When you have a great team, sometimes the answer is to STFU.
I heard that the founder of AG1 heard you on a podcast. Is that true?
That is true.
Getting it early is incredible for many reasons. We are doing over half a billion in revenue. It's been a pretty wild ride.
I'd love to hear your overall philosophy on storytelling and CEOs being the narrator of the journey.
I hope those leaders don't get too caught up in themselves or their ego. There's also a dark side of getting distracted by it, and the answer is to build it.
I am curious to hear your framework in decision-making...
I have two frameworks. Is my work done here? And can someone else do what the company needs better than I can?
Brian Johnson, the don't die guy, like kind of went after you guys.
We're the most clinically studied multi-ingredient single-SKU product out there. Here's the proof. And sometimes outright saying that's not true.
Kat, it's so good to see you. Welcome back on the Learning Leader Show.
Eleven years ago, I mean, 2015 was our first conversation. That's wild to me to think about.
I know. Well, speaking of like your life and what's changed, you go join AG1, and I believe — correct me if these numbers aren't fully right — I believe when you join, the revenue is 160 million bucks in 2021.
And now are you guys doing like 600 plus a year? Million.
Yeah, we just, you know, for what we communicate, we are doing over half a billion in revenue for several years and profitable. So it's been a pretty wild ride. We've over 3x'd the business.
What do you feel like has been the key? I mean, that's an insane amount of growth. What do you feel like has been the key or the keys to that?
It's the product, man. It's like because there have been so many times that we weren't doing things as well as we could be — certain marketing approaches or even channels, right? We were in one channel for 15 years, only DTC.
80% of retail is in brick-and-mortar retail. So we're doing that volume in less than 20% of where the transactions happen. And so arguably we were limiting ourselves in a lot of ways. And so what that points to is a lot of people who love the product and keep buying it for a long time and who tell their friends.
There is no way you get to those numbers in that short of a time without customers who make this a very serious, consistent part of their lives and have for years, right? So there's compounding revenue, there's compounding growth year over year from existing customers from previous years. And then they tell their mom, or they tell their sister, or they tell their husband, and they tell their aunt.
And then yes, we still keep investing and try to get better at traditional business marketing and growth, but you don't get our level of growth and success at that scale. It's really hard to keep growing at that scale without people being really happy with the product. So that's it. There's a lot of other things on top of it, but that's the one variable that you can't remove and get the same outcome. You can't market your way out of that not being true.
Right, it's almost like with book sales, the author could seed the market, but Atomic Habits doesn't happen or The Psychology of Money doesn't happen if the book isn't amazing, right? Because that's really what's going to cause it to spread is word of mouth. And it feels like that's what you've done a good job with.
Yeah, totally. It's trusted recommendations. And yeah, it's a really good analogy. When I think about Atomic Habits or I think about a great book, you know, you get people going on podcasts, you get people talking about it, and that totally spreads the word. But where the real volume comes from is people who are just telling their friends, who are recommending it to their teams and their companies. And that's where real scale and sustainable growth comes from.
One of the things — I reread all of your blog posts. I know you stopped publishing as you become like a CEO, but...
But I would love if you started that back up, by the way, just selfishly. But anyway, one of them was though...
That it could be you're not going to do that more.
Oh, no. I said I miss it. It's like so crazy — work and kids and all of that — and I do miss crystallizing and sharing thoughts in writing.
Do you write to yourself but keep it to yourself now, or just with your company, or no? You just kind of slowed down on the writing?
Just slowed down on the writing. I still do like open thinking time and reflection time and my form of journaling where I'm just putting thoughts down, but I'm not writing in any way to publish. And I do miss it, and I do know it's helpful. And I do know it also helps continually crystallize thinking so you become a better thinker when you force yourself to write in a way that is most digestible to people. But gosh, I think the last time I published — and now I just call it my archive because there's nothing active there — was maybe '21 or '22.
And that's when my daughter got really, really sick in 2020, and then again dealing with it through '21. And so between that, changing roles, having two kids at that time under four, I was like, something's got to go, and so that was it. But I do believe the things that I did take the time to publish are timeless and as relevant today as they were when I wrote them.
One of the things you've written about was a framework and exercise for making decisions, both at work as well as for your career. And you made the decision to go to AG1, then you also made the decision again to stay there and get the elevated role. Now you're running the whole company as the CEO. I am curious to hear your framework and decision matrix, I guess, for why you went there and then why you've stayed and taken the CEO job.
Yeah, there's — I have two frameworks. One that's published in my archive Substack that is helping people in particular with career decisions. I mean, it's life decisions, but mostly the people who were coming to me over a couple decades as it relates to that piece of content were the people saying, 'What should I do?' Or me watching the people I was leading navigate changes in their lives, what they thought they wanted, helping them get to what they really wanted. Was it income? Was it title? Is it ego? Is it sense of growth? Is it learning?
And so one of the frameworks is this idea that between financial needs, your ability to learn or contribute, and your ego or optics, that there are questions you can ask yourself about a particular moment, opportunity or situation that will help you be a bit sharper in what you actually want and what is actually best for you versus what just looks like what's best on the surface.
So that's one framework, and the other is just these two questions I would ask myself over time, and that is: Is my work done here? And can someone else do what the company needs next better than I can? And those are quick — that's a quick exercise. The first one you need to think and write it down and, you know, it might take some time, and it's why I put together a little sheet and some columns for people to use as a starter document. But the other's super quick.
And I remember, you know, I was at Hooters for 14 years, had, I don't know, nine or 10 different roles when I was there, becoming an executive about halfway through. And there were many times I had the opportunity to leave or that something would happen in the company that would make me wonder, should I leave? Even if I didn't have an active role that I was being recruited for, it's just like, oh, this isn't good, or I wonder where the company's going. I'm not sure if this is right for me. And so I would ask some version of those two questions.
Is my work done here? Like, do I just feel like I've done all I can? I've left it on the field. And then could someone else do a better job for what the company needs next — not now, but next, right? Because if you're taking a moment to consider, what you're really asking about is remarrying the role, remarrying the person, the company. And so, can someone else do what the company needs next better than I can? And for many years in that window, the answer to at least one of those questions was no. No, my work isn't done here, or no — there isn't someone, honestly, candidly, if I'm trying to be objective, that could come in and do what the company needs next better than me.
But if the answer was yes to one of those, then that would guide me toward pushing a change — a change in my role, a change in the way I showed up, a change in myself — that helped me then find that next... like, of course I wanted a next opportunity, but sometimes it was right there in the company where I already was, where I already had institutional knowledge and relationships and traction. But something was changing in the company or something was changing in me that meant the role or the construct needed to change.
And the answer was yes to both of those questions, right? My work here is done, and someone else could do a better job for what the company needs next. And so then I went to Cinnabon, and then same thing, I went within the same company but became the COO and president over nine brands over the multi-billion dollar company. And that was another version of that where I could have stayed running brands and being a president of brands that people knew and that were big and that felt interesting and enticing, but yet being the COO of the parent company while the parent company was less known.
If I were to say Cinnabon, people would go, 'Oh! Auntie Anne's, oh my gosh.' If I say Focus Brands, they're like, 'What's that?' Yet, it was a bigger role, a more complex role. But the ego part, right? I had to consider... there was a moment where I had the opportunity to go run multiple franchise brands or run a new entrepreneurial division within the company. Financially, it was similar, but the ego, the optics, and how much I would be stretched were very different. And I chose that different role, right? Lesser known, smaller team, bigger stretch, more learning. But that's what bridged me into consumer packaged goods, which ultimately was an ingredient in me being ready years later for something like the role at AG1.
I heard — tell me if it's true — that the founder of AG1 heard you on a podcast and said, 'Man, she's amazing,' and then asked for an introduction, and Sahil, who's been on the show, was able to help make that introduction, and that's how... is that how this happened? Is that true?
That is true. He heard me on a couple podcasts back to back, and he knew Sahil and asked if Sahil knew me, and he did, and Sahil made the intro, and that was February or March of 2021.
And I just so happened to be taking time off. I'd been at Focus Brands running those companies for 10 years, and, you know, my daughter had been very sick. I'd led the company through COVID. My mom had breast cancer. I mean, there was so much life that my husband and I navigated that I was ready for a break. I'd been running businesses — like, operating really in operations since I was a teenager — and it felt right to take a beat, although I didn't take much of a beat because I started advising founders, and Sahil knew that, so he figured it would be an appropriate introduction.
And little did he know I had been a customer of what was then called Athletic Greens for two years, so I didn't know much about the company, but I loved the product. So when the founder reached out and said, 'Will you help? We're growing and I need more leadership expertise, I need more branding expertise, I need more operational chops in the company,' I was like, 'Of course, I love the product. I'd love to help you.' But that's all I thought it was. I thought it was just an advisory role among many that I had with growth-stage founder businesses.
And then after a few months, you know, he, like any good founder, was like, 'Come help me build this. We, you know, we need you. We'll be better if you're here.' And I paused for a moment and thought and talked to my husband about it and thought, 'I don't know. It's small. Everything I've done is so much bigger.' It wasn't small, right? 160 million in revenue is not small, but it is infinitesimally small compared to the multi-billion dollar businesses I had run.
And so it was less about it being small or less known and more about: Is this the highest and best use of my skills? Is scale my thing? And will I be as helpful and impactful in a team of — at the time I think it was 70 or 80 people — and I'd run departments bigger than that whole company. And so I just wasn't sure, but I was intrigued and interested and passionate about health, about wellness. I'd been on my own health and nutrition journey because of my mom, because of having kids later in life and miscarriages in between. I was super serious about nutrition and definitely the target customer.
So my husband reflected back to me when I was considering this. He's like, 'One, you're already acting like you run the company. Two, you're a passionate customer. You have already advised the team, so you know, you're learning who you're going to be working with. This isn't a cold start. And how baller is it to get in still at the ground floor when really you've been running companies that were already scaled? Getting in early is incredible for many reasons.'
And so he helped me go, 'Okay, I'm questioning this — this is ridiculous. Of course I should do this. It feels right. It is right.' And so I jumped in and became president and COO and joined the founder in November of '21. And we raised a big round, valued the company at over a billion dollars, which was pretty wild for, you know, a business of that scale. And then as time went on, the founder stepped back, I stepped in, became CEO, really refounded and evolved the business to go from single product, single channel to multi-product, multi-channel, and again, we've 3x'd the business in four years and profitably.
Wild. Um, I had a mentor, Kat, named — his name is Rex Caswell — and he said, 'You are interviewing...' He hired me for my first-ever real job after I got done playing college football, and he said, 'You are interviewing for your next job every single day. Never ever forget that, like, with everything that you do.' And I was a little young. I didn't really get it, but that's what that sounds like to me. You go on a podcast probably to, you know, have a good conversation with a few people just like we're doing right here, and you have no idea, though. You have no idea who might be listening. You have no idea who might say, 'Woo, I need to meet her, right? She could maybe help me.' So I'd love to hear you riff on this idea of you're interviewing for your next job every day.
Interesting. I — the way I think, that makes me think of two tracks. One track is this idea that life is like a series of these, whatever you want to call it — the butterfly effect or dominoes — one thing leads to another leads to another leads to another, and there are very few true shortcuts in life.
And so I have a deep appreciation — maybe not interviewing for the next role — but that whatever I'm doing now, that choice of time, that tone of voice, that decision, how I show up or don't, that creates an impact that then leads to an experience and a belief and people's actions and then results, and that keeps happening, and eventually it leads to something and something and something else. So it makes me think of that — it's just generally true in life. The kindness to someone in the airport and what they then go do as a result.
The extension of a caring note to someone who's struggling — and you hear all these stories, right, of people who are in very dark places or who are having a lot of challenges, and a teacher, a friend, a stranger, someone said, 'I see something in you,' or gives a compliment or is kind, and it derails someone out of that dark place. And then the other is true very opportunistically, like something that's good, there's an opportunity, and because you're the one who sent the email, or you're the one who made the phone call, or you're the one who made the ask, you're the one who got the opportunity.
So I don't know how to best name that dynamic, but the idea of what you do today is interviewing for your next thing makes me think of that truth, that just general truth in life, and how much that motivates me to put good in the world. Even in tough moments and tough conversations, it's just remembering that.
The other thing it makes me think of, more specifically to careers and opportunity: I remember a time when I was an executive at Hooters and I was young. You know, I was 26 when I became a vice president of that company doing about 800 million in revenue, and most of my peers were in their 50s and 60s. So maybe a couple in their early 40s. And so literally people that were my peers had been in business longer than I'd been alive.
And that age gap and life stage — more importantly than age, life stage gap — was always a much more noticeable difference for me than gender, even though I was, you know, the only woman in the boardroom for a long time. And so I remember one particular leader who was in his early 60s, so he was definitely the top of 'been in business longer than I'd been alive. And he wasn't a big fan of me being in the role, and he made it known in very subtle ways he thought were subtle that were actually not so subtle, in private conversations. He would say things like, 'Oh, she's too much of a cheerleader. Not sure why she's in this role,' right?
And it would get back to me because I had such trusted relationships deep within the company. And I remember being hurt by that and being frustrated, but also knowing I can't change him very likely, but I can change me. And I went in — and while I didn't confront him and say, 'I heard you said XYZ,' right away, eventually I would — I just changed myself. Like, I thought, am I too much of a cheerleader? Am I too excited? Maybe there is something about my approach that's not helping me obviously with relationships here. So I went into his office and I spoke more slowly and I asked him questions instead of made exciting statements.
And at the end of that meeting where I changed my communication style, I remember him standing up as we were walking out and saying something like, 'This has been a good chat.' And while I wanted to roll my eyes so hard they'd hit the back of my head because I'm like, 'It's no different,' like, the content's no different — it was like the work got done. And what became true over time is he never became my fan, but he was no longer a detractor and a negative speaker and an obstacle. So I had effectively neutralized a completely ridiculous and immature, unprofessional dynamic, but it allowed the work to get done.
So to your question — the second track of thought I have, and the reason I'm sharing that story — is it also is about control: what you can control. And sometimes it's not about everyone loving you and bullying everyone over; it is about what can I do to get the work done. And I wasn't violating my values. I wasn't becoming someone I was not, right? I just chilled out my communication style a little bit, and it worked.
And the reality is when you do work in different countries with different generations and different people, you do need command over your style. You do need to learn how to turn things up and turn things down over time. And it was a skill that I needed, and that confrontation and that situation allowed me to build and then have confidence in without feeling small, but rather, 'I'm just going to speak to him differently because he can't handle my energy. So that's okay.'
It's a good question. I mean, if you use that story, it would suggest that that moment and his inability to understand how someone so young could be in such a senior role — and again, understandably, it was unusual — that it did force me to build a muscle that likely allowed me to be even more effective in the business world.
And there was a time later, maybe 12, 18 months later, where we were at a company event, a managers' conference, and he was sitting at the bar having a beer, and I walked up to him, and things had been chill for a long time. And I remember saying something like, 'Hey, I just want you to know that it got back to me.' Because I'm also like, he should know when you say things they can get back to people. But it wasn't right to address that in the moment and make it more confrontational, at least by my judgment. But I did tell him, 'There were things you said, some version of them, right or wrong, got back to me. And I appreciate how we work together now, and I'm sure I won't have to hear those things again.'
And we did a little cheer, right? And there's a quiet power in that, and an ability to have restraint and wanting to, like, 'Hmm, you know, you're saying negative things and that's not fair,' and just controlling what I can control to get the work done. Because we had to make decisions for franchisees at a very challenging time while we were growing. We had an airline, we had a casino. I mean, it was crazy. And so just work needed to get done — a lot of work, a lot of new decisions needed to be made that required cooperation.
And then when I felt things had been smooth, I'm like, 'You know, he should know. He should know that when you do things like that, they do get back. You're not super secret and you're not protected in any way.' And that made me feel better addressing it in a calm way. And, you know, he was cool, and I outlasted him and several others in that company, right? Right or wrong.
Yeah. Well, one of the things you do now as the senior person in charge is it's so critical that you surround yourself with exceptional leaders. Kate was telling me beforehand that you hired the CMO from Yeti that now works in your team. And I'm curious, in a more general level — let's start with the senior people. So, the ones that report directly to you, what are some of the must-have attributes in those? Obviously, like, table stakes, they got to be, like, okay, your CMO's got to be a great marketer, they got to understand marketing. But beyond that, what are some of the must-have attributes in the people that you're going to hire to be on your senior leadership team?
I'm not sure if you and I have talked about this in past chats, but in general, I believe the most effective people — and I don't use the word 'successful' intentionally because it has weird connotations when people hear it — and so impactful, right? People who are effective, whatever that means to them, are able to embody, bring forward, and effectively blend these four characteristics or mindsets. And it's humility, curiosity, courage, and confidence.
And some version of that list of four things you'll hear from many leaders, many people in behavioral science. And I look for those things and I ask about them and I ask for situations that will reveal to me that they can flex those things up and down, that they're self-aware of those attributes. And it's interesting because humility and curiosity — they're related but different, right? Humility is the mindset: there are likely things I don't know, I am likely better with others, I don't have it all myself. And curiosity is the act of expressing that belief: I'm asking questions, I'm wondering.
Courage and confidence, same thing. Confidence: the belief that we can figure it out — not just me, but the belief that things will work out and that we'll figure it out. And courage is that in action: saying something that's unpopular, making a decision even when it's not certain or unknown, saying yes to a thing even if you don't have the capabilities. So these things are related, and I look for — especially at that level, right? A C-suite level, someone who's leading other leaders. They're going to hire other people. Their leadership and their style trickle far into the organization.
I mean, I look for — it sounds like a tough standard — but I look for mastery over those things and a level of self-awareness, and that's tough to really know for sure, but you can get at it with questions and reference checks and asking people to tell stories about situations, and you can get a pretty good sense. So those four mindsets — humility, curiosity, courage, and confidence — or characteristics are table stakes for me.
And by the time they get to me through an interview process, they've been vetted, to your point. They have very high technical capability. We've got whole panels of what we call bar raisers — I think that was taken maybe from Amazon or some great company — of people of very high standards in a particular area, and are a part of a group or a council that help vet top talent. And so by the time they get to me, I validate some of those things and I push on areas where I'm looking for true, like, future-leaning levels of expertise where it may not even be common today, but I want to know they're going to lead for the future, not just be really good at a way of working from the past. But I really spend time on humility, curiosity, courage, and confidence.
Could you take me inside the room when you're having those conversations? Now, I know they're vetted. They're probably really, really good before they get to you. I mean, you still probably have to say no every once in a while, right? You don't just rubber stamp these things. So could you take me inside the room? I'd just love to hear — like, you're such a curious person and such a thoughtful person — to hear what it sounds like, the questions you ask. I'm sure I've seen the best CEOs seem to make it more conversational so they can genuinely get to know a person, less like a rigid interview. I don't know what your style is. I feel like it would be more conversational, but what's it sound like? What are you saying? What are you asking when you're with a senior leader who you may hire?
You know, as it relates to pushing on these characteristics and trying to get some truth to emerge, or some clarity to emerge, I will typically ask about a very challenging time in one of their more recent roles, and we'll usually get to one, right, where they will, you know, what went wrong, or what is the one thing when you look back you can speak to was a real miss in decision-making for the company, or, you know, some version of that. And it depends on what the role is and what the level is, but I will work to get to a memory of a situation where they are honestly...
Reflecting on like mistakes were made, lessons were learned.
So we talk about that thing and then I'll start to ask questions. One of my favorite groups of questions is this 'if not for' question because usually people will then tell you how they stood tall in those moments, how they helped those moments, how they led those moments. Of course, that's what they should be doing then. So, what I'll ask is, well, what enabled you to do those great things in that tough moment? And then they'll tell me, I had access to this data. I had access to this team. I had this incredible technical leader who was able to do X. And then I'll say, okay, if those people did not exist, if that resource did not exist, how would you have navigated that? Now, usually I'm doing two things. Often I'm talking to people who've been at companies that are much larger than ours, and I'm trying to get to, can you do the thing you're telling me you're great at doing with different and potentially fewer resources? And do you even have the humility to recognize how other people, resources, and teams contributed to your ability to have impact? So this 'if not for' — if not for that data set, if not for that incredible PR team, if not for that incredible manufacturer, how would you have gone about it? What might you have done differently? And that just — it's an onion, man. You just peel back the layers and you get deeper and deeper and you start to see, wow, okay, this person actually has no humility. They, no matter how I ask it, they have no ability to acknowledge that their success was in great part due to some critical factor, and I can even tell it in the story and they're not willing to — or the opposite, right? They really acknowledge how important, how powerful that was, and sometimes in that particular instance they'll even say, and that is why if I join your company this will be a critical role that I need, right? So it's — I'm looking for that humility and that curiosity, but then also courage and confidence. You know, if they say, oh, this was a terrible idea and everybody knew it and the CEO made the decision anyway, what did you do about it? Did you say anything?
Why not?
