 What would you love to see for your brand? So would you love to see you guys being like NHL affiliated or MLB affiliated? What, you know, what does that look like? I think our answer isn't so much like we want to, you know, pioneer in the MLB or the NHL, the NFL. We do. I think at a higher level than that, we say we actually got it from Billy Horschel, who in an article with him said, you know, beam's going to be the Nike of wellness. This is Started to Storefront. Today's guests are Matt Lombardi and Kevin Moran, co-founders of Beam, a line of THC free CBD products. Beam was born from the aches and pains of athletic competition. You see, both Matt and Kevin were professional athletes, and though there are many rewarding aspects to that achievement, it is not without its drawbacks, namely the physical toll it takes on one's body. When the two of them concluded their professional careers, the CBD market was still in its infancy, but Matt and Kevin were quick to see the potential for CBD in both overall wellness and market growth potential. Looking back on their decision to start a CBD company, it seems like a no-brainer, but as you'll learn in this conversation, it has been far from easy. So listen in as we cover everything from busting all the myths and misconceptions about CBD, the trouble with opening a bank account for their business, and why they decided to shun the THC market. Now, back to the episode. Alright guys, welcome to the podcast. On today's show, we have the founders of Beam. Matt, tell us a little bit about your company and who you guys are. Yeah, thanks for having us. So I'm Matt and co-founder Kevin with me, and we are a wellness company, and at the high level, we're a wellness company really focused on helping people reimagine their path to health and wellness, and that all began about three years ago. We're trained for Boston Marathon together, and we, you know, even back dating a little bit more, Kevin and I both met at Boston College where Kevin played hockey, and then we're both fortunate to play profession for a number of years after. We both retired. We had different injuries that, you know, forced us out of sports a little bit sooner and earlier than they thought we would, and we were friends back in school. We weren't that close, but just we had a few classes and whatnot. We'd see each other in the weight room. But the fun part of the story is that we overlooked probably two or three years after we both retired, we overlapped an apartment building in Seaport of Boston, and it's funny just like instantly became best friends. Kevin was training for an Iron Man with his now wife at the time. I tried to jump in and hang with him in a few workouts. I'm not an endurance athlete, so it was pretty tough for me. But we just immediately bonded over our post sports, our passion for wellness and, you know, still trying to stay fit and active and all things health and wellness. And we decided to train for a marathon together. And it was during that that we started to just become interested and curious about CBD. Being athletes, we always just thought, we're just, we're never, you know, THC, it's, you know, close cousin. We just never really had a role in our lives because we used to get drug tests and things like that. And so I think, you know, roughly three years ago, like most consumers are just like, what is this stuff? Does it get you high? I don't understand how it can help with 50 different things. How can it help us sleep at the same time, you know, help you focus? So we just, we started to read a little bit more about it, really skeptical, you know, being athletes are pretty diligent about what we might put into a buyer or try and consume. And long story short, we both ended up, you know, I was an LA at the time, actually. So I was at Air One and I went in and I looked at the glass cabinet that has all these very medicinal medicine, looking things behind the cabinet. And Kevin, I think you ordered something online and that, and that we just, we both realized some really cool benefits from it, you know, relative to some chronic injuries. And Kevin had some chronic migraine issues. So we just realized, wow, this is, this is pretty profound, these benefits that it has. And not all products were giving us benefits and, you know, solutions to some of our pain points, but, you know, we went that. And again, you know, we just took a step back and we looked at the space and saw, you know, there's a really interesting opportunity going on in this category. You know, one, it's just you have just an emerging market. It's going to be maybe the one of the most popular health things in the next decade or so that really has a unique and beneficial way to help people be, live healthier lives. And at the same time, there's nothing happening in this athletic active lifestyle space. Like everything looks so medicinal and apothecary. And like you should really, you know, the packaging was weird. The names of these companies were kind of weird. There's very just cannabis related, obviously, because it's in the canvas category. But, you know, we thought there was a really interesting way to build a unique brand, you know, build innovative products, because everything also is very saturated in terms of tinctures and topicals and pet supplements and vapes and patches you put on your arms. And, you know, we thought, you know, there's no one making this mainstream yet and really bringing it in a different way. And so Veeam was born really out of this unique personal experience with it. And then, you know, just seeing a really big opportunity to do something different and pioneer something in the space. Kevin, if you want to fill in some gaps there. Just for context, what year was this when you either were at Erwan or even the seed existed around, hey, maybe this could become something. 20, this 2018, I think, or like early into 2018? 2018. This is like probably more back in 17. Okay. I'm sort of having some early discussions about it. Well, before we really thought we'd, you know, started business, but more just starting to be interested in it. Yeah, you were looking at it like it's something that's helping your recovery, obviously as professional athlete, that's something that you guys would spend a tremendous amount of time on. And this is a unique perspective. And I want to dig into this because it's obviously we talk about recovery all the time we had the Farragun founder on. And so percussive devices and, and basically recovery is a huge component for two people, both of you who had, I would imagine spent a tremendous amount of time doing all sorts of stuff, cold baths, stretching of all right, cryotherapy, maybe once you started testing or going down the path of CBD, was it something that was just immediately instant for both of you in terms of how you felt? Or did it take some time? Yes and no, I would say it's a really common misconception that CBD like you take it and all of a sudden like, you know, aha moment in your life. And I'd say over the course of like a couple of weeks, it was, you know, Matt as an example, say, hey, my knees and ankles are feeling better when we've been running so much. For me, Matt mentioned I had chronic migraines and it became like, Hey, I used to get these every once a month, it's been, it's been three months now and I haven't had one. So it was more something like that. I mean, the way CBD works, if you can get into probably a subsequent part of the conversation. No, to Matt's point, it's very closely related to its, its cousin, THC, the both cannabinoids, but works very differently. So yes and no, it's kind of a tough answer, but both. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. And I think that's important because I think there are people who think, oh, let me put this in my cocktail and I'm supposed to feel something immediately. There's a lot of places here in LA that they'll give you a couple of drops of the oil in a cocktail and I'm like, what's the point of that? I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve. Yeah. It's a good marketing strategy. Our, a lot of our thesis from the beginning was like, what kind of informed the branding and us getting to market was this is just so misunderstood. There's not an opportunity for a brand to create a really transparent, beautiful brand and also educate people. It just wasn't happening. We think this is going to be like, you know, a collagen protein or white sauce that people take and you don't take your collagen protein and stir your fingernails to see how quickly they grow. It's true. I think the hard part of this too is like, so you see an opportunity, you realize there's a lot of, let's call it bad products or bad marketing in the space. You're thinking maybe we can do something different at the same time. The barriers to entry in this market are zero in some ways, right? It's like, anyone can do it and so that poses, right? And then we have science, which plays an interesting role. Let's jump into kind of what we were just talking about, right? So give people a sense of what it does, why it works, what is the science, why does it take, I think it takes different for different people. I've also heard that, especially, I guess there are some combinations where some people do use THC and some people will feel that effect, but if you remove the THC, some people don't feel that. And I just want to jump into the science. I know a little bit, obviously not nearly as much as you guys, but would love to jump into, obviously you guys have done some research. So if you get deep fast, so I guess I'll start and... Yeah, let's do it. I'll start not deep and I'll trivialize it and we can kind of go from there. Where do we want to start? So cannabis, right? Hemp and marijuana are both part of the plant family of cannabis. Our CBD is extracted from the leaves and flowers of the hemp plant. The way CBD works, and again for any of the science buffs out there, I'm sure I'll get some messages, but this is not exactly how it works and I'm trivializing it, but think of your endocannabinoid system, which is a system in our body that it's pretty interesting. We didn't even know as humans that we had this in us until like the late 90s. It's called cannabinoid A, right? I think cannabinoid A, yeah. So think of that system like almost regulating everything going on in your body. I use to trivialize that I call think the brain-body connection, if you will. And over time, when we're stressed out, we've had tough workouts, whatever's going on in our life, that connection gets afraid and broken. And there's a lot of science now that's pointing to the fact that when that connection is messed up and those receptors aren't finding the way that they're supposed to, it leads to a lot of chronic issues, inflammation, stress, anxiety, insomnia. And what's really unique about CBD and what's been so profound about it is we've seen that high quality CBD has the exact same receptors in it that we have in our bodies. So think of them almost like these little spark plugs that are reigniting this broken system within your body and putting everything back together. The analogy we always use is think of it almost like a premium engine that you take throughout your day to bring your body back into balance. That's why there's so many profound issues and why it's so transformative to Matt's point, you know, could be the biggest wellness supplement of our decade or even of our lives. It's helping people with stress and anxiety, with chronic inflammation, it's helping them sleep deeper. It's all these things. So at the same time, when you're early on in an emerging market, you get, oh, this is snake oil, but really, it's just, it's bringing your body back into balance into the state of mind it should be. So that was like part science, part storytelling, but that's, that's like the, I mean, we can get a little bit deeper if you'd like. I mean, the thing I saw, so it's funny, we have a lot of experts on the podcast and somehow I've managed to learn from all of them and then regurgitate it. But the best example I saw, it was, I'm pretty sure as part of the research paper in the 90s. And it was, the example was, it was being given that today, if you, if you think about your body, just like a set of like light strings or something, right? And if this light string over on this, in this quadrant call it light string six is out, then we create a medicine. So a medical company comes and they say, oh, you look depressed. Okay, here's a little depressive, right? So let's click light six is for depression. Here's a drug, essentially that that makes you kind of numbs that area. But in that, there's a bunch of symptoms. And so light four or five and eight aren't feeling as good anymore, because the thing that you're trying to do to solve light six is problematic. And then let's say light one is now out. So now I'm taking another drug. And basically my, what ends up happening is my whole system, right? And so my whole brain, my whole human being this is, is being is off because I'm treating one thing, but I'm getting all these side effects. And effectively what CBD does, according to the research paper is it kind of helps the system, but it completely heals it without any of these negative symptoms. And so today, the market exists where problem A, take drug A, create problem CDEFG. And now by the time, you know, now I have like a supplement pack of multi not vitamins drugs just to get through the day. And it seems like CBD is, right? Is that accurate? That's, that's kind of the way to, yeah, okay. It's a cool analogy. Yeah, just, you know, think of your ECS is just like its response for keeping everything in balance and working to heal different, you know, whether it's inflammation, digestion, stress, sleep, all these different things. And so CBD helps your ECS, which is then helping like what you're describing as whole web of stuff. So that's why it can be, I don't want to call it like a fix all or cure all, but that's why it helps with such a menu of things or why you see so many benefits associated with it. Because it's, it's impacting something that is then impacting such a great like your operating system in a way. It's very confused view though, from an education perspective, there's all different types of CBD in the market that, you know, there would be, we can talk about too, which from a consumer perspective becomes really complicated in a space that there's no barriers to entry to your point. Let's do that. So if I, let's pretend that I decided to start a CBD company today. And so maybe I go on Alibaba or maybe I just Google like CBD oil and I just see stuff. Man, I don't even know if there's like a quality assessment, probably not, but how do you, how did you guys go in your process of getting to either high quality or high functioning, whatever it is, whatever the label is? I would say first, good luck getting a bank account. That was the first, that was the first thing that we were just blown away. How difficult it was just to get a simple business checking account. I mean, you could literally walk into a bank and set one of those up in five minutes, pretty much how to go to the ends of the earth. Now we don't have any banking issues given the size of our business and the capital and the funding and things like that that we have, but it was really, really difficult because we wanted to set everything up and do everything the right way. You can obviously not do that, but you run the risk of your assets getting frozen. We've seen these happen to companies in real time, when we're early stage and we still see it today. Did you guys have to go to Canada? No, we're lucky to find something domestically. We don't even share it still just because it was like a competitive advantage, but we literally just, we found a bank that had a big THC practice with dispensaries and things like that. And we were their first CBD company. THC is actually easier to set some of those basic business things up just because it's actually, there's just a big structure put in place. And if you want to open a dispensary or story, there's just like a very specific way you go about doing that CBD is just such a gray, open ended thing that there really wasn't a process in place. And so a lot of, you know, banks just weren't touching the category and pretty much still aren't. So the, to go back to your question, though, in terms of just like finding product and, you know, where it's sourced and all those things. So when we looked at the space and, you know, started reading and doing a lot of the diligence on it, it was really obvious that not all CBD is the same, meaning from how the plan has grown to what ends up in a bottle that a consumer, will consumer take home. And for us, we really wanted, again, because we were going to have this athletic focus and we understood athletes are so interested in trying it because recovery, sleeping, inflammation, like those are huge things for athletes to focus on and they're constantly looking for the edge and how could, if I can sleep better, if I recover faster from a workout, that's massive for them. But they're like, I'm not touching this stuff. Like I can't fail a drug test because my career's over. So for us, it was hugely, hugely important to find the right partner in process to take a set, you know, a very high quality product and to make that we could put our stamp for approval and say, like, you will not fail a drug test if you use beam. I would just say like, we have a lot of trade secrets in our process, but we go through a very diligent testing and filtration, all these different things that our standards in terms of like THC and other stuff in it is way below just what the industry standards are in terms of like, what can be in the product. So we go even below or what allows, you know, technically, you're allowed to have trace of THC and all these different things. We test it to a degree stronger to go way below those standards, just because we pretty much ride the whole brand on that in terms of the transparency and cleanliness of the products. When you say lower, you literally mean like the parts per million or something. You mean yeah, you mean you're getting parts per billion parts per billion ppbs. Yeah. Okay. So you don't mean lower like your standards are lower. You mean the trace. The standards are higher. The parts are higher. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Got it. Yeah. It's interesting to me because and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong. In my head, it's just a plan, right? So it's like how complicated can it be? But apparently it's really complicated for some reason. Why is that? Do people just start adding things to it? It's all about the process. Like I'm trying to think of a good analogy. I don't know. It's probably a stupid one. It's getting a piece of steak at, you know, a really great steakhouse and getting a beef patty at McDonald's. Like it's just or like even like a hamburger bun to get at McDonald's. I mean, I think you can leave that thing out and it doesn't go bad for like years. Yeah. That is that actually is a good analogy. I mean, it's it's all beef, right? But like how did it get there? Where did it come from? How was it sourced? How was it processed? Who touched it? How did they touch it? All those things that just are just mind numbingly detailed. Yeah, that makes sense. I want to thank McDonald's as a sponsor at this time. Where's the beef? No. All right. So totally makes sense. What's the first step? So once you guys do all the research, you got your banking set up, all that's good. What is the first product that you guys did you focus on? What did you know you wanted to roll out a few products, a line of products? Or did you just want to hit one and get some testing? What was that first step? We didn't know much in the beginning. Yeah, there it really it wasn't so kind of like where we are today with our, we can talk more as we get into this, but you know, our family products today, the brand where it's at today, we kind of had I guess more like a startup mentality, you know, to use the term the MVP, like what's their most what's our minimal viable product? Like how can we get, you know, not slacking on anything from a brand and quality and all that stuff? Like how do we just get to market? Like especially in Boston, people really were skeptical about CBD, you know, versus the West Coast. So how do we just get some product out here and start talking to people without putting, you know, a ton of capital in this and just make sure that there's interest here, and then we can evolve and grow from there. So I'd say it started, we launched with an oil and a salve, which, you know, are more traditional products in the space, you know, those are also products would say they're much more saturated and easier find and common. But, you know, we created those it was really just like that was our, we thought our most intelligent way to launch beam, which was again, get some market feedback, talk to people, see if our brand resonates, our messaging, our story of being athletes. And then from there, we always had this idea that their insight or hunch that innovation, the space is going to be really important because it is so saturated to your point. If you want to start a CBD company, Google private labeling, white labeling CBD, you'll get thousands of hits and you can, you know, put a label on something, put a product out there pretty quickly. So we really have been harping and working towards this broad idea that one, what are the pain points really that people are experiencing? CBD is interesting because unlike other stuff, you know, like I take a protein shake after workout, it's not so much because you have this, you know, raging pain point that you have to solve. It's more like I know this is healthy for me, it'll help me recover and make me healthier. The CBD, it's like I can't sleep, my, you know, my knees are killing my inflammation, pain, anxiety, stress, all these very acute things. We understood that people have these pain points. Like how are they communicating them? And then how do we go in a unique approach? And how do we be really thoughtful about what we put CBD into because people put it into sports bras. And I saw like, I think it was Carl's Jr. had a CBD hamburger, like there's a CBD going into everything cocktails and restaurants. So we have this approach that, you know, we have our four categories of families that we refer to as balance, performance, recovery and sleep. And within each of those families, how do we then build functional products to really meet those needs with those, you know, overlying family products are. And so we wanted just to test the market and then really lean into this functional 360 model of here's our approach on impacting your wellness. Yeah, it took a long time to get there, I think, and a lot of feedback from customers to get to those four categories. Yeah. And I'm just curious about this and this is kind of a deviation, but what was it like raising capital given this, this new market, right? Was it easy because in some, in some ways, you know who the players are, right? And they're committed. And so if I'm an investor in CBD, it's like, here I am. And there's only so many of us and we're kind of on this island. But at the same time, it's like, what was that process like for you guys? I think as counterintuitive as this might sound is we wanted to be in the cannabis space, but really far away from the cannabis space. So like we actually got away from people that were interested in investing in CBD from a fun perspective. What was great about obvious ventures who led our last round of funding, they shared a very similar thesis to us on with some education, this would become a mainstream lifestyle supplement. And the no THC thing. We really lean into that versus compared to a lot of other companies in the space. But raising money is just hard in general, I would say. A lot, you get a lot of no's and you got to be comfortable with that. But there's probably some people that, you know, it scared them off at the line that I always talk about it. It's like, you know, when you talk about the risk in the space, because of what it is, there's also more opportunity because we're in an emerging market that's not super saturated. So you can look at that from whatever lens you are. Yeah, I guess the way I look at it as like a startup person, it's, it's super exciting because you're, you're moving into, you're almost like a pirate, right? It's like, oh, here we are discovering a new land kind of a thing. And that's exciting. But at the same time, it's like you, the education of, of a new market, it takes so much time to educate people. And so as you guys think about that component, let's do two things. One, when you think about your marketing or even like your, your social media, like how much is education just a part of your, your messaging? It's a big part. And I would say in a couple of ways too, and Matt, you can elaborate on this, like a big part of it is, hey, read this blog. This is how the endocampinoid system works. This is what CBD is. This is how it's different than THC. And then there's doing it in a, in a not as a direct way where we bring in partners to the business, like Danica Patrick's and investor Billy Horst on the PGA tour or some other professional athletes where, you know, we part of our thesis is we believe that people trust and listen to people that they emulate. So when folks like that are helping us educate the brand and bring the product to market, that's education anyway, in kind of a different way. So really I'm, I think the majority of our marketing strategy to be candid is some very direct education, but really a 360 education with all these different kind of pillars of marketing, I would say. Some less obvious ways, but in our mind, like it's just getting the messaging across that this isn't going to get you high. We regulate our products these ways, all of those things. The question I have, so we had Theragun on and their strategy was basically like the football world kind of grabbed them and took them in no direction. Then we had a company called Art of Sport on, which Kobe Bryant was actually the co-founder of. And in that scenario, obviously having Kobe and they ended up getting James Harden. And basically in doing that, they got the entire NBA market. And so when I looked at that as an outsider, it was like, one seems like the product is leading the marketing. The other seems like these guys are sitting in a boardroom being like, we're not going to market until we have all the players. And I look at Theragun today and now they have Colin who just won, he just won a major. He's a golfer and they have athletes, they have tennis players. And so I think about it. And I don't, I'm not judging these strategies because I find them both incredibly fascinating, but also purposeful. And so when you guys think of, obviously you guys, Danica Patrick, you mentioned as an investor, but as you think about like, what would you love to see for your brand? So would you love to see you guys being like NHL affiliated or MLB affiliated? What, you know, what does that look like? Or how do you guys even think? And I know it's hard. I know it's a hard question, but it's something that it's, that's the, that's the hard part of startup. It's like, do you choose, do you not choose? How do you do it? I think, I mean, I think our answer isn't so much like we want to, you know, pioneer in the MLB or the NHL, the NFL. We do. And we're doing things to, to be in that position. But I think at a higher level in that we say, we actually got it from Billy Horschel, who, in an article with him said, you know, beam's going to be the Nike of wellness. And for us, why we love that is that when we think of, it's kind of merging what you were just describing. So, and I'll generalize this a little bit, but typically when you see a really good supplements that athletes use, you know, it's a, for the most part, generally speaking, you know, the people that make those are very scientific and the product is great, but they just completely miss the marketing on how to communicate that to the masses. So a lot of people just seem like, I'm not a professional athlete, so I probably don't need what that person's using. Or just like the packaging is, you know, not really resonating to a mass audience. And then the other side, again, generalizing for the most part is that a lot of great consumer brands that have mass appeal, aren't the highest quality products that like the best in the world that what they do use. So we've taken this approach of how do we build products that the 1% want to use and meet those demands, you know, again, around these idea of balance, recovery, sleep and performance. But then at the same time, how do we pair that and communicate it and package it and build the brand so that the mass audience still resonates and doesn't feel like, oh, that's way too intensive a product or brand for me because I'm not, I'm a yogi. So I don't, I'm not like a CrossFit athlete. I'm not the fittest person on earth. So that's how we thought about, I think what you're asking, which is we want to build products that the best in the world use because it's that's how high quality products are. And then at the same time, we want to be able to express that and have the masses resonate with our brand and create more of a mass appeal to it. Yeah, to be honest, this might sound like maybe cocky or overconfident, but like the NHL and the MLB are great. Like those would be tremendous for us. But like we think the brand can be can really be multifaceted to a lot of different groups of people. Yeah, no, I love that. And I think you're branding, right? And even the way the product looks actually speaks to that. It seems very it was very intense, all of that. 100%. It looks very friendly in nature, which is obviously purposeful. You guys chose that for a reason, right? You could have went with something that looked like, I don't know, Formula One oil. As a brand started to evolve, I think when we started, I was working full-time. I had a full-time job and that was doing in some other ventures as well. And it became really quickly apparent to us that it was solving really profound issues in people's lives, like migraines and sleep and all these big issues. And for us, it was like, how could we, we knew whatever we started, it needed to be like a big purpose behind, and obviously a profitable business when we started business. And it became quickly apparent that the products were just helping like the 1% athletes of the world. But there was really a lot of, like our both of our parents and you know, helping Matt's mom play with her arthritis, she could play with her granddaughter. And it was like, whoa, this is like a, there's a really massive opportunity here to that. And then I keep going back to Therragon, because in his setting, there was no science, right? And so when I had him on the podcast, he talked about how he created science. And now they have seven research papers done by the top institutions across the world around saying why this works. Do you guys feel like in some way you're literally creating science? Are you working with institutions? Are you doing any testing or that's probably early to say, but do you feel like you're like literally creating science in some way? We're creating citizen science, we call it, meaning it's the anecdotes from people who have the, you know, Kevin just used your migraine story. It's just, you know, Kevin's, I didn't placebo, not having migraines out of my, you know, I dealt with this for years and all of a sudden I don't have any more migraines, you know, these debilitating migraines. So we have thousands of stories like that, that with our brand, but also just in the category in general, but within our brand, we have so many stories that, you know, people are just correlating using bean products to having these benefits too. And sure, you could say like some of that can be placebo. I think there could probably be placebo with anything, but at the same time, like there's just enough anecdotal evidence, our citizen science, we call it that it just points to that we have efficacious products. This is something that I'm always interested in. I love asking people like you guys these questions because it's an opportunity to get the messaging out there. And so what are the myths that you guys are either always combating or the things that you've learned people like me, who are maybe who have never purchased a product, think about CBD and are just totally off on what are like three things, three myths that we can debunk right now about this. Oh, go with, oh, go with five. If you have go, go with as many as you can. All CBD is the same. Okay. All CBD or CBD gets you high and it's THC that it's illegal to take it. What else better than this? Anything else? It makes you sleepy. And that because that's because again, like how we've implemented CBD and different functional things that aren't correlated to sleep. It's like, why, well, isn't this going to make me drowsy? I can't take this during the day. And again, going back to the end of cannabinoid system and how that works, it's not so much it makes you drowsy. There is science. If you took an absurd amount of CBD, it might have a drowsy effect, but it's not making you drowsy that helps you sleep. It's doing things to help your body do what it does to get to a deep state of sleep. I would say those like for me, the two of the main things again are just like, does it get me high? And is it going to make me sleepy? I would also add another one is like that it's that it's a myth, but also hard. I guess you could say this with any startup, like that it's really easy to start a CBD company. It's easy to start a really bad CBD company. It's like, well, you guys, of course, you're going well, you started a CBD company. You can go to the podcast, I'm sure, like it's easy to start a podcast. I get this question. I literally probably have one email or one, one everything, one email, one LinkedIn message, one Instagram a week about someone saying, Hey, I want to start a podcast. So what should I buy? And I'm like, your podcast has nothing to do with a microphone and, you know, recording. It's got everything to do with what's your topic. What are you, what are you like, even an expert in, if anything, and can you get enough guests to have a and facilitate a good conversation? Because the worst thing you could do is have a bring in like a monster guest and you don't even know how to talk into a microphone or how to read body language. And so yeah, totally, right? I get this all the time. And the part of me is, I go, but I go into supporter mode. I'm like, look, we're all on our own personal journey. So let me just be a fan and help them out. And we have like an email template at this point, basically being like, Oh, you want to know what's in it? Here's my email template. Boom. And it takes me a second to send it. But the reality is like they're asking the wrong question, right? Yeah, well said. Yeah, it was well said, which is great. I mean, that's why I love startup too, because it's like, I just go back to like, Oh, if I'm LeBron, it like, I look at LeBron James playing basketball and I'm like, this is what an easy game this is, right? Like me at five nine, I have this thought I can shoot over LeBron, like what a dumb thought, but it looks easy. And so I'm like, Oh, I must be doing this so well that people think it's easy. And that's just the ego coming out and being like, Oh, we got this kind of a thing. That reminds me of a good story. I mean, not to take this sound like a super deep rabbit hole, but I forget who it was. Like, do you know where I'm going? This not like the Van Gogh story or whoever it was that the painter was. I forget who it was. I'll probably butcher the story a little bit, but he was in a cafe somewhere. Picasso. Picasso. Yeah. A little girl walked up to him and said, Hey, can you paint me a picture? And he painted a quick picture in 30 seconds to return and gave it to her. And he said, no, this is going to be however much it's going to cost, right? It's going to cost $10,000. And he said, wait, this, this costs like, this took you 30 seconds to do this. And he said, no, no, no, that's sucking my whole life and so like we, we talk about that a lot at the company of like from the outsider's perspective, looking in, it's like, oh my gosh, you guys just raised another round of funding or, you know, this product launch was so successful. Like that looks so easy. It's like, oh my gosh, like that was, that was not easy. But I don't know what reminded me of that. Like, all the good things. I'm like, it's your point, your podcast, being whatever it is, like, totally. It's always, that's a very common misconception. Yeah. And I'm also coming from a place of like helping, like we're literally just trying to inspire. I'm sure, I'm sure your product is all about helping people, right? And so the ethos of it is not fame or money making or whatever. It's like, I hope to inspire more entrepreneurs because people will hear your story and they'll be like, wow, these, these guys met, they were athletes, they realized this, this new market and they decided to dig in. And it wasn't like, oh overnight, here's a product that was like, they had to raise a bunch of capital and unknown space where they couldn't get a bank account. And now here you are, right? It's evolving. And we're still in it. We're still in it. We're in the arena. We're not somebody in the nose bleed seats, right? Yeah. We're like, we're in it and they're, we love that. Yeah. We're fortunate. We get to chat with a lot of entrepreneurs now where, who, where we were, you know, obviously not long ago. And it's great when people, oh, why do you must have been a biologist? Like, one of you must have come from a manufacturing background, right? This is like, we literally had no experience in cannabis, manufacturing, science, all these different things. It just became obsessed with all the different elements of our business. And so we love getting to chat with now, you know, people where we were, you know, about a year and a half, two years ago and share obviously all those learnings and hopefully inspire their journey. I think that's one of the, there's so many things, but that's one of the things, you know, I know we both really enjoy getting to do now. We did that too. And you're like, we're talking to some of the other founders trying to pick their brains and what we still do it. Yeah, I would say that. And then also having a team of people that like believe in the mission and kind of like the idea that we just like put on paper one day that's super inspiring, really cool. And just see them each like their own personal journeys, you know, within the company and then also just in life. And to work with them and to help, we talk a lot about when we hire people that it's, we want everybody to have a great financial outcome, right? For being to be a super successful, they make a lot of money. But at the same time, it's a failure really, if we walk away from this and, you know, people haven't had a good experience or they haven't conquered some fear in their life or they haven't grown as a person, that's really important to us too, from a cultural perspective. Yeah, no, that's awesome. I think a lot of people got that wrong. I can say this, especially in Silicon Valley, it's very much like, we're on the treadmill and we're going to go. And if you can't keep up, sorry, that's kind of the, and it's, it's just the, it's like a mindset out there. It's really different. It's hard. It is hard. Yeah. And we certainly push people very hard. I don't suggest that we're sure and get the most out of everybody, but it's in a way that's loving, I would say. Yeah, I say, I always think of support is the best currency, right? It's like, that's the thing. If you, if you give everybody that, everything else kind of takes care of itself. Just switch gears here. What has COVID been like for you guys? Obviously, people are now going to a grocery store like Irwan to buy products. And so are you guys like seeing a growth in certain markets, whether it's retail and, or what has it been like for you guys? It's been good. It's been, I mean, it's, You can be honest too. Yeah, I mean, I'll say it in the context of like, it's been good for us, but we're also self-aware enough to realize like how really, really, really fortunate we are. It's been really bad for a lot of people. So we don't take that lightly, how good it's been for us and how lucky we are. I mean, we have products that help people with stress, anxiety, sleep, and we're an entirely direct-to-consumer-based business right now. So when you look at COVID, we had a lot of good things going for us at the time. And also, I think just from a very macro perspective, people are realizing that their health and wellness isn't a trend. This is really important. And if they want to COVID or whatever's after COVID, just to have longevity in their life and happiness, they need to be happy, healthy, whole. And that we've obviously seen a successful uptake from that trend. So really early on, people are leaning really heavily into our sleep products because of issues like Mara, Chapel, and I guess, again, to bring it macro, we've seen a really big uptake in business the last six months. That's great. I'm excited to do that anyways, but we have kind of exceeded our expectations. And trust me, I've heard this of everyone we heard on the podcast. And this narrative that exists in the news to me is like, what is happening? Every time I talk to a founder, all of them are like, hey, we're killing it. And it's simple. It's because uncertain times came and they pivoted in the direction that they needed to. And whether that was education because their brand is so new, or whether that was like Brooke, as an example, coffee shops aren't open. So we went heavy into the grocery store. Right. And it's just like anyone who was able, and I hate even to call it a pivot, but anyone who was just able to focus on what was already working has seen double two X growth, three X growth during this time. And you have to, it's all about survival. And those times you don't have a choice, you know, it's exactly right. Yeah, you're grabbing the closest life raft. Exactly. Yeah. And I'd say too, it wasn't just like COVID happened. And all of a sudden overnight, like people just started going to our website and buying beam. We made a very conscious decision to lean into these things and to really lean into like, how do we get people to become more aware about beam? If our hunch is that they're going to be spending money into these types of products right now. And, you know, those first few months is when we announced publicly the partnership and investment Danica and then Billy Horschel. And we have, I think by the time this comes out, but Baker Mayfield is an investor in beam. And we're doing something on the more personal brand side with him. So we've noticed a couple of examples, also creating products like we just launched focus a few weeks ago. And the idea was like, okay, we're also working from home. So we launched this really cool capsule called focus that pairs our CBD with new tropics and adaptogens to really give you a good mental boost again, because we're all just sitting at home and probably not maybe moving around or interacting as much other people. So, you know, we've leaned into it from a whole strategy side, like how do we thrive during this and not just try to like buckle up and hold on and what happens happens? You know, now we're setting out, we're raising around a funding, which is, you know, a great fundable story, talking about some of that. And, you know, so it's part partly the approach to it wasn't just, oh, you guys are CBD, like obviously you're doing well. It's like, no. It's also funny too, like we were talking about a second ago, like, you might think, Oh, this is great. Like, you know, the company has that creates influx of demand, which is outside of your projections creates supply chain and logistical issues and inventory issues. So we went from like, how are we going to survive the first few weeks of COVID to Oh my gosh, this is actually probably a good thing in our business. How are we going to get more products faster? Right. You know, like it's like, it's always just like something, you know? Yeah, it's funny because basically at some point you just don't celebrate anything. You're like, this is great. But there's a fire on the other side because of this thing. That's one of our biggest things we talked about between the two of us as founders and also with the team, we just, was that of an interview we were doing last week and Aaron on our team said, you know, when we raised our, we did a $5 million round back in September of last year and when that closed, everybody wanted to go out and you know, celebrate and all right, kind of like a stop train. You need to get better with that. That's for sure. I'm the same way. So I've done this in companies where I've just been really bad at celebrating the wins like awful, like obviously we raised money because that was the whole goal. We put a lot of energy into it. Why are we celebrating right? It's like, and then you realize your whole team really needs that excitement. And even if even in my marriage, even in my marriage with my wife, I'm just like, like yesterday she bought a new car. I'm like, let's go have dinner. Let's just, let's celebrate this thing. And you have to, you have to, even though it feels so unnatural for me personally, because of my whole mind just goes to the next thing, right? It's like, you guys are doing the calyx on the run rate. You guys are doing the calyx on, okay, so $5 million gets us this far. And we hope, we hope we're right along the way a few times. So we don't have, right? And so it's like, you're not in a position because you're doing the calculus. It's a gift and a curse. Yeah, totally true. Well, look, what's next for you guys? You mentioned a new product. What are some of the things you can, you can tease? So we, so I just mentioned, I guess, going back and kind of talking in the sense that episode probably comes out will be, so on Monday is when we do more of like a deeper unveil of really leaning into these four categories of balance, performance, recovery, and sleep. And then again, within each of those, we have multiple different products that one, it's really easy for consumer customer. I have this pain point like, what is the best thing for me to get? It's very easy to look at and see based on the categories and functions. And so that's an exciting thing. Again, like even just talking about that, like, you know, we kind of lead into this, you know, really unveiling this cool beam brand evolution during COVID. And we launched focus last week. It's gone really well. We have some fun stuff happening in January, probably like too early to tease it. But again, really just expanding, you know, beam being a wellness company. However, that can be interpreted by like really leaning into like, how do we impact people's health and wellness? And from the start, we've always thought of being like beyond a CBD company, you know, what are the other unique ways that we can do that? And so we'll be getting into that early next year. Well said. Yeah, I'm like excited about this. It's not like this. I don't know what the hell he's talking about, but it's sounded exciting. It does. Oh my goodness. That's awesome. Well, look, tell everyone where they can find you guys, where they can buy your products, all your socials, all that good stuff. Social is pretty simple. Just at beam. And then the website is www.beamtlc, like tenderlovingcare.com. I am at Kevin Moran 34 and Matt is at Matt Lombardi 24. Well, look, thank you guys for coming on the podcast and sharing your story. I'm very excited and literally on the edge of my seat for January.