Melissa Travers [00:05] Hello, and thanks for tuning in to the Non-Base podcast. I am Melissa Travers, director of community at Bevnet CPG Media, and this is our How do I Build this show, where we share practical advice to help CBG brands grow stronger businesses. Visit Non-base.com, Bevnet's platform for the CPG community, where you can find this podcast, educational courses, data reports, and more content to help you grow. Today, we are talking about magnetism. There are plenty of great products out there, but some brands and founders have an ability to immediately pull people in. You notice them, understand them, you want to try them, and eventually you want to be part of what they're building. So where did that pull actually come from, and can you deliberately create more of it? Today, I have Rogers Healy. He is the founder and CEO of Morrison Seger Venture Capital Partners, which invests in emerging consumer brands. Its food and beverage portfolio has included brands you definitely know like Poppy, Sanzo, Waterloo, Magic Spoon, Costarina, and Haywell. Rogers has Has evaluated these brands from the investor side and experienced their pull as a consumer, and today we are going to talk about what makes a brand magnetic. Rogers, thanks so much for joining me on the non-base podcast.
Speaker 2 [01:28] Look, see, I'm, I'm, I'm a magnet to the screen. That's how much I love the podcast. People don't know this. I'm made of metal. I'm not a human. I'm not human. I'm not a robot, but yeah, but thank you for having me on the podcast. And before we get started, Melissa, your hair just looks fantastic today. It's, it's, it's so perfect, and you know, in Dallas, I'm sure you would have a field day with all the, all the humidity. So wherever you're coming from, Way to go. Off to a great start.
Melissa Travers [01:56] Well, you're definitely the person I wanna be talking to about brand magnetism, founder magnetism, but before we get to all that, I wanna talk about your background a little bit. So you love music, you built your career in real estate, and now you invest in food and beverage. What did those other worlds of music and real estate teach you about what makes people gravitate towards something?
Speaker 2 [02:21] You know, like you said, my, my background's real estate, and I was fortunate to build a brokerage. It got big. It was one of the biggest in the country, but just like, you know, most consumer deals, there was nothing proprietary. About it, you know, I would help people build their brand, and I was always very aware from a young age of my brand, my personal brand, and, you know, the art of self-deprecation and just kind of owning your quirks. I think that's part of being a human and as you mature, that's something you can really embrace. The transition was hard, but it wasn't impossible. And for me to be essentially a talent scout running a brokerage, I had to look for stuff that is really applicable. In the world of consumer, right, like big bold brands, somebody who's confident with their story, and, you know, with consumer, like with beverage, you know, it's the liquid has to taste good, but Stiller, tell me more, right? Or the hat has to fit Cendera, that sounds cool. And with real estate, you know, you have to have really good bullshit BS and you have to be able to back it up, and I don't think that kind of stuff can be taught. And so I did that to scale for a very long time, and I lived it to scale for a very long time, um, but I was like, man, I think there's something. Different for me, whether it's more or not, and I kind of just went for it. It took me almost 20 something years to make the, you know, the pivot official, but, you know, I learned a ton along the way.
Melissa Travers [03:50] It sounds to me almost like being approachable when you made a comment about being self-deprecating, you know, even in this intro, you sort of made yourself approachable. How do being approachable as a founder and a brand, how does that tie into magnetism?
Speaker 2 [04:05] It's crucial. Right? I mean, like, look, the, the law of attraction, uh, you know, maybe it should be the law of magnetism, right? It took me a while to figure out like who I really was. And, you know, I think that success at a relatively early age as an adult is kind of scary, but I'm glad that I didn't have success, you know, as a youthful guy with anything. Right? But through that, you know, I, I was a terrible athlete, I was a late bloomer socially, I was a terrible student, and I got used to that, but through that, you know, I never really found my people, right? Like, there's not a group in high school of like, hey, man, did you get cut from the basketball team again? Come over here. Let's go eat Twinkies at my house. That, that doesn't exist. And, and so, I wasn't a loner, but you know, I didn't really have like real friends until later in life. And with business and magnetism, you know, I picked the only industry probably where you have no friends in the industry in real estate, none, right? And I found it. I found success and I made money and I had notoriety, but like nobody in the real estate world calls and says, Hey, Melissa, let's go have lunch. I want you to tell me. All the things that are working for you, and I'm gonna do the same in return and we're gonna, no, no, no, like your job is to go beat them. And so with this, it's been so special because first of all, like brands do collaborate. Like there's literal collaborations, whether it's on social media or events, but I think people like helping each other and I think through that there's been such power in having these brands become, like, I'm looking at one of our favorite deals is Pathwater, and one of our other favorite deals is Stiller. The CEOs of both of these companies in the beverage space, one is water and, and hydration, the other is a soda, like they're friends, and they're helping each other. And I'm like, man, that's, it's magical. Um, so it, it starts with the people, right? But look, you, you bet, you go to a horse race, you're like, that's a really cool sounding horse name. Like the horse has to have 4 legs and have a good jockey. Uh, and, and I think that that's the second part of the diligence, right? But it does start with The human element, and I don't care what anyone tells you, how smart they are, where they went to school, where they used to work, it always starts with a feeling, and I think that's the root of magnetism at its core is just how does it make you feel? And A and B sometimes equal 8, but you've got to have enough experience to kind of really have conviction behind it.
Melissa Travers [06:38] So, you've talked before about brands needing to pop. Of course they need to pop if a consumer has a bunch of options on the shelf and they have to grab one. When you see a, you know, a food product or a beverage for the first time, what makes it not only pop and makes you notice it, but, but what makes it turn into something that you want to know more about and really draws you in and gets you interested?
Speaker 2 [07:03] It's a great question. I mean, like any other deal, right, the story behind it and the potential. One of my proudest accomplishments or something I'm really proud of in the world of venture is, I mean, we've built a really fun brand around Morrison Seger, and there's a whole story there, but with that comes pretty tremendous inbound deal flow, which there's a whole funky world of what we're not allowed to do when it comes to marketing, the firm. But I think I do a decent job of getting the word out there from an authentic perspective, which I tell you this to where it leads to, you know, 50 to 60 inbound deals a day. And a lot of them are, you know, I think that. We're pretty well respected in the beverage space and in the apparel space and in the You know, kind of standard snacking space, and that means we get a lot of inbound, and there's some deals I'm like, Stiller's, Ben Stiller, cool, I'll track it down. But with that being said too, we also get a lot of stuff that's a little bit out there, um, and You know, I'm randomly, I'm a plant-based person, which is a whole another story and it sucks, and we get a lot of tofu and seaweed. I'm like, that's cool for me, but like, is there really a big market for that? Maybe, but you know, you've got to be really, in my opinion, you have to be really quick to say no. And especially with, you know, my model is all one-off SPVs, which means, you know, we've done 2 deals this year and I've probably looked at 4000. Um, and I say look at it, it could be responding to an email, LinkedIn, Instagram. It's got to make sense, right? And as I've matured, not matured, I'm still not mature. As I've gotten older, the stuff that I initially would have pursued when I was 24, investing versus 46, 24, the common theme was it was stuff that I personally liked, right? Like simple. I drink beverage, I wear clothes, sounds cool. You get older, right? You have more experiences, you get married, you have children. It's like, oh. We might do a deal that's in the parenting space and maybe it's a deal that I'm not going to be a consumer of personally, but I see the upside, and I think that that's part of the fun of this business too is that there's always something to learn and there's always something that excites you, but there still has to be upside, especially when you're raising money from people that is, that is not like it's outside money. So it's a, it's a long winded, long winded response, but It's got to feel good, right? And then again, it has to taste good. The clothing has to fit, the food has to, has to be great if I'm a consumer, but the beauty of having a beautiful wife and three young children is they're also part of. You know, they're they're part of the R&D, and I think that that's what, you know, most people won't admit. It's like, go, you know, we sent out 500 cases of Stiller when I launched the race, got great feedback, got a lot of investors. Some people didn't love the taste. Some people are obsessed with it. That's what you've got to do, and it's really, really expensive and it takes a lot of time, but I think it saves a lot of time as well.
Melissa Travers [10:06] You just mentioned that you're plant-based and you may be interested in products because you have a specific dietary need. What separates a meaningful point of difference in a food or a beverage that consumers will respond to versus one that may look good in a pitch deck or it may appeal to a small niche group of people, but overall it's not going to be able to scale.
Speaker 2 [10:29] When I started Morrison Seger, like we used to, it was, you know, I was I was like, do I need to be a finance bro? Like how, how formal do I need to be? And like part of what I initially told people is we won't invest in anything that is trendy, right? Like fidget spinners or, you know, something that is like, oh, this could have a moment, but it could be a one hit wonder. And again, there's no way to predict that people are just going to not drink alcohol like they used to. And on the flip side, like, Plant-based stuff has not done extraordinarily well, right? Beyond meat, right? And, and you just think these things are here to stay, but, uh, again, that's where I can't be too selfish with my convictions, right? Just because I don't eat meat anymore, or at least for the short term, doesn't mean the rest of the world's not going to eat meat. We live in Dallas, Texas, where I have to like whisper, hey, I have to eat, like, because they think I'm a, a freaking, you know, I got horns growing out of my head. So, You know, it's, it starts with a feeling, but the beauty of diligence and the internet is that sometimes you can get other people's well educated opinions for free and very, very quickly, and that becomes part of, you know, the process.
Melissa Travers [11:40] All right, now I'm just curious, how come you can't eat meat anymore?
Speaker 2 [11:43] I had some hard stuff come up like 6 months ago. I struggled with insomnia for a long time and still kind of deal with it, but in the process, like I got a bunch of tests done and found out that, you know, maybe it was stress related or, um, you know, lack of sleep. But through it, I started a thing called the portfolio diet, and it's changed my life. Um, it's very inconvenient. It's not fun. Food is for getting me full now, not for necessarily enjoyment. But even with that, like I've unlocked a whole different world that I never would have pursued as an investor, and I've learned a ton. It's funny, there's a company we invested in called Blue Zone Kitchen, and the day I found out about what was going on, my wife and I randomly, we were going to see the founder at an event. I was like, I think I'm an investor in this company. And then he started talking. I was like, Man, this is pretty cool. Like, tell me more about legumes and fiber and beans and It just became a lifestyle that I, um, decided to pursue.
Melissa Travers [12:43] So, let's say you get a product, you think it's a good product, you talk to the founder, and they tell you that like, you know, we know we have a good product, but no one really seems obsessed with us. So like, maybe they haven't really gotten to that point where they're magnetic or where they have the gravity that they're looking for. Where would you start looking for a solution? Are there things that you've been able to do or see? You know, opportunities for a brand that really does have a good product and a good value proposition, but for some reason they just haven't been able to draw a big enough audience.
Speaker 2 [13:18] Sure, and I think that is one of the benefits of like I, I do a la carte races. It's not a dedicated fund. I could have 5 one-off deals going at once, and a lot of them are volume-based, meaning You know, I might have 100 investors in Stiller soda, and that's expensive for me. That's one investor for Stiller's because it's, it's, it's this group that's on the cap table, but the benefit of that is you have 100 salespeople and you have 100 billboards that are making sure to promote this brand however they can. And so I tell you that's where again there are a few deals we've done. People are like, Oh, that's interesting. What is You know, pistachio, pistachio butter. I'm like, yeah, right? And it's, it's, it tastes damn good. It's a great founder. It's a great story, like it's like they're pistachio aficionados, and like sometimes you just want to, like, that's a great bet, right? And the moat is them and you, you know, you've got to be there. Uh, kind of with them, making sure they're moving at the speed they need to move with, but, you know, look, there's, there's a lot of people. There's a more vocal group that doesn't love a brand that sometimes does love a brand, and I think that's also a reason to pursue something. When you see people online chattering, blah blah blah blah blah, it's like, man, there's something there. They're trying it for a reason, and it might convert them to a fan. And then there's some deals like you can probably see up here, I've got all of our port codes, but right there, that's a company called Oates Overnight, and we were one of their first investors, and I'll never forget. I got, it was like 4.5, 5 years ago. This guy sent it to me, I was like, really? I was like, subscription-based oatmeal. Huh? I got online and I found a Facebook group of Oats overnight fans, like 30,000 people, and this was before they had kind of hit their velocities, and it was people that were just literally ideating about like dream flavors. And I was like, wait a second, there's people that want, you know, Boston cream pie, oatmeal flavor. What? I was like, way to prove me wrong, right? Just cause I eat Quaker Oats or XY, it's like, there's always people out there, and I think sometimes you just have to be willing to go and find, you know, your fans for a lot of these deals. Um, like, there's one right up there, there's called Cure Hydration. We were, um, early in that, and a buddy called me a few years ago, and he said, hey, have you seen this company? It was like element, and I was like, oh God, it tastes like the ocean. He's like, no, no, no, no, people like this. And I was like, why would I ever go and put this disgusting powder in my water? And he's like, it's, there's a thing. I was like, all right, I love female founders, and I found Lauren, the Cure founder in it, and it works. So sometimes it's fun to be proven wrong, um, because it just shows you, you know, we're all set in our ways and we're all stubborn and to You know, get someone who drinks Dr. Pepper or Coke to start drinking Stiller is not impossible, but it's more expensive to go and then finding someone who would drink a tea that transitions to Stiller, and then you got them, you know, for life. So that's, that's a long-winded response, but it's, that's part of the fun of this business.
Melissa Travers [16:30] Rogers, you were just talking about cure hydration as a product. You were talking about pistachio, their pistachio butter. How much of a brand's magnetism starts with the founder? Can you think of a founder that you met and you immediately thought, you know, this is someone that people are really gonna want to follow? What gives you that reaction? Yeah,
Speaker 2 [16:52] there's this guy, he's, he's an actor. His name is Ben Stiller, and I met this guy. I was like, man, I was like. You got something, Ben Stiller. I feel like people are gonna wanna know your name. Um, I'm just kidding, but, you know, all of them, right? Like there's, it's, it's fun, like part of, uh, you know, I'm a fan of Ben Stiller. I'm a fan of the soda. I'm an investor. It's like,
Melissa Travers [17:15] That's an easy one. I mean, Ben Stiller is, yeah,
Speaker 2 [17:18] but, but I, but I'm saying like that, but like it still has to taste good. They still have to have a strong team. And it's one thing writing a check personally, it's another when you pitch it and I have to be convicted and I have to be able to back it up. But yeah, there's, I'm trying to think. Here's a fun one. There's a toothpaste deal that we're in called Daily, and, you know, I have white teeth, I had braces. It's like, what do I really know about oral care? Not much. And this group, uh, we announced that we invested in a company called Pop Up Grocer, which is one of my favorite deals of all time, female founded. Females are less than 5% of venture funding. Everyone watching this on the investing side, always bet on a female. Always invest in a female, always, always, always. So it's like you bet on the jockey, not the horse, but you gotta still have a strong horse. With with these guys, right? They're like what they're believable, they're authentic, they're honest, they are great storytellers, not like they, they know how to tell a story, and I think because of that, You know, there's conviction, and again, I'm not in the world of convincing or being convinced, but I think people appreciate when someone like I'm, I am so confident in the deals that we're doing and I'm so confident in what I'm doing that some people might have interest in Cindero or Steelers in large part because of my conviction and my belief for it, knowing that I left a pretty successful career that I made a bunch of money doing. And I put it all behind me to bet on myself completely different, and I think people like that, and founders, I think that to speak without humility, maybe something they might like about me is that I'm a founder and I've done it and I pivoted from a successful career, not as a 25-year-old, and that's not abnormal and it doesn't necessarily just start with the founder, but You can have a really, really great idea and the founder can be a cocky a-hole and you're out, right? Or they say something on the intro and you give them a chance to like apologize and they don't. I'm like, I don't want to be a part of that and I don't think that's something about being older um and kind of having a stronger filter. I think everyone should be like that. Right? And a handful of deals that I've done, I'm like, and I had that, uh, I was like, yeah, I shouldn't have done it, right? Like, you know, my dad always tells me when someone shows you who they are, believe them. Uh, and sometimes that means you can like them even more, uh, but that's, you know, that's part of the journey.
Melissa Travers [19:57] I have another founder question for you. So on the one hand as an entrepreneur, you have to be self-driven, you kind of have to be a dreamer. You have to be somebody who believes in yourself. But at the same time, one of the things that I hear from investors is that they want a founder who will take advice, who can, you know, listen to the people around them when they're being told that something is. Isn't right about the product or the way they're running their business. What do you think the friction point is as somebody who is changing their hats all the time and is going from, you know, one business to another and an entrepreneur yourself, what's that friction point between believing in yourself and having conviction, but being willing to take advice and criticism from other people?
Speaker 2 [20:41] I don't know if it's a friction point. It's just Like, come on, like don't be a butthead. Like there's a few companies that are doing really, really well. And you know, it's that feeling like an investor needs like a founder and a brand needs a great investor. An investor needs a great brand. So we're not dating, right? Like you can pursue, you can follow up, but like when a founder makes me feel like they're doing me a favor on the phone, like what, like what? And and, and vice versa, right? All y'all that are raising money and if an investor makes you feel this, this tall, you got to run. Uh, and unfortunately, it's out there and, you know, especially like second-time founders and people that have had big exits like a hand like Morgan Zannati, who's the founder of Whey Soda. It's a, it's a protein soda, which that's a competitive industry. She had a substantial first exit and you would never know. You would never, never know. She's humble, she's kind. She did not have a first company that was in the, in the beverage space, and she knows that. What a great bet, right? Because with her comes her her battle wounds and her experiences from having a first company that sold for well over $100 million but she doesn't know everything. None of us do, right? And she's married with kids, which means she's efficient with her time, so. Um, yeah, it, it, it's, it's got to be a product market fit for the company and for the investor, right? And if you have that feeling like you're not welcomed and you got to chase these people on one side or the other, please don't do it, uh, please. And then on the flip side, if you have someone who maybe is a really strong founder, really great personality, really great wherewithal, and maybe their product needs a little bit of help, that's great. That is great because I can promise you, I can promise you that there's a lot more, um, there's a lot less strong founders, strong personalities, strong opportunities than there are brands. And, you know, in a perfect world, maybe I eventually start a matchmaking service where someone's like, I have a great idea. I want to reinvent bubble gum, um, blah blah blah, and I'm like, yeah, but you're so not the personality type. This person would be a great fit. Um, which maybe that's the 3rd act of my career, but it's tough, right? It's really, really tough. And I think that's part of the fun is that, you know, I'm a, I'm a treasure hunter. And then every once in a while I'm like, boom, love it, love it, love it, love it. And that's, those are the brands that we go really, really like path. Like, like you cannot bet against Shotty. You can't. You literally can't, and he's going to figure it out, and of course he's disrupting. Water, but he could come to me and say, I'm gonna reinvent the zipper. I'm in. I'm in. Um, so that's, you know, that's just kind of part of the journey that when you find that one or 2 or 3 deals that you can get behind, it's like it was worth it.
Melissa Travers [23:51] For someone like Shotty from Bathwater, how long did it take you to believe in him? Like, you know, was it the first conversation? Was it after being connected? How, how did that work?
Speaker 2 [24:03] Before I even met him. You know, I think there's there's a fine line between being. Like a psycho and being crazy. He's crazy. Like he's crazy. I'm crazy, right? And and like I'm, I'm, you know, I believe in myself. I believe in what we're doing, and so does Shoddy, but. He is, he's one of the best fundraisers I've ever met. He's one of the best leaders I've ever met, but if you go to his social media, the first thing you'll see is his wife and his kids, which means he's got priorities. He's on an airplane 200 days a year, he's traveling the world, but we talk 3 or 4 times a week. And You know, it's hard to bet against someone like that because they don't know how to quit, right? Like I don't know how to quit. Some that's probably why I don't sleep is that my brain never turns off, ever, ever, ever, but in my mind I'm like putting this with this and there's music playing. It's like, and my kids are there, my wife, it's like, that's fun, right? And some founders have that kind of psychotic wiring and if they know how to go and mold it and they know what they're not great at and they're never going to be great at it. They're freaking lethal. So, yeah, it's it's an interesting makeup, um, but with that said too, the best of the best, Shoddy and Ben Stiller and Jay Shetty and all these people being some of them, they surround themselves with people that have done it before, but people that don't want to be them. And if I would have had that savvy when I was growing my real estate companies. You know, I, I'd have a different story to tell, but I think that's another reason that some of these companies like working with us is that my approach was always preferred. I would rather Melissa tell me what not to do than versus what to do, and the not to do part was simply based off of what you did in your career that you wish you could do over, and that to me is invaluable wisdom that is so easy to apply, um, and, you know, that's something I'm passionate about.
Melissa Travers [26:07] I've heard you mention family a few times as we're talking about, you know, the partnerships that you make and the founders that you work with. What is it about the family? Is it because you know they have this responsibility to succeed on some level? What is it?
Speaker 2 [26:24] I mean, sure, and look, and I was single till I was 39 and I became a dad at 42 and I'm 46 and we want more children. Some people, you know, it's God's timing with everything, and some people's family, they might not be related to him. I think it's just a matter of priority, right? I work a ton. I work, I can see my wife and children right now or from our back house, which is crazy to even say that, but if my phone rings and it's anyone in my family, I'm answering the phone, right? And I think it just means that like I have a sense of like relative balance where my faith comes first and my family. Then work and then probably my friends and then hobbies if I have them, but it just shows the human side too, right? And it also shows that, you know, they probably have someone to talk to when things are not going the way they want it to go and then when things are going really, really well, they still have someone to keep them humble and I think we've all seen these people that have had substantial exits and then you watch them after you're like, oh my God, cringe. Like we get it, you made money, shut up. Like you spent money upgrading your physical identity, like, so what, right? And I, and I think success, look at this, I think success can make you a better person. I do, and I think money, you know, gives people access and it gives them a bigger platform, but I wear, I have on shorts and I have on a hoodie and I have on a t-shirt from Cendero, but who cares? Right? Like, who cares? And in a city like Dallas, which is a beautiful city, we love it, but it's also a city of status. I want to be the anti all of that guy. And I want to wear a mustache. I want to have a mustache and I want to have a mullet and I want to listen to classic rock and You know, every once in a while someone's like, I'm going to do that too. You know, how they're wired at the beginning, I think is amplified as things get better or if things get worse. And you want to just gravitate towards the people, you want a magnet, you want to be a magnet for and with the people that find a way to make the world better around them when they are successful.
Melissa Travers [28:39] You know, I feel like a mullet, and mustache and classic rock are perfect for Texas. Am I, am I wrong?
Speaker 2 [28:44] Yeah, no, this is what, that's what we're doing here, you know, that's my next investment is a mullet company that sells mustaches with the leftover hair, and we only listen to Bob Seger and Van Morrison. Please reach out if you're interested in investing, and I'm moving in with my parents.
Melissa Travers [29:01] So I have a question for you about building your personal brand. You know, there are people on LinkedIn, they're they're like, I don't know how many times a week, sharing so many thoughts on so many things. You see brands that build in public, like Pistachio, I think does this so well. They're kind of building in public, they have an amazing social media presence, and I think that's great for some people, and it works really well for some people. Like for Pistachio, it seems like it comes really naturally to them, but then for other founders, it's definitely not a natural thing. How do you decide whether, how do you think founders should decide whether being highly visible is valuable to the business or if it's just an energy drain?
Speaker 2 [29:44] So let's talk about LinkedIn for a second. I, um, LinkedIn is 100% my people, but it took me 20 years to realize that, um. I didn't leverage LinkedIn until COVID. I was the first real estate person in the country to do Facebook and to do Instagram and probably to do Twitter, which I should have leveraged that more too, and I tried so hard. Like I was myself, but it's like You know, the algorithm and all this BS. It's like no matter what, I was like, man, that was a great video or a great post and I got 6 likes and nobody reached out wanting to buy a house or work for me. And then LinkedIn, I was like, screw it. I'm literally gonna be the guy that posts twice a day on LinkedIn and I'm gonna go and edify all the people and all the brands that I love and I was like, holy crap, this is unbelievable. It really started to work. But with the founder, first of all, consumer founders out there. If you're not wearing your brands and you're not holding your products everywhere you go. Literally shame on you, shame on you. You should go and use an opportunity every waking moment of the day to promote your brand. You're doing an injustice to your investors and an injustice to the potential outcome if you don't. And I think it starts with stuff like this, right? There's some brands like pistachio, Nicola and Francine are literally Italian. They live and die pistachios, right? Like you can't make that stuff up. But these other brands like, again, Morgan is her consumer. She is a female that wants to take in more protein, doesn't want to do a bro shake at the gym, so she creates a beverage and she lets people in. But I also have friends. I've got a good buddy that owns a really successful plumbing company, which is not really consumer, it's, it's home services, and he's posting every month photos with his plumbers. And he says that if we had a million dollars in ARR, I'll take my plumber's deep sea fishing. You see that, and it's like, I want to be a client because he's treating his people the right way. So I, I think there's a, there's a not an art, but you can let people in and show vulnerability without showing weakness. Right. There's the founders that every once in a while they're like, oh shit, here we go. They're crying and they're showing their makeup or their internal makeup and it's like things are going well. We couldn't pay our 3PL or a cockroach arrived in our batch of protein bars and it's like, no, like social media is not therapy, right? And then lastly, and obviously you can tell I get frustrated with this, there's some people that post. Just for people to tell them they look pretty or you're my hero. It's validation, which is dumb as hell, right? Like realize that that's a sign of weakness and I think that's a reason to not invest is if people, you know, are just bragging all the time, right? So sometimes your brand is Wizard of Oz style, and I think that's OK. You don't have to go show your face, but make sure it's consistent and, you know, I think people Notice that, um, some brands are way better on TikTok than they are on Instagram. Some are better on Facebook and some, you know, maybe just need to be kind of dull and one dimensional, but you got to have a presence and I think it starts with the founders.
Melissa Travers [33:16] So you've held up that can of whey a few times and talked about working with Morgan as a founder. So Whey is a protein soda, whey protein soda. Uh, certainly protein as a macronutrient is trending and has been trending, I mean, I guess since the beginning of time, but very intensely for the last couple of years or so. Um, what drew you to work with Morgan and Whey? Was it that the category of protein is skyrocketing? Is it the format? What was it?
Speaker 2 [33:47] Morgan, here's a fun fact. I can't even drink this. I can't have creatine, right? Like I can't. One of the reasons I invested in Mosh bar, Patrick Schwarzenegger and Maria's mom are fantastic, but they have a vegan option. Morgan. Right? Like it was early. She was very raw on our call, whatever it was like a year ago. I met her through my buddy Tyler at Mana Tree. Um, proteins everywhere. It's gotten more expensive, right? But like you said, all of a sudden, like 2 years ago, people kind of just stopped drinking alcohol and started really thinking about long term and You know, there's, there's studies about lack of protein leading to, you know, maybe not as happy of a later stage of life. It's like, OK, we better make up for lost time or play prevent defense. But yeah, I like Morgan. I'm not going to drink a protein soda twice a day. I might not drink it once a day, but it's like with Steelers. I wasn't a soda drinker. Right? Like I wasn't, and I, I like this. I like the story. I like Ben Stiller. I drink one a day now. Um, you know, I drink 12 Waterloos a day, um, but the bet was on Morgan and her ability to go and act quickly and to bring people around her, which she's done. Um, but yeah, you can't go anywhere, anywhere without somebody putting protein in. Gum or toothpaste, water, like, you know, everything. Um, you know, so eventually, you know, what I like about Stiller's too is like, it doesn't have biotics in it. It's not prebiotics or probiotic. It's a freaking soda, right? And I hope that one of the next movements is going to be like the chill the hell out movement and enjoy your life a little bit, which I really hope is coming for real. Um, where you don't have to go to Burger King and have 5 croissant hamburgers, but like it's OK. It's OK to have a drink. It's OK to have a cookie. It's OK to have some sugar, right? But I, I hope that moderation is the newest trend.
Melissa Travers [35:58] My kids love Stiller soda, by the way, which is saying a lot because they bring home a lot of things that they don't love. All right, my last question for you. You've said before again that the niche is the moat. When you see a small group of consumers who are super into a brand, what tells you that that enthusiasm from that small group of people can spread versus this is just a great niche business?
Speaker 2 [36:23] Again, gut instinct and experience and You know, everyone can be like, well, this exit was this and this was this. It's like nobody can predict it, right? But at the same time, you know, rarely do you see anything in our portfolio that is considered a luxury price point like we're in. Chip motors, which has done awesome, but, and that's, you know, 1500 to $20,000 but, you know, a drink is maybe less than $5 right? A shirt is maybe less than $80 toothpaste is less than $8. So, you know, these things, they all have a chance and sometimes with a consumer brand. You know, AI and software deals trade at a higher multiple, but if they don't work, you're toast, period. I've had it happen. Oil and gas deals have great outcomes if they work. If not, you can't go retap it and have oil just come out of nowhere. The beauty of consumer is if you do have a curveball, you can kind of raise your way out of a problem. And you can go and tell the story differently. And if you had product market fit at the beginning for something that's not, you know, like an edible paperclip company, like you can probably do it again. You just have to have patience. You have to have a sense of urgency, and you have to have at least an ounce of just that. Psychotic energy, uh, because those are the kind of people that figured out, and I can speak from experience because I was in the most competitive industry in Texas in real estate, and I was one of 70,000 people doing what I was doing, but I didn't listen to all the people saying you're not going to make it, or all the people that said I quit after a month or all the people that wanted to see me fail. It's like, no, I believed in myself and I think that that's That's magnetic and you know, initially with success, I think human nature is they would rather see Melissa and Rogers fail than succeed. And at the core of it, it's because they probably are jealous or wish they would have done it themselves, but then you keep showing up, you keep showing up, you keep wearing the hat, you keep drinking the Waterloo, you keep talking about whatever it is, then those people eventually become fans. And I saw that in my first career, the amount of people in real estate that would talk crap about me online, make fun of me in person, never work with me once, 5 years go by. Hey, I'm like, huh, I don't have a short-term memory, but you sure as hell do. What happened? They're like, I respect the hustle. It's like, yeah, cause you don't have the balls to do it. And, you know, I think that that's That's what you have to have, you know, to really, really survive and thrive in this industry.
Melissa Travers [39:08] Well, Rogers Healy, I am glad that you keep showing up. Thank you so much for joining us on the Non-Base podcast from Morrison Seger Venture Capital Partners. It's been such a pleasure to chat with you and for everybody in the audience, thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time. That concludes another episode of the Non-based podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review and follow us on your listening platform of choice. You can also watch and listen to past episodes on Non-base.com and don't forget to join our non-base Slack at slack.bevnet.com for company updates, industry networking, and community discussions. See you next time.
