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I'm in the business. I'm navigating my own decisions, the team that I've built, and still it was time to make changes to drive more science, more speed, more innovation. And that could only happen by talking to multiple customers every week, making sure the language they were using and the products they wanted us to make were reflected in our innovation.
How do y'all? I'm Elizabeth Gore. Welcome to The Big Idea from Yahoo Finance, presented by Block Advisors, built by H&R Block. As the co-founder of the small business funding platform Hello Alice, it has always been my mission to help ensure entrepreneurs have the tools they need to succeed. So, let's cowboy up.
Today's Big Idea question is, how does every job prep you to launch your own company? And our industry focus is wellness supplements. The US dietary supplement market was about worth 68 billion in 2025. That's probably half me taking them, and it's projected to reach 131 billion by 2033. That means this is one of the fastest growing health segments for consumer wellness. Joining us to talk about this today is Kat Cole, CEO of AG1. Okay, so what does Cinnabon and Hooters have in common? Ruminate on that. It is my guest, Kat Cole. She took both of these companies and turned them into empires in her own tenure. Let's get to our conversation. I'm super excited to welcome Kat to The Big Idea.
Kat Cole, welcome to The Big Idea. How long have we known each other?
Pre-kids. I'm just trying to think about it. Easily pre-kids. Fortune and PW Entrepreneurs. I mean, oh my lord. Easily 14, 15 years.
Yeah, three careers, I think, within that. Babies, husbands. You got a husband sailing around the world, rowing around the world right now. But it's so good to have you on. I've loved you for so long. We seek each other out, I think, at every event to catch up. And I think one of the reasons I was so excited to have you on today is your spirit and leadership has such a softness, yet there's so much grit way inside your belly. And I think a big part of that, I mean, you worked your booty off from when you were a kid. I mean, you had tough growing up, abuse, tough environments, had to contribute back to your mom, your sister. You know, what does that create in a CEO?
There are a few things that type of upbringing creates in a CEO. One is calm under pressure. You know, when things get busy and hectic, whether it's nature or nurture, likely both, I get more calm. And I've heard someone say once that a CEO who's stepping into their role properly actually isn't making a lot of decisions. The team is. But the few that get to the CEO are obviously the ones that a great team still needs that extra layer of decision-making on. And so, essentially, I get the best of the best and the worst of the worst situations and decisions. And it's a privilege and a responsibility. And so, I think that upbringing builds a good muscle for that. It also builds a muscle for getting really clear about whose opinion I care about. So, do I care about the family members who aren't living life in a way that my mom and I believed were not aligned with our values? No. Do I care about people who have an opinion about how I'm working or what I'm building? If they're not in it with me, no. I've also heard the phrase, the people who might be criticizing you or tearing you down are often not also in the trenches like you are. Like, real builders don't have time to take other people down. I don't have time for that crap. I have so many great customers and so much incredible work, so much great innovation, and people I like right now, much less the people I don't.
Lord. Well, your storied career started at Hooters. And you know, one of the things that is fascinating about you is you did every stinking job, both on-site and then in corporate. I mean, what a journey to learn about a massive business.
Yeah, started as a hostess, then a waitress, then started training new employees, worked every job in the restaurant. Just so happened that company that I was an hourly employee for was growing. And there were more opportunities in a company that grows than in a company that does not. So, I had opportunities to take expanded leadership roles when I was 18 and 19 years old, travel around the world when I was 19 and 20 opening franchises, join the corporate office at 20, vice president at 26, grow with the company, doing 800, 900 million in annual sales. And it was incredible. And I learned so much. I was there for just under 15 years, and I had easily 11 or 12 different roles in that span of time as I grew within the company as it grew. And it was a foundational part of my career.
And it'd surprise people, a lot of women, a lot of women leadership, women mentors. But also I wanted to not skip over because I think what you did at Cinnabon and now at AG1, you also washed dishes, you understood supply chain for food supply, logistics, franchising. I mean, everything that would go into a business, you did that job. And I think that is like an incredible jigsaw puzzle to create an exceptional CEO that you are today.
Yes, and I've been asked, you know, did you have a vision that you'd be a CEO? And that was so strategic of you. It was absolutely not. I was an hourly worker to pay my bills because my family did not have money. And the more jobs I could work, the more access to income I had. I did not have the foresight or the ambition to become a CEO in that industry. I was trying to pay my bills so I could go to college and finish my engineering degree and go to law school. Like, that was the dream. And yet this inner drive to support myself led to working every job, which led to a resume that made me qualified for more opportunities. And so, the work continued, and then the opportunities came, and then the work expanded, and more opportunities came. Same thing at Cinnabon. When I joined the company in 2010 as president and at the heart of the Great Recession, I did almost nothing but work in the bakeries, driving trucks with delivery teams, spend time with hourly workers to understand the business at the most fundamental level so I could make the fastest and most effective decisions while building relationships with the people whom my decisions affected the most. Same thing with AG1. When I joined AG1, I spent so much time talking to customers who were making their subscription, getting their delivery, spending time in our blending facilities, understanding what's going on in the quality controls. And at every step, getting close to the action, close to the business from a quality, production, and a customer experience standpoint. And it has the same benefit and outcome. I understand the business more effectively, I have more respect with the people who do those roles, and my decisions can be faster and more effective because they're grounded in the reality of the business.
You know, in an era of software and ChatGPT and Zoom calls, I feel like ground truth, true ground truth on your customers, your products, and your employees is going a bit by the wayside. I'm just curious if you think the future of being a leader are the ones who keep digging into the ground truth. I'm just curious about that.
Absolutely. I remember when I stepped in as CEO of AG1 a few years after joining as president and COO, we had a few very clear directives and ambitions. One, innovate the product and continue to upgrade it and lead in the area of science and human clinical trials, which was unheard of in the industry. Two, expand products, so radically accelerate innovation. We built this business off one product and one channel to half a billion in revenue. It's insane. And so, moving it at that scale to something different, just a few more products, just a few more channels, is a big shift for the company. And this idea of expanding channels, going into retail, which we did, adding new products like AGZ and flavors, all that change in an established business requires three things. It requires trust amongst the team, which only comes from staying close to the true truth. It requires having a bias for speed, which can only be done if you know the true truth. If you're responding to delusional data or hearing things that...
Say that again. Delusional data.
Delusional data, which could come from hallucinations from AI, or it could come from a culture where people only tell you what they think you want to hear.
Emotions. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I like that. Delusional data. Whether that's with my own children or my employees, I'm using that.
So, this idea of effective decision-making for speed can only happen if you have, and I've used a phrase very similar to what you just did, the true truth. I say, 'I want to know the true truth, not the truth you want me to hear, not the truth you think I want to know, but the true truth.' If people know it and think it and feel it, it's going to save me a lot of time if I just get to it right away. So, that's the second thing. And then the third is having that bias for action, which can only come from having confidence and relationships, from staying close to the action, that true truth. That is what allowed, even a few years in to AG1. Now, I'm not new and curious. I'm in the business. I'm navigating my own decisions, the team that I've built, and still it was time to make changes to drive more science, more speed, more innovation. And that could only happen by talking to multiple customers every week, making sure the language they were using and the products they wanted us to make were reflected in our innovation.
How do y'all? Welcome back to The Big Idea. I'm Elizabeth Gore here with Kat Cole, CEO of AG1. There's this online trend going right now where all the fast food CEOs, do they actually eat their food? You know, so they're filming them to see if what they look like, whether they're actually eating it. And the CEO of Costco, they had 10 years of footage of him eating his hot dogs that they just re-upped versus filming him anew. And it was so great showing that ground truth that he walks in, checks the floor, gets his hot dog, moves on. And it just reminds me of what you're saying. And the customers really wanted to know, are they really eating the food, right? So interesting.
It looks like they're uncomfortable.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, can't get around it.
And it is so important. Whether it was when we bought Jamba Juice, took it private from being a publicly traded company when I was COO of Focus Brands and had this vision to help it stay what it is, but be more healthy. It lost its way a little. And that required drinking a lot of smoothies. And going into so many locations. And again, it's what you're saying. It is both the real human experience that using your own product gives you, but it is also the respect that you earn from those who are doing the work and from customers out there.
Absolutely. Customers can tell if it's performative or if it's real.
I'm regularly uploading videos of me making my AG1 or traveling with it on planes. And one, I'm proud and I want to show that off and I want that occasion to be in people's feeds, but it's also to find connection with other people who are doing the same, with our community, with our customers and people. So, it's like that hat tip, you know, I drink AG1, I see you, we see each other, we prioritize our health. And so, there is both a real decision-making benefit as a leader of using your own product regularly, not remembering the best it ever was, but interact with it today with all the changes you've made and improvements you've made. You've still, day one, you have to earn the customers' business. You have to earn your employees' trust by being deep in the work. So, yes, be on the ground floor, stay close to the action. In most cases, the action is the transaction. And that is both equally customers and employees.
Is the transaction. That's awesome. Listen, I was curious about AG1 for such a long time was a singular product. I mean, what's your advice to small business owners about going to market with multiple SKUs or that single focused product?
If an entrepreneur is truly a small business owner, a solopreneur, one person and an AI agent, you know, or an assistant, one, I would say, your focus is precious. And the more things you are making, that is the more quality and more customer experience you have to keep up with. So, I am a huge fan of starting with one or very few very focused things. So, there's an operational reason for that. You can pay more attention, you can fix problems, you can optimize more effectively. But there's also a customer and brand clarity reason to begin your business journey with a very focused selection of products or services because you want the customer to be so clear in their mind what it is you do. And if you are a pool cleaning service and you make pool equipment and you repair fireplaces, that's a little difficult. It might allow you to be efficient when you show up to the home, but it's very difficult to effectively market in a distracted attention world what you do and what you should be known for. It's like going into, you know, you go into some of these delis or restaurants and they have 800 items on their menu.
Well, which is the one thing they're known for? Because that's the only thing they're...
Reminds me of Schitt's Creek, which I loved, when they got to the deli and they're like open it up so far they can't reach the table. It's so good.
And we're at the extreme, you know, I think it's pretty crazy to get to a half a billion in revenue with only one product, one flavor, and one SKU. I mean, it's literally this green in a stick or in a pouch. But man, have we been rewarded for that focus. We iterated that thing over 50 times. So, AG1 started as Athletic Greens. It started as a powdered multivitamin with powdered fruits and vegetables and some simple probiotics. Over the years, we upgraded those formulas, methylated the B vitamins, upgraded the probiotics, right? These are all detailed elements of a supplement company, but they matter because they are ongoing upgrades and refinements to one high-quality premium product that that customer cares about. So, whatever that is for you, for your product, if you have a nail salon, if you have an auto repair location, if you make socks, whatever that is, this idea of focus and continuous improvement allows you to listen to the customer and make a thing better. Listen to the customer and make a thing better. Eventually, it got to the point where we had gotten so large that our customers did tell us they wanted us, they trusted us to solve other health problems like sleep. But for years, we said, 'Nope, we're just going to do this one thing really well.' And then we upgraded our supply chain and our team of PhDs and our science. And then I felt we had earned the right to expand. But until then, we had work to do before we spread our focus across even a second hero SKU.
Well, let's talk through that. So, first of all, you gave exceptional advice about focus on that first product. And then I heard you say listen and iterate, listen and iterate. What then was those steps to say you as a leader, okay, it's time? Wait, what was the kind of tipping point? I mean, first you said we are ready. It sounds like an infrastructure piece was there. Walk me through how did you make that decision? And then we'll talk about the what here in a second.
So, I have three questions that anyone can ask their key stakeholders. So, whoever's the most important, not everyone, but your key stakeholders that provide some indication that it's time to take a step and give me the direction of what step to take. So, the first question is, tell me one thing we should stop doing to make the business better.
