Unbelievable Insights from a Former NFL Player Turned Entrepreneur Joe Hansley

Never Been Promoted Podcast with Thomas Helfrich

Embark on a journey with Joe Hansley, the visionary founder of Gomix, as we explore the intertwining paths of health and entrepreneurship on the Never Been Promoted Podcast. With a rich background in health and wellness Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) and a passion for product innovation, Joe shares the evolution of Gomix from concept to a leading brand in the nutritional beverage industry. Dive into the story of a former athlete turned entrepreneur, whose quest for convenient nutrition led to the creation of a patented packaging solution revolutionizing how we consume supplements.



About Joe Hansley:

Raised in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, Joe Hansley's journey from athlete to entrepreneur is nothing short of inspiring. As a former football player for Colorado State and briefly with the Oakland Raiders, Joe's transition into the world of entrepreneurship began with a desire to solve a problem he faced personally - the lack of convenient, quality nutrition. In 2017, he founded Gomix, a company that specializes in a patented ready-to-mix nutritional beverage solution, focusing on delivering quality nutrition in a convenient package. Joe's work extends beyond Gomix, contributing to the Human Optimization Project and partnering with Menasha Packaging to innovate in the health and wellness packaging space.



In this episode, Thomas and Joe discuss:

• The athlete's perspective on health and entrepreneurship: From the football field to the boardroom, Joe shares how his athletic discipline shaped his entrepreneurial journey.
• Gomix: The inception, challenges, and triumphs behind a revolutionary packaging solution designed for the health-conscious consumer on the go.
• Lessons from the locker room to the business world: Joe reflects on the importance of mentorship, resilience, and adapting to challenges in both sports and business.

Key Takeaways:

• The Eureka Moment: Discover the inspiration behind Gomix and how identifying a personal need led to a breakthrough innovation in nutritional supplements.
• Lessons from the Field: The disciplines of sports and entrepreneurship are intertwined, teaching valuable lessons in persistence, teamwork, and strategic thinking.
• Embracing Mentorship: Reflecting on the influence of coaches and mentors, Joe highlights the value of guidance and open-mindedness in navigating the entrepreneurship landscape.

“I've learned to embrace the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, focusing on solutions rather than dwelling on challenges.” — Joe Hansley



CONNECT WITH JOE HANSLEY:


Website (Company): https://gomixtech.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joehansley/



CONNECT WITH THOMAS:


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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashelfrich/
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Chapters

• 0:00 Closing Thoughts and Advice for Entrepreneurs
• 0:02 Introduction and Welcome
• 0:36 Joe Hansley's Background and GoMix
• 4:22 Transition from Athlete to Entrepreneur
• 5:07 The Importance of Health in Entrepreneurship
• 6:05 Lessons Learned and Entrepreneurial Growth
• 9:49 Seeking Mentorship and Building Networks
• 12:22 Reflections on Failure and Success
• 14:39 Achieving and Learning from Major Business Milestones
• 18:51 Entrepreneurial Mindset and Continuous Improvement
• 20:10 Future Plans and Smart Growth Strategies
• 22:26 The Entrepreneur's Journey: Reflecting and Looking Ahead
• 25:49 Closing Thoughts and Advice for Entrepreneurs

Transcript

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Thanks again, by the way.

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Welcome to another episode of Never Been Promoted. That's right. I've never been promoted. And if you've never been promoted as well, maybe it's because you have this deep need to become an entrepreneur. And so I'm here to help you unleash that. Hi, I'm Thomas Helfrich, the host of Never Been Promoted, where we are helping entrepreneurs be better at entrepreneurship and life. And we're doing this through telling the stories of other entrepreneurs, the things they've learned, how they failed, how they succeeded, and what they're doing in the future. And today I am joined by Joe Hansley.

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Joe, how are you today? I'm doing well.

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How are you doing?

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I'm delicious. Thank you for asking. I'm excited. You're the founder of Gomix, and we're going to talk a little bit about entrepreneurship and health. And if you joined this show before you know that, you'll know we're going to take you through to learn about Joe, his background, his entrepreneurial path, but also about what he's learned along the way. And specifically, I think the topic around health and health is wealth. Right. We're going to learn this. If this is your first time listening, congratulations. You get ten dad points. And if you're not a dad, you'll understand that when you are. One day, maybe, but you can use those anywhere if you can just figure out where that is. Anyway, thank you for listening for the first time, but let's jump into meeting Joe. Joe, you want to set up the stage here a little bit and tell us a little about yourself and what you're currently working on, and we'll back into how you got there.

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Yeah, let's do it. Appreciate you having me on, by the way. Good to see you again. But, yeah. So my background is heavily in the health and wellness CPG space, involved with a few different companies, a few different projects. Right now, kind of my baby and what I founded back in 2017 is a company called Go Mix, and we have a patented ready to mix nutritional beverage solution. So it's a packaging delivery system for nutritional powders. Kind of a convenience on the go based packaging that helps people consume their nutrition more conveniently.

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Yeah, I know you have a lot of things that are going on, and this is one of the main focus of your entrepreneurial kind of chi word to be. I'm not sure I was trying to use a pun word. I think that works. I think that's a seed and it means something more. So I think it works. But give me a history.

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How did you get here?

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Yeah, so my background. I grew up in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, nice suburb about 30 minutes south of Denver. Was really fortunate to grow up in a nice area. I have an amazing family, great parents, really supportive. They gave me every opportunity to try new things, figure out what works for me, figure out what makes me tick, really. I was an athlete growing up. Like, inevitably. I played sports all growing up, played high school sports, ended up deciding on football for college. I played football at Colorado State, played four years from 2012 to 2016. Following that, I had a quick little cup of coffee with the Oakland Raiders in 2016. Ended up getting released before the season, but it was a great experience nonetheless and really opened up my eyes to a lot of different things in the world. And I think I credit that experience to kind of entrepreneurial spirit and mindset and having some success in that area. But following that, I founded Gomix in 2017. That really got me into the health and wellness CPG space primarily. All the work that I do is on the packaging end. I have great partners that help with the supplementation and other aspects of the businesses. But yeah, right now I'm working on Gomix constantly. That's something that we've licensed out and we've had some success there. So I'm fortunate enough with that business model to be involved in other projects that work really synergistically with my network in that space. So I'm a partner on a company called the Human Optimization Project. We sell monthly health box, all geared towards longevity, and I work directly with a company called Manasha Packaging as well, helping them build out the graphic folding carton side of their health and wellness business. So really fortunate because it all kind of works and is married together and yeah, I love it, man. I'm a product junkie. I walk into stores and I pick up products. I look at the branding, I look at the packaging, and that's what I do.

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I think it's fair to say you.

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Have a nice package. I think you set that one up. I had to go there. I mean, you said I'm all about the package.

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Yeah, man, I appreciate that.

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All right, that's good. What position did you play?

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I was wide receiver, slot receiver, punt returner. I've won punt return in the NFL for 1 yd against Arizona Cardinals. Other than that, it was a quick journey, but like I said, I mean, unbelievable experience and really opened my eyes. I inevitably, quote unquote, gave up and decided to move on. But lot of good lessons learned and kind of sitting in a locker room with some of those guys, you look around and your perception changes a little bit.

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Yeah. And it's good because you didn't just give up and go crush a bottle. You said, hey, listen, I got other interests in life, and it sounds like you maybe went in eyes wide open, knowing that you're happy to be where you are and you're going to do the best you can, and if it doesn't work out, you still got a great life experience. And I think from an entrepreneurial lesson standpoint, that mindset is how you're going to have to approach your business. You're going to have a goal, you're going to have something you want to do, and then life's going to hit you in the face or a punt kickoff team is going to let you take one step and then put you on your face. One of the two. Metaphor or not. And I have to ask, how does it feel to get hit by an NFL punt team? Full speed.

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I didn't get smacked on that one punt return. I'll have to send you a video after this. I think it was probably 2013. I got knocked pretty good against Boise State. I fair caught every punt the rest of the season after that. Really tells you how it felt.

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Yeah.

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Oh, man.

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Yeah.

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I didn't like football only because it hurt. I was more of an indoor racquetball guy. And if you can't get any nerdier than that, let me just tell you, racquetball people rock.

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Yeah.

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Competing.

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Competing. Anything's good.

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It is. And in your business now, you have a lot of things going on, and I think a good part that I like about that, that I think people understand is you had a place you started, and you found a way to accept the business model in a way that you could go do more things. And so you're kind of working on the business and not so much in it and not that you didn't do work to get into and get it set up, which is you don't want to be hands off right away, but maybe talk about that mindset you have specifically. I think there's a deeper passion around health than just athletics, who it's targeted to. So maybe tie those two together of kind of how you got it launched, but the mindset of where you knew.

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You needed to take it for your own wellness. Yeah.

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So I always had an interest in business. I wanted to own my own business. I wanted to kind of create my own journey, my own path. I really started the company out of need. Just being an athlete. Growing up, I always struggled with the convenience around quality nutrition. There was a lot of stuff out there, but if it's a protein bar, an RTD shake that's already made and mixed up, there's a lot of preservatives and ingredients in there that aren't necessarily advantageous to the athlete or to your overall wellness. So Gomix does a really good job of putting a stable formula. All that's in it, if you want it to be, is quality ingredients that your body can use, and it couples it with a convenient way to consume. But diving into the story on how I got started, I had a previous business partner reach out to me. He had some experience on the direct consumer marketing side. We kind of decided we were going to leverage my network in athletics to launch our own brand. So I originally invented and came up with the concept, put together a supply chain, and basically create a product that was feasible to go to market with. And it was just a clean whey protein isolate. And we launched the brand and distributed online, went to some local kind of mom and pop gyms and different boutiques like that, and got some distribution. And then that really kind of proved the concept in my mind. I was like, all right, this is something that one. It makes sense for me. I know I would use it. Saw that there was a market in other areas, and kind of fast forward down the road a little bit. One of my current business partners came in, and he had a background in sports nutrition, working in different retailers. So he owned and operated a number of different stores across the country. And he said, hey, there's a much bigger picture here outside of your own brand. In distributing this, we should transition the model to more of a b to b contract manufacturing model. You have patents on the packaging, or at least they were filed at that time. Let's leverage that and go implement it into bigger brands, existing brands. They have distribution. And I'll be honest, at the time, from a business acumen standpoint, I had never thought of that. So to me, it was like, oh, my gosh, why didn't I think of this initially? But we transitioned the business model to that and have been run with it ever since. But as far as the kind of just general health and wellness and being in the nutrition space, I think it's so important from a performance standpoint, whether it's physically or mentally. I know for me personally, if I don't get a workout in in the morning, or I haven't been active in a couple of days, I don't perform at my best. So I'm grateful and thankful to have my two worlds. Something I'm passionate about on the business side and something I care about with my own health and wellness. For those to be coupled together, it makes it a little bit easier.

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You touched on something. I think you just kind of walked over because I think it's been part.

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Of your life in general, just because.

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You'Re in sports, and I see this in a lot of athletes have become entrepreneurs, is you had a coach, you seeked mentorship, and even now, probably you successfully are you crave it because that's your growing up is someone to show me the way to get better. And it'll be interesting. At some point you'll become that as well. And you probably are seeing signs of it now as you're not old, you can't see the guy. He's a good looking dude, he's young. Come on. This is how it works. At some point he's going to get gray. He's going to realize he's got to teach somebody. That aside, a coach, you had a mentor. You had somebody who knew you a little bit and knew their space, a lot of it, and they saw the.

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Opportunity to.

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Explain what it could be. And you were open to it because you have been in coached places. Neiman always liked your coaches, always liked your mentors, but you knew that they served a purpose for the most part, and probably higher up in your success, you got with sports. You saw that as well. And would you say that's a knowing thing that you were looking for that mentor? Or is it something that was serendipitous that you're just open to because it.

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Was part of your kind of.

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I think it's a combination of both. It was really ingrained in me the way my parents raised me. I think just naturally, just the day to day lessons and interactions I had with them, I think I was naturally open to coaching, obviously, being on different sports teams. If the coach doesn't like you and he don't want to put you on the field, you're not going to play and you're not going to have any opportunity. So I think I learned that you have to be open to criticism. You can't take things personally. And yeah, my whole philosophy in business and why I credit a lot of my success to in anything. And what I pay a lot of attention to is who I surround myself with when it comes to different people. I know there's the cliche saying around you're a sum of the five people you spend your most time with. I don't think there's any truer statement when it comes to how you go about your own business. It's prevalent every single day. I can see it in my day when I'm hanging out with people who aren't doing stuff, I seamlessly find my way to slack a little bit. When I'm around people who are constantly elevating their game and trying to push farther and farther, I tend to push a little bit harder, too. So maybe it's a character trait. Maybe it's something that I just developed as I grew up, but now I definitely know and consciously think about that stuff and put myself in better situations based off of where I want to go in my future.

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That's a great point.

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So I surround myself with three kids and wife, and I'm the fifth. I've explained so much now I actually have clarity on things I never had clarity on. Like, that's a great point. Honey, we're moving. Just kidding. What's one of the biggest, maybe lessons learned? Regrets or whatever it would be. And I know I'm calling on the failure side, but something you're like, you wish you would have known before you.

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Had kind of gone down the path.

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Yeah. I think for me, when I started getting some momentum and having some success and not even necessarily like, hey, we're selling millions of dollars, I'm making all this money. That's not really where I learned the lesson, but we started to have some success. We got an investing partner, we signed an international license that brought in some capital. And I think just from a business perspective, one of the biggest lessons I learned is not getting caught up in the ego side of being an entrepreneur, having a business and having success. Unfortunately, looking back, it's easy to see hindsight is always 2020. Wasted a lot of money on things that weren't productive towards the business. Now, it's not a regret because we always work through things, and I think everything's a learning experience, and you can learn a lot from trial and error. But going forward, I think I'm a lot more conscious of capital spend and where we're delegating capital and what we're putting resources towards and less worried about what's my perception to the outside world, to other people that are in my ecosystem? I think I wanted to be this big, successful entrepreneur. I want people to see it. Hey, I got this team. This guy works for me, putting all these pieces together, and to me, that was cool. And now I look back and it's so stupid. Because it wasn't good for the business. Right. We didn't necessarily grow smart in that aspect. So I'm willing to humble myself and kind of fall on the sword in that sense. But it was a great learning experience. Inevitably, I think I'm better from it for our growth move forward.

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Initially, you were saying effectively that it was about more about you and the vanity of it and less so just.

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About the business of it.

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Yeah, I think I just had an ego around it. Again, I don't regret the directions we went. I think if we had more time and I really dove into all the ups and downs that any entrepreneur goes through and that we've gone through as a business, we always overcame that hurdle. And I think, again, those are learning experiences, and I wouldn't have learned those lessons if we wouldn't have gone through them. But yeah, I think I was tied up in wanting to be my own boss, my own business owner and all those things, and having that perception around. Look at this guy's business. He's successful. And it's interesting because now I do work directly with a company where I am an employee. Again, I've said it before, but I'm grateful. That's super synergistics with my other projects. But I wish I would have had that same idea back then because I think I would have progressed a lot quicker in the consumer packaged goods, health and wellness space. And for me, working with Manash as a company, it opens up my platform, it gives me more to offer to my network. And I think that's really a big part of business is what value can you bring? And I think a lot of people, whether you're an entrepreneur or you're an employee, feel like if you have that thing, if you're an employee, that's your one thing that you can work on. Or if you're an entrepreneur, you can't go work at another company. And it's just not true. It's not the case. So obviously there's areas where you get into conflict of interest and different things like that, but you've got to find a wit to make the two work together or three or four or five, whatever the case may be. And inevitably, that's a good thing because your value and your platform that you bring to each different piece, it expands and grows in your network and it essentially feeds each other, and it's a snowball rolling downhill versus working against each other. I've worked for other companies when I've been on my entrepreneurial journey that were a little bit more conflicting, not from a conflict of interest standpoint, from a timing standpoint and structure around how that business was operated. Again, it's lessons learned, and it's all good now. I'm really grateful for where I'm at now.

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Describe the first time someone gave you how you felt. I described this moment to entrepreneurs. The first time someone gave you money for your idea like they bought something.

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Do you remember it?

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Yeah, the first time was good. I'll give you the first real time when it was a real customer. And it was kind of like that big moment. Realistically, the first time somebody gave me money was when my parents brought my product through my website, when I initially launched my own brand around Gomix. But fast forward down the road a little bit after we got an investing partner who had a great network, and we're kind of a little bit further along in business. Unbelievable feeling. We opened up this opportunity with a multi billion dollar brand out in Asia. And I remember getting on a call with their global executive. Actually, I was living in, in, in Denver, in the city area. I was young, I was naive. I was kind of just hustling day to day. And I remember getting on a call with these executives. I was just on the phone and I was shirtless, I was shoeless, and I was walking around the parking lot behind my apartment, almost like nervous pacing. And there was a couple of objections and initial trials and sampling and different things like that. And we had a conversation around working through that stuff. And then the chairman of the company actually got on the phone and he said, this is a novel concept. We want to go ahead and roll it out with two different skus to start and we'll see where it goes and the volumes that came over in that purchase order. It's a tough feeling to describe. I was like, holy shit, I don't know if I can cuss. Sorry.

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Of course, I do it all the time.

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Okay.

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I was like, we made it. This is going to be great. I'm going to be rich. It was like that aha moment, obviously. And entrepreneurs know, anybody who's grown a business knows that's just the beginning. And when one thing hits, something bad is going to happen, and you're going to have to overcome objections. So I was humbled very quickly. They actually ended up returning the initial, it was millions of units, and they returned a vast majority of that initial batch due to a labeling issue on the boxes. And when you're working with China, I'm getting emails coming over saying x amount of units were rejected. And I remember my phone? I would wake up in the middle of night all the time because of the time difference in work and email. And I saw had that been 03:00 a.m. And I saw that come over on my phone and my stomach just sunk right, like it was such a humbling feeling. Thankfully, it was a small little tweak. We just had to change some labels on the box and they could bring it into their warehouse appropriately and record it appropriately. But yeah, it's a really good feeling and I think it's worth chasing. For any entrepreneur out there. I think if you're willing to go after something and you haven't had that feeling yet, don't give up, because it's definitely worth it and you'll continuously chase it and it's something to be cherished. And yeah, it's pretty special.

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You described an incredibly valid moment, and I'm laughing because I feel like I have them sometimes monthly or daily even still, you're getting a huge client. And then before it's even kicked off, it's ended.

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And you're like.

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And you just feel like it. Just like once you want to ball up in a corner, because you're like, I cannot get the bleeding to stop, I can't get the loss of. And I think the mindset in any recurring model, even transaction, transaction model, you already know it's there and gone. But in a recurring buy model, either it's services or product, you're always trying to get 100% retainment. And it bugs you when anybody leaves, even if it's a small one, do you have the same feeling? It really bugs you. It's like, why do they say no to me? The rejection of it?

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Yeah, I see it on the human optimization project that's a little bit more relatable because it is a day to day, direct to consumer. We're consumer facing and selling them product, and we do subscriptions. So we meet every week and we see who falls off as subscriptions. And yeah, you almost take it personal, but something not to hang your hat on. And you just keep moving.

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And this ties to a concept of, first of all, enjoy the moments they have learn from them. So I know we lost one of our bigger customers, longtime customer, almost like the year long. It was by far at the time, a highest paying customer. And we recently lost them. And I don't think it was as much that what we were doing is wrong. I think they outgrew us and we weren't part of their strategy because we hadn't positioned the right reporting structure, the.

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Right roi play, and the strategy was.

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Maybe too narrow for where they had become. And it was a miss, I think, on my part, because it's no one else's job in this company to do.

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It, to identify that.

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And in your world, too, you might be like, hey, we thought too narrow there, or we didn't do enough. We were just happy to win that customer at the time where you were. Now, I'm like, man, if we had these things. So you learn from it. You prepare for the next one on that. And I think that's the entrepreneurial lesson, is you're going to have to learn from some really hard lessons, because that's when the learning happens of where. Because you're winning, you don't realize where you're actually losing to market. And when you actually lose something that you had won, it becomes very clear if you've asked the question of why, of how in the TPG world, how does that apply?

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Yeah. From my experience with Gomix, again, we're working in the manufacturing space, which is no direct, there's no exact science around it. There's always different things going wrong. It is a little bit different when you're selling a finished good to an end consumer. But I'm so jaded to the ups and downs now. Like, hey, our yield was less than we thought it would be, or we're having quality issues because we can't get this to seal the right way. Now I get the emails, and me and my partner talk about all the time. We're both just like, we've been here, done that. What's the solution? Right? It's about moving forward and not hanging your hat and putting your head down and saying, oh, my gosh, this sucks. Like, we're screwed eventually. It's just part of the everyday, and you're much more solution focused versus thinking about what went wrong.

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Absolutely.

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So, lesson takeaway there, as you're listening, is take it in stride. Don't sit in a corner and cry too long. Just get into it and start going right. I mean, that's the piece.

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Keep it pushing, man. Keep it pushing.

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That's the resilience piece. And it sounds like you, obviously, and you get some of that from the sports in the background. Sometimes you have bad days, and you just got to keep fighting through it and improve from it. Let's pivot just a bit. So you're time zero again in your entrepreneurship. Today is a new day. You have a whole future ahead of you. I always tell my kids, and they say cringe when I say it, but I said, if you look in the rear view mirror too long while driving, you wreck. And so you got to occasionally glance back. Well, here you are in the car, moving along. What are you preparing for the future?

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How are you going to improve?

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Yeah, I think it's smart growth for us, specifically with Gomix. I think in general, my personal brand, my platform, my network, kind of the value that I bring with all the projects that I'm involved with, it's hard hitting. Like heavy, heavy growth. I'm in go mode. I've never worked harder than I have in my life, but it feels good because it's something I'm passionate about, something I care about, but business specific, it's smart growth. We've kind of outran ourselves in the past, where we put a ton of resources towards marketing and assets in a team, and we go out and we generate opportunities. And looking back, it was so stupid because if we would have landed one of these customers, we didn't even have the production capacity to play with them. So for us right now, it's making sure that quality is in check, systems and processes are in check, and really growing smart versus fast. Like, we know the market's there, we've had the case studies, we know that we're going to be successful, but we can't kind of outrun ourselves and inevitably lose a big opportunity that we would have had because we couldn't capitalize. I think any entrepreneur knows, and yourself included, if you can't execute, you have nothing. You have no ability to make money. If you can't execute, it's great. If you have all these pieces together in this deck and you got this machinery and you got these guys, whatever it is. If they can't execute and you can't execute and deliver on what you're promising, you ain't got nothing. It's smart growth. It's making the right decisions in the right time, but not being over analytical, it's trusting ourselves and moving in the direction that we believe in.

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Where I'm in my phase, and I'll explain this to you in the smart growth piece, I think this is a good takeaway from a CPG, like a product direct to consumer versus b, two b services. I know some days, some months, I feel like I don't want to sell this month and I just want to focus on operations, delivery. But I also know if I don't, there's going to be a giant blip about six months from now, nine months. And so the smart growth piece being I too believe customer retention outweighs customer acquisition any day of the week because keep the same customers there more likely to refer you, more likely to buy from you additional services and products. But you do have to balance it and you're in a good spot. If you can grow too fast, that means you got something you really need. And this is where you look at external capital maybe to help you do that. Right. But if you need to either set down the wand to focus on operations, it's going to hurt. And I'll give you an example. Last December or November last year, two years ago, sorry, we productized our services. And in your case too, where you had to kind of rethink some things, we realized that we had good people for customers, but they were the wrong customers. They were the kind that always tried things for 90 days and moved on. And our system doesn't apply to that. It's really more of a thoughtful, we're a partner for a while and so we rebrand it. We lost a bunch of customers, didn't pick up the new ones that would normally come in because we shifted the marketing and the things and we took a huge cash flow hit, survived it, obviously, and recovered 400% more profitable at the end of the next year. And I will tell you, as an entrepreneur, no matter what you're in, you're going to have to look at your growth and see, is it scalable? Can you deliver it? Do you need to rethink some things? Do you need to simplify some stuff? Or maybe you have to make things a little more complex. It's a really good lesson that it's going to hit you at some point along your journey. And I think it happens in chunks, like to go from zero to half million, half million, 2 million, 2 million to five, five to 1010 to 50, whatever. I think there's these points in yours right now. I appreciate you giving me a minute to talk about that because I know exactly the pain you're talking about of managing that growth. And when you're not there until you.

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Are, you don't know.

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You're going to need to do that.

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You have no idea.

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Yeah, you're just like, no, grow. Grow.

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And you're like, no, it's going to have to be smart.

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Grow.

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That's a bad partner. I'm going to fire that client. Right? I like the shameless plug section. So if you've listened to this point in the podcast, just hang out for 30 seconds here. He's going to talk about where you can get a hold of him. And who should be getting a hold of Joe for the go mix? So shameless. Plug time.

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Joe, take over.

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Yeah, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. I'm pretty sure you just search my name. Joe Hansley emails joe@gomixtech.com anybody in the nutraceutical space, feel free to reach out. And then on the human optimization project side, anybody that's kind of looking to increase their day to day life and mood and fulfillment and longevity, we're really building a pretty cool community. We have a lot of badass, really good people involved in the project, and we sell great supplements that all geared towards longevity, living longer, feeling better, feeling healthier. And then on the Menasha side, Menasha is a massive platform, tons of infrastructure and capabilities, and play with a lot of big players, so execute at a very high level. Talking about any business that's gotten to the billion dollar range, I think Manash has about 2.6 billion in revenue last year. You know that they're executing at a high level. So my focus is on the graphic folding carton side of things on the paperboard end, and there's a lot of room to elevate your brand and present your product in a premium manner for relatively cost effective solution.

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Awesome.

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In short, what's the website they should get to? I know LinkedIn is one, but what's the website they can come check out.

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Learn more about your product.

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Gomixtech. gomixtech.com. And then the human optimization project is hotbox life.

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Awesome.

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Go check it out, everybody. This is the part of the time where we're going to put you in a little fast pitch. I'm not sure what the football term is. What would be the football term? What's your quick workouts?

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Two minute drill.

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Two minute drill.

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Here's your two minute drill. Thank you. Isn't it terrible admitting how bad I am at sports? I feel like I should be like that American that knows more about sports. I just don't have time. And I'm deep down, I just don't care. I don't bleed any color of college or football, man.

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I'm the same way.

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I know from it. Oh, that's even better.

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It's interesting. People ask me all the time, I'll pay attention with big games and I pay attention to guys I've played with that are still in the league and do my best to support them. But there's a lot of superfans out there and I'm like, how do you find the time. I'm not a huge sports guy anymore. I'm really passionate and focused on my business and my relationship and the people in my life. Of course, I enjoy going out and watching the national championship or something and getting beers, but, yeah, every weekend. It's not the first thing on my list.

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Agreed. I'll leave that maybe as a nugget of wisdom. If you want to become an entrepreneur, you're going to put in more hours that won't feel like work. But you are going to have to give up some things. And I'll tell you when you do. I give up Saturday morning sleep ins because I get my best writing done Saturday morning when I have no expectations to do or anything else. You're going to have to give up things if you want to get what you want. Otherwise, don't be pissed. If you don't get it, don't be a blame others. Just accept that you're just going to be where you are. And that's okay. It is. But if you want more, you got to do more and do different.

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Yeah, I'm on the happiness train. If you're happy doing what you're doing, if you like normal job, weekends are yours, they're free, and you're truly, genuinely happy. Amazing. Like you're winning at life. But I agree with you. If you're not happy but you're not willing to do what you need to do to get there, whether it's professionally, whether it's physically, spiritually, mentally, whatever the case may be. Can't feel sorry for yourself, man. It's on nobody but you.

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Yeah.

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Because I've been in a situation in my life where I've been in a corporate world, had a good career. I'll tell you this before we do our two minute drill. If you feel angry and you feel like you can't get anywhere and you're blaming others, the one you need to blame is yourself. Because you can change anything you want to at any point. You really can. You could be full of debt, go bankrupt, fine, change something. You can be spending way too much and make too much. Stop doing it. So you can go do something else. You might need to retool yourself with some online courses between instead of watching Netflix. Whatever it is, don't blame yourself. Get off your ass and go do something about right.

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That's right.

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All right, two minute drill.

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Thank you for that. I'm going to get down off my podium, put the mic down, and we're going to do it.

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Ready? What's the one business book that an entrepreneur must read.

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I'm not a huge reader, I'll be honest, I'm not a big reader, but one that I have. I know I need to do it.

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More or listen to, or listen to. We can go with audible.

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Yeah, I should do more of it. I need to prioritize it and find the time more. But I think rich dad, poor dad is pretty valuable business wise and just personal, financial and perspective and kind of understanding around the flow of money and how things work.

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That's right. Just to be clear, everybody, it's 2024. I drive a 2013 white minivan with a license plate. License plate that translates from Slovak directly to the word of shit.

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Just to be clear.

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That's actually what it says in the back and everyone knows it. My wife is from Slovakia and you can always spot the Czech or Slovak or polok or even Russian. They always take pictures of my license plate. It's hilarious. So my point being is don't spend money on stuff. It doesn't matter. It's also a truck, by the way, and a spaceship. All right, next question for you is, what technology are you using? Maybe day to day in your business that's really helpful. And examples of this might be like, calendly, I'm not seeding the question, but like small little tech that really GPT off. Everyone answers this, but what works for you? What's really helping you automate move faster?

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I mean, there's so many good organizational tools out there. I've used a lot of them. I'm a fan of HubSpot. I'm a fan of Trello board. We're just transitioning over to Monday for one of our businesses, which looks like it's pretty good and pretty cool, but there's so many good ones out there, I think it's just a matter of finding what works for you and your business. Some of them are more expensive than others. Don't waste the money on the nicest platform with all the integrations and extra tools if you don't need it. I've talked to people who work at multibillion dollar companies and they still operate off of Google sheets in some sense. So if it's not going to help keep you organized and help on efficiency, if you're not actually going to use it, don't waste your money.

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Yeah, I'll tell you what. So if you are going to use it, buy the year long license to save your 20% on the dollar. If you're going to try it out, work with the company and say, hey, would you mind doing an extended trial at a discounted rate? Because we're not sure. But if I do, and you tell them that, a lot of these companies will be like, hell yeah, we'll cut you that deal up in a second. I know actively like to give you an example. I think your last one before I get out of this two minute. But as a technologist at heart, in my background, most time when I work with people coaching, I can save them my fees in the first month by having to avoid the big thing of Hepspot of saying, you don't need this expensive integration tool. You don't need also this. Just use high level for everything right now. And don't worry about all these other tools. Calendar is great. Zoom is great. But can you get away with Google Meet for free and just use high level for the appointment setting and just lose that 900, $200 a year right there? These little things matter, specifically when you're early. But you're right. The world runs on excel. It runs on Google sheets. You don't have to overcomplicate it until you have to 100%. All right, next question. You only got two more, so I know you're excited here.

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Ready?

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You're tired. You're holding the push up position. This is it. Here we go. You're on LinkedIn a lot. So who should people be following on LinkedIn?

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Who you like?

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Oh, gosh.

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He doesn't read guys. He didn't prepare for this question clearly. Just know preparation is everything.

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I like people who are genuine, who are themselves. I think LinkedIn's a little watered down with people trying know act like they're from Harvard when they're not too much chat know, generating posts on LinkedIn that sound like a robot. One guy that I connected with not too long ago, his name is Kyle Peters. He's in the CPG space right now. He's working with. He's a former founder and entrepreneur. He has this kind of brand around. Hey, I'm a former founder, and now I kind of work in the corporate world. He's on the emerging brand side of jacklinks, and he has a newsletter with another lady in the CPG space called we got the goods. But they're constantly putting out new, innovative products, cool branding, things that people could go into their store and buy on the shelf. So, yeah, Kyle, Peter, shout out to him.

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I love it. Yeah, that's great. And here's the idea. You followed somebody in your space and you appreciate it, and you still promote them because it's not like, they're taking something away from you. You have something to learn from your peers.

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Absolutely.

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It's not the mentality a lot of people have. So I love that you're like, no, I want to learn from people equal or better than I'm doing. So here's your final question. And this one's tough. Answering it wrong.

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I mean, there is a wrong answer.

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And there's a right answer, but here we go.

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Have you ever been promoted?

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I have been promoted. I was promoted from a sales specialist to a manager when I was doing some global logistics for a company called KCH. So shout out to those guys and those girls over there. Good company. Didn't work there for too long, but that is my one time being promoted. It felt good, but inevitably, it's not as good as kind of creating your own path and comparing it to the feeling of landing your first big deal. It's night and day and even again, I go back to what I previously said. If you can find something, if you're an entrepreneur and you might not be making money yet, and you can find something that's kind of married to your own project, and that works synergistically, kind of like what I got going on with Manassa and human optimization project. I think it's a home run. It's a lot more relieving waking up every day knowing that you got some guaranteed income, especially when it feeds the other projects that you got going on. But, yeah, I have been promoted, though.

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You've answered them correct. You can't join the club, and you don't get any additional dad points. So, sorry, none for you. And you've also been promoted. I'm sure you were riding the bench at one point, and you got in to go catch a ball. So that's a promotion to get on the field. I can't believe you left that one out. I thought that was the easy. I'm not going to call it layout, but walk in touchdown, right?

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I had to be transparent, man. I had to be transparent. I don't want to lie about my past.

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I mean, that's a promotion, though. From the bench to the field is a. You got, then you got laid out and that's it.

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I got put on my ass and fair caught everything ever since.

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I love it. Okay, listen, thank you so much, by the way, Joe, for joining today.

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Yeah, I appreciate you having me on. It was great chat.

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Yeah.

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And anybody who's made it this point in the podcast, you get your ten dad points. You can train them in for entrepreneurial points. If you can figure out where to spend them, you'll be the first person on the planet to do so. Thank you so much for listening to you guys. And once again, until we meet again, until you listen to another episode, go out there, take some of these lessons learned, and just go out there and unleash your entrepreneur.

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Thanks for listening.