REAL IS RARE EP 11 - Pete and Arianna Kanaat with GoBiotix

Building a successful brand isn't about chasing trends. It's about solving a real problem, earning your customers' trust, and staying committed to quality every step of the way.

In this episode of Real Is Rare, Eric Simpson and Don Grace sit down with Pete and Arianna from GoBiotix, to share the story behind one of the fastest-growing gut health brands in the industry. From Pete's years working in nightlife and struggling with his own digestive health to building a company that now competes with some of the biggest names on Amazon, this conversation dives into the mindset, strategy, and persistence required to build something that truly makes a difference.

The discussion covers creating products with purpose, scaling an e-commerce brand, navigating Amazon, expanding into retail and international markets, the importance of strong manufacturing and fulfillment partners, and why solving real customer problems will always outperform chasing the latest trend.

Whether you're launching your first business or looking to scale an existing brand, this episode is packed with practical lessons on entrepreneurship, product development, marketing, and building long-term customer trust.

Topics covered:

• How GoBiotix became one of Amazon's top-selling fiber brands
• Building a business around solving a personal health problem
• Growing an e-commerce brand while staying lean
• Product development, formulation, and clean ingredients
• Scaling through Amazon, TikTok, and social media
• The realities of international expansion and regulatory challenges
• Why fulfillment, relationships, and customer service matter
• The future of GoBiotix, retail expansion, and new product innovation

This is a conversation about solving real problems, building with intention, and creating products that genuinely improve people's lives - because in business, just like in life, Real Is Rare.

Transcript

Intro 0:00

Keep it girl dog, got the keep it turned on. Keep it turned off, got the keep it turned on.

Eric Simpson 0:06

Ariana, Pete, Go Biotics. Good to see you, my friend.

Pete Kanaat 0:09

See, it's your brother.

Eric Simpson 0:10

Thanks for having us. Absolutely. And congratulations on the engagement. Thank you.

Pete Kanaat 0:13

Thank you.

Eric Simpson 0:15

I knew you were going to put a ring on it the second I met her. Pete, years ago, Pete's like, I'm never getting married. I'm never getting buried. I'm going to be a bachelor for life. I'm like, no, you're not.

Arianna 0:24

Is that what he said? Yeah.

Don Grace 0:25

Oh, I used to work the front door at the Greystone.

Pete Kanaat 0:28

At the Greystone, yes. It's been a nice transition going from nightclubs to uh, you know, making people healthy with supplements.

Don Grace 0:35

We're super happy for you two, though. You guys glow together, so night. Official now. Official. And you have the uh we have a child already. Yes, yes. That was quick. I mean that kind of push it.

Pete Kanaat 0:46

Furriness took after me.

Eric Simpson 0:50

It's Kira? Kira. Kira. Yeah. She's adorable. Yeah, thank you, man. I appreciate it. She's adorable. She's great. But yeah, glad you guys can make it. Uh, you know, we we've actually been doing business. Uh, you know when our first sale was? It's October 31st, 2017.

Pete Kanaat 1:04

Wait, for in general? For GoBiotics. Oh. Just for go biotics, yeah.

Eric Simpson 1:09

Damn. Yeah, been a long time. Wow. It's been amazing. That's crazy. And you know what the very first product was? That fiber jar. Yeah. That was the very first thing that we manufacture for go biotics. And it's funny because today is I think your number one seller. It is. Is it? Yeah.

Pete Kanaat 1:21

It is, yeah. It's so awesome. We're pumping it out, man. It's uh it's just so clean and easy for people to use. The fact that it's not like chalky and nasty and like what most fibers are, it's uh mixes homogenous. It's you know, it's tasteless, there's no grit, there's no texture. I personally put it in my coffee every morning and I'm good to go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, my wife uses it.

Eric Simpson 1:45

My my my youngest son uses it whenever he's having you know uh backed up issues. Okay, yeah, within what two or three hours, yep, problem solved.

Pete Kanaat 1:54

Yeah, I mean, it's like two or three minutes for me, honestly. Yeah, it works, it works like a charm, man.

Eric Simpson 2:00

And I mean I got Crohn, so I don't need your I don't need your goddamn fiber products. Yeah, yeah, you're good. I'm good to go. Yeah, I can I can drink water, I'll be clear. So yeah.

Arianna 2:08

I never thought how much uh how c uncomfortable you are when you don't go to the bathroom. And you know, I have zero digestive issues, I have uh my gut is amazing, and I rarely use fiber, but you know, when you travel sometimes or things happen, different time zones, yeah, and you're like, wait, this is really uncomfortable. And I you know I I feel for people that that have to go through that every single morning. And I didn't realize that until you know, rarely it happens to me. And I was like, I can't live like that. There's no way I can get up and have this issue every single day. So um having something that you could just take right away in the morning and make it easy, because some people just don't want to take big supplements, wait for it or whatever. So having an a product that's so easy to take, that's you know, amazing.

Eric Simpson 3:01

And I think once you once you guys end up going to stick packs, you know, what two two years ago, three years ago, that was a great move because people are on the go. I mean, it's great to have the fiber jars at your house on the daily, but when like you said, when you travel, when you're going out, you leave them for a weekend, just grab a stick to go.

Pete Kanaat 3:16

So absolutely, man. Yeah, that that thing has been exploding too now. So we're just trying to keep up with demand right now, and you see it, like you see, like people are like genuinely thanking us, they're DMing us, they're they're replying in the comment section. We have, you know, between Spanish content, English content, we have like some Portuguese content out there. There are like everyone is just extremely thankful that this product even exists, and it's just like it's changed, it's changing people's lives. And it's like, you know, you you as a business owner, you deal with a lot of bullshit, and you, as you guys know, and you have to, you know, weather this storm and then that storm. But then when you kind of like take a step back and you see people's reactions to your product, the the time and the meticulous level that you put into creating these products, the the research and development, and once you get all that like ironed out and you make a a an effective product, Kira likes it too. Uh it's it's just great to see, man. Like it's it's it warms your heart. Good. Yeah.

Eric Simpson 4:19

Good. Yeah. So awesome. Thanks, man. And then yeah, that opened up a whole array of different products. You know, you got your your enzymes, your collagens, your immune powder, uh, prenatal, postnatal. I mean, you guys got what? 15 magnesium. Yeah, yeah. Green zero.

Pete Kanaat 4:34

Yeah, so that's yeah. So we, you know, we specialized, we we wanted to be known for something. And for me, I I'm not like her. I have a if multitude of gut health issues. So I wanted to focus on gut health, prebiotics, probiotics, digestive enzymes. I was, you know, working in nightclubs for as long as I did, over 12 years, first one in, last one out, that whole thing, you know, getting home at 6 a.m. after a shift, waking up early to do inventory, to do scheduling, like it takes a toll on you. And as you get older, you know, it's fun in like your mid-20s. You start creeping up there in your 30s, you start to notice it. You start it starts taking a toll. And for me, I also have the lineage aspect. Mom's got issues, dad's got issues, you know, everyone's got issues in my family when it comes to this stuff. So I have it too, naturally. Um, and then I started to notice it more and more with those late nights and you know, just lack of sleep at a certain point. It just takes its toll on you physically. Getting older takes its toll on you physically. So I wanted to specialize in that. It's it it's a it's a place close to me. Gut health is super important to me. I wanted to create a company that specialized in that, and we did well. And then, you know, obviously we want to create more products. So we started going into magnesium. Obviously, magnesium has gut health relations as well, citrate specifically, but like adding you know, things that people ail from, whether it be like, you know, a stressful day, attacking it with aglycinate or a malate for you know, muscle recovery or heart health, like all these things we start to think about. Yes, it our core is gut health, but we want to help with so many other different ailments, right? Collagen for you know, with probiotics in it, and then hyaluronic acid and biotin for like just more of the aesthetic aspect of things. Like there's so many different pain points out there for our customers. We want to try to hit as many as possible. Um, and I think you guys do an excellent job of the product creation and you know, from our marketing, uh whether it be our Facebook emphasis, our TikTok, Amazon. Amazon's our biggest channel. Uh, but you know, we put so much into just brand awareness from a TikTok perspective, a Facebook perspective. It just trickles down to the entire portfolio and it's great to see the growth.

Eric Simpson 6:53

Awesome. Well, we're super uh super stoked for you guys. So yeah, it's uh been amazing watching your guys' journey over what the last 10 years now. Going from where you started to where you're at now. I mean, you guys are crushing it on Amazon. I mean, that is that your biggest platform you would think?

Pete Kanaat 7:08

It is, yeah. I mean, our our fiber is the uh we fluctuate between uh uh two other brands being at the top for for fiber on Amazon. It's the number one prebiotic fiber, but fiber in general, uh, we fluctuate between like metamucil and benifiber as like the top on Amazon. Amazing. It's great.

Eric Simpson 7:29

That's great, incredible. It's very humbling, I'm sure.

Pete Kanaat 7:31

Yeah, it's incredible.

Eric Simpson 7:32

Good for you guys. So, how did it all start? Take take us back. What when did it when did you start? Was it 2016?

Pete Kanaat 7:39

Yeah, so again, going back to like, you know, being in the hospitality industry for 12 years to having those late nights, at the tail end of it, I was uh noticing it physically. Uh, I've always wanted to be able to have my own thing. I obviously didn't want to work for someone for the rest of my life. Um, so I was really intrigued by just e-commerce in general. So in those late nights while I'm doing cash-out procedures and um, you know, doing inventory checks, um, usually in my office at that point, because I had a whole staff to manage. In between that, when I got any bit of downtime, I specifically for no apparent reason, I can't tell you the reason why I leaned towards Amazon, but I bought everything on Amazon even at that point. I was like, you know what? Let me see if I could figure out how to sell products on Amazon. So I went down a YouTube rabbit hole after another YouTube rabbit hole and you know, read all these different blogs and articles, and then ultimately started talking to you guys. I was like, hey, uh, you guys don't know me, but uh I want to create this line of products, um, you know, special specifically centered around gut health. And I just want to see if I could do anything. I think we had a couple, you know, like a few thousand on our first order. We did four, I think it was four SKUs originally. I think the total amount we ordered was about four or five thousand units. Sent those into Amazon, started doing our little marketing tactics that I learned. A lot of them worked, some of them didn't, just focused on the ones that worked and just kept on hammering those. And we sold out of those that first order within like I think 60 days. And then, like, we're just like, all right, well, let's con re-up, re-up. And that's been like the story of our lives since we started with you guys. We just keep on re-upping and keep on re-upping and ordering more and more. So that's amazing. That's kind of it. And I, you know, especially with the the whole health issues that I started to notice in that field. I I wanted to make something that that was effective on me because I know it would work on so many other people. So excellent.

Don Grace 9:43

Yeah, that's how it all started. And when you create a solution for it's a solution, you create a solution for yourself, for your family, for everybody else. When you start as a solution for everybody, then it takes off the business itself. It kind of all happens organically after that.

Pete Kanaat 9:58

So it's a relation directly to you, like you are your biggest marketing component. Like, how are you? You know, that people want to feel something. And if you can actually speak on something that you have a problem with that so many other people have a problem with, and you could relate, you know, if you can articulate that via your marketing material, people are going to genuinely gravitate towards you. There's so many different problems out there. People suffer from so many different ailments, but if you could create the problem and then and well, not create the problem, excuse me, if you could address the problem and then create the solution, that's all you really need, man.

Eric Simpson 10:36

Yeah. That's it. So go biotics, where did that name come from?

Pete Kanaat 10:40

Oh, go biotics, right? So when you think of gut health, most everyone thinks about probiotics, right? So we wanted to have something like some a play on words, go, meaning, you know, go, like, you know, go to the bathroom or get going, right? So like we want it to be like a positive feeling. I will say there's been a lot of education that needed to happen with it where people are like go biotics and like just not pronouncing it properly. It was like, no, it's go biotics.

Don Grace 11:10

You could do a big shorts on that problem alone.

Eric Simpson 11:13

Like, well, now I need to purchase this after like five minutes of trying to get the name right. Right, exactly. It's funny because I've seen the name a thousand times, but I didn't really put two and two together. We talk all the time, right?

Pete Kanaat 11:23

And then it makes sense to us. Yeah. Oh my gosh. But not to you know, especially when you have like a you know Spanish-speaking uh community and they're like they they're reaching out to us, they don't know how to pronounce it. When you're dealing with TikTok influencers and they have to actually phonetically articulate how to say go biotics on a TikTok reel, uh TikTok post, you know, there needs to be education there sometimes. We obviously have a at this point, we're starting to become a lot more well known. We have our own marketing material on our channel. So when people come to like our TikTok or our Facebook page, they'll see how to pronounce go biotics properly. But there was there was a time where it was starting to get very, very frustrating. I was like, did I name, should I have named this something else? But it all worked out.

Eric Simpson 12:09

So it all worked out. So yeah, too late now, man. Yeah, we can't back out now. Gotta roll with the punches. Well, yeah, uh, you know, I get the monthly reports from our fulfillment center every single month, and you you guys are crushing it. I mean, so many packages shipping out every single day for you guys. It's so amazing. Super stoked for you guys.

Pete Kanaat 12:27

Yeah, you guys do your your team does great. So obviously, we use you guys as as well, warehouse and third-party logistics, and like they're on top of their shit, man. I can't appreciate it. I can't thank you guys enough. It's our pleasure.

Eric Simpson 12:40

And uh yeah, they they're they're great. Uh I can't I can't thank them enough. But the team here is just spot on.

Pete Kanaat 12:46

Well, not only just the you know, the small parcels that happen on like whether it be like a Walmart order or like a Shopify order, the amount that we have to ship in via freight and the amount of pallets that I have to stack together, it's like it's time consuming. It's you know, the the whole it's very laborious. So like the fact that they get it done as done as quickly as they do, it's you know, it's really appreciative on our side. As uh you know, a company that's used multiple 3PLs before, and to understand the other side of it of how bad a 3PL can be, it's nice coming to you guys. And you guys obviously are a button-up operation, so it's just it was a no-brainer. We produce here, we warehouse here, we ship from here, it all happens under one roof, and you guys crush it for us. That's why we got into it.

Don Grace 13:38

You you know, obviously, you came to us in the past. One of our first customers came to us and said, Oh, we're having issues with fulfillment. We'll refer you here, refer them there. It all came back to us, uh, unfortunately, with the issues and the problems. And now, like to see the end result where you're like, okay, I'm dealing with Amazon, I'm dealing with TikTok, I do not need a full warehouse team, fulfillment team. You call and actually get a person on the phone, right? It's not like some automated system over here yet. Yeah. At least at least from the code. No, I got I got text. I got text. I know they're working on it right now, Ben, right? But uh, long story short, yeah, it's it's definitely a good feeling to be able to have all the different touch points with all the different people on the team. Absolutely. And they care just as much as we do about everything.

Pete Kanaat 14:19

Yeah, if you could sit there, like and I could text Jorge and I'd be like, hey, uh, really quick, like, can you give me a quick update on on this specific shipment or the specific pickup? And mind you, that that pickup's gonna be like 10 pallets, right? And and like to get an answer immediately, like that's like where do you get that? Like, it's just and I get it. Like, I've I've known you guys and I've known Jorge since the beginning too, and he's been with you forever since the beginning. Yeah, and so it's it's a you know, it's easier maybe for me, but I'm assuming he gives that level of attention to everyone.

Eric Simpson 14:51

Yeah, it's amazing. I get so many random emails from some of our customers that just say, Hey, I just want to take a moment to thank you and your fulfillment team for the amazing job they did. As a matter of fact, we had a customer that that sent a bunch of uh gift cards last week for a fulfillment team because they did a hot rush order for them within like 72 hours. Like it was crazy. They incredible, they slammed it. But yeah, uh, whether you're you know, we're doing 50,000 units uh a week or we're doing 500 units a week, you know, our team treats every single customer, you know, the exact same way. So but glad to hear you know the positive feedback for them. So thank you guys. I appreciate that.

Don Grace 15:26

Yeah, you know, some sometimes when we're quoting against some of these other companies, we won't always be the best price, but I do know we always are the best service. But again, we we can be flexible, right? So wait, get better prices. No, no, no, no, no. Fuck no, that's not what he said. Listen to me, listen to me, listen to me, listen to me. Listen to me, listen to me, but follow me through. We'll give you the price to get the business. What's the name of that one company that you ship through wherever you order? You do a rug pull, is what you do. That's what they do. That's what they do. Umi? Yeah, umy umy or whatever it is. Is that a CMO? We're at a game. Oh, no, no, no. We're at a game of prime evil, right? Who's another great account? Like DHL UPS. And I bring it up to them, I'm like, guys, have you ever heard of this different, you know, you know, the the shipping company that they're like, oh my god, let me show you the YouTube videos. This is what we do in our spare time. We watch the damages shipments come in that they post on YouTube from it. So what I'm getting at is like there's somebody out there who could like use a company like that who's not reputable. You know, it's like getting protein powder that test out at 80%. Yeah, test out at 80%, but is it instantized? Or, you know, is it does it mix the same? Does it taste the same? Whatever the case may be, right? That's the type of stuff you know you have to deal with sometimes where these guys might just be totally in fulfillment and they're giving them these ridiculous prices in order to get the business. We'll work with people where it's below, I guess you could say, the standards of a good fulfillment company. And then this is what happens is the end result. You come in the chair, you sit here, and you tell us about your horror story with these fulfillment companies. We've heard them all with that.

Pete Kanaat 16:59

Yeah, it happens so much, man. Yeah, especially when, like, first off, I this this life in general is all about relationships. Absolutely. And if you could build upon that, like, okay, you guys obviously you guys know what you're doing from uh you know a manufacturing perspective. We obviously are going to trust you as a company, and you guys have your shit together, of course, that you got you guys know what you're doing when it comes to a 3PL facility, right? So, like, it's it's all about relationships, and I'd rather have everything done with you guys. That's why I wish you guys made a gummy. Um, but I'd rather have everything done under one roof, uh, just because I know you guys and I trust you guys, and it goes so much further than you know shaving a couple of pennies here and there.

Eric Simpson 17:47

It means a lot to us. Well, and and you're a reputable person. I'm sure whoever you're using for your gummies is a legit manufacturing company. So we'll talk about that a lot. We have our own lab. We can test shit if you know.

Don Grace 17:58

It's like it's just like the fulfillment. We always refer people, but it comes back to us. Yeah, does that make sense to you? Of course. I don't think the whole science and art form of perfecting the gummies have been perfected. Hence, you know.

Eric Simpson 18:09

What kind of gummies? Uh the fiber? Fiber gummies were starting with. Yeah, we spoke about that. Yeah, yeah.

Pete Kanaat 18:14

Yeah, man. I mean, I've been going back and forth with the whole gummy manufacturing industry, they're fucking assholes, man. Cutthroat.

Don Grace 18:25

We have all these super smart people over here, you know, in order to make sure we maintain all the certificates we have, you know? It's the bipolar opposite for us, but go ahead.

Pete Kanaat 18:34

Yeah, that bro, like talking to them, they're all like, first off, the pricing is like crazy when you're giving them the exact raw amount that you're using in a powder or whatever. Okay, fine. Then it's like them even trying to like to even responding to an email. Like, I have to email like five, six, like five, six times just to get a response. And mind you, a conversation has already started. We've already talked about formulation, like going back and forth, getting initial pricing, but then like they just like at a certain point they they stopped giving a fuck. They have like these gummy manufacturers have people banging down their doors seemingly like they they are not hurting for business because everyone wants to make a gummy. Yeah, and we were we were so against it because there's so many fillers, and we try to keep our entire label as clean as possible, right? We use natural flavoring, we don't want to go to start making a gummy and start putting carnuba wax in it and like all these other have you ever thought about doing a shot?

Don Grace 19:39

Yeah, okay, go ahead.

Pete Kanaat 19:41

Yeah, tinctures, shots, all that stuff for sure. Um, but now we've we've gone back and forth with dozens of gummy manufacturers at this point. We finally got a solid formula down where it's super clean, sugar-free, using natural sweeteners. And so, like, it's been a long, arduous process of doing research and development on this. That's why I wish you guys like I would have just came to you like, yo, like you guys know what to do.

Eric Simpson 20:08

We don't we don't know shit about making gummies. It is not our forte. We we stay in our lane. So I get it. I get it. I mean, shit, we didn't know shit about sticks either, and then we got into that now, you know.

Pete Kanaat 20:19

So what you're trying to tell sticks going through.

Don Grace 20:22

I'm not saying it's just never certain, you know, there's a certain there's a certain, you know, you need the right person who understands the process. So if we could get the right person who understands the process, we'd get into it. And the talent for me and him both have people in mind for it. It's just a matter of making sure we like it.

Pete Kanaat 20:37

You guys will be printing. Yeah, you know that.

Don Grace 20:39

Yeah, I I'm ready. I'm ready. You're gonna get that cut right now in the background of like the Wolf of Wall Street.

Arianna 20:50

Eric's like, I don't want any more responsible.

Don Grace 20:52

How much did you make in a day, right? How much did you make in a day? How much I quit I quit my job.

Eric Simpson 20:58

You watch the documentary just came out last week. Was that the Wolf of Wall Street? The documentary just came out last week. No, I haven't seen it. Did you watch it happen? Like the actual dude, right? Yeah, yeah.

Don Grace 21:08

I watched the one about our other client. I well, I started watching it, and then my daughter came downstairs, and my wife's like, Who's that? I'm like, that's the guy who was out with the last night at dinner. Hey, oh and I love you to death.

Arianna 21:22

He said that the player represented in the movie was not even close to the real thing. Yeah, and he didn't like the fact that Leo played him. Really? Yeah. He said that he wanted, I forgot the actor.

Eric Simpson 21:34

Well, he said at least it at least it wasn't Danny DeVito. That's what he had said.

Arianna 21:39

Yeah, he wanted He didn't name He named someone he wanted him to play. Yeah, I forgot. Yeah. I was like, Well, you don't you didn't get to decide that. It was a great movie.

Pete Kanaat 21:49

Yeah, it was fantastic.

Don Grace 21:50

What do you think about this whole area? Brandon did a magnificent job with all this, right?

Pete Kanaat 21:54

I was just telling him I was like, wait, that couch wasn't there last time. That TV setup wasn't there last time. That's sick. The FIFA World Cup. Oh, nice. Nice. Yeah, we might as well just stay and lift. Oh, we didn't bring work. That's what I was going to say.

Don Grace 22:10

You know, the guns are looking good. You got a little pocket before you came on here. You know what I mean? There we go. There we go.

Arianna 22:16

Please cut that out.

Eric Simpson 22:19

Don't cut that out. That's sick, dude. I love that.

Arianna 22:21

Is this when he said he was gonna stay a bachelor when he was chubby? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, made it.

Eric Simpson 22:28

You know, I noticed on your bags, I've never seen this pull tab. We just got it. Right? I've never noticed that. Is that a super cool?

Pete Kanaat 22:36

Yeah, we just uh who you could you could rip it open if you want, brother. No, no, no. I don't want to waste it.

Eric Simpson 22:42

I don't want to I don't want to waste it.

Pete Kanaat 22:43

Uh these are yeah. We uh you know, one thing that are we've had a lot of issues with packaging, as you guys know. Yeah, uh god damn it.

Eric Simpson 22:52

One thing that works otherwise, everybody, if uh you're using a printer that we've never heard of, you have to send us a sample of the role before you go into production. You know what I don't know. No one has learned this more over the years than poor Pete.

Don Grace 23:03

Yep. So so so what I was thinking of doing probably be helpful too here in the future is just like how he has all his you know people figured out. We just put on there who we suggest to use in the future. Yeah, we do. Because like otherwise, when everybody starts using their own thing, forget about it now.

Pete Kanaat 23:17

You got you guys used to have a print shop. I think you no longer like it was right here. Yeah, yeah.

Eric Simpson 23:22

They uh they closed down, they got bought well, they got bought out uh and they got another company took over, and then I I don't even know if they're still there no more. They moved to another building, but I was I don't even know the original was foil flex. Foil flex foil flex. Foil flex got bought out by Ameriseal. Mariseal, thank you. A Marisel. And they ended up moving to another building down the street that was different from the original Foil Flex, and I don't even know if that's even there anymore. I have no idea. It's like execute print or something. It was too bad because you know, foil flex, they they had a really good setup, and they were quick. Yeah, they were quick, it was right here in our circle of people. I mean, it was it was no-brainer, and I kicked myself all the time because they came to us when they wanted to sell, and we did not have the fucking money for this. Like I would have figured it out if you wanted to do it. You know that. I wish we would have worked harder to try to make it work, but we we didn't give it too much thought. And I think back all the time, like fucking stupid. That was that was one of the biggest business decisions I truly regret was not looking into.

Don Grace 24:20

So let's let's grab him, bring him on to consult for us. Like we'll get scratch. No, they have that building down there, they still have the building, so somebody's doing something down there. I got too many headaches going on.

Pete Kanaat 24:32

It's literally perfect for each other.

Don Grace 24:37

Food for thought. We'll talk about that off script.

Pete Kanaat 24:39

Yeah, man. Like as much as you could control under one roof. I mean, like you you obviously got the manufacturer, you got the 3PL, but if you've got the print shop now, too. I mean, you basically have the entire everything's going into here.

Don Grace 24:51

Everything's coming with adjusted bags. I mean, if they could have it their way, they'd put a gun to our head tomorrow and tell us no more plastic containers. Well, I mean, 90% of our foils. They don't want packets to use containers anymore as well. I don't want containers. Takes up so much space.

Arianna 25:05

I mean, there's loose powders in a lot of bags like that. When I order matcha or whatever, they just say matcha.

Don Grace 25:13

Oh man, a lot of these can be recyclable ceremonial. Let's talk here. It's your favorite spot in LA.

Arianna 25:19

I make it at home. Okay. I mean none of it's just I don't live in we don't live in LA, but there's a I've heard LA has you know great matcha. I never drank it when I I'm from here. I when I used to live here. Yeah. Um, but I get the Japanese, the Japanese matcha, and amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric Simpson 25:38

You got like 50,000 pounds in the back if you need some. I don't know if it's Japanese matcha. No, it's funny, it's fucking Japanese matcha, man. Really? At least the price is.

Arianna 25:45

So what's the what's the brand that you guys do it for?

Eric Simpson 25:49

Oh, like the the the Finnish good brand? Yeah. Uh there a lot. There's a lot of them. Oh yeah.

Arianna 25:54

But you guys have the the raw.

Eric Simpson 25:56

Yeah, we have the raw material. Could make them.

Arianna 25:57

Oh, amazing. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. I could have made you a macho latte while you're sitting here.

Eric Simpson 26:02

You know, with the macho is one of the flavors for green sauce.

Pete Kanaat 26:04

So big right now. Yeah. People either love it or hate it. Like I'm indifferent towards it, but like people are obsessed with it. But then you see people who are like, they're disgusted by it. So it's like this.

Arianna 26:18

I mean, I I like the health benefits of it. Matcha is probably one of the most amazing antioxidant um products that you can consume. So and you know, I like the taste. Coffee is amazing, obviously, the taste of coffee, but for some reason my stomach doesn't really like coffee as much as matcha. So um, and I like the health benefits of matcha more.

Eric Simpson 26:42

Oh, yeah.

Arianna 26:42

I mean, keeps you young. It does.

Eric Simpson 26:45

Yeah, my wife loves it. Clearly. Work for her really well. Yeah, I know. We make products where it's just matcha, and then we'll add some other, you know, flavorings to it to where it tastes like coffee. So you literally brew it up with some hot water. Oh matcha coffee.

Pete Kanaat 26:56

You guys got into the coffee game too, didn't you? You guys have like a like a bean guy? Like uh the curb enthusiasm. Mocha Joe Joe. Mocha Joe.

Eric Simpson 27:04

By the way, this motherfucker got me in the curb. You're gonna be able to do it. I've watched the whole series. How amazing is that the black curb? Oh my god.

Arianna 27:13

I've watched all the seasons probably three times at least.

Pete Kanaat 27:17

I haven't watched his new uh it looks pretty boring.

Eric Simpson 27:22

It's my jersey. I couldn't watch it.

Don Grace 27:23

Yeah, but Leroy, that's my jersey over there. That's my jersey. Oh, yeah, that's right. And then he goes out of the car. Now that's a good friend right there. Grabbed his jersey because the other guy had it from the clear. He gets out of the car, he goes, grabs the jersey for him, he comes back in the car. He goes, Look, I took the red off his back. I'm like, that was too funny.

Pete Kanaat 27:40

He was the best. Not Leon. Leon. Leonard. Leon was the greatest addition to that show. Jeff's funny too, the heavy set guy. He's funny too. There's no there's they have a general script, but it's all improv. Yeah, yeah.

Don Grace 27:54

Well, they have a new one coming out.

Pete Kanaat 27:55

It's about stuff like that locally. We watched like the first episode or part of it of like sleepy. It's kind of boring.

Don Grace 28:03

Oh, really? It's tough to watch.

Arianna 28:04

It's just about the US.

Don Grace 28:06

It looks like somebody produced it. Looks like what produced it? Looks like somebody produced it.

Pete Kanaat 28:10

Yeah. Yeah. Do you see uh Larry David at Madison Square Garden losing his shit when Josh Hart missed the tippin'? Or missed the dunk. Yeah.

Don Grace 28:18

That's amazing. It was it was wild. I have a lot of that on video. Yeah.

Eric Simpson 28:23

But the beans. Yeah. So we carry uh a lot of different coffee powders from various sources, different countries, different flavor types. And we do we do it all. We do, you know, um uh it could be creamers, we do uh mushroom creamers, matcha creamers, uh all sorts of different fun stuff, and majority of them are in stick packs now, too. So I mean there's not a week that goes by, we're not doing some type of coffee stick pack product.

Pete Kanaat 28:47

Do you guys have you guys done anything with like uh date powder yet?

Eric Simpson 28:52

No.

Pete Kanaat 28:53

That's something that's okay. So look at this. A lot of people are are kind of veering into that now. They're using like uh they're like drying the dates and like powderizing it and mixing that with coffee for like an extra antioxidant boost. That's kind of like the next little come up here. It was like, you know, you know, there's all these fads and stuff like that. Matcha's obviously one of them. Um, but the date, I've been seeing a lot of stuff with going towards dates and so dates and coffee sounds like a rush trip to the bathroom.

Eric Simpson 29:24

Yeah, right?

Pete Kanaat 29:24

Isn't dates?

Arianna 29:29

Well, dates, um, so with when I I tried it, I tried the date powder. When you try to brew it, there's still sediments on the bottom. You you brew it like you know, Middle Eastern coffee when you you know put it on a pot, you just put a spoon with water, and that's how you're supposed to do it. I tried it, some sediments on the bottom, it didn't completely mix the strainer.

Pete Kanaat 29:53

Like a fine strainer with that.

Arianna 29:55

Yeah, it it doesn't, it is gonna it tastes a little bit like coffee. Um but you know, there's not a lot of flavor in it. So I feel like you have to mix it with something for it to become a product. You can't just solely just sell it like that. I mean, that's what I bought anyway, and I tested it, tried to put it in something. I think mixing mixing it in a smoothie to get the benefits of it is fine. But to brew it like coffee, it it just didn't work. Sounds like a new challenge. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, you know, I don't maybe it's the new next new thing that's introduced to the States. I mean, he said matcha is a fad or new, but it's not that's been used, it's not a fad, but it's blown up.

Eric Simpson 30:40

It's so there's getting more attention.

Pete Kanaat 30:41

Yeah, yeah, but it's been used in other countries for such a long time, and you know, in America now it's it's there's also like this whole thing about like you know, we're like you were just talking about, like the the what ceremonial Japanese matcha. Yeah, and apparently like Japan is on like some sort of timeline where they will run out of matcha or now you're getting these offshoots of like you know, knockoff matcha. American matcha. American matcha. I don't know what to do.

Arianna 31:11

Yeah, they're saying that matcha will eventually run out. There's no way it's a good thing.

Pete Kanaat 31:16

But you know, they've recreated it.

Arianna 31:18

I mean, I don't know if matcha can grow in America. I don't know. I'm not really sure if it's native to you know to certain climates or certain countries, but build a green room. Yeah, they've definitely mastered it. Yeah. Um, but you know, one thing I was thinking is doing that those fiber sticks with matcha.

Pete Kanaat 31:39

I like that. Yeah, so flavoring is a is a big component that we want to get into, right?

Arianna 31:43

There's two ingredients. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pete Kanaat 31:45

Right now it's it's we stick with unflavored because we want to give the customer the option. People like their morning tea or their morning coffee or or nothing, or just they just drink water in the morning. You can literally mix it with anything, and you're not gonna notice that it's there. Now, when you start introducing flavors, okay, okay, let's just say, for instance, let's do we're gonna do a strawberry flavored fiber. Are you gonna put strawberry flavor fiber in your coffee?

Arianna 32:08

Well, no, that that's not a that's not going to be a flavored fiber. This is gonna be a matcha product with fiber.

Don Grace 32:16

It's a different product.

Arianna 32:17

It's a different product.

Pete Kanaat 32:18

It's a standalone product with the matcha.

Arianna 32:22

But you you're drinking it as a matcha, so you're selling it as a matcha, not as a fiber product. It would just include the fiber in it.

Pete Kanaat 32:28

Yeah, that was a possibility for sure.

Eric Simpson 32:30

But there there are people out there that um like like my little one, um, sometimes you know, we'll put it in just water for him, but he doesn't want to drink it because it's just water. Okay. Yeah. So we'll mix it in like juice or something. And he just downs it, no problem. Yeah. I mean, if we come out with a variety pack of flavors, sure.

Pete Kanaat 32:46

I think that would be uh what would you think then? So if that's the case, so he wants he wants the sweetness of a juice, right? So you're saying like if we have the fiber with the flavor and a and a natural sweetener, you're saying that would be the combo right there? Absolutely. Maybe you could do a light pineapple and orange juice.

Eric Simpson 33:05

Apple apple and apple cider vinegar in there too.

Pete Kanaat 33:07

All sorts of fun stuff. We get creative with it.

Eric Simpson 33:10

Okay. Yeah, I can't believe we haven't done a flavored fiber pattern for it.

Pete Kanaat 33:13

You know, like it keeping up with demand on this product on just this version of the product is is already. The orders are significant, yeah. Like we're gonna, I told you on the phone, like you know, we just ordered 50,000 units, we need to start thinking about 100,000 units. Fuck it, make it 300. Fuck it.

Arianna 33:32

Add the flavor and the matcha. You add 300. Throw them all together.

Pete Kanaat 33:35

Yeah, see? Let's launch with 200,000 units.

Don Grace 33:38

Well, that's been the most impressive part about how you've built everything is you've really kept it lean. It's it's the core group of your team, and yeah, you've really never stack inventory that you don't need necessarily.

Eric Simpson 33:48

So a lot of brands do make that error where they just they want so much, and then it just sits there and it's collecting dust and it absorbs all their cash flows.

Pete Kanaat 33:56

And then you also are in danger of hitting your expiration date if you're not selling through that product. Let's just say something goes wrong. Let's say and what I deal with on a on a weekly, sometimes daily basis on Amazon is is bad actors. People coming to your listing, uh, comp other companies coming to your listing and attacking your listing with negative reviews. Amazon's an open marketplace, so you could pretend to sell anything and start contributing false data to listings. Amazon's gonna take a look at that, like okay, you you just claimed X, Y, and Z. Like I've had I've had friends that have gone through some serious, serious stuff where like they have jumped on his listing. Other his competitors have jumped on his listing, claim that a product can cure cancer, can cure AIDS, and then automatically Amazon's flagging that, taking that down. We haven't had that level of attack, but we've had something similar. And then your listing goes down, and now you're now you're at the mercy of Amazon and talking to call centers and trying to get this sorted out. Call centers in other countries that don't understand like your problem. Yeah, yeah, and that too. That too. You know, they just have canned responses and it gets very frustrating. You're trying to work your way up the ladder, trying to talk to someone that's in charge, and it just doesn't, it's it's not an overnight fix. Like we've had a listing go down for I think 60 days. I think this this product, I remember this was 2023 or 22, I want to say. And we were popping, like we were exploding. We got attacked first day of January, the busiest time of year for us.

Don Grace 35:31

You went through a war, pretty much.

Pete Kanaat 35:33

Yeah, and I had to like you know, I talked to everyone, their mother. I I talked to like my friends are well connected with Amazon executives, I'm getting a hold of them. There, they don't even have the control. It has to go through specific like uh red tape that you have to cut through to get through one department to get to another department because they don't communicate with one another. And so, to to your point, if you're if you're over-ordering, or sometimes even just ordering to you know, properly, you could have one of these nightmares happen to you, and then you're sitting there stuck with dead inventory, you're waiting for an expiration date to hit, that's like getting too close, and then you can't sell the product anymore. Now you have to debt all this inventory, and it's there's there's a balancing act. And so, yes, we try to keep everything as lean as possible, especially with AI help now. You know, a lot of things like sometimes updating some of our imagery. You know, we d we now use all AI tools for that, you know. A lot of our our ads are are tweaked with AI, and so we're trying to like keep things as lean as possible. We obviously have you know some marketing agencies that we deal with with TikTok and um some some with Walmart now, uh but we keep everything in-house. She runs Facebook ads, we do it together. We literally look at numbers every morning seeing how our ads performed the day before, right? Like we everything we do, we do it all in-house. I uh l I am embedded into Amazon, whether that be the SEO of a listing or the marketing of that specific listing, uh, everything Amazon to logistics. Obviously, I have I have a logistics person just to off you know offload some of that work, but like I'm I'm hands-on with everything. I don't micromanage anyone, but I like to know what's going on in every aspect of my business because I want to be able to talk about it. So, like you and I have a conversation. I can literally answer any question that you have about probiotics.

Don Grace 37:31

That's the best. Yeah, and when you live it, breathe it, smell it, it's different. It's different. That's why the brand does so well. And that's why you don't need the big overheads, that's why you don't need the big payroll that goes along with it, what these other guys have. And you're not in this ever like long-standing chase to spend advertising dollars to not get a good return on it. Which is uh which is beautiful. You guys have built something very, very, very valuable. Thank you.

Eric Simpson 37:55

Appreciate that, man. I got a question. What the fuck is Zamir at? Yeah, right. Has anybody seen Zamir?

Don Grace 38:01

Ever since the football game. Fuck that guy. Right?

Eric Simpson 38:04

You know my I got a picture of the four of us, us three and Zamir at a Lakers game. I'm gonna I'm gonna find that. It's somewhere floating.

Pete Kanaat 38:11

Yes, I think we have that photo somewhere. Uh years ago. He invited us to a was it a playoff Rams game? Probably. Yes. It was a playoff game. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was Rams Niners, I think. It was a good game. Yeah, and Zamir's like, you know, like pressing and pressing and pressing, like, hey, and it's the championship, mind you. We were on the fourth. Yes, you were. Yes.

Arianna 38:32

And wait, this is the the Super Bowl.

Pete Kanaat 38:35

When the Rams won right before it. The winner went to the Super Bowl. Yeah, so I think they were playing the Niners in this game.

Eric Simpson 38:41

Yeah, my my invite must have got lost in the middle. Actually, that was a whole new building this room.

Arianna 38:48

2021.

Pete Kanaat 38:50

God. I'd have to look back.

Arianna 38:52

I think that's when they won the Super Bowl. Remember the Rams won the Super Bowl?

Pete Kanaat 38:55

No, it was no, because it was an NFC game. So it was it was divided um the conference championship. I wanted to. Or was it the year that the Rams won? No, because the Rams lost that game. I remember. Wait, I think. Oh. I don't remember.

Intro 39:09

And that was 20 years. That was 2021.

Pete Kanaat 39:11

Okay, then that might have been the year they won the Super Bowl then. Yeah. So Zamir is pressing me to press you guys. I'm like, it's like, hey, I'm like, I can't, I can't force their hands, Zamir. And then you guys came through. They're like, hey, we got two tickets for you. I'm like, all right, cool. And then Zamir, I love him, my business partner. Love you, Zamir. Fuck off. Uh he uh he had a better option.

Don Grace 39:33

He had a better once he got there. He feel like I remember the TFC. But then he too fucking cool.

Eric Simpson 39:40

He gave him a ticket. And he was like somewhere in the fancy box.

Pete Kanaat 39:43

And I and I'm like, hey, and I went up to the Zuckerberg and Bezos. Like it was like his real estate friends that came through at the last second. I'm like and he I went up there and I like hung out. I'm like, all right, Zamir, like we gotta head down. He's like, I'll I'll come, I'll come meet you. I'm like, you need to come down uh at some point. And I'm like, okay, I went downstairs, I hung out with you guys, like, and I was in your box. Like, you guys, you know, did us a solid. I'm I'm gonna be there with you guys. And then I'm texting Zamir, I'm like, yo, you come downstairs like this. I this is I don't want this to look bad, man. This is like this is not a good look. He's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming. Like, all right, come on. And he never showed up. He never showed up. Never showed up. Never showed up.

Don Grace 40:25

I was like, Zamir. That's the most LA thing you can do right there.

Pete Kanaat 40:30

It's so LA. It's so LA.

Don Grace 40:32

I mean, I don't even know if anybody would do that on the East Coast, just out of respect. Oh man, that that's yeah. I was not sure. I love him with that though, for the record. He's a great guy. I guess it's the return Zamir for the one game I took him to where we're in regular seats. Zamir's about seven foot seven. He's a guy. I'm being conservative, okay? He's a giant. When I put him in a regular seat, and I'm like, oh my god, I'll never do this again. Yeah.

Eric Simpson 40:56

He was like, he stands next to me.

Pete Kanaat 40:59

Yeah, he's he's I think he's six, he's six seven. Yeah. Six's Christ. I can't let that. Uh uh, but yeah, that that was uh that was a tough one I had to crawl out of.

Arianna 41:10

I can't believe you didn't meet me at the time to go to the game. Yeah.

Pete Kanaat 41:14

Sorry, babe. That was three years before.

Eric Simpson 41:15

So Zamir, is he good? How's he doing?

Pete Kanaat 41:18

He's good, man. He's good. You know, he's on uh his wife's on cooking baby three now. I just heard. Congratulations, Zamir. Yeah, yep, yep. Uh he's about or she's about six, six weeks or more. Yeah, okay. Very new. The house in Manhattan Beach.

Arianna 41:32

No, no, about a month before she gives birth. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. All right.

Pete Kanaat 41:36

Uh beautiful house in Manhattan Beach. You know, lives a great life. Obviously, he's busy with his other businesses and uh just got some time to spend with him in Italy. So it was nice to see him again. I barely even talk to my own business partner. We're I'm so busy running Go Biotics, and he's so busy running his other businesses that we're like, hmm.

Eric Simpson 41:58

He's not that busy, huh? No, that I didn't say that. No, I said I meant I meant I hardly see him because we're on opposite sides. Oh that's all I meant. Took that out of context.

Pete Kanaat 42:08

Yeah, Don Don is the uh he's the the face of the thing.

Eric Simpson 42:12

We just got back from Chicago.

Pete Kanaat 42:14

What you got going on over there?

Don Grace 42:15

IFT. So we've seen all the uh vendors that we work with, all the different people in the industry, flavor, international food, all the ingredient suppliers, international food trade show. Seminar? Trade show. Seminar. International food technologies. That's what it's like. So it's like uh it's like a five-day event. Okay. So everybody comes from all over the world, they showcase all their different ingredients. You know, you have the different label companies there as well, too, fulfillment companies, manufacturing companies. So it's a it's a good event to uh have FaceTime with everybody and be able to see everybody and have like those different intricate conversations that you have with you know the owners and the people who are responsible for making a lot of decisions. It's not as busy as like um the Anaheim show or Supply Side West, which is nice. I need to come out of the show. That's what I wanted to bring up. Yeah, because you get that one-on-one time. When you go to those other shows, it's just like speed dating. Yeah, gotta be.

Pete Kanaat 43:22

Not to copy them by any means, but just to see like what's the new exactly the new fad. Um so I need to do that a little bit more. I'm we get busy with sometimes like we'll go to like an Amazon conference in Seattle. We have everything is like all marketing related that we tend to go to. Uh, there's one in New York that we go to, um and I think there was one in uh Vegas. In Vegas that we go to, that's right. Um, so that's all like marketing stuff. I need to start like going to more like product level stuff to think about like something new. Like I should like present something to you guys. Like, hey, what do you think about it? This and that could like help us expand our portfolio a little bit more.

Don Grace 44:04

Yeah. It's good for you as well, too. You have a lot of the buyers for the different chains at these shows. Um the IFT is not really big on like the TikTok buyers and stuff like that. But the beverage shows and the supplement shows. I mean, it's they're there everywhere. I mean, that's a big focal point for like Amazon and TikTok nowadays. Obviously, they're not big on TikTok Star Wars Nutrition, it's huge. Okay. It's huge. I mean, they're they're getting more and more into all the beverage shows, into all the sports supplement shows. But yeah, it's it's definitely a huge growth point in our industry right now.

Pete Kanaat 44:37

Cool. All right, I'll start making it a point to start going through these a little bit more.

Eric Simpson 44:40

You should.

Pete Kanaat 44:41

Yeah.

Eric Simpson 44:41

You can get us a discount then once. All right. Let's do it. They fucking rip off fucking manufacturers. Oh, really?

Don Grace 44:47

So this past one, it was good old Johnny Bottles came through with us. Johnny B. And uh Future Seuticals came through for us. It was only $85 in a dream. Is that right? Yeah. Oh, that's good. It was super simple.

Pete Kanaat 44:58

Spend that on a next Knicks playoff series. Let's not go there. Some things are on a need-to-know basis.

Don Grace 45:03

We haven't even talked about that yet.

Eric Simpson 45:06

How's your mom doing? She's great, man. Caroline? She's yeah. Yeah. Carolyn. Carolyn, excuse me.

Pete Kanaat 45:11

Yeah, she's good. She's in uh she's in uh Hungary right now visiting her grandchildren. Um so my brother's there with his kids, and she's spending time with them there. Uh she'll be back in like a week. But how's how's your wife's ring? Great.

Eric Simpson 45:25

Yeah, you might not be by the way, the best jeweler in the world. Yeah, your your mom made my wife's uh uh my gift her 20th year anniversary uh new wedding ring last year. So she did a fabulous job. Yeah, amazing. Amazing work. She made this too.

Arianna 45:41

She made all my jewelers.

Eric Simpson 45:45

She probably did your ring. Yeah, that's gorgeous.

Arianna 45:47

She uh it's nice to have a jeweler of the mother-in-law. I just sent her photos of everything that I want. I'm like, okay, how much is this gonna cost for now? I mean, she just even at cost.

Pete Kanaat 45:59

Even at cost, it's like crazy. Um, and then she's like, my mom is also like an amazing artist. She'll start sending her, oh, can you draw this for us? Like, make this painting, like like leave my mom alone. She needs something to do, you know. She likes keeping busy. So I'm like, here you go. She's great.

Arianna 46:16

There's a project for you. She's very talented.

Pete Kanaat 46:17

That's important. Literally zero of that. Yeah. I can doodle. That's about it.

unknown 46:23

Yeah.

Arianna 46:24

I wish I would have had him painting every day.

Pete Kanaat 46:27

Thank you. Thank you. I'm not busy enough here.

Eric Simpson 46:30

No, she was great. We went down there, met with her in uh, you know, in LA, downtown LA at the Diamond District, and uh her and my wife got together, doodled some pictures together, got the idea that was what my wife wanted. And I think by the end of business day, she actually sent a mock-up photo to us, and we're like, wow, that was quick. And I think within three weeks it was ready to go.

Pete Kanaat 46:50

And uh she's super quick, or she's fast, and like she'll just literally draw something on paper. Well, she she like she does like um uh like some hip-hop artist, or was she doing Tyrese? So Tyrese's ex-wife, wife at the time, used to go to my mom and say, Hey, I want this for my husband, and she would show like a picture of like a lion's face with a lion, like the mane and everything, and like I want rubies for eyes, and I want diamonds in the mane, and blah blah blah. My mom literally takes a block of wax with uh like a little done, right? Like a drill thing and starts drilling and makes this lion face and starts putting in like the like the spots into like the eyes for the rubies and in the mane for the diamonds, and literally just hands that so she's it's like you guys. So like she'll she'll draw it out, she'll hand it to her um production people, they'll take the m the the wax, they'll make a mold based on the wax, they'll pour it with whatever they want gold, uh platinum, silver, and they'll produce that right then and there. Then they'll start placing the diamonds and and the rubies into the spots, and it's just it's it's crazy to see it all come to fruition. Amazing.

Arianna 48:05

I mean, she can cop like she can look at something and completely just draw it exactly the way it is, or when you t imagine it and she puts that she's I mean, she's a painter and an artist, so when you when you have when you have that and you put it into jewelry, it's so easy for her.

Pete Kanaat 48:22

You should get her to make our labels.

Don Grace 48:25

Did she create the holy water at Erwan or what?

Pete Kanaat 48:28

Totally.

Don Grace 48:29

Speaking of Erwan, right? That's a place where you guys are thinking about going into, which makes sense, super high-end brand, has really good distribution, and you're not found, you know, everywhere by any means on the brick and mortar front. Yeah. If you want to buy online, you can find yourself anywhere.

Pete Kanaat 48:42

Yeah. So that's that's been kind of like uh the next thing, right? Like is getting into stores and getting into bigger stores, big box stores, Walmart, Target. But uh we we wanted to take a step back and come with like a little bit more refined approach. So uh specifically, we're starting with Erawan. Uh conversation has begun, and we're hoping that that leads to a nice purchase order. Uh, but we'll see. So we that's that's kind of like something we wanted to be very, very careful with on how we did that. Um then getting into an Arawan kind of starts opening up the doors for other places. But we're you know, we're I'm an e-com person, we're an e-comm brand. My bread and butter is e-comm. It's me getting out of my comfort zone uh and trying to um you know find different channels of you know, different revenue channels. So that's one of them. Um obviously expanding the portfolio into you know the gummies like we talked about, maybe different flavor profiles is another. Uh, but we're getting there, man. Um we'll see how it goes. Fingers crossed. If you guys have any contacts for us too, we'll take them.

Don Grace 49:50

Oh, we got plenty of contacts. That's where the shows are good. We could strategically talk about shows you want to do, and then throughout the course of the year, you could take those contacts for the grocery store chains and so on and so forth, specialty retail, and then target them. Um all the buyers are there, and this is exactly what they're looking for. They're looking for that brand that you know blew up on Amazon that has no interest and blew up on TikTok that has zero interest in going into their stores, but that's the brand they actually need because it actually it's calling to their customer. Yep, it's calling to their customer and they can't get that product in. So it's it's a perfect fit.

Pete Kanaat 50:25

You're just talking about like we walked into Target, we're like, oh, I'm going down, I'm going down the aisle, and I'm like, these are all TikTok brands. Yeah, yeah, it's totally changed. It's like wild. It's not like the you know, the mom and your mother's like supplement aisle, you know, your your grandmother's or your grandfather's supplement aisle. It's all new brands. It's all stuff that I've seen pop off on TikTok, and we're I mean, we're on TikTok all day looking at like different marketing strategies and then we're sifting through, and you see all these brands, and those are all the brands we saw in the store. So it's cool to see. Uh so it's definitely something that could be in our wheelhouse for sure.

Eric Simpson 51:05

What's next? What's the next big thing for Go Biotics?

Pete Kanaat 51:07

Uh, I think you know what we're touching on is that we want to make we want to make each one of our products into a gummy. Oh. Uh that's the ultimate goal. We're gonna start with maybe not all 16. Yeah. Well, we'll start with like the bigger ones, like the fiber, and you know, I know grunts was the the greens gummy that they already popped off on that. So uh a magnesium gummy is something we want to do. Um just expanding the portfolio, but doing it from uh doing it from a clean way, right? Like we've there's been times where I've raised too much capital and then too much debt and kind of had to scramble to kind of clean things up. I just want to do it in a healthy way where we could just grow this thing as organically as possible, continue to do the marketing strategies that we do, expand upon the stuff that you guys provide from different flavor profiles to a whole new line of like a fiber gummy, a magnesium gummy, a greens gummy, and ultimately like a probiotic gummy as well. I think that would be a nice core group of products. Um, and then again, getting into retail, I think that would be huge for us. Nothing but international as well, international so we did international, we did we did Amazon, we were in Amazon UK, we became the number one selling fiber in the UK on Amazon uh instantly because all of your like we have insane reviews on our Amazon listing. All those reviews transfer over. So we we were shipping into uh we were shipping into the UK. We were also ended up shipping into the Netherlands to start distributing into like you know the rest of the EU at the time. No, this was when Brexit happened. So UK was a separate shipment, Netherlands was another shipment for the EU. So the Netherlands would have to uh fulfill to the rest of the EU countries, and then I I think we sent it somewhere close to London for uh for the UK. They allowed us in, like, yes, come on in, allowed us to sell. We were we were crushing it, and then they're like nope, you can't sell this product here, and automatically sent all of our product. I'm talking this is before we were using you guys as a 3PL. They sent 20,000 units roughly back on a ship without with us saying, no, no, no, no, what what's going on? Let's we need to fix this. Nope, they just sent it right back. And mind you, this is after us like crushing it for like I think it was like six to eight months, becoming the number one selling fiber in the UK, and then then them sending it all back. And you know what? That left such I have like PTSD from it. I I would too. Because not only did we have to to ship everything there, then we have to pay for the shipping back. Yep, and then we had a lot of that stock was was not all of it even ended up coming back to the warehouse, and then when the stuff that did come back was damaged, the labels are all ding dug, because they're like just like yeah, sending sending this back, they don't care at that point.

Arianna 54:06

So why did he send it back?

Pete Kanaat 54:08

Because we we went through the whole process of getting everything approved because every country is different from uh from what you can sell from like a consumable perspective. Regulatory aspect. Thank you. Um and they got we got everything approved, Amazon approved it, and then some other department came in and said and said uh no, you can't you can't sell this here. It's a literally a single ingredient product, and then they just automatically shipped it back.

Intro 54:39

Okay, wow.

Pete Kanaat 54:40

So that was that was very frustrating. But yeah, international is still something we want to do.

Don Grace 54:45

Definitely when you're dealing with international, always have the right partners who understand that market, and that's kind of like where it ended up by default. We didn't plan it like this at all. This is real, it's rare. I mean, yeah, it's it's unfortunate a lot of times if you don't have the right partner in that marketplace, you're not gonna know what the legalities are with all the different ingredients, and every we know this, and we have such a great quality regulatory team. We can talk about it all day long. They're they're fantastic. They're able to get all the paperwork done and make sure everything's the way it needs to be. And if there's an ingredient you can't have in there, then we can't ship there, you know. So it's it's just you definitely want to make sure for each country when you go in in the future, get the right partner, otherwise, it's very difficult.

Pete Kanaat 55:28

Yeah, so that dealing with Amazon, like you get one answer from one department and a different answer from another department. Yeah, what I would like to actually entertain is like wholesaling it to someone in that specific country and allowing them and then okay, now it's it's your problem. So yeah, yeah, the the regulatory stuff is it's intense when it comes to these other countries. So like I'm not gonna sit here and pretend I I I know uh each country's regulatory um levels, uh, but uh I think that wholesaling would probably be the best way to move forward with that.

Don Grace 56:02

And we deal with the majority of those guys now because of the brands that we make, which is good, which is good. So we're we're definitely up to par on uh where things are in a lot of these different countries. Oh no, that's great. And and people lean on us because that's an area where they can't get that support, like you were saying. It ends up coming back because there's documentation 99% of the time that needs to be provided from the manufacturer in order for things to get cleared.

Pete Kanaat 56:24

And do you have those wholesale like partners in other countries?

Don Grace 56:28

Or we're the ones like basically providing all the documentation, shipping the orders and stuff like that, and then it's for our customers.

Pete Kanaat 56:35

Got it, got it. So they the brand in themselves are finding a wholesale partner and then they're coming to you to kind of package everything together from a regulatory perspective. Okay.

Don Grace 56:44

Like you could see on our social media page with Mexico, for example, we did C bomb, and you could see everything all tied together with the with the launch of the products. It was pretty cool. Brandon did a fantastic job with that.

Arianna 56:57

So I think that's something maybe we should consider if you guys are open to it. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric Simpson 57:02

I don't know why it took this long to get you on a fucking podcast. Good people out. Look how much stuff we're finding out.

Don Grace 57:07

Good people help good people out, and like when you go to these shows in these different marketplaces, yeah, you know, it's it's a whole ecosystem of people that are already kind of working together, yeah. Um, which is great, which is great. And then the the you know, the bad ones, you know. Sure, of course they're gonna be like, don't work with those guys. Right.

Pete Kanaat 57:23

You guys have uh uh a staff member, Ahmed Tasuki. A D. A D. Iron Cheek.

Don Grace 57:30

I know how GoBiotics can actually background.

Pete Kanaat 57:33

Ahmed used to work for Zamir's partner back in the day. So now works. That's how I met Ahmed. That's how I met Ahmed, yeah. That's so funny. And Ahmed has relationships on relationships. Yeah. So if he's and is he in Florida now?

Don Grace 57:47

No, no, he's in Brentwood.

Pete Kanaat 57:49

Yeah, what I thought you said you was like maybe he was just Jefferson song? No, he's trapped.

Don Grace 57:54

Moving on to Lukey. No, he lives out there.

Pete Kanaat 57:58

He does, okay. So does he like can I like have a conversation with him? Like, is it like is it stepping on toes? Not at all.

Don Grace 58:05

I met to lunches and dinners with me like three times a week. Yeah, I see your Instagram post.

Eric Simpson 58:10

Yeah, I see that American Express button. It's like a report two, man. Or three times in one day.

Don Grace 58:19

That's the way it works. My office table is not here, it's off site. So wherever it needs to be.

Eric Simpson 58:24

It always happens to be next to Brandon's house, too. What a coincidence. So weird.

Don Grace 58:29

Sherman Oaks lot. Sherman Oaks.

Arianna 58:34

Why do you think all the employees are happy? Yeah, I don't know.

Don Grace 58:37

I mean, I do try to make it for him for both of them all the time. I go down to his place for meetings, then I go down to uh AD's for meetings. And it's it's perfect location spots. There's a lot of a lot of good places to meet at down there.

Pete Kanaat 58:49

Yeah, yeah. Sherman Oaks and Brentwood are got some great, great restaurants and stuff like that.

Eric Simpson 58:53

Well, it's funny because last week I was driving with my my six-year-old in the backseat, and uh, you know, we call Ahmed the Iron Sheik. It's been it's been his nickname since I met him. He has no idea who that wrestler is on the phone.

Pete Kanaat 59:04

Oh no, he does. Absolutely. Oh, he does? On my phone. No, I'm just joking.

Eric Simpson 59:08

It's popped. Good need to edit that one out too. But on my phone under Ahmed, it's a picture of the Iron Sheet. Oh my god, you have the picture of him?

Don Grace 59:18

He was born so funny. He was born out of that. It was Shreds and Flavor God. Yeah. That's I mean, we were like literally in the background. I had some deal going on trying to fix those two companies, and AD was my guy. Shreds and Shreds. He was the only one who could tell me the truth.

Eric Simpson 59:34

Yeah, they're still around.

Don Grace 59:34

Good, bad, or indifferent.

Pete Kanaat 59:36

Yeah. Um, so I took one of their employees, Rick, used to work for them. Shreds? Yeah, like like under like Midas group or something like that. Oh, the Midas group.

Don Grace 59:50

You guys were running on fumes at that point.

Pete Kanaat 59:51

Yeah, that's when Zamir was partnered up with the other.

Eric Simpson 59:55

There's Edge. What was Edge? I remember about that was AD.

Don Grace 59:59

That was just purely AD. Yeah. And then he had the other guy show up though for the media, remember? Yeah. That was before he was like full time.

Pete Kanaat 1:00:07

So but Ahmed is the guy to talk to in regards to relations to the wholesale relationships. Is that the right thing?

Don Grace 1:00:12

Yeah, both of us we could sit down. The both of us, we could sit down and go over like where you want to go and so on. Nah, you gotta bring up that next Sherman. Sherman Oaks.

Pete Kanaat 1:00:24

I'd rather go to Brentwood anyway.

Don Grace 1:00:27

Whatever. Old Fakti is great. Nice little big thing. Of course, cool, yeah. Yeah, sure. Okay, perfect.

Arianna 1:00:34

I could pick a restaurant.

Pete Kanaat 1:00:36

Okay. Yeah, that's the last thing you ever want to let her do. Oh boy.

Eric Simpson 1:00:40

If anyone's looking for me, I'll be here working.

Arianna 1:00:43

You sound like Pete. I mean you could stay with you.

Don Grace 1:00:48

I'll be honest with you. If you did a pet line and you like, you know, focused on like better ingredients and test results, I think people would actually care.

Arianna 1:00:57

Yeah, but like what product would that be? We're not gonna make a fiber for dogs.

Pete Kanaat 1:01:04

I'm not an expert on this one at all. It's pet friendly, by the way. What is fiber? And dogs have digestive issues too.

Arianna 1:01:12

It's a basic ingredient they could use for sure.

Don Grace 1:01:16

Give them some masking things too.

Eric Simpson 1:01:18

Yeah, definitely. I mean, every every pet product that we manufacture, we do stuff for horses, cats, dogs, um, and they're all human great ingredients, same materials that we took. When did you start doing the pet stuff?

Pete Kanaat 1:01:30

Oh, years ago.

Eric Simpson 1:01:31

You did probably like five, five or six years ago. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, joint maintenance, multivitamins, that's the big one.

Pete Kanaat 1:01:38

The big one is the joint maintenance. Yeah. And then like Zesty Paws like was the brand that crushed it with that. And they sold for God knows, I can't remember. Like I think just shy of a billion. Uh only sold 10%. Yeah. And then you exactly. Uh they they were like their biggest, I think their biggest seller was like the joint, the joint pain. It's like a like an omega type of combination. But again, it's the same stuff that you would find in like a grade. But yeah, I think there might be some tweaks.

Arianna 1:02:09

But I think this is like stuff that we go back and forth with just because you know, um we you know, he has obviously go biotics and I have my own business going on, but I also work for him in a sense. Um, so as far as you know, business to business, like having a different direction that you know, how I see things and how we see he sees things, it's good to have two different perspectives that we bounce ideas off of each other to kind of just help each other out. And when I I always tell him less products, less products, and just concentrate on the winning products, and he's always like, more products, more products. And it's just like this back and forth thing. I'm like, we don't need to run ads on 10 products. It just doesn't make sense. But he just wants every single other product to be fiber, and that's just not reality, you know. So when you have a hero product or three, you know, one, two, three, your ten other products are just not gonna do as much unless you dump millions and millions into it in marketing, and even then you don't know because as you see, you can put the same amount of dollars behind each product, and if three perform, then you already know those are your three three products. There's no reason why you should dump money into the other ones, and sometimes you gotta cut your losses and get rid of products. You might have the best product on the market.

Eric Simpson 1:03:36

I'm so stubborn with that. Yeah, I'm so it's hard to say, it's hard to let go.

Pete Kanaat 1:03:39

Yeah, I got it. It's like chill, yeah, like you're you're little babies, but at the end of the day, there's so much time creating them that it's like hard to be like, all right, yeah, let's just discontinue this. I'm so stubborn with that.

Arianna 1:03:49

Yeah, and and this is you know something where because we have a huge line, right? So he has what 16 products, including a couple variations of a product. Yeah, which is uh yeah, maybe not twenty. I don't think it's 24, it's about 19, eight, sixteen to nineteen products. And I I can probably say you couldn't say goodbye to about six. Not happening. But that's like it's just like no, not happening, you know. Six, seven. So like it's a it's a sweet number, and and then you can concentrate on you know putting the orders and the money back into the rest of the products. And I've learned this, I I'm in retail, I'm a retailer, so I don't own a product, right? But I've learned this throughout the years as well of selling to customers and working with brands to know, hey, these are your top products, you don't need to dump money into it. And even for me, I don't need to buy uh 10 different pet products because I know three of them are about selling, and then the rest are collecting dust on the shelf. And then you keep buying and you're barely selling, and you try to put it on sale to get rid of it. So it's hard to believe in something and have an amazing product, but if you either it doesn't take off or you don't have the budget to put into to market it, you just have to say goodbye to it. And that's more of a business decision that you have to make as an owner than you know, kind of just being like, This is my child, I can't let go of it. Yeah, but okay. No, it's well put.

Pete Kanaat 1:05:24

I get it. But she makes a great point, Pete. We also great point, baby. Always right. Great point, baby.

Eric Simpson 1:05:30

First rule of marriage, pal. Right there, right there.

Pete Kanaat 1:05:32

We're not married yet.

Eric Simpson 1:05:34

I got some more time. Yeah. She works for you, but in a couple months, you're gonna be working for her.

Pete Kanaat 1:05:41

Um we put so much time into like, for instance, like on Amazon, like we have thousands of reviews, right? Like, just because something doesn't have the velocity that I want it to have, but like we have incredible reviews on these products. That goes back to you guys making incredible products. I'm uh Not just because they have great reviews doesn't mean they all have the same velocity of where we sell, you know, twelve thousand units of this a month, right? Like we obviously want everything to get there. And, you know, cogs matter, you know, margins matter, of course. So we have more capability to s to move a product like this than we would have like the hundred billion, right? Where it has more nuanced uh specific ingredients and it could be a little bit more costly. So at the same time, we've developed these products, we've gotten, we've gotten a loyal customer base, and they're you know accustomed to a specific product. Like for instance, you have our probiotic multivitamin, you have our detox probiotic and our 100 billion, right? You got 25 billion CFUs and the probiotic multivitamin. People who are looking for just that amount are looking for this product, right? Detox has 50 billion, obviously, the 100 billion has 100 billion CFU. There's we want to be able to accommodate all different levels of ailments, right? Like some people might have a more sensitive gut than others. So we would recommend something like uh the probiotic multibitamin, which has probiotic multibitamin, which has 25 billion CFU, or even our super enzymes, which is a whole digestive enzyme complex with 1 billion CFU of probiotics. You just want to be able to offer something for all different levels of issues, right? If someone has, you know, that just went through uh antibiotic treatment, for instance, 100 their their gut is done, they're cooked. They need to replenish that with good bacteria. 100 billion is where I would steer that person to go. So I try to like hit everyone. Like like everyone has different levels of needs, and so we try to accommodate for as much of that as we possibly can.

Eric Simpson 1:07:50

Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. Makes a great point, Ariana.

Arianna 1:07:54

Yeah. If it doesn't make money, cut it.

Eric Simpson 1:07:57

If it don't make money, don't make sense. Don't make sense. But all very well put, all very good points on both sides. So luckily, I'm not the one that has to make that decision.

Arianna 1:08:07

Me neither.

Eric Simpson 1:08:09

They're not going anywhere. Uh but all in all, yeah, uh, you know, really appreciate you guys coming down, you know, shooting the shit. Um, you know, love seeing the brand grow and you know the continued growth and uh now the growth of your family. So, you know, I can't wait to hear the words I'm pregnant. So we're working on it. Looking forward to it. We're working on it.

Arianna 1:08:29

You just want Pete not traveling. Yeah, yeah, right.

Eric Simpson 1:08:31

You need to stay here more often. Jesus. Pete's in LA once what once a week every month?

Arianna 1:08:36

Usually three months, two months. Oh, okay.

Pete Kanaat 1:08:39

No, like we had a stint there like once a month for a week. Yeah, yeah. Or even longer. Uh I got at a certain point. I was like, I do I even live in Miami anymore? You know, like we were here so much. Obviously, we have family health issues that we need to attend to with you know, my dad, and uh obviously being here for work and like traveling has been, you know, takes his toll on you, man. Um, but you know, my dad's health is a little bit more stable now. So coming once every other month, uh, but also trying to figure out like what's the long-term solution for him and you know what we're gonna, you know, where is he gonna stay? He'd be hard to move him to Miami to us because you know I live in a in a condo and my dad is you know in wheelchair bound. So it's just kind of like navigating through that stuff. That's it's it's tough, but you know, it's family. You gotta do it.

Eric Simpson 1:09:30

Wish him all the best, brother. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. Hope all thank you. Hope all goes as good as can be with for him, so and the family. But yeah, again, good seeing you guys. Glad you guys make it and uh we found out so much information. Yeah, yeah. More to come. Thank you for having us. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you guys. All right, thank you, Brandon.

Intro 1:09:49

Keep it real dog, got to keep it real dog, keep it real dog, got to keep it real dog.