How has this actually happened? I mean, we all would love to do this.

One, we've been around for 16 years.

That's awesome.

And that's, I don't know what life stage that would be considered in the D to C e-comm world.

It feels mature in some ways, but still very young in many ways in consumer and in legacy iconic brands.

But there's probably three ingredients that are difficult to remove from our story and have the same outcome.

And then you can debate what else was luck versus good timing versus market dynamics.

right?

Are there pivotal moments in your career that have helped you develop your theory of leadership, particularly in continuous change?

Yeah, there've been, you know, many.

Um, you know, I started leading teams when I was very young, when I was, um, a teenager.

I was a hostess at 17, a waitress at 18, uh, but then started leading teams within the restaurants that I worked in at 18.

Started traveling around the world, opening franchises at 19.

Took my first corporate job leading a small department at 20, and then grew within the company as it grew.

So by the time I was 26, I was vice president of a company doing 800 million in revenue, so significant, you know, scale and responsibility, [lip smack] and was in that company, that was Hooters restaurants, for, uh, f- almost 15 years, 14 and a half years.

So how do you help people with this, "This is what I do know, and here's my vision for the future"?

And how you make sure your company is A, you know, at the forefront of the nutritional science and B, not getting distracted by maybe noise and shiny objects in what can be a very noisy space.

If we think about food, healthy food, there aren't a lot of double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials that prove that broccoli is good for you.

There is research and there is science behind the active ingredients in certain fruits, vegetables, proteins, right? That we know a lot about that.

But there aren't a lot of double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trials for food.

It is not required for you to trust.

that that grass-fed beef or that fish or that spinach are probably good for you.

And so let's take that on one side, food.

hit by tariffs? What's sort of happening there? Yeah.

Mm-hmm

...

in life.

And so I have a deep appreciation, maybe not interviewing for the next role, but that whatever I'm doing now, that choice of time, that tone of voice, that decision, how I show up or don't, that creates an impact that then leads to a experience and a belief in people's actions, and then results.

And that keeps happening, and eventually it leads to something and something and something else.

So it makes me think of that, that it's just generally true in life.

The kindness to someone in the airport and what they then go do as a result, the extension of a caring note to someone who's struggling.

How did you handle that?

I have it right here.

And so today is about capturing the demand we've been building throughout the year with these product launches, investments in upgrading the formula, multiple human clinical trials, really bridging into retail, and having multiple products.

So as we market, as we invest, as people flood into market for what are typically offers, but still to shop, to make purchases, it is absolutely a demand capture moment.

That being said, much like some of the other premium brands you've spoken to-

Yeah.

... world of consumer, um, with, you know, people who have higher income propping up spending versus those who don't.

For us and our business, because about, you know, into the first quarter but halfway through the calendar year, we had so many back-to-back launches of products, channels, and innovation, it masked what might have otherwise been bumpiness-

So, I feel like there had to have been really interesting behind the scene discussions on saying, "Okay, you know, why is now the right time to expand and- and- and how do we do that?" So, you know, take me back to what was happening in the company that- that made you decide it was time to get into more SKUs.

Yeah, it's so interesting, right? This, as you said, this incredible brand and product that has reached an un- truly unheard of scale.

I don't- I am not familiar with another single SKU, because it is only one green powder, um, that is anywhere near this scale.

I think the next closest D2C supplement companies are half our size, and many of them have multiple SKUs.

So it's very unusual, um, but it is truly a testament to the quality of the product over time.

Like, you don't get that big through just marketing, because it- if it's not real, you- you constantly have so many customers who've tried but who drop out of the bottle.

From 2020 on, we were growing so quickly, we were growing by multiples, not percent, year over year, at scale.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And so, I stayed in that industry for many years.

I was with Hooters for 15 years.

Um, helped grow that business around the world.

And then moved on to O'Rourke Capital, uh, really big private equity firm in restaurants and franchising, owned portfolio company called, at the time, called Focus Brands.

Uh, took over Cinnabon when I was 30 years old as president to turn it around out of the Great Recession.

And then built that business into a billion-dollar global revenue business.

Yeah.