Episode 22 / Kara Goldin
Can Curiosity Make You a Better Entrepreneur? Hint Founder Kara Goldin’s Guide To Success
This episode is for you if you’ve ever wondered:
The power of transforming personal frustration into a business opportunity
The importance of perseverance and how to turn major setbacks into unexpected opportunities.
Kara's philosophy on not compromising your beliefs in business or personal relationships, and knowing when to walk away.
Lessons in managing both the creative and operational sides of a business, including working with a spouse and leveraging differing strengths.
About KARA
Kara Goldin is the Founder and Former CEO of Hint, Inc., best known for its award-winning Hint water, the leading unsweetened flavored water. She has received numerous accolades, including being named EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 Northern California and one ofInStyle’s 2019 Badass 50. Previously, Kara was VP of Shopping Partnerships at America Online. She hosts the podcast The Kara Goldin Show and her first book, Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters, was released October 2020 and is now a WSJ and Amazon Best Seller. Kara lives in the Bay Area with her family and 3 labradors.
“I think that what you see in most great founders is this curiosity, but this need to actually keep looking for things that maybe nobody else has thought of, right? That they'll ask questions about. Well, why couldn't it be this way? Why couldn't it be another way?”
Kara Goldin
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Lindsey Epperly [00:00:02]:
Awesome. Kara, I am so excited to finally have this conversation with you. Welcome to who made you the boss?
Kara Goldin [00:00:08]:
Thank you. I'm very excited to be here.
Lindsey Epperly [00:00:11]:
We love diving straight in, and I know you have been so open and honest with your story. I just finished your book undaunted, but I want the listeners to get a really good idea. I mean, you call yourself an accidental entrepreneur, but I do think there is that moment where we kind of look ourselves in the mirror and we have to say, all right, I am taking control of my life personally, professionally. It's why we named the show who made you the boss? So can you tell us more? Did you have that moment where you really knew, this is what I was made for, this is what I'm going to do next?
Kara Goldin [00:00:40]:
So not really. I can't actually name any specific moment. I think other than I was frustrated that this product that was helping me so much that I had made in my kitchen wasn't available at that time in stores or online. I mean, online back in 2005 was pretty small business in terms of companies building around d to c and especially in beverages. Nobody was doing that. But little did I know that this idea that I had for a product that was unsweetened flavored water was not just developing a new product and developing a new company. Of course, I knew that I would be embarking on that, but it was also creating an entirely new category. And that new category was, and still is, unsweetened flavored water.
Kara Goldin [00:01:43]:
And when you're developing a new category in, I think, any industry, and no one is doing this, you don't have competition. It's really hard, and it takes a long time because the consumer needs to understand what you're doing, right. And you could talk about in the beverage industry, we call it lips to mouth, right. And people trying it, getting past the product, tasting good, that's like a given. Gone are the days when you can launch a product today and it tastes terrible and it will be around. Right. You have to have a great tasting product in order for consumers to actually want that. But in addition to that, when you have to educate the consumer about what you're trying to do, it's really hard.
Kara Goldin [00:02:39]:
It's not impossible. It just takes a while. So that was sort of the beginning days of hint and just sort of backing up even further. I had worked for entrepreneurs not in the beverage industry. I had worked for entrepreneurs in media and also in tech, starting my career, actually not in a startup, but at Time magazine. So that was the only thing I've done that has not been sort of startup related. But then I went into CNN when it was in the early ninety s, in an early stage startup at that time a little bit bigger than the next one that I went to, which was a little startup that was a Steve Jobs idea that was doing CDROM shopping. We were acquired by another startup called America Online, which was led by a gentleman named Steve Case.
Kara Goldin [00:03:44]:
And so there are some entrepreneurs that think I'm going to go and work for a bunch of entrepreneurs or one entrepreneur and figure out how to start my own company. That's one way to do it. That's not what I was doing. What I was doing was actually getting really interested and absorbed by these ideas and these companies and these founders and then deciding, gosh, if they can do it. They seem so like normal, and half the time maybe they didn't exactly have all the answers or didn't have the roadmap, but yet they did it. So why can't I? And I think that that's where I got the courage to actually go live undaunted and start hint.
Lindsey Epperly [00:04:36]:
That is beautiful. I feel like so many things you just said in that answer kind of resonate with who you are, what you have done. When it came to building this entire category, essentially, I mean, the words I just picked up on you saying are, I was frustrated. It was a challenge. I had to do this from the ground. So all of these things that to someone who maybe wasn't wired in the same way as you, who was built intrinsically with some curiosity and a little bit of enjoyment of the challenge, what do you think that is about you? Is it nature? Is it nurture? Was it strategic? Sometimes. How do you look at those problems and know, I actually want to rise to the occasion here.
Kara Goldin [00:05:19]:
I don't know if it's nature or nurture. I knew that I was always a curious kid, right? I always found that I would not allow myself to stay bored for very long, that I thought if I could actually think about things that I'm interested in doing or that I'm curious about, that it created more of a fun life, I think, in many ways. And so that was for me, I was just constantly sort of searching for that. It's interesting, I was doing actually an interview, I was interviewing somebody earlier today, and we sort of talked about this, that I think that what you see in most great founders is this curiosity, but this need to actually keep looking for things that maybe nobody else has thought of, right? That they'll ask questions about. Well, why couldn't it be this way? Why couldn't it be another way? I was interviewing somebody who is a founder of a company called Genius Litter, and he's developed this cat litter where when the cat goes to the bathroom, you can actually see, based on a urinalysis of the different litter, if they've got an infection or if there's something going on inside their system that is a little bit off. And so it actually helps you to figure out, do I have a really finicky cat? Is my cat pregnant? All of these things. And again, I'm like, how in the world did you think up something like that? But it goes back to, it's the founder's mind thinking he had a problem with this cat, never knowing if his cat was sick or just being a jerk, right. And sort of in his own place.
Kara Goldin [00:07:26]:
Cats being cats, right? And he started thinking about, well, what is it that they do with the vet to actually diagnose something like this? And is there something that I can do that is available commercially, that I can go and produce a product out of it that would potentially save me money before I went to the vet? And again, there are normal people in the world that don't think like this, but there are other people who will sit there and daydream about, okay, I wonder if I do a Google search for know, because they're curious. Right. And I think that that is really what you're touching on more than anything. That is very consistent, that you're constantly trying to run through this problem solving of what if? Is there anything like this out there?
Lindsey Epperly [00:08:25]:
Yes.
Kara Goldin [00:08:26]:
And I think that that's, like, the key thing.
Lindsey Epperly [00:08:30]:
I can see that so clearly in the way you developed verticals within hint that were to follow your curiosity. Right. Like your whole story of getting precancerous skin cancer and starting understanding what was in sunscreens available and saying, do I actually want to trade my skin cancer for brain cancer? Because I'm using this type of substance that could be caught. So to be able to ask those questions and then create a solution from that, which, of course, works in a totally different world. I own a travel agency, and so we're very service based. It's always very interesting to me to see someone who comes up with products like tangible products, and the hurdles you essentially had to go through to bring that product to life. And we'll talk about some of those because I'm really excited to dive in. You've got some really good stories that you shared in undaunted that I definitely want the listeners to hear.
Lindsey Epperly [00:09:17]:
But I'm curious. Whenever you are first coming to the scene, especially as a new entrepreneur, you believe in hint, but you even are very humble in the way that you say.
Kara Goldin [00:09:29]:
I also had my own doubts. Right?
Lindsey Epperly [00:09:30]:
I had my own doubts about. Was it doubts about yourself? Doubts about the product? What were those doubts and how did you overcome them?
Kara Goldin [00:09:37]:
Well, I think when you're starting a company, like, it sounds great, right? You're like, I'm going to go and get a product on the shelf at Whole Foods, and then all of a sudden you're like, wait, how do I do know? How many cases can I actually fit in my jeep grand Cherokee? What if they say no? Right? What if the guy is not in today to actually say yes? Do I even know what the process is? Oh, I'll go do that tomorrow. Right. I think there's all of those things that go through any founder's head. And maybe you're not selling into Whole foods, but look, you're in the travel space. I mean, maybe you're thinking, oh, it'd be really amazing to set up a group to go to Costa Rica, for example. But then you think, well, maybe that's too hard. Maybe no one will want to go to Costa Rica. I doubt that's true.
Kara Goldin [00:10:33]:
But whatever it is, the gremlins, right? The Gremlins start to come in and start to raise havoc inside, saying, like, well, maybe it's just you, right? And that is thinking of how great this would be, but then also how hard it's going to be. And then depending on who you run across. I always say that your family and your really close friends are the worst. Unintentionally, when you've got an idea, because they want you to be safe and happy, right? And so they're going to say, sounds so hard, don't do that. Definitely do something easier where it's consistent. But you've got this thing inside of you that is also saying, stay curious. You could build the next billion dollar product, whatever it is along the way, that is kind of yearning to get out there. But there is a struggle that goes on with every founder that I've ever met that has a great idea and one that they want to get out there.
Kara Goldin [00:11:54]:
But then just depending on who they've talked to last, there could be challenges that come up for them to actually go out and execute. And then coupled with the fact that you actually get it out there and everything goes great, and then one thing doesn't go great, suddenly your world is rocked. So I think that's the story of every entrepreneur that I meet that has a great idea. They think it's a great idea, but then they get it out there, everything seems to be going well and then all of a sudden the ceiling falls down, right. And then it's magnified times ten because everything was going great and then it's not. I think that there is definitely a challenge that exists, that it doesn't matter what industry you're in, it's real.
Lindsey Epperly [00:12:54]:
Yeah, I think it's so helpful, honestly, this is the whole reason I wanted to start this podcast. So we're going to camp out on this topic for a little while because it's so important that individuals, whether they're entrepreneurs or any leadership position, right? Like even just leaders of themselves or of their own home and their own family, they need to hear that from the outside looking in, the individuals they perceive as successful. Oftentimes the misconception is that success is easy and success was a straightforward road, and that is not it at all. The success required a lot of navigating of obstacles and what you just alluded to, those moments where the roof caves in, right? Where you think everything is up and to the right. I actually have a term for those moments, and I call them the monsters that save us because they are the things that we fear the most. Especially as an entrepreneur. It's always the like, what is the one thing that could just upend this business? And almost always it happens, right? So there's that moment where you have to confront this big scary monster that's been hiding in the closet. And ultimately it leads us to who we are supposed to be, or it leads us to where we are supposed to be.
Lindsey Epperly [00:14:01]:
In our story. Our business magnifies the cause of something that we never ever thought could have happened. And I would love for you to tell us a little bit more about. You've had so many of those obstacles. You wrote a whole book about it. Just one of those obstacles that comes to mind that you feel like in the moment, you thought, how am I going to get through this? And now, in retrospect, you're like, actually, that's what catapulted me.
Kara Goldin [00:14:22]:
Well, it's interesting. I think that just before I jump into the story, I think one of the things that I see is you can think of all of the things that could go wrong, and maybe it's those things that you think could go wrong are the things that are preventing you from starting. But then I always find that it's like the thing that you never thought of that it's actually going to happen, right? That's the one that jumps in and the rest of those things that you actually thought could happen, it's never really that bad, right? Or it's not that thing, it's the other thing that you just never saw coming. That's my experience at least. All the things that you were terrified of, right? That you thought running out of money or not being able to get the product into whole foods or any of these things that you thought, well if that doesn't happen, but then it's when you're posting along and you're building and everything's going right and then the ceiling drops out, it has nothing to do with the product, your employees, any of those things that you worried about. It's the thing that you didn't think about, right? That ends up coming along. And so that's true so many of these stories, but I think one of the stories that I think of, as you mentioned, this was Starbucks. So Starbucks is.
Kara Goldin [00:16:13]:
We were so excited to get our product into Starbucks. I mean, who wouldn't be? We went into 6000 stores nationwide, which was at that time full distribution. It was a lot of stuff leading up to getting that distribution. That was huge anxiety. We finally made it happen. And in a short amount of time I remember asking the question like what is success? Which any great entrepreneur, you sort of hope that the answer from the other side of the table is something that you think is maybe a bit of a stretch, but is attainable. And so you've got the goal set and you're doing everything you can to hit that goal. And one might presume that as long as you hit that goal, then everything's fine.
Kara Goldin [00:17:13]:
So that was me. And it took us six months to actually reach what the goal was that Starbucks shared with us, which was if you're doing a bottle and a half per store per day, then you're successful. So we were doing that took us six months to kind of reach that. And then within a year and a half we were doing over three bottles per store per day. And so one again would say I'm killing it. I'm doing double what they said was successful. So I'm doing just fine, right? There's no way that I'm going to get an email and then a phone call that's actually telling me that I'm discontinued. How could that happen? Right? You're successful, but that's what happened.
Kara Goldin [00:18:09]:
And what nobody told me along the way was that when you have a new marketing person coming into any organization and you're reliant on them trying to paint a new picture, put their own mark on the company. It was great for their business. They wanted to test new things, bring in new consumers. So they wanted to put food in this case. In order to do that, they had to discontinue some of the beverages that were in the case, and they wanted higher margin businesses. I wasn't going to be able to change the price of my product and change the margin structure enough that it was going to move the needle for them versus a $10 sandwich versus a $2 bottle of hint. So I quickly understood that I was out of arguments. I was tired of trying to make this argument that they should keep us in because we're successful.
Kara Goldin [00:19:22]:
And you told us that if we were doing a bottle and a half per store per day, then we were in good shape. So I remember hanging up the phone with the Starbucks fire and being extremely sad, and this is unfair, all of this stuff. But then I woke up after a couple of days and thought, what can I do? That's the key thing, is that when you're in the hole, right, you don't know how you're going to get out of it. It's okay to be sad about it. It's okay to feel like you just got a hammer to your head, right? And that's how I felt. I had truckloads of product that was going to go bad in the next couple of months if I didn't get it out there. I didn't have any other customers that were as big and would go through as much volume as Starbucks was going to go through. And that's what I was worried about, was that this product was going to go out of code.
Kara Goldin [00:20:28]:
What was I going to do? So many lessons learned. Number one was don't put all your eggs in one basket. So 40% of our overall business was with Starbucks at that point. And I spent so much time on this one account making sure that nothing was going to go wrong, that we were talking to them, visiting them. Everything was going great. We developed so many new consumers from the opportunity they paid on time. All of these things were great. But then I didn't have anything else in our pipeline that was going to be able to if they went away tomorrow.
Kara Goldin [00:21:13]:
So when I think about that question or that statement of don't put all your eggs in one basket, the thing that I think about is no matter if it's an important customer, a supplier, employees, if you have that much weight in one place and they go away tomorrow. And as scary as that thought is, you always have to keep thinking about that, right? Because if you put that much time and effort into that one relationship, then if it goes away tomorrow, and they're never going to tell you, oh, we're going to hire a new CMO, oh, we don't have enough money to continue operating our plants anymore. None of those things ever are things that they're going to bring you into the mix until it's too late. And so I think it's always there was that really important lesson there. But anyway, so I had a couple truckloads of product sitting in the warehouse. I opened up my email one day, and it's the new buyer for another Seattle company called Amazon. And this gentleman was tasked with growing the grocery business, the direct to consumer grocery business on Amazon. He emailed me and said, hey, I buy your product all the time with my espresso at Starbucks every day.
Kara Goldin [00:22:54]:
I thought, does he actually need to know that we've been kicked out of Starbucks because he hasn't figured that out yet. No, not yet. I hardly know this person. He's not asking, so I'm probably not going to share that information with him yet. But he said, how soon can you get me the product, assuming that we're good to go on pricing? And I said, well, I happen to have had an overrun of BlackBerry hint that's sitting in the warehouse, so if you want to wire me the money, then it could go out today. And he said, oh, my gosh, you're helping me so much because I didn't want to miss the launch, but I really wanted you guys to be involved in this relaunch of the grocery business. So that solved my problem. I don't know if it's praying to the gods or knowing that it will work.
Kara Goldin [00:23:54]:
I think, you know, continuing to find opportunities that are out there. Again, I wasn't reaching out to Amazon, but I was, like saying, okay, there has to be something coming in my direction, sending, I don't know, good juju or whatever you believe in. That was going to happen. And it happened. And we became the number one beverage on Amazon, at least of that time, that was doing business on Amazon's grocery business. And it was interesting because there was another lesson that was learned. And it's almost like, for me, if this makes any sense, it almost goes sort of full circle back to the Starbucks situation. Because after doing really well on Amazon, and I certainly didn't want to have 40% of my business with somebody like an Amazon, I had learned that lesson from the Starbucks situation.
Kara Goldin [00:24:53]:
I remember the buyer from Amazon saying to me, we love working with hint because it's actually helping us to realize that we could actually cross over into other categories with a beverage. So the people who are buying hint are also buying diabetes monitors, are buying healthy things. So we were able to really kind of characterize this consumer as this health halo. And we haven't seen that with other beverages. Like, we're seeing it with hint. And I'm like, oh, that's fascinating because I started the product because I actually wanted to get healthier. So that's super interesting. PS, Amazon, can I get some emails from you? Because I'd love to talk to these consumers.
Kara Goldin [00:25:44]:
I'm constantly very curious about who this consumer is.
Lindsey Epperly [00:25:48]:
There's the curiosity again.
Kara Goldin [00:25:50]:
They said no. And I was like, wait, what? Of course this is my, like, what do you mean no? And the Amazon buyer said, well, you sell your product to Starbucks and to Whole Foods and all these retailers out there and they don't give you emails, do they? And so a few things I thought, he's right. Like, if I would have had the emails from Starbucks consumers, then I would have been able to reach out to them and tell them that I was getting discontinued. And they can buy from me directly if they wanted to, but I didn't. And so that was a problem. And I don't have it with Amazon and I don't have it with any other retailer that we're doing business with. So in order to control some of my destiny, in order to really understand who this consumer is, I need to launch my own site@drinkint.com. And it was funny because I remember coming back to our company and saying, we should really do this.
Kara Goldin [00:27:01]:
And there were a few people in the company, including some of our investors, who said, absolutely not. You're never going to be able to compete against Amazon. And I said, look, it's about not having all your eggs in one basket. It's about understanding who your consumer is. It's about testing new flavors and new skus before you actually give it to other people to see whether or not it's going to work or not. And controlling our own destiny after a time when we had seen what it's like to actually not control our own destiny. And so our direct to consumer business was launched shortly after Amazon wouldn't give us the emails. And I mentioned this, how it went full circle, because while we never went back into Starbucks, if we wouldn't have been discontinued from Starbucks, we wouldn't have been able to fulfill that order at Amazon, maybe we would have gotten in there later, who knows? But there was an opportunity there that we were able to act on very quickly.
Kara Goldin [00:28:16]:
But then also that information that I got from that Amazon experience and that Amazon buyer helped me to realize a very important piece of the business which ultimately helped us to grow. Hint to where it is today, which know always have a little bit of your own destiny in your control because it's a really important aspect for any entrepreneur to be able to go back to, especially when things aren't working out. And as you get better at your business and your business continues to grow, being able to have levers and to show that if one shoe drops, one ceiling drops, maybe you can increase it in some way. And I think that that's just really important.
Lindsey Epperly [00:29:11]:
Yes. One of the constant themes that kind of pings me through what you were saying in that story, but also just knowing your story in general is there's always this underlying relentless belief in yourself and that is something that you can control. Relentless belief in your product. And what you're saying, like whether it was praying to the gods or just fate or whatever happened next, a lot of it is, I think you're putting good into the world. You're very strongly believing in yourself. And that's kind of calling like to like in a way. And I think about in your book, you even share the story of managing to go through the recession and how you were put in a position where they were really trying to get you to deeply discount your product. And it reminded me of actually something that's happening in the travel agent industry right now.
Lindsey Epperly [00:30:00]:
And jetset. We've always believed so firmly in quality over quantity, quality over quantity. But what we see happening is a big resurgence of discounters who are just all about quantity, quantity, quantity and just racing to the bottom. And I keep feeling the strong sensation of no, but believe in who you are, believe in the value you add. It's even one of our core values. And for my own knowledge would love to hear what is it that allows you every time you're up against those odds to say, but I believe in who we are and the value that we add as a product, as a person, as a company. What is that?
Kara Goldin [00:30:36]:
Well, I think it's a really interesting comparison, actually. I think that there's a lot of similarities, frankly, in it, because I think that anytime you get to a point where you're just having a conversation about price, right, somewhere along the way you've focused on, you never start a product or a service, because you want to be the lowest price, maybe that's somewhere in your marketing materials, but it's never sort of the core of what you're doing. Right. And I think if you find yourself in that place where it's just not going to make good business sense anymore, and you sort of have to take yourself back to when you put the stakes in the ground around why you want to develop the company, why you wanted the service to be or this product to be. I think that you have to go back, and it really points to something that I totally believe in, and I think it's a life lesson, too, is you have to know your walk away. Right. And I think that you have to know where it doesn't make sense, because if you're sitting here putting up with something that you don't believe in, or you're trying to pivot in order to make everyone happy, I've seen so many examples where it just doesn't work out. I mean, that's true in relationships, right? It's true in business.
Kara Goldin [00:32:19]:
You have to know who you are, right. And if you go along with something that you don't believe is workable, then I think you just end up regretting it. And I think that that's the thing. What's the saying? If you give an inch, you hope it doesn't go a mile.
Lindsey Epperly [00:32:48]:
Right. Give someone an inch, they'll take a mile.
Kara Goldin [00:32:51]:
Yeah. I think that's where you sort of lead yourself, and it just never really works. Right?
Lindsey Epperly [00:33:02]:
Yeah. You just mentioned the word relationships, which is a big thing that I had to ask you because. Talk to me about relationships. Your husband is your coo. My husband is our coo. Maybe we just use this as a businessmarital coaching session, but tell me about the stories that you would have of theo reminded me so much of Jeremy, my husband, in this earnest, like, everything from the things he would do to drink the moldy hint water to prove that the product was real, to the way that he believed in you. As this strong, independent woman partner of his, what do you think makes that relationship work? To the point where you've been able to stay married and run a business together? What did that for you?
Kara Goldin [00:33:45]:
Yeah, I think it's respect. Right. And I think it's just I always tell my kids and their friends, my kids are all in college now, and I tell them when they're talking to me about dating is the most important thing. At some point in your life, hopefully you figure out that you don't actually want to marry somebody and spend the rest of your life with somebody who is just like, it's just, you just don't. And in fact, most of, I still have a very close friend of mine, Bruce, who introduced us, and he had grown up with me in Arizona, and I knew him in high school and he was in law school with Theo. And he says he never would have put us together, like, in a million years. And I'm like, okay, Bruce, we've been married for 28 years. We've had this conversation a lot.
Kara Goldin [00:34:44]:
But he's like, I liked both of you, but this was not, I wouldn't have match made you. Right? And so I think there's something to be said about that, but also different skill sets and an appreciation for the way people think about things. It doesn't mean that we always agree, it's that we're respectful of it and we've both got our lanes and hopefully those lanes come together. And I think that that is the beauty of having, whether you're married or you just invite people into your company or co founders or whatever, that's the formula, right? Is that if you've got one other person who is co founding a company with you, it rarely works. If it's two people, for example, that both came from the same, I don't know, maybe they were both in business school and had both come from Wall street and now they want to go and launch a product together. I find, like, the success rate is limited, but it doesn't mean it can't work. But I find that the ying and the yang is much more probable when you've got people that, which is sort of counter to what I ever thought. Right.
Kara Goldin [00:36:13]:
I would think, like, you'd want people who maybe think alike, but it's actually, if you have two people who think exactly alike about things and who have the same skill sets, they're not going to create friction. Right. And the curiosity to be able to grow things. And I think you also have to have the courage and the confidence to say, oh, I totally disagree, and here's why. Right? And it doesn't mean you're being a jerk. It just means that you're saying, no, I don't think so at all. And we have those conversations on a daily basis about different things. And that's okay, right?
Lindsey Epperly [00:37:08]:
We do.
Kara Goldin [00:37:08]:
We learn from each other. That's okay. And people are like, I think people sometimes see us in those conversations and they're like, oh, is it uncomfortable? I'm like, oh, no, not at all. We'll keep thinking about it. Sometimes we even walk away from each other and say, we don't sit here and say, you're wrong, and then don't talk to each other. We're just like, no, you're wrong. That's just not accurate, and that's not what the consumer thinks or that's not what it is. And again, it's one thing for it to be, I don't know, in the spreadsheets or the financials, but we even disagree about things like that, on how you're reading things or what the value is of things or what the markers should be.
Kara Goldin [00:38:02]:
So I think that it's bringing somebody into your circle. And again, it doesn't have to be a spouse, but if you're going to build a company with somebody who is just like you, I think it's harder to really have that friction needed in order to grow an industry or a company.
Lindsey Epperly [00:38:28]:
I completely agree. I love that you even use the word disagree, because I vividly remember there is a point with Jeremy and I, and honestly, we got married and went into business together at the exact same time, exact same week. We thought, while we're young and dumb and don't know any better, and so we had to learn all these lessons on the fly, right as we're building this business as a world pandemic shuts the business down, all of the hard lessons all at once. And I vividly remember there being a day where all day long we had disagreed. And I grew up in a household where. Disagreement. You don't disagree with each other. We were usually pretty on the same page about everything.
Lindsey Epperly [00:39:01]:
And I said, jeremy, why have we been fighting all day? And he said, what do you mean? We haven't been fighting all day, but we've been disagreeing all day. And he was like, that's not a fight. That is actually healthy mentioned in conversation. And I've had to since learn. And it's very, very helpful for the relationship, both personally and professionally, exactly what you're saying. As long as you're disagreeing, but you still maintain that respect for each other and say, I trust you. I believe I see your viewpoints. They might be wrong in this moment, but I still love you.
Lindsey Epperly [00:39:27]:
At the end of the day, that has made all the difference in the world. I love that you touched on that.
Kara Goldin [00:39:31]:
Yeah, no, definitely. So important.
Lindsey Epperly [00:39:34]:
Kara, I could go on and on. I wish we would have gotten into that part of the conversation earlier so we could just deep dive into what it means to work with your partner, because it is such a helpful learning lesson for me and for other listeners who might even be considering it. But I want to make sure we're respectful of your time and really sincerely are so appreciative that you're on this today. One of the questions we always ask our guests is one thing that made you smile today. So I'm curious what your smile is.
Kara Goldin [00:40:00]:
So I was out of town this week. I've been traveling like crazy, and I have three Labradors. And so we picked them up. They go to this really fun boarding place that's out in the wine country. We live in Marin county. So I went and picked them up, and they were so happy to see us. I know. I love my dog so much, so it was really fun to see them.
Kara Goldin [00:40:31]:
And then also, as you know, I have a podcast too, and I ended up connecting with somebody I hadn't talked to in ten years that has just joined a company, a small brand, the smallest brand that he's ever been involved in. So it was fun to sort of see him, even though he hasn't founded the company. He joined a company that was much smaller because he felt like it was a challenge for him that it's not baked yet. The puzzle needs to be built. And so it was fun kind of hearing him go through that thinking stage and just reconnecting with him, too.
Lindsey Epperly [00:41:09]:
I love that.
Kara Goldin [00:41:10]:
I love that.
Lindsey Epperly [00:41:10]:
And you mentioned your podcast. I want to make sure listeners know where to find you. The Kira golden show. They've definitely got to pick up your book undaunted. Follow you on Instagram. I'll link to everything, anything else that our listeners can be doing to support.
Kara Goldin [00:41:22]:
You so they could drink hint if you haven't tried hint water. That's what we talk about most. Well, my whole journey, but also just hint. Talking about that in the book, definitely. That would be great.
Lindsey Epperly [00:41:39]:
Awesome. Go pick up your hint water today. Thank you, Kira. We so appreciate your time.
Kara Goldin [00:41:43]:
Thanks so much.