- 6 weeks ago
What do Cinnabon, Hooters, and AG1 have in common? Today's guest has been in the C-suite of all of them and somehow made it make sense. The head of AG1 sits down with Dan to talk about building brands that last and why she took a step down the corporate ladder to eventually rocket up it. Plus, she covers why trusting your team helps create viral moments.
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00:00I was the first person in my family to get into college. My family was very poor on both sides
00:04of
00:04my family. We left my dad when I was nine years old. I was raised by a single mom. I
00:08started
00:08working when I was 15. I worked in malls, I cleaned gym equipment, and I happened to be a hostess
00:13at
00:13Hooters while I was still in high school. People say, oh, you're comfortable with risk. Given where
00:17I came from, making those decisions to do something unexpected or previously unknown,
00:22it felt like more of a risk to say no. If I wait until it's perfect, I am going to
00:27be stuck.
00:33Hey, everyone. Welcome to How Success Happens. I'm Dan Bova, writer and editor at entrepreneur.com.
00:38And this show is not only good for you, but it tastes great too. Not unlike the product made
00:45by today's guest. Kat Cole is the CEO of AG1, the green daily supplement drink that given that it
00:54did about $600 million in sales last year, there's probably a pretty good chance that you listening
01:01had a drink of it this morning. So let's welcome in Kat. How are you?
01:07Excellent. Lots of energy from my AG1. Hopefully like your listeners.
01:10Yes, yes. So there is so much I want to ask you about, you know, doing some research.
01:18Uh, there are more than one points, uh, during your career that made me go, wait, what? So let's
01:27start with this. I want to know, how did you go from a company that makes this to a company
01:36that makes
01:39this? Uh, one delicious, delicious, both delicious, both very different, uh, outcomes on your health.
01:47Yes.
01:51Yeah. What, what's super fun. And I think captures highlights of, um, my professional journey are
01:59things that don't seem to make sense together. Even if you take it further back, right. Hooters,
02:03I was with Hooters for 14 years and was a Hooters girl. And, uh, then as I moved up and
02:08moved into the executive ranks of that company and expanded the business around the world,
02:13ended up transitioning to private equity held food and beverage companies. And Cinnabon was the first
02:19of those where I was a first time president of a global brand with all kinds of really interesting,
02:26beautiful parts, you know, the brand, the aroma, the flavor, the nostalgia,
02:30and all kinds of really not beautiful parts. The business was in, um, economic, a period of economic
02:37challenge because it was the great recession. We were in malls and airports. People were starting
02:41to indulge differently and more consciously. And Cinnabon is one of those brands and products that
02:46is the poster child for indulgence. And there were some really interesting opportunities to lean into
02:52that while being a good corporate citizen in the food and beverage space. But there were many other
02:58brands between Cinnabon and AGY. I was able to actually focus more on healthfulness. We had a
03:05range, right? We had fun for you brands that were truly brands that were indulgent. And in fact,
03:10our messaging was don't eat this every day. It's not for, it's not being marketed to young people.
03:15It's not being marketed as something healthy. It's not breakfast. It's a treat. And I was able to
03:19exercise that desire to bring nutrition to the forefront in those other brands, but those are less fun to
03:26compare than Cinnabon to Cinnabon. There are more explanatory dots between Cinnabon.
03:35Got it. Got it. Got it. But what's really interesting is even though those other brands
03:41gave me an opportunity to flex my desire for more healthfulness in the world, the reality is while I
03:47was running those brands, I went on my own personal health journey. I had kids later in life. I had
03:56my
03:56several miscarriages before and in between. My mom had breast cancer at that point. I mean, multiple,
04:02very normal these days, but multiple wrecking ball moments that drove me as an individual to get more
04:10serious about health, not just nutrition, health. But then as I explored that, I learned more about
04:15nutrition. I couldn't unlearn what I had learned or unhear what I had heard. So I had three paths to
04:22get express that. One was make the brands where it made sense as helpful as possible in our portfolio
04:28to invest my personal capital and time in early stage, better for you businesses, which is how I
04:35started to get involved in startups and early stage brands separate of my big scaled business.
04:40And then three, eventually move my alignment of my career to not just a better for you food and
04:48beverage business, but an actual health company in the business nutrition. Eventually that led me to
04:54PG one. That's incredible. Uh, and, um, you know, sorry that you went through all of that. And,
05:02you know, as you said, like people listening are going through that, uh, as we listen. Um,
05:09and it's interesting to me how, I mean, clearly you have a passion for business and brand building
05:15and how this thing inside you sort of bubbled to the surface and you were able to align these two
05:21things. Uh, and the way you describe it, it sounds like it was pretty strategic. Like were you, were
05:27you out, you were searching for the AG one opportunity or did it come to you? It's a great
05:33question. Um, it sounds more strategic than it, than it was, but maybe it was subconsciously strategic.
05:40If that's a thing. Okay. Sure. So mark that. Yeah. So let, let's connect the dots that have
05:47the lines and the paths that eventually converged one over my time at focus brands. I could have
05:54made the decision to run larger and larger food, beverage, and franchise companies. That would
05:59have been a very linear and obvious path. Plenty of opportunities to do that. Run more brands,
06:04run more franchises, bigger, bigger, bigger companies. But there was a moment where
06:09launching branded products in grocery was this fledgling, innovative business in our company.
06:16And I raised my hand to run that emerging division, immediately reducing my, uh, number of direct
06:24reports, immediate reducing the revenue. I was, uh, immediately reducing the revenue I was responsible
06:30for because it was new, but that decision pulled me away from and broadened me from my decades of
06:38restaurants and franchising into packaged goods. So that's point number one. I was moving into things
06:43sold in retail versus hospitality and food service. Then two, I was angel investing in early stage
06:51businesses, which put me in on my own years before the AG one opportunity, which was a genuine desire to
06:59put my money where my beliefs were in addition to my business. And what that did was put me in
07:05an
07:05ecosystem in a network of early stage founders, which then put me on podcasts for early stage
07:12businesses that I likely would have otherwise not been involved in, which is where the AG one founder
07:18first heard me. And then yes, at the end of my run at focus brands, I realized that because our,
07:26our portfolio was getting larger and larger in order to continue to grow. We grew through M and a,
07:32in addition to organic, um, scaling, we would continue to buy larger and larger companies,
07:37which by definition are probably not the most modern in the industry. So if you're going to buy
07:42scale, you're also going to buy history and maybe more rooted in the past food and menu items,
07:49less helpful, et cetera. So at the end, I was COO of the parent company, multiple billions in sales,
07:56managing nine presidents. That is where the strategic part came in.
08:00And I knew that when I made a change, I knew I would eventually, I was there for 10 years.
08:05I didn't
08:05have a desire to be the CEO and sign up for another five, 10 years of that business for these
08:10exact
08:10reasons. So I knew whatever I stepped into would be more in line with where I am around nutrition and
08:19health. It would be a health or healthful company and where I believe the consumer was going. So it
08:24wasn't just altruistic. Like I now believe in nutrition. And so I'm going to grow. It was also this
08:29idea of, you know, I think the customer's going there too. Therefore business opportunity, future
08:36scale, be in an earlier wave of an industry, an industry's maturity curve. So then when the founder
08:44of AG1 asked to be introduced to me, because he had been on a, heard me on a podcast, I
08:50was already
08:51a customer. I'd been a customer for two years. I had deep empathy and understanding for early stage
08:56businesses because of my years of investing and advising. And I had already expressed the,
09:02at least internal desire to make a move to a more healthful company. And so it really came to me,
09:08but there were things I put in place genuinely that look strategic looking back, but were just me
09:14following what I've learned. Well, well, who knows what opportunities will be unlocked from this
09:19podcast interview? Like who knows? Who knows? Sky's the limit. That's amazing. And so,
09:27so when you came into AG1, I want to ask you about this. It was called Athletic Greens. So I
09:33wanted to
09:34ask you about, you know, your decision to, to change the name. There were a few things that were clear
09:39to us. We had been, we changed the name in 2021 from Athletic Greens to AG1, and we didn't do
09:46it alone.
09:46We had an incredible branding firm who helped us think through our options, but we gave them a brief.
09:51And the brief was one, our name was Athletic Greens. It served us very well. We were the kind of
09:59the
09:59market maker, the creator of the space, popularized the category in a meaningful way. So it served a
10:05purpose, but it also, we believed at that point was beginning to create limitations. Limitations like,
10:14are we only for athletes? As we get bigger, the answer was no, that's not who our customers
10:20exclusively were. Although that could be aspirational, right? It could still be called
10:24Athletic Greens, even if you're not an athlete, but more importantly, are we only greens? And we are
10:29not. This product is more a multivitamin, a future of what the multivitamin should be, a drinkable
10:35multivitamin plus greens or superfoods and phytonutrients, whole food-based phytonutrient blend
10:41that most of us don't get the diversity of in our diet that we need, plus pro and prebiotics. So
10:47we
10:49simplify multiple products. Many people are already stacking. We're not just to greens. And that was
10:54the problem. These were the headwinds, right? We knew we needed to change, but to your point,
10:59super scary. Our website was called athleticgreens.com. Our company was called Athletic Greens.
11:04Everyone called us Athletic Greens. And it's like, but the founder had said, you know,
11:08I wish I would have changed it 10 years ago. But every time the topic came up, oh, we're heading
11:15into another high season. Now's not the time. It's too, you know, we're too busy. We're growing too
11:20much. And what happened was that was never not the case from that point. So, you know, the best time
11:25to change it was yesterday. The next time is today, because if we keep growing and if we keep creating
11:31demand, it will only be a bigger challenge in the future. And I cannot even describe
11:37the amount of detail required from legal to trademarks to like tagging and site experience.
11:45We didn't just change the name of our product. We changed the name of our store,
11:48which affects search and all kinds of things. So it was highly complex and nuanced as an endeavor,
11:57but we believed it was worth it. I mean, it was like three, two, one blast off. We're doing it.
12:02White knuckle. What's happening to search? What's happening to web traffic? Are people getting it?
12:06And we developed bridge strategies, backup strategies. We had backup plans. Like what
12:10if it fails and no one can find us and our search volume go, you know, we had thresholds and
12:15we had
12:16good backup plans in place, but it was a bit of a mostly burn the boats decision. It was the
12:23right
12:23thing. We also believed athletic greens didn't have a lot of flexibility for future product
12:28innovation in naming, whereas AG one does. We've since launched AGZ product. So the, the naming
12:35architecture gave us more room for innovation that we did not have in the past, but we knew was coming
12:41very soon. AG one isn't cheap. You know, you know why it costs more and you know why it's more
12:48valuable. But how do you get that across to consumers who are just looking at, at a price
12:54tag on their screen? Yeah. One of the things is I think about educating consumers on the price value
12:59and positioning. I've learned in all of my concepts in the past. First, you have to, if you're an
13:08entrepreneur, you have to be really clear who you serve, who are, it can't be everyone, right? It's not
13:13everyone. So there are extremes of the consumer base that we are not trying to speak to, nor am I
13:20spending my energy to educate. There are people who are like, I don't believe in supplements. Okay.
13:25That's not a battle I'm going to fight. If our great education efforts over time and our work in
13:32the quality and human clinical trial research space help move people to a place of intrigue,
13:38interest and belief. Great. But that's not the population I'm trying to convince. On the other
13:44end, you have people who are so on the cutting edge of personalized nutrition that they are taking a
13:53bazillion tests and taking a hundred separate pills and powders and have a team of physicians around
13:59them. Yeah. I'm also, for the most part, not addressing that group. It is the giant group in the
14:07middle who first of all, believe that our food is not as nutrient dense as it once was. Even healthy
14:12eaters have nutrient gaps. Certainly people with pharmacological interventions, whether it's GLP ones
14:19or others that can negatively affect your gut health and your nutrient status, because you're just eating
14:23less. Those are the people who are like, I know I need a solution. Within that group of, I know
14:30I need
14:30a solution. What does a quality solution look like? How do you know? This is a perfect phrase. How do
14:37I
14:37know it works? And how do I know it is what it says it is, right? That's research and quality,
14:44third-party
14:45verification, third-party verification of quality, clinical research, human trials, growing bodies of
14:51proof that this product that I am buying using my hard-earned dollars and putting into my body
14:59is worth it. And then look for the customers who say, I'm looking for high quality. I'm looking for
15:07the best. Everyone says that. A lot of people say they're high quality, right? Quality is an easy word
15:16to proof. And so we do the work to prove the third-party certifications, verifications, testing, the
15:25additional layers of human trials and research to add on top of peer-reviewed research on ingredients. So this
15:33is for the people who want to know it works, who want to know that it is what it says
15:38it is with third-party
15:39verification and who value that in their purchase because you're not packing pills and powders, right? So we tell
15:45this, we bring people on this journey and then find through digital marketing, research, taking people
15:53on customer journeys, find people who have challenges with or interest in one of those things. And then we
16:00make that singular point and bring them on that consumer journey. And ideally over time, whether
16:05it's interviews, press, billboards, ambassadors, tell the fuller story. We are for people who want to
16:10simplify their stack, who want to start on a comprehensive, simple journey, who want to take
16:15what they're like I did, what is their separate pill and powder endeavor and simplify it with more
16:21quality and proof. And when we say that, we find our people. It's great advice. And when you say
16:27ambassadors, I mean, uh, what a huge part of, of the puzzle ambassadors were for AG1. I think you had
16:34like every all-star athlete on the planet at some point, uh, a lot of locker rooms scooping for you.
16:41So I did want to ask about one other collaboration. And I'm not sure if you were there at the
16:45time
16:46with, with going back to Cinnabon, but, uh, the Better Call Saul collaboration, were you, uh, involved
16:52in that at all?
16:53Very involved in that. And this is an interesting lesson, um, in brand building in the modern era,
17:00even though, let me just, let me just, uh, uh, interrupt you for a second for people who don't
17:05know. So on the show, Better Call Saul, there is a, a guy, uh, whose name might be Saul, uh,
17:13not,
17:13not the most, the law abiding person on the planet, uh, uh, lawyer who has represented drug dealers and
17:19things like that. And he, uh, uh, goes into witness protection and we find him working as a manager of
17:26a
17:26Cinnabon. People think things like that. And for anyone who also doesn't know Cinnabon was, uh, I,
17:34I forgot how long it was 90 seconds. This became one of the most successful television series of all
17:40time. And this scene of this guy being a manager of a Cinnabon in Omaha was the opening every episode
17:47for seasons. Right. And it looks like we were the most brilliant brand placement team and that we had
17:58the foresight to know that Better Call Saul would be as if not more popular than its preceding series
18:05Breaking Bad. None of that is true. None of, none of that is true. Don't give us so much credit.
18:14Here's what
18:14you should give us credit for. My team, me as a leader, our culture, and what I still bring forward,
18:20even at AG1. What happened was that in the last episode of Breaking Bad, so Better Call Saul was
18:27the, like the prequel, the spinoff in the prequel. In the last episode of Breaking Bad, there was a scene,
18:34um, and in the scene, there was a, a, a line that was something like, um, you're not much better
18:42than,
18:42or, or, or you're lucky if you could be, it was, it was definitely not complimentary, um, a, a manager
18:50at a Cinnabon in Omaha. Now my team and I, we were huge fans of Breaking Bad. So imagine team
18:58running
18:58this company, this consumer brand, watching an incredible show in its final episodes. And your
19:06company is organically mentioned as part of the line. You freak out, you touch each other,
19:12you're like, oh my gosh, did you see that? Right. We're going crazy. But what bridged that just like,
19:18oh, isn't that great? Um, so we had nothing to do with that line. It was a place in pop
19:23culture.
19:24So that's also a thing, very nostalgic, you know, known brand is our head of social media,
19:31media, then tweeted or now ex posted, uh, was Twitter back then a link to Bob Odenkirk to the
19:40show, a real live link to an application to be a manager at a Cinnabon in Omaha. And the show
19:48one,
19:48it kind of broke the internet for a moment. It was like very viral. People like, oh, Cinnabon,
19:53that's so cool. Like, you know, you're in a moment of real fans. Yeah. And the show producers and
19:58writers just thought that was so cool. And what it said was we're okay being made fun of. Again,
20:04it wasn't a compliment. It wasn't saying manager Cinnabon in Omaha. It was a slight
20:10and we had fun with it. And so they called us, um, when Better Call Saul was in its production
20:16and said, look, it's just a pilot. I'm sure it's going to turn into nothing, but would you be willing
20:20to let us film, uh, at a Cinnabon where we film to have a scene? And we're like, of course,
20:27but you have to pay us to shut down the location because it's a franchisee's location.
20:32And we did. And it, then we had fun with it and it turned into a pilot and the pilot
20:36took off.
20:37And then we made an agreement for it to go on and on. And, you know, I could say we
20:41were lucky. I
20:42could say we were good. It was both. But the point is one, be real fans of something like you
20:48work for
20:48a brand, but you should still love what you love because in there lies an intersection with
20:53culture. And then if something happens, having the culture where my social media team didn't need
20:59to go through three weeks of check-ins to ask, can I post this thing to, they just, you know,
21:06they just did it. And so it was a culture of ownership, of flexibility, of engagement that,
21:13you know, again, these lines that you can't give us too much credit for being strategic,
21:16but we did the things that allowed the paths to exist that converged to create a completely
21:22unexpected opportunity for free.
21:25So you brought this up earlier, but your, your career path starts, uh, your professional work
21:32starts at a Hooters. And so I'm wondering, you know, you've talked so much about connecting dots and
21:40stuff. Was that a thing that you did with the vision that I'm going to work my way up in
21:46this
21:46organization and it's going to lead to this and this and this, or is it just like a job to
21:51have
21:51a job? And then you saw an opportunity. I mean, in the early days, it was truly just a job.
21:59I was
21:59the first person in my family to get into college. My family was very poor on both sides of my
22:04family.
22:04We left my dad when I was nine years old. I was raised by a single mom. I started working
22:08when I
22:08was 15. I had multiple jobs. I worked in malls, I cleaned gym equipment, and I happened to be a
22:13hostess at Hooters while I was still in high school, all these jobs to help have income to save up
22:17for
22:18college. Uh, but also to pay for my living expenses because when I was 18, I'm like, I'm out of
22:23here.
22:23And so I need to pay for an apartment and car and gas. And, um, some crazy things happen. I
22:30planned
22:30on going to, I was an electrical engineering, computer sciences major. Um, then I planned on going to law
22:34school. This was the plan. This was the dream. And over time, once I, um, moved up from being a
22:41hostess to a waitress and bartender, I had higher income. Waitresses and bartenders often make more
22:46than hostesses. So I could quit my mall job. I could quit the other jobs and just do this one
22:50thing
22:51that had the highest income. And I loved it. And I started working every job I could. When the cooks
22:58quit, I learned how to cook and be helpful in the kitchen. When the bartender needed to leave,
23:01I learned how to be a bartender. So I had all these different jobs and shifts I had exposure
23:06to. So if there were no more waitress shifts on a Thursday afternoon or Thursday evening,
23:11I could pick up a kitchen shift. And the waitress shift was more, um, you know, was more valuable
23:16from an income perspective, but the second best was anything that was available. And that resulted in,
23:23I accidentally learned how to run a restaurant because I was being opportunistic. I needed to,
23:28I needed the most shifts to make money. I think there was a period of time where I set the
23:32record
23:32for close opens. I believe it was 21, like close the restaurant, open the restaurant,
23:36close the restaurant, open the restaurant. Really? Wow.
23:39Just making money, right. To support my living. Yeah. And then the company was growing around the
23:45world and I got a phone call and I had become a trainer and a shift leader. So I had
23:49more responsibility
23:50in the restaurant and I got a phone call, um, asking me, inviting me to be a part of a
23:56traveling
23:57training team to go open franchises around the world. When I was 19, first restaurant opening
24:01was Sydney, Australia, didn't have a passport, never been on a plane. So all that led to, and it's
24:06easy to kind of look up the journey from there, but, um, I was just trying to be helpful. I
24:11was just
24:11trying to maximize my income. And that led to unexpected opportunity. What it was, was I'm going to
24:18work every job in this restaurant. So maybe one day if this company starts accelerating
24:22international operations, I'll get a phone call. Like who, who could ever predict the answer is
24:28no one. It sounds like, you know, everything you've described so far, it sounds like a true
24:34superpower of yours is just recognizing opportunities and not just recognizing them, like going for it.
24:41Some people again, give me, it's certainly in this case, too much credit for being strategic and
24:46pro-risk. Again, many of these things I couldn't have anticipated. I was too unsophisticated. I was
24:53too young. I was too inexperienced to even connect the dots that would later come together because I'd
24:58never witnessed them. But saying yes, or, or volunteering or creating the opportunity to do
25:06things that then when they led to a new door opening, walking through that door, which is the part
25:11where people say, Oh, you're comfortable with risk. Given where I came from making those decisions to do
25:17something unexpected or previously unknown or atypical, it felt like more of a risk to say no.
25:25If I say no, if I wait until it's perfect, I am going to be stuck where I am. That
25:32was my fear was
25:33being, um, I grew up with a lot of people who I believed were stuck. And so every unexpected opportunity
25:42was stacking the odds in my favor to not be stuck, to learn something new. I learned very early on
25:48learning is my currency. Learning is my currency. If I can learn, if I can do something new and
25:52different, I will feel alive. I will gain confidence because I keep doing something when
25:58I'm uncomfortable. And each time it sure seems to lead to something else new. I just don't know what
26:02it's going to be. So I'm going to, for the most part, keep saying yes.
26:06That leads me to our question of the week. So subscribers to our how success happens newsletter,
26:12uh, were asked if there's a decision that they wish they could take back, whether it's something
26:19that they did and like, Oh, I wish I didn't do that or something they didn't do. And Oh,
26:24why didn't I do that? So wondering if you have one of those career moment redos, if you could take
26:31a mulligan, is there anything that springs to mind? I mean, generally as a philosophy, I believe
26:36any, uh, Oh, or mistake that I have made that might typically make it to the list of answers to
26:42this
26:42question were so formative in who I was able to become. I would not take it back. Um, period.
26:50And, but there are several examples of things that were very painful in the moment that I then had to
26:58correct publicly, painfully different decisions as a leader or lack of being in enough detail in a
27:04certain thing or not letting someone go soon enough. And it became a problem, right? Things
27:08like that. The list is long of the problems I know I have either facilitated or enabled,
27:16but I had to fix them. I had to face them and fix them. And when you have a career
27:21path like mine,
27:21where I have many different jobs every few years, but the first company I was with for 14 years,
27:26the next 10, this one already for when you double down in your own business, almost with like an
27:34owner mindset, a founder mindset, you have to lay in the bed. You make, you don't get to hopping,
27:39like have the fun part and then leave. And somebody else deals with what's not about it.
27:43You really have to be able to face what is no longer working about what you did and get very
27:49good at spotting that early and having the humility and the bias for action to correct.
27:53So anyone who wants to answer the question of the week and subscribe to our newsletter,
27:59info.entrepreneur.com slash HSH. And now we've, we've been, we've been taking up a lot of your
28:06time. So let's, let's get into the speed round. What do you say? Yeah. So question one,
28:12what is a habit that you are happy to have and one that you wish you could ditch?
28:18Hmm. A habit I am happy to have is my morning ritual for myself and my family, my wake up,
28:28get lots of good movement, drink my AG1s, cover my nutrient bases, have a coffee or cacao with my
28:36husband. He always makes fun of me saying cacao. Um, and that little bit of window of time with my
28:40kids. Um, one I wish I could ditch. I love a good pastry. I love a good, I love a
28:49good pastry. I love
28:51a fresh baked laminated dough. Uh, but I don't wish I could ditch it. I would just say, um, it's
28:59one I
28:59have to resist and only treat myself in the right ways, uh, to enable my full high energy healthfulness
29:07as a 47 year old mom of two kids under the age of nine. Okay. So AG1, uh, big, big
29:14social media
29:14presence. I'm, I'm sure you, well, I'm not sure, but, uh, guessing that you yourself are on social
29:21media a lot. What is something that drives you crazy on social media that you wish people would
29:28stop doing or saying, or all of the above? Oh, I've got a great one for this. Um, and when
29:35I say,
29:36I wish people would stop, um, I want to acknowledge like there's a, there's a reason we as people
29:43behave this way, but there is the reality is the algorithms reward rage bait, fear mongering click
29:54bait, right? A boring headline is not going to get as many clicks as a really juicy con like
30:00controversial one. And that biases toward fear. And so one, I wish people would think more of the
30:08short term. That's going to get you clicks long-term. It hurts your reputation. What I wish,
30:12what I hope for all of us is we maintain and improve the ability to think critically,
30:17to question incentives and to recognize when we are kind of being had.
30:22All right. Uh, I hope people are listening, uh, that it's a, from, from your, from your heart to
30:30my heart. I don't know what the expression is, but I agree. Um, okay. And then finally, uh, one other
30:36interesting thing, you mentioned your husband, you got married at Burning Man. Uh, so if you could
30:42please describe what a reception at Burning Man is like, and was, was the cake Cinnabon inspired? Uh,
30:51no, no, okay. No, you're in the desert. You're kind of like on the lean mean AG1 definitely comes
30:58in handy in the desert. Um, not a lot of fresh vegetation. Um, it is, I mean, magical. We got
31:05married in the desert at Burning Man in front of a beautiful art installation, a giant metal sculpture
31:11that said magic and the sun, there was a complete whiteout dust storm. And right as we all rode up
31:16on
31:16our bikes, the dust cleared, it was just magic. It was magic and the sunset and it was beautiful.
31:22And so the reception was then us biking away in the sunset back to our camp to have tea. We
31:29have,
31:29we did our camp at the time did Persian tea ceremonies and, um, was just so beautiful gathering
31:36of friends and strangers alike. And then out into the playa to explore the, the evening lights and music.
31:44Wow. That sounds pretty awesome. Um, my vision of Burning Man, I, you, you just see mud and you see
31:52disaster a lot of times. That sounds a lot nicer.
31:55The mud's a new phenomenon.
31:56Yeah.
31:57It's kind of shifting, a little more rain in this part of the world at this time of year,
32:02but you know, you make the best of it.
32:05All right. Well, uh, obviously you are a fountain of advice and inspiration. Where can people kind of
32:15keep up with what you're thinking and what you're doing?
32:18One, I would say, um, you know, keep up with us at drink ag one.com and drink ag one
32:24.com slash
32:25science. There's just so, we have such an incredible long form blog of all of our research and how to
32:31navigate the space. Um, and we're drink ag one or drink ag C on all the handles. And I'm cat
32:38coal
32:38ATL cat coal was taken a long time ago when I live in Atlanta. So that's me. Uh, and so
32:43please
32:44stay connected to us. And if you have ideas or questions or feedback, uh, we love hearing from
32:48folks. So please reach out.
32:50Excellent. All right. Well, thank you so much for doing this. Great, amazing story. Great hearing it.
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