EXPERIENCE 168 | Growing a Family and a Business to be Strong Like Good Coffee - Julia and Andy Leach of Toddy, LLC - Global Leader in Cold Brew Coffee Systems

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I first learned about Tati LLC circa 2013, during the twilight of my banking career.

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The story I heard was that the owners of a local marketing agency, Claypot Creative, had purchased a manufacturing business in Texas and moved it up to Loveland.

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The company made cold brew coffee systems, whatever that was, and seemed to have a strong product in a niche market, a banker's dream client.

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I failed to connect at that time, but tried again to reach them a few years later as I was growing local think tank.

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But little did I know that they were in the midst of a family move down to Denver to stay close with a child fighting for his life at Children's Hospital.

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I'm an easy grace kind of guy though.

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So when Julia reached out this spring with a, we've heard from friends that we should be on your podcast email, I was quick to book them and eager to share their story.

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I didn't know that half of the trials and tribulations they traveled through together and their journey is an inspiring one for any entrepreneurial couple.

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Who wants to keep family values first, and build a successful business enterprise.

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Today, Toddy holds a strong market share in the commercial cold brew systems marketplace, and their business has grown as more and more coffee chains and independents embrace the unique flavor profiles of cold brew.

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Toddy also has a sound consumer product set, including a roastery and a selection of cold brew specialty coffees, cold brew filters, and a tasting room in Loveland.

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And their home use equipment is increasingly entering households.

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And they're soon to have a system at Walmart.

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Through it all, this pair now finds themselves in a great spot, with a strong business, relationship, and family dynamic.

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And I very much enjoyed, as will each of our listeners, my conversation with Julia and Andy Leach of Toddy, LLC.

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welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast.

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I'm excited today to be joined by Julia and Andy Leach, the president and vice president respectively of Tadi LLC down in Loveland.

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And so, um, for the uninitiated, what is Tadi?

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Tadi.

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We're excited to be here too.

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Um, thanks so much.

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So Toddy is a company that we primarily manufacture cold brew coffee equipment.

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Yeah, so We make coffee brewers.

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We make coffee filters We support coffee shops around the world as well as home users.

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So you guys are a major supplier of kind of the Whatever stuff is making the cold brew that's kind of been Taking over a coffee shop, not taking over, but being a big part of coffee shops the last five, ten years.

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That's been a lot of you?

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Yeah, that's that's what we do.

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Do you have major competitors?

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Well, the culture space is changing and expanding.

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And so what, um, you know, used to be just us and a couple others has, you know, really expanded, um, you know, a lot of the big, um, soda companies are in the cold brew space.

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There's, you know, companies making large volume, um, cold brew, you know, big, like Beer, um, keg sites, types of equipment and, um, large scale.

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There's, um, if you go on Amazon, there's hundreds of cold brew makers for the home where it used to just be toddy.

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So, um, yes, we have competitors, um, but the OG, yeah, well, you can, you could say that, you could say that.

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Yeah.

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Toddy's been around since 1964.

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Okay.

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So, um, seeing a lot of.

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A lot of decades of coffee and definitely a lot of change.

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Andy, uh, have you been with the company the whole time?

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Have you guys been a two headed monster running this thing?

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Yeah, um, we've been Two headed monster?

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Working together for a long time.

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Including the marketing company before?

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Okay, so I heard a little bit of that story from Julia, and we'll flash back to that on the time capsule.

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Um, talk to me about who your customers are.

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Sure.

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So you have a lot of, uh, chain coffee shops, a lot of independent coffee shops, um, as well as, uh, home user, yeah.

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And those are, like, you almost suggested, Julia, that the, like, big brewery type cold brew systems, that's in a different place.

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Ball field like that's super high volume for like manufacturing or what?

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Right, right.

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So our equipment is really focused on Fresh cold brew.

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So and by fresh think of it as food service whereas when Companies are brewing, um, you know, for bottles and cans.

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It gets more into the food manufacturing segments.

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And, you know, we do support some clients in that space, but it's, uh, oftentimes they need much larger equipment in order to be successful.

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So, you know, we, um, we support, we provide some consulting and recommendations, but our sweet spot is, you know, definitely the home user, but Um, our, our equipment brews up to, um, 20 gallons at a time.

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Okay.

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Our, our largest brewer.

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I'm a pretty big fan of the home or the cold brew.

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And I've noticed a few times where if you're late in the afternoon, they're like, sorry, we're sold out of cold brew for the day because it's, it takes a fair bit of time.

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Is that the difference there?

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Yeah.

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So, um, cold brew is essentially, um, a brewing method, um, not a serving method.

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So, um, Essentially, cold brew, you replace heat with time.

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So instead of running steaming hot water over your coffee grounds or tea leaves, um, like you do with most traditional coffee brewing, um, methods, with cold brew, you steep or you drip cool water or ambient temperature water, um, for an extended period of time.

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Okay.

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So.

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Um, you know, there's, there's no, there's not a lot of rules with it, um, but essentially if you're using heat in order to brew your coffee, it's not cold brew.

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Right.

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Um, and so by, by replacing the heat with heat.

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time.

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Um, yes, it takes longer to brew, but you're extracting a different chemical composition in the cup.

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And so it really changes the flavors.

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Um, it also changes the stability.

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Um, so what makes a fresh hot cup of coffee taste so good when it's fresh is also what makes it, um, get stale and Um, and degrade over time.

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It's kind of like those volatile compounds, almost like what comes off of gasoline.

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Yeah, exactly.

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So, you know, a freshly pulled shot of espresso, for example, is a really unique experience.

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It has a, you know, texture, a body to it, um, uh, aromas.

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Um, it, and it's, when it's fresh, it's, it's amazing.

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Um, but if you put that in your refrigerator and drink it the next day, it's going to be really sour.

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It's going to be bitter.

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Um, it kind of punches you in the face and you know, not that nobody likes that, but it's not a fresh cup of coffee.

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Right.

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Uh, whereas with cold brew, um, if, you know, if you brew it and then put it in the refrigerator the next day, it's going to taste.

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It's a more stable compound.

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Right.

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So it's, the, the stability of it, um, is one of the major reasons why it's become so popular and helped the coffee industry, um, you know, launch a whole new segment that, that gives everyone from, um, roasters and coffee shops, um, and you know, all, all sorts of coffee professionals, another revenue stream that they just couldn't get, um, by, you know, trying to, to brew.

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Um, hot coffee and keep it stable.

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Well, not just, you mentioned tea too.

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So is your equipment used for cold brew tea?

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I make sun tea a lot of times and I suppose that's a, As long as it's not too hot outside, that's a cold brewing method.

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It's similar.

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If you The sunlight probably is more of an adjutant though.

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Right, right.

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So the, you know, sun tea, often you'll heat up your brewing vessel and so you, you know, you do get a little bit of that heat extraction, um, depending on how sunny it is.

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Right, right.

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But yeah, it's, it's very similar.

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Cold brew tea, um, Um, is, you know, nice and smooth in, in texture, you know, beautiful colors, great, um, aromas and flavors.

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Yeah.

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And yeah, it, it tastes very similar to its hot brewed counterpart, but, uh, but different.

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Fair, fair.

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Um, let's talk about the, the operation and maybe I'll shift back to Andy, uh, you mentioned if you were a C suite, you would be kind of the chief data technology kind of back of the house guy.

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Right.

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Yeah, I do.

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Uh, Build a lot of our systems to manage fulfillment and keep track of inventory and lock codes and build cards and That sort of stuff.

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Okay, and Julie, you're the president and do you guys have other leadership team members and marketing departments and finance and things like that?

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Yeah, absolutely um Andy, you know, made a rule that he never wants to be anyone's boss.

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Um, so yeah, he's, he's in the leadership, um, definitely in a leadership role.

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Um, but you know, more on the strategic side and, uh, implementation side.

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Um, and you know, in terms of the day to day operations, um, I'm there, we have our chief of staff, Rachel, um, who's been working with us for the Um, but since 2012, um, and we have an amazing director of HR, um, Heather, we have, um, our, um, director of coffee is named Matt, our director of, um, it's like the product development.

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Well, um, we also roast coffee and we do a lot of coffee education and we have a tasting room in, in love.

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I've heard your tasting room is great.

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I mentioned a couple people that you guys were coming on and they're like, have you been to their tasting room yet?

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It's kind of a hidden gem, um, in industrial land down in, in Loveland.

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But yeah, um, uh, we have another Matt who, um, runs our production.

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Um, and Yeah.

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So that's our, our main company leadership team in terms of the day to day.

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Um, but yeah, we've got, um, it, we kind of oscillate between 50 and 60 team members, you know, depending on, um, you know, the projects that we have going on and, you know, there's a little bit of seasonality to it, um, but yeah.

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And your, your machines are mostly like plastics, I assume.

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Are they.

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Mostly like injected by other people and then you put them together where you're at and then warehouse them and then ship them places or how's, how's that?

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Real close.

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Journey.

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Real close.

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Yeah, we have a combination of manufacturing at Tati, and assembly.

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So some of our products are You know, true manufacturing.

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So we, um, you know, we roast coffee at toddy.

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We, um, make coffee filters at toddy.

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Um, and we do plastic injunction molding, um, for more and more of our products and, um, a variety of our products.

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We get, um, Um, components or raw materials from, um, you know, various places and, um, assemble at, at toddy to, to make a finished product.

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Um, and we have, um, uh, shipping department that, um, is, is, uh, small but mighty, what, what they're able to accomplish in any given day is, you know, It's, it's impressive as what I've, as I've been told, um, that, uh, yeah, what they're able to get out, um, is not.

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Yeah.

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Um, we've had people join our team and say, wow, that there's only two people back there.

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Like where I came from, we had six people to do it.

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I'm like, shh, don't tell them that.

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Yeah.

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We have an incredibly hardworking team and, you know, we're super, super fortunate.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And I guess that's, uh, like aside from the leadership team, you mentioned most of those jobs are kind of in, uh, Either assembly, manufacture, or the shipping component.

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Well, we Oh, probably also sales.

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Yeah.

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You gotta have people running around trying to sell makers.

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About half of our team is production.

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So the coffee team, or the, what we call the production team.

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So they, um, they float between all of the other production, um, lines.

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So, um, you know, assembling, uh, cold brew systems, making filters, running injection molding.

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Um, so there's always to do.

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Um, and, and then the rest of the team is fulfillment, marketing, sales office.

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Um, we have some incredible operations people.

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Um, it's, there's, there's a lot that happens every single day.

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We've got a lot of different things, right?

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We've got service of sorts.

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We've got a pretty big quality team.

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Um, we've got, we do a lot of trade shows and events Um, we're doing more and more education online and, um, in person.

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So yeah, we're, we, we've always got stuff going on.

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And also we've got the innovation team.

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Yeah.

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We call it the innovation team.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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R& D I guess.

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Engineers and yeah, R& D.

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Okay.

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Um, I think I've made a realization that perhaps the, the coffee roasting and selling component is a, is a good thing.

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bigger part than I would have realized is that like some of those places where I would buy a cold brew coffee is that they not only use your machine, but they use one of your cold brew blends kind of thing.

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Um, yeah, that's an interesting story.

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So we, So Tati's been selling coffee, um, for, for quite a while and it used to be, um, you know, before we were involved that, um, you know, you would buy a coffee maker as a gift for someone and it would be nice to have a bag of coffee to go along with it.

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And with cold brew, we Um, you know, most of our equipment, especially our early, um, home equipment, you would brew to, you know, 12 to 16 ounces of coffee at a time.

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So a whole bag of coffee and, um, not a lot of people have the ability to grind that much coffee at a, at a time, especially, uh, you want that fresh bean, right, right.

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So, you know, Toddy will come back when we're ready.

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And so, um, these customers would have that fresh coffee that would be working, um, for them.

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And then would they just like reorder every time they wanted to make another batch?

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Uh, and it would always be fresh ground.

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That was the original coffee sales.

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Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

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And then, um, but now you roast and you've got a tasting room, um, and so was that a response to the marketplace or, or how did you make that decision?

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Was that your decision?

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Yeah, so we, we started roasting, um, we were outsourcing and, um, Um, our partner was in Houston and, um, when we moved the company to Colorado, um, which I'm sure we'll get more into, we, um, the partner was great, but we were spending a lot of money on, on shipping and, um, coffee market was fluctuating and we did some analysis and really it was our first expansion of, You know, we did the math and said, well, Hey, we may be able to actually roast ourselves and, um, and pay for this expansion.

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Um, even, you know, even with existing sales.

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And so, um, in 2011, we started roasting.

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Um, and is that a big part of your business?

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No, it's a growing part of our business.

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Um, uh, for, you know, for years we were very hesitant to talk about, you know, um, coffee roasting.

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Right.

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Right, exactly.

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And, um, and we got to the point where we realized no one was threatened by us.

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And in fact, they appreciated the fact that we knew their language.

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Right.

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Um, you know, we knew their, their struggles, um, as a roaster, but we could also, um, help teach them, help coach them.

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Um, you know, one of our, uh, team members is a certified roaster instructor.

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So, you know, we can teach people how to roast, um, not just for cold brew, but how to roast well.

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And, um, that helped us really develop, not just to be cold brew, um, Um, experts, but coffee experts and use our understanding of specialty coffee to help people grow their business in a variety of ways.

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And for our consumer customers, um, we want people to have a great coffee experience.

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And so it was actually in 2012 we started a separate brand called Conundrum, um, that was.

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Well, I've seen that before.

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Yeah! That, that was developed so that we could sell coffee, um, not just for cold brew, but for, um, you know, for home consumers and whatever else.

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And, you know, coffee Is that, is the conundrum, I have to interject here, is the conundrum, like, well, we make this delicious coffee, but we sell equipment to people who Coffee roasters and so we've got this conundrum.

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Yeah.

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Well, is it kind of like similar?

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There's you know, there's a couple of rabbit holes to go down but Coffee roasters are artists, you know, the best coffee roasters are really love getting their hands on amazing coffee.

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And yeah, exactly.

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And the, especially in the early days, the coffees that we were selling were very, um, I don't want to say boring, but you know, we had a subscription program and it was, you know, people want what they want and they get it every month.

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And, um, our roaster really wanted to get creative.

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And so Conundrum allowed us to.

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to have a brand that, um, we could focus on the local community, right?

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And we could experiment with, with coffee and brew it however we wanted and, um, you know, teach people about coffee, um, separate from, from cold brew.

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So, so that, that brand is, and actually our tasting room is called the Conundrum Coffee Tasting Room by Tati.

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And we have Conundrum front and center because.

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It's not just a cold brew tasting room.

00:19:51.785 --> 00:19:54.555
It's about, um, amazing coffee.

00:19:54.785 --> 00:19:56.585
So that's your kind of consumer brand there.

00:19:56.595 --> 00:19:56.904
Yeah.

00:19:56.904 --> 00:20:10.615
And, and so many of our customers are around the world and we, and especially at the time when we started Conundrum, um, We had local customers, but they were distributors.

00:20:10.904 --> 00:20:15.275
And so we didn't really have an opportunity to interact with our local community.

00:20:15.474 --> 00:20:21.424
And so Conundrum allowed us to, you know, get our product into Whole Foods and do farmer's markets.

00:20:21.424 --> 00:20:31.515
And we set up a coffee truck and just, you know, try to be engaged on a local level, in a way that was a lot harder to do with Tati.

00:20:31.575 --> 00:20:32.535
Yeah, yeah, I guess.

00:20:32.994 --> 00:20:37.795
To a way I, I didn't, like I recognize Conundrum in some ways more than I recognize Toddy.

00:20:38.444 --> 00:20:40.105
Uh, just cause it's the local brand.

00:20:41.609 --> 00:20:45.200
I wanted to ask about that a little bit, and, and maybe I'll bounce it back over to Andy.

00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:51.940
But, um, so you mentioned distributors, is that your main customers for the equipment?

00:20:51.940 --> 00:20:56.950
You don't sell direct to, you sell some products direct to the consumer, like the home products, right?

00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:00.089
Because that's like ordered on, on our website or Amazon or something like that.

00:21:00.500 --> 00:21:07.720
And then the big stuff is mostly like regional distributors that would actually be your buyer and then go help with the install and stuff?

00:21:07.720 --> 00:21:09.049
Or do you go direct to your customers?

00:21:09.829 --> 00:21:17.796
It's an interesting mix, and most of our equipment is non electric, so very easy for people to get set up.

00:21:17.796 --> 00:21:20.529
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to get a catch up.

00:21:20.529 --> 00:21:27.019
We have, yeah, an interesting mix, and this is, you know, when we took over the business it was the same way.

00:21:27.819 --> 00:21:38.890
Um, you know, a lot of direct sales to mom and pop coffee shops, chains, et cetera, but also to distributors who have their own customer base.

00:21:39.210 --> 00:21:42.839
And so, um, for some reason that, that always worked.

00:21:43.059 --> 00:21:44.700
Um, and yeah.

00:21:45.579 --> 00:21:47.130
It, it, it still does.

00:21:47.140 --> 00:21:50.880
So, you know, we have someone unusual to have that, right, right.

00:21:50.920 --> 00:21:58.119
Um, you know, we have a variety of international distributors, for example, who are focused on their part of the world.

00:21:58.390 --> 00:22:05.869
Uh, it's very hard for us to do direct sales, especially commercially, um, you know, B2B around the world.

00:22:05.869 --> 00:22:08.559
So we've got some great partners that, that help us with that.

00:22:08.880 --> 00:22:10.809
Um, and even.

00:22:11.549 --> 00:22:29.855
Um, you know, online, you know, food service distribution, coffee shop, um, specific distributors and, uh, and then, and then we also sell, um, to Amazon and to Walmart and, uh, a variety of kitchen stores, um, directly as well.

00:22:29.855 --> 00:22:30.220
Oh, sure.

00:22:30.539 --> 00:22:32.009
The cupboard would Exactly.

00:22:32.259 --> 00:22:38.079
The, the cupboard, um, yeah, well they had toddy before we did.

00:22:38.269 --> 00:22:47.630
And so when we moved to, when we moved toddy to Fort Collins, um, we were so excited to go into the cupboard and say, Hey, guess what?

00:22:47.630 --> 00:22:50.039
We own this now.

00:22:50.039 --> 00:22:56.069
And so that was, I've been a fan of the cupboard since I moved to Fort Collins in 1999.

00:22:56.079 --> 00:22:59.559
So it was, that was like the, the, a big.

00:23:00.170 --> 00:23:03.960
It's a moment for me to be able to go to the cover and say, Hey, guess what?

00:23:04.779 --> 00:23:05.200
It's us.

00:23:05.430 --> 00:23:06.380
Especially in those early days.

00:23:06.380 --> 00:23:10.680
It's always a thrill to see our products on the shelf, especially in our own community.

00:23:10.769 --> 00:23:11.380
Right.

00:23:11.509 --> 00:23:27.009
I was, uh, my dad's 70th birthday was this past weekend, uh, two weekends ago and I went home to North Dakota for that and I brought him a couple of these, uh, branded glasses and like I'm from very rural North Dakota, graduated a class of five, you know, very small community.

00:23:27.009 --> 00:23:27.720
It didn't change much.

00:23:27.720 --> 00:23:28.359
And I thought it was.

00:23:28.825 --> 00:23:36.825
It's so cool when we get a knife set or something with the Banks logo on it or whatever when I was a little kid and now I've got a company with branded gear.

00:23:36.845 --> 00:23:37.855
How cool is that?

00:23:38.464 --> 00:23:39.335
You guys get to keep one of these.

00:23:39.335 --> 00:23:39.964
It's very cool.

00:23:40.734 --> 00:23:42.855
So I want to hear about what's next.

00:23:42.855 --> 00:23:48.335
What I think we're going to do is go back to, um, the toddy journey.

00:23:48.680 --> 00:23:50.700
And then we'll jump in the full time machine.

00:23:50.700 --> 00:23:55.960
But before we do that, I want to hear like, what's your big strategic initiatives?

00:23:55.960 --> 00:24:01.009
Is there new products under development that you can share about now or anything like that?

00:24:01.960 --> 00:24:02.420
Sure.

00:24:02.509 --> 00:24:04.579
Um, do you want me to take the first test?

00:24:04.980 --> 00:24:09.720
Um, so we'll talk a lot about this when we go in the time machine.

00:24:09.759 --> 00:24:13.720
Um, but for years we were really.

00:24:14.069 --> 00:24:25.390
Drinking from the fire hose in terms of being overwhelmed with demand and trying to keep up and so and that was mainly in Commercial production so for coffee shops.

00:24:25.390 --> 00:24:39.650
Okay, and so We ended up losing traction in the consumer space you know something had to give and We focused on the the commercial business.

00:24:39.950 --> 00:24:53.335
So Um, basically over the past year, you know, almost exactly a year ago, we, we launched a new brewer in Walmart and, um, you know, really started expanding back into the consumer space.

00:24:53.484 --> 00:24:58.204
So we never left it entirely, but there are less good competitors who kind of gotten into that space.

00:24:58.214 --> 00:24:58.565
Right.

00:24:58.634 --> 00:24:59.005
Right.

00:24:59.015 --> 00:25:01.164
Over that period of time, you know, the Bodums and the.

00:25:02.164 --> 00:25:04.154
The other KitchenAid.

00:25:04.154 --> 00:25:04.734
Small manufacturer.

00:25:04.734 --> 00:25:05.644
Yeah, exactly.

00:25:05.714 --> 00:25:06.914
They introduced their own.

00:25:07.384 --> 00:25:09.474
Kitchen Ninja probably brought their own, whatever.

00:25:09.664 --> 00:25:10.634
it was a big trend, right?

00:25:10.974 --> 00:25:11.464
Right.

00:25:11.615 --> 00:25:11.914
Right.

00:25:11.914 --> 00:25:12.335
So.

00:25:12.365 --> 00:25:13.494
But they didn't really know what they were doing.

00:25:13.505 --> 00:25:17.755
Large behemoth companies, you know, Chinese knockoffs, all, all sorts.

00:25:18.484 --> 00:25:24.664
And so that's a big focus for us is, you know, really getting back into the consumer space.

00:25:25.025 --> 00:25:29.644
And we've got the track record of helping these coffee shops.

00:25:30.285 --> 00:25:40.855
Put cold brew on the map, so we know how to develop a cold brew program, um, for coffee shops and we can do it just as well for, for home consumers.

00:25:40.865 --> 00:25:48.555
And so our, uh, you know, our initiative is cafe quality, cold brew at home and helping people make better coffee.

00:25:48.555 --> 00:25:55.065
the same type of cold brew that they, that they love at the coffee shops in the, in the comfort of their own home.

00:25:55.085 --> 00:26:24.710
And so, you know, for years we didn't want to go into Walmart because we were working with Williams Sonoma and it's like, well, you know, we don't want to, Um, downgrade our brand, um, but we've been able to, um, you know, reenter the retail space by, you know, being where our consumers are and, uh, you know, we have products for the higher end kitchen shop, um, like the cupboard and, um, sort of the top was just about to launch our product.

00:26:24.890 --> 00:26:24.940
Yeah.

00:26:24.940 --> 00:26:26.549
You can have the best cheap home brew.

00:26:27.230 --> 00:26:29.549
Cold brew and the best expensive one.

00:26:29.559 --> 00:26:30.500
Yeah, eventually, right?

00:26:30.559 --> 00:27:07.204
Yeah, so we You know rumor has it that Walmart is going to be putting our coffee on their shelf here in September so it's not official news, but They they told us get ready So we're getting ready So that will be big for us just to tell you Yeah, and, and again, because there's so many coffee brewers and even, you know, more and more cold brew systems available at retail, but not a lot of solutions for the coffee side of it.

00:27:07.464 --> 00:27:11.535
And so people have to figure out, okay, if I'm going to buy this coffee, how am I going to grind it?

00:27:11.755 --> 00:27:13.865
And what's the best coffee to use for cold brew?

00:27:14.184 --> 00:27:15.170
And and so.

00:27:15.269 --> 00:27:28.059
It, it gets people stuck and we want people to have an amazing experience with, with our equipment and, um, pairing our coffee with it hopefully will help other roasters.

00:27:28.950 --> 00:27:29.779
Exactly.

00:27:30.390 --> 00:27:40.059
So, um, you know, coffee is an expansion area for us and there's not very many players in the, in the cold brew, um, fresh roasted coffee space.

00:27:40.644 --> 00:27:47.255
Is there, like, what would I look for if I was, say I just, my neighbor gifted me their old toddy system.

00:27:47.664 --> 00:27:55.164
Well, not that I wouldn't go buy one, but just for a fun example, and I, I want to go to the grocery store or the local roastery.

00:27:55.164 --> 00:27:59.375
What am I looking for in, like, what's best for cold brew?

00:27:59.575 --> 00:28:04.035
Yeah, well, thankfully you're in Fort Collins and there's some amazing roasters here.

00:28:04.045 --> 00:28:04.285
Right, yeah.

00:28:04.365 --> 00:28:13.259
Um, so, basically Well, I know what kind of coffee you like, uh, you like very weak coffee, um, but I like all kinds of coffee.

00:28:13.289 --> 00:28:19.819
But you can make, uh, well, I mean, I can talk the whole session about how to make cold brew.

00:28:20.140 --> 00:28:31.325
Um, but I think if there's a roaster that you like, um, tell him I'm, I'm going to brew in my toddy system and I need, uh, Um, coarsely ground coffee.

00:28:31.325 --> 00:28:38.684
I need 12 ounces of it and describe what, um, types of flavors you like and they'll help you select the coffee and grind it for you.

00:28:38.894 --> 00:28:55.055
So if you, if you have access to a local roaster that you love, um, by all means, um, that's what we recommend, you know, fresh local coffee is awesome, but the course grind, um, makes it easy to have great results every time.

00:28:55.634 --> 00:28:56.934
It's not required.

00:28:57.075 --> 00:29:02.424
But with the finer grind, it's, it's harder to get a good extraction.

00:29:02.424 --> 00:29:07.355
So a coarse grind, um, similar to French press is, is what we say.

00:29:07.355 --> 00:29:13.815
So a lot of, you know, if you go to the grocery store, for example, there's, there's a lot of, um, great roasters that are now on the grocery store shelves.

00:29:14.144 --> 00:29:19.414
Um, you know, usually the pre ground coffee is going to be for drip.

00:29:19.674 --> 00:29:24.599
And again, that's, um, uh, You're going to find yourself with some sludge on the bottom of your French press.

00:29:24.619 --> 00:29:37.579
It's not necessarily ideal for French press or for cold brew, but the stores that have the grinders, you just turn the dial to French press, put your coffee in, um, and then take it home and brew it.

00:29:37.720 --> 00:29:37.799
Okay.

00:29:38.625 --> 00:29:49.204
Um, so the coffee that we're selling, um, you know, through our partners like Walmart, um, will be freshly roasted, um, specialty coffee that's pre ground for cold brew.

00:29:49.234 --> 00:30:01.200
And we've got, um, this cool technology that helps us, um, seal it and, uh, nitro flush it so that you get that fresh roasted and freshly ground, uh, coffee.

00:30:01.420 --> 00:30:04.170
Quality, even though it was pre ground.

00:30:04.180 --> 00:30:12.250
So, you know, a lot of high end coffees aren't sold as pre ground because it's kind of considered to be a compromise.

00:30:12.259 --> 00:30:13.700
The shelf life goes way faster.

00:30:14.349 --> 00:30:26.660
And so we're working to elevate a, you know, cold brew specific product for, um, for our equipment but also is compatible for any other cold brewer or French press.

00:30:27.424 --> 00:30:30.535
Andy, you were going to tell me about some things that are up next as well.

00:30:31.154 --> 00:30:42.684
Well, um, yeah, just like the coffee roasting, um, I know I can, I can tell I'm going to have to try to draw you out a little bit and, uh, uh, bring you into the conversation.

00:30:42.704 --> 00:30:42.994
Sure.

00:30:43.214 --> 00:30:45.494
What, what's your passion around this?

00:30:45.694 --> 00:30:49.724
Like, uh, are you a coffee lover to your core as well?

00:30:50.095 --> 00:30:50.365
Yeah.

00:30:50.644 --> 00:31:00.799
I'm, I drink a A fair amount, especially what we roast, uh, yeah, um, I'm more of a hot coffee guy than a cold brew guy, but, uh, but it depends on, on my mood.

00:31:02.559 --> 00:31:03.119
It's funny.

00:31:03.130 --> 00:31:03.670
He's.

00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:04.339
Yeah.

00:31:05.805 --> 00:31:08.805
Often, he's like, Oh, I already had coffee today.

00:31:08.805 --> 00:31:10.365
I don't, I don't need cold brew.

00:31:10.755 --> 00:31:13.994
Um, but you know, when I make it, he's like, Oh, let me have some.

00:31:14.065 --> 00:31:15.454
He's like, wow, this is really good.

00:31:15.515 --> 00:31:22.184
Like you, you, you think, you think, but, um, yeah, I mean, we, we love coffee.

00:31:22.214 --> 00:31:22.525
And so.

00:31:22.539 --> 00:31:27.720
So, you know, the coffee that we roast and we have access to from friends around the world.

00:31:28.119 --> 00:31:35.319
Um, you know, Andy usually makes a pour over in the morning, um, as part of his ritual and we drink a lot of cold brew at work.

00:31:35.690 --> 00:31:39.690
Um, and yeah, it's, it's great.

00:31:40.140 --> 00:31:57.410
So is, is, uh, when you're like roasting coffee is Big part of it, just the quality of the bean coming in, like not just where it's from, you know, the Costa Rica, Ethiopia, whatever, but also just how good a job did that coffee farmer do on getting nice plump beans and whatever else?

00:31:57.559 --> 00:31:58.500
Yeah, absolutely.

00:31:58.910 --> 00:32:02.880
So, how do the big brands get that consistent?

00:32:03.430 --> 00:32:04.779
Like it seems like it would be really hard.

00:32:04.779 --> 00:32:08.740
There's probably different qualities coming out from different regions based on the weather all the time.

00:32:08.819 --> 00:32:12.660
A lot of the big brands own their own farms, and so they're vertically integrated all the way around.

00:32:12.670 --> 00:32:13.529
Oh, really?

00:32:14.299 --> 00:32:22.210
They don't even, um, so those local coffee producers, uh, you know, what's the, what's the guy from the, uh, Old Folgers.

00:32:22.210 --> 00:32:23.289
Juan Valdez.

00:32:23.309 --> 00:32:24.890
Juan Valdez, yes.

00:32:25.009 --> 00:32:31.769
You know, Juan Valdez had a, you know, a few, a few hundred trees or whatever and picked the beans himself and sent them up to you in America here.

00:32:32.190 --> 00:32:34.470
Those don't have as much marketplace.

00:32:34.660 --> 00:32:38.460
Not for the, the big, you know, the big roasters own their own farms or have relationships.

00:32:38.490 --> 00:32:41.655
a big deal for local coffee shops to have relationships with these specific growers.

00:32:41.655 --> 00:32:46.019
Or, or they have relationships with a farm and they buy the entire lot from that farm.

00:32:46.099 --> 00:32:46.450
Right.

00:32:46.500 --> 00:32:46.819
Um.

00:32:47.450 --> 00:32:57.519
And so, yeah, we work, and not quite that volume, but we work through, uh, brokers and intermediaries that have relations with, with the farmers.

00:32:57.519 --> 00:33:02.059
And then, you know, you can ask for what you want and get samples and sample roast and determine.

00:33:02.720 --> 00:33:05.099
We have a few direct relationships.

00:33:05.569 --> 00:33:13.240
Um, do you guys just have kind of a, uh, like a couple of basic things and you bring out new flavors and new roasts regularly as well?

00:33:13.329 --> 00:33:25.450
Is it kind of an experiment lab or like if, if Walmart starts carrying, is there going to be one flavor of toddy cold brew or is there going to be a bunch of different, well, we'll have to see what, what they, what they end up ordering.

00:33:25.779 --> 00:33:28.849
Um, but yeah, we've got.

00:33:31.450 --> 00:33:49.619
A handful of coffees that we've had the whole time we've had, um, you know, or a variation of a, of a blend and have, uh, Um, you know, a handful of things from time to time that we'll get a micro lot of, which is, you know, a very small amount of something special.

00:33:49.869 --> 00:33:51.859
And oftentimes we won't package that.

00:33:51.859 --> 00:33:53.799
We'll just share that in the tasting room.

00:33:54.019 --> 00:33:59.710
So it'll be something that we'll, we'll have, uh, available for the espresso machine or maybe we'll cold brew it.

00:34:00.069 --> 00:34:05.954
Um, a lot of times we'll take, uh, micro lots to events, um, when we're doing a tasting trade show around the world.

00:34:05.954 --> 00:34:08.155
Oftentimes we'll sample coffee.

00:34:08.565 --> 00:34:31.333
So, and we, you know, we get coffee, um, from our amazing partners around the world and Usually, we'll consume it ourselves, you know, share it in the tasting room, but, um, yeah, we've got a great friend in Australia who's a roaster and he'll send us coffee and his stuff is gone immediately, like often I don't even get to try it because it's just so good.

00:34:31.333 --> 00:34:33.070
Everybody knows that his stuff is so good.

00:34:33.070 --> 00:34:39.760
By the way, I don't know if I, I didn't really show you guys your swag kit, but a travel bag is one of your, uh, Branded items there.

00:34:40.150 --> 00:34:41.429
But, uh, thanks for being my guest.

00:34:41.429 --> 00:34:42.389
And a hot sauce, too.

00:34:42.400 --> 00:34:43.019
Are you a spice guy?

00:34:43.019 --> 00:34:43.719
Yeah, definitely.

00:34:44.099 --> 00:34:44.519
Very good.

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:47.880
Uh, I'll let you guys fight over who gets the travel bag and who gets the hot sauce.

00:34:47.920 --> 00:34:48.878
But, you'll probably share both.

00:34:48.878 --> 00:34:49.626
We share most things.

00:34:49.626 --> 00:34:51.409
I would, I would say that's the way we do it, too.

00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:56.199
Um, well, let's, uh, I think let's just jump in the time machine now.

00:34:56.369 --> 00:34:56.559
Let's do it.

00:34:56.630 --> 00:35:11.695
It'll be more fun to hear the journey than it is to, um, Hear more about coffee, although I really could learn about just how to brew good coffee for an hour or two, but well, we can do another segment on that might be better on a coffee focused podcast or something.

00:35:12.074 --> 00:35:12.764
Well, you never know.

00:35:12.985 --> 00:35:13.375
Maybe.

00:35:13.844 --> 00:35:20.894
Um, so you guys are, um, well, let's, let's just jump in.

00:35:23.534 --> 00:35:25.074
Andy, you're in first grade.

00:35:25.815 --> 00:35:26.565
Where are you?

00:35:27.050 --> 00:35:28.750
I grew up in Littleton.

00:35:28.840 --> 00:35:29.139
Okay.

00:35:29.170 --> 00:35:29.989
Um, yeah.

00:35:30.469 --> 00:35:32.349
My parents still live in the house I grew up in.

00:35:32.360 --> 00:35:32.780
No way.

00:35:33.380 --> 00:35:33.849
That's cool.

00:35:34.619 --> 00:35:36.980
Um, and what was the, what was the scene?

00:35:37.769 --> 00:35:40.380
Uh, I'm uh, the oldest of two.

00:35:40.469 --> 00:35:40.889
Okay.

00:35:40.929 --> 00:35:43.420
My little sister's almost seven years younger than me.

00:35:43.510 --> 00:35:43.900
Okay.

00:35:44.039 --> 00:35:44.449
Um.

00:35:45.250 --> 00:35:46.760
What were your folks doing?

00:35:46.760 --> 00:35:47.539
What was your dad in?

00:35:47.590 --> 00:35:50.900
Uh, my dad was a career man at Lockheed Martin.

00:35:50.960 --> 00:35:51.389
Okay.

00:35:51.389 --> 00:35:52.219
He was an electrical engineer.

00:35:52.219 --> 00:35:54.809
And my mom taught junior high math.

00:35:54.809 --> 00:35:54.960
Okay.

00:35:54.960 --> 00:35:55.250
Okay.

00:35:55.730 --> 00:35:57.440
So yeah, it was kind of just a standard.

00:35:59.695 --> 00:36:02.545
So, uh, Apple didn't fall too far from the tree.

00:36:02.545 --> 00:36:07.195
You got engineers and math teachers creating this data tech kind of analytical guy.

00:36:07.364 --> 00:36:11.614
Yeah, yeah, actually we, uh, we met when we were in third grade.

00:36:11.795 --> 00:36:12.695
Oh, really?

00:36:12.695 --> 00:36:14.195
Yeah, so not long after that.

00:36:14.585 --> 00:36:16.364
He doesn't remember me, but I remembered him.

00:36:16.804 --> 00:36:18.184
He was a man in uniform.

00:36:18.469 --> 00:36:19.250
Who's a Cub Scout.

00:36:19.260 --> 00:36:19.860
Oh.

00:36:19.860 --> 00:36:23.639
That's always attractive to the third grade.

00:36:25.340 --> 00:36:29.210
So um, so were you also in Littleton in first grade then, Julie?

00:36:29.590 --> 00:36:37.409
Um, I was actually in Denver in first grade and my family moved to Littleton when I was in second grade.

00:36:37.469 --> 00:36:37.829
Okay.

00:36:37.829 --> 00:36:39.260
So, uh, yeah.

00:36:39.260 --> 00:36:41.980
Littleton was probably pretty little at that time still, right?

00:36:42.360 --> 00:36:44.500
Like it was actually away from Denver?

00:36:45.079 --> 00:36:45.329
Yep.

00:36:45.340 --> 00:36:45.360
Yeah.

00:36:46.340 --> 00:36:46.739
Yep.

00:36:47.159 --> 00:36:51.320
So, it wasn't a long distance phone call at that time, but just, just barely.

00:36:51.719 --> 00:36:53.849
I think Castle Rock was a long distance phone call at that time.

00:36:53.860 --> 00:36:54.380
Right, right.

00:36:54.739 --> 00:36:56.670
Um, yeah.

00:36:56.670 --> 00:37:03.510
So, we moved to the adjacent neighborhood, um, when I was in second grade.

00:37:03.519 --> 00:37:04.942
And, yeah.

00:37:04.942 --> 00:37:07.150
It was like, yeah.

00:37:08.500 --> 00:37:16.619
Um, the school was, or Jefferson County schools at the time were, um, overcrowded and so they were on tracks.

00:37:16.889 --> 00:37:19.920
And so there was tracks A, B, and C.

00:37:19.929 --> 00:37:23.300
And so track B, the kids had to go to school in the summer.

00:37:23.650 --> 00:37:24.360
Um.

00:37:24.380 --> 00:37:24.980
Oh, interesting.

00:37:25.010 --> 00:37:26.579
And so, yeah.

00:37:27.030 --> 00:37:31.469
But they ended that after our second grade year.

00:37:31.469 --> 00:37:38.719
So in third grade, the classes combined, and then in fourth grade they divided the school.

00:37:38.730 --> 00:37:44.099
So third grade we had math class together, and then Andy moved to another school.

00:37:44.219 --> 00:37:46.264
Um, but But I remembered him.

00:37:46.385 --> 00:37:46.925
Right.

00:37:47.085 --> 00:37:53.074
Well, my, my wife told her mom after like our first date, that's the man I'm going to marry, you know?

00:37:53.074 --> 00:37:55.434
So sometimes they just kind of recognize things.

00:37:55.434 --> 00:37:58.224
So, um, what was your family's situation?

00:37:58.605 --> 00:38:00.614
Are you from an entrepreneurial family?

00:38:00.635 --> 00:38:01.085
Did you?

00:38:01.735 --> 00:38:04.594
Yeah, well, uh, I'm the youngest of five.

00:38:04.625 --> 00:38:05.034
Okay.

00:38:05.135 --> 00:38:12.545
Um, and for most of my upbringing, it was with a single dad.

00:38:12.655 --> 00:38:12.934
Okay.

00:38:12.945 --> 00:38:18.594
Um, so we had a, yeah, very, very, very different upbringing than, than Andy's.

00:38:18.605 --> 00:38:20.804
How much older is your oldest sibling than you?

00:38:21.005 --> 00:38:23.434
Uh, my oldest brother is eight and a half years older.

00:38:23.474 --> 00:38:23.815
Okay.

00:38:23.985 --> 00:38:35.400
Um, so my dad Um, had a couple of professions, um, but by the time I came around, he was in sales.

00:38:35.719 --> 00:38:41.719
So he was in sales of one sort of the other my whole life and until he retired.

00:38:42.070 --> 00:38:45.755
Um, and so I, I learned a hustle from him, right?

00:38:45.855 --> 00:38:56.125
You, um, gosh, I remember one of the most annoying lessons that he taught us, um, was that you give business to those who give you business.

00:38:56.494 --> 00:39:03.715
And it was annoying because, you know, we wanted to go to a different restaurant or we wanted to, you know, buy something else.

00:39:03.724 --> 00:39:05.804
And he's like, no, no, these, these are my clients.

00:39:06.315 --> 00:39:13.574
And I, you know, I remembered, um, you know, when we had our marketing agency remember that lesson and how valuable it was.

00:39:13.605 --> 00:39:13.844
Yeah.

00:39:13.934 --> 00:39:16.755
Um, you know, these are the people that are helping me feed my family.

00:39:16.755 --> 00:39:19.155
Of course I'm gonna help them feed that their family.

00:39:19.159 --> 00:39:19.215
Yeah.

00:39:19.215 --> 00:39:35.164
So, I, I learned so much from, from my dad, um, in terms of being, being scrappy and hustling, being, well, you must have being an entrepreneur, successful at it if you lived in the same neighborhood as the Lockheed Martin guy with a working spouse and only two kids, Well.

00:39:35.684 --> 00:39:37.445
Yeah, it was on again, off again.

00:39:37.485 --> 00:39:40.135
Um, we lived in a big house for some years.

00:39:40.135 --> 00:39:42.405
We lived in an apartment for some years.

00:39:42.954 --> 00:39:49.835
Um, and yeah, he, by the time he retired, he was, um, quite successful actually in, in Aflac.

00:39:49.905 --> 00:39:55.925
Um, and, uh, yeah, loved, loved finishing his career with.

00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:01.449
helping people that way and selling them, selling employers products that help them take care of their employees.

00:40:01.860 --> 00:40:11.909
Um, so yeah, we, we still have Aflac for all of our employees, um, that my dad sold us the original plan back in, um, 2000.

00:40:12.434 --> 00:40:13.364
Seven, I think.

00:40:13.494 --> 00:40:14.224
Something like that.

00:40:14.554 --> 00:40:21.425
Andy, uh, describe yourself as a, uh, third grader that was aloof about, uh, girls at that time.

00:40:21.465 --> 00:40:23.324
Uh, I played a lot of sports.

00:40:23.394 --> 00:40:23.614
Okay.

00:40:23.614 --> 00:40:24.644
None of them very well.

00:40:24.664 --> 00:40:25.635
You're a pretty tall guy.

00:40:25.715 --> 00:40:26.994
Were you big right away?

00:40:27.204 --> 00:40:28.974
Uh, I was slight.

00:40:29.105 --> 00:40:29.135
Okay.

00:40:29.144 --> 00:40:31.335
Uh, fast, but small.

00:40:31.364 --> 00:40:31.764
Right, right.

00:40:31.775 --> 00:40:37.635
Um, yeah, the only sport that I really turned out being any good at was playing tennis and, uh, riding bikes.

00:40:38.210 --> 00:40:40.960
Um, but yeah, a lot of sports.

00:40:41.019 --> 00:40:42.166
Uh, Cub scouts.

00:40:42.670 --> 00:40:43.960
Cub scouts, Cub scouts.

00:40:43.960 --> 00:40:49.489
I was fairly nerdy, uh, math and science, even reading.

00:40:49.494 --> 00:40:49.760
Yeah.

00:40:49.760 --> 00:40:51.550
Just, yeah.

00:40:51.550 --> 00:40:54.250
And I Are you guys, can you circle me a little bit?

00:40:54.250 --> 00:40:57.489
It feels like you guys might be almost the same age as me.

00:40:57.494 --> 00:40:57.844
Very, yeah.

00:40:58.030 --> 00:40:58.780
Very similar.

00:40:58.780 --> 00:40:59.019
Yeah.

00:40:59.019 --> 00:41:01.150
We, um, graduated high school in 96.

00:41:01.510 --> 00:41:01.880
Okay.

00:41:01.920 --> 00:41:02.809
So you're a little younger.

00:41:03.179 --> 00:41:13.659
Um, so you're cruising through high school, getting good grades, focused still probably on books and a little bit of sports.

00:41:14.380 --> 00:41:15.800
Did you guys get reacquainted again?

00:41:15.909 --> 00:41:20.500
Yeah, we, we walked to school together when we came back from middle school.

00:41:20.500 --> 00:41:21.980
We both went to the same middle school.

00:41:22.030 --> 00:41:24.769
So we walked to school together in a circle of friends.

00:41:25.150 --> 00:41:28.929
Um, we weren't necessarily friends with each other, but we're, they're part of the group.

00:41:29.309 --> 00:41:37.804
Um, And then, yeah, we really didn't get close again until the end of high school, uh, when we were both in, you know, a lot of the same classes.

00:41:38.175 --> 00:41:41.304
And we were both in, uh, publications.

00:41:41.465 --> 00:41:45.855
Um, I was the editor, co editor of the yearbook.

00:41:46.355 --> 00:41:47.815
And she was the editor of the newspaper.

00:41:47.844 --> 00:41:52.454
And so we spent a lot of time, you know, after hours in the publications room.

00:41:52.454 --> 00:41:54.594
And that's where, where the spark, yeah, really.

00:41:54.594 --> 00:41:56.614
Where the romance actually started kindling.

00:41:58.025 --> 00:42:02.965
Julia, what was, uh What was the, the, the draw for Andy for you?

00:42:04.085 --> 00:42:09.664
Well, truth be told, I wasn't interested at all whatsoever.

00:42:10.025 --> 00:42:14.164
Um, and I knew that Andy was interested in me.

00:42:14.525 --> 00:42:15.875
Um, but.

00:42:16.375 --> 00:42:22.204
Um, yeah, he, like he said, he was kind of nerdy and it just, you know, he was a great friend.

00:42:22.554 --> 00:42:27.565
Um, and then the, this was an interesting experience.

00:42:27.574 --> 00:42:35.385
So one of our mutual friends said, Hey, well, if you're not, you know, if you're not going to go after Julie, then I will.

00:42:35.414 --> 00:42:37.054
And he said, okay.

00:42:37.695 --> 00:42:40.900
And something about that just, I, I, I don't know.

00:42:40.900 --> 00:42:45.130
I liked the, I wanted him to be chasing me.

00:42:45.139 --> 00:42:48.250
Like I wanted to have him kind of in my back pocket just in case.

00:42:48.280 --> 00:42:53.309
And when that happened, I was like, wait, no, that, no, that's not how this works.

00:42:53.610 --> 00:42:55.389
And so then he played hard to get.

00:42:55.849 --> 00:43:03.530
Um, and so we finally, we had an AP English trip, um, to England and our, our senior year.

00:43:03.539 --> 00:43:03.559
Yeah.

00:43:03.894 --> 00:43:09.065
And it was England and Scotland and again, we had this great big group of friends.

00:43:09.304 --> 00:43:17.474
When you're traveling with a bunch of people and everyone wants to do different things, um, you know, it's kind of hard to figure out, well, who do I hang out with?

00:43:17.875 --> 00:43:23.835
And you know, maybe this was by design, but Andy always wanted to do the same things I wanted to do.

00:43:25.074 --> 00:43:30.934
And so we ended up, um, you know, forging this, yeah, buddying up.

00:43:30.965 --> 00:43:32.625
And it was like, like the.

00:43:32.789 --> 00:43:35.949
And then when the light switch turned, I'm like, oh, well, he kind of is cute.

00:43:35.960 --> 00:43:41.219
And maybe, maybe that boyfriend I have at home isn't, isn't really the right guy for me.

00:43:41.219 --> 00:43:42.570
And, um.

00:43:42.650 --> 00:43:44.889
And this is the guy that you had given permission to?

00:43:44.900 --> 00:43:45.780
No, it was a different guy.

00:43:45.789 --> 00:43:46.110
Okay.

00:43:46.110 --> 00:43:46.960
Different guy altogether.

00:43:47.079 --> 00:43:47.280
All right.

00:43:47.360 --> 00:43:48.960
Um, but.

00:43:48.969 --> 00:43:49.610
Well, that's good.

00:43:49.739 --> 00:43:54.119
But yeah, so we kind of had like, you know, a little spark.

00:43:54.199 --> 00:43:54.480
Yeah.

00:43:54.480 --> 00:43:54.530
A little.

00:43:54.530 --> 00:44:01.239
Um, but we didn't actually start dating until after we graduated high school, about a week later.

00:44:01.280 --> 00:44:01.864
Oh, is that right?

00:44:03.344 --> 00:44:05.594
No Hanky Panky on the England Scotland trip?

00:44:06.264 --> 00:44:21.614
He may have held my hand, um, in the bus, um, a few times, but, I would imagine if he's listening now he might be annoyed, but, no, I don't think he even remembers me, but.

00:44:23.065 --> 00:44:28.445
But I had already decided I was going to, um, Vermont for college.

00:44:28.844 --> 00:44:31.844
And Andy, um, had decided to go to CSU.

00:44:32.125 --> 00:44:34.905
And so, you know, I knew nothing would ever come of it.

00:44:34.934 --> 00:44:37.344
Um, but Hey, you know, sure.

00:44:37.344 --> 00:44:39.125
Let's, let's have a summer fling.

00:44:39.394 --> 00:44:42.474
I've heard of people that do that and maybe that would be fun.

00:44:42.494 --> 00:44:50.344
And so, um, yeah, we, we went on a lot of hikes and, um, coffee shops and stuff like that.

00:44:50.355 --> 00:44:53.005
What did, uh, what did your parents think of?

00:44:53.329 --> 00:45:00.340
each of your, the other, or had your dad gotten together, uh, and married or anything?

00:45:00.389 --> 00:45:03.219
What did he, what do you think of Julia and vice versa?

00:45:03.219 --> 00:45:03.500
Yeah.

00:45:03.500 --> 00:45:05.239
So my, my dad, sorry, I switched that.

00:45:05.320 --> 00:45:05.880
Yeah.

00:45:05.880 --> 00:45:10.269
Um, yeah, my dad thought Andy was great.

00:45:11.030 --> 00:45:11.380
Cool.

00:45:12.710 --> 00:45:12.929
Yeah.

00:45:13.699 --> 00:45:14.000
That's good.

00:45:14.329 --> 00:45:14.349
Yeah.

00:45:14.349 --> 00:45:21.380
I always think that's an interesting dynamic when you're in that, uh, high school years, cause dads are always very protective.

00:45:22.159 --> 00:45:25.119
And, uh, I think I was pretty non threatening.

00:45:25.119 --> 00:45:28.170
I was a pretty good kid.

00:45:28.210 --> 00:45:28.750
Good kids.

00:45:29.230 --> 00:45:29.619
Awesome.

00:45:30.010 --> 00:45:32.449
Um, so you go off to Vermont then?

00:45:32.460 --> 00:45:32.719
Yeah.

00:45:32.719 --> 00:45:33.090
Is that true?

00:45:33.559 --> 00:45:34.000
Yeah.

00:45:34.079 --> 00:45:34.400
Yeah.

00:45:34.429 --> 00:45:44.389
So I remember Andy was, um, hanging out while I was packing in order to move to school and I said, well, you know, it's, it's been great and had a lot of fun.

00:45:44.389 --> 00:45:44.990
She's trying to break up with me.

00:45:46.315 --> 00:45:48.405
I'm going to date other boys when I get to Vermont.

00:45:49.074 --> 00:45:51.664
And I'm like, yeah, it's been a fun summer.

00:45:51.695 --> 00:45:56.224
Like, I hope you like CSU, you know, maybe, maybe I'll see you on a break.

00:45:56.724 --> 00:45:59.324
And Andy was not okay with that.

00:45:59.324 --> 00:45:59.824
Not having it.

00:46:00.045 --> 00:46:06.465
And, and, you know, this was before FaceTime, it was before cell phones, it was before instant messengers.

00:46:06.465 --> 00:46:06.954
Yeah.

00:46:06.954 --> 00:46:07.405
Yeah.

00:46:07.405 --> 00:46:08.005
And.

00:46:08.349 --> 00:46:18.469
And I'm like, no, but I'm moving 2, 000 miles away and I'm going to be there for four years and you're moving to CSU and this is never going to work.

00:46:18.960 --> 00:46:24.190
Um, and somehow he convinced me to just give it a try.

00:46:25.130 --> 00:46:29.519
I think that's when my dad thought maybe something was wrong with me, but I don't think I did.

00:46:29.519 --> 00:46:38.007
I told him all of the details because I didn't think it was gonna work, um, and yeah, I remember I had my dad take me to the airport.

00:46:38.007 --> 00:46:39.878
You just didn't want to break his little heart at that time or whatever.

00:46:39.878 --> 00:46:47.210
It was just very confused, like there's no, there's no logical reason why we shouldn't break up right now.

00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:48.369
Um.

00:46:48.400 --> 00:46:51.829
Well, sometimes you just have a person and you just should.

00:46:51.929 --> 00:46:52.489
Yeah.

00:46:52.489 --> 00:46:52.958
And we.

00:46:52.958 --> 00:46:53.190
We.

00:46:53.190 --> 00:46:53.425
We.

00:46:53.695 --> 00:47:00.954
You know, we had, you know, we were pen pals for a while and then we got email and that changed everything.

00:47:00.965 --> 00:47:06.175
And we had, um, phone cards that we would, you know, take turns paying for the phone bill.

00:47:06.215 --> 00:47:16.554
So we call each other and they had this thing called telnet, which is kind of like the precursor to Um, instant message, um, but you could, we would set up a date.

00:47:16.554 --> 00:47:17.824
Unix terminal.

00:47:17.835 --> 00:47:18.284
Yeah.

00:47:18.284 --> 00:47:19.264
Oh, interesting.

00:47:19.264 --> 00:47:19.635
Yeah.

00:47:19.635 --> 00:47:22.244
And you could, you know, you could type and it would show up.

00:47:22.525 --> 00:47:24.625
Almost like an email, but you could chat back and forth.

00:47:24.625 --> 00:47:24.974
Yeah.

00:47:25.005 --> 00:47:25.505
Yeah.

00:47:25.755 --> 00:47:32.844
And that, that basically saved our relationship because then we could have like real time conversations.

00:47:33.195 --> 00:47:33.920
Um, yeah.

00:47:34.260 --> 00:47:35.179
It was like Friday night.

00:47:35.179 --> 00:47:36.460
That's how I spent my Friday night.

00:47:37.030 --> 00:47:38.739
You guys went four years that way.

00:47:39.570 --> 00:47:47.309
So yeah, after, so by Christmas break, our first year, um, I was just about to turn 19.

00:47:47.320 --> 00:47:51.219
Andy was 19, we were 19 years old and I came back and.

00:47:52.224 --> 00:47:54.684
I was like, Oh my goodness, this is the one.

00:47:54.695 --> 00:47:57.364
Like, what just happened here?

00:47:57.364 --> 00:47:58.815
But it was, it was undeniable.

00:47:58.824 --> 00:48:01.235
It was just like, we knew, we knew.

00:48:01.715 --> 00:48:18.902
Um, and so I looked into transferring to CSU, um, that, you know, after my first year, but, You know, I was at a liberal arts school and CSU just didn't recognize the, um, the credits.

00:48:18.902 --> 00:48:19.594
Right.

00:48:19.594 --> 00:48:23.445
And I, you know, I couldn't start all over again.

00:48:23.864 --> 00:48:26.295
Um, and so I ended up accelerating.

00:48:26.295 --> 00:48:29.275
So I ended up graduating after three years.

00:48:29.304 --> 00:48:29.375
Okay.

00:48:29.405 --> 00:48:33.405
And then I, I moved to Fort Collins in, in 99 when I, when I graduated.

00:48:33.474 --> 00:48:33.864
Okay.

00:48:34.355 --> 00:48:44.000
You did come back for summers and we managed to Visit each other, spring breaks, save up, couple times a year, super long weekends here and there and stuff.

00:48:44.570 --> 00:48:45.110
That's cool.

00:48:45.179 --> 00:48:47.239
Um, and what were you studying, Andy?

00:48:47.460 --> 00:48:56.309
I started out in civil engineering, and I quickly realized that I was too messy, and I just preferred the pure mathematics.

00:48:56.320 --> 00:48:56.920
Right.

00:48:57.079 --> 00:48:58.010
And so, yeah, I got out.

00:48:58.019 --> 00:49:00.909
There's a lot of difference between engineering and especially civil.

00:49:00.949 --> 00:49:01.219
Right.

00:49:02.030 --> 00:49:09.590
Yeah, it was, uh, the real world problems were not my favorite, but, uh, just the pure mathematics were really fun.

00:49:10.309 --> 00:49:10.469
Yeah.

00:49:10.469 --> 00:49:11.400
I ended up getting a.

00:49:12.125 --> 00:49:14.534
Double major in Applied Mathematics and Statistics.

00:49:14.614 --> 00:49:15.175
Interesting.

00:49:15.744 --> 00:49:27.844
Um, how's that, uh, translate to your, like, are you the main push a pencil to it guy as far as making purchases and different product things?

00:49:28.014 --> 00:49:29.505
I'm not really an accounting guy.

00:49:29.525 --> 00:49:29.875
Right.

00:49:29.914 --> 00:49:33.204
Um, but more of a systems organization.

00:49:33.224 --> 00:49:34.505
I, you know, taught myself.

00:49:34.875 --> 00:49:40.894
How to program, you know, websites and, and, you know, uh, website apps and things like that.

00:49:41.474 --> 00:49:45.755
So the math is useful for the logic, but not necessarily for the application.

00:49:45.755 --> 00:49:47.014
Yeah, he's a data guy.

00:49:47.025 --> 00:49:51.704
Yeah, data, just kind of problem, system solving, problem solving sort of stuff.

00:49:52.215 --> 00:49:54.835
I never thought about it that way, but you're kind of right.

00:49:54.945 --> 00:49:57.855
Like, data is kind of the system's problem solving tool.

00:49:57.994 --> 00:50:06.530
And coming out of college with a, you know, Undergraduate in mathematics, you really don't know really sophisticated mathematics.

00:50:06.530 --> 00:50:09.239
You've just learned how to think about it.

00:50:09.260 --> 00:50:12.559
And yeah, it's one of the reasons I like, well, there's no application really.

00:50:12.860 --> 00:50:14.000
Well, statistics is great.

00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:29.309
Cause yeah, that's, that's what really attracted me to statistics was, uh, how applied even, you know, your, the subjects you study in your very first statistics class or, you know, real world applied problems that, you know, some study that happened two years ago, and that was.

00:50:29.809 --> 00:50:32.260
Really caught my enthusiasm.

00:50:32.260 --> 00:50:33.099
Yeah, yeah, fair.

00:50:33.929 --> 00:50:42.090
Yeah, so after undergrad, the only jobs he could get Um, we're in defense contracting and not in Fort Collins.

00:50:42.340 --> 00:50:50.380
And so, so we ended up getting married the summer after, um, Andy graduated college.

00:50:50.690 --> 00:50:54.530
Um, and then you have a year, you were free a year before, cause you accelerated.

00:50:55.364 --> 00:50:55.494
Yeah.

00:50:55.635 --> 00:50:55.885
Yeah.

00:50:55.914 --> 00:50:57.105
So I lived in Fort Collins.

00:50:57.105 --> 00:50:57.675
I got a job.

00:50:58.005 --> 00:51:04.184
Um, but he ended up going on for his master's in statistics, um, at, at CSU.

00:51:04.215 --> 00:51:08.125
So, so we, um, stayed firmly planted in Fort Collins for a long time.

00:51:08.244 --> 00:51:09.994
It was just a good way to stay in Fort Collins.

00:51:10.155 --> 00:51:13.105
I know, uh, I know one joke about statistics.

00:51:13.105 --> 00:51:14.005
Do you know which one it is?

00:51:14.574 --> 00:51:14.684
No.

00:51:15.005 --> 00:51:15.434
You don't?

00:51:15.965 --> 00:51:16.764
It's Abe Lincoln.

00:51:17.804 --> 00:51:21.264
There's lies, there's damn lies, and there's statistics.

00:51:22.804 --> 00:51:26.835
Sorry, probably not an appropriate joke in the context here.

00:51:27.335 --> 00:51:27.994
It was perfect.

00:51:27.994 --> 00:51:36.094
Um, so, you guys finish up your school, you get married, um, and where is this?

00:51:36.094 --> 00:51:37.224
This is like 2000?

00:51:37.355 --> 00:51:37.704
Uh huh.

00:51:37.795 --> 00:51:38.014
Yeah.

00:51:38.494 --> 00:51:44.030
So probably soon is when Your marketing agency starts to come to be is that right or what?

00:51:44.159 --> 00:51:45.300
Where are we now?

00:51:45.360 --> 00:51:45.900
Yeah.

00:51:45.949 --> 00:52:14.025
Well, so I moved to Fort Collins in 99 and I my first job in Fort Collins was for this company called GI tech which isn't around anymore and I you know was 21 years old and I just thought I knew everything and Um, and so it was this company that did all sorts of, it was an interesting mix of things.

00:52:14.034 --> 00:52:23.635
So it was, um, they did marketing, they did computer repair, they did, um, large format printing like for blueprints and things like that.

00:52:23.644 --> 00:52:25.815
Such a strange name for a company that does all those things.

00:52:25.835 --> 00:52:26.835
Yeah, well.

00:52:26.885 --> 00:52:28.025
I guess it was tech, right?

00:52:28.025 --> 00:52:29.054
At that time, anything tech.

00:52:29.054 --> 00:52:31.675
Yeah, global imaging technologies.

00:52:31.695 --> 00:52:32.085
Okay.

00:52:32.485 --> 00:52:34.974
The guy that ran it, I think he's still in Fort Collins.

00:52:35.385 --> 00:52:45.474
Um, I'm not sure what he's doing now, but I, I learned, I learned a lot from him and his wife that they were, um, at the time married and, and running the company together.

00:52:45.835 --> 00:52:52.704
And they, um, one of the things that they let me do was just kind of do my thing.

00:52:52.954 --> 00:53:03.614
And so I said, you know, I, I want to, I want to sell websites and I want to, um, you know, I, so I learned how to, Design websites and program websites.

00:53:03.614 --> 00:53:05.934
And I went to school to be a high school teacher.

00:53:06.264 --> 00:53:13.324
And when I did my student teaching or I, you know, started the first phase of it, I, I realized I was in over my head.

00:53:13.605 --> 00:53:19.195
I couldn't hang, you know, I was five foot one and I just, I couldn't do it.

00:53:19.195 --> 00:53:25.815
And I, I, I, I worked in the career services office at, at my, um, at Middlebury College is where I went.

00:53:26.144 --> 00:53:30.594
I think you could have, it just would have been too stable for you.

00:53:31.094 --> 00:53:35.664
Well, I just, it was, it was overwhelming and stressful.

00:53:35.885 --> 00:53:41.969
And my, um, you know, my counselor said, Get out of there, dude.

00:53:41.969 --> 00:53:42.670
What do you want to do?

00:53:42.670 --> 00:53:48.969
And I'm like, well, I really like marketing because I was, you know, doing the They're the brochures.

00:53:49.369 --> 00:53:55.960
That was my work study job was designing brochures and She said why don't you do this for a living?

00:53:55.960 --> 00:54:00.010
And so I pivoted this is like literally your college Exit counselor.

00:54:00.090 --> 00:54:00.780
Basically.

00:54:00.780 --> 00:54:01.190
Yeah.

00:54:01.190 --> 00:54:02.159
And so I pivoted.

00:54:02.159 --> 00:54:05.889
And so when I told my dad, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm not going to do student teaching.

00:54:05.889 --> 00:54:13.119
I'm going to, um, become a, uh, you know, a graphic designer and, and be a marketing specialist.

00:54:13.130 --> 00:54:15.429
He's like, but you don't know those things.

00:54:15.429 --> 00:54:18.329
Like you just graduated from college for not those things.

00:54:18.829 --> 00:54:20.400
And I said, I got this.

00:54:20.760 --> 00:54:25.659
Um, so my first job gave me a lot of, uh, flexibility to try new things.

00:54:25.659 --> 00:54:26.150
And I did.

00:54:26.150 --> 00:54:38.704
And I, I, Um, got decent at graphic design and you know, circa 99 level of graphic design and, um, marketing and I just love consulting.

00:54:38.704 --> 00:54:45.014
I love talking to people about, you know, what they need for their business and helping them make it a reality.

00:54:45.014 --> 00:54:47.385
And I just, uh, I loved it.

00:54:47.405 --> 00:54:58.204
You're an interesting personality type in that it seems like your ability to see the big picture and then to bust tail down to the little details is similar.

00:54:58.880 --> 00:55:03.480
Like you both, you want your hands right in it and you can understand it from a, from afar.

00:55:04.210 --> 00:55:04.530
Yeah.

00:55:04.530 --> 00:55:05.090
Is that a fair statement?

00:55:05.179 --> 00:55:05.579
Yeah.

00:55:06.130 --> 00:55:06.929
I would agree.

00:55:06.949 --> 00:55:17.690
And I, you know, my first, my first entrepreneurial gig, you know, my dad set us all up with paper routes and I hated the paper route and I told him, I'm not doing the paper route.

00:55:17.719 --> 00:55:19.829
I'm going to babysit instead.

00:55:19.849 --> 00:55:23.219
And so he basically had me show him my business plan.

00:55:23.219 --> 00:55:27.449
I think I was 12 11 and a half cause that's when you could get the red cross certification.

00:55:27.449 --> 00:55:27.630
I'll make.

00:55:27.869 --> 00:55:32.230
Three quarters as much money for half as much time doing the babysitting thing, right?

00:55:32.250 --> 00:55:44.099
And I basically, I basically had to present my dad with a business plan of how I, um, could earn the money I needed and, um, cause I wasn't going to do this paper route.

00:55:44.179 --> 00:55:48.510
And I'm sure he was thrilled that, all right, well, there we go.

00:55:48.550 --> 00:55:51.019
My daughter can create a business plan and she can execute it.

00:55:51.869 --> 00:55:56.239
Um, but I just always wanted to do what I wanted to do.

00:55:56.269 --> 00:55:56.610
Yeah.

00:55:56.699 --> 00:55:58.389
Um, still do, I guess.

00:55:58.719 --> 00:56:00.574
Um, but Yeah.

00:56:00.585 --> 00:56:07.605
So I, I've always been able to think through business types of problems as, as a hobby.

00:56:07.885 --> 00:56:17.565
And um, you know, when it came to marketing, like, well, I had been the editor of the newspaper and so, and back then you did pay steps and layouts and you had to make everything fit.

00:56:17.574 --> 00:56:25.724
And so a lot of the design, um, and you know, wordsmithing and, you know, I had a lot of those skills and I used it in college.

00:56:25.905 --> 00:56:26.815
And I had more fun.

00:56:27.155 --> 00:56:31.815
designing my term papers than I did writing them, um, for, for example.

00:56:32.155 --> 00:56:34.800
So, It was an easy fix.

00:56:34.889 --> 00:56:42.809
Um, I mean, it was an easy transition, um, in part because I was, um, just convinced that I would be fine.

00:56:42.880 --> 00:57:02.650
I'm not sure how I had that level of confidence, but, um, yeah, I was, I was finally with Andy, we were, you know, living in the same town and, um, I got to have a grownup job and a lot of freedom and flexibility in this, in this company and, um, yeah, had, had a lot of fun and learned, learned a ton.

00:57:02.650 --> 00:57:08.824
Um, Andy, where, we've talked about, you had like these defense contractor jobs and different things available.

00:57:08.824 --> 00:57:11.824
Where did you land for that first real big boy job?

00:57:11.985 --> 00:57:12.434
So, yeah.

00:57:12.454 --> 00:57:16.545
Um, so I wasn't interested in the defense contractor jobs.

00:57:16.585 --> 00:57:19.574
Uh, you know, I got a couple offers in Colorado Springs at TRW.

00:57:21.094 --> 00:57:23.135
Um, but that didn't excite me.

00:57:23.135 --> 00:57:29.844
So staying in, in Fort Collins to go to grad school was a kind of a kick the can down the road kind of move.

00:57:29.894 --> 00:57:30.215
Right.

00:57:30.264 --> 00:57:38.289
Um, While I was in grad school, one of my classmates, uh, worked at the forest service and he introduced me around over there.

00:57:38.289 --> 00:57:40.349
So I think it was in my.

00:57:40.695 --> 00:57:46.094
Beginning of my second year, I got a job, uh, as a contractor with the Forest Service.

00:57:46.224 --> 00:57:46.364
Cool.

00:57:46.364 --> 00:57:52.364
Um, doing a lot of, um, the unit I was attached to was specialized in inventory and monitoring.

00:57:52.394 --> 00:57:52.655
Hm.

00:57:52.764 --> 00:57:57.844
And so they, you know, inventoried and monitored a lot of different things, you know, uh, some wildlife stuff.

00:57:57.934 --> 00:57:58.454
Right, right.

00:57:58.454 --> 00:57:59.065
Um, timber.

00:57:59.445 --> 00:57:59.695
Um.

00:57:59.715 --> 00:58:02.505
And keeping track of the actual numbers of all these.

00:58:02.585 --> 00:58:02.914
Right.

00:58:02.914 --> 00:58:05.014
You're, you're probably a blue brown.

00:58:05.704 --> 00:58:06.184
Grrr.

00:58:06.184 --> 00:58:06.519
Grrr.

00:58:06.690 --> 00:58:11.610
Uh, we've, we've been studying this thing in, at Loco, uh, called HALOS, relational intelligence.

00:58:12.079 --> 00:58:17.230
And the brown is kind of the deep thinker, sees kind of the complexity of all the things.

00:58:17.599 --> 00:58:26.090
And the blue has like an organizational kind of tendencies, very unusual, not typical pattern.

00:58:26.099 --> 00:58:32.610
And like every growing, bigger company needs that person there, just kind of keeping an eye on things.

00:58:33.300 --> 00:58:41.045
Uh, over here with Julia is probably the, uh, I don't know, Definitely orange and probably white.

00:58:41.605 --> 00:58:45.894
Uh, orange being the achiever, entrepreneur personality, and white being the idea generator.

00:58:46.684 --> 00:58:49.655
Um, or maybe the green, the relational person.

00:58:50.394 --> 00:58:51.505
And they make power couples.

00:58:51.635 --> 00:59:05.394
Anyway, I'm, I'm, I'm dallying into this, but I'm starting to understand your persona and how you see things from a, an understanding of the complexity better than a lot of people do, I suspect.

00:59:06.735 --> 00:59:08.585
Especially when it comes to inventory controls.

00:59:09.565 --> 00:59:11.735
Just moving all the things where it needs to go.

00:59:11.994 --> 00:59:13.454
He sees solutions.

00:59:13.864 --> 00:59:15.914
Um, and you create problems.

00:59:15.914 --> 00:59:17.105
He finds solutions.

00:59:17.405 --> 00:59:23.434
I mean, I think that's the big value I bring to the marketing agency we ran.

00:59:23.434 --> 00:59:39.204
And, and Tati is, is when people have challenges in the organization or clients or clients when we were at the agency that I do approach that the problem solving, um, process.

00:59:40.844 --> 00:59:43.125
In a methodical creative way.

00:59:43.125 --> 00:59:49.864
And I really enjoy creating solutions to just challenges that people have wherever they come from.

00:59:49.864 --> 00:59:51.224
And yeah, yeah.

00:59:51.545 --> 00:59:51.974
I dig it.

00:59:52.045 --> 00:59:52.244
Yeah.

00:59:52.244 --> 01:00:09.059
And at Tati, Andy's Yeah, it's better for him if he stays out of the way for all of us and in part, you know, he'll give me once a month, he'll just show up to a meeting and he's like, okay, Andy, you should walk in the room and you like you own the place.

01:00:09.469 --> 01:00:15.719
Um, but it's, it's really good for all of us because he'll say, well, how come we're doing it that way?

01:00:15.730 --> 01:00:23.179
And it's like, well, Because and you know, sometimes it's, you know, he just needs to be filled in on the context and other times like, gosh, darn it.

01:00:23.190 --> 01:00:23.730
He's right.

01:00:23.769 --> 01:00:26.530
Like, I don't know why we do it that way.

01:00:26.550 --> 01:00:29.110
And he's like, Well, what if we did this instead?

01:00:29.440 --> 01:00:37.534
And so he's got a, a Yeah, almost a coldness, uh, to the way things have always been done.

01:00:37.974 --> 01:00:50.614
And so he's, you know, he spends most of his time not at work, um, but when he is there, you know, most, most of the weekdays he's, you know, off doing other things.

01:00:50.625 --> 01:00:52.155
Fly fishing, hiking.

01:00:52.355 --> 01:00:53.554
Spends a lot of time on his bike.

01:00:54.164 --> 01:00:54.614
Bicycling.

01:00:54.695 --> 01:00:54.715
Yeah.

01:00:55.215 --> 01:00:55.554
But.

01:00:56.079 --> 01:01:11.670
When, you know, when we need him for a problem, whether or not we know it, um, he's, he often is either a collaborative, um, strategist or, you know, sometimes I'll come home and he's like, well, you know, what's going on?

01:01:11.670 --> 01:01:13.730
I could tell you're frustrated about something and it'll tell him.

01:01:13.989 --> 01:01:15.789
And sometimes he's like, well, just fire him.

01:01:15.880 --> 01:01:17.119
I'm like, well, I can't do that.

01:01:17.380 --> 01:01:34.954
But other, other times, um, he's like, well, have you, have you considered And, you know, that, that's a perspective that, uh, is, is crazy valuable and the problems that he can solve with his, uh, you know, programming skills.

01:01:34.954 --> 01:01:39.414
And, you know, he's, his main role at Tati, you know, besides being a, um.

01:01:39.565 --> 01:01:42.724
a strategist is helping develop systems.

01:01:42.735 --> 01:01:51.014
So sometimes he'll just hang out with people, um, and observe them doing their jobs and he'll say, okay, well, I see that this takes you 10 steps.

01:01:51.465 --> 01:01:53.255
What if I may do this tool?

01:01:53.775 --> 01:01:56.635
Um, could it take, could it make things easier?

01:01:56.635 --> 01:01:58.324
And they're like, oh my goodness, I love you, Andy.

01:01:58.885 --> 01:02:25.605
Um, so yeah, he's no one's boss, but he's everyone's, um, Best friend, you know, when it, when it comes to making their jobs easier and making things efficient, yeah, is what almost, uh, Mentor has been kind of working with her, uh, you know, operations manager kind of role, the unlocker of speed, efficiency, talent, knowledge, kind of just let this, how can I help this specific person do their job better?

01:02:26.644 --> 01:02:27.724
Yeah, that's Andy.

01:02:27.775 --> 01:02:28.405
That's a cool place.

01:02:28.824 --> 01:02:32.574
Um, so let's take us up to that first marketing agency.

01:02:32.985 --> 01:02:33.315
Yeah.

01:02:33.324 --> 01:02:35.375
Cause I was your first brush with real entrepreneurship.

01:02:35.414 --> 01:02:35.795
Yep.

01:02:35.875 --> 01:02:39.795
Um, so there was a lot of great things about my first job in Fort Collins.

01:02:40.224 --> 01:02:43.650
Um, It ended up not being a great fit for me.

01:02:43.650 --> 01:02:47.960
There's a variety of things going on, um, that was.

01:02:49.394 --> 01:02:50.235
It's not a good fit.

01:02:50.485 --> 01:02:57.344
So let's just say I decided I needed to get out and I wasn't successful finding a job.

01:02:57.795 --> 01:03:04.505
Um, and so I quit, um, and you quit without a plan B.

01:03:04.514 --> 01:03:05.284
Is that what I'm hearing?

01:03:05.465 --> 01:03:06.414
Right.

01:03:06.494 --> 01:03:15.164
Um, thankfully Andy had at that time, my stipend, he had a student covered, covered rent and most of the food.

01:03:15.164 --> 01:03:15.375
Yeah.

01:03:15.375 --> 01:03:15.985
Yeah.

01:03:16.505 --> 01:03:19.824
Yeah, um, we've been scrappy for a long time.

01:03:19.824 --> 01:03:23.125
This is the, uh, the coyote chapter of your relationship right here.

01:03:23.135 --> 01:03:26.800
And so Um, but it was, it was just not sustainable.

01:03:26.869 --> 01:03:32.230
Um, and so I said, well, I'll do freelance until I can find a job.

01:03:32.449 --> 01:03:48.610
And at the time there was a website called Elance, um, that, and it was like this, this six month period before it became inundated with, um, Indians, overseas contractors.

01:03:48.610 --> 01:03:52.000
And so, yeah, people like me, like I, you know, I can.

01:03:52.474 --> 01:03:52.724
Right.

01:03:52.724 --> 01:03:53.695
I could do copywriting.

01:03:53.704 --> 01:03:55.034
I could do business plans.

01:03:55.034 --> 01:03:56.385
I could do graphic design.

01:03:56.385 --> 01:04:03.034
I could do, I, you know, I had a lot of skills that were, um, you know, I could do logos.

01:04:03.074 --> 01:04:08.574
And so I just put myself up on Elance and started getting some projects.

01:04:08.635 --> 01:04:09.224
Um, yeah.

01:04:09.855 --> 01:04:23.074
And it was the type of gig work that, um, if you do a good job for, for one client, then they'll tell their friends and then they'll have another, um, and so it ended up pretty within six months.

01:04:23.445 --> 01:04:25.235
I still hadn't found a job.

01:04:25.255 --> 01:04:28.025
Um, I had gotten, wasn't sure you wanted a job, right?

01:04:28.025 --> 01:04:43.864
And I got to the point where I'm like, you know, I think, um, You know, I only need to make a couple hundred dollars a month to pay for the rest of our food because thankfully the CSU stipend was, you know, covering, um, covering almost everything else.

01:04:43.894 --> 01:04:50.014
Um, you know, we had been poor college students, um, before then, so now we were less poor college students.

01:04:50.405 --> 01:05:03.594
Um, and Yeah, so it, you know, from, um, pretty, pretty quickly it, it caught on and I, Andy didn't want to have anything to do with it.

01:05:03.784 --> 01:05:06.804
He's like, yeah, this is your crazy job.

01:05:06.804 --> 01:05:08.164
I'll have a normal job.

01:05:08.335 --> 01:05:12.724
And again, his parents stayed in their same career, their whole career.

01:05:14.159 --> 01:05:17.789
And I was like, well, you know, I can, I can do this.

01:05:17.809 --> 01:05:18.929
And, and I did.

01:05:19.260 --> 01:05:22.239
Um, so that's kind of how it happened.

01:05:22.750 --> 01:05:24.590
And is that what became the agency then?

01:05:24.710 --> 01:05:24.989
Yeah.

01:05:25.000 --> 01:05:28.010
It's just your freelance career kind of just got more and more customers.

01:05:28.329 --> 01:05:28.750
Yeah.

01:05:28.789 --> 01:05:31.289
And so a couple of things happened.

01:05:31.300 --> 01:05:33.480
Um, one was.

01:05:33.715 --> 01:05:47.585
Um, as I got busier, there was a couple of times where, you know, I had subcontractors and some of them were flaky and, um, like, Hey, Andy, you know, you, you know, HTML, like you can help me with this website.

01:05:47.585 --> 01:05:49.275
And he's like, fine, I'll help you.

01:05:49.704 --> 01:05:58.885
Um, and there was, um, Um, in 2003, there was, in March, there was a blizzard, um, and we were snowed in.

01:05:58.894 --> 01:06:00.164
It was us and our dog.

01:06:00.164 --> 01:06:01.514
I was living in Windsor at that time, actually.

01:06:01.514 --> 01:06:04.815
And we were living, um, in West Fort Collins.

01:06:04.815 --> 01:06:07.855
That was when Bed Bath Beyond roof got clogged and stuff.

01:06:07.875 --> 01:06:14.215
Um, we were in West Fort Collins at the time, in a, in a new neighborhood, and I'm like, oh, you know, why don't you just help me?

01:06:14.215 --> 01:06:16.894
Like, I, I, you know, this, um.

01:06:18.514 --> 01:06:23.005
This subcontractor that I have is flaking out and it'll be fine.

01:06:23.114 --> 01:06:27.224
Back into this, we have to just be here by ourselves anyway.

01:06:27.405 --> 01:06:33.945
And so basically over that like five day period of the snow storm, we built our first e commerce website.

01:06:34.385 --> 01:06:36.425
Um, and.

01:06:36.795 --> 01:06:38.474
So then Andy caught the bug.

01:06:38.485 --> 01:06:40.795
He's like, Ooh, this is actually kind of fun.

01:06:41.235 --> 01:06:44.364
Um, so he started side hustling with me.

01:06:44.375 --> 01:06:54.494
And so then I could start selling his services, um, which were more lucrative as, you know, programming websites, um, just graphic design, right?

01:06:54.505 --> 01:06:55.005
Right.

01:06:55.025 --> 01:06:55.405
Writing stuff.

01:06:55.425 --> 01:07:00.965
And so it ended up being, got to the point where he had two full time jobs.

01:07:00.965 --> 01:07:02.724
He was working all day at the forest service.

01:07:03.320 --> 01:07:17.289
Um, and, and then he was, um, you know, it was before we had kids and so we, we would work, like come home and make dinner and sit at our desks and, and work and build websites and do cool stuff.

01:07:17.289 --> 01:07:22.320
And so, um, and what was it that you liked about that web dev, Andy?

01:07:22.949 --> 01:07:25.150
In contrast to like being out in the forest all day.

01:07:25.519 --> 01:07:47.744
Um, well, to be clear, I've, my trips out in the forest where I can count on one hand, I was sitting behind a computer pretty much the whole time, but, uh, it was just a fun, and the challenges were new and different every day, so, you know, you had a website that looked like this, and so that figure it out and put it together and make it look different.

01:07:48.054 --> 01:07:49.974
Just how, the way the client wanted it to work.

01:07:50.005 --> 01:07:50.215
Right.

01:07:50.364 --> 01:07:52.755
Um, which wasn't so easy back then, right.

01:07:53.094 --> 01:07:55.085
The, the toolkit was a lot sparser.

01:07:55.094 --> 01:07:55.505
Sure.

01:07:55.605 --> 01:08:16.425
And, uh, you know, as the projects got more sophisticated, they got more interesting and more fun and, uh, you know, the bigger the clients got, the more interesting it was, so yeah, I just, it was, in some ways it was very similar to what I was doing in the forest service that I, I was with a unit that kind of worked as a consulting.

01:08:17.119 --> 01:08:17.609
Office.

01:08:17.649 --> 01:08:28.659
And so, you know, different forest districts, different forests would come and say, Hey, we need to try to make best practices, we need to figure out how much old growth we have in our forest.

01:08:28.680 --> 01:08:30.100
Can you help us figure that out?

01:08:30.470 --> 01:08:32.229
And so, you know, it was a lot of designing.

01:08:32.864 --> 01:08:46.595
Um, sampling and analysis of the data once I collected it and it's not totally different from, you know, some, uh, business saying, Hey, I need a website to communicate this, this and this and sell this product.

01:08:46.595 --> 01:08:47.595
How do I do it?

01:08:47.975 --> 01:08:51.045
I guess for you, that's not totally different for most people.

01:08:51.885 --> 01:08:58.145
For a lot of people, though, that's like a way different thing, but the consulting part is what you're talking about is the part that's the same.

01:08:58.364 --> 01:08:58.564
Yeah.

01:08:58.564 --> 01:08:59.805
And approaching problems.

01:08:59.805 --> 01:09:00.055
And problem solving.

01:09:00.055 --> 01:09:00.774
Yeah.

01:09:00.774 --> 01:09:01.145
Yeah, yeah.

01:09:01.185 --> 01:09:04.854
And you know, just having new and different problems to solve was, was fun.

01:09:04.875 --> 01:09:06.114
That was feeding to you.

01:09:06.694 --> 01:09:18.225
So you guys just kind of had that kind of classic entrepreneurial experience where you were like burning the candle at both ends, getting, trying to get enough traction to get to that next step.

01:09:18.225 --> 01:09:18.534
Yeah.

01:09:18.614 --> 01:09:18.885
Yeah.

01:09:18.885 --> 01:09:26.965
And so the, you know, the forest service, by that time Andy had his master's degree, he was working full time for the forest service and it paid our insurance, it paid our mortgage.

01:09:26.965 --> 01:09:27.335
Right.

01:09:27.335 --> 01:09:27.345
Yeah.

01:09:27.345 --> 01:09:27.354
Yeah.

01:09:27.505 --> 01:09:36.994
Um, and the, uh, as long as you could squeeze an extra 30 hours a week out of him, yeah, we would climb rocks.

01:09:36.994 --> 01:09:39.234
We would, um, work.

01:09:39.335 --> 01:09:39.604
Yeah.

01:09:40.055 --> 01:09:43.465
Um, and that, that was, that was our life and it was great.

01:09:45.005 --> 01:09:51.635
Um, so then fast forward to 2006, um, okay, so this is a pretty long time.

01:09:51.704 --> 01:09:51.994
Yeah.

01:09:52.364 --> 01:09:53.444
Five, six, seven years.

01:09:53.454 --> 01:09:53.645
Yeah.

01:09:53.704 --> 01:09:54.840
Most while you're doing this.

01:09:54.909 --> 01:10:11.260
So 2006, we were pregnant for the first time and um, baby was due in July and I was like, well, you know, I think I'll probably just keep working cause I can work from home and um, uh, so.

01:10:11.260 --> 01:10:12.779
And it's like you don't think the baby's going to need anything?

01:10:14.729 --> 01:10:18.359
Um, and I was really busy at, at that time.

01:10:18.359 --> 01:10:18.479
Right.

01:10:18.479 --> 01:10:32.800
I, you know, I didn't have, you know, I was still pretty young, um, in terms of, you know, business savvy, um, but I, I love the work that I did and I love my clients and I, um, yeah, it was working a lot of hours.

01:10:33.420 --> 01:10:37.149
Um, and so, you know, we didn't really make a plan.

01:10:37.149 --> 01:10:40.739
I just figured I'd take on less projects when the, when the baby came.

01:10:41.140 --> 01:10:48.779
Um, so our daughter was still born, um, at full term.

01:10:48.890 --> 01:10:55.539
And so, That, that was a line in the sand for us that, you know, obviously was tragic and traumatic.

01:10:56.069 --> 01:10:59.989
Um, but it changed so many things in, in our life.

01:11:00.020 --> 01:11:10.180
And one was, I didn't have anyone to, to help and I needed to stop working and grieve and take time off.

01:11:10.250 --> 01:11:24.194
And I was the only one that did the work, um, you know, Andy could do his projects, but I did all of the billing and, um, It was basically a freelancer still and that was really hard.

01:11:24.194 --> 01:11:28.864
I realized I can't do this, um, by myself anymore.

01:11:29.074 --> 01:11:31.604
I can only imagine you had to be like depressed.

01:11:31.875 --> 01:11:32.234
Yeah.

01:11:32.234 --> 01:11:38.555
Well, and Andy would go to work and I, I just, I couldn't, I couldn't deal.

01:11:38.564 --> 01:11:40.854
Like I was by myself all day, every day.

01:11:40.864 --> 01:11:44.850
And It was really hard for him to leave.

01:11:44.859 --> 01:11:45.859
Like, he had to go to work.

01:11:45.970 --> 01:11:48.814
But it was, I, Emotionally, just very challenging.

01:11:48.814 --> 01:11:50.279
Yeah, it was, it was very hard.

01:11:50.279 --> 01:11:55.069
And, you know, thankfully, he had a great support system at, you know, friends and family and church.

01:11:55.670 --> 01:12:05.079
Um, but the, the other thing was, I lost my, Ability to be a graphic designer and it never came back.

01:12:05.220 --> 01:12:12.079
Like there's something about the creative spark, energy, muse, whatever you want to call it, that never came back.

01:12:12.220 --> 01:12:20.369
And, uh, I had a good friend who worked for a different company and, um, I had done some, um, work for her company.

01:12:20.369 --> 01:12:21.239
And you'd actually met her.

01:12:21.250 --> 01:12:22.109
She worked at GI tech.

01:12:22.180 --> 01:12:22.470
Yeah.

01:12:22.470 --> 01:12:22.760
Yeah.

01:12:22.760 --> 01:12:23.109
Yeah.

01:12:23.109 --> 01:12:25.840
We, uh, we actually worked our first job at the same time.

01:12:25.949 --> 01:12:26.310
Yep.

01:12:26.439 --> 01:12:31.564
Um, so we had stayed in touch and her, um, boss was, Was great.

01:12:31.564 --> 01:12:35.494
And I had, you know, done some projects for her and she had done, you know, so we had collaborated.

01:12:35.925 --> 01:12:43.185
Um, but there were times where I'm and her name is Kelly and I, there was times I'm like, Kelly, I can't do this logo.

01:12:43.185 --> 01:12:43.814
I need help.

01:12:44.185 --> 01:12:46.225
Um, can I pay you to do this logo for me?

01:12:46.225 --> 01:12:53.135
And, and she gradually, um, took on more and more projects for me cause I just couldn't do it anymore.

01:12:53.604 --> 01:13:01.720
And eventually, um, We got to a point where she said, how, how about, how about I just come work for you?

01:13:02.079 --> 01:13:04.104
And Andy said, Let's do it.

01:13:04.255 --> 01:13:18.994
Um, and so it was within within a year that The freelance became an agency and there were three of us full time we Bought an office in Midtown.

01:13:19.805 --> 01:13:20.545
Were you partners?

01:13:20.614 --> 01:13:22.645
Were you the owner?

01:13:23.395 --> 01:13:26.175
It was my business and Andy and Kelly were employees.

01:13:26.175 --> 01:13:30.975
Okay, and Um, at that time, because it had already been set up as, as my business.

01:13:30.975 --> 01:13:48.550
So we, we didn't, um, you know, I already had an LLC, um, but yeah, just being, you were the first one to sacrifice your paycheck in case nobody, um, and so we, we basically, um, when, did you have the name or anything before that, when the name came up?

01:13:48.920 --> 01:13:58.180
Yeah, it was, uh, started off as Claypot Consulting in 2000 and eventually, I think it was about that time we turned it to Claypot Creative, which is what it still is.

01:13:58.510 --> 01:14:09.039
Um, but yeah, so in, in 2007, um, we bought an office, Andy quit his job, Kelly came and joined us full time and we became a real company.

01:14:09.090 --> 01:14:09.420
Right.

01:14:09.560 --> 01:14:14.880
Um, it was like, you know, Pinocchio becoming a real boy, like, wow.

01:14:14.880 --> 01:14:24.689
And, you know, we had clients, we had revenue and knew a lot of what we were doing, but there was something about Andy resigning from the forest service and giving up our insurance.

01:14:24.699 --> 01:14:25.300
Right, right.

01:14:25.829 --> 01:14:25.850
Yeah.

01:14:25.850 --> 01:14:27.300
That was our guaranteed income.

01:14:27.869 --> 01:14:27.899
Yeah.

01:14:28.130 --> 01:14:32.569
That, uh, you were all in, but it was also the worst thing has already happened to us.

01:14:32.569 --> 01:14:35.000
So why not?

01:14:35.010 --> 01:14:35.029
Yeah.

01:14:35.039 --> 01:14:36.930
Like, and so our, A risk.

01:14:37.475 --> 01:14:40.284
Tolerance shot way up right overnight.

01:14:40.284 --> 01:14:42.585
Like, well, what if it fails?

01:14:42.585 --> 01:14:42.864
Okay.

01:14:42.864 --> 01:14:44.694
Well, we can start over.

01:14:44.694 --> 01:14:45.805
Do you go get a job?

01:14:45.835 --> 01:14:50.814
And it, you know, our, we always wanted to have a backup plan and backup plan and backup plan.

01:14:50.814 --> 01:14:52.095
And finally it was like, you know what?

01:14:52.114 --> 01:14:53.505
We're there's no backup plan.

01:14:53.545 --> 01:14:54.904
Yeah, we're, we're going to do this.

01:14:54.914 --> 01:14:56.085
I don't want to be by myself.

01:14:56.435 --> 01:14:56.965
All day.

01:14:57.015 --> 01:15:00.654
I don't want to, I can't, I can't be a graphic designer anymore.

01:15:00.984 --> 01:15:07.255
And Andy, um, you know, needs to have a better work life balance.

01:15:07.524 --> 01:15:10.515
Um, what, what we thought would be a better work life balance.

01:15:10.654 --> 01:15:15.805
It took about 10 years before there actually was a work life balance, but, um, yeah.

01:15:15.805 --> 01:15:18.795
So it was, it was scary and exciting and it worked.

01:15:19.284 --> 01:15:21.667
I'm going to take a short time out because I've got to go pee.

01:15:21.667 --> 01:15:21.911
Okay.

01:15:21.911 --> 01:15:22.154
Okay.

01:15:22.435 --> 01:16:06.930
Take the break yeah.

01:16:07.390 --> 01:16:07.659
Yeah.

01:16:07.670 --> 01:16:11.470
Well, and we've learned to say, all right, God, what are you doing here?

01:16:11.479 --> 01:16:19.380
Cause don't, we don't see through it, but we know that there's a plan and we'll trust that you have our best interests at heart here.

01:16:19.449 --> 01:16:19.970
Yeah.

01:16:19.979 --> 01:16:21.899
So some of those, yeah.

01:16:22.319 --> 01:16:49.765
Yeah, there's that Andy likes to say we're battle hardened and that we've been through a lot and Have been very fortunate very blessed very successful in a lot of ways that we have no business Um, having so most people, honestly, like, um, you know, work hard, persevere and successful usually find you.

01:16:50.395 --> 01:16:56.675
Um, but it comes with a lot of pain and every journey to, um, when we left off, we were pretty exhausted.

01:16:57.005 --> 01:16:58.895
You were just becoming real business owners.

01:16:59.585 --> 01:17:00.774
Kelly was in there.

01:17:01.395 --> 01:17:06.654
That had to take a lot of faith to quit your job, which was probably close to a six figure job almost already.

01:17:06.664 --> 01:17:09.305
Yeah, it was, it was a big, uh, a big leap for sure.

01:17:09.475 --> 01:17:09.795
Yeah.

01:17:10.795 --> 01:17:12.484
And what, who were your clients?

01:17:12.505 --> 01:17:25.104
Like, uh, cause there's probably a different client mix from being claypot freelancing to claypot creative and starting to try to get some of those more consistent and durable engagements.

01:17:25.114 --> 01:17:25.824
Yeah, well, it's interesting.

01:17:26.475 --> 01:17:44.064
Um, we always had a mix and my heart, you know, the reason why I started, um, my business in the first place was I loved being able to help small businesses have high quality marketing that made them, uh, that helped them be successful.

01:17:44.335 --> 01:17:53.265
Um, you know, so many small businesses just didn't have, you know, this was before, this A lot of them still didn't have websites.

01:17:53.265 --> 01:17:53.359
Shopify.

01:17:53.359 --> 01:17:53.453
Right.

01:17:53.453 --> 01:17:53.734
At that time.

01:17:53.734 --> 01:17:54.715
You know, before.

01:17:55.250 --> 01:18:09.300
Um, you, you just, you couldn't afford things and you, you know, as a small business owner myself, like had to get a, to try to get a SBA loan in order to do my first direct mail campaign.

01:18:09.310 --> 01:18:13.274
Like, it was just like, you had, you had to like, Sign our, our car over.

01:18:13.274 --> 01:18:14.104
It was crazy.

01:18:14.104 --> 01:18:23.074
And so I wanted, my heart was to be able to provide professional solutions for, for small businesses and help them be successful.

01:18:23.265 --> 01:18:32.180
And so, you know, we didn't have a minimum for years and years that, um, yes, we, we wanted big clients and we were.

01:18:32.329 --> 01:18:38.239
Um, good at taking care of their needs, but I always had a heart for the, the small businesses.

01:18:38.239 --> 01:18:46.260
So, um, yeah, we had all sorts of, um, interesting startups that we worked with.

01:18:46.649 --> 01:19:03.255
Um, we did some, um, Um, collaborations with Sage Marketing Group and at the time, um, Doug was outsourcing all of his creative, um, you know, this before the, the recession in, in 2008, um, changed a lot of things for a lot of us.

01:19:03.284 --> 01:19:07.465
Um, but before then we did a lot of, um, work for him.

01:19:07.795 --> 01:19:13.885
Um, Toddy was starting in 2003 was, um, uh, uh, how did you come across them?

01:19:14.274 --> 01:19:16.015
So that was during your freelance time.

01:19:16.085 --> 01:19:16.404
Yeah.

01:19:16.604 --> 01:19:44.635
Yeah, so one of the First guys I met on elance was this, you know serial entrepreneur and marketing consultant And he just you know, he needed people to do the work He had got a contract with toddy to do some well So he I had oh just in general with him was for his, um, he was hired by his kids, Waldorf school in LA to do a website.

01:19:44.635 --> 01:19:47.545
And, you know, so we also, I did all sorts of projects with him.

01:19:47.944 --> 01:19:53.494
Um, but the, um, toddy family, um, was.

01:19:54.149 --> 01:19:58.609
Um, you know, the guy that was running toddy at the time was his college roommate.

01:19:58.899 --> 01:20:04.479
And so he had called, um, you know, my associate and said, hey, I need your help.

01:20:04.489 --> 01:20:08.329
You know, my dad's business is, you know, we need, we need to rejuvenate it.

01:20:08.710 --> 01:20:13.215
And so then, you Um, the guy called me and said, Hey, I've, you know, I've got this gig.

01:20:13.215 --> 01:20:15.034
It's going to be great for both of us.

01:20:15.064 --> 01:20:15.914
Let's get started.

01:20:15.925 --> 01:20:17.524
And so that was in 2003.

01:20:17.704 --> 01:20:19.414
So I've been working with toddy.

01:20:19.465 --> 01:20:27.524
Um, and, and basically Andy started, um, working on their website projects shortly after I did.

01:20:27.534 --> 01:20:32.364
So toddy's, you know, we've both been working, um, with toddy since 2003.

01:20:33.300 --> 01:20:39.140
Well, well, and I, you know, I'm, because I'm a little older than you guys, I remember when nobody even had websites, right?

01:20:39.319 --> 01:20:41.640
Like, you couldn't buy things online in Right.

01:20:41.640 --> 01:20:42.569
1999.

01:20:42.569 --> 01:20:42.729
Right.

01:20:42.729 --> 01:20:43.090
Yeah.

01:20:43.369 --> 01:20:49.529
Um, you could get a contact page or a phone number to call them and place an order or something, but that was about the extent of it for a while.

01:20:49.539 --> 01:20:49.789
Yeah.

01:20:49.791 --> 01:20:49.965
Yeah.

01:20:50.265 --> 01:20:56.154
So, I imagine you guys had a big part in developing their evolution to being a direct consumer.

01:20:56.385 --> 01:21:11.185
Yeah, they had, they had a website, um, we rebuilt their website and, you know, a crazy thing happened that the Washington Post did a story about Tati in December of 2003.

01:21:11.404 --> 01:21:34.180
And so, it was It's, you know, it was when everyone read newspapers and it was right before Christmas and the guy literally called toddy coffee, coffee nirvana, um, and the best cup of coffee that existed and it overnight, like they, the sales just to ching, to ching, to ching, to ching, to ching.

01:21:34.479 --> 01:21:35.529
They were used to getting.

01:21:35.994 --> 01:21:42.515
You know, 50 orders a week and you know, over the weekend of reading this article, they came in on Monday and had 10, 000 orders in there.

01:21:42.515 --> 01:21:52.385
Not quite that many, but yeah, thousands and so much so that their, um, payment processor shut them down.

01:21:52.534 --> 01:21:57.425
They said, we, we don't, you know, we're, we don't believe that you can fill up.

01:21:57.425 --> 01:22:02.550
And so, Um, so it was, it was crazy.

01:22:02.569 --> 01:22:12.890
All of their order fulfillment was this person, um, received the orders in her email and she knew if the order had been fulfilled, if the email was no longer bold.

01:22:13.359 --> 01:22:15.369
Um, that was their system.

01:22:15.430 --> 01:22:15.989
Yeah.

01:22:16.020 --> 01:22:21.689
And so, um, we flew to Houston and we did an integration with UPS.

01:22:22.020 --> 01:22:29.159
So integrated the website with UPS so that they could, um, key in a number in the, you know, UPS system.

01:22:29.569 --> 01:22:30.859
Like you're flying down there like that Monday.

01:22:31.069 --> 01:22:31.539
Yeah.

01:22:31.579 --> 01:22:31.880
Yeah.

01:22:31.979 --> 01:22:33.640
Because they couldn't get paid.

01:22:33.649 --> 01:22:33.880
Right.

01:22:34.989 --> 01:22:40.420
And they needed a way to prove that these orders were getting out and they didn't have a way to prove it.

01:22:40.619 --> 01:22:53.470
And so we, we basically figured out a way to integrate with UPS so that it, the UPS would talk to the database to pull in the order information and it would post it back, um, when the order was, uh, completed.

01:22:53.699 --> 01:22:58.659
Um, you know, and the label was printed and could they ramp up fast enough to ship all this stuff out?

01:22:58.720 --> 01:23:04.850
Like they, yeah, they could, you know, thankfully they had had outsourced manufacturing opportunities.

01:23:04.970 --> 01:23:08.329
I don't know how they did it, but they were able to do it inventory.

01:23:08.329 --> 01:23:11.104
It was a matter of Yeah.

01:23:11.385 --> 01:23:16.984
And then they didn't have the people to put the stuff in the boxes and labels on, right?

01:23:16.994 --> 01:23:17.875
That part of it was challenging.

01:23:17.885 --> 01:23:19.324
Tape up the box and everything.

01:23:19.784 --> 01:23:20.085
Yeah.

01:23:20.085 --> 01:23:31.654
So we, um, figured out how to, yeah, we figured out how to do it and, but that was, um, we were very integral in, um, that.

01:23:31.904 --> 01:23:33.994
Proved your dedication to the cause.

01:23:34.095 --> 01:23:40.484
And so we were, you know, Tati became more and more of a key account for clay pot creative.

01:23:40.635 --> 01:23:51.685
Um, and yeah, some of the other, other clients, um, we had some, some great some of my favorites were, uh, we did a website for Canyon bake house.

01:23:51.765 --> 01:23:52.185
Oh sure.

01:23:52.395 --> 01:23:53.015
Josh Cowan.

01:23:54.314 --> 01:24:08.420
Um, there's a business in Loveland, uh, barista pro shop, which, you know, Sells, like, all the consumables that a coffee shop would use from cups and lids to syrups and stir sticks and whatever.

01:24:08.420 --> 01:24:16.380
And, uh, and so, before we owned Tati, we built their website and e commerce.

01:24:16.500 --> 01:24:17.850
That was kind of an e commerce thing.

01:24:17.850 --> 01:24:19.630
Yeah, their fulfillment system.

01:24:19.750 --> 01:24:29.810
Right, before there was things like Shopify Yeah, we got to work with FiberLock and, um, MouseRug and, you know, another local company.

01:24:30.079 --> 01:24:30.750
MouseRug?

01:24:30.930 --> 01:24:31.520
Yeah.

01:24:31.520 --> 01:24:31.970
Yeah.

01:24:31.979 --> 01:24:34.079
It's like a sticky mouse trap or something?

01:24:34.579 --> 01:24:42.520
It's a, it's a mouse pad, um, that has flocking on it, um, that, that's made to look like museum, museum quality rugs.

01:24:42.520 --> 01:24:43.824
You, you've probably seen them.

01:24:43.824 --> 01:24:44.520
I have seen some of those.

01:24:44.520 --> 01:24:48.050
Yeah, but it's a, Yeah, it's a, it's a Fort Collins company.

01:24:48.051 --> 01:24:51.864
Oh, I didn't know that.

01:24:52.364 --> 01:24:52.744
It's fun.

01:24:52.864 --> 01:24:54.215
At least it was at the time.

01:24:54.234 --> 01:24:54.555
Right, right.

01:24:54.595 --> 01:24:58.484
Um, we worked with, you know, a variety of nonprofits.

01:24:58.515 --> 01:25:07.734
Um, and yeah, just cruising through more and more local businesses as we grew.

01:25:08.114 --> 01:25:19.185
Um, but a lot of them was It's the size of the business, you know, a big enough, successful enough business to need marketing or website, but not big enough that they had their own in house marketing team.

01:25:19.484 --> 01:25:19.795
Right.

01:25:19.795 --> 01:25:22.064
And so that was kind of our, our sweet spot.

01:25:22.435 --> 01:25:25.645
There was kind of being their outsourced marketing team.

01:25:26.715 --> 01:25:28.435
Did you guys work with companies that?

01:25:28.630 --> 01:25:34.109
So you had marketing teams too, you just kind of came in as more of a consultant or a campaign organizer or more graphic?

01:25:34.110 --> 01:25:39.399
Yeah, we did a, we did a variety of things and as Candy Bake House grew, they, Right, they obviously have a marketing department.

01:25:39.479 --> 01:25:46.289
Yeah, yeah, they, um, they grew quite rapidly and, um, our role with them changed over the years.

01:25:46.649 --> 01:25:50.369
Uh, but that, that was success for us, is helping clients outgrow us.

01:25:50.430 --> 01:25:50.720
Right.

01:25:50.789 --> 01:26:04.305
Um, and, you know, that wasn't a, Um, a goal, but, you know, some of our, uh, yeah, some of our clients ended up growing and selling and making lots of millions of dollars.

01:26:04.324 --> 01:26:09.284
And so that, that was something that, you know, we felt like we could play a part in that.

01:26:09.574 --> 01:26:11.164
Um, so it was very, very satisfying.

01:26:11.164 --> 01:26:17.739
And probably part of what, you gave you the confidence to real beans with Tati when, when that time came?

01:26:17.739 --> 01:26:22.689
Yeah, well, and you know, Tati's Tati has always been a family run company.

01:26:22.960 --> 01:26:28.399
Um, the original founder, um, passed away before we started working with them.

01:26:28.875 --> 01:26:50.064
But, um, the, basically the, the founders, um, you know, adult children were, were running the company and, um, and as we got more involved in, um, the work we were doing, they were focused on, uh, beverage development business.

01:26:50.064 --> 01:27:00.470
So basically, um, Um, helping people design recipes, um, for beverages and, you know, brewing them and bottling them and selling them.

01:27:00.609 --> 01:27:04.460
So they had a lot of really, um, high end clients too.

01:27:04.460 --> 01:27:04.899
Oh, okay.

01:27:04.900 --> 01:27:06.304
That was a whole different division.

01:27:06.304 --> 01:27:06.771
Industrial scale.

01:27:06.771 --> 01:27:07.006
Gotcha.

01:27:07.006 --> 01:27:07.239
Gotcha.

01:27:07.239 --> 01:27:11.020
They worked for, you know, Coca Cola and large beverage companies.

01:27:11.029 --> 01:27:11.680
Interesting.

01:27:11.760 --> 01:27:12.340
Interesting.

01:27:12.390 --> 01:27:16.369
So they had, this was almost, I guess, not an afterthought necessarily, but.

01:27:16.371 --> 01:27:16.380
Yeah.

01:27:16.380 --> 01:27:16.670
Yeah.

01:27:16.670 --> 01:27:17.050
So.

01:27:17.949 --> 01:27:30.250
As not in the heart of their business, so we got more and more involved in the operation side of the equipment, and they were focused on the beverage development side, and that they ended up selling that in 2009.

01:27:31.510 --> 01:27:33.020
Um, and.

01:27:33.390 --> 01:27:36.369
But the buyer didn't want the equipment side.

01:27:36.710 --> 01:27:43.689
So the son that was running toddy Ended up going with acquisition as a consultant for a period of time.

01:27:43.710 --> 01:27:43.960
Sure.

01:27:44.010 --> 01:27:47.000
And Kind of left toddy without a proper leader.

01:27:47.010 --> 01:27:58.715
Well, and so his sister took over for a while with her husband who had been in the business for years and They decided they didn't want to do it anymore, um, essentially.

01:27:58.715 --> 01:28:00.814
And so Well, plus they sold his other thing.

01:28:00.815 --> 01:28:01.704
So they're kind of watching.

01:28:01.704 --> 01:28:03.074
And asked the brother to take over.

01:28:03.074 --> 01:28:06.314
And so it ended up kind of bouncing around and Hot potato.

01:28:06.354 --> 01:28:15.944
And in the meantime, Andy and I were like, wow, you know, if they just let, if they just took our advice and they, this would happen and this would And so we were, we were like, well, if this was our company, we would do this, this and this.

01:28:15.944 --> 01:28:17.104
And, um, yeah.

01:28:17.904 --> 01:28:31.925
And, you know, one thing led to the other, I, you know, I don't know how detailed we want to get, but there came a point in time where something was going on in the business that they couldn't manage anymore with employees.

01:28:31.954 --> 01:28:34.824
And uh, They basically had to let everyone go.

01:28:35.095 --> 01:28:40.055
Um, there may have been some, um, illegal activities, let's just say.

01:28:40.305 --> 01:28:47.875
Um, and so they had to let everyone go and no one was, you know, none of the company owners were in the, were in Houston.

01:28:47.885 --> 01:28:48.225
Right.

01:28:48.265 --> 01:28:52.854
They, you know, they were all managing from, well, it was, and so.

01:28:53.630 --> 01:28:54.180
I got a call.

01:28:54.180 --> 01:28:57.329
Andy was running an ultra marathon in Moab at the time.

01:28:57.789 --> 01:29:04.140
Um, we had two little boys at this time that, you know, that, that's a happy part of the story in 2007, 2009.

01:29:04.140 --> 01:29:09.989
We had, we had two, um, healthy baby boys who are now ginormous teenagers.

01:29:10.899 --> 01:29:27.029
Um, so, um, So yeah, I got a call and they said, you know, and we talked about acquiring and they, there was a couple times where they were close to selling it, but then they backed off and they were close and then they backed off to you or to us.

01:29:27.050 --> 01:29:27.430
Yeah.

01:29:27.880 --> 01:29:33.439
Um, yeah, I think they had some reservations about selling their fathers, you know, named after him, right.

01:29:33.439 --> 01:29:33.850
Business.

01:29:33.859 --> 01:29:34.689
And so they, you know.

01:29:34.979 --> 01:29:49.090
They hemmed and hawed a little bit, but we had, and you know, this was, this was in 2009 when all of this was happening and we could not get a loan from the bank, um, even though we had great credit, it was the recession and the bank banks were all like, I'm too scared.

01:29:49.270 --> 01:29:50.340
We should have called you.

01:29:50.779 --> 01:30:06.710
Yeah, I got, I got green ride, uh, finance back in the day when in 2009, but basically, um, We so we had done a bunch of due diligence and you know Couldn't get it sorted until you know, look well looking for where we're gonna put this business.

01:30:06.899 --> 01:30:14.310
So we had done a bunch of work and When they before they said oh just kidding, you know, how about you?

01:30:14.380 --> 01:30:23.779
You know just take on a more active role in the business and we taught he was our bailout plan So at that at the time, you know, that's That's, that's when all these car companies were getting billed.

01:30:24.289 --> 01:30:27.800
I didn't know if Claypot Creative would make it without Toddy.

01:30:27.829 --> 01:30:31.659
Um, and so, I mean, some, you know, we would have worked something out.

01:30:31.659 --> 01:30:32.710
They were our best client.

01:30:32.710 --> 01:30:34.699
It was half your revenues almost or something probably.

01:30:34.699 --> 01:30:38.170
Yeah, and a lot of our clients were cutting back on their marketing budgets.

01:30:38.180 --> 01:30:38.390
Right.

01:30:38.619 --> 01:30:42.060
And we were saying, no, no, no, this is when you need to invest in your marketing.

01:30:42.060 --> 01:30:44.819
And by this time you got like a five year old and a three year old or something like that.

01:30:45.029 --> 01:30:47.354
Yeah, we had a, These guys want to keep eating.

01:30:47.625 --> 01:30:48.074
Yeah.

01:30:48.104 --> 01:30:48.875
Not even.

01:30:48.885 --> 01:30:50.005
They were two toddlers.

01:30:50.006 --> 01:31:01.185
Um, and, and so, so yeah, they called us, um, Andy was, was in Moab running an ultra marathon.

01:31:01.185 --> 01:31:07.085
I got a call and they said, Julia, they call me Julia because they're from, from, from Texas.

01:31:07.085 --> 01:31:07.744
A Julia.

01:31:08.225 --> 01:31:10.814
We, um, we had to fire everybody.

01:31:11.324 --> 01:31:15.034
Um, we're going to sell if, if, if, if.

01:31:16.100 --> 01:31:22.960
If you take over, if you come and take over tomorrow, we'll, we'll loan you the money.

01:31:22.970 --> 01:31:23.470
We'll finance you.

01:31:23.560 --> 01:31:24.449
We'll loan you the money.

01:31:24.451 --> 01:31:35.229
Um, and, and, and it's like, but you have to let us know, you have to let us know because We can't do this and we need to sell the company now.

01:31:35.569 --> 01:31:41.479
Um, and so I waited until Andy called me and said, okay, I finished the marathon.

01:31:41.479 --> 01:31:42.810
I got, you know, whatever place.

01:31:42.810 --> 01:31:43.689
And I'm like, okay, great.

01:31:43.710 --> 01:31:45.510
So here's what's happening.

01:31:45.520 --> 01:31:47.289
And can you come home now?

01:31:47.319 --> 01:31:50.755
Cause I, I need to, I need to fly to Houston.

01:31:50.755 --> 01:31:52.800
Well, no, we couldn't cause we had babies.

01:31:54.289 --> 01:31:54.550
Yeah.

01:31:54.550 --> 01:31:58.600
We had a, like a nine month old and a two year old.

01:31:58.670 --> 01:32:03.750
Um, Wow, and how to value this business too, right?

01:32:03.750 --> 01:32:05.529
Like, it doesn't even have any employees.

01:32:05.530 --> 01:32:07.770
The books may not have been accurate, let's just say.

01:32:07.770 --> 01:32:07.800
Right.

01:32:07.810 --> 01:32:08.380
No, I'm sure.

01:32:08.390 --> 01:32:15.479
Um, and so, it was one of those things where we couldn't not do it.

01:32:15.699 --> 01:32:22.649
And we had just taken out a home equity loan to like, refinish our floors or something.

01:32:22.659 --> 01:32:22.989
Right.

01:32:23.069 --> 01:32:25.140
Uh, another crazy client story.

01:32:25.470 --> 01:32:31.045
Um, but, So we had, we had 50, 000.

01:32:31.324 --> 01:32:32.755
And that's what they said.

01:32:32.765 --> 01:32:37.395
If you can come up with 50, 000 for down payment, we'll finance the rest.

01:32:37.404 --> 01:32:41.314
And we had just taken out this home equity loan.

01:32:41.314 --> 01:32:43.234
I'm like, well, who needs new floors?

01:32:43.274 --> 01:32:44.515
We're gonna buy a business.

01:32:44.895 --> 01:32:55.175
Um, and so we did and I got on a plane and I called this guy that I knew who was an attorney and I said, Hey, do you know how to do business sales?

01:32:55.505 --> 01:32:56.104
Contracts.

01:32:57.255 --> 01:32:58.704
Uh, cause I could use some help here.

01:32:58.845 --> 01:33:00.145
This was all happening.

01:33:01.074 --> 01:33:01.595
Wow.

01:33:01.694 --> 01:33:02.715
It was crazy.

01:33:02.725 --> 01:33:02.744
Yeah.

01:33:03.345 --> 01:33:17.095
Another fun, you know, this is 2010 and the construction was dead and so I don't know how we got, but Kevin Brinkman showed us around and helped us get a, uh, warehouse space.

01:33:17.885 --> 01:33:18.114
Yeah.

01:33:18.555 --> 01:33:18.664
Thanks guys.

01:33:19.164 --> 01:33:19.675
So here we are.

01:33:19.875 --> 01:33:24.305
Yeah, Kevin Brinkman is driving us around in his car to see warehouse space.

01:33:24.314 --> 01:33:26.454
So Andy found a warehouse.

01:33:26.484 --> 01:33:30.395
We wrote a lease while I was in Houston while you're in Texas.

01:33:30.524 --> 01:33:38.300
And I'm like, well, we've got to figure out a way to to we need to move it to somewhere because they're They're, we got to move it, right?

01:33:38.300 --> 01:33:53.350
Is there like institutional knowledge, like training programs for how to do stuff and whatever, or is there, if we had any idea of how hard the first year was going to be, we wouldn't have had any business doing it.

01:33:53.359 --> 01:33:55.489
Like it was so hard the first year.

01:33:55.489 --> 01:33:57.960
We're like, Oh, how hard can manufacturing be?

01:33:58.250 --> 01:34:00.960
How hard can warehousing be?

01:34:00.960 --> 01:34:02.890
Like Andy worked today, right?

01:34:03.390 --> 01:34:03.600
Yeah.

01:34:03.600 --> 01:34:04.020
Andy.

01:34:04.239 --> 01:34:08.979
We knew how to drive a forklift from a job he had in college and it'll be fine.

01:34:08.979 --> 01:34:16.859
Like, you know, I'm sure we can hire, you know, there's great people in Fort Collins who want jobs and, um, but they can't just figure out their whole job from scratch.

01:34:16.860 --> 01:34:30.029
The hardest part was when we talked to our CPA, um, and so we, you know, the, the loan was for six years, but we had to depreciate it over 15 years.

01:34:30.300 --> 01:34:30.609
Oh, right.

01:34:30.770 --> 01:34:33.180
And so he's basically saying.

01:34:34.060 --> 01:34:39.289
You think you're going to make money, but you're not going to have money.

01:34:39.300 --> 01:34:39.619
Right.

01:34:39.670 --> 01:34:44.909
And even if you show a profit, it's going to feel empty in your bank account because you're paying off this loan so fast.

01:34:44.909 --> 01:34:49.430
We're paying off this loan and we can't, you know, we can't write it off.

01:34:49.449 --> 01:34:49.729
Right.

01:34:49.729 --> 01:34:50.060
Right.

01:34:50.520 --> 01:34:59.760
And so we go back to like, okay, well, we have all of these employees that need to feed their families at clay pot creative.

01:34:59.810 --> 01:35:04.479
And we've been saying for years, like, well, if this is our company, we would do this and we would do this.

01:35:04.479 --> 01:35:08.069
And finally we had the chance to put our money where our mouth was and we believed in it.

01:35:08.279 --> 01:35:14.329
We believed in the brand and we believed in ourselves and we knew what it was like to eat ramen.

01:35:14.425 --> 01:35:20.104
Um, and work, you know, 80, 100 hours a week, and we're like, we're doing it.

01:35:20.175 --> 01:35:20.484
Right.

01:35:20.604 --> 01:35:21.055
We're down.

01:35:21.104 --> 01:35:22.295
We're, we're doing it.

01:35:22.625 --> 01:35:23.085
Um.

01:35:23.175 --> 01:35:25.734
Put up the baby placed in the corner of mom's office.

01:35:25.744 --> 01:35:26.255
Oh yeah.

01:35:26.425 --> 01:35:26.645
Yeah.

01:35:26.645 --> 01:35:32.404
We actually turned off the air compressor during nap time, because, you know, the air compressor would run.

01:35:32.779 --> 01:35:36.800
Um, when we were making filters and, but it would wake up the boys.

01:35:36.819 --> 01:35:42.760
And so at nap time we turn off the air compressor and had people do like assembly work every day.

01:35:43.199 --> 01:35:44.430
Um, so, so yeah.

01:35:44.430 --> 01:35:46.829
And yeah, so we were, so we did it.

01:35:46.840 --> 01:35:56.949
So in, in 2010 we acquired toddy and, um, and we were running both businesses for, uh, for a while.

01:35:57.220 --> 01:35:57.569
Yeah.

01:35:58.300 --> 01:35:59.479
How was that Andy?

01:36:01.579 --> 01:36:04.010
It was not for those first few years.

01:36:05.039 --> 01:36:08.829
I was pretty much still doing my thing at claypot creative.

01:36:09.449 --> 01:36:10.840
Um, building websites.

01:36:10.880 --> 01:36:13.970
You were kind of fulfilling a lot of that stuff that needed to happen over there.

01:36:14.069 --> 01:36:22.734
Um, which was probably the, The work that Andy did was what made us money.

01:36:23.064 --> 01:36:27.114
And so the more Andy worked, the more money we made.

01:36:27.194 --> 01:36:33.510
And Andy worked a whole lot because we, we had all sorts of bills and, right.

01:36:33.770 --> 01:36:39.560
Um, it took a while to recover from the recession and for people to be willing to reinvest in marketing again.

01:36:39.560 --> 01:36:44.050
And, and so the programming projects were, you know, it's, it's by the hour.

01:36:44.100 --> 01:36:48.069
And so every hour he's working was, was right.

01:36:48.119 --> 01:36:51.579
Money the difference between a service business and a manufacturer, right?

01:36:51.590 --> 01:36:51.939
Yeah.

01:36:52.715 --> 01:36:57.935
So, weathered that period through brute force and determination?

01:36:57.935 --> 01:37:02.125
Yeah, I mean our, our, basically we turned over our whole staff at Tati in the first year.

01:37:02.354 --> 01:37:05.104
Cause we didn't, turns out, Even after we hired all these new people.

01:37:05.114 --> 01:37:12.595
It turns out we didn't know anything about, um, warehouse management or fulfillment or, um, any of those things.

01:37:12.604 --> 01:37:12.635
Right.

01:37:13.831 --> 01:37:21.789
Um, you know, we, we had some friends that, you know, we trusted that we thought could help us.

01:37:21.789 --> 01:37:32.010
And a couple of, couple of people ended up not being very helpful or, um, yeah, there's some lessons we learned the hard way.

01:37:32.060 --> 01:37:39.090
Um, but yeah, after about a year, um, It was working.

01:37:39.409 --> 01:37:44.409
Um, and again, we weren't expecting to pull money out.

01:37:44.409 --> 01:37:45.470
We just wanted to pay Claypot.

01:37:45.470 --> 01:37:47.310
Yeah.

01:37:47.310 --> 01:37:53.109
We didn't take a salary for a long time and just relied on our Claypot creative.

01:37:53.109 --> 01:37:57.560
And so all of the ideas we had that we could possibly afford to fund, we did it.

01:37:57.579 --> 01:37:59.960
And some of the things started working.

01:38:00.270 --> 01:38:04.649
Um, and which you know, and our.

01:38:04.970 --> 01:38:12.359
Biggest client when we acquired Toddy was, um, it was actually Starbucks through Seattle's Best Coffee.

01:38:12.369 --> 01:38:14.260
Starbucks had acquired Seattle's Best Coffee.

01:38:14.260 --> 01:38:14.770
Oh, I didn't even know that.

01:38:14.770 --> 01:38:17.720
Seattle's Best Coffee was in every single Borders bookstores.

01:38:17.960 --> 01:38:20.220
And so that was our bread and butter.

01:38:20.260 --> 01:38:20.489
Right, right.

01:38:20.489 --> 01:38:25.300
Um, for the first year is we, you know, we had, we had these purchase orders coming in.

01:38:25.699 --> 01:38:28.890
Um, and we're like, wow, you know, we really should diversify.

01:38:28.899 --> 01:38:31.930
So our first energy was.

01:38:31.989 --> 01:38:34.539
Diversifying and getting more revenue streams.

01:38:34.539 --> 01:38:47.310
And so by the year later when Borders Bookstores went out of business and pretty much every Seattle's best coffee went out of business and that dried up, we, we had a diversified revenue and that.

01:38:47.555 --> 01:38:53.204
Um, it definitely hurt, but we had, we taught you wouldn't have been able to survive it.

01:38:53.295 --> 01:39:05.895
Um, had it, had it not, had we not done the diversification that we had, that was a pretty like you can kind of pat yourself on the back after a decision like that, or just a grace of God thing.

01:39:06.095 --> 01:39:06.314
Right.

01:39:06.315 --> 01:39:06.454
Yeah.

01:39:06.704 --> 01:39:08.074
We could have lost everything.

01:39:08.204 --> 01:39:13.194
Um, and, and, but again, we had been saying like, Oh, well, this is our company.

01:39:13.194 --> 01:39:13.614
We do this.

01:39:13.614 --> 01:39:15.475
And this is, you know, we do this and this.

01:39:15.475 --> 01:39:18.145
And finally it was actually our money.

01:39:18.154 --> 01:39:21.685
And it's like, Oh, now we understand why they didn't want to take all of our ideas.

01:39:22.944 --> 01:39:25.494
Each of these ideas cause effort and money and time.

01:39:25.585 --> 01:39:26.289
And it's.

01:39:26.289 --> 01:39:27.319
It's not guaranteed to work.

01:39:27.899 --> 01:39:32.630
Um, so not everything that we did worked, but a lot of things, um, did.

01:39:32.670 --> 01:39:32.890
Yeah.

01:39:32.890 --> 01:39:33.289
Fair enough.

01:39:33.319 --> 01:39:33.699
Yeah.

01:39:33.920 --> 01:39:41.760
What were some of the big milestones, you know, from that time of getting finally sustainable, uh, headed toward present day?

01:39:42.909 --> 01:39:43.119
Yeah.

01:39:43.119 --> 01:40:01.420
So one of the things about toddy is, you know, and still to this day, we can't mention the names of a lot of our big accounts, um, because you know, toddy equipment and filters are used, um, to make cold brew and they're considered proprietary recipes.

01:40:01.420 --> 01:40:06.649
And so toddy is, is part of their secret recipes.

01:40:06.649 --> 01:40:06.840
Yeah.

01:40:06.841 --> 01:40:08.289
Part of the intellectual property.

01:40:08.300 --> 01:40:08.640
Right.

01:40:08.659 --> 01:40:11.699
And so Use the toddy system and pour this much in, whatever.

01:40:11.765 --> 01:40:19.685
So a lot of those, um, relationships, you know, we had to sign NDAs, um, before we would get the purchase orders.

01:40:19.685 --> 01:40:23.965
And we were happy to do so, um, especially for some of the bigger accounts.

01:40:24.274 --> 01:40:27.154
But the benefit of that was that.

01:40:27.399 --> 01:40:30.670
That people didn't know who was using toddy.

01:40:30.689 --> 01:40:39.210
And so every time, you know, someone from a big coffee chain discovered us, they didn't know that their competitor was using toddy.

01:40:39.220 --> 01:40:40.689
They thought you were going to be their secret weapon.

01:40:40.770 --> 01:40:41.090
Right.

01:40:41.100 --> 01:40:45.979
And we were because, you know, cold brew isn't, It's a generic term.

01:40:46.010 --> 01:40:49.140
It's a, it's a way for making amazing coffee.

01:40:49.470 --> 01:40:59.560
Um, and so we were able to help, um, several, you know, mom and pop shops, but a growing number of large global chains.

01:41:00.020 --> 01:41:00.050
Uh huh.

01:41:00.069 --> 01:41:03.210
Develop and launch and grow their cold brew programs.

01:41:03.500 --> 01:41:05.319
And it was all behind the scenes.

01:41:05.539 --> 01:41:11.189
And so we were working with some major competitors of each other and they had no idea.

01:41:11.319 --> 01:41:11.430
Right.

01:41:11.479 --> 01:41:19.149
And it wasn't a problem because we, everyone's cold brew programs were different and we were able to help them deliver a sustainable.

01:41:20.289 --> 01:41:28.770
Consistent, um, high quality product that brought people to their doors and bought, brought them loyalty and a ton of revenue.

01:41:29.090 --> 01:41:30.479
And, and it worked.

01:41:30.920 --> 01:41:31.810
If we go, go ahead.

01:41:32.649 --> 01:41:40.994
It took us a solid five, four or five years to get, to grow the idea of cold brew coffee in that.

01:41:41.854 --> 01:41:42.875
Cafe space.

01:41:43.354 --> 01:41:45.854
Um, so there's a lot of grinding to get there.

01:41:46.135 --> 01:41:48.954
Um, and we, so where was it before?

01:41:49.795 --> 01:41:51.454
It was this niche.

01:41:51.864 --> 01:41:54.484
Um, it was more for fancy people for a while, right?

01:41:54.505 --> 01:42:02.784
Or, or, or one of the properties of a boutique coffee shops or whatever is one of the properties of cold brew coffee is it's low in acid, right?

01:42:02.864 --> 01:42:10.404
And so it was almost, uh, a way that people who were sensitive to acid could enjoy coffee.

01:42:10.435 --> 01:42:15.935
So it kind of had that kind of like following of people that had that sensitivity.

01:42:16.324 --> 01:42:20.314
Um, and so it was very, niche to those people.

01:42:20.314 --> 01:42:34.354
And so to grow it beyond that was a lot of, um, trade shows, uh, thought of talking to coffee shops, uh, sponsorship, being actually worth it to invest in this, not just the equipment, but also the menu space, et cetera.

01:42:34.354 --> 01:42:34.829
Right.

01:42:34.829 --> 01:42:35.305
Right.

01:42:35.305 --> 01:42:39.585
And so we, we worked really hard to get cold brew to catch on.

01:42:39.824 --> 01:42:40.895
And so we would talk to.

01:42:40.895 --> 01:42:48.225
to, um, a beverage developer from, you know, big company A or big company B in there and give them samples.

01:42:48.234 --> 01:42:50.904
They're like, wow, this might actually be able to work in our cafe.

01:42:51.274 --> 01:42:58.475
And so we would have these one off conversations and it, you know, yeah, we, we finally reached a tipping point.

01:42:58.475 --> 01:43:00.555
Kind of cultivating demand for your own product.

01:43:00.704 --> 01:43:01.024
Yeah.

01:43:01.744 --> 01:43:01.975
Yeah.

01:43:01.984 --> 01:43:03.244
Brand development ultimately.

01:43:03.925 --> 01:43:12.354
Um, so, um, Any, uh, evolutions you guys moved on from clay pot creative in?

01:43:12.364 --> 01:43:15.305
Yeah, well, or what does that look like for you?

01:43:15.465 --> 01:43:19.505
Um, it was interesting.

01:43:19.505 --> 01:43:26.425
You could see in the financials of toddy when I was focusing on toddy versus when I was focusing on clay pot creative.

01:43:26.555 --> 01:43:28.255
So there was always an opportunity cost.

01:43:28.805 --> 01:43:37.335
That the, I felt like it got to a point where I couldn't do both well, and I had great, you know, leaders in both companies.

01:43:37.755 --> 01:44:01.630
Um, but, you know, every time I was, you know, working for a client project at Claypot Creative, that meant I wasn't, um, you know, working on the business with Toddy or, you know, Um, you know, doing a trade show or a presentation, um, and it got to a point where it was, and, and our, leverage on your time is just worth more with this bigger operation.

01:44:01.630 --> 01:44:05.640
Yeah, we had small kids and the nanny was raising them and it was, it was hard.

01:44:05.640 --> 01:44:15.854
We were, we were, we were working a lot and, um, our tipping point came in 2014, um, when I, yeah.

01:44:15.895 --> 01:44:18.914
So I really wanted one more baby.

01:44:18.965 --> 01:44:20.654
I just felt like someone was missing.

01:44:20.954 --> 01:44:24.225
And Andy's like, well, of course you're always gonna feel that way.

01:44:24.225 --> 01:44:28.194
I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not talking about her daughter, like someone's missing someone needs to be here.

01:44:28.545 --> 01:44:37.015
And so finally, I, Um, finally I convinced Andy, I said, okay, if you let me have one more baby, then you can retire.

01:44:37.765 --> 01:44:41.034
And he didn't remember that conversation, but I did.

01:44:41.034 --> 01:44:43.335
And so anyway, we ended up getting pregnant again.

01:44:43.345 --> 01:44:58.614
And um, this was in 2013, um, 2014, um, on like the day before Valentine's day, we found out, um, cause I was 35 at the time, so considered elderly.

01:44:58.944 --> 01:45:00.914
Um, and so we were offered this.

01:45:00.990 --> 01:45:24.380
So I've been doing a lot of research on gender and, and in the past few years, um, I've been doing studies on, on, on, on, um, uh, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, um, on, on, on, Um, so, you know, we had to do this consultation with the high risk pregnancy specialist in order to do this test.

01:45:24.380 --> 01:45:29.069
We're like, okay, yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll do this ultrasound and talk to the specialist.

01:45:29.859 --> 01:45:33.770
And so the specialist found some concerning things and he's like, well, I don't know.

01:45:33.770 --> 01:45:37.609
Um, you know, there might be a problem.

01:45:37.619 --> 01:45:38.729
There might not be.

01:45:38.909 --> 01:45:45.510
It could be this, it could be that, um, and it could be nothing, but it's probably not nothing.

01:45:45.710 --> 01:45:48.220
And we're thinking, oh, we're going to find out the gender of our baby.

01:45:48.260 --> 01:45:48.529
Right.

01:45:48.590 --> 01:45:49.550
And this is going to be fun.

01:45:49.859 --> 01:45:57.569
Um, and so we come out of this consultation and basically our best case scenario was Down Syndrome.

01:45:58.020 --> 01:46:03.859
Um, and so we did this test and I think we got a call two weeks later that.

01:46:04.895 --> 01:46:33.704
Your baby is a boy and he has Down syndrome and it was the craziest emotion because that was our best case scenario that You know several of these these markers could be Issues that were not compatible with life and we're like, ah, we don't want to go through that again and Um, so anyway, so they said, well, do you want to keep the baby?

01:46:35.055 --> 01:46:39.454
We eventually had to tell the clinic, please stop telling us that we don't have to keep the baby.

01:46:39.454 --> 01:46:40.324
This is our son.

01:46:40.414 --> 01:46:41.375
You're insulting us.

01:46:41.425 --> 01:46:42.904
We're keeping our baby.

01:46:43.215 --> 01:46:56.319
Um, but it's so, but through this time it, it was a high risk pregnancy because a lot of, um, kiddos with down syndrome have heart anomalies and, and other, you know, things Um, conditions.

01:46:56.329 --> 01:47:20.640
And so, um, we named him Kai, um, our, uh, it was a family decision named after, jointly after Kai Risdahl, the NPR guy and the diplomat and Kai, the, the Lego guy, um, and the name that everybody in the family agreed on, um, and you know, the ocean and, you know, lots of, lots of cool meanings of the name Kai.

01:47:20.939 --> 01:47:22.989
Um, but they, they.

01:47:24.395 --> 01:47:26.255
monitor the pregnancy very closely.

01:47:26.484 --> 01:47:36.244
And I believe that had Chi not been diagnosed with Down syndrome, he, he wouldn't have survived because at the 20 week ultrasound, everything was fine.

01:47:36.484 --> 01:47:42.984
And at 24 weeks, they basically, um, told us that he was in big trouble.

01:47:43.295 --> 01:47:49.305
And they said, if, if, if you can make it through the next two weeks, then we'll admit you into the hospital.

01:47:49.675 --> 01:47:51.694
Um, but he's too little at this point.

01:47:51.925 --> 01:48:00.869
And He, we can't save him if he, um, if he doesn't, you know, if, if, if we got to grow up a little bit more before he's going to chance.

01:48:01.130 --> 01:48:05.420
I went on bed rest and this was, I remember it was Memorial day was two weeks.

01:48:05.689 --> 01:48:12.069
And so I had to wait two weeks and a day, um, because the clinic, you know, the provider wasn't available.

01:48:12.109 --> 01:48:12.409
Right.

01:48:12.430 --> 01:48:22.760
So then I went back in and he was still alive and the, um, he had grown, um, but the condition It's continuing to deteriorate.

01:48:22.760 --> 01:48:37.100
So they, um, I basically moved to children's hospital, um, in, you know, May it was like May 24th of 2014 and, um, they were hoping to get me to 30 weeks.

01:48:37.430 --> 01:48:46.050
Um, he was born at 26 weeks and ended up spending most of a year, his first year in, in the hospital.

01:48:46.051 --> 01:48:54.199
So, um, um, And so I've set up an office at Children's Hospital in his room.

01:48:54.439 --> 01:48:55.350
You're like full time.

01:48:55.579 --> 01:48:58.525
I moved in with my sister who lived in Denver.

01:48:58.525 --> 01:49:02.760
Um, Andy batched it with the boys for three months.

01:49:02.779 --> 01:49:15.859
And then when we realized Kai wasn't going to be coming home around his due date, because that's what they were thinking, um, he had several setbacks, ended up needing to be, um, trached so that he could, we could take him home on a ventilator.

01:49:16.274 --> 01:49:23.104
Um, and that, you know, the babies have to get big enough so they can, um, they can be on a home ventilator.

01:49:23.135 --> 01:49:27.335
You know, the hospital ventilators are, um, different than what you can take home.

01:49:27.345 --> 01:49:44.850
So, um, after, um, so in August of 2014, um, that's when we decided to move to Denver, um, so that we could be closer to the hospital and I could, you know, parent the older boys Boys and sure.

01:49:44.899 --> 01:49:47.680
Um, Andy could spend some time at the hospital with Kai.

01:49:48.130 --> 01:50:04.180
Um, but yeah, we basically, I basically worked from the hospital for a year and that's when everything started igniting with toddy, like all of this work we had done and all of a sudden, like I remember clearly standing in the, in our garage in Fort Collins.

01:50:04.180 --> 01:50:06.229
I was like, well, we have to move, we have to sell this place.

01:50:06.569 --> 01:50:15.439
And so we were filling dumpsters and you know, we would take turns Uh, who was in Fort Collins packing up and it was, it was nuts.

01:50:15.630 --> 01:50:21.449
And I remember a buyer from a big chain account calling me over and over and over again.

01:50:21.449 --> 01:50:30.939
And I finally took his call when I was standing in the garage and he said, Julia, we really want to launch a cold brew program with toddy, but we need you to fill out this paperwork.

01:50:31.750 --> 01:50:40.300
And it was the sort of thing that had I not been in this crazy, no man's land, like, you know, this is the call that you pray for.

01:50:40.510 --> 01:50:43.420
And thankfully he, he was so persistent.

01:50:43.430 --> 01:50:47.420
He's like, I really think that you want to try really hard to become your customer.

01:50:48.050 --> 01:51:14.569
And, and we did, we filled out the paperwork and they needed us to get a certification and, um, and it, and it worked, but it was the sort of thing, it was kind of like the Toddy's experience with that Washington Post article that it, they started, it was, I was just going to be a couple store tests and, Oh, well, you know, they think we should do 30 stores and well, and it ended up, you know, after several conversations, they were going to launch in the whole country at every single one of these stores.

01:51:14.680 --> 01:51:17.289
And I can't say who it was, but they have lots of stores.

01:51:17.770 --> 01:51:24.484
And it was the sort of thing that we were, We were making at the time every filter by hand, every coffee filter.

01:51:24.484 --> 01:51:27.244
So every batch of cold brew needs a filter.

01:51:27.534 --> 01:51:39.185
And we were making them all by hand and, um, we've, we figured out we were not going to be able to, we couldn't hire enough people to do that.

01:51:39.215 --> 01:51:47.694
And, um, but if we were going to get this purchase order, we needed to start making the filters and the brewers now, um, because it.

01:51:47.801 --> 01:51:49.869
It was, it was crazy.

01:51:49.869 --> 01:51:54.310
And this was all happening when I was living at the hospital.

01:51:54.369 --> 01:51:59.810
And, um, so your question was, how did we decide to sell clay pot creative?

01:52:00.020 --> 01:52:06.659
All of this was happening and Cindy, um, you know, who was our lead designer at the time, she pulled me aside.

01:52:06.659 --> 01:52:10.069
One of these, I think I went to clay pot creative to shoot a marketing video.

01:52:10.659 --> 01:52:20.329
And she pulled me aside and she said, Julia, how about, you know, How about my husband and I buy clay pot creative like he's in a job transition.

01:52:20.670 --> 01:52:26.550
You clearly have a lot going on How about you let us buy this company and one thing off your plate.

01:52:26.609 --> 01:52:54.569
I I almost Jumped and said just take it But you know I wanted to give her and the clients the dignity and and I love the company and I absolutely loved it and the fact that Cindy Cared enough about us and about our clients and what we had built You Um, it was, it was such an honor to, to have that conversation and it, you know, it took a while, um, to get through the process, but yeah, so that's, that's how it ended up happening.

01:52:54.579 --> 01:52:56.520
And we, we still work with them to this day.

01:52:56.550 --> 01:52:57.029
Very cool.

01:52:57.810 --> 01:52:58.760
Are you still the biggest customer?

01:52:59.750 --> 01:52:59.789
Just.

01:52:59.800 --> 01:53:00.350
I hope not.

01:53:02.039 --> 01:53:02.579
I don't know.

01:53:02.579 --> 01:53:03.020
I don't know.

01:53:03.020 --> 01:53:08.520
I, I think that, um, customer, you're one of their bigger favorite ones for sure.

01:53:08.520 --> 01:53:08.760
I bet.

01:53:08.761 --> 01:53:10.020
Yeah.

01:53:10.020 --> 01:53:10.590
Definitely.

01:53:10.699 --> 01:53:11.090
Definitely.

01:53:11.090 --> 01:53:15.470
Their favorite, but they have a much better work life balance than we did.

01:53:15.479 --> 01:53:15.979
They, they're just.

01:53:15.979 --> 01:53:23.000
They like actually take vacation and don't, um, don't check emails from us when, when they're on vacation.

01:53:23.289 --> 01:53:29.850
So yeah, I think they're, they're, they figured out some things that we, um, definitely didn't have figured out when we were in their shoes.

01:53:29.859 --> 01:53:31.850
So I think they're doing an awesome job.

01:53:32.289 --> 01:53:36.680
Well, I'm excited to share this toddy journey with everybody.

01:53:36.970 --> 01:53:38.689
Um, we always talk about.

01:53:39.029 --> 01:53:42.079
Faith, family, and politics in this show.

01:53:42.079 --> 01:53:45.890
And you've brushed on faith a little bit, but not really talked too much about it.

01:53:45.890 --> 01:53:47.470
Is that something you're comfortable sharing here?

01:53:47.909 --> 01:53:48.100
Sure.

01:53:48.300 --> 01:53:50.069
What's that role in your lives?

01:53:51.029 --> 01:53:52.319
Um, Andy, you want to start?

01:53:53.050 --> 01:53:53.460
Uh, sure.

01:53:53.460 --> 01:53:53.789
Yeah.

01:53:53.789 --> 01:53:54.920
Or is it the same for both of you?

01:53:54.920 --> 01:53:55.359
I don't know.

01:53:55.619 --> 01:54:08.920
I think it's more or less the same, but, uh, yeah, we, we definitely trust God to do what he's got planned for his glory.

01:54:09.050 --> 01:54:15.375
And so we Has it been that way where you're both raised in a faith environment?

01:54:15.935 --> 01:54:18.435
I don't know, is this a Christian faith background?

01:54:18.444 --> 01:54:20.864
Yeah, my dad was a pastor before I was born.

01:54:20.875 --> 01:54:21.164
Oh, okay.

01:54:21.215 --> 01:54:27.795
Um, and, you know, there was some complexities in our family where he had to, leave the pastorship.

01:54:27.805 --> 01:54:34.914
But, um, you know, definitely we were raised as to trust Jesus.

01:54:34.925 --> 01:54:48.095
Um, and lots of times there's no other way to get through a situation, um, you know, with, with our daughter Aspen, with Kai, you know, there's every, every day he could have died like over and over.

01:54:48.204 --> 01:54:49.784
It was, so, so hard.

01:54:50.185 --> 01:55:03.454
Um, and you know, so, so many things where, um, I, you know, there was one time at clay pot creative when the, in the hardest part of the recession, we didn't.

01:55:03.814 --> 01:55:04.984
Have money to make payroll.

01:55:04.984 --> 01:55:09.005
And we put payroll on credit card and I don't recommend doing that.

01:55:09.005 --> 01:55:12.675
And we've since figured out better contingency plans to run toddy.

01:55:13.034 --> 01:55:23.055
But, um, you know, we always felt like the businesses were his gods and we were stewards of the resources and the, and the people, the employees.

01:55:23.125 --> 01:55:31.114
And it's such an honor to, to, uh, and a responsibility to be an employer and stewardship.

01:55:31.470 --> 01:55:32.279
Yeah, servant mentality.

01:55:32.510 --> 01:55:33.819
Exactly, exactly.

01:55:33.829 --> 01:55:36.970
And so, Andy, was that the same experience for you?

01:55:37.090 --> 01:55:44.560
Um, I grew up in more of a looser kind of economic, um, ecumenical, ecumenical church environment.

01:55:44.569 --> 01:56:05.310
So I, I wasn't, um, quite religious as, as Julie was being a pastor of a, I mean, a daughter of a pastor, but, uh, So I grew up agnostic, maybe you could say, but, but steeped in some of that Christian culture.

01:56:05.310 --> 01:56:16.689
And, uh, yeah, as when I, you know, was pursuing Julie, you know, she had a very strong faith and I was one of the things I really respected and admired.

01:56:16.689 --> 01:56:24.800
And so, um, you know, as our relationship, um, matured, um, my relationship with God did too.

01:56:24.880 --> 01:56:25.109
Yeah.

01:56:25.159 --> 01:56:25.789
Fair enough.

01:56:26.319 --> 01:56:28.890
Um, you want to talk about family?

01:56:29.819 --> 01:56:30.319
Next?

01:56:30.670 --> 01:56:31.199
Yeah.

01:56:31.380 --> 01:56:33.079
I love, I love talking about family.

01:56:33.279 --> 01:56:33.659
Um.

01:56:33.659 --> 01:56:35.109
We've talked a lot about it, but yeah.

01:56:35.109 --> 01:56:40.090
Yeah, we've brushed against them, but uh, you know, I'd love to hear you talk more about your children.

01:56:40.090 --> 01:56:44.640
We, we do, you probably heard on some of the episodes, you've heard the one word description.

01:56:44.850 --> 01:56:46.029
Are you up for that challenge?

01:56:46.029 --> 01:56:46.439
Sure.

01:56:46.470 --> 01:56:46.850
Yeah.

01:56:47.359 --> 01:56:48.310
And how old are your kids now?

01:56:48.319 --> 01:56:49.340
Those large boys?

01:56:49.341 --> 01:56:52.619
16, 15, and almost 10.

01:56:52.739 --> 01:56:53.130
Okay.

01:56:53.319 --> 01:56:58.630
Um, yeah, I would, I would, my one word for our eldest.

01:56:59.225 --> 01:57:00.885
Is he's, he's really steady.

01:57:01.324 --> 01:57:03.574
Um, you know, he takes things as they come.

01:57:03.574 --> 01:57:04.845
He doesn't get too excited.

01:57:04.854 --> 01:57:06.744
He's calm under pressure.

01:57:07.095 --> 01:57:10.435
Um, and it seems like his dad a little bit in that space.

01:57:10.614 --> 01:57:11.925
Yeah, maybe in some ways.

01:57:11.925 --> 01:57:12.185
Yeah.

01:57:12.185 --> 01:57:22.765
He, uh, he's a junior ski patroller at winter park and he really enjoys, you know, stepping into emergency situations.

01:57:22.765 --> 01:57:31.005
And it's impressive for a young man, young person, the more traumatic they are, you know, the bigger impact he can make and he really, he really likes that.

01:57:32.340 --> 01:57:33.300
Dad, it was so cool.

01:57:33.300 --> 01:57:34.710
This person broke both their legs.

01:57:34.711 --> 01:57:36.800
Yeah, I took care of it.

01:57:37.329 --> 01:57:51.640
Um, the middle, the middle son, the 15 year old, he's, he's my word for him would be, he's intense, um, in a good way, both, but I mean, it depends on the situation, but yeah, I think he's, yeah.

01:57:51.925 --> 01:57:59.935
Pretty serious, pretty, um, yeah, a lot of energy, you know, mental energy into everything he does.

01:58:00.635 --> 01:58:04.475
And then our, our youngest son with down syndrome, he's just, uh, he's just joy.

01:58:04.484 --> 01:58:06.125
He's just happy all the time.

01:58:06.135 --> 01:58:07.965
He's super fun to be with.

01:58:08.854 --> 01:58:28.055
Um, he's really funny too, like he's, when, when, you know, he was traked and vented and so he couldn't, he couldn't talk for a long time, you know, he, and so he finally weaned him off of the ventilator and so we could, um, give him these tools to, to start vocalizing and he was about three years old, but.

01:58:28.880 --> 01:58:32.159
In the meantime, our family was learning sign language so he could communicate.

01:58:32.689 --> 01:58:38.300
And I remember one of the very first things he did was told a joke in sign language.

01:58:38.300 --> 01:58:44.270
Like when he was first mastering like communication, he's like, Oh, you know, you know, he has something to say.

01:58:44.270 --> 01:58:45.199
Like, what's he thinking?

01:58:45.199 --> 01:58:47.649
And you know, he's just, he wants to tell jokes.

01:58:48.130 --> 01:58:50.210
He's just, yeah, he's, he's really funny.

01:58:50.210 --> 01:58:51.180
Well, a joke is funny.

01:58:51.640 --> 01:58:54.970
Like a sign of a different kind of intelligence.

01:58:55.020 --> 01:58:56.020
Yeah as well, right?

01:58:56.020 --> 01:58:58.289
Like jokes are really hard to come up with.

01:58:59.010 --> 01:58:59.380
Yeah.

01:58:59.420 --> 01:59:12.947
Yeah, he's Thankfully, he has a bit of Andy's intelligence But yeah, Kai's definitely makes his all of us better people You want to do one word for your your boys to while you're here?

01:59:12.947 --> 01:59:26.534
Well, I'd like I like Andy's words Let's see, Jackson, our oldest, is, um, what did you say?

01:59:26.564 --> 01:59:27.185
Steady?

01:59:28.064 --> 01:59:34.234
Um, he's, uh, Um, he's an old soul.

01:59:34.305 --> 01:59:36.645
Yeah, it's it's let's hyphenate it.

01:59:36.645 --> 01:59:37.404
Let's call it one word.

01:59:37.875 --> 01:59:40.835
Um, he, he never wanted to sit at the kids table.

01:59:41.064 --> 01:59:43.145
He always wanted to be with the adults.

01:59:43.314 --> 01:59:45.425
He even when he's 7 years old, 9 years old.

01:59:45.425 --> 01:59:45.604
Oh yeah.

01:59:45.604 --> 01:59:45.965
Yeah.

01:59:45.965 --> 01:59:46.404
Yeah.

01:59:46.614 --> 01:59:55.204
He just loves um, listening and learning and um, it's, it's interesting.

01:59:55.215 --> 02:00:00.600
It's hard to parent him because he's He questions things.

02:00:00.600 --> 02:00:03.289
He kind of needs to come to his own conclusion, right thing.

02:00:03.920 --> 02:00:06.636
Because I told you so is not, uh, useful for him.

02:00:06.636 --> 02:00:11.810
But it's also, um, We've always been able to have really intellectual conversations.

02:00:12.159 --> 02:00:16.210
And he'll call me out and he's, and I'm like, well, yeah, you're right.

02:00:16.229 --> 02:00:19.210
Like, I guess, I guess I hadn't thought that through.

02:00:19.560 --> 02:00:38.409
Um, I think, um, Leighton is, um, He's like Andy said, he's intense, but he, everything comes out of a cart of caring, um, and he just really cares about justice.

02:00:38.770 --> 02:00:43.899
Um, and so when he feels like someone's doing something wrong, um, he gets really upset.

02:00:44.239 --> 02:00:46.600
Um, he is so good with Kai.

02:00:47.060 --> 02:00:50.640
Um, just so giving and caring and thoughtful.

02:00:50.979 --> 02:01:00.649
And, and yeah, I think he'd make an incredible attorney because he is, you know, very, like, he likes to argue just for the sake of arguing and just to see if he can win.

02:01:01.119 --> 02:01:07.039
Um, and, uh, Yeah, they're both just really incredible teenagers.

02:01:07.039 --> 02:01:08.340
Like I knew I wanted babies.

02:01:08.760 --> 02:01:11.630
I totally didn't think through the teenager part.

02:01:11.640 --> 02:01:19.859
Like, and then when they got older, and, but it's like, yeah, these are really great guys and they're like, how do we have to have family dinner again?

02:01:19.859 --> 02:01:25.100
I'm like, yes, I only get so many years with you and you know, we're going to sit down and you're going to just.

02:01:25.614 --> 02:01:36.454
Tell me about what's going on and I think they secretly like it too because you know for so many years We're too busy to do that And Kai, I just call it just delight.

02:01:36.484 --> 02:01:37.944
Like he's he's my delight.

02:01:37.965 --> 02:01:39.074
He's he's a gift.

02:01:39.074 --> 02:01:47.095
He's So he works so hard for everything and But he's such a good sport.

02:01:47.104 --> 02:01:48.425
Does he go to public schools?

02:01:48.515 --> 02:01:50.500
Yeah, he was able to Yeah.

02:01:50.510 --> 02:01:51.989
Relatively high functioning in that space.

02:01:52.039 --> 02:01:52.159
Yeah.

02:01:52.170 --> 02:01:56.550
He's got a lot of great friends at school that really, uh, like hanging out with him and yeah.

02:01:56.609 --> 02:01:56.789
Yeah.

02:01:56.789 --> 02:01:57.100
Yeah.

02:01:57.789 --> 02:01:58.189
I love it.

02:01:58.329 --> 02:01:58.739
Yeah.

02:01:58.829 --> 02:02:03.239
Um, loco experience or no, we didn't talk about politics.

02:02:03.779 --> 02:02:04.119
Politics.

02:02:04.119 --> 02:02:05.310
You want to talk about politics?

02:02:05.760 --> 02:02:07.289
I don't know if there's anything to say.

02:02:07.569 --> 02:02:08.579
It's, it's interesting.

02:02:08.590 --> 02:02:19.074
So, so Tati, there was, It's definitely some polarization and, you know, the elections and Trump and all of this stuff.

02:02:19.104 --> 02:02:22.439
And our HR manager is, is very polarized.

02:02:24.390 --> 02:02:26.529
that there's certain things you don't talk about at work.

02:02:26.529 --> 02:02:28.270
And, you know, don't want to offend people.

02:02:28.520 --> 02:02:30.159
And so, you know, we tried to honor that.

02:02:30.170 --> 02:02:34.039
And I think we could relate to some part of everybody.

02:02:34.260 --> 02:02:41.420
And so I think a lot of the people at work, I think they know we're, we're fairly conservative and they know we're pro life, you know, because they've met Kai.

02:02:41.430 --> 02:02:46.409
And, and, um, And you just said, no, after a dozen people told you, you know, you could end this pregnancy.

02:02:47.819 --> 02:03:02.850
Um, but I think, you know, we, you know, we're, I guess you would call us libertarian, um, but, you know, in a lot of ways, we're conservative, like, you know, like I said, we, we pay cash for life.

02:03:02.890 --> 02:03:07.539
Like, you know, we, um, we don't leverage, um, money anymore.

02:03:07.819 --> 02:03:11.819
After that, you'd rather we didn't have a 34 trillion, uh, deficit in our country.

02:03:11.820 --> 02:03:11.829
Yeah.

02:03:11.829 --> 02:03:12.310
Yeah.

02:03:12.310 --> 02:03:13.560
And, you know, the.

02:03:13.615 --> 02:03:15.984
It's only 250, 000 per person.

02:03:16.904 --> 02:03:25.574
I think a lot of the China policies hurt our, you know, it's tariffs and stuff, hurt our business and hurt our customers.

02:03:25.954 --> 02:03:31.614
And so there's not like, Oh, well, this guy makes the best choices and that guy makes the best choices.

02:03:31.614 --> 02:03:35.704
There's, there's a lot of good decisions and bad decisions and things.

02:03:35.725 --> 02:03:38.715
It's hard to say who the good guys are in the world today.

02:03:38.774 --> 02:03:49.354
And things seem to be changing so fast too, especially on the Republican party, that it's It's hard to tell where they are or where they're going to really, to pick a side or whatever.

02:03:49.354 --> 02:03:51.784
Like when you don't know the direction that they're going.

02:03:52.185 --> 02:03:52.515
Yeah.

02:03:52.564 --> 02:03:55.515
That things are headed, kind of wait and see.

02:03:56.725 --> 02:03:59.335
So, uh, what's your prediction?

02:03:59.595 --> 02:04:04.725
I don't even need to know your vote, but what's your prediction for our 2024 presidential campaign?

02:04:06.305 --> 02:04:06.895
Oh gosh.

02:04:06.984 --> 02:04:17.335
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's a dead heat right now, but if you put a gun to my head and said, put your money on it, I think Trump's going to win.

02:04:17.564 --> 02:04:17.840
I don't know.

02:04:18.960 --> 02:04:23.750
Seems likely, especially with RFK continuing to build momentum, he's going to steal a little more.

02:04:24.279 --> 02:04:28.050
Well, and Joe needs to go to a home, not to the White House.

02:04:28.050 --> 02:04:30.229
It's tough to be happy about any outcome.

02:04:30.260 --> 02:04:30.739
Right.

02:04:31.090 --> 02:04:34.909
If I had to predict, that's what I would guess.

02:04:35.710 --> 02:04:54.574
Yeah, I mean, I'm frustrated with the You know, all of all of these congressmen, you know, congressional people who are refusing to pass legislation because Trump says not to, it's like we need to fix the border.

02:04:54.914 --> 02:04:57.555
Everybody wants to do it, except Trump doesn't want to do it.

02:04:57.555 --> 02:04:59.621
Biden to claim a success on the board.

02:04:59.621 --> 02:05:05.904
So it's like there's, there's, there's problems when everybody agrees on the problems except for Trump.

02:05:06.805 --> 02:05:11.255
And so people won't, it's like, Oh my goodness, we, there's, there's things we need to fix.

02:05:11.255 --> 02:05:12.885
There's some, there's some big problems.

02:05:12.914 --> 02:05:19.835
And I think, um, you know, getting some of this aid passed and, um, like, Oh, well, the speaker's going to lose his job.

02:05:19.845 --> 02:05:23.614
Like, well, thank goodness someone finally stood up for something.

02:05:24.914 --> 02:05:25.375
So I don't know.

02:05:25.375 --> 02:05:38.314
I kind of want it to be over with, but at the same time, I think a lame duck for either of them is not going to be good, um, when they've got nothing left to run on.

02:05:38.315 --> 02:05:39.329
Right.

02:05:39.329 --> 02:05:40.345
Yeah.

02:05:40.425 --> 02:05:40.895
I don't, I don't know.

02:05:41.864 --> 02:05:42.244
Okay.

02:05:42.564 --> 02:05:44.965
Well, we'll just hope on the consumer economy to pull us through.

02:05:44.966 --> 02:05:46.345
Yeah.

02:05:46.345 --> 02:05:46.795
Yeah.

02:05:47.314 --> 02:05:59.734
All right, let's uh, let's hit the final segment, the loco experience, um, you mentioned a couple of really traumatizing situations with your children, didn't even really get into your first son was premature as well, is that right?

02:06:00.034 --> 02:06:03.475
Did Jackson, Jackson wasn't, um, Oh, so it was Kai that you were talking about?

02:06:03.484 --> 02:06:04.635
Yeah, so, yeah, Kai.

02:06:04.704 --> 02:06:08.045
Um, yeah, Jackson and Leighton, um, Those were normal.

02:06:08.560 --> 02:06:08.869
Yeah.

02:06:08.869 --> 02:06:12.390
I mean, they were heavily monitored, um, because of the, the stillbirth.

02:06:12.409 --> 02:06:20.260
It, our daughter died from, um, from a cord accident, so it was, it was a not intercord, um, that cut off her blood supply.

02:06:20.329 --> 02:06:27.020
Um, and there's some research that, that, um, there's some genetic predisposition for that.

02:06:27.039 --> 02:06:29.470
And so we didn't want that to happen.

02:06:29.470 --> 02:06:33.560
And so we monitor very, very stressful pregnancies.

02:06:33.600 --> 02:06:43.930
Um, but yeah, they, they both were, um, Um, healthy and, and we, we delivered them before 38 weeks, um, or before it.

02:06:43.939 --> 02:06:45.989
So we lost our daughter 38 and a half weeks.

02:06:45.989 --> 02:06:55.979
And so for me, it was just 38 weeks, and, um, yeah, they, Layton was in a little bit of distress.

02:06:56.020 --> 02:07:01.750
Um, but they, they both, they were both healthy, but that had to have been the craziest season though, is when.

02:07:02.585 --> 02:07:03.564
Toddy's is blowing up.

02:07:04.194 --> 02:07:06.755
Claypot's got its own challenges.

02:07:06.755 --> 02:07:08.436
You're living in the hospital in Denver.

02:07:08.436 --> 02:07:11.814
I honestly don't remember most of that year.

02:07:11.814 --> 02:07:13.595
I think that's my loco experiences.

02:07:13.795 --> 02:07:28.204
I remember various snippets and I mean, I made some major decisions and I had a lot of conference calls and I worked hard, but I was also, um, I missed, I mean, I, I made every single, you know, the doctors did rounds twice a day.

02:07:28.354 --> 02:07:29.694
And so I was in morning rounds.

02:07:29.694 --> 02:07:32.854
I was in evening rounds because I was the one consistent player.

02:07:32.854 --> 02:07:34.795
Children's hospital is a teaching hospital, right?

02:07:34.795 --> 02:07:36.824
So there's always neonatology.

02:07:38.824 --> 02:07:44.104
It's almost like a, every doctor wants to put their creative artistic plan.

02:07:45.024 --> 02:07:45.324
Exactly.

02:07:45.475 --> 02:07:46.744
So everybody wants to tweak.

02:07:47.000 --> 02:07:47.579
Something.

02:07:47.590 --> 02:07:53.199
And so you got to really keep an eye on it so they don't tweak what they shouldn't tweak.

02:07:53.220 --> 02:07:53.680
Right.

02:07:53.680 --> 02:07:53.890
Yeah.

02:07:53.890 --> 02:08:01.500
Well, and we, you know, Kai had a lot of setbacks because, you know, he didn't respond the way some other babies did.

02:08:01.699 --> 02:08:06.449
And so we got to a point where we were the expert in Kai and the doctors would say, Oh, well, do you have a medical background?

02:08:06.449 --> 02:08:08.310
I'm like, no, I've just been here.

02:08:08.310 --> 02:08:08.539
Right.

02:08:08.944 --> 02:08:11.965
I've seen you try these things, these things, and these kind of things fail.

02:08:11.975 --> 02:08:12.375
Yeah.

02:08:12.414 --> 02:08:19.055
Um, but that was, you know, some of the most intense times at both, both businesses.

02:08:19.074 --> 02:08:26.215
And, um, you know, we have, and we still have several leaders who were there with us during that time.

02:08:26.574 --> 02:08:35.835
And, you know, Toddy, Toddy went from a profitable business to, um, a very successful business.

02:08:35.845 --> 02:08:35.875
Right.

02:08:35.876 --> 02:08:36.069
Right.

02:08:36.069 --> 02:08:36.265
Right.

02:08:36.414 --> 02:08:39.034
Um, oh, you know, sustainable over that time.

02:08:39.034 --> 02:08:45.074
So, so basically, I mean, I don't have the numbers memorized, but it, we, we basically we made it.

02:08:45.185 --> 02:08:57.324
Um, so, you know, 2015, once we were able to fill on those purchase orders and it went from national to global and in every single store.

02:08:57.744 --> 02:09:14.005
Um, and then another chain took it on and then another chain took it on and, um, you know, toddy is a very different business than it, than it was, you know, we, we have almost 240, 000 square feet of, of property that, of, you know, warehouse productions, office space.

02:09:14.194 --> 02:09:21.635
Whereas when we moved toddy, um, the, the property that Kevin Brinkman got us into was, um, 5, 000 square feet.

02:09:21.645 --> 02:09:24.744
Um, so, so that's, that's where it's been.

02:09:24.835 --> 02:09:27.314
And it, so much of that happened while.

02:09:27.744 --> 02:09:32.185
I had an office in the hospital and I don't remember the vast majority of it.

02:09:32.694 --> 02:09:32.755
Wow.

02:09:32.755 --> 02:09:33.055
Yeah.

02:09:33.055 --> 02:09:34.715
Um, so that was crazy.

02:09:34.715 --> 02:09:38.824
It was just the, the definition of crazy was just what, what we did Yeah.

02:09:39.215 --> 02:09:42.774
For me, the two that's, that was, it's all a blur, right?

02:09:42.805 --> 02:09:44.085
Um, yeah.

02:09:44.085 --> 02:09:56.204
That we were going through that crazy, uh, growth phase and we'd outgrown our original space and so we were renting little warehouses all over town, Right.

02:09:56.295 --> 02:09:57.284
So at one point.

02:09:58.045 --> 02:10:04.765
I think we had five different, we had that place on, uh, Blue Spruce, place on Duff.

02:10:04.845 --> 02:10:05.435
Oh, wow.

02:10:05.444 --> 02:10:10.454
We had Bird, we had Dirty Bird, Dirty Bird, Red Cedar, Drake, and Drake, yeah.

02:10:11.604 --> 02:10:26.545
And so, yeah, just the logistics of communicating and moving stuff around and yeah, and there were days where, you know, living in Denver, I'd come up here, I'd work at Clay Pot Creative all day.

02:10:26.545 --> 02:10:31.579
So, I'd grab a couple hours of sleep, then I'd go to the On the warehouse floor.

02:10:31.579 --> 02:10:41.899
On the warehouse floor, to the factory, so that when the day shift guy got off our one automation machine, I could jump on it, and do the Wow.

02:10:42.260 --> 02:10:44.100
The ten to four a.

02:10:44.100 --> 02:10:44.300
m.

02:10:44.300 --> 02:10:48.420
shift, and then grab a couple more hours of sleep.

02:10:49.279 --> 02:10:50.310
And then a cup of coffee.

02:10:50.359 --> 02:10:53.560
And then come home to help take care of the boys.

02:10:53.789 --> 02:10:54.119
Wow.

02:10:54.119 --> 02:11:05.050
And yeah, it was It was an intense phase, but yeah, we had a lot of great employees at both Claypot Creative and Toddy who kept the wheels on.

02:11:05.090 --> 02:11:15.100
Well, it's very galvanizing when you go through a season like that or when your employees see the pair of you go through that kind of a season and support each other to that extent.

02:11:15.100 --> 02:11:18.640
And you're, you're a young child, young children.

02:11:18.729 --> 02:11:19.100
Yeah.

02:11:19.159 --> 02:11:23.710
Like that's, that's got to build a lot of like dedication and loyalty in that team.

02:11:24.319 --> 02:11:26.289
Like these are good people that we want to be with.

02:11:27.125 --> 02:11:35.435
The whole team came through a lot, year, year and a half, and yeah, many of them are still, still with us.

02:11:35.895 --> 02:11:43.234
So you're kind of young to, to retire or anything, but, like, do you have notions of when you want to, like, find an exit?

02:11:43.234 --> 02:11:46.005
And do you have any ideas of what that would look like for you?

02:11:46.215 --> 02:11:49.375
Well, I told you that I You told him he could retire, like, fuck, eight years ago.

02:11:49.375 --> 02:12:02.180
He didn't remember Well, because everything that happened with Kai, and, and, thankfully, Um, he gave me some grace on that, but you know, a couple of years later, I'm like, Hey, remember what this conversation is like, are you telling me I could have retired two years ago?

02:12:02.180 --> 02:12:24.305
Um, and, but we got to a point and you know, when we transitioned, he had some overlap time with clay pot creative as you know, their main programmer, um, he spent some time there and so it took, took some time for him to, equilibrium, you know, after clay pot creative and after the hospital and all of that stuff.

02:12:24.305 --> 02:12:29.185
So Andy's semi, he doesn't work as hard as you do.

02:12:29.454 --> 02:12:29.814
That's right.

02:12:29.814 --> 02:12:30.085
Yeah.

02:12:31.055 --> 02:12:32.439
I mean, I work when I'm.

02:12:32.859 --> 02:12:35.220
So, I it's needed to solve a problem but.

02:12:35.220 --> 02:12:35.529
Right, right.

02:12:35.689 --> 02:12:36.739
But for the day to day stuff.

02:12:36.739 --> 02:12:39.470
And you'll work overtime while the problem needs to be solved.

02:12:39.479 --> 02:12:43.989
Yeah, when, when the poop hits the fan, I'm there to do whatever it takes but.

02:12:44.439 --> 02:12:48.239
He spends most of his days on his bike or running or.

02:12:48.300 --> 02:12:48.619
Yeah.

02:12:49.050 --> 02:12:50.189
Listening to podcasts.

02:12:50.260 --> 02:12:54.550
I'm putting some seats in a Wild West Relay team if you're looking for a spot handy.

02:12:54.569 --> 02:12:55.909
It seems like you go fast.

02:12:56.814 --> 02:12:57.055
Yeah.

02:12:57.055 --> 02:13:03.295
So yeah, he's, he's high impact, um, with, you know, with fewer hours.

02:13:03.805 --> 02:13:08.005
Um, and I, I just feel like that we're not done yet.

02:13:08.024 --> 02:13:12.784
Like there's, you know, there's some big initiatives that we're doing.

02:13:12.835 --> 02:13:21.739
And if at some point I feel like I, my usefulness has ended, then, then I, you know, I think.

02:13:22.489 --> 02:13:25.220
I'm not the type of person that would bring on a CEO.

02:13:25.550 --> 02:13:33.359
Um, if I reach the point where I'm not the best leader, then, you know, we'll make some transition decisions for the company, but I love the team.

02:13:33.369 --> 02:13:37.159
I love the work and the days that I don't love it means.

02:13:37.529 --> 02:13:39.289
There's probably something we need to change.

02:13:39.770 --> 02:13:42.020
Um, you know, we're, we're on it.

02:13:42.100 --> 02:13:45.779
Your interest and your utility and usefulness are all pretty high.

02:13:45.840 --> 02:13:46.850
Well, I hope so.

02:13:46.880 --> 02:13:47.529
I hope so.

02:13:47.760 --> 02:13:50.409
But, um, yeah, I think we're.

02:13:52.439 --> 02:14:00.699
I love the work and, you know, I'd like to get to the point where I'm as effective as Andy with fewer hours.

02:14:01.250 --> 02:14:04.859
Um, but, and, and that's about empowering other people.

02:14:04.890 --> 02:14:11.880
And, you know, that's, we're working on continuous improvement throughout the organization and super proud of what the team has accomplished.

02:14:11.890 --> 02:14:13.970
And there's some things that I don't.

02:14:14.185 --> 02:14:16.305
I don't know even where the manuals are.

02:14:16.314 --> 02:14:26.814
You know, I, that's led by another team and different leaders and I, I still love, um, showing up and we commute together.

02:14:27.145 --> 02:14:28.675
Um, Andy didn't used to go to work.

02:14:28.675 --> 02:14:35.689
And then when the kids were home in the pandemic during, during remote school, he's like, get me out of this house.

02:14:35.689 --> 02:14:40.765
So he's been driving me to work, um, since the pandemic.

02:14:40.784 --> 02:14:41.395
Oh, that's fun.

02:14:42.564 --> 02:14:46.215
Then usually he just drops you off or stays for a little while and goes off mountain biking or something.

02:14:46.425 --> 02:14:48.354
That's a pretty good day for me when I can do that.

02:14:49.255 --> 02:14:49.675
I like it.

02:14:50.204 --> 02:14:54.324
Well, you two, this has been a very enjoyable conversation with, uh, you know, folks.

02:14:54.324 --> 02:14:58.585
I didn't really know before hardly, uh, except for a little quick zoom with, with Julia.

02:14:58.585 --> 02:15:04.364
So, um, I just, uh, tip my hat to you, uh, to the culture and the products you've developed.

02:15:05.024 --> 02:15:07.765
And if people want to find you, Tottie.

02:15:07.805 --> 02:15:08.604
com or something.

02:15:08.744 --> 02:15:09.425
TottieCafe.

02:15:09.425 --> 02:15:09.755
com.

02:15:09.755 --> 02:15:10.375
TottieCafe.

02:15:10.375 --> 02:15:11.935
Someone actually registered Tottie.

02:15:11.935 --> 02:15:13.074
com in 1996.

02:15:13.145 --> 02:15:13.395
Oh.

02:15:13.435 --> 02:15:16.104
So, um, and they, they won't sell it.

02:15:16.734 --> 02:15:17.864
So, TottieCafe.

02:15:17.954 --> 02:15:30.890
com, um, and yeah, the Conundrum Tasting Room by Tottie is Um, in, in Loveland, um, in the industrial complex, um, Use your Google Maps.

02:15:31.100 --> 02:15:31.500
Yeah.

02:15:31.560 --> 02:15:31.880
Yeah.

02:15:31.880 --> 02:15:36.010
Off of, off of Alden Drive or by the Amazon and Bobo's and, Oh, right over there.

02:15:36.010 --> 02:15:36.039
Okay.

02:15:36.100 --> 02:15:37.649
Um, so yeah, we'd love to see you.

02:15:37.649 --> 02:15:39.800
We've, we're open on weekdays.

02:15:40.170 --> 02:15:45.640
Um, but yeah, if you want to have some great coffee, cold brewed or however you like it, that's the conundrum.

02:15:45.770 --> 02:15:46.220
Awesome.

02:15:46.229 --> 02:15:46.710
I like it.

02:15:46.770 --> 02:15:47.890
Thanks you two for being here.

02:15:48.020 --> 02:15:48.449
Thanks for having us.

02:15:48.449 --> 02:15:48.720
Thank you.

02:15:48.720 --> 02:15:49.465
Thanks, Pete.

02:15:49.465 --> 02:15:50.060
Thanks.