely, I would love to hear from you. Hopefully, you'll get a chance to order the book. It's available worldwide. It's also on Audible. It'd be terrific to see it and to hear more from people.RESOURCESLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karagoldin/ツCONNECT WITH ME  ツ Leave a comment on this video and it'll get a response. 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