Would You Risk It All for a Shot at Building a Billion-Dollar Brand With Gordon Ramsay?

Do you ever stare at a beautiful product and wonder what stories are hidden behind its journey?

The culinary poetry of the HexClad brand products begins with a hypnotizing hexagonal pattern with an intricate layer that looks like a futuristic industrial honeycomb. The brand’s hallmark design isn’t just for style points but is the result of countless refinements, merging non-stick convenience with the resilience of stainless steel.

How the AI Bubble Ate Y Combinator | Inc. Explains

The cool, polished handle reassures with its promise of quality craftsmanship. Lifting the pan, the perfectly balanced weight is designed for capable culinary precision from the likes of anyone with a basic desire to cook, all the way up to chefs with Michelin stars.

Daniel Winer designed the pan to cook the perfect steak, pasta or whatever dish today, tomorrow, and decades from now- and he stands by it with a lifetime guarantee. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

the juicer business. I mean in in May of sixteen till September of sixteen, sales dropped about sixty-five percent.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Yeah. Tanked.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Yeah. It tanked. And and this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Because the cookware wasn't ready to go yet. On a Tuesday in September, I was in the juicer business. At 9 a.m. and went on Wednesday morning, I was not in the juicer business anymore.

SPEAKER_06 0:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

And for all the friends who were like he took a chance that I'm not willing to take uh you know good for him he's his own boss. Now I'm a failure. And um and that failure is one of the greatest things that's ever happened to me. Hi I'm Danny Weiner CEO and co-founder of Hexclad Cookware. And you're on Behind the Brand with Brian Elliott. Hey everyone welcome to another episode of the show. Danny welcome thanks Brian I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

I usually ask my guest how did you get this job?

SPEAKER_02 1:12

I'm still trying to figure that one out. Um you know I think uh you know every entrepreneur has a bit of craziness in them and luckily we have a uh uh oh we don't know what we don't know but maybe if we did we'd we'd have looked for a very safe well paid job with a lot less stress and a heartache but you know I think uh what generally happens to say many entrepreneurs especially if they're over 30 they are healing from some horrible work experience which makes them say hey I can either do this better I can either lead better uh or I can present a solution to the marketplace better than somebody else is doing I totally agree with that that's been my experience so what was that experience for you? Um I was actually in the cookware space before her I uh similarly you know I was out here and I was uh an assistant to the uh VP of production at Paramount so I was trying to be in the entertainment business okay and it cards on the table it can be a bit soul sucking the business yeah is this Paramount Studios like theatrical division or like yes yeah what year is this by the way this is the mid-90s so this is right after right after school uh after waiting tables it was like kind of the the first job where there were desks in a room yeah yeah did you know a guy named Chris Saito no it doesn't ring a bell Chris was my boss at Universal and he came from Paramount oh dude he was like there forever you know I you know I was there for a bit and I wasn't you know I I was still young enough to believe that I was going to be fulfilled both creatively and career wise and financially delusions of grandeur exactly and um you know and I so I was I was there and I was but I was falling out of love with the business and I kind of knew it and I was trying to do everything I was trying to write direct act produce you know like like I was an incredibly unsuccessful George Clooney you know trying to do that type of thing and um and during that period there was that struggle where you're you're looking at yourself and you're like what does the future hold? Now at that time I guess I was 28ish um and I guess I was having my first midlife crisis at that point. Yeah but it it was a point where I was doing a rather uh uh uh significant amount of self-examination and during that period um actually I had a really bad car accident and got beat up and it took me it took me almost a year and a half to be able to walk without a cane. Oh wow I was in a back brace from here to here um and you know everybody suing and this I had no money and uh and just as I was being able to walk I had a I had a college fraternity brother from NYU who said uh listen I know you're not really working he goes but I'm he goes I'm actually going to sell cookware this weekend at a trade show and I could use somebody there to you know help me out run the credit cards and he's he goes it's three days he goes I'll give you 500 bucks I go five hundred bucks sweet yeah I'm there you know so I went with him and it was fascinating because I went to this this trade show and it was kind of like this weird like like it was like carnival barkers almost like you know come on up and check you know and yeah and I it was a fascinating sea of the best and worst of humanity commerce yeah right it's just and so I I um so I helped him out and I watched him make like a couple grand in a weekend I'm like wow you know I was getting paid like 500 bucks a week six hundred bucks a week and I'm like if you need any help again he's like yeah I'll let you know a couple weeks later is like come with me and then I got like good at it I got comfortable talking to people and and I can't tell you it was a masterclass in in sales communication right it it was presenting a problem a problem you may not know you have yep um stirring the pot right agitating the problem and by the way I just happened to be the guy with the solution yeah brilliant and here's the solution and anyway I wind up I wound up doing this for a while and it was good it was like I would it gave it allowed me to pretend that I was still gonna write and I was still gonna audition and maybe get my own projects going while I was doing these trade shows on the weekend. And I got very very good at them and then I realized you know what wow that's a nine o'clock audition in Santa Monica I'm an Eagle Rock. Yeah you know I'm gonna pass on this one. Yeah but I'm not quitting. Yeah and then you go I've moved on you know I won't call it quitting because I don't think of myself as a quitter what I did was I I reassessed what was important to me, made a change and then created new priorities. And um and at that time it was like I got to make money I'm broke. I'm getting good at this and I don't know how this skill set I'm developing is going to translate into the rest of my life but um let me examine that. So what I did was I got good at it the company was growing they go you're a good communicator you're a good leader um why don't you come in and be our national sales manager? Oh okay and I'm like well you know I could use a challenge you know it's not forever and I did it I got good at it um this is in the 2000s mid-2000s I um you know I got promoted I was the VP of sales and and this is a challenge you know and this happens to the lucky slash unlucky few which is you're good enough at your job you do it very well and they pay you just enough that you're very very comfortable but you know you don't challenge yourself.

SPEAKER_04 7:52

A salary is a drug they give you to forget your dreams.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Yeah wow wow did you just make that up yeah does that resonate with anyone else like you know it really does and that's it and it was like you know the golden handcuffs as they say and I was doing quite well and I was living a very good life and um I don't like being able to do stuff without thinking like when I can just do it on a work on autopilot I don't like that so and I remember I I looked at the marketplace and this is say around 2010 ish give a year or two give or take a year and I went to the owner of the company and I'm like I've been thinking I'm like the marketplace is changing the way we interact with our consumer our customer our partner is changing. I'm like we need to be about community so I went to him and I had like Facebook up on my laptop and I was thinking about how do we create this amazing cooking community that uses our products and so I went with to him with this idea and he did one of these do it to the camera hand to the face he goes and he looks at me and he goes listen kid this Facebook thing it's never gonna last yeah it's a fad yeah he's like I've already been through my space and and I'm like and I walked out of his office and that was the first like kind of punch to the gut where okay this is not going to last I've got to I gotta I I'm being forced to embrace plan B. Yeah it's like evolve or die right yeah and that I walked out that night and uh I remember I told my co-founder my co-founder was my uh like my number one salesman and he and I used to go to the gym he's the type of guy who went who would go like this I was at the desk for a month not going on the road or doing anything he'd go in he'd walk in and go you're fat you're going to the gym tonight. Yeah yeah yeah I'm like wait I'm your boss you're not supposed to call me fat you're supposed to be tactful about it he goes yeah okay you're fat come on and we went to the gym and we started talking about this and it took us some time to because we were both doing quite well and it's like boy do you risk all this um but what a gift to be like so embedded into that business that you you know you learn all aspects of it you see the good the bad and the ugly right like you you know what's going well what's working and you know what's not what working well and like that's where the magic can happen right well yes you know it it's really I love the way you put it and it it it comes you put it that way from the wisdom of hindsight but when you're in the maelstrom of it you're like you're kind of like okay is life fucking with me you know or you know you you need to pause examine it embrace it and then say there's positives here and that's where I need to focus on you know well so Seth Godin who's like one of my favorite people he wrote this book called The Dip.

SPEAKER_04 11:19

And the dip is all about trying to understand when to quit or pivot uh or when to stick it through because sometimes you know when the going gets tough you just need to hunker down and just like push through and then you get to the other side and you're like oh I'm so glad I stuck with it. You know I'm thinking of like you know Navy Navy SEALs training it's just like hell right in that first they're trying to weed you out but if you stick it out you know you you get uh to the other side and then you get to be in that elite group but there's you know a bit of that weeding out process and a lot of people can't hang for whatever reason business is the same way like I've stayed at jobs way too long. Now in hindsight I know that because I was wondering how long to give it and then other times I I feel like I quit too soon. So it's it's uh you know I think the really successful people have made really good judgments about that.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

You know uh excellent point and I'm not familiar with the book and I probably should be and uh I'm gonna put it on my list because that is one of the the most important things sometimes we're trying to convince ourselves of something or really it might be because we want people to perceive us in the way we're trying to perceive ourselves. Yeah. Um but knowing when to fish when to cut bait when you know it's it's the hardest thing and in and it's hard enough to do um when you have a career and a good job. It is absolutely terrifying when you've taken the plunge into become starting your own company. Yeah because n the the the landscape is littered with the dead bodies of people who did not read the writing on the wall that did not want to look in the mirror and see a failure so they kept going when everything told them a pivot or shutting it down like and if you have a strong business ethic and a and a work ethic it there's no shame in retreating or pivoting or pivoting either one.

SPEAKER_04 13:42

The the case study that comes to mind is like the you know the classic Kodak camera story right like so Kodak like had all the technology to do digital cameras. They're like nope you know we do film and digital cameras you know just like social media that's a fad it's not gonna happen. And you know look where's Kodak now right uh look at blockbuster video they didn't see Netflix coming or all these other technologies coming um in fact I think they turned didn't they turn down a like a a very low ball opportunity to buy Netflix and they're like oh no no no this isn't I just watched that Blackberry movie did you see that no I haven't seen that's pretty good uh and you know blackberry's the same way they're like you know iPhone sch my phone you know no one's gonna care buttons are where it's at you know on a screen so it's like there's this like story after story of all these people that didn't see the signals um and you know you've got a choice you know you bring up some excellent examples there because you know you take something like Blackberry and they didn't want to offend their current customer and they fell on the pyre companies protecting that aging dying consumer and you see that that's like you see it in the restaurant business.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

Oh well we don't our our core audience you know they love the early bird special well you don't make any money on the early bird special and those people aren't going out as much but God forbid they're you know they're they're 80 they're not going anywhere right now but you you've hitched your wagon to that as opposed to innovating and saying you know what give them enough credit even though they're 80 or 18 that you're gonna present them with a product that's so good they're gonna be like okay this is better. You know really that's it. You know when the you know all of a sudden it's amazing how quickly a business flounders because they're so committed to to satisfying this small core group cults cult really for your product.

SPEAKER_04 15:54

I think the most dangerous phrase you can say uh you know in context is well we've always done it this way. Yeah. Well and so you know that's killed more companies right and it's like you don't understand that you you need to you go upstream or you need to go downstream you know you need to change but like the status quo it ain't working anymore.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

You know I just heard Jack's Jack Sai uh Alibaba um at the JP Morgan conference and he said something and I hated it and liked it at the same time but he talked about you know you know really like how they need to bring in young people for their new ideas. And as somebody who is not young anymore um I don't like that because the thing is I believe uh I believe experienced grizzled vets can have new ideas. They don't often and I think that's a missed you know a missed opportunity maybe to be like wait I'm like no like Alibaba isn't there just because you brought in a 28 year old and he had this new idea. You know you really the home run may have been a 50 year old who doesn't believe that everything he knows is the be all end all. And that he can take an idea that he heard a 28 year old give 30 years worth of business experience to it and shape it into something so compelling that the marketplace can't help but react. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:26

There's no excuse or no substitute for experience. The only way to get experience ironically is to like just make the mistakes do the thing for an extended period of time. Sometimes you're a teenager and you invent this website called the Facebook and it does like trillions of dollars. Sometimes that's the anomaly but most of the time the rest of us have to like you know go to the school hard knocks do the thing make the mistakes learn from the mistakes and so I think you know that exercise is sort of age agnostic too. I mean you can you could be 21 and have lived like a very active life doing a lot of stuff or you could be 51 and have this extended career and have done stuff. So great ideas I agree can come from anywhere. The other thing I was thinking of when you thought like what gets people stuck into not wanting to change is this sunk cost fallacy.

unknown 18:18

Right?

SPEAKER_04 18:19

It's like well dang it you know I've been working at this company for 10 years I've invested all this time and my energy and I've built these relationships I don't want to lose all that to jump ship and start my own you know cookware company that's risky. So how did you broach how did you bridge that gap between the sunk cost fallacy thinking I mean you were there for a while you were kicking ass you were you know head of sales and yeah probably making decent money.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Yeah too much I was overpaid. Yeah so how did you decide to like jettison all of that that you equity that you built in that career and then jump off onto the dark side um again uh a great question I feel like I had it easier than some people because I did not see a a pathway forward to success at that point. So then I can I only have two options I I take action or I bury my head in the sand and hope it's yeah I was gonna say yeah I mean you could phone it in a lot of people are phoning it in. But but you know what even phoning it in I I began to phone it in a little bit at that point. It's like it was easy. I knew what I was doing it was you know but the thing was you know what does it look like 10 years from now and I became convinced that 10 years um from that point that company was not going to be in business.

SPEAKER_06 19:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

So self-preserving they're not in business. You're right at the end um but so with that you know that that made it easier for me I I the the guys that I I applaud and worry for at the same time are the ones where things are good. They may not be great but they're good. And guess what? You're gonna have a job to 65 or to whenever you want but does that satisfy what you think you need to do for your pure personal and professional growth the those are the people that um you know it's it's much harder. Like I I I got like a real kick in the ass about it. So it was like it was like I'm gonna be out of a job in my 50s do I have enough money to retire? Not the way I wanted to you know or am I going to be becoming a sales rep for somebody I you know I didn't know I just so when I recognize that I'm like I know me I'm gonna do my own thing.

SPEAKER_04 20:55

Yeah yeah do you want to ask my advice about what I would do in that situation where I'd love to know your advice about that maybe not advice is about uh my thoughts um I I also think that um I I study a lot of psychology mainly to figure out my own brain because it's good I feel a little crazy sometimes yeah sure my pathology but it's like um we get into this black and white thinking where it's like either this or that and sometimes I think in business there's more than one good idea like actually both ideas are good take either path it'll lead you in different directions but they're both viable and probably profitable and both might light you up. So I think we have to be careful in our decisions. Yes we've got to follow our gut, our passion we have to use our intuit right like you were extrapolating this a decade down the road and seeing this company's out of business. I gotta get out now. That was smart. Um but in in the case where that's not the uh The end road, then I also think that um there's multiple answers. Because I I I guess I'm just reacting to the like the comments from my audience. I hear it in uh I see it in a reading of the comments all the time where I'm getting DMs like, you know, what should I do? It's like, well, you know, there's usually not just one answer. Uh there's multiple answers, and then there's always uh it depends. Like a lot of things happened. I didn't expect in 2008 when I started my little startup that the recession would come and just punch me right in the face until about 2012. Didn't see it coming. Um, so we just had to react. Um but anyway, I I feel like it's you this is where the opportunity is when you can see what's coming down and then react accordingly. And it seems like it's paid off for you.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Um knock on wood. Um, yeah, it's it's been an incredible journey. Um it was both terrifying and exciting, um, but so many things are. I mean, you I I've heard people describe their wedding as terrifying and exciting as well. So almost anything worth doing should have a little of both. You don't just get the good, right? Yeah. Um, so so for Cole and I, once we made that decision, yeah, we were scared. Um, but we're like, we'll figure this out. Well, what was missing in the market? What was missing in the product? Well, to be honest, uh when we first started, we didn't know what we wanted to do. We're with like day one was we're gonna start our own company. Okay, and that was it. That's that was the end of the conversation. Now day two. Okay, what kind of company? We love stuff in the kitchen space. Now we also were really attracted to things that were highly demonstrable.

SPEAKER_04 23:58

Okay, pause for a second because I'm tracking so far, but it's like you had this conversation with the with the owner, yes, and he or she is like, social media is dumb, and you you realize it's the opposite. Yes, it's the future, community building, etc. Was it just that alone that causes you cause you to be like, I'm out?

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Well, uh you know, really what it was was was that I I saw the the the journey from from say say the funnel, you know, the funnel, you know, uh changing like first touch point to conversion. So top of the funnel. Top of the funnel, very like above the funnel, even not even in the funnel. Yeah, consideration. Consideration, yeah. This yeah, changing to the purchase. And I knew the model we were using that was not going to lead to conversion. What we needed to do what was that model? Well, well, really what we were doing was we were doing a lot of these um restaurant trade shows. We were doing these home shows, these things where you're getting the consumer in front of you. But the thing was the relationship was 10 minutes, and you either created value in that 10 minutes or you didn't. And that either led to a sale. And that was that was the whole relationship.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

And and that what I what I realized was the consumer wanted a deeper relationship with the companies from which they were purchasing. They wanted to know what listen, everybody wants value, right? They want value for money, but but now people want to know does this company have a company ethos that I agree with? Do they um um I mean they want to know the officers in the company? Are they good people? Like, especially the millennials in the Gen Z audience, yeah. They which was something that was kind of new. You know, baby boomers were like, hey, is it a is it good quality and am I getting a value? Okay, done. I don't care what you do in your personal time. Right, right, right. So and that led to this idea of community, and also one thing I found that was we were getting no second purchases, too. So if we're ending this relationship after 10 minutes, you might stumble down the road into us and say, Oh, I was real happy, and what do you have now? I'd like to buy a stir fry. Or yeah, but you know, to give up developing this relationship, it's like meeting somebody out for and you having this amazing night, and then you're well, I hope I run into them some night out again, right? Right, one and done. Yeah, you need to create this relationship if you want to enjoy any of the benefits of it. Yeah, so that's what was missing, and that's what I felt we needed to develop. You couldn't buy Facebook ads then, there was no really monetizing that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:04

Um I want uh let me just uh underscore what you just said because it's I think really, really important, but it was kind of subtle the way you said it. So if you missed it, what Danny is saying is you know, a lot of people will have this great idea, they'll start a company, we're starting a company today, and then tomorrow, like, what's the company about? Fine. But like baked into that was this idea that you already knew the pain points or the problems that you're seeking to solve. Because I think a lot of people make this mistake and it's out of the order of operations. They have this great idea, they make a product, okay. Uh, pots and pans, let's just say I got a great idea for pots and pans. Great. You know, I'm gonna make the dyes, and I'm gonna spend the money, and I'm gonna choose the colors, and I'm gonna the fonts and the packaging, and I'm gonna order a bunch, stock a warehouse full, and then I'm gonna ring the dinner dinner bell. All right, come get it, come buy all my stuff. And I think that's completely backwards, very risky. It can be done, but it's like you guys already knew the pain points, and so you started with audience first, not product first.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Yes, and that you know it's a really good point, and it was subtle because you you phrased it better than I did, which was there, there's two two pain points you're gonna solve. One is how do we connect with the consumer in a way that gives them comfort, that they want to enjoy a long relationship with you. Um, so product is out of that right there. So there's knowing that that's what we knew we were missing. My old company had a good product, not a great product, but a good product.

SPEAKER_04 28:41

Yeah, good enough.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Yeah. Uh something I was proud to sell. So now you you know, uh, I was interested in the kitchen space. Now I'm looking for a better mouse trap trap to solve a problem. So one we have one part of the business side that I know I can solve by reinventing the relationship between me and the consumer. The other half is now how do I make a better mousetrap?

SPEAKER_06 29:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

And I and that's why I said I didn't know we were going to be a cookware company again. We weren't. Our first product failed. Um I didn't know that. Yeah. I, you know. What was it? Well, it's a lot of shame. You know, um, well, because I told you we were into highly demonstrable products, we loved the idea of telling a story with a product, and which is what kind of led us to be like, we want to be an e-commerce company because we can tell the story through social media. Sure. Um Cole and I were Cole and I were really into juicing at the time.

SPEAKER_04 29:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

And we're like, you know, there's some juicers on the market, but there's not a great juicer. They're all a pain to clean. And so when I was still before I'd left the company, um, my previous company, like I would I'd get on a 5 p.m. flight to Hong Kong, leave the office a little early, fly there, get to Hong Kong about five, six o'clock on a Saturday, go to like the Hong Kong Electronics Fair for like two hours, go all day Sunday, be on the 6 a.m. flight back to LA. I mean, I'd be at my desk by noon. And nobody, and I'd talk about a dentist appointment that I had that morning. Oh, you know, and we did this a bunch of times to look for products. Eventually we found this really great juicer, one that was easy to clean and was a cold pressed juicer. And you know, and this is one of the mistakes where I said, like, you know, really this is advice I would give to any entrepreneur, entrepreneur or founder. Um, get over yourself. All right. Um don't think you know better than the market. Right. You know, because I thought I knew better than the market. And you know, we first went in. Luckily, luckily, our goal was always to bring a bunch of kitchen products that were highly demonstrable together to live under this brand. So our first juicer, it did pretty well. We launched it in uh second half of 14.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Uh it started to get some traction in 15. You know, um people liked it, or so I thought. However, what I didn't really understand was the market. I love juice. How about you like a do you? Yeah, and even juicing, yeah, it's a it's a big deal. Everybody loves juice. Yeah. What they don't love is extra work. Sure. And really what we thought was, well, it's a no-brainer. Why would you pay creation $10 for something you can make for a dollar fifty at home? And uh, and uh time saving, convenience saving. Okay. So when I knew we were fucked, was uh I was at Beverly Hills Juice Club, you know, and and I'm like, I noticed that there was a pretty girl in front of me, so I'm paying a little attention. I'm like, oh, maybe I'll say hello. And I see her buy a juice, and it's seven, I think seven dollars. And they go, seven dollars. And she goes, Can you put half of it on this card and half of it on this card?

SPEAKER_06 32:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

And this was like it was like I got hit back in the back of the head with like a sledgehammer. I'm like, she doesn't have enough money to put it all on one card, but she won't make juice. And at the same time, you start opening your eyes and you're like, wait a minute, Whole Foods is building a juice bar inside, and Erwan's already making juice, and there are juice shops. What's this creation thing? And and and I remember that time period, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 33:03

It was a huge cold press movement, yeah, especially in New York.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Oh, every every little corner of bodega we had a juice bar in it now. You can't compete with that. Yeah. And you know, and during 15, you know, we're trying to make it work going into, you know, into 15 was good, but as we're leaving 15 into 16, the writing's kind of on the wall. And I will say this credit to credit to me, credit to me and Cole, that we were actively looking for new products. And because we always loved the cookware space, um, I had already started working on Hex Glad, not even knowing that that was the home run. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:48

What was the name of the juicer, by the way? It was called Juice Presso.

SPEAKER_04 33:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

And it was a nice juicer. You know, it's not uh, you know, it's gone now.

SPEAKER_04 33:55

But um so this is another lesson I want to extract. It's fairly obvious, but it's like kind of what we talked about in the beginning of this conversation, which is the only way to get real experience is to do the thing. And ironically, you have to actually have to make mistakes in order to learn. Because winning, succeeding, it's a terrible teacher. You just think, you know, if all you're doing is winning, uh, I mean, it's wonderful if that's you, but that's not how it usually works. But you don't learn much, right? There's no data points, there's no signals, there's no, I mean, in order to feel joy, you gotta feel the contrast of pain to understand the context of how wonderful it feels to be pain-free, right? And so you gotta make mistakes. This is why I like the F-word failure is so important to talk about because some of these entrepreneurs out there are probably thinking, well, failure's not an option, Brian. Well, yeah, it is. Failure has to be an option. Uh, you have to do the thing and figure it out. Hopefully, you didn't like invest everything to the point where you couldn't come back and play another day.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

You know, you there's so much to unpack there because there's so much wisdom in different in different aspects of the paragraph you just spoke. The fact is, most people listening to this will fail. They will fail at least once. And we hope that they do. Yeah. Because there's learning to be had there. Very few of us, you know, step up for our first at bat and hit a home run. It occasionally happens. Occasionally. And God bless them, you know, good for you. Yeah. Um, probably you will be a less effective leader and CEO because you haven't had to lick your wounds and and question your values, your common sense, yeah, your your work ethic, which we all do. Like, what you know, I I always say, like, you know, the people that are always looking for, they'll look everywhere, all around the room for an excuse. You know, they look, I'm look, look under the couch, um, you know, I'm looking over here. They don't look in the fucking mirror mirror, right? Right. And that's where you're gonna find most of your solutions in there. I am the problem. Yeah. And that's okay. And own it, identify it, now fix it. Like any other problem. Yeah, you know, you you get you you got a flat tire, you're gonna fix the tire, yeah, look in the mirror and go look at the warts and fix them.

SPEAKER_04 36:27

And I would take it one step further, which is if you're gonna go through the hell, at least like come out of it with the trophy, which is you know, learn empathy. Oh, this is this is how someone else is feeling that's gone through what I'm feeling right now. Or, you know, uh learn something from it because then it's not really a failure per se. Like sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. There's that saying is real. Um, you know, failure, I think, is giving up, right? And and not trying again, you get knocked off the horse, you don't get back on. Doesn't mean you have to ride the same horse, you can ride a different horse, or you can get in a car or an airplane, like you know, but just don't quit. Like, yeah, keep going and do something else.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

But like, yeah, like when you hear people, well, you know, I gave it a shot once too. You know, you hear that. Like, I'm like, I don't, you know, and I I go, I want to hear about your failure, and then I want to hear about you know, the way you picked yourself up. Yeah, like that's that's what's inspirational. Like I will tell people like when I tell my story or I tell the the hex clad story, um, yes, I love like the good part. Um is great. Like everybody likes, you know, we're Americans, you know, like we believe in the American dream. Yeah, it's the American dream, but you I'll tell you what, that's like one minute of interesting. It's what's interesting is how do you get there? How do you, how do you overcome the obstacles, the challenges? You know, how do you when nobody is believing in you? You know, how do you motivate yourself? Like when you're waking up at 4 a.m. thinking you're having a heart attack, and you're like, well, I I gotta get, I better get to work. Yeah. Because I did that. I woke up, I, you know, I, you know, I I would wake up every day for 4 30 and 16, 17, like, what the fuck am I doing? What am I doing? And then I would go, I got a better product. And all I need is in is to create the next opportunity to tell my story, and then people will buy.

SPEAKER_04 38:38

So you were you're able to figure out that in 2015, heading into 16, the juicer market saturated. Yeah. Great pun. Um I love puns. And so you pivoted, you had Hex Clad sort of on the brain, you were working on it. You know what was interesting.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

So uh, you know these moments where you go like an instrumental moment in your life. So I would go to different trade shows in Asia, and there's a huge one in Guangzhou, China called the Canton Fair. It's famous. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it is. Imagine 20 so-fi stadiums filled with products. And by the way, it's three weekends, and each weekend's all different products. That's how big this is. And I heard that you want to be in the Ritz-Carlton and Guangzhou in the club lounge. That's the place you meet people. Okay. We didn't even have enough money. In fact, at that point, we had the juicer, but it really wasn't going well yet. So we couldn't afford for both Cole and I to go together. So I go and then we'd play pay for the club lounge room. How much is it, by the way? The the club round, yeah, lounge room. It wasn't even that much. For I mean, compare it here, it was like 300 bucks a night. Okay. Here it'd be seven or eight hundred, probably. At least. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't that much, but they would also put like a buffet out. So I was like, okay, I'll eat the shitty buffet. And, you know, and they'll also give you a wine or drink. So you and then you mingle. And I meant this, and and so everybody in there is eating, grazing on that shitty buffet. And then there's this strikingly good-looking, like 60-year-old Swedish man. His first name is Pierre. I remember that. And Pier sits at a table, and there's a Michelin star restaurant. He calls down, he has them bring him filet mignon. And while we're all eating, you know, he's sitting there holding court. And I remember he said to me, he goes, he's like, Daniel, never give up. I go, of course, yes. You know, my father said that he goes, No, like he goes, here's the thing. This is what I do. He goes, always come here, always keep looking. He goes, I go, I find a product, I bring it to Sweden, and I make five million dollars. Then he goes, I keep looking every year. Four years, five years go by. I find one more product. I make five million dollars. And he goes, but never stop going. He goes, the other people he goes, they're gonna be the people that think about flying in the economy from America to Hong Kong and taking that shitty train ride to Guangzhou and eating that shitty buffet that you just ate. And he goes, and they're not gonna come back next year.

SPEAKER_06 41:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

And I was like, so I kept going two times a year. And that was, and because I was because of that conversation with that man, even though it was disheartening, I hadn't found anything. The juicers like barely, you know, we're not even we couldn't pay ourselves, put it that way. And I remember I met a guy, he had an interesting product. I go, I'm gonna meet you tomorrow at noon. And I go to walk to meet him, and he's in one of these convention halls, and there are 30 Chinese soldiers with their guns standing there. And I'm like, and he goes, and I hear Xi Jinping is here. He's gonna cut like a ribbon to be late. I'm like, God damn Xi Jinping, always making me making me late. And I had to cut, they I got directed down into the basement of this convention center. So I'm walking down there, and I would go to these things and I would walk for hours. I would get there at 9 a.m. I'd bring a protein bar because the food's inedible. Right. And I would walk from the city. You know like crickets and chocolate cover scorpions again. Yeah, you don't know what it is, but uh so I'd have my protein bar around noon. I'd walk from nine to six just looking at head head on a swivel, and I'm down in this hallway, and it's like, thank God I'm not on my phone. I'm not looking this way, I'm looking this way. And I see this round, is it cookware? Is it turned out it was a Korean barbecue plate, and it's got these hexagons on it. I'm like, that's let me go over there. And you know, I'm like, oh, it's China, everything's a knockoff, and uh, you know, they're like, oh, you like this? You would you, you know, you're American? I'm like, yes. Guy comes out and he goes, Yeah, we make this. He goes, we're starting to experiment with frying pans a little bit too. Uh I go, oh, yeah, I think I've seen this around. He goes, I don't think so. I go, yeah, I've seen it. I'm bullshitting him. And he grabs a book and he's got patent after patent after patent. And I'm like, did I find the holy grail here? Actually, somebody who owns their patent and isn't a thief. And I sit down with these guys and they talk about they've designed this laser-etching uh hexagon pattern, and they show me their first couple tries at a frying pan. I'm like, very nice, but those won't sell in the Western market. So I'm like, guys. And what was it about it they wouldn't sell? Um, they, you know, we cook differently. Yeah. Like they were too shallow, um, they were very thin. So, but I somehow I told them, I go, I want to tell the story of this product. And I knew cookware. And I'm like, this was a game changer because what was cool about it was you laser etch the hexagons, so the hexagons are sticking out of the non. The nonsticks in the recesses. So in theory, it's going to clean up easily, yet you get a golden sear like you would with a steel pan. I can scrape it with a metal spatula. It'll go in the oven. It'll go in the dishwasher. Holy Grail.

SPEAKER_04 44:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

Yep. And we hit, we just connected. And I'm like, guys, I don't have any money. But I'm going to help you make this product better. And this was in um spring of 15.

SPEAKER_03 44:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

I spent the next 14, 15 months redesigning the cookware with them. Let's try different thicknesses: 2.2 millimeter, 2.6, 2.8, 3.0, 3.2. That's too thick. Let's go back to three. Was the base always stainless steel? So the base of the pan was a layer of steel, magnetic steel, aluminum, that's your heating element, one more layer of steel, so a clad pan. And then we'd laser etch it. And then one thing I'd known from my previous life was everybody bitched about the bottoms of their pans getting all burnt. So I said, what if we put the design on the outside as well? And yeah, we can do that. And so we just worked on it. Now during this period, the juicer business. I mean, in May of 16 till September of 16, sales dropped about 65%.

SPEAKER_03 45:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:24

Tanked. It tanked. And and this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do because the cookware wasn't ready to go yet. On a Tuesday in September, I was in the juicer business. At 9 a.m. in wet on Wednesday morning, I was not in the juicer business anymore.

SPEAKER_06 45:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:43

And for all the friends who were like, he took a ch chance that I'm not willing to take. Uh, you know, good for him, he's his own boss. Now I'm a failure. And um, and that failure is one of the greatest things that's ever happened to me. Because what I learned about that process, I kept it going too long. I knew, you know, it it's almost like, you know, I'm pulling the plug on a loved one. God forbid anybody ever has to do it. There, you know, I wish there was a a do not resuscitate order on the juicer because we wouldn't have dumped all the money we dumped into it this summer of 16. But was it hubris? Uh, maybe that's too hard to say, but it would there was a slight level of of fearing to admit I'd failed.

SPEAKER_04 46:37

Uh yeah, I'm I'm pushed back on that and give you a little credit. I mean, I think all of us entrepreneurs can relate with that. That sounds like optimism to me.

SPEAKER_02 46:46

Well, I love I love Glass Half Full.

SPEAKER_04 46:48

Yeah. Well, have you ever read that book, uh Think and Grow Rich? Yes. It's a book I read like in high school. One of the stories that always sticks out to me is this story of the 49er. He's in the you know, California gold rush, he's in this mine, he's picking away, you know, in this mine, he's just working on it for years and nothing, walks away from the mine, gives up. Someone else wanders into his mind, picks up where he left off, and like maybe a week later, digs like maybe one to six inches deeper and discovers like Sutter's Mill, like the richest gold mine in the history of everything. And so that lesson is like always in my mind as an entrepreneur. Like, am I sticking with it long enough? Am I the person walking away, leaving this gold mine? And so you just never know. But like I understand it can relate with that optimism, but you had like, ah, you know, if if only, or we just have to, and then you know, you just don't know sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

No, you don't, and uh, you know, and this was a flaw of mine as a businessman early on. Uh, maybe it's a flaw of my ego as well, that I don't like to ask for help.

SPEAKER_04 48:03

Also relatable.

SPEAKER_02 48:05

Yeah, yeah. And I will tell people now, ask for fucking help because there's somebody who either has that experience already, who's smarter than you, that's done it before, and they can get you from A to B faster. You know, I'm a crazy researcher, so I'll sit on the couch all night, you know, yeah, yeah, and I'll figure it out. But I probably could have gotten there faster if I just tweeted about it and got help from people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:35

Danny, that's why this show exists. I mean, this is why, you know, this part of why I want to give back because I've learned so much, and it's just like I hope that this is just like this trevor treasure trove of resources for people to come looking for answers. You know, we've done 500 plus episodes with super smart people, and they've all got a little something, a little nugget of wisdom to impart.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

And you know, and that's good, and that's you know, and that is good to be giving back that way because the the fact is you when somebody's listening to this, they are being proactive. You know, they don't have to listen. They could, you know, they could go listen to some comedy podcast, but the fact is, um, then you're gonna go try to figure it all out on your own. We're giving you cheat codes here.

SPEAKER_04 49:19

Yeah, you know, it's selfish too. I'll admit. I mean, if it's not obvious, like I'm still trying to figure it out too. Like, I want to know. And this is the other thing that I hear from you too, is this learner's mindset of like, okay, I don't know everything. You know, other people might be smarter than me. That learner's mindset, even if you've got to a certain age and you feel like you you've you know enough, you don't. Not not unless you're maybe Jeff Bezos' level of you know, business, you know, and I'm sure Jeff is uh probably also thinking, I don't know enough.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

No, of course. What Jeff knows is is he needs other smart people around him. Uh you know, the inn the smartest thing you can know is knowing that you don't know anything. And and really at this point, I mean, when I'm with our teams, I I have a pad of paper. I'm writing down acronyms because there's new acronyms or initialisms or whatever that I'm like, what the hell is this one? I didn't hear this one. I'm like, what remember the good old days when we actually said all the words? You know, but they're smart and I learn from them. Yeah, you know, and what what I bring is experience, wisdom, and you know, an understanding of market that maybe they can learn from me. And together we partner up for success.

SPEAKER_04 50:35

So it sounds like that's what you brought to the table to the OEM. Um you finished your uh product, you you made it as good as you thought it could be. When did you launch?

SPEAKER_02 50:47

So we made we we made our first manufacturing run in it went into production August of 16 for an October delivery. How many skews did you have? We started at the time we had one, two, we had we had four skews. And what were they? They were the eight-inch frying pan, the 10-inch frying pan, the 12-inch frying pan, and our 12-inch stir fry pan. How did you decide what the skews were going to be? So this is something else I knew. Like I knew we couldn't come to market with everything. And by the way, we were still developing it. You know, we we could it took us a couple years to figure out how to make a saucepan with that design on it. It was so difficult because we were inventing a new category. So it wasn't just like some shitty frying pan that you're buying at the Canton Fair and I'm gonna bring it over. Like all I don't like badmouth the competition, but generally I will say uh most cookware out there, it's all interchangeable, there's nothing unique about it.

SPEAKER_04 51:51

Um, I just chucked on my my pots and pans. Yeah, just because I cycled through them. They're you know, they were ceramic garbage all scratched up. And so I just chucked them.

SPEAKER_02 51:59

Yeah. The um so so for us, we know what are the workhorses? They're your frying pans. Yeah. So let's come to market with them. Let's get you hooked on the pans that are the ones that you got to use every day. Yeah. And then if you like them, you're gonna trust us later on. But also, you know, development costs, we had no money. We had we the juicer, just as we got to wow, we're we're starting we next week we start paying ourselves. And then, oh wait, we had a bad week. It'll be better next week. We never paid ourselves. And when I saw what we had with cookware, um, I actually went out. I took it out to raise money, and I got laughed out of rooms.

SPEAKER_04 52:44

What were you asking for?

SPEAKER_02 52:46

Well, you know, God, to be honest, it changed multiple. I don't I I'd have to go back and look, but it wasn't that. What it was when I went out, there were two things. They're like, Do you know how competitive cookware is? I go, I do. As a matter of fact, I really do.

SPEAKER_05 53:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

I go, but we have finally an innovation. And they're like, Well, how are you gonna get shelf space? How are you? They there, you know, there's five cookwares in bed, bath, and beyond. How are you gonna get them to kick one of them out to put you there? And I go, I don't want shelf space because we're gonna be the first D2C cookware brand. And they're like, Thank you for coming by. Yeah. And so one they weren't respectful of how technologically impressive Hexglad was. But really, when when Cole and I said we're gonna be the first D2C cookware brand, um, they didn't get that. They're like, people don't buy cookware that way. Yeah. I go, yes, they don't buy it yet. But you know what it gave what had given me the idea of it was I read something about cookbook sales going down. And I'm like, people are getting food content online. And I go, so we're getting our recipes there, you know, we're watching, you know, we're starting to watch TV shows that way. Um it's just a matter of time till we buy the hardware that way. Yeah. And it made perfect sense to me. And then it's easier to again to go back to starting that community and we live on the internet. And nobody I either I didn't express it clearly enough, which I'll I'll take maybe in one meeting I didn't, but any other meeting, those people were too fucking stupid to see it and to take a chance.

SPEAKER_06 54:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:44

But we uh we we kept 100% of the company that way too.

SPEAKER_04 54:49

Yeah, and it sounds like you didn't have much to lose. Like you guys are already kind of off the rocks of hitting rock bottom.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

We had everything. So because of that, when Cole and I looked at each other, we're like, if we believe in this, we we went all in. Like I emptied all my retirement accounts. Over 90% of my entire uh uh net worth was in Hex Clad.

SPEAKER_04 55:15

Was this just to make the first run?

SPEAKER_02 55:17

Uh to yeah, and get it and create every I mean, you know, all this stuff like people know, like I we get compliments on the Hex Clad logo all the time. They're like, oh, you know, what did that cost to design? Um, that cost $200 to design because I put a contest up on a website called 99 Design. Yeah. And that's all I could afford. So I'm like, and I had all these amazing young artists from Indonesia, from Pakistan sending in these designs. We had like 60 really good ones. So we're like, wow, that was, you know, and Cole and I came up with, you know, uh, you know, join the hybrid revolution and these tax. Can we trademark? Great, we can do that. Yeah. Everything written on the box is I wrote, you know, everything. I wrote the warranty with, you know, and sent it to the Lord. I don't want you write it, I can't afford for you to write it. Yeah. So I wrote it and I go, now make sure I'm it's legal. Yeah. So that's how we did everything. In fact, that first shipment of cookware, we found that we could save like 15% by by shipping it, like just the pans nested in their in their bags, not in the box. And we then we we we lied to like Yellow Freight or somebody at the time. We're like, they're like, Well, is that a residential address you're delivering to? We're like, no, no, it's not. That's a common mistake. Right. And the guy shows up, he's like, I can't drop here. This is a house. That's not, and so we're like, say hello to Mr. Franklin. Can you drop it now? And you know, we dropped it in an alleyway, and then we carry it in his backyard, and we set up, you know, a line where we're taping the boxes, we're jamming pans in, closing them up. We we had so many paper cuts that we're getting blood on the boxes. We had to clean blood off them before we could sell them. Yeah, fulfilling everything you should do. Yeah. And then we drive them to the UPS store.

SPEAKER_04 57:15

Well, how much did you invest in that first run? Give me a ballpark. Was it $100,000? Was it a million dollars?

SPEAKER_02 57:22

Uh I would say between Cole and I, we were in there somewhere between 800 and a million. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:31

Um and was that the MOQ at the time? The uh basically you maxed that out?

SPEAKER_02 57:37

Yes. Yeah, we did on the first, yeah, on that first order. That was product development, product testing, uh, creating the packaging design. You know, you know, you think about it, but I'm like, uh I got to create a box for an eight inch, a ten-inch, a twelve inch, I gotta get the big do the big box. So creating um, you know, all of that, the the initial website, um, you know, you know, to save money, we would write everything ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 58:03

And you know, what other DTC brands were doing it well in that space? So who are you looking at?

SPEAKER_02 58:08

Like there was from a ballsy perspective, I was looking at Casper, Matt. Okay. Because they gave me hope. They were ahead of us. And my initial reaction was nobody's gonna buy a mattress that way. Yeah. And then I went, hmm. Maybe they would. Yeah. And then I bought one. Yeah. And experience was fine. Experience was fine. Yeah. And that gave me like, I can do this. It's bigger than a box of fans. Yeah. And you know, and the thing was nobody had done it in the cookware space. Like, I kind of I take like a little bit of pride. Cole and I will be like, look at all these, you know, you cook. So if you know, you follow any any cook cook uh content creators, cooking content creators, you're getting our ads, you're getting all these, and like, you know, we were the first ones to say, hey, we can do it this way. And then like a year later, you over the next few years, all these brands became these D2C cookware darlings. And uh, you know, you're like a little flattered because I bet you these are backed by some VC that laughed us out of the room in 2016. And then they they backed some inferior product later on.

SPEAKER_04 59:22

So, how did you come up? You know, this show is called Behind the Brand. We talk about brands a lot. Um, how did you choose to sort of go into that premium space? I mean, it was somewhat driven, it sounds like, from the get. You know, you've got all this technology, patented. I mean, it was sort of decided for you, but how do you look at the difference between like a product and a brand? Yeah, you know, what's the difference? And then talk about what the HexCloud brand is.

SPEAKER_02 59:50

Okay. Um so one is like we all know what you're comfortable with as a businessman. What like, and by that I I I go, do you what do you want to be associated with? Some people are very comfortable being associated with this is a cut rate disposable product, and I'm here to make money. And that's how I will judge my self-worth based on my bank account. I'm always of the belief that can I bring the best possible product, adopt you as a lifetime partner as a customer, and the money will come. Um, so it it's funny. I know so many products that think they're brands, and I know brands that think they have a great product, and they do they don't.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:43

Yeah, I mean your juicer didn't make it to brand. It's it no state of product.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:46

It's state of product. Yeah. Uh we were trying to make it a brand, but it didn't, you know, it didn't uh we didn't have enough money to make it a brand. We didn't have we were weren't able to deliver the message, and then ultimately it died its natural death before you know and you call it juiceso, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:03

So it was sort of kitschy name too, like off the back of Nespresso.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:07

Yeah, and it was right after that came. You know, we got a lot of compliments on the name at the time, but yeah, you know, whatever you're trying to do, yeah, we thought it was cutesy, and um, you know, really what it was, but that was me deciding for the market as opposed to letting the market decide. And that's really the most disrespectful thing you can do. The market, you can't what your job is to communicate to the market. You're not gonna make the market really buy something that they don't like, they don't see value in it.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:41

Oh, wholeheartedly agree. Yeah, yeah. You can surprise and delight them. Absolutely, bring them something they didn't expect. Yeah, yeah, yes, absolutely. You can. And that's kind of what you're getting with Xclub, too. I mean, it's well, I've never seen anything like it.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:53

Thank you. And and and here's the thing ultimately, what this comes down to is like what was my cole, my goal and Cole's goal. We always wanted to be a legacy brand, which is very unusual. In fact, probably me saying that in front of some VC guys, like they didn't want to hear that. They want how do we accelerate growth and how the hell do we get out?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:15

Yeah, how do we get to 100 million?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:16

Yep. And I'm like, no, no, no. I I I go, you don't get it. Well, you know, I'm like, yeah, I want to get to 100 million, but what I want to do is I want to build a brand that people trust. I want to be around 50 years, 80 years, because that's just who I am. So I'm not gonna bring crap to the market. So I can't get excited about getting up in the morning saying, I got a hundred bucks out of you for a five-dollar frying pan, and you'll never trust me again. But haha, your hundreds in my bank account, not in yours. And there's a lot of people that do that, and that's not us. You know, everything we make, um except our wood products, which we can't do, but our cookware, our pepper mills, they have lifetime guarantees. If they don't let work in 25 years, we're gonna give you a new one. Um, and you know how we know it? We test them like crazy. Um so I look at these other products, they have one-year warranties.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:16

Is that profitable to do that that way?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:18

Um people would say that's crazy in a way. Um, but I would say this right now, one, we have a we have a pretty good AOV, you know, a $400 AOV. Um you know, which I can be very profitable on what it costs me to acquire that customer. Right now, we we have to guesstimate our our LTV because um there are a couple channels where we don't get the data. Like we have a relationship with Costco, they don't share the data with us, but we know that they buy a lot. So our LTV is closer to flirting 800 US dollars. So I'm like, people are trusting us and coming back. And that's the way I feel like I'm gonna build the business. It's riskier, right? Yeah, I everybody would love to make toilet paper, right? You gotta keep buying it. But I'd say if I make a good 10-inch pan, you'll buy my 12. If I make a good 12-inch pan, you'll buy my peppermint. You love my peppermint, you buy our Damascus steel knives. And that's always been our business model. And the thing is, then if you believe in it, you're gonna tell your friends and you're gonna buy them for your kids at their wedding, and you're gonna buy it for your grandmother at Christmas. I want to be, somebody said, You want to be Apple of Cookware? I'm like, actually, no, because I uh I love their cult status that they have, but I don't want to make something that uh has a planned obsolescence to it. Right. I go, the best comparison I could think of is with like when I was a kid, like my dad in the 1980s, if he wanted anything in audiovisual, he'd be like, Where's the Sony? Where do they keep the Sony stuff? It wasn't the at most expensive in the world, it wasn't cheap. The Sony Trinitron TV was a lot more expensive, but you know what? It was better than most things, and Sony backed it up. So he would he didn't have to research. Yeah, back when you had to buy the magazine, yeah. You know, he didn't have to buy magazines because he'd just go to Circuit City and go, where do you guys keep the Sony? And then he would look, and yeah, and it was more than the Panasonic, but it was, and I kind of like that about it. I want people to go, when I think about the kitchen, all I got to do is honey, just go to hexclad.com. You know, we Hexclad did all the work for you.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:39

So, so how would you describe the brand then? I mean, you've sort of been dancing around it with other descriptive words.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:44

I get it, I get the nuance and feeling, but yeah, to get back to the original question, which is yeah, so what when we started, what we wanted to do was revolutionize the kitchen. And whatever that product was, it had to be highly innovative. Okay. It had to be built to last. It had to be something that when you're investing in it, you as the consumer knew you're parting with that money for the first and only time for that product. And so like when we came up with the with our first tagline was revolutionize your kitchen. Might sound hokey, but what it was was it was about I'm buying innovation in a in the stalest of categories. Yeah. You're getting rid of the cheap Teflon pan, you know, that's peeling off, that hasn't changed since 1958. You're gonna get rid of that heavy, rusty cast iron skillet that hasn't changed since 1700 or something. And now you're buying the hybrid revolution. And what that is was about game-changing technology. What that was uh is somebody asked me early on, what are you? I go, we're badass cookware. That's who we are.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:55

And I go, and you know what? Here's the great thing. You have a badass in you, that's why you started your own business. Okay, I have a badass in me. That's why I started my own business. My 12-year-old niece is a fucking badass. And she's a badass because she won't take a head start to compete against boys in a hundred-yard dash. You know, she's she just she said to me one time, she goes, I don't want the head start. I just don't want to be behind them. And I'm like, exactly. And a 80-year-old grandma who cooks for the whole family out in the Midwest, she's a badass. So this is about finding your inner badass, which was why it was so perfect that Gordon Ramsey became our partner because nobody's a bigger badass than Gordon. You know?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:38

The most important thing is keep the root on. Keep the root on, and I promise you you won't start crying. I like to slice that in half first. And depending how thin and finely chopped it like this, depends on how wide those slices are. Keep it grouped together carefully, let the knife do the work, and then literally again, motion, finger in front, two behind, and just chop that shlot. Just look how finely chopped that slot is. If I wanted to go a little bit larger, and I go about half a centimeter, still the same motion, true, and then look, a lot bigger chunks. I've got a large dice and a fine dice. It's all to do with how close you keep that knife across the cellon.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:31

So, really finding that brand and how do you identify with that? And that took us from just being a good product into something more, and that's why that we are transitioning currently from just being a badass cookware brand to a badass cooking lifestyle brand, where we own the kitchen, we own the experience, we own recipes, we own the experiential. How do you go and get an opportunity to sit down at a dinner curated by Gordon Ramsey or Nancy Silverton or Dominique Grant? We want to own all of that.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:04

Yeah, I love it. Uh yeah, we talked so much about brands here. The one common thing that keeps bubbling up is a brand is distinct. You know, it stands for something. When it doesn't, you know, talk about Costco, for example. I'll go there and I'll I'll buy ibuprofen. You know, there's a hundred pellets or whatever, and then Advil's right next to it. It's like, I don't need the brand. I the generic is good enough because I don't care. There's no difference, right? And so it's not distinct. Uh Advil is blue or whatever the color is, but that's about it. They both work the same way. So, you know, it sounds like you're building a brand that's distinct. It has certain, you know, characteristics, features, and benefits, and technology and patents, and and then above all that, there's an attitude that goes with it. Like people like us, who are badass, do stuff like this. We cook with this kind of stuff. And so um a brand becomes a shorthand for what you stand for, what people can expect from you. Well, but you know, like when you you go see uh a James Bond movie, you know it's gonna be there. There's gonna be some shaking and nutster, there's gonna be some fast cars, there's gonna be some beautiful people, probably some violence. You don't even have to see the trailer, and you know what you're gonna get. And and ideally, that's how you're building a brand. But then once you launch it out into the general public, then it's in the hearts and minds of the people. They get to decide. And that's the beauty of it, right? Like, so you've created this thing, I made this for you, you ship it, you know, they buy it, you ship it, and then they get to decide. And so the brand can have many different interpretations, millions if you have millions of customers. Um, but hopefully it's tracking back to what you are creating, an experience for them or you know, an expectation for them. If you say you can send this thing back, you know, 25 years from now, you better keep your word. Oh, yeah. And then if you do, then that becomes what your brand's about too. Oh, uh Danny keeps his promises. I can trust him. You know, it's a brand that you trust. You think about Volvo, you think of safety, you know, you think of uh you know, Mercedes-Benz, you you know, it's a luxury, uh, high-performing, fast automobile, you know. And so these characteristics become synonymous with the brand because they they walk the talk. Yeah, right. So tell me what it's like working with a Gordon Ramsay. Like, is is he an investor? Is he a partner? Is he an influencer? Like, what's the relationship?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:42

So uh Gordon is a partner in the company. He's got equity. He he has equity, yeah. And uh he uh I I uh you know, I I even told my assistant, I'm running late because Gordon's had me on the phone for an hour and 15 minutes this morning. Yeah, which is true because he's he's very he's very involved.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:02

Hands on, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:02

It you know, it's really surprising and in a in a weird way, like you know, now that he that we're friends, um, you know, it's one thing, but I still kind of go in our space, you know, we got you know, we have Michael Jordan, you know, you know, it's like it doesn't get better than that, and it was so unplanned and innocent. I mean, it was quite simply we realized Gordon was following us on Instagram.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:32

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:33

And it was like you're paying attention in the summer 20. And you know, we were in the pandemic, it's going crazy, and the company's exploding, but and the guy who was managing our our Instagram's like, oh, uh, should I reach out? I'm like, yeah, reach out. Yeah, no brains. And he simply simply messaged and said, Hey, saw you following us, you know. Have you tried the cookware? And like the next day, response, yeah, Gordon got somebody gifted Gordon a pan. He really likes it. He's been cooking at home during the pandemic.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:06

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:07

Can we send you some more? Sure, send some more. By the way, does Gordon have a cookware deal? I don't know. I'll find out. I don't think so. And then a couple days later, I was on a phone call with Gordon's business manager. And Gordon's business manager uh is a great guy. And, you know, and I'm like, he's a big shot London attorney, you know, he's got like all these rock stars on his roster lists. And but we start talking, and you know, he's like, Listen, Gordon likes your product. So that's you know, the that's table stakes. Yeah. He goes, and look, you know, I don't even remember the number, but he's like, you know, he'd probably do a commercial. You know, he doesn't do a many, he does a couple a year, maybe, but um, so if whatever, a million dollars, he'll show up to a like oh that's a lot of money. Uh and but he goes, almost as I'm thinking it, he's he he speaks and says, but Gordon likes the product. I think he'd be interested in doing something more robust. And I'm like, robust, I like that. What what does that look like? And let's, you know, and he's like, Listen, Gordon, when Gordon gets involved, uh, he's very, very involved. You know, he's time poor, hardest working man I know. He goes, but when you get Gordon Ramsay, you get more than you bargained for. And I go, is I go, is that a promise or a threat? And he says, Yeah, both. I'm like, sounds good. What's next up?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:33

So we talk about a distinct brand. I mean, yeah, there's a very unique and distinct personal brand. Yeah. One of the one of the one of the best in this category for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:45

Yeah. And you know, the the the interesting thing is, um, if you had said to me in 16 or 17, like pick who would you pick of any celebrity in the world that represents your brand perfectly. I'd be I would have been like Gordon Ramsey, but it will never happen. He's the biggest chef in the world. Yeah. And, you know, and we had a couple calls and cut to like a Zoom that was set up. Um, you know, uh maybe October-ish of 20. And I remember logging on and like he was the first one on. So like I just see this giant face, he's like right up against the van. I'm in fact, I I maybe I've admitted it like once, but like uh, you know, I'm doing that's it's like London, he's in London. I'm you know, in the in LA. And so I'm like, I had the shirt on, but I was like in my boxers or something. Sure, sure, sure. So I had a coffee, and I remember I was like, I'm nervous. I'm like, this is one of the biggest calls of my life because could go a bunch of different ways. Yeah, and I remember like sitting right over here, I saw a bottle, bottle of Woodford Reserve. I just grabbed it and I'm like, I put a shot in the coffee to kind of calm myself down. Yeah. So then, like after a couple sips, I'm like, Gordon, you know, but we hit it off immediately. And what we did was we immediately started talking about what we could do and how can we blow this up and take it to the next level. And you know, Gordon's like, I'm gonna use it in my restaurants and my TV shows, and we're gonna do this. And and we're like, Yeah, let's let's do this. And I think we all got off that call, like, you know, now it's up to the lawyers to fuck it up or not. It's on now, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:22

Yeah, amazing. Yeah. Uh so what advice then can you impart to other people that are thinking about working with influencers? So or celebrities.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:30

That's a really so not everything works, obviously, for for every product. I think it's very attractive to to work with a celebrity. Like I think that you know, Ashton Kutcher, Ryan Reynolds, George Clooney, um, you know, they made it very cool to be the star slash business man. And I think because of that a lot of people would like a piece of your company.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:06

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:07

And I would be hesitant to give away equity to just to a celebrity. Right. I really think you there needs to be a really synergistic um relationship to that partnership. Right. Because you know, I've seen people and I'm like, okay, why is so-and-so involved with that? I mean, uh yeah, I guess they got hired for a commercial, but I'm like, the fact is once they get known for that, like Gordon Ramsey gives us credibility. This is right, he he's arguably one of the top five chefs in the world. He he's had three Michelin stars at his flagship restaurant for twenty three or twenty-four years. Yeah, no, he goes without saying he's the guy. He's the guy. Yeah. So when you can get something like that, like if I was making something in the sports space, and you know, I don't know, if I could get Ronaldo. Yeah, great. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:02

You know, then our friends at Whoop just said the side, I had Will Ahmed who runs this company called uh Woop or the Whoopstrap. It's so wearable, like a Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:11

I've seen it. And and they just signed Cristiano Ronaldo. But see, that makes sense. And that's and that's worth it. And and are you getting the right part partner? Yeah. Like not many people get something where you get a guy who's super involved, like Gordon. So I think understanding that if you're bringing somebody in as your partner, they should be proud to be your partner, by the way. It shouldn't be like you got to grudgingly get them out to to honor their two events they have to show up for, yeah, and their two filming days and whatever that looks like.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:38

They don't actually use the right. I mean, Kim Kardashian and skims, that makes perfect sense too. I mean, she's you know, embodies literally the product, and it's like it makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:48

Yeah, many, many of them do. I mean, I would have said a while ago, Ryan Reynolds and aviation gin, that doesn't make sense to me, unless I don't know Ryan, uh, but uh maybe he's a huge gin drinker, uh, but I don't believe he is. I think he likes gin, but I don't think he's like, I have a dream to own a gin company. I think it was something that worked, and he said, I believe in this product and watch what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:16

Yeah, my hot take on that is that Ryan Reynolds is the anomaly. He's actually a brilliant marketer and like advertising genius. He understands comedic timing and he's a brilliant storyteller. So it's, I mean, slot in any product, you know, uh he could make probably a new brand of bread and we'd buy it. It's not about aviation gin being special or some of these other, you know, like he bought a uh phone company, right? And he invested in a soccer team, right? And made a documentary about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:51

But but what he does, which is so admirable, is it's not like, hey, you just get here, you got me, you know, whatever the contract says. Yeah. Um, he's like, I'm gonna build this business, I'm gonna get involved. And that's the reason why it gives his partnership with Aviation Gin credibility. Because, hey, I'm out here promoting this product, I'm doing it all the time. That says to me, as the consumer, this guy believes in it, that he just didn't take his check. Um, and so I would always say when you're gonna give up equity, look at that partnership, really see the alignment. Because if they really are aligned and believe in it, they're gonna go above and beyond.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:34

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:35

Because you, you know, the thing is, right? If you if you're enjoying the upside, why wouldn't you do everything you can to grow the business?

SPEAKER_04 1:20:42

Yeah, yeah. We had um CEO of uh Chamberlain Coffee on here the other day, and Emma Chamberlain, you know, is this 23-year-old influencer on YouTube who loves coffee, and so it was a natural, great natural uh extension. Uh you have the Logan Paul brothers uh doing their things with prime drinks and you know, their their personalities and their pitchmen are kind of like a Ryan Reynolds type where they can doesn't matter really what they create, they've already got the audience's uh attention, and so that makes sense. So I think that's really good advice.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:18

Um and one thing if you don't mind, yeah, because you you you know, and I separate them all, uh like I don't really consider Gordon an influencer for us. And then there's but I think like influencer is key. Now there are different levels of import, right, with with influencers. But I think like finding the right group of influencers who maintain their their personal brand credibility um when they like your product, I think to accelerate growth, I think that's key. And then also on top of that, to have a really smart um smart and well-planned out affiliate strategy as well. I I think a company is doing themselves a disservice if they don't start that relatively early on in the process.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:12

And I mean, I I think I have an idea why, but I'd like to hear from you. Is it just because it amplifies the reach by orders of magnitude?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:20

Uh I mean, I think in it's in probably its most important and its most basic. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, you nailed it. That's it. You know, and the people, these people are building personal brands. And when they lose their brand, personal brand, it's hard to get it back. Um it can happen, but usually people move on to other influencers then. Right. Um, so when you get the right ones, it does give your product credibility. When when you realize that the one gift you have with your you know, 800,000 TikTok followers is that your audience trusts you. If you give your won your your equity away, which is trust, well, you got nothing now. So so then if they trust you and you trust HexClad, you know, they're gonna trust HexClad as well. They might not be ready to buy yet. I don't need them to buy today. I want it to be in the back of their mind, though, at least. I love when it converts early, but you know, I I can also I have the luxury of being in the position where I can play the long game now as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:26

Yeah. So launched in 2016, basically, it's 2024 today. What's the growth of the company look like? Like where are you at revenue-wise-ish?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:37

So uh you know, we're projecting this year to do around 600 million in revenue. Amazing.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:50

So now in hindsight, you know, you you risked everything, mortgaged, you know, everything you had, went for it and is paid off.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:01

Yes. And I don't know if I would recommend that for everyone, but yeah, but I think uh measured risk will reap enough reward and uh you'll feel really good about yourself if you take a measured risk.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:20

I I I don't know if I would say like I risked everything. And you know, and even with a great product, if something hadn't worked right, I would have been, you know, at the time uh 51 years old and broke with like 20 grand in the bank or something or whatever was left and looking for a job and you know, maybe I could tell the story of it. I tried. Um, but you know, but I think like, you know, where I say where I was not reckless, I had the advantage of knowing this space really well. And I knew I had a game changer. And if it meant I had to reinvent, if it meant I had to go back to one of those convention centers with my hex clad and start at really slow grassroots, I knew I wasn't gonna starve.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:08

Yeah. I mean I love the story. I love the glory that that you you're winning now. But I think the central theme that I'm pulling out is this quote uh most men live lives of quiet desperation. And it's that like regret of not going for it when you know that you can that hurts the most. So it's like this idea of playing it safe is the risky riskiest thing you can do. Knowing that you've got the chops or you got the whatever you got that you you could attempt to do this when you do and you take a chance, even if you fail, you know, you get back up, you try it again with the juicer, you know, your second time up with the plate or whatever, you hit it out of the park. Great. Um, I think that's what this is about. Is like taking the risk, going for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:05

Um I agree. Uh it's you know, one thing like I I I because I never want to marginalize the risk that Cole and I took, because the fact is, I love the idea that that your audience, a lot of them are gonna listen to this podcast or the next one you do, and they're gonna go, you know what, screw it, I'm gonna do it too. And that is amazing. That you know, and hopefully they learn from all the tips from being uh a consistent listener. Really look, you know, sometimes we we say this stuff and it turns into a one size fits all, and it and and it it doesn't, uh and it goes beyond your appetite for risk. I was single, I don't have kids. You know, Cole was single, didn't have kids. Yeah. Okay, I'm not like I didn't like cash out the the college fund, you know. So there are there is a level of uh of uh uh of risk that needs you to take stock of it and measure accordingly. Um, it doesn't mean you can't be successful. You it just means maybe you don't grow a hundred percent every year like HexClad does. It doesn't mean you're not a success, and it doesn't mean if you're in for the long game, it doesn't mean you won't be a $600 million company in 15 years versus doing it in six or seven years.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:33

I agree. I think it's uh I I totally agree with what you're saying, but I think there can be a one size fits all uh litmus test or measurement test, and that is just a simple personal risk versus reward system. So, you know, like this idea that we have to fail, like that it's okay to fail, is really important to remember, but also equal. Important is that baked into that notion is that if we fail, we have to build in this ability to come back and play again. Because you know, you could jump out of the airplane and not check your parachute twice, and you only get one shot at that, right? Yeah. So it's like, okay, that's not the kind of risk you want to take. Because the risk reward, the risk is way higher than the reward of not double checking, triple checking your parachute, right? So I think whatever endeavor you're doing, small, medium, or 600 million, you're just doing that risk reward benefits like, can I afford mentally or financially to take this risk? Can I, if I fail, can I come back and play another day? Can I can I buy another ticket to uh China to walk those halls? You know, can I go to zero in my bank account and eat the top ramen that's sitting in the back of the cupboard? You know? Yeah. And so if the answer is yes, then go for it. If the answer is no, you know, like I've got a family now. It's like I'm uh if I go on a roller coaster, they're all coming with me, that may not be worth doing. I've got to maybe hedge a little bit. Yes. So you're making adjustments.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:23

And it is, and and it's true. There is a level of hedging, but we but still where you can risk, take chance, believe in yourself. Yeah. Um, you know, you know, the that also comes back to um, I think some people go, Oh, I've got my my family, or I have to, so I have to make this work. Read the writing on the wall. You can't magically make it work. If it's not meant to work, it's okay. Regroup, right? Pull back, regroup, close down the juicer, start, start the cookware. Because, like we started this conversation off talking about failure. I I I I spoke at VCon last year to this group, and that's what I talked about. Was my my part was about failure. I go, failure has been my my uh my nemesis and my best friend in my road to success. Um you have to, you have to really look like I talked about in the mirror. When it comes to failure, what was my role in the failure? What wasn't my role? You know, you're gonna have a big role in it, you know, these things, and you only do great things. Like I I used to love, I wasn't good enough to play college football. You know, I was a quarterback in high school, and I got to a really competitive league at NYU. And I remember I ran and coached my my fraternity team, and this was everything. And I remember my first year in charge in the championship game, I threw the interception that lost us the championship. I obsessed for an entire year about that. And I obsessed about the whole game because I'll tell you what, I wasn't good enough in that game. And this is a little thing, but this is like the first time I remember in my life where I failed, where my failure affected others. And maybe I was overconfident. Maybe uh I should have watched that other team play a couple times and I didn't. But whatever I did, I had two more years before I graduated. The next two years, I quarterbacked them to the championship, and that team, we never gave up a single point every both seasons during that. And it's a stupid little thing, but it made it's the thing that got me to go, hey you you might not be the hot shot that you think you are. And I'm gonna really look at myself and look at the role I play more my failures and to my successes because I'm being I'll tell you what, I'll be happy to give you this success for the for the win or her or her, you know, and I'll I'll I'll put all the failure on my shoulders because in the long run, I can handle it, my shoulders can handle that, but then I get to enjoy the win with you at some point. Anyway, so anyway, that that was a moment in my life that like really like I I I reflect on that silliness from 20 when I was 20 years old. But you know, those are the little things that kind of set the foundation for the for the man we're going or woman we're going to become.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:47

Yeah. I think that's the thing about adversity, right? That's what uh Nietzsche said. Uh whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:55

But the uh the corollary to that is uh sometimes adversity kicks your ass, and you and you don't come back from it.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:03

Yeah, I mean, hopefully we do. Like as long as you keep a glimmer of hope. Like I I touched on you know 2016, 2015 and 2016, when there was no fucking money, and like the panic of waiting waking up, and you really nobody's you see it in your friends' eyes where they're kind of like, dude, are you sure about that? Are you sure? And and you you really only have yourself at that point. You either really believe, and then you you go, am I fooling myself, or am I is it hubris? Yeah, is it you know, yeah, and luckily when you go back to ultimately, I knew I had a really, really good product. So there are people that have an okay product and they can have a great business with it, but that get that got me through those sleepless nights, knowing that I had a really good product. And if given the opportunity, if you let me tell you the product story, I think I'm gonna get your money, you know. So it's it's a crazy, crazy uh whirlwind uh starting a business. But I gotta be honest, I uh I it's the best thing I've ever done, you know, the most challenging, the most joy, the most heartache, the most aggravation, the most laughs. But um, yeah, I wouldn't change it.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:36

I mean, we were just sitting back, you know, chopping it up, reminiscing about the good old days and all that, you know, tracking my roots, where I came from and where I'm going. Like I say, man, I say.