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Small Lake City
Small Talk, Big City
Join host Erik Nilsson as he interviews the entrepreneurs, creators, and builders making Salt Lake City the best place it can be. Covering topics such as business, politics, art, food, and more you will get to know the amazing people behind the scenes investing their time and money to improve the place we call home.
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Small Lake City
Vault Episode 5: Thirst Drinks - Ethan Cisneros
Ever wonder what it takes to build a thriving business from scratch? Ethan Cisneros, founder of Thirst Drinks, reveals the raw, unfiltered journey behind creating one of Utah's most beloved soda empires.
Ethan's entrepreneurial spirit ignited early when he started a lawn mowing business at age 11, leaving personalized notes for customers after each service. This fundamental lesson – that exceptional customer experiences drive business success – became the cornerstone of his future ventures. By 16, he had launched Olympus Ice, recognizing that snow cone shacks weren't just selling frozen treats but creating social hubs for teens.
When Ethan founded Thirst Drinks in 2016, success was anything but guaranteed. After an exciting grand opening, daily sales plummeted to just $100. With no outside funding and rapidly depleting resources, Ethan worked every shift for two years while relentlessly marketing on Instagram, personally messaging countless locals to invite them for free drinks. There was no overnight success – just persistent, brick-by-brick growth fueled by genuine connections and unwavering determination.
A breakthrough came when Ethan secured a vendor spot in the Vivint Arena (now Delta Center) through sheer persistence and relationship-building. Today, Thirst operates six locations across Utah, plus venue spots and a production bakery with 200 employees. Yet Ethan remains committed to authenticity, documenting his entrepreneurial journey through social media and his podcast "Learning by Doing."
What makes this story particularly compelling is Ethan's current challenge: transitioning from hands-on operator to leader while maintaining the brand's standards and experience. His philosophy of "nail it before you scale it" emphasizes perfecting operations before pursuing aggressive expansion – a refreshing perspective in today's growth-at-all-costs business culture.
Want to follow Ethan's entrepreneurial journey? Find him on Instagram @ethanfromthirst, check out his podcast, or watch his weekly YouTube vlogs where he continues to share the real, unvarnished truth about building a business from the ground up.
Head to www.smalllakepod.com/merchandise for Small Lake City Gear!
Join Erik as he supports Fork Cancer, a night of food, drinks, and live music—all for a great cause. Grab your tickets at utah.acscanforkcancer.org and enter Erik Nilsson to help him hit his $12,000 fundraising goal!
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What is up everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Small Lake City Podcast. I'm your host, eric Nilsson, and here this week we have another Vault episode coming up for you Now. This one is with the founder of Thirst, ethan Cisneros. Now, I've known Ethan since college and it's been really fun to see how he has grown Thirst from one store in Holiday to now many locations across the Wasatch Front, especially in his story of becoming an entrepreneur early in high school to continuing to do so to this day. Great episode with a great guy. You're going to love this one, whether you've listened to it already or this is the first time you've listened to it. So let's jump into it and hear from Ethan and his story himself.
Speaker 2:Welcome everybody. This week we have a super important and special guest here. We have Ethan Cisneros, the founder of Thirst Drinks, who helps supply so much of our daily supply of our sugar addictions that we all have. I fundamentally and firmly believe that Salt Lake is the capital of sugar, the drug of choice, of sugar sorry, of Salt Lake. And it's been so fun to see how all of these different businesses have come to be, I mean, the cookie empires, the soda empires, the dessert empires, of it all. And yeah, I wanted to sit down with you kind of understand how I mean the story all started, how you started, here in Salt Lake and go from there.
Speaker 3:So definitely stoked to have you here. Yeah, man, grateful to be here. This is sick. I'm really excited.
Speaker 2:Awesome man. Well, I mean, without further ado, let's jump into it, let's do it. I know you are, I mean, a Salt Lake native, not a transplant like some people we have on the pod. But talk to me a little bit when are you. Talk to me a little bit about where and the area you grew up, what that was like for you.
Speaker 3:So I was actually born in California.
Speaker 2:Oh, interesting.
Speaker 3:So I came here when I was 10, I think so just in elementary school. My dad got a job here and the family moved over. So yeah, I've been here since elementary and yeah, I grew up over in Holiday. So, like Olympus High, my high school. What part of California were you in before? Southern California, Orange County area.
Speaker 2:The typical.
Speaker 3:Typical, yeah, place called Diamond Bar. So yeah, I moved here and just went to work and growing up in Utah. So primarily most of my memories are here in Utah, for sure, definitely.
Speaker 2:So I actually moved. So I'm from Utah, born and raised, but I moved when I was 10 to a different neighborhood yeah which I mean at that age, in utah yeah, in utah.
Speaker 2:So I was living up in the avenues before parents got divorced and then we moved down to like, uh, like, harvard yale area. Um, just me, my two sisters and my mom, and I mean at that age, you have such little comprehension of the world around you that it almost feels like you're moving to another state like all my friends are gone, have to meet.
Speaker 1:What's the difference?
Speaker 3:exactly totally.
Speaker 2:But when you moved here because obviously, like when you're older and you move to salt lake, it's like, oh, this place is different yeah, in a lot of ways yeah did you feel any of that difference when you came here, or what was your initial impression of salt lake when you arrived?
Speaker 3:yeah, no, I, we were kind of already in, like we had a family here, and so I feel like we were already sort of utah people before we came here. Maybe not fully, but it wasn't a huge shock, especially when I was that young. It was just kind of like what it was. Um, I think my older siblings probably my parents more so got that like okay, like we're in mormon town, we're in the soda shop on every corner type of town, but yeah, and I didn't get as much as kind of like what I've known from the beginning, for sure I would say and growing up.
Speaker 2:I mean your formative years. I mean, was there any? I mean sports.
Speaker 3:You played a lot, any activities that tend to frequent yeah, I mean, I was, uh, all the sports type of kid played football, baseball um rugby, raced dirt bikes with my family she's everything yeah, we did a lot.
Speaker 3:I was always an entrepreneur kid too, like I was. My lawn mowing business is probably one of the most money I've still ever made. It's just so. It's literally the best way to make like cash as a kid is to freaking mow lawns like I want to go do it on the side still so talk to me about that like what was the first way that you heard about that or like that aha moment, you're like wait a minute yeah, I think I found out about it through like.
Speaker 3:Uh, like one of my buddies or something like his, his dad had mowed lawns or something. So my buddy zach shout out to my buddy zach from elementary we started zach and ethan's lawns. We just flyered every door around the neighborhood and finally we got uh, we talked one guy in mow in his lawn 20 bucks a week or maybe it was like 15 a week to start, and, dude, we both lived like a half mile or a mile in either direction. I freaking put my mower or my trimmer and my blower on top of the mower and push that thing like up by myself.
Speaker 3:we met there, mowed the lawn and, uh, dude, we did that and we just like slowly started to build like we would. I think we had like 25 lawns, like at our peak, and like all of our buddies worked for us, we got to. And this is, this is when I was 11, 25 was later on but when I was maybe 15, like still couldn't drive, we had like legitimately 20 lawns a week or something like that.
Speaker 3:Some of them are big ones and we bought this trailer. We couldn't drive but we got this trailer and our moms both had suburbans and so our moms would take turns like picking us up and then dropping off the trailer in like a central location in a neighborhood where we could go like walk max a half mile to a different lawn with, push them over there and then, like at the end of the night they'd pick us up, we'd have done all our lawns and dude, we just hustled like every day after school. We do that every day in the summer do that. So it's legitimately still some of the because there was no like entity set up.
Speaker 2:There was no you're not getting your llc, you don't have your account, you're just cash on cash that that was like right into the pocket.
Speaker 3:Split at 50 50, it was awesome, but no, that was uh. I will say like, with that business I learned a lot of like the basic mechanics of business. Though, yeah, I remember one thing was we I don't remember whose idea it was, but it was just like this is how we would do it. We would take care of customers like crazy. Like we made these little cards that were like like we would put them on the knob after we left, because you don't always talk to the person. You kind of bill them at the end of the month, like get all everything in the month.
Speaker 3:We would put cards on there. We're like, hey, just letting you know you got service from ethan today or zach today. Like make it all personal, yeah, and then like leave the kind of if you need anything at all, like here's our number, like we're so grateful for your business. And I always remember that because it was like I learned how to really take care of the customer. On that business I was like a prime example the first time I ever did that and I saw it work too, because people be so appreciative that, yeah, where other companies just mow it and they dip.
Speaker 2:They don't ask if you need anything else but send you a bill at the end of the month and call it a day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude but yeah, the lawn mowing business, shout out to zach and ethan's lawns man I love so I mean, every person I talk to always has those memories of like okay, so my mom picks up yeah, your mom will come get us and we'll do it, but like, it's usually like skiing or like going down a gateway when I was a kid not like hey, mom, we're gonna go make a couple hundred bucks mowing these lawns all afternoon, I think see you later.
Speaker 3:It was crazy, we had some adventures, but it was a good business, it was fun no, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:I love that you've put together so many of those because, like, I'm a sucker for like a great customer experience. Yeah, like I have a buddy that uh started his own golf apparel brand and I mean like the amount, like, and this guy is so detail oriented and just it's like there's a note with every package and the branding is always perfect, everything's laid out, and I'm a sucker for that like if everything like is perfect, and there's this like hitchless experience, I'm like, oh like chef's kiss yeah yeah, the details, all of the details, but that's awesome.
Speaker 2:So you so you have these summers. You're mowing lawns like a fiend, you're hiring all your friends. Yeah, making real money like it's not like it was real.
Speaker 3:It was real, like thousands of dollars, but like it wasn't insane. But it was real. We were breaking mowers and buying stuff and we were spending our money on whatever we wanted to. But yeah, and then when I was 16, so where did you say you grew up?
Speaker 2:I grew up in East High.
Speaker 3:Do they have any shaved ice shocks around there?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. So there was this one in uh downtown holiday called uh island flavor. This was the spot. I don't know about yours like this. So 15, 16, 16, you just starting to want to hang out with girls and friends like all the time, right. So there was the and you just get your license. You like, pick each other up, drive around. So we would go to this island flavor spot. And it was. It became very clear to me. I was like, okay, people aren't coming here just to buy snow cones. This is the hangout spot.
Speaker 3:The cool people are hanging out here yeah and all the cute girls are working the snow cone shack, like all the girls that like I would like trying to be going dates that they're flirting with, and like trying to go in the shack and like see what's going on. Yes, but this spot, it was like it was popping. It was called island flavor, if you know. You know it was dope little spot and I was like man, I could totally do this. And then so, yeah, like I said, I would become friends with the girls and then literally, like there, it would just be them sometimes on shift all day, so just go in there. They'd show me how to make all the stuff. I was like seeing how, like this is all working and I was like I can do this. Then I would like do the math on like okay, this is ice and sugar, yeah, and they're charging like six bucks for it. It's insane. So I want I was like I want to do this when I was 16 and uh, so I've started going to work on that. I first you need a building right like a shack, uh, and then you need like a spot to put it and you need a lease, essentially with the landlord to put this shack there, and you need a business license, all this stuff, and so that's how I did it.
Speaker 3:I figured all that out, I found a spot, negotiated a spot with the landlord for the lease, I went into the city hall asked him how would I do this? And it was called Olympus High. So I wanted it to be like the spot for olympus high kids. So it was like a few blocks above, like a quarter mile above, olympus ice. I called it olympus ice and that's what it was. Man, we freaking, oh. And then I got a shack off. Uh, it was on ksl, it was like a coffee drive-thru shack, yeah, um, but, and it was like 15 000 or 10 or $10,000 or $15,000. I had a little from the lawn mowing but not that much.
Speaker 3:But she put it on the ad. This lady owned it up in Heber, her name was Sierra. She put on the ad open to business inquiries, and so I put together. My dad is in finance and so he helped me put together, basically a projection. I was like I'm going to sell this many snow cones. It's going to cost me this much. I'm going to put it here here's my lease and uh, here's how much money we're going to make and if you give me the shack to use for free, then I'll give you 50 of the business. So that was my first business partner this lady, just lady.
Speaker 2:Lady, off the ksl.
Speaker 3:She's like sure, yeah, I'll drive it and then so she ended up being my co-founder in Thirst actually. So she had, like owned a bakery up in Heber and she had this shack that she was selling on the property and yeah, basically I ran it for three summers and hired employees. This one we did legit, like I had to pay sales tax, do inventory, because you know we've done like 50 000 a summer, yeah, or something like not crazy, but like it felt crazy. Yeah, it was felt crazy at the time and uh, yeah, man, so we did olympus ice for three summers, um, and that's what I did 16 17. Basically I kind of created it in 16, opened when I was 17, did it from 17 18 and probably when I was 19 for three summers.
Speaker 2:So I totally hope that's so funny because, like I remember when you said like, oh, like, they're like shaved ice places around, like yes, and one specific like, and I actually went, there earlier this summer, uh, but it's on the by the old, um, it's not shopko, but it's on like the by that mcdonald's on highland, not highland um 21st south and 21st East, by that Albertsons, there was always one in that parking lot, for I think it's an anytime fitness now, but I remember in high school. So when I say Salt Lake's, the capital of sugar, I could easily be the mayor, like when I like my biggest vice is sugar.
Speaker 3:Like I remember.
Speaker 2:Do you remember? Spoon me.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, so spoon me like on four south.
Speaker 2:yeah, so I had two friends that work there, yeah, and so I would always show up, be like, hey, like let me get some, like like fro you. They're like, well, listen, they count the cups, so you have to buy a cup, but we will fill it up as many times you want, and so I would like sit there and hang with them and you have like two or three fillings of it, which is a lot, yeah, and the same thing with snow cones, though, because of that snow cone shack there was uh, his name was chris brown, from highland, not to get mistaken with one of my best friends, christian brown, but he would work there like the hang, was it? There would be tons of guys there, there'd be tons of girls, girls would always be working, and he'd be like oh, how does this work?
Speaker 2:can I come back? Oh, you're putting like cream on top. This is unreal and yeah, I totally love that and like, even to the point where, like, like I said, um, I have this electric scooter that I used to use more, but I was like I'm gonna go on a scooter ride and get a snow cone. It felt like a 16 year old kid again.
Speaker 3:It was amazing, but it's always all about the spot. Yeah, freaking shaved ice. I want to go back.
Speaker 2:Oh, dude, let's start one up. But, like also, I remember I was driving back from I think it was down escalante earlier and I was when I was going past uh, through utah county, there was on the side of the road a snow cone shack for sale and I was like wait a minute, like totally understand, seeing that being like I can make this work, this, this, we could do this yeah but now you have like all the, the hokalias and all like it's been like, so, like, commercialized that.
Speaker 3:It's like oh like opportunity might not be that anymore. Would slap local spa. Would slap right now.
Speaker 2:Any snow cone right now would slap. So you started this mowing business. Then you're like snow cones are the jam you create the hang for the Olympus kids. So then you graduate, so those three summers are over and then you go to college. Up to you, was your entrepreneurial spirit still flourishing, or were you kind of focusing on school, school or what was your mindset at that point?
Speaker 3:so, yeah, I. So I graduated, I still owned olympic, olympic size. So I did it for another year, um, and that's when I went to the? U. So all my friends went on missions right out of high school. I didn't want to go on a mission. So I yeah, I was going up to the? U, I was running my shave ice business. I was in my frat, at the? U in the frat, and I mean, I was not focused on school at all, like I was not really going to class, I was just running my business and hanging out with my friends at the?
Speaker 3:U. I was using the? U for for social, for sure. But, um, yeah, I did that. Uh, I did one semester at the? U just running olympus ice. And then, um, I knew I wanted to do something else, like pretty quick on in the entrepreneurial game and like do something new. Swig, this is, you know, swig. So this is when. This is eight years ago. So this is seven, eight years. This is almost eight years ago.
Speaker 2:Um, they were just in provost st george at the time because I was going to st george a lot during this time because I was dating someone down there yeah and I mean we drive past like do you want to get a soda?
Speaker 3:like yeah, it's like the thing you do. Oh yeah, like it's again the hang.
Speaker 2:It's what you do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just part of it, it's a part of the culture and swig is the culture in st george. It's crazy, not wrong, but um anyway. So, yeah, they hadn't come here yet and my business partner so the lady that I did the shaved ice shack with, she had worked, watched me work hard for a few summers. We made some money on not crazy, but made some money on the shaved ice. And uh, like I said, she had a bakery up in heber so she kind of knew like the small business game too, and we saw swig blowing up and nothing had come to Salt Lake at all yet. There was a couple little shops, but like so delicious, around but mostly nothing had come. And then I stumbled upon this drive-thru space, 13 South, just west of State, by the B Stadium. We still have it. It's our downtown store, but it was a drive-thru space. And just one thing led to another we think we can do. One thing we did really good at Olympus Ice was we made it that hangout Like Swig Thirst.
Speaker 3:We sell a brand, we sell an experience. We don't, although we sell products and sometimes like we can even be known for those products. More than anything, we sell the brand, we sell the experience to the customer, where other businesses are more transactional based on the actual product like this is the. Just like I learned, like when people were going to the island flavor they weren't going for the snow cone, they were going because it was cool to do that, you know, to go there and be there, and so I was like that I'm already doing that in my shaved ice business.
Speaker 3:This is just an advanced for full-time, advanced, a lot larger scale, bigger menu version of that. Yeah, and so, yeah, we came up with thirst, just created the brand from scratch and we wanted to be an experience through the drive-thru, and it's honestly changed a lot, like the menu and other things, like the way we present that experience. But that's what we started, as what we always have been, probably always will be, is we sell an experience. So, yeah, we found we wanted to do that. We found that first drive-thru in downtown salt lake.
Speaker 3:It was, I mean, it still is a rough area there's homeless, oh yeah everywhere dude, it's like you know, at the ballpark area, but uh, and it was like failing other other failing businesses before like multiple, like it was like two, they were okay. It's like big kahunas was in there freaking. The one right before was a old. It was a spaghetti shop, a drive-thru spaghetti shop. That signed me up like no, literally, when we went in, like to pull, we're pulling down the menu and like we peeled off one and there was another food business behind it, we peeled off and there was another one.
Speaker 2:It was insane like three failed menus and you're just like great is mine the next one on this, this thing is?
Speaker 3:I didn't think that at all, though. I was just like I was 18 when I was like remodeling that building. So I was young and I was just, I was just stoked and knew I was positive it was gonna work. But yeah, so we created thirst and, uh, we opened. We had a fun grand opening but, dude, we were slow for a couple years so what?
Speaker 2:what year was that or when was that grand opening? Do you remember the date or year?
Speaker 3:it was september 2016, sept.
Speaker 2:September 2016. So you started the soda shop. There's been some similar ones. I mean, what's going through your head at this time? I mean, just from your tone of voice I can tell you're super stoked on it and just gassed and know it's going to work. But was there anything that made you a little apprehensive or kind of cautious, or are you just mostly all steam ahead?
Speaker 3:At the time I was just blindly all steam ahead. I had no idea what I was getting into, just the amount of responsibility, because I've run these businesses before. But this is talking every day. You're open at 8, and you close at 10, and someone's got to be there every day. I didn't really have that. The shaved ice is seasonal. All the lawns, you kind of do them when you want to some degree. Um, so this is like a bigger step. But yeah, we opened and, like, like I said, we had like a fun grand opening. All my frat bros came, I bought some, whoever was left from high school came to support, but legitimately, no one came. Like I think the first day after the grand opening we did like a hundred dollars in sales, like a hundred dollars. So we went, I and I had hired all these employees, yeah, like and they're just sitting there like dude.
Speaker 3:I literally like I thought it was going to be so busy that like I was going to need to be doing office work, like I got, like I was so wrong, it was insane, but I ended up firing like all but like two.
Speaker 3:I had to let everyone go because I can't pay you a hundred dollars I made today yeah, my co-founder, like we invested, like she had just sold a house and, um, like a house that she had, she's not wasn't like rich or anything, but like just sold a house watched me work really hard for three summers on the shaved ice and she put like literally like 70 000 into building out this restaurant yeah and um, that was it, like we didn't have any funding after that and so like money's gone gotta start generating something, or pretty gonna be another one of those menus on the yeah, I was like and dude.
Speaker 3:I'm grateful for it, though, because, like, I literally had to figure it out or I was going out of business.
Speaker 2:Ships were. Ships were burnt. Yeah, I had to make it work, that was payroll. I gotta pay vendors, and so so, so talk to me about that process. So, because I think a lot of people, I mean, and myself included, would they think that, okay, I have this idea for this business.
Speaker 2:Obviously they think it's amazing yeah but then they go and launch it, they go to market and they're like, oh, wait a minute, this isn't the kind of like overnight success I thought it was gonna be. Yeah, so how did you go from like maybe I mean, I don't want to call it like a low, but like that point being like what was your next step? To say, okay, what do I do now to make this successful? Or what do I do to get the traffic that I want?
Speaker 3:yeah, it was one. It's definitely one of the most like clear correlate entrepreneurship. One of my favorite parts about it is it's definitely one of the most clear correlations of I put in this much, I get out this much, and I learned that a lot at the beginning of Thirst because, like I said, there's no boss to turn to, there's no more money, and so I learned how to do all these things. I learned how to manage my labor, how to manage inventory, how to manage colleagues and, particularly, how to do marketing and drive sales. All because I absolutely had no choice, because I had to pay rent and employees. And so, um dude, I just figured it out. I basically worked every shift for two years, literally work up in the clothes every single day and in between every car. I was this is like right.
Speaker 3:When instagram was coming out and it was like it was. It was like from facebook snap and like this was instagram was peaking, becoming the next big thing, and I was post. I just went all in on it, all in, like. I was posting like 50 stories. Right. When stories came out to 50 stories a day on the first page, I was dming literally everyone that was posting in the city and I was personally messaging them and being like yo my name is Ethan, I have this business downtown Because I knew the business was good and I knew I was doing good customer service, the products were good. I was just like I got to spread the word about this and so I would literally DM them and I would say come get a free drink on me, check it out, let me know what you think. I wouldn't ask them for anything or to buy anything and I just freaking did that till I fell asleep every night.
Speaker 2:Just over and over and over and over. I did that yeah.
Speaker 3:And just built, built, built, built, built, built, little by little, like there was no jump, there was no big jump, like we did a hundred dollars a month. A couple months later we were up to 200. Couple months later.
Speaker 2:Like I'm talking brick by brick. There was no like oh, I did this one thing and this changed, or I reached out to this one person and that changed.
Speaker 3:It was just yeah, it was slow and so, yeah, I did that and then I started to build and then another big win I had early was the vivin arena, as you remember, like five, six years.
Speaker 2:So talk to me about that. How did that come? To like did you approach them? Did they approach it was?
Speaker 3:getting rebuilt. Right, like six years ago now they was getting rebuilt and so I knew all the contracts were going to be up in there, probably because they're remodeling the whole arena, putting new vendors in there, and swig was in there, so it was in there at the time and so I was going into the concessions group that like owns and runs all the concessions it's called levy. I was going in there and writing personal notes, dropping off treats like multiple times a week, like emailing, trying to call anyone. So if I could just get a meeting, because I was positive that I could convince them that like they should be all about the local businesses. I'm going to do better because I'm a local brand just down the road and like just had no business doing it, but I totally just sent it of course, and I got a freaking meeting with, uh, the head of concessions there and I pitched them on it and they liked me, I guess.
Speaker 3:But yeah, the kick swig got dude freaking. That's built as a brand new thirst in there, because they were building everything anyways yeah, I mean it's all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, I can't remember the term, but when it like, you can build it however you want to. It's not like you have to go into the old one. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I got, so we still have that first one, so we have two now.
Speaker 2:But the time like Two in Vivint, itself In Vivint yeah, delta Center.
Speaker 3:Thank goodness I still can save Vivint every day. But yeah, so it was. You know it's like the second level back, but I was stoked.
Speaker 2:You're there, You're there. It doesn't matter what your job is on the rocket ship, as long as you have a ship on the rocket you can go from there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so they built us a sweet thirst in there and it did awesome. I've always made money on that. Since it opened, they take a huge cut in there, but it's great for the brand. You have to charge a lot of money. The arena prices are a ton. We've always made a little money to spend good, and we actually got a second location a few years later on the main floor, right in front of the main doors.
Speaker 2:So obviously they liked you. It wasn't just that he keeps writing me notes. Can you please just get him to stop?
Speaker 3:Well, I kind of kept that same spirit up. Where I would do anything, I still will do anything for the jazz guys, like they want freaking soda bar at their corporate meeting you're there no questions. Yeah, if they need it, I'll bend over backwards because the little favors that I can do just as a vendor. But I've always done that because, yeah, like I think it just makes sense are there any other like anecdotes that you have where you're?
Speaker 2:I mean personalized kind of taking care of the customer or doing whatever it takes ended up in? I mean call it getting what you wanted or opening a door for you.
Speaker 1:Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2:Hope you're enjoying the episode so far. One big announcement is that Merchandise is live. Go ahead over to the website smalllakepodcom to check out the merchandise. We have great shirts, hats and sweatshirts. I went through a rigorous process to make sure I had the right person creating my merch and the right t-shirts and sweatshirts to do it. So go check it out. Go cop some gear and look great this season in your new Small Lake City merch season in your new small lake city, merch?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean, I think that that second location of event is a prime example. Like I will literally do anything, but I don't know. I don't know anything specifically, but I think of things like that in the long game, all like that's the only way I think about things is like like how can I help this?
Speaker 3:Because it's like one of those selfless to be selfish things right, like by being so selfless, like it's almost you get what your selfish wants are. At the end, maybe they're not selfish, like have bad intent, but like whatever you want typically will come around. If you're more selfless, you know, and so, no, I've always kept that strategy, you know, to things for people. But yeah, vivint was our second store and uh, so we had that those two for and we did catering too. We still do ton of catering, yeah, uh, but we've done that for, like I think we're open for four years, just those dang.
Speaker 2:And then, because one thing I love about the vivint, and I'll say this really quick, but I was in, uh, aust Austin earlier this year going to visit a friend and, yada, yada, yada, we met up with one of the people that lives in his apartment to go to this other social club where they had like a simulator and we're just going to go hit balls and watch the Masters, because it was that weekend. I was just talking to him bullshitting and he was like, oh, where are you from? I'm like, oh, I'm from Salt Lake City. He's like, oh, you ever go to the Vivian Arena? I'm like Delta Center. But I was like, yeah, he's like that is a weird place.
Speaker 2:And I was like, what do you mean? Unpack that for me? He's like, well, I had a vendor that was giving me. I mean, he's like I had courtside tickets grab a beer, and there was no one in the beer line and I turned my head over and there's literally this line for soda, like wrapped, all the way through the queue and I was like, yeah, like welcome to utah, like the sugar capital. And he's like I've never, ever seen them. Like, yeah, most, most haven't. But I'm like it's so awesome that you got that and like especially having those experiences early on in your lawn business where it's like, oh hey, like we wrote personalized notes, we took care of people, we made this customer experience our priority, and how that's just cascaded into these times where I mean, if you didn't do that and if you were just like well, I'll email them or I'll I'll try and see like it probably wouldn't have worked.
Speaker 3:It wouldn't have worked for sure. Yeah, no, I 100 agree. And just like dude, just like being literally just nice and friends to everyone just pays off such big time. Like all, for example, like all the other vendors in the arena, like always I'm going like, if I don't know someone, 100 going up to him, introducing him, like talking about how things have been going in the arena. Like that stuff plays out. You know whether it's a collab you do down the road or there's some piece of advice, or you know connection they can make for you. I don't even ever worry about it because it just always plays out.
Speaker 2:Totally, and you never know. This is part of what I do for WorkWork is operationalizing sales teams, and one thing we always talk about is do your cold calls, reach out, do the hard things, because it'll work out. There's always those one source where it's like do your cold calls, reach out, do the hard things, cause it'll work out.
Speaker 2:And there's always like those like um like one source where it's like I um, the last call I made at the last day they reached and they closed that day, blah, blah, blah. But it it's so funny because, like the older I get, the more I realize how important those are. Like even the other day I was asking someone for a referral to do something and they're like oh, I know this person that comes to mind, or I know this person. I don't know them well, but I know that they do it. And so who knows how many of those conversations are like hey, we have this event coming up. We really want it. They want to have someone to kind of like oh yeah, you've got to go to Ethan. He's the man. He always talks to me when I'm working at the Chick-fil-A and he's always so. We like working with nice people who can help solve our problem.
Speaker 3:Like it's, it's all of those things, business move A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Without a doubt, like without a doubt. And it's so funny when I like I mean you always run into people who are just I mean for lack of a better term just like assholes for the sake of being assholes, and I'm like, how do you like you think this is absolutely not? Yeah, I agree. So all right, so let's, let's go back to it, so you have your store, the one, the original one on 13 south, the one I remember when I went there the first time, because when you launched in 2016, I was living in seattle at the time, but I could always see on instagram like, oh, my friends would go through the drive-thru like thirst, like a new swig, yeah. But I was like, okay, thirst, interesting. And I kept seeing it over and over and over again on stories because it became again like this experience that people want to share and then that makes other people interested.
Speaker 2:Um, and I remember the first time I went I won it was actually I won an instagram giveaway, you did, and I got like a 25 gift card and I was like all right and like I always go through these like ebbs and flows of, like my soda addiction, yeah, where, like I won't have soda for two months but then I'll be golfing or I'll be doing something like you know what A Coke sounds really good right now, and then for the next two weeks I'm having a Coke every other day and then it stops and then, anyway, up and down, up and down, and I remember that kicked off a pretty hard soda addiction, because every time I would go by on 30, because I was living let's living. See, then I was in the avenues ish, but I was always trying to like I mean going from, I mean there's always a reason to go from, like where I lived before, like Yale Crest area, or like avenues getting to, I mean like Target, costco, anywhere over on third west. I'd be like, well, if I'm going down 13, some I'll go over. Like the thing that blew my mind the first time I went is like there's like 30 cars in line here, like this isn't like I'm just going through and they're smiling. There was just consistent traffic and so it's cool to see and hear that story of.
Speaker 2:It wasn't always that way and you just grew it all. So you had the Salt Lake store. You got the places in Vivint From then. What was there? What was your plan?
Speaker 3:What was?
Speaker 2:the next stage.
Speaker 3:So we opened our Mill Creek store. It was our second brick and mortar. And that's the one over by it's on 33rd and I mean it might be Kind of by REI. It's like Hector's Salty Peak, salty Peak, yeah, all around there, because it used to be that, oh, shoot.
Speaker 3:What was it before diet coke? Yeah, going through. Yeah, they did have them. Huh, yeah, and so it's funny that they paved the way they walked so you could fly. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, but no, that thing that's like. It's probably still like our premier store. It's got a big dine-in, it's our busiest store usually.
Speaker 3:Um, it's just right in the perfect area it's also right where I grew up, yeah it's right where I grew up, so I went to olympus. It's like right up from there, it's right up from where where olympus ice was. So it's just a sick store. I love that store and so, yeah, we opened that one. And then we opened, uh, west jordan, we opened one out west jordan, opened one out in bountiful to willa so I was telling you I was just coming from there training a manager tonight, um, and then we opened one in st george, slash, delhi, so a little over a year ago. And then, uh, we have, we have a bakery production bakery that we one of the biggest things we sell is soft pretzel bites and beignets yeah, so we have a basically a bakery that produces all those every day. So there's a team in there making beignets, making cookie dough, making pretzel dough mix all day, every day, and then once a week we ship them out to the stores, yeah, and then the stores pick them up fresh and serve them.
Speaker 2:I didn't know you guys had it or you did it yourself. I always assumed it was A couple of years ago, we weren't always um.
Speaker 3:we were buying them from other bakeries, basically, and just reselling them, but obviously, as you can imagine, there's no margin. Like the margins like fractional compared to doing it yourself, so doing it yourself. So I bought, I saved up, bought the recipes from of the beignets I bought, like I literally I don't know, I'm not a baker at all, but like that's all I do for my business, but I bought my pretzel recipe. I bought all the recipes I should say like.
Speaker 3:But I'm it's funny because, like, I just bought them from a different place. Like this pretzel, this local pretzel place that was like super little popular instagram pretzel place. Like they went out of business. I bought their pretzel recipe. Uh, bought my beignet recipe from from a bakery. Just like here and there I came up with all these recipes and, yeah, just opened a bakery. We now we do more like we'll come up with new products and everything that gets served at the first stores comes out of there. So it's fun to have. But, yeah, so we have basically six drive-thru retail locations, drive-thru and walk-in dining areas, and then, uh, we do the jazz arena, we do the mavericks, we're doing the maverick center this year. Oh cool, the hockey and stuff. We'll see how that goes. And then we do catering. We have a location just for catering that everything comes out of, to the wedding, tons of weddings and corporate events. Uh, so we have like just a kitchen where that all runs out of and yeah, it's been a heck of a ride what's your favorite part?
Speaker 2:like if you broke down your I mean day-to-day or week-to-week or month-to-month things, you do.
Speaker 3:What's the thing like, okay, I can finally do this yeah, I mean my forte is marketing, like I'm best at that, for sure. Being the face like content, uh, it's really what's made us will like get to where we are. For sure, like I'm, I also do all the operations. Like I kind of wear almost all the hats right now, cool. But uh, I would say I'm best at marketing and that's like where I find my most enjoyment. But I do a lot of operations too. I mean I have 200 employees, so like I mean I'm sure you have it down.
Speaker 2:I mean because I'm trying to do the math in my head. So you have Salt Lake, you have what's called Vivint, one Bountiful West Jordan, tooele, st George, mill Creek. Did I miss one?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then just the production facility. The production facility slash catering.
Speaker 2:So it's like there's eight. I mean, would you say by now you have like a playbook. Were to open one up next week, that you would go through, or is it so different?
Speaker 3:like I definitely put in the work. We've had lots of processes and manuals and things like that. But no, I think, like one of the things I see like crumble and I see a lot of early stage businesses I'll find a little bit of success and then go franchise out really quickly, which credit where credit's due, crumbles like the fastest growing franchise there is. It's dope, yeah, yeah, like they're bomb. But I think also a lot of businesses make a mistake of like finding a little success and then franchising everyone. The business really wasn't ready, everything wasn't figured out yet, it was still a baby, um, and so I think about that a lot. Like we've been open for seven years and I'm still tweaking the processes and like I want to sell franchises everywhere one day but not yet. Like I'm still. Like I'm still making all those manuals, I'm still dialing and profitability and uh scaling too, like just and and handling, chewing everything I've bitten off at this point. So so I'm trying to be patient, but also I mean I want to keep growing for sure?
Speaker 2:No, I love that you have. I mean, you're still a student to your craft. You're still saying, where can I get some more profitability, where can we get a little bit more efficient? And I love that you have always stepped in this role of being the face of it all, because I remember when I first started following you on Instagram or seeing reposts, like it was you front and center, being you like, just unabashedly and and it's I truly do believe in like energies resonate with people and like if you put out this positive energy, saying, hey, come here, it's cool, it's awesome, you don't like it again.
Speaker 2:Like trying to message this experience that you're trying to curate, eventually they'll line up, yeah, and then people come through. So I love that you have that, but then also that it wasn't. This instant, like, okay, there's success, time to make as much success as possible, but instead being like you know, there's there's other things I can do, there's other things I want to perfect yeah focus on the customers, focus on the experience. I mean obviously all the operational metrics and components that go into it as well. Yeah, I mean I mean I?
Speaker 3:I mean to address the second point that you have is like I'm balancing like everything I like to do, but also running a practical business, like I have to make payroll every other week, which is crazy. It's a lot of. My payroll is like a lot of money now and we're talking about multi-millions of dollars of revenue, and so it's like a very serious job. Lots of salary people's family salaries are on the line, and so I take it super, super seriously. So, yeah, like it's a balance for sure. But, um, I mean to your first point, me being front and center. I think it's just the greatest marketing strategy of all time to be authentic, you know, so like no one wants to buy from someone that they don't know the story behind it. You know no one wants to buy from the corporate place, right? You know that's always the thing, and so like the most original story and like tagline that we all have is our, our cell, like authenticity, and so that's what I do in content.
Speaker 3:I'm front and center and I don't edit things a lot. I don't like try to make perfect stuff. I just post as much as possible documenting the business. I tell the I call them the thirsty nation, as our followers like thirsty nation, what up? I'm out here today like this is some stuff we're working on, like I know you guys are like saying the line's moving slow, we're working on that. Here's what we're working on, like. Just like, talk to them, just be authentic. That's always my strategy. So, yeah, I'm front and center, ethan from thirst at the grocery store.
Speaker 2:Have people ever stopped. You've been like hey, are you sure, dude? Yeah, it's awesome I love it.
Speaker 3:It's like it's fun. So it's kind of a weird thing to be like spotted for a lot but it's working if the people notice you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no it's fun so from the path of beginning to now in one. What is something that happened that you didn't anticipate, that threw you for a whirl or maybe like a difficulty or a head when you ran into that kind of made you sweat for a little bit I mean I'm sweating right now, dude, I'm like in the thick of entrepreneurship right now.
Speaker 3:Like I'm like at that five, five to ten million dollar revenue mark, like you're not like a huge business but you're not a small business anymore. And uh, dude, it's, it's. They say that's the hardest stage of at least in restaurant growth and no question that's the case. Like just figuring out scale, people management, like when you and I'm really self like funded from the profit business mostly. So like when do I, when can we quite afford to hire this next position and which one do you do next? So like I'm in the thick of it. So I would say I mean I'm still figuring out what the hardest challenge would be. I'd say one of the hardest things is just, uh, people management and scaling.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like, how do I say and that's something I just think about a lot is like how do I say the certain, how do I say this thing a certain way to this person to make them feel a certain way so that they'll ultimately go to do the job that I want them to do? You know, yeah, other than that some managers or base level team members or corporate team members like it, that is the game. That is so much different than running a soda shop. You know, like the first four years I was learned how to manage cost of goods, manage labor, do inventory and run us be the gm of the store. Now I'm multiple tiers back from that level, like I'm teaching the person, who's going to teach the person and holding that person accountable for holding that person.
Speaker 3:So it's a totally different game and so I feel like the last couple years I've like, had to. I'm restarting on learning something. It's like I learned how to run a food business. Now I'm learning how to get someone else to run a food business.
Speaker 3:It's totally different game so now I'm in the people business and I work through my team members, so it's a totally different game. So now I'm in the people business and I work through my team members, so it's a totally different game. I'd say that's the biggest thing is like making that for me has been the shift of I can control everything to now I need to affect the people that can control everything. And yeah, it's quite the puzzle, dude For sure.
Speaker 2:Do you have any employees that have been there either since the beginning or for a really long time?
Speaker 3:Pretty close. I've got a couple, yeah, but we have pretty high turnover just because it's high school kids a lot, and college kids or like or not, but a lot of part time. And you know, we probably have like 50 to 75, like full time for 40 hour weeks and the rest would be just like you know, really take a shift, yeah 20 to 30 hours a week, so weeks and the rest would be just like you don't really take a shift.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 20 to 30 hours a week, so no, that makes sense. Yeah, but yeah, it's been a puzzle to figure out.
Speaker 2:For sure I'm right in the middle of it still, but I'm sure it turns from like a jigsaw puzzle to like uh trying to think about like those like uh like metal puzzles where you have to like push things in the right way and yeah same idea, just different shape type of thing.
Speaker 3:You still gotta figure it out. But still learning every day yeah, that's been good and we're, uh, like I said, we're right in the thick of it and, uh, it's fun.
Speaker 1:It's what I do all day, every day, you just I must at that point in my life where I, I'm a single guy.
Speaker 3:I don't have kids to take care of. I don't have a wife. Like I don't need anything. Like I have, I share an apartment with my buddy. Like I don't need to make a lot of money so I can put all my money back into the business to grow um and uh, it's fun. I won't do it forever, but it's fun now, when I'm in this place on 26, like I.
Speaker 3:I like doing it right now, so I don't think there'll be another time where I can go this all in for this long amount of time, and so that's where I'm at.
Speaker 2:It's so cool, like I, I love that point of view that you're at right now, because I've had uh, because I'm a little older than you and I've had enough friends go through kind of like the period you're in where it's like, hey, everything in my life right now is this, everything I'm making is going back into the machine. Yeah, yeah, and like, there's times, friends, I'm like I don't know if this is a good idea, like, but I don't want to be the one to be like, hey, man, stupid idea, get out of here. Yeah, but the, the, the amount of them that, and I'd be like I mean the, I hate to be the fast forward and it worked, and then they can kind of take their foot off the gas a little more, kind of step into a different phase of things. But I mean I totally can understand and see the joy of it and it's not miserable either. No, I mean you're having fun.
Speaker 1:People think.
Speaker 3:I'm like I got to work 100 hours a week literally because I'm doing, because work for me is my hobby, plus my work plus anything else I do in my spare time.
Speaker 3:You know, like, combine that, combine someone's job plus their hobby plus what they do in their I don't know like another hobby or something like that's all of my stuff, yeah, and it's all wrapped in one little thing like it's not like it's not like it doesn't feel like a huge sacrifice, sometimes like I'm like, yeah, but honestly, when I want to go hang out with my friends, I go hang out with my friends, I'm going to get spots.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I love that story. I love the sheer grit of building it brick by brick. But I guess, as you're in this stage of that revenue space, because you've gone from validating the product, validating how to run a single one, to scaling those, but where do you see from now? What does the next one, three, five years, look like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so really perfecting the model. Like I said, I'm really focused on that. So priority for me is to nail it. Nail it before you scale it.
Speaker 2:What does that look like to you?
Speaker 3:I mean. To me that looks like well. I'll give you an example. Like my problem almost right now that I'm trying to solve is, whenever I do marketing the ops like will will fail. It won't hold up to the hype right, yeah or.
Speaker 3:But if I'm so focused on ops then you know the sales are way down and so, like I'm, I'm fixing that bubble right now, so doing a lot of hiring and infrastructure around ops so that we can drive a ton of sales and the experience will be perfect. So quick moving lines, consistent product, having every piece of the operations be running smooth and profitable profitable, I'm really hot on how much? Not how many units do you have, but how much profit are you making from each unit? Totally Is something I wish I would have thought about like a couple years ago, before I was just clicking them off, opening a bunch of them. It's cooler to make more money off two units than no money off six. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:So I think about that a lot. But yeah, nail the profitability, nail the experience. And then I want to open probably three to four more units in Utah to the places that are just begging for it. So Utah County is a huge one. I think I could have two in there.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they could be across the street from each other and they'd both be just as busy One northbound, one southbound yeah.
Speaker 3:I'd love to be in Provo and Orem have been bagging since we started. That's where it all started. So we definitely want to do Battle Up in there, probably Saratoga, daybreak, some of these really growing cities, and then maybe North, like Ogden or Layton too, but at that point I feel like we're as far as St George and everywhere in the Valley, so we kind of got the state covered at that point. I think I want to do that over the next couple of years and then couple years, and then, uh, I get a couple emails a week to buy a franchise and so I just kind of mark them all because, uh, not quite ready, but one day I want to. And I think in a couple years, once we're all set up for that and I'm owning all the stores that are running really well, then I want to sell franchises throughout the rest of the country. I think we could sell them everywhere really quickly. But uh, yeah, so we're gonna be everywhere one day, but in due time for now you got to perfect it all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's. It's like it's always interesting too, because you look at a lot of the bigger brands. I mean I think mcdonald's is like one of the easiest ones. I mean it's not soda specifically, but I mean fast food drive-thru and I mean the amount of ones that I mean mcdonald's owns it. Third, I think of all the locations and the rest are franchised and it's like such a I mean probably preaching to the choir, but the way to get into a market, I mean that's one of the easiest ways to do it the least amount of investments, like hey, we'll give you the idea, we'll give you the product you go fund this.
Speaker 3:And then you like and I'm so quick to change my mind, dude Like I'll change completely my whole game plan, like quickly, if I think it's the right move. But this is what I think right now. But yeah, I've heard lots of people like why don't you ever do figure it out? I know everything else so far it'll go. But I I will say you can't argue with what crumble's done. It's insane. It is insane what they've done. Who knows how sustainable it'll be, but I think it's truly exceptional.
Speaker 2:I mean it's great, like just the other day. So I had a friend who's moving, uh, to Michigan and I can't remember how it came up. We were talking about crumble or some cookie I think it was crumble and she's like, well, there's nowhere, there's no way. There's one over by my hometown. I was like, look it up, like there's three. And she's like no, there's not like full. And I'm like there's literally three. And then we zoom out on the map and it they're everywhere. Yeah, it's crazy, but it's so it's. It's fun to see that people have an appetite for it. There's value in it, there's growth in it, yeah, and so it's a good place to be, it's cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah We'll. We'll see how sustainable it is. I don't think that it won't be, I'm just saying it's. It would be impressive if it's a long, if it's a long lasting business, that'd be cool.
Speaker 2:So thinking about Salt Lake itself. What do you love about being here and makes you grateful that this is the place that you started it all?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think Salt Lake is super. It's entrepreneurial in my opinion. I think it's the place to be in Utah for sure, specifically Salt Lake, because I feel like it's got more of a mix of different kinds of people, especially like this, this, like my favorite. My office is in the downtown store still, because it's just the best place to be, I think, the best vibes in utah, um, but no, I think it's a. I've been, I've the restaurateurs that I know here, the entrepreneurs that I know here, like it a collaborative people are stoked on your success, I think a lot of the time. And so, yeah, man, it's been fun to be an entrepreneur here, just because the city's supportive, it's a, it's a dope city and like there's other people doing it that'll help you out. So I just think it's been good it's been. I'm glad I'm a business owner here. I'm glad this is where it started.
Speaker 2:Totally and like it's it's so interesting to see because, like I mean, right now in the us, it's been interesting to see how cities have changed so much. A lot of it's because of the pandemic. Where I mean pre-pandemic, it's like, oh, if you want to live in a big city in the us, it's like, oh, san francisco, new york, la, I mean seattle, blah blah. But then, like all of a sudden, because of the pandemic, a lot of it's driven by tech. But like you start to see these kind of like I mean tertiary cities, kind of like these Nashvilles, these Charlestons, salt Lake cities, kind of go from these smaller places to all of a sudden, people are like, oh, if I can work from anywhere, I might as well be here.
Speaker 2:And especially when you look at Silicon Slopes, that's all entrepreneurial spirit. You see, I mean I'm finally at the point where the food is starting to show up in Salt because I got lived in seattle before where I mean the restaurant scene there is unreal, it's insane, yeah. And so now I'm finally like, okay, like things are happening and it's all this entrepreneurial spirit, these people that have this idea and want to make it happen, and it's so fun to see salt lake be such like a forefront of that footprint of like, hey, we don't necessarily need to do all of these huge things that have this economic growth. Let's just remove these roadblocks and let's get people and these ideas and these entrepreneurs the road that they need in the path yeah, to make it happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like the key to success, right, like having booming businesses, like that's, that's the economy, right so like no, I think I 100 even just like a place, like we're sitting right now, like it's. It's just like sick that you know this place is here like to bring like, like minded people together. So I think it's been dope.
Speaker 2:No, totally, and like, and so, for context, we're, we're at Edison house recording here again and I mean, again, it's an idea. People saw an opportunity and they made it happen and it was well received and people love it and and I think there's it's only the tip of the iceberg, I mean. I think I mean it might be on the nose, but like podcasts are the same way. Yeah, I mean people when podcasts first launched, people are like, hey, I'm going to start a podcast, like there's already hundreds of podcasts. Why would you do that? And then fast forward five years later, someone's. So there's always room for entrepreneurs, there's always room for improvement, there's always room for, uh, I mean, making something better, more profitable and and we see that every day here and I mean you see it even more every day and everything you do for sure um, but I guess, like thirst and business and entrepreneur side, I mean, what are your some of your favorite things in salt lake places to go?
Speaker 2:yeah, food eat, yeah. So I'm uh like I like to support my fellow restaurant buddies.
Speaker 3:For sure your favorite things in Salt Lake places to go food to eat, yeah. So I like to support my fellow restaurant buddies. For sure I'll say I mean I liked it. I grew up, I went to college here. You know I'm a college friend so I think the bar scene is fun here. It's just part of growing up for me, so I love hanging out down here. But favorite places Sotabello, it's my favorite place to go to dinner, no question. I think Regent Street's pretty cool. So I like Honest Eatery on Regent Street. I don't know if you've ever been there.
Speaker 2:Yep, I like it a lot, my buddy's on there.
Speaker 3:So Honest is in Vivint Arena and they're down there, they're there. So honest is in like vivin arena and they're down there and they're on regent, they're in foothill. So just like cool local and it's all about just like homegrown stuff or acai and like like health food stuff like that. So I don't know, just local businesses like that I think is sick and and supporting local and uh yeah, lots of opportunities in downtown to do it for sure.
Speaker 2:and I like the because, like, nightlife is something that I think is finally like getting to a point where it's really fun. And I'll say like with this because, like, when you go to a lot of bigger cities, like there's so many cool like niches or kitchens, or just like these little things that they put a spin on. Like, for example, one of my favorite bars from when I lived in seattle was this place called Montana, and everything in that bar was from Montana, and so you're like I feel like I'm in Montana, but they also had these Moscow mules on tap that was fresh, made with some sort of ingredients. There was one time they had this blueberry Moscow mule on tap fresh. It was amazing, and so it's fun.
Speaker 2:In Salt Lake now You're starting to see a lot of that. I mean, waikiki is a good example where it's like, oh, upstairs it's drag shows and in the basement it's gonna be um, uh, silent disco, yeah, and then, but you just had the oh, shoot, what's that new japanese bar? But it's just like I mean little quick japanese bites and japanese drinks like this, like we finally have something better than yeah, well, we have twist, that's for the college kids, and then you can go to bourbon that's for people who just graduated like it was so much more just like. This is the bar that these people go to yeah and like restaurants, things keep popping up.
Speaker 2:Uh, it's, it's, it's fun. I love being in salt lake right now, like and I don't I don't know if you know this, but like so last year I spent six months traveling around the country and I always had this idea that I was going to find this perfect place, that's going to be the perfect fit. But after I almost 30 states and six months I was like oh, this actually just makes me appreciate Salt Lake. I'm going to go home.
Speaker 2:And so it's, it's cool. I mean it's not perfect, but I think of all the things that make it imperfect, you can avoid a lot of them. And then when you kind of I mean head to head against other places, you're like, oh, I'll take this over that any day, it's super fun. I guess we could wrap up with two questions I always like to end with. First is where can people find you Either on social media we know locations website. Where do we find you? Where can we find your marketing that you post every day?
Speaker 3:Thirst drinks on all the social platforms. That's our business. And then I do. I basically document all of entrepreneurship. It's basically my personal brand, but I would say it funnels into the business, but the main sales for the business, but the main priority is just the documentation of entrepreneurship. So I do that on Instagram, ethan from Thirst. I do it on my podcast, which is called Learning by Doing, because that's how I learn things.
Speaker 3:By Doing of course, and then I do a weekly vlog on YouTube just about running the business behind the scenes. I have a camera girl that comes and does a vlog with me once a week. And then, yeah, man, ethan from Thirst and Thirst Drinks. But yeah, I'm just trying to pump out the story of my business pretty much.
Speaker 2:It's a great story and I love that we live in the time where we can document it that much. Yeah, it's so funny. Now we're in the golden era of TV and now we have a documentary coming out every day. That's something super fascinating. But documentary coming out every day, that something like super fascinating and like, but there's so few ones that it's like oh, and here's this footage from that like, and I don't know why, but like the kanye west documentary comes the most. Where it's like he just happened to have this friend who happened to have a camera, who he believed his friend was going to be the next big thing, so he just started filming. Yeah, where now it's like, I mean, you could have someone follow you around every day and literally pay them, or you could have a phone with a camera. You can, and it's just so much easier and accessible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, think about, like, if we could have the playbook that like of anyone we look up to, like, if I wanted to be a successful entrepreneur, I go watch mark cuban while he's a kid, you know, like while he's my age or whatever. That's crazy, that would be insane.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, if nothing else, my grandkids will like it oh, without a doubt, I'm gonna go watch, watch Grandpa's vlogs, and the last question I have for you is if you could have someone on this podcast to hear about their story and what they built. Who do you think you would want to have on here?
Speaker 3:As a guest for you. Yeah, ooh, I would probably go. I would probably go with, I'd probably go with um.
Speaker 3:I'd probably go with Lauren Warner from honest eatery I'm going to go with honest, cause I mentioned that earlier but just another local entrepreneur, super good guys. He's a lot of, a lot of things the way I do in the entrepreneur space, but I just think like restaurant tours, business owners, such a sick market and like such a sick uh, at least for me, intel of how they did it and uh, what they're up to in the city.
Speaker 2:So no, I'm, I'm with you. I love, I love entrepreneurs hearing their story, cause, like I'm, I'm someone who overthinks everything and so if you give me enough time, I can talk myself out of anything and but I find I'm most happy and most successful. And but I find I'm most happy and most successful. I'm like, hey, ignore that voice, keep moving forward, make it work and make it happen. So I always love hearing those stories of it's like another data point, of like yeah, it can work, especially like in restaurants, where I mean you look at the stats of like restaurants that fail, or like how hard it is or how low money, and like there's a million reasons not to. But the people like, hey, no, but I, I think I can make this work and there's this idea and I'm just going to do it, and then they do, so it's awesome. But I mean, Ethan, thank you again for coming and hanging out.
Speaker 3:Thank you, ethan. Awesome, I love the vibe. Wish you all the best with the podcast adventures Much appreciated.
Speaker 2:As you said, it's all about putting yourself out there, having the right vibe and building it brick by.
