 Previously on Go4th, Jesse moved picky bars into a new warehouse and showed it off to potential investors. But the COVID-19 pandemic may have scared them all. Lizzie came close to sending the moonlight buttress but returned early to make the tough decision to cancel her opening weekend. And Matthias came back from a failed ski-based training mission to discover his big trip to the Alps is now cancelled. Going to the Alps is always a huge opportunity because you can create all that valuable content. But, you know, I can't go this year, so what's the next best option? Well, the next best option is to explore my backyard right here and there's a lot to be done. With international travel no longer an option, Matthias is forced to find a way to generate content for his sponsors locally. Your plans get thrown way off course, but you still want to accomplish something similar. You've got to figure out how to pivot that energy. Maybe it's a different location, maybe it's a different challenge, but it requires the same skill set. So, I'm looking at this beautiful far different cliff, the spine leading right to the edge. Then there will be a beautiful jump and I'm definitely hoping to get this one done. It's looking pretty good. I think it's looking as good as it can be. There's still one more variable that I need to figure out is the quality of the takeoff. There's quite a bit of rocks to clear, I think, because the takeoff is set back quite a ways. If you snag a rock on this and, you know, it takes off your ski, you're going to go quite well off the cliff. I mean, it's a really bad case scenario. I did that once on the Matterhorn, but pulled it off because it was a massive cliff. This is only 400 feet. There's not enough room for recovery. Right now, I'm making the executive decision to turn away from this cliff for today and focus on another cliff that I've jumped before where I can still generate some really cool content from sponsors. The weather is perfect, so let's go for it. It's always okay to go with plan B. You've got to be flexible. All right, 10 seconds. 10 seconds countdown. I got a little bit in the back seat. There was this thing on my pole, but whatever successful jump kept it clean and safe. Woo! I'm pretty stoked because, you know, generating content is such a big part of my job now. These days, doing the stunt or the challenge as an athlete is only half of the battle because you've got to tell the story and make it compelling, especially these days of social media and people having so many distractions and so much more input. You've got to make your story rise above that. So COVID is hit, which most likely kind of paused a lot of investment deals right now because investors don't really know what's coming up, businesses don't really know what's coming up. To a certain extent, though, it's made me feel more like we probably should raise money because of the uncertainty. Overall, people are still buying food. Our specialty business, which is all these run bike and outdoor shops like REI, just went to like zero. Conversely, direct to consumer sales started going bananas. People were at home buying more online. So that side of the business really took off. Our company happens to be positioned really well and is doing well. So maybe we don't necessarily need money. If you're in a position of success and you have a voice that can affect change, the best you can do is to give back to your community. So as a team, we're coming together and trying to figure out what are some ways that we can give back to some of the people that are less fortunate right now. One idea that I'm really excited about is this Buy One, Give One, Oatmeal product. Basically a big bulk oatmeal bag that our customers can buy. And for every one of those bags that they buy, we will give the same bag to a food bank or people in need. Picky Bar's Buy One, Give One, Oatmeal is a perfect example of giving back to your community. I do so in helping to provide public skate parks in underserved areas. And it's not because we want people to become pro skaters, because we want them to have the experience of a skate park and what that means to their mental health and their sense of community. It is absolutely the most important work that I do and the work that I'm most proud of. It feels good to do something that matters more and more. People want companies that stand for things that matter. But the way that I feel about it and trying to protect against risk with COVID, it's something that probably makes me feel like I want to bring on investment more. Jesse has been entertaining potential offers from investors, but he has yet to receive an official offer from Jake and Shawn. So I've been meeting with them pretty regularly on the phone and now we've been doing weekly Zoom meetings basically for the last four to six weeks. How has business been since COVID's in? Yeah, we've weirdly in certain ways benefited from it. Our direct-to-consumer business has been really strong. The new trail mix fix that we launched has been a real success and seem to be driving a lot of people, not only to us, but then driving a lot of donations to food banks, which has been great. I think the deal is progressing really positively. I'm pretty excited about it. You know, I've got a really good feeling about Jake and Shawn. They're really nice guys, head in the right place, care a lot about giving back to the community and just seem like the right fit. So I'm feeling really positive about it. Tower Theater Revamp. Being stuck in one place and being put in a box, so to speak, can force you to be more creative and force you to take a look at what you do and how to present it differently. It's good. It's good. I got in contact with the creators of Pretty Strong, Never Not Collective, and they allowed us to do an online film screening for 400 people. I put the tickets up for sale on my website and we sold the events out in 48 hours. While 400 people tune in online, Lizzie has some of her close friends dropped by for an outdoor viewing party. Looks great. We're doing it. When I sent out the cancellation email for opening weekend, I also shared that we would be selling hats and apparel to try to raise revenue to cover the costs of the guides. I knew that their financial situations were really, really rough. I didn't know how I was going to make it work, but I felt the need to pay them for all of the work that they were supposed to do for me, because that's kind of what I would want someone to do for me. It's a perfect example. Coming out with merch. For the brand, she moves mountains. This is what it takes. She made almost a new business with the existing business. It's awesome. I'm hot. I'm strong. This is my route, my day, and I'm going to get some. I didn't expect it all to be covered. I think I ended up paying them between $7,000 and $8,000, and 100% of that was covered through selling hats and donations that people chose to make. Hey, everyone. So, we all just wanted to be pretty strong. And I'm so grateful that you're here, and I'm so appreciative. It's so strange. This time is so hard for so many of us. And that film was amazing, so it made me feel lots of things, obviously. And it made me feel excited, and it made me feel grateful. And it also made me... Yeah, it made me feel a lot of things, as I'm sure it's making a lot of you all feel as well. Some people care so much about what I do for some reason, and they don't really get it all the time, and I think that's where, like, my tears come from. It's just, like, such an overwhelming feeling of, like, sadness and gratitude, and acknowledging my privilege, and just, like, so many things all wrapped up right now. It's hard to know how to feel. Despite the ongoing pandemic, Matias has found a new sponsorship and consulting opportunity. A lot of industries are experiencing setbacks, or, unfortunately, some brands have too powerful bankruptcy, but there's also some emerging segments. And a huge emerging segment right now is also CBD. My friend John called me creating this brand and asked me to join as an athlete and also a brand development consultant to help launch this brand called Catalyst. What's the plan today? Have a seat. We're going to launch our athlete video today. Oh, sick. My role for Catalyst would be not only just a pro athlete, they'd be featured on my parachute and headwear, but you also advised them on how to position the product and build some marketing strategies. And also, you know, co-produce ad campaigns and things like that. So things that I actually have done over the years with sponsors, but kind of get to do it all at once with one brand, which is super exciting. Facebook, the goal is to bring as much traffic as we can to the Catalyst page and hopefully build the follower base, which will then hopefully influence our customer base. So Jim's going to post it, and then we're all going to share that original video. Catalyst is a distribution company within the CBD market that is featuring what we perceive as the best CBD product within the industry. We just posted our first promo video where we're introducing the athletes to Catalyst distribution. All right, we did it. Nice. High five, knuckles. Nice. You know, I have a business background. I went to business school. I worked as a sales rep, you know, back in the day, and while being a pro athlete, so I already have an extensive background in sales and marketing. Next step. Yeah. We're going to wait for the picture to show up, and then I'll go hike a cliff, right? Yeah. We'll go hike it and just watch. Okay. I'll go on a one-way hike and you go on a two-way hike. Okay. Awesome. So now it's applying some of these lessons and principles that I've been able to learn from the mountain environments that I've, you know, drawn parallels with the business environment, but now to actually implement that. That's really exciting. Unexpectedly, Jesse has received an official investment offer from Jake and Sean in the midst of all this chaos, it turns out that there actually is an investment group that is interested in investing in us. Okay. I'm pulling up the MOU. Okay. Yeah. Because if I keep looking at it, then I don't see your guys' faces. Jesse brings in business partners, Laura and Steph, to go over the details of the offer. This is where they lay out the basic terms. So what they're going to say is, they're basically making a $2 million investment in a $7.8 million pre-money valuation. I mean, not the decision that I'd be open to, it just depends on how much money is that. If we're going into a recession, having some money on hand is nice. Yeah. The terms of the deal are right around where I had hoped for, which was about a 20% investment into the company for about $2 million bucks and then good, fair, kind of underbelly term I don't really know what you call them, but all these kind of like things that basically dictate who has control over what. That seems to be pretty fair too. So what do you think? Yeah. How do you feel, Steph? Yeah. I mean, it's like what I said always from the beginning. It's like I understand that you guys take a lot of the brunt of running it and operating it. And I guess want to be respectful of the workload that it is on you guys and where you're at in your life. So although I don't understand all the jargon in this, I do trust every decision that you've made so far. So as you grow your business and you look for partners and investments, you have to ask yourself, are you willing to give up that control and let your brand go somewhere where you'd never imagined? I think we definitely still have a long way to go. There's still a lot of things to be determined. How confident do we feel in bringing on investment versus just doing it ourselves? In these last few months, being able to sell apparel and have income now, with that, I've been feeling something really missing about the work I do as she knows mountains. And so I decided to start hosting mentorship days to get out there and climb with women. So helmets and climbing are mostly just for rockfall. These routes are pretty popular. They don't have a lot of rockfalling off of them. I think one of the biggest difference I see in how I teach versus how other people teach is that a lot of people tell you not to be afraid. And I think it's so important to acknowledge that it's okay to be afraid and then we'll work through it. Here's what keeps us alive. So good. Lean into that. Yeah. Awesome. Getting outside with women again and just in the mentorship role where there's no money exchange, it has brought a sense of liveliness to me that has been seriously missing for over a year now. Yeah, nice, Kat. When you're in a position of influence in your sport, the best thing you can do is to make it more diverse and to make it more inclusive. It's great that Lizzie is doing that with rock climbing. She's introducing a whole new generation and people of different backgrounds to rock climbing for the first time. That's hugely important for the future of the sport and also just to show that it's for everyone. Oh, my God. I can't believe I just climbed this with Ross. I get to see again how powerful what I do really is. And it reconnects me to why I started She Moos Mountains, which reinvigorates me to work harder to make it successful. At the beginning of this series, I was working towards doubling the size of She Moos Mountains and also climbing Moonlight Buttris. And many months later, I have not done either of those things. I didn't send Moonlight Buttris and I sure as heck did not double the size of my business, but I am really okay. I'm really happy with where I am at now. It sucked, for sure, but now it's just stronger. I think at this point in time, the community really cares about what we do. And if I were to go to the community and say, like, hey, this is the dream I want to bring to life and we need your help to make it happen, that they would show up. I don't think it'll ever be this bad or this hard again. And we made it through. There's no way that She Moos Mountains is going anywhere. We will be back in 2021 with COVID plans in place and ready to rock it. No pun intended. Back at Picky Bars, Jesse has some big news to share about the investment offer made by Jake and Sean at Village Family Capital. I'm going to have a call with Jake and Sean. We closed the deal, it's done, finalized, and we're going to have a little bit of a COVID-friendly celebration here. I pressed refresh on my bank account and a million more dollars popped into it after a little while, which was pretty awesome. And there'll be another million coming in another few weeks. Lauren, Steph and I are super stoked. We really appreciate it. We're really excited to partner with you guys. Shall we crack a beer? Crack a beer to celebrate? COVID style? Yeah, exactly. Not quite the same as being out in the lawn, but I'll take it. Cheers, guys. Yes, cheers. So were there ever any times where you guys thought it wasn't going to work out? I mean, there was that whole, like, pandemic thing that hit. I don't know if you remember that. It feels super momentous, just like finishing a big Iron Man or some other big event that I've trained for. And Usher's in, you know, the next phase of work for me personally and for Picky Bars as a business. Really excited to partner with Jesse and Picky Bars. They have built a great company. This is our first deal during the pandemic. The company is well-positioned despite COVID-19. They've got great products, a great go-to-market strategy with their direct-to-consumer and a great team that they've built. So we're a really excited to partner with Jesse and the whole Picky Bars team. You know, the last six to eight months have been chaotic, uncertain. I couldn't have planned at all for what would have happened. I got the investment, which was kind of goal number one. We launched a new product, a couple of new products, actually, goal number two. It didn't make it to the Mount Taylor quad, so goal number three was missed. Two for three is still pretty dang good. We're going to finish this year around $4 million in sales, which is up from what we thought we were going to finish the year at. And the hope is to get to eight figures, you know, to $15 million. I'm sure there'll be lots of ups and downs along the way, but I'm excited for that next phase. Triathlete magazine reached out to do a podcast with me. They asked me what I was up to. It turned out that I didn't really have any races planned. And the reason for that was that I was basically not planning on racing. And so the interviewer asked me if I was retiring and I said, well, yeah, I guess I am or have retired. And that turned out that that was pretty big news to the sport in general. I stopped competing over 20 years ago because I couldn't keep competing at that top level. I never actually retired from skating. I continued to skate as much as I can, but I did choose more to become a businessman in that sense. If you are considering getting out of competing and you have a good run, let that be your last statement. And so I say that's going pro in business because it's going to be my number one priority day in and day out. And I'm really excited to do that in the challenges that are ahead. So this is an exciting day because we're going in and out on a first jump with the Catalyst Parachute. So John's approach to the business and working with athletes is definitely ambitious. He wants to go all in. They want to be a prominent sponsor and they want to be featured on my helmet and my parachute. And it's definitely a prime real estate for a brand to be featured. I'm going to be watching his first race jump with the Catalyst, the new Catalyst Parachute right over here. It's exciting to bring John and bring him close to the action so he can get a feel for it, you know. All right, ready? Chest strap, neck strap, good chunk of parachute. One, see ya! Yeah my man. Yeah my man. Yeah my man. Yeah boy. Signing a contract is always exciting but signing the Catalyst deal is better because what it represents is the next stage in my life that is actually becoming concrete and materializing itself. Everything you do as an athlete is a stepping stone towards the next one. Dude, that was sick. You like your parachute? That was so rad watching you do that. Now that we are at the end of the series, everything came together. I exceeded my financial goal for the year and successfully brought in and solidified my services as an athlete. And yeah, I lost some big opportunities by not being able to go to the Alps and do some life ski-based jumps but a ton of stuff has happened with public speaking to getting new sponsors and in the end I ended up pretty much doubling my goal for the year. You know, I kind of don't found out how all this came together. I'm super, super fortunate. Also, you know, you're always going to have to figure out a way because it's the only way to do it. And now it's your turn to go forth and chase your dreams whatever they may be. I think diving into a new business starting from scratch is one of the scariest things you could ever do with your life but also one of the most exciting and ultimately the most rewarding. Even if it's not successful, there were lessons there to be learned and there were rewards along the way. My biggest advice for anybody setting out on an entrepreneurial goal is just like, do, do, do. Go, go, go. Get to the next phase as quickly as you can learn as much as you can, pivot and then go to the next part. Do that over and over again. Don't focus on your end goal too much because you got to learn to enjoy the hustle. That's the biggest part of it. You're going to spend your whole career hustling so you better make sure you enjoy it. Biggest piece of advice I have for any business owner or entrepreneur is to stay true to yourself and your passions throughout all of it. If you allow yourself to work to the point that you lose sight of the things that you love, then you're not going to create a good business or a sustainable one. Setting boundaries with work and play and making sure to always keep play as the super important part. I think if you're on the cusp of trying something new but you're hesitant for whatever reason, you're going to look back on it in regret and it's more like you don't want to look back in your life and say, oh man, I wish I had tried that. And if you don't genuinely love what you're doing, then you won't have the energy and the wherewithal to push through it and to, I think, to eventually be successful because nobody's successful by doing something easy. Everyone's going to face fear. It's going to be really scary to chase your dreams. But it's so important to not let the fear of unknown keep you from doing what you want to do. It's very inspiring just the other people turning their passions into careers and making careers where there were none. And they're inspiring a whole new generation. You know all of them.