Watch a fireside chat with Kara Goldin, Founder and CEO of Hint and author of Undaunted. Author Kara Goldin turned her unsweetened flavored water into one of the most successful beverage businesses of our time. As she started to achieve her goals, Kara found herself being called “fearless”, “confident” and even “unstoppable,” but nothing could be further from the truth.
In Undaunted she shares real stories about her own fears and doubts, the challenges she encountered and what she did to overcome them to eventually build a great business and a life she loves. Her secret? Be Undaunted. Deal with your fears. Move forward despite uncertainty. Turn criticism into motivation. Just go for it!
Read below for a full transcript of the conversation.
Shannon Houston - Hi, good afternoon and good morning everyone. My name is Shannon Houston, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for First Republic Bank. And it's my pleasure to welcome you here today. We are so grateful to have your support as our clients and for anyone joining who isn't yet a client, we look forward to spending more time with you. We are thrilled to welcome Kara Goldin here with us today. Kara is the founder and CEO of Hint Inc. One of the largest beverage companies in the United States and best known for its award-winning Hint Water, the leading unsweetened flavored water. She has received many accolades including being named EY Entrepreneur of the Year in Northern California. One of Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business. And one of Fortune's Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs, to name just a few. The Huffington Post has listed Kara as one of six disruptors in business, alongside Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. She is an active speaker, writer and podcaster. You can download the Kara Goldin Show on Apple Podcasts and hear Kara explore the entrepreneurial spirit of the startup world's founders, disrupters and change makers. We are here today celebrating the launch of Kara's first book, "Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters," which was released this week. And before I turn the call over to Kara, she'll take a few questions at the end of today's session. A quick housekeeping, you can put those questions into the Q&A box by using the button on your screen. Kara, we are so grateful to have you here with us today, who in addition to being known for Hint Water, we are very proud that she was a featured client, is a featured client in First Republic's client testimonial campaign and we're grateful for that. And with that Kara, take it away.
Kara Goldin - Awesome, well thank you so much for having me here today. I really, really appreciate it. And we have been with First Republic Bank since the beginning of Hint, but even before that, which is, it's been very, very, it's been a great partnership and very, very exciting. So I appreciate all of you guys, but yeah, so welcome. And I am the founder and CEO of Hint. Many of you are familiar with it. I'll show it if anybody is watching and can see this image, but basically I started this company 15 years ago to get myself healthier and really ultimately fell into it because of health. I was a tech executive, actually started my career in media, in New York, and then became a tech executive. I was with a little startup that was a spin-out of Apple, a Steve Jobs idea. And then we were acquired by AOL and I ran the partnerships at AOL for e-commerce and shopping. I had what I thought was probably the best job on the planet because I got to meet with so many retailers that I had been shopping from their catalogs and their retail stores for years. So I was helping them really to come online and it was awesome. But after seven years, I decided that it's really time to get a job back in San Francisco, the Bay Area, where I lived and I had at the time three children under the age of four. And that for me was really kind of a point where I thought maybe I should just spend a little bit of time, like I said, in the Bay Area. I lived in San Francisco at the time. And over the course of having kids, I had generously gained pretty nice weight and had a really tough time losing it. And I'd also developed terrible adult acne, which I didn't even have as a teenager. And then I also had really low energy levels, which I was ultimately trying to figure out exactly why this was such a problem.
And that's when I really started looking at everything that I was putting into my body. And I started with food and really looked at ingredients and calories and lots of different diets and nothing was working. I was exercising and doing that half of the equation. But really I just was getting frustrated by how hard it was to ultimately achieve the health that I wanted to achieve. And that's when one day I was looking down at my table and saw that I had this diet soda that was truly my best friend. I was drinking a lot of it for many, many years, Diet Coke in particular. And that's when I recognized that there were 30 ingredients in this can that I didn't understand. And here I had been really focused on the food side of the world and sort of establishing rules to what I would eat. But I never really thought about what I was drinking. And so as a test, I decided to put the diet soda to the side and just start drinking water. And because I knew water was better for me, but I recognized that I just didn't drink water. I probably convinced myself that inside the Diet Coke somewhere there was water, right? But had no sort of thoughts that it was actually doing anything but health for me. So that's when 2 1/2 weeks after giving up my diet soda and lots of headaches and stomach issues going on. I mean I really think I was going through a true detox at that point. I hopped on the scale 'cause I recognized that I had lost some weight, but I was surprised to see that I had lost over 20 pounds. And 24 pounds in 2 1/2 weeks. And that's when I really looked at what I had been doing differently, which was that I had given up this diet soda. And so for me, the next six months, I had finally figured this out. Friends were sharing with me that wow, like how did you do it? And I said, I gave up my Diet Coke, one of my best friends. And I just decided that I would really focus on what I was truly putting into my body.
And that's when about a year into this, I really started to kind of gather all of this different feedback that I had gotten with people on different options that were out there that were in their minds kind of healthier and better for you. And now I term them as like healthy perception versus healthy reality. So vitamin water was on the path and very successful and it's showing up in lots of stores. But what I realized, they didn't even have a diet version of vitamin water back then. It was, had lots of coloring in it and lots of stuff that obviously sweeteners and stuff that just wasn't as healthy as maybe my friends really thought. So between my own realization with diet soda, and kinda looking at some other things in the category as a whole, I realized that these companies are really doing things to sell products. A lot of them are public companies, vitamin water was not at the time. But it was, they didn't have my back, right? They didn't have my back as a consumer, as a mother of small children. They didn't care whether or not I got healthy or not. They were just trying to trick me into believing that something was healthier than it was. And so, while I was looking for my next move, and again, I had been in the tech industry and Silicon Valley, there were plenty of options out there. I kept waking up every single day thinking, why isn't anyone solving this problem around water? At this point I had started slicing up fruit, throwing it in water. And I kept looking in stores for this product. And that's when I decided, well while I'm looking for my next role, I wonder how hard it would be to get product on the shelf at this new store? This beautiful store that had just opened in San Francisco called Whole Foods. And everything was pretty in there and organic and lots of great things about it. But what I realized early on now that I had been reading labels and ingredients, was that while everything was pretty, I thought there is a lot of unhealthy things in the store too, that can get you in trouble. And so I thought I still wanna maintain reading these labels. But in addition to that, I wonder if we could truly bring health to the shelves of Whole Foods? So I had no experience, I was coming at it from a consumer perspective and that's when I just thought it'd be fun to get it on the shelf.
And that's when I decided to write the business plan for the product. And then a few weeks after writing the business plan, I found out that I was pregnant with our fourth child. So I was having a child a little over six months from that point. And so I thought, well I might as well actually get this product done before my child is born, because then maybe I can have a little bit of maternity leave. I had no knowledge of how long it takes to actually develop a product and ultimately get it on the shelf. I didn't know the route to market. And so when I finally developed the product and got it on the shelf at Whole Foods, I immediately started hearing from consumers how like me, they were excited to be able to drink water. Water that tasted better. I had many people who were writing to me how this product actually helped them to really drink more water especially and not drink other beverages because they had this new disease called type 2 diabetes. Which 15 years ago was about 2% of the population had type 2 diabetes or prediabetes. Today it's 45% of the population has type 2 diabetes or prediabetes. So again, I was hearing from people that were as simple as just trying to drink water and drink something healthy and move away from the diet sodas and the vitamin waters or enhanced waters of the world. But then I was also hearing from people how this product was actually helping them to get healthy or maintain health in some way. So it just really drove me as a founder, every single day to kinda get that immediate feedback from consumers, 'cause all I was hearing was that I was really helping them to achieve their goals and how exciting that was. So I finally, like I said, got it on the shelf at Whole Foods and into a few other markets in the Bay Area. And then I realized that I really didn't know what I didn't know, and didn't really know how to solve those issues. So I had plenty of doubts along the way and finally ended up speaking to a gentleman at that large soda company in Atlanta who a friend had connected me with them. And basically I shared with him the great success that I had had in the Bay Area and how excited I was and how consumers were excited.
And his response back to me was, "Sweetie, Americans love sweet, this product isn't going anywhere." And so I'm very thankful for that statement, as bold and shocking as it was, because it really sort of stopped me in my tracks and made me see really what I was, what I had figured out and really what my mission was overall, which was extremely different from his. Never in the next 45 minutes of talking to him, did I hear that his interest was to get consumers healthy. Instead it was, we're gonna sell lots of products. Consumers don't care about that, this is what they want. And I said, but what if they get sick? And what if they really wanna maintain health? And what if they actually figure out that something like a diet soda is causing a lot of these issues? What do you think about that? 'Cause that's what I saw and he was like, "No they don't care about that. Maybe they do in San Francisco but San Francisco's weird anyway." And so anyway, I hung up the phone and was, that was definitely a moment that I, like I said value because that was a really huge turning point for me to realize that I saw something that he didn't. And I was on a very different mission. So why should I really listen to that doubter along the way? And so again, fast forward, continued to build, continued to run into all kinds of challenges, including the soda industry literally throwing our product out in the garbage can in different stores that we were trying to go into. And really feeling different moments along the way where just didn't really understand exactly how to build it. But the thing that I recognized was that if I just kept going and kept trying to figure out how to really tackle a lot of these challenges, and make a little bit of progress along the way, that eventually things would start happening.
And I kept reminding myself that a lot of the challenges that I had overcome and sitting in the rear view mirror were things that were part of my journey. And that my lessons were really stemming from a lot of those challenges and failures along the way. So today Hint is the largest non-alcoholic private company in the U.S. that doesn't have a relationship with Coke, Pepsi, or Dr Pepper Snapple. In addition to that, we've built this business differently in that we have over 55% of our overall business is direct-to-consumer. And which definitely during the pandemic, when we had that relationship with our consumer, was super, super helpful. And getting into sort of the book as well, which is called "Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters." The main reason why I wrote this book was over the course of speaking on building this company over the last few years, being a female entrepreneur. Taking on a big industry, there was kind of this general statement that would come from people. That they were different than me, because I never had doubts, I never had fears. I never had failures along the way. And so I started journaling. Sometimes I would answer them at some of these conferences, but in general, I'd start journaling why I didn't believe that that certainly wasn't the case with me. But why I didn't believe that that was the case with other successful people, leaders, pro athletes, whatever it was that I thought that the key difference was that they lived undaunted. And that they went out and they tried. And that they were okay with actually failing, if that's what was in the cards. And that they would take those lessons from any failure to become better. And accept the fact that maybe things didn't go the way that they thought, but those lessons could also help them when the next challenging time came about for them to really do better. And so four years in the journal books. And finally, I decided about a year ago that I thought that a lotta these lessons could really help not only entrepreneurs, but people to ultimately figure out, what do I wanna do?
Recognize that there's so many people that do have doubts. Everyone who's human has doubts and people who don't believe in them at certain times and have lots of failures. But the stories need to be told. And so often, for you to ultimately be able to get up and know that you can do it too. And so my hope in really writing this book was to share my stories and my experiences and times when I just showed up, times when I failed. But what did I learn from it? Times where I thought I had it all figured out and then I really didn't. And then I ended up remembering how I had been through other challenges and gotten through challenges and how I'm stronger for them. And so I fundamentally believe just by hearing other people's stories, I know I've appreciated hearing other people's stories along the way. That maybe some people will look at my story and say, if she can do, I can do it too. And I can go out and whether it's become an entrepreneur or actually join a company that has an entrepreneurial spirit. Or maybe just go and take on your challenges. And I've always believed that actually taking on your fears is the way to live life. That being afraid of something is not helpful. It eats you up inside. It can make you sick. It makes you angry at times. And so I'm really all for going to figure out how do you get through those fears? And you know, that can be in a business or one of the stories in my book is around hiking the Grand Canyon and how, again, I had it all figured out when I ran into a massive challenge that I didn't anticipate. That's when I really started looking at all of the challenges that I had overcome as an entrepreneur and how things in business actually helped me in life to actually know that I could really go and do it. So that is the story of Hint and ultimately, more than anything, I'm so excited after so long, and writing, to get it out the door. And I'd love to hear any questions. And maybe we can talk a little bit more about the book, but also more than anything I hope you guys will enjoy reading it. And definitely let me know what you think.
First Republic - Kara, thank you so much. When I go to the Q&A, and let's see what's here. So, oh this is a fun one. "What is the origin of the name, Hint for the product?"
Kara - Oh, good, great one-
First Republic - Tell us a little bit about that. That's a good one.
Kara - Great question, I mean you have to understand that I was not even planning on launching a company. I was trying to get a few products on the shelf at Whole Foods 'cause I thought it would be fun. And so my husband, who I was convincing to not think that I was totally crazy, and I had taken $50,000 out of my bank account. Actually my bank account at First Republic Bank, I had made a little bit of money at AOL and decided I wanted to go and try this course to really start this company Hint. And so my husband said to me, "What is the name of the company and this idea that you've developed?" And I said, "So it's called Wawa." And he started laughing. He grew up on the East Coast, and for those of you from Pennsylvania and parts of New York that was, I was a girl from Arizona. We didn't have Wawa, the big chain out there. So I wasn't familiar with Wawa. So his first thought was don't do that, as an intellectual property lawyer he thought that was a really bad idea. He's like, if you actually, if this develops into anything then it's probably a bad idea to have somebody as big as Wawa be the name of your product. So that was, as he was poo-pooing the idea that I had come up with for a name, that's when I started talking to him about we're giving people hints. It's got just a hint of some flavor. And that's when I said Hint. And he said, forget about it, it's a four letter word.
You'll never get the trademarks for that. And I said, okay, so I'm the business person here and you're the lawyer. And so just please file for the trademark. And that's when we filed and we got it. And we also filed that day for another one that I came up with that afternoon which was drink water, not sugar. And so we didn't use a naming agency. I'm sure there's great naming agencies out there, but I think it was just, it was in the stars to develop the name and really the design. The initial design as well was me just kinda thinking about the product and how I envisioned it as well. We definitely used a creative agency to ultimately build that. But a lot of the thinking was actually ours.
First Republic - Fantastic. "What is the best piece of advice you received that helped shape your entrepreneurial mindset?"
Kara - I think the challenge for me going along was, so my husband actually joined me early on. And I think primarily because I was writing huge checks off our personal First Republic Bank account. But he joined really when he saw what a great mission this was that I wanted to solve for, which was really helping people to get their health back and enjoy water that tasted better. But I would say that maybe it's not advice that I heard as much as like lessons that I've heard, which is you don't have to have it all figured out. What you have to do is you have to just go try things because people will give you advice along the way. And especially if they have a different mission and a different initiative going on. Maybe they've never done a disruptive company before and they don't really understand the problem. Then they won't know, and so you have to just get out there and try. I think so often we put up these roadblocks and walls up in front of ourself and give excuses for why we can't ultimately go do something. I mean, whether it's, I can't start a company because I have four young children under four or under six or I'm pregnant. Or what else did I think? Oh, that because I didn't have any industry knowledge, I wouldn't be able to actually scale the company. I mean, so many things along the way. And now that I've met so many entrepreneurs and lots of different industries and companies. What I realized is nobody actually has the rules or the roadmap. That they actually just went and tried a lotta different things. And I would say, if anything, they had the courage to just go and try and stop allowing their own doubts and doubters to kinda get in their way.
First Republic - Great, okay we have another one here. "You've worn many hats throughout your career, from media in New York to technology in Silicon Valley. How would you say your previous experience in these sectors lent itself to the success of founding Hint?"
Kara - Yeah, I've worked in so many, not only different companies and industries, but also very different cultures. And so as I was ultimately, when I put the bottle on the shelf of Whole Foods, again I didn't even know I was starting a company. But when we started to form our company, that's when I really realized that I could bring in things like, the cultures, the little pieces of culture from all these different things that I had seen, to really create my own company. So I think that, that was like the biggest piece of it. I was speaking to a group of students at Wharton this morning, and I was talking about how, when I moved to Silicon Valley from New York and ended up picking up the phone after I read an article about this little startup that was a spin-out of Apple that they had given up on. It was a Steve Jobs idea. And basically there were a few guys that were spinning it out to start a company. It was literally like, we weren't in a garage, but it was a pretty bare bones office that was five people. And so I think, like what I learned there was significantly different than what I had been working in, in New York. But I also think that it's allowed me too, to share with entrepreneurs that if you're getting outta college and you're going into that environment? It may make you a little crazy. Like I appreciated the creativity that was going on and how things like ideas can come from anywhere. Like if, even if you're not technically a product person, your voice and your thoughts can be heard. That was very Silicon Valley for me. So I think it's a little bit of pieces along the way that, and a lot of trial and error that I've really appreciated in just, in my whole journey.
Shannon - Thank you so much Kara. And I thank you Laura, for kicking off our Q&A here. I also wanted to explore a little bit, and you touched upon this. The characteristics behind being an entrepreneur, which it feels like is at the heart of your book and your journey here. And I'm just personally curious, is that something you've always known and felt? Because you have had roles that haven't been within startups or necessarily pursuing your own product or idea.
Kara - Yeah it's again, it's always easier to look in the rear view mirror and think like, okay, maybe I was a little bit like that. I mean, I was as a kid, definitely. A friend of mine reminded me how I started, the other day on Facebook, reminded me how I started a camp in the middle of Arizona in 125 degree heat. And for the next two weeks, I said, we're gonna have campers show up. And Robin reminded me how she asked me all these questions, like, "How much are we gonna charge?" And, "What are they gonna do all day?" And I had an initial thought, but I didn't have it all figured out. And I said, we can always change along the way. Let's go hang up a sign on the corner for $5. And let's see how many people we can get. And maybe we'll raise the prices eventually if we have too much demand. And anyway, I think there were definitely things that I saw, that I look back on and I think, oh, that was definitely an entrepreneur. But my father was actually a kind of frustrated entrepreneur. He had launched a brand inside of a large company, initially Armour food company and then ConAgra, which is called Healthy Choice. And I didn't have as much appreciation for what he did until much later in life. And I think, for him it was a different time when people came into a role and if they had more than two jobs in their entire lifetime, there was something wrong with them. But he was constantly coming up with ideas, even not around food related items. And I would watch that and I would see like how fun it was to watch him thinking about these ideas and how big they could get and how he could get it developed. And so it never seemed, I think about those times when it never seemed like it was that difficult? Based on what he was laying out.
But he never did these things. He never ultimately, he might've gotten a prototype made, but he would never go forward. And so I think when entrepreneurs ask me, or would-be entrepreneurs ask me, should I actually launch the company? I always share with them, I can't answer that. Because I don't know what your situation is and ultimately what you wanna do. My dad, I was the last of five kids and very middle-class, my dad wanted all of us to get through college. That was his number one goal. Right or wrong, it was like what he was most excited about. Even when I was the youngest vice president at AOL, my dad would, we'd be in the same circles and he would share with people that I was a college graduate. I was like, really? Like, I've like built a billion dollar business inside of AOL, like, is that it? But he really like loved that, right? And so again, I think it's just, what are your ultimate goals? What are the things that you wanna do? Because I'll tell you being an entrepreneur definitely has its moments. It's not a straight line. It definitely has curves along the way where things are going really great and other days they're not going really great. And they're really hard, which is what I detail in our book too. I think, as Sheryl Sandberg said, it was probably the most honest account of being an entrepreneur that has been written. And I think that the biggest thing is that you don't have to be a kid that always wants to be an entrepreneur to actually go out and solve a problem.
And I think that message in today's world where more people are furloughed or taking temporary time off to be able to tend to their children who are being homeschooled. I just encourage people to really take this time to really figure out what do I really wanna do? What problem have I seen out there? And can I actually in a really inexpensive way, try and figure out how to make 'em happen? 'Cause it's a lotta fun. It's frustrating. You get a ton of nos along the way, but it's a great, you can tell great stories afterwards whether things went the way that you wanted to or not. And also I'll say being a parent too, my kids are older now, my youngest is 15 and I have three in college. And I think what they've seen along the way, they're listening, they're watching and I've heard from so many of their teachers how they're so interesting to have in class because of what they've picked up on. On everything from first of all, their mother, a woman, is a CEO, right? Which is not really common. It's not that common to be a founder and a CEO of that company 15 years later. It's also things like taking on the soda giants and all of their games that they've played. I'm also working on a huge initiative in Washington around clean water. So again, I'm running a for-profit company, but doing stuff that is meaningful and is non-profit ultimately that again, that's kinda unique and different. So again, being a parent and seeing years later, what that has allowed my kids to learn. From being a working parent, an entrepreneurial parent, I think makes me very proud.
Shannon - Well, your pride shines through the screen. And now I also have an image of you as a child being undaunted by 125 degree temperatures.
Kara - Exactly.
Shannon - We have a question here from the audience, from Chantal, "When you're hiring someone for your company, what's the number one thing that you look for?"
Kara - So I think, and actually there is a story about this in the book as well, where one of our greatest employees, actually it was funny. He was doing what he was doing every single day. And I said to him one day, are you really happy? And I think he was very kind of like, wait, why are you asking, do I not look happy? And I said, no, but I mean, are you learning? Like what are you learning? And he said, well, I'd love to spend more time learning what ultimately my boss does. And I said, but you don't have time? And he said, no, I'm doing what I'm doing every single day. And I said, so why aren't you trying to figure out how you can go do what you ultimately wanna do, which is go learn and take on more stuff by convincing your manager to allow you to hire somebody? Because what I worry about is you're gonna leave because after a while you just get so bored on the hamster wheel, right? Doing the same thing day after day after day. And I believe that it's not being a manager, it's not just about teaching people. That's part of it. But being a great manager is wanting to learn and staying engaged. And the way that you ultimately stay engaged is to hire people that allow you not only to go and learn and maybe up or sideways, but also they are teaching you things. And so I always say to our managers, what do they know that you don't, that you don't know? Because I think that you, just because you're managing somebody, it doesn't mean that they don't, or they only know what you know. Instead hire somebody who maybe knows something that you don't know so that you ultimately get energized by learning from that person. Because if you don't do that, I think it just leads to a situation where you won't be very happy. You'll be frustrated because maybe people won't be doing the stuff that you're doing every single day. And instead try and figure out how does that person actually help you to learn so that you can lead better?
Shannon - And it feels like maybe, you mentioned founding a company and running it 15 years later is not necessarily the norm. But you being able to perhaps tap into that love of learning and what's next has kept you going.
Kara - Totally, and I think it's even what I do as a leader, every single day is I'm constantly trying to figure out, you know, how do I learn more? And so even the clean water initiative that I mentioned earlier that I'm working on, I mean, that for me is really a passion project. I've learned a lot about water over the last 15 years since I started Hint. And what I've learned is that our water supply that we get out of our tap and in our children's drinking fountains in schools is not as clean as maybe we think across the country. And so a lotta people have heard about lead in the water supply. Obviously we've heard about Flint and Newark and some other areas in the U.S. that have had visible problems with their water supply. But it's not getting any better. And as I started to look a little closer at this, I reached out to my local Congress woman, Congresswoman Jackie Speier. And started chatting with her about kind of this knowledge. And I mean, it was interesting because people said, how did you like get to Washington and get so many of these meetings with people? What I found kinda the same rule that I was talking about before is that I had a lot of information that these people were interested in learning more about. And it was just a different, sometimes I feel like we live and we work in these silos where we're focused on maybe a couple of things. But all of a sudden I'm coming at it from a different angle. I'm coming at it from manufacturing in multiple states and seeing what the raw water supply looks like. We obviously filter that water and put it through lots of processes before we're actually bottling it and selling it at the store level. But again, think about if you're not putting your water through these processes, or maybe the processes are outdated. Like for example, there's an ingredient called PFAS, which some people may have seen this movie that was out last holiday called "Dark Waters," about PFAS. It's P, F as in Frank, A-S is the abbreviation for it.
But basically it's Teflon that has been dumped into the water supply. And our existing infrastructure for cleaning up water is not good enough to actually remove this, essentially plastic from the water. And so that is something that we are actually now seeing could, according to the NIH, could actually prevent people from creating antibodies after COVID. And so it is widespread throughout the U.S. I'm hoping actually to take this issue before Congress and get PFAS considered to be a dangerous substance. In which case the EPA would actually monitor it throughout the U.S. versus the way that water is handled today, it's state by state. So again, here's a entrepreneur who didn't understand, didn't have any experience. Really just came at it from the standpoint of doing my research, trying to figure out like why aren't things better? And then ultimately showing up in Washington and sharing my story of what I've learned. And that's actually creating impact. And hopefully more impact in the future.
Shannon - Well, thank you for sharing that with us and for taking on that cause. The alignment of your mission and your passion here is just truly extraordinary. And we have to do one more question from the audience to close out here. Though I know you shared with us your efforts to help our water system. So I hate to even ask Kara, I don't know how much more can be on your table, but what's next? Is there a manuscript hiding behind your desk there, or your chair?
Kara - That's so funny, I think more than anything, our focus has been since day one, on really helping consumers to get and stay healthy. And it started with me and my family. And I think anytime that you're leading a company that where you feel like you're helping people and people are telling you that you're helping people. That is a really powerful thing. And so I'm definitely focused on getting that message out there with the book. And then also, along in my spare time during COVID, we've created a hand sanitizers that I'm showing here. This is grapefruit. I don't know about you, but my consumer trust for hand sanitizers over the last few months it's, a lot of it has smelled rancid and much of it that was out there, I think was also recalled at certain points as well. So I decided we should actually go and just like, create this on our own. Not really thinking that it would become part of our company, but I thought, why not? Let's just go and do it. I mean, it's really focused on health and I mean, it was amazing. We launched it online on our direct-to-consumer platform. You can still find it there at drinkhint.com. And it was amazing, the response from consumers. I mean, consumers are always asking us, what's next? Like what else are you gonna do for me around health? Which I think it's so funny because certainly that's not something that I'm sure the soda companies are getting, right? And in today's day and age, who doesn't wanna be healthy? I think if health, I think that's the one amazing thing about this time during the pandemic, that everybody would agree with, is that there is a universal focus on health. And unfortunately the decks are stacked against consumers to be able to figure out what should be so much simpler. So that's what we're trying to do as a company.
Shannon - Well Kara, thank you so much. We are so grateful that you've taken the time with us here today and that you're so passionately committed to helping us stay healthy. I missed the hand sanitizer. I'm headed to your website. We are so grateful to you for joining us. To all of our clients and folks on the line, thank you so much for joining us today. You will receive a copy of Kara's book as well. And we look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you.
Kara - Thank you so much. Have a great week, everyone.
