EFR 865: When to WALK AWAY in Business & How to Build a CPG Brand with Andy Carmody

00:00 - Chase (Host) The following is an Operation Podcast production.

00:03 - Andy (Host) My name's Andy Carmody, I'm the founder of CS2, and welcome to Everford Radio.

00:14 - Chase (Host) Hey and welcome to a very special bonus episode of Everford Radio. I wanted to get this one out to you because we had a special guest come through on this incredible leg of his American trip, andy Carmody, today the founder of CS2, all the way from Australia. And this one is for you, my entrepreneurs out there, or my business minded folk that are trying to navigate the business landscape. Maybe that's just your side hustle right now, but wanting to figure out how to take it to the next level, to make it your full time gig. Or maybe you're transitioning from jobs or roles or products or services. This is going to be your inside edge, for the mindset necessary to make sure that you are always taking care of yourself in your business, but also helping make your business thrive. Our conversation navigates the winding road of entrepreneurship and Andy is going to be highlighting the critical need for adaptability and, honestly, the courage to pivot when necessary. He is going to be unpacking lessons learned from failures and the emotional toll of letting go of passion projects for more lucrative, more enjoyable opportunities. Andy's experience really underscores the importance of recognizing when to focus on market demands and the value of quote failing forward as a truly powerful catalyst for future success. He is going to be sharing his quest for a natural solution to sleep deprivation his company, cs2, pinpointing ingredients like magnesium and L-theanine and other game changers in the rest and recovery scene, helping you and every other entrepreneur out States. Then definitely check it out. I have it linked for you in the show notes, as always, or you can head to drinkcs2.com.

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04:01 - Andy (Host) I'm already making australian jokes. Man, I rode my kangaroo here. Good to be here, everybody on a world tour man making stops all over. Yep, yes, how's la treating you so far? I love it. Yeah, it's good. Um, I've been to a few cities in the states so far and um, la's got a really good energy about it. Good people, yeah.

04:21 - Chase (Host) So I know you've been making the rounds. You're here in la, you've been in austin, you've been in new york and uh, you're. You're a businessman, you're an entrepreneur, correct? I'm curious what has been your?

04:30 - Andy (Host) take your pulse on the entrepreneurial scene in these cities so far in the united states it's a good question, um, it'll vary between the cities that you go to, um, and I can probably offer a comparison between, say, australia and the us, and yeah, that's kind of what the question I was asking I need to be careful, because I love australia, right, I don't want to put it down, okay, but it's going to lean towards towards america.

04:56 My first experience in the in the us for this trip was austin, in texas, um, and I thought that had a very, very, very authentic community sense where people want to help you and want to see you win. So, like I said to you earlier, it's like you know, you speak to someone, you tell them what you do for a living. The first thing they always say is you should meet this person or you know how can I help, right, like that's the mentality that I found in Austin, which is really good to see, and a slight again not to put Australia to see, and a slight again not to put australia down and a slight comparison like a slight difference between australia.

05:28 Right, in australia it's it's more of a very, very beautiful people, um, but less business orientated. You know, more casual people here really kind of want to get after it and see you win, whereas australia it's kind of like it's more competitive. It's like I want to see you, like if you're winning, I'm not winning. I want to see you do well, but not better than me. Okay, that's how it is and I, and it kind of paints australia in a bad light, which is not what I'm trying to do, but it's as a general overview and a comparison between australia and the us.

06:01 That's the main difference, right, and I found that in all the cities that I've been to so Austin, houston, dallas, miami is the same, new York, yeah, and LA is very similar. I think it varies slightly between cities in terms of like the scale of that. Sure, sure, yeah, however, that's pretty uniform across the states from. What I found is people are there, they want to help you, they want to see you win and they actually get a kick out of seeing you do you know well, which is really good to see. It's a good environment, I think, really good business environment, especially as someone who's so new to the country. And if you want to come here and you want to build a community quickly, you know having people around you that help you get ahead is super important to that. Paramount. Paramount, yeah, yeah it's. It's really important.

06:50 - Chase (Host) Well, you know, I want to kind of front load our conversation here today all around entrepreneurship. So you've been, you know, you're leading your business which we're going to get into later and you're coming to the United States and you're checking in all these other cities and connecting with other entrepreneurs and small business owners, and so I think this is a timely conversation for you to kind of like help us shine a light on the state of entrepreneurship here in 2025. Let's say, in the United States. But you know we got an international man of mystery here, so maybe we can think more globally, get our entrepreneur mindset thinking more globally. What do you think is the hardest part about entrepreneurship, now that you think our parents' generation didn't have to face?

07:29 - Andy (Host) I can speak to my situation. You know we're a direct-to-consumer brand. You know CPG product. I think the biggest challenge that we find is saturation of products, of consumer goods. So people are very, very saturated with advertising and new products every day, you know, which is good, because there's a good selection for people to choose from right. But from a brand perspective, it's hard to differentiate yourself between everybody else. You know why are you going to stand out versus this company right when there's someone who's probably doing something?

08:01 - Chase (Host) very similar. So many options for me to pick from so many options Very.

08:06 - Andy (Host) In terms of America, that's specifically the case because it's such a huge market. It's very competitive. There's a lot of products. Australia less so, but it's also a much smaller market. So you'd probably rather have a crack and a run at the US, which is a bigger market and you can offer more scale, but it's more competitive, and you can offer more scale, but it's more competitive. So I think for me, that's probably the main hurdle is differentiating yourself from all these other products. Then there's obviously you know, I suppose, classic challenges in terms of cost of goods going up. So you know like to scale a brand, you might need a lot more money now than you did back then. You know like, even speaking to, I've got some mentors who grew going up. So you know, in terms like to scale a brand, you might need a lot more money now than you did back then. You know like, even speaking to, I've got some mentors who grew um, you know amazon, e-commerce brands, right, and they started with four thousand dollars.

08:53 This was probably 10 years ago started with four grand and, and you know, they were turning over 120 mil within probably four years and they're like incredible operators. But I think, know, maybe the cost of products has increased. You know your consumer acquisition has increased, so how much is it going to cost you to acquire a customer because they're so saturated? They're challenges, yeah, what do you think is?

09:19 - Chase (Host) maybe something thinking about. By chance were your parents entrepreneurs.

09:23 - Andy (Host) Yeah, in a way, so they both own their own businesses. Dad's a builder, mom's an interior designer Amazing, okay.

09:28 - Chase (Host) So, with your parents in mind and their small businesses, what do you think if they were to step into the entrepreneurial space today? What advantage do you think, if any, they would have coming into a marketplace now so modern and so saturated?

09:41 - Andy (Host) Yeah, I think personability and so saturated. Yeah, I think personability, um, if you take everything else out of it that you need to know now in terms of media buying or, um, you know, uh, you know product growth, um, you know public relations and stuff like that, that's all learnable, but, um, having a personable element to you and interacting with people, where I think maybe young people focus too much on I want to get there right now and I want to scale to this size, this quickly. It's like, oh, maybe slow down, think about what you're trying to build and who you're trying to help and have a personable element to it. I think that is so, say you take my parents or your parents having, I think they would maybe be more likely inclined to have that personability and small business mindset, which is important, right, like you kind of want a big business with the mindset of a small business, you know.

10:37 - Chase (Host) What does that look like, what does that feel like to you?

10:40 - Andy (Host) It feels like, you know, being a front-facing founder, being in front of your customer, connecting with them, asking them what they want, you know where we might be going wrong having that connection to them, do you know what I mean? And again, that sort of ties back into the differentiation between your product and everybody else's. If they feel like they're connected to me as a founder or the brand, then they're going to believe in it and they're going to want to, you know, be involved.

11:06 - Chase (Host) Right, it's sort of a more relatable, a little bit more real, more humanized right yeah exactly right.

11:12 - Andy (Host) Like, rather than so, we have some. I'll give you an example Like, we have some ambassadors on board with the brand who. They're two boys who used to play for the Jets in New York and when I was talking to them to come on board with the brand, one of the things that they'd mentioned was they liked the personal ability of dealing with me as a founder. So they were speaking with another supplements brand who has really good products, but they kind of felt like another number to them.

11:40 - Chase (Host) Yeah, you know the cargo machine.

11:41 - Andy (Host) Yeah, and the benefit of being, you know, maybe a smaller business in those situations is that they're dealing with me. You know like they really feel like part of the team. So as you grow and as you scale as a business, I think keeping that personability is really important, if you can Like. It does get hard when you do scale and you need people under you. You know, and you can't do everything.

12:01 You can't always be touchable, you can't be always touchable, right Like there's only so many hours in the day and you need to need to still prioritize the business, but where you can, I think, keep that connectivity and that personability, because people were like, like I said, in America, people want to see you in if they know you and they've got that sort of connection to you, I think it's really valuable, what is maybe a litmus test, if you will, that the young entrepreneur can keep in mind right now what's what's like a?

12:33 is that american?

12:33 - Chase (Host) thing? Oh, I've never been asked this I just assumed everyone knew so like um, like a gauge, like how can we test to kind of see where we're at, like a measure okay, of um? Am I too accessible in my business or am I like that goldilocks? I'm on that sweet spot to where I'm not losing that personable, that personable, yeah, touch, but also I'm still able to be the founder and be the business owner and run the business kind of thing so how do you, how do you measure that?

13:00 yeah, how do I know? How do you?

13:01 - Andy (Host) do things to maybe um, keep that, but still be able to run everything better, better, yeah. So I think there's strategies that you can use to um to do that. So, for example, when someone buys your product, you know if you're a dc brand or whatever, whatever it is. Someone buys your product. Have, um an email system that goes out from your personal account, from you saying thank you, you know, this is what we do, this is what we believe in, thank you for supporting us. Right, and it comes from Andy Carmody, right, like that keeps some personability to it, which doesn't take a lot of time. You set it up. That's the system.

13:36 - Chase (Host) It's the system, set it up, it doesn't take a lot of time.

13:38 - Andy (Host) You can set it up that personal aspect to it, I think, that which caters to more of a mass audience and like a system. But then if you've got people that you want to get on board with the brand, like an ambassador for example, do those meetings yourself Like, make time for them still, because I see you know your role as a founder is to be selling the dream, selling the vision right. If you get your systems in place that are running smoothly and everything's operating, then your role is to be selling the dream, selling the vision right. If you get your systems in place that are running smoothly and everything's operating, then your role is to grow the business and be the face of it right. So you really should be prioritizing that time in meeting with people and being in front of them.

14:15 - Chase (Host) They say what, as a founder, you're supposed to work on the business?

14:19 - Andy (Host) not in the business after a certain point.

14:21 - Chase (Host) Exactly right.

14:22 - Andy (Host) And it's hard right, because at the start you don't have a lot of money. You've got no money.

14:26 - Chase (Host) You're in it. Yeah, you're in it.

14:27 - Andy (Host) You know, especially if you're bootstrapping a brand, it's all your money you're putting into it. You have to do everything. So you have to find a balance between and it just comes down to work and long hours really, because you're sitting in a dark room a lot of the time on your laptop and that's, you know, probably nine, eight hours of the day. Yeah, and then you need to find time to do everything else on top of that. And then once you start to grow and you're earning a little bit more money and you might be able to allocate a budget towards a graphic designer or, you know, an ads guy, then you kind of start to free up time which you you can allocate to the you know that core role of a founder. But it takes time, yeah.

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17:26 So if you want to start optimizing your business finances today, check the link in the show notes today, because they are partnering with us on the podcast for 30% off of six months for their incredible online software. There's no code, but you have to use this link. Check the link down in the show notes, under episode resources, to get this exclusive deal for six months of 30% off. Do you think, is it possible now, in 2025, in the modern day, with all the access we have to internet tools AI, canva, photoshop, you name it? I feel like part of me wants to say yes, we have an advantage now to where we can start already, kind of outsourcing, if you will, even delegating a lot of those initial tasks. Is it too soon? Should, like the entrepreneur, should the founder always, only ever, be everything up to a certain point, up to a certain time period?

18:14 - Andy (Host) um, I think I mean I I think this ties into ai and automating roles, right, which I'm not good at, so I can't really speak to that. But I think, in the simplest way possible, the founder should, to an extent, do all those roles so they understand how to do it. And then, when it comes to freeing up time and then being able to really grow the business, once your structures and your systems are in place, then start to to delegate them. But you've got to find good people, you know, because it's a balance between freeing up your time but keeping the quality of what you're trying to do, and no one's going to believe in your vision as much as you do right, like that's the reality of it. So you need to find people who are close to that, you know, or who are motivated and who believe in what you're doing and who are going to uphold that quality. Like that's hard to do.

19:06 To find the right staff is a bit of a nightmare, but once you do, you're lucky. You hold onto them and you incentivize them. But I think that's what you need to do, like keep, keep your costs lean and stay involved with everything so you understand the processes. And then, once you've got the facilities and the structure to delegate to the right people. That's when you do it. Yeah, well said man Well said.

19:27 - Chase (Host) Do you think entrepreneurship ever truly changes in terms of the business dynamics, like what it actually means, what it looks like, feels like, to be an entrepreneur, or does it just get new types of players trying to solve the same problems?

19:43 - Andy (Host) I think it changes business to business, right, like it depends what what you're doing, and I think you need to pivot. You know like there's always going to be situations that come up and you're like, oh well, this isn't working and I need to change it. Right, so you have to be pretty adaptable. But the general principle, I think, is that problem solving. But the general principle, I think, is that problem solving it's like you know, where can I solve a problem for a lot of people, how do I do it more effectively? And then constantly evaluating on how to do it more effectively, because your solution now to whatever the problem is might be different in five years or it might be different in two months, right, so it's constantly sort of adapting your approach to best serve your audience or your consumers.

20:29 So for us, you know we're a sleep vitamin, right, and we've done a lot of research and have a lot of, I suppose, medical minds into the ingredients that we have in it. So right now we know that that's super effective in terms of what we're trying to do. But maybe there's something new that pops up in a year. Right, so you to do. But maybe there's something new that pops up in a year, right.

20:47 - Chase (Host) So you, you evaluate it constantly and adapt it to, I suppose, stay relevant and keep delivering that service to people right, right yeah it would be my mind, my perspective on it yeah, it's kind of like you got to have blinders on if you want to get anything done, if you want to build anything, but you also have to incorporate some kind of periodization, some regularity of, okay, let me put off the blinders, step back and kind of like, take in the whole landscape again, which is hard, and then get back to work.

21:10 - Andy (Host) It's hard, right, because you sit there and you're so involved in it, right, and as someone who you know owns the business or a founder of the business, you're so in love with your product and your vision that you can get clouded. Yeah, you know, like you've got this certain idea.

21:24 - Chase (Host) And develop a bias too yeah.

21:26 - Andy (Host) Without a doubt, which is hard, and I'm guilty of it for sure. Oh yeah, you know, like you know, you sit there and you're like, oh, I love this, this is going to work, but it's like it works for me, but from a business perspective, is this going to work for everybody? And be like you?

21:42 - Chase (Host) know. Am I doing the right thing? Get real, yeah. Am I just married to this because I?

21:45 - Andy (Host) had an idea once and I love it.

21:47 - Chase (Host) Or am I actually really solving the?

21:49 - Andy (Host) problem that I set out to solve Exactly right. So you know, it's a balance between being really in love with what you do, because that's super important, like it's not going to work if you don't love it, because it's hard, and being able to adapt, if you need to, to. You know, I suppose better suit people. Yes, sir.

22:06 - Chase (Host) Yeah. So what about you, man? Have you always been an entrepreneur, or what did you do before? And if you weren't always working for yourself, what was the thing? The moment, the emotion that made you jump ship?

22:18 - Andy (Host) It's funny, it's a good story actually All right, this is story time.

22:21 - Chase (Host) Let's go.

22:21 - Andy (Host) So I haven't always worked for myself. I've always wanted to, didn't know what it was going to be. You know, I haven't grown up being like I want to own a vitamin business, right, I just knew that the freedom that you can get and the lifestyle that you can live if your business works, that's what I wanted to do.

22:38 - Chase (Host) If your business works.

22:39 - Andy (Host) If your business works right. That's what I wanted to do, but I didn't know what that was, and it's obviously only come sort of in the last couple of years in terms of what we're doing now.

22:47 But my background is commercial property, so I was at a company called jll, which is actually headquartered here in chicago yeah, as you can see, that's a I know that name commercial property yeah, so I I started in property, probably like a lot of people grew up and I was like I want to be a property developer you know like that's where all the money is right.

23:03 So then I went into commercial property. I was an agent so I was selling and leasing, you know, logistics facilities around Australia so you know, like an Amazon warehouse and things like that. So I got a sort of a good commercial perspective on things and I loved it. It was really good, like some really good years of my life. But you do have to sort of one you're working for somebody else, which is, you know, to some people that's awesome and that's fine, but for me I never really sort of pictured that long term. And two, you know, for that particular role you have to be on the ball, on the phones all the time, right, which is there's nothing wrong with that. But when you're, you know, when I'm 40, I'd rather have built sort of value in something and retained value in that than having to constantly generate new income based on, you know, my own, my own output right, yeah, do you know what I mean?

23:53 freedom back, yeah gets you some of your freedom back. So I um it was a funny, I suppose, collection of events that led me to what I'm doing now. I resigned from property. I just knew I didn't want to do anymore and I just resigned.

24:07 - Chase (Host) Take us to that moment. Was it a did something happen and you're like that's it, I'm out? Or was it like you know what? I can kind of see this being the end of my journey. I'm going to develop an exit strategy in a month, six months, a combination of both.

24:19 - Andy (Host) So I was kind of on the way out for probably about a year and I left. I was at jll for probably four or five years. Then I left to a company called colliers, which is same same industry, just different brand. Um, and I wasn't enjoying there, probably because I was more on the out. You know, I was like this isn't for me. You know, I'm not really putting the effort in, I don't love it, right. So there was, I suppose, a final ditch attempt to convince myself that I was done by moving companies. I I was like am I getting stagnant here? Is it just this?

24:47 - Chase (Host) business. That's a fair test. Yeah, it's a fair test. Am I just feeling some kind of way? Do I need to change my scenery? Do I need to change my employer? Yeah, yeah.

24:52 - Andy (Host) Is that the issue? So I did that. We're still not enjoying it. So that was the catalyst to resign, right of months off, not doing anything. And then this is a pretty wild story, but I had a motorbike accident in Indonesia. This was 18 months ago and it was quite bad. So I fractured my skull, brain bleed, broke my collarbone, my scapula, two ribs and a collapsed lung, and it was quite a confronting time because, you know, if situations were different, I wouldn't be sitting here. That's kind of where like the accident was in terms of injuries to my body.

25:32 Right, it's a pretty big awakening moment, it's a really big awakening moment and you know, there were points there where I was lying in an Indonesian hospital where the care is non-existent, right, and you know, I think at one point one of the surgeons walked in and doesn't really speak much English, but I heard brain surgery, right, and this is in a foreign country. I didn't have my friends with me and I was like what popped into my head was I'm never going to see my nephews again, like that's what. That's what what popped into my mind and luckily I didn't need that and I've made a full recovery. But the perspective that a situation like that gives you in terms of what's really important in your life like when you're in those situations the only thing you think about is your family, everything else kind of fades off, which is a really nice perspective to have. You need that motivation and you need like a drive to do well but keep, I suppose, what's important front of mind.

26:24 - Chase (Host) It kind of sucks, you know to, in order for us to really get that clarity as to what we want and what matters. Yeah, we have to be right, yeah. Right at the edge of our own destruction. A hundred percent.

26:35 - Andy (Host) And I'll look. I'm a big believer in when, when, when you're not on the right path, or maybe if you're straying down, you know somewhere where you're not supposed to go. Not that I was, you know, bad, but I was probably partying too much at the time, making bad decisions especially. Yeah, at that time it's like maybe the universe gives you a correction to sort of push you back on the right track. Right, and I, after the accident, you know a lot of my friends were like oh man, I'm really sorry that this happened to you.

27:00 - Chase (Host) I'm like I'm not to be honest with you, like I know it sucks, so you were grateful for it and I was like yeah, I was grateful for it.

27:05 - Andy (Host) I'm like I probably needed this. The perspective it's given me is incredible. You know, like in a way I saw that as a second chance, so you don't pushed to the edge, and I think it's beneficial. I'm not saying everyone needs to go get on a motorbike and have an accident?

27:36 - Chase (Host) How many people are buying flights in Indonesia right now renting a bike? Yeah, I need a revelation. All right, let's go.

27:41 - Andy (Host) But it's like you know, coincidentally, it's like you go through those situations and you're like all right this is what matters. Maybe we sort of alter our path to go down this different direction. So you had that accident and that was kind of the icing on the cake, the real cake to go.

27:55 - Chase (Host) I'm not spending my professional career how I want.

27:59 - Andy (Host) Let me make a change. Yeah, but it's professional career, it's life, it's everything. It's like look, I've got a second chance here. You know how am I going to spend it. You know what's important to me, what you know I could be dead realistically. How do I want my life to look? Who do I want to provide for? What's important?

28:21 You know like, and it gives you a good motivation to really work on something that you care about you a good motivation to really work on something that you care about. You know like I personally find it very difficult to do things that I don't like, which I know is like everybody, but if I don't like something, I'm really not motivated for it. So it teaches you to put time and energy into things that you love. Not that every day is going to be perfect. You know like.

28:36 There are certainly challenges and things like that, but when you don't love what you do, everything that goes wrong is an excuse why you shouldn't be doing it. Absolutely. That's, rather than a speed bump or, you know, a roadblock or whatever, it's an excuse why you shouldn't be doing it. So you know to, and it's a luxury to be in a position to be able to choose to do something that you love, because I know that a lot of people don't have that luxury right like. You've got kids, you've got a family that you need to look after and you can't just walk away, if you can't just resign from your job like I did. You know, I was young, there's nobody counting on me, so it was the perfect time to do it. Yeah, um, but you know, if you can, I think it it does put a good perspective on where to spend your time. You know, and yeah, and and things like that it really does, it really doesn't.

29:19 - Chase (Host) It's funny timing, I uh just I think this past weekend, as we're recording, I found this old video. Before the podcast, I ran a YouTube channel and I found this old video of my last day at my corporate job.

29:31 - Andy (Host) Yeah, I saw that on Instagram.

29:33 - Chase (Host) Yeah, so I pulled a little clip from it and it was pretty wild, like I remember going back to that moment and at the time my wife hated me for it because we had a plan and like I deviated from the plan but I was like, baby, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, overworked, undervalued. I can do my own thing, yeah, my own thing yeah.

29:51 So we, we agreed on, uh, develop a six-month exit strategy. Okay, and you were married at the time. I just got, just got married. I I'd been married for eight months, yeah, maybe, yeah, this is 2017. And uh I was like, okay, all right, cool, got it. So I began to kind of develop my exit strategy. Doing some side health coaching started the podcast, began to gross myself, blah, blah, blah. And then something happened. We, uh I came back to work one day, I think, after we took our honeymoon a late, late honeymoon, yeah and I came back and, just like I sat down in front of my superior at the time, yeah, my boss and uh they made these choices of things at while I was surrounding your career and you're surrounding kind of like how they wanted, like the department I I was a clinical health coach and I ran the wellness department.

30:35 I ran over, oversell, this whole department and I worked directly with our chief medical officer. It was a concierge medical practice and so we came up with a plan on how we wanted the wellness department and the clinical office basically the coaches and the doctors to work together. I thought we're on the same page. I came back, they completely went the other direction and like undermined me and just made me feel undervalued and like even brought in this other person to kind of like step on my toes a little bit, yeah, and now I'm feeling, now I'm just sounding bitter, but it was my reality and in my toes a little bit, yeah and uh, now I'm feeling.

31:05 Now I'm just sounding bitter, but it was my reality and in that moment I was like hell, no, yeah, there's no way. I'm waiting six months, yeah, to take my life back, yeah, and to build a future for myself, for my now growing family.

31:14 And uh, I get my notice right then and there yeah I came home I was like I just gave my 30 days. She's like what happened to six months? She was so pissed at me. I was like every fiber of my being in that meeting when he was talking to me. Yeah, like it took everything I had not to just like flip up the table and storm out, yeah, and just like you know, here's my corporate card. Yeah, you. And. And so I was like, uh, here's my notice.

31:37 - Andy (Host) Yeah, I'm out, mate. That's a. I'm really glad you brought that up, because that's a great lesson, right like you can sit here and you can plan and you can be like this is what we're going to do. We're going to start here and then you can write a step-by-step thing to get here.

31:50 And you do need to do that to an extent because you have to have some sort of roadmap on where you want to get to and a target to hit, but the chances of that plan going exactly how you've written it is zero. It just never happens right. Like things happen, things change. That's why you have to be constantly adapting and I think that was a good decision. You know, like you do need to keep, like I know, that you work for somebody else and you know they've got a business to run, but you have value as a person, you know, and if you feel like you're getting stepped on or, you know over or or even you know, exploited in a way, it's like yeah you need to prioritize yourself.

32:28 - Chase (Host) And I think, especially when you know we're both in, like now, kind of like the uh, the human optimization health, wellness and so I think maybe we're a little bit biased here. But when we're talking about your health, yeah, your vitality, your longevity, your quality of life, yeah, um it, it's so much more meaningful. And for me personally at the time, the biggest thing that kind of sent me over the edge was the way that they wanted to go with how we were running these programs. I was like that doesn't work. Like it doesn't work. You're not going to get people to get on board, people aren't going to be adherent, you're just to be slapping band-aid on after band-aid after band-aid.

33:06 I'm like I know my approach and the approach that I've developed with my other team yeah, like this is how we get behavior change. Yeah, this is how we get people to take a walk, go to the gym, put down the cheeseburger, pick up a salad, you know, insert any modification for a healthy lifestyle here. And I was like this is just, this is sick care. Yeah, this is sick care. This is not getting better care. And so I was like it's too personal, yeah, for me, and I give too much of a shit, yeah, and so I'm gonna go out and I'm actually gonna like if I fail, yeah, and if it doesn't work at least I know I did it my way and then I'm not stuck into some system and it's like you know you care about what you do, you're passionate about it.

33:43 - Andy (Host) You know you can't sit. You know you can't sit there and be part of something. That's not good for people, especially if you're so involved and you know that's not going to work. You know so. Sometimes and it's a hard decision to make sometimes you can't change situations and you can't change people, and I've had a lot of those situations in my life and you do just have to cut it, walk away.

34:03 - Chase (Host) You know, yeah, for your own peace of mind. Exactly, yeah, sometimes the best thing you can do for your own peace of mind and your business is to walk away which is hard, because, I mean, sometimes it feels like quitting.

34:17 - Andy (Host) Many times, many times it feels like quitting, but you know it's like holding on to the hot coal you're the only one who gets burnt. Ooh.

34:24 - Chase (Host) You know it's, that's so true. Bring all these Australians.

34:29 - Andy (Host) But it's like and it is hard. You know I've had situations in the past with other. You know, maybe a business partner before I started this business, right, and it's where say they're a friend first and maybe they didn't treat you in a certain situation and it's like you're trying to hold on to it and you're trying to, you know, either fix the friendship or, you know, fix the business relationship. But people can't be changed. You know you can sit there and you can try and you're going to waste a lot of time doing it. So for you as a person it's usually better off to maybe just cut it, which is a hard decision and it is a selfish decision. But at the end of the day you do have to. You know, put yourself first. You know where you can Always look after people and do the right thing by people. But at times, you know you have to sort of walk away.

35:15 - Chase (Host) Yeah, and unfortunately it feels like in those moments, especially in business, like you're letting yourself down, you're letting your team down. Maybe you're letting yourself down, you're letting your team down, maybe you're letting even your future, your financial future, down. Yeah, but that's. I think I've only learned this, seven years now into my entrepreneurial journey is the moment when you can just like let it go. Yeah, and maybe it is technically a failure, yeah, but you also have the power and now the knowledge to just go start again. Yeah, you're not dependent on anybody else.

35:45 Yeah, so like if you've proven to yourself that you can make anything work once. That doesn't guarantee success every time, but it does guarantee when you make a choice to do something, to create something, to keep a commitment and a promise to yourself, to turn nothing into something, you can do it again, a hundred percent. You can do it again.

36:03 - Andy (Host) And it's failing forward. You know like that's that's and failing's hard right, like, especially when you start in any any kind of journey, it's like you want to do. Well, everybody wants no one wants to fail, right. But you learn more out of failures than you do. I think wins, you know and you don't know everything when you start, so the quicker you can fail and figure, figure things out on what not to do is a good thing. It's a benefit.

36:27 - Chase (Host) Yeah what do they say?

36:28 - Andy (Host) uh fail fast and fail forward yeah yeah, absolutely, and I'm a big believer of that. It's like you don't know what you don't know and you learn more when you fail. So you have to try, you have to go and put yourself in those absolutely positions right to fail, and you can't be scared of failure but be willing to fail for sure, because you learn a lot from it.

36:46 - Chase (Host) All right. So now I have to ask Take us to your biggest failure in your entrepreneurial journey. If you can share, if you can talk about it, yeah, no, I'll think what was the biggest failure you've had in your entrepreneurial journey and what was the lesson you learned because of it?

37:00 - Andy (Host) Okay, I've got one First of all all. I don't think I've made my biggest one yet. I think it's probably still coming.

37:06 - Chase (Host) I think it's still coming, he kind of seems eerily excited about that. I mean, look at it sooner rather than later. Right, bring it on.

37:14 - Andy (Host) I mean that's the thing it's like. I know I'm gonna make more mistakes, for sure, but it's you just, you keep going, you know like, you just keep pushing forward and you learn from it. But, um, again, I don't know who's going to be watching this podcast, so I gotta be careful. But I had, um, I did have a, a business before I started this um, which was in um sort of like a housing provider in australia. Okay, um and through that through, and I had two business partners with that business. Excuse me, I hope that I'm gonna watch this, but I had two business partners with that business. I hope they're not going to watch this, but I had two business partners.

37:46 - Chase (Host) You can skip around anything.

37:48 - Andy (Host) I had two business partners in that business who were my friends at the time still are. You know like I have tried to protect that situation and we got into some capital raising business where we would introduce capital from private clients, funds and stuff to a client of mine that I had in property to help him scale his property business and we were doing it all together and this is my biggest mistake so far. We had agreed certain terms for that sort of exchange, right In terms of what each of us would get. They were my friends and I trusted them to do the right thing, like I'm bringing this to the table, you're bringing this to the table.

38:24 - Chase (Host) If it all comes together and we all you know kind of succeed like, here's my portion, here's what we're going to get out of it, Exactly right.

38:29 - Andy (Host) Yeah, and didn't get it agreed on paper until the end of the deal, which was a big lesson in terms of, look, I'd love to trust people and I am a very trusting person, but sometimes you do have to make sure that you get things agreed and at the end, once the deal was done, they changed the terms. So it's disappointing and it's a shame coming from, I suppose, a friendship perspective. But the lesson is protect yourself. You know, try and be trusting to people. Like, don't lose that trusting element because you don't want to turn into a bad person or a cynic, right? No, no, it just turns you bitter. It turns you bitter and you don't want that, and that's the thing. It's like.

39:07 This is a situation where you just have to walk away. You just have to cut it and you have to walk away. Yep, look, it was an expensive mistake. I won't do it again. I won't put myself in that position again. And you learn like it's disappointing the way that that it was handled. They know that I feel this way, so, um, but you know, look, they have to look after themselves too. Like it's a matter of perspective in a way like that, this is my view. Maybe they share a different view, um, but that was a big lesson, can?

39:38 - Chase (Host) I share a little like insight on that. Yeah, of course I've been in some similar situations to where you think you're all on the same page, yeah, the deal goes through, the project goes through, yeah, and then you know you didn't get anything in writing because we're all friends here.

39:51 Yeah, we're all fam, uh and then you'd like to believe it, you'd like to believe it and then lo and behold, the end of the day you're left with the short end of the stick, or no part of the stick at all. Yeah, I've been there. Besides, kind of like the stinging yeah, it happens in the beginning. The biggest lesson I walked away from in those situations was, honestly, this newfound sense.

40:13 A newfound sense and or like a validation of my value yeah, because I'm like, oh, like, usually in those situations it was like bigger deals, it was like something more than I could offer on my own, yeah, hence the kind of like collaboration collaboration so it was like a bigger project, bigger deal, bigger payoff, yeah.

40:33 And when it didn't go through I was like, oh, okay, ouch, but also people out there, yeah, view me at that dollar point, at that leverage point. So, okay, I can just go out and just recreate to a certain degree the same value, the same opportunity, the same project, the same service. And now I know what people are willing to pay, absolutely yeah.

40:58 - Andy (Host) And it's sometimes hard, which I'm glad that you came out of that situation with that view right, Because if you're in a situation where maybe somebody else who you're doing business with is telling you you're worth this, but you know that you're worth this like hire, that's how you know you're an entrepreneur.

41:14 Yeah, but it's like you need to, I suppose, recognize your value, which is hard in those situations, Cause sometimes you're like maybe I'm not worth this, right? Like you do have a bit of self-doubt there, and I know for a fact in my situation that deal would not have happened without them either, right? So like you have to look at it fairly, you know what I mean. Like I brought a certain amount of value, but that deal wouldn't have happened without those guys either. So it's not all me, but you know, maybe your value is more than they're perceiving, right?

41:42 so you good point, it's good that you identified that, because I think maybe some people will be like maybe I'm not worth what I think I am, yeah you know you don't want to be arrogant and think that you're worth more than you are. But uphold your value and sort of stick with it.

41:55 - Chase (Host) And also a last thing I'll add on to this before moving on is, even when it stings, and even when you're like guys, what the hell? Like we all said we're gonna do this and that's not what happened. Yeah, even in those situation and and this is going to be very hard to do yeah, do not burn a bridge. Yeah, do not burn a bridge. I can't tell you how many times I have come back to situations, come back to people, and I'm like all right, here we go all right, I remember how things went last time.

42:26 Yeah, you know what? I remember? My integrity last time. And now I kind of feel like we're going in and I have the upper hand now yeah, which I don't want to say and come across in like a power ego trip kind of way, but there is just immense value in having, no matter how hard that lesson is, to not burn the bridge.

42:46 - Andy (Host) Don't forget, but just don't burn the bridge. I think it's you don't want to limit yourself in terms of who you can interact with, like that that's important. You never know when you're going to run into somebody again, but be aware of what people are like, that's it. You know. Like learn, learn fast and it's good. It's like I'd rather that issue, or whatever issues anybody's facing, rather it happen now so you don't get further into the process or down the track and that you've invested more time, money or effort and then it happens right. So it's good that it happens at whatever time it is. It's better than it's later and just be aware of what people are like, maybe still deal with them, just be you know, learn from whatever happened and be careful. That's it, yeah, that's it.

43:26 - Chase (Host) Man, I found this quote. I couldn't find the source, but, um, I was just looking up quotes about entrepreneurship and I love this one. The best way to predict the future is to create it. That's good, I like that. So I'm curious what do you, what's your take on that? What, specifically, what mistakes do you think most entrepreneurs are making right now while trying to create their own future?

43:49 - Andy (Host) Um, maybe being, like we said earlier too, in love and not willing to pivot. Potentially so, if you're in love with their business with their business or idea what did I?

44:06 I heard something this morning actually, and it was. It was from I can't remember what the guy's name is, but it was from. He used to be the ceo of netflix and it was fail fast and fail a lot right. So you might have this exceptional idea that you think is going to work right, and then you go and invest heaps of time and money and energy into it. You're like all right, I need this amount, I need a million bucks to start this business and I need this many staff to do it. But you haven't figured out whether the product is going to work yet right.

44:39 So fail fast and again, like fail forward. So maybe the most cost effective way to figure out whether your product is going to work, figure that, figure out whatever that is. Figure out if it's actually going to work before putting the time and resources into it. Yeah, maybe, absolutely. I think you know, because you can get it's like we were talking about earlier. You can get so in love with your vision and so in love with your product and I I am too like I'm guilty of it. Right, you should be and you need a bit of that too. But you need to be adaptable and open to pivoting right. So, yeah, like, figure out if it's going to work the cheapest way possible.

45:10 - Chase (Host) If it's not, and if you don't think it's going to work, cut your losses and move on right, take that, rewind it, it, go back, just loop it like just put that mantra you know in your in your airpod on your mirror, like that's so viable man. Um, you've mentioned this a couple times, actually just in your last statement about pivoting. How do you know when to pivot versus when to push through an obstacle?

45:33 - Andy (Host) it's a really good question. And it's hard to know, right, because when something's not working, you can't just stop straight away because there might it might not be the product or it might be something else. That's, that's sort of well. You might even be giving your yourself an excuse to stop because it's hard, which is not not not okay either. You know you need to, you need to. There are going to be shit days. You need to push through those. You know those shit days and you don't. Because things are hard, it's not an excuse to stop. So it's a hard distinction to make. I think it takes time.

46:01 You know if, if something's not working, and you know that you've tried and you know that you've given everything to make it work, not just because it's, you're not just stopping because it's hard. You know you've exhausted all your efforts in terms of trying to make it work. Maybe that's when you re-evaluate it or re-evaluate your approach. I guess it's case by case in terms of what you're doing. But you know, for our situation it's like we're a sleep vitamin. It's a very, very simple business structure. You know we help people fall asleep faster and wake up better, right, and we know the product does that. So if we're not, if it's not fulfilling what we're trying to do, then there's probably an issue elsewhere outside of the product, whether it's the delivery, advertising. So maybe, like you, look at those things before stopping and that's where you pivot, you know.

46:46 - Chase (Host) Yeah.

46:48 - Andy (Host) I think it's case by case, but yeah, it's putting in the effort that you need to to know that you've done everything to make it work and then reevaluating, I think.

47:01 - Chase (Host) If it hasn't changed. You're mirroring back something else again. For me, in my entrepreneurial journey, I feel like the pivot aspect is in front of us, sooner and more often than we often want to admit because, to your point, you know we're so in love with the original concept for sure. Um, you know. Case in point my podcast production company operation podcast. We started off. I first started off, uh, as courses yeah I created courses.

47:27 I was always the podcast guy. People came to me like, how do you do this, how you do that, like years ago. So I created courses. The courses turned into production company, like, like, I don't want to do it, can you just do it for me? So, okay, cool, we record, edit, launch, do all this stuff, yeah. And then I was like, okay, that, like we're so good at creating podcasts, let's just keep doing that. And then, like the studios introduced, yeah, like two years ago. And then the studios took off and I was so in love with the creation aspect of new podcasts and editing content. You know, working with my team on, like, turning someone's vision into a tangible thing. You know, like, well, a post.

48:03 - Andy (Host) It's a rewarding thing to do. It's so rewarding.

48:05 - Chase (Host) I was like this is so like cool and creative and boom and amazing. And I was trying so hard to stay fixated on that and grow the production side when the studio stuff was just like leaps and bounds side. When the studio stuff was just like, yeah, leaps and bounds, and I was like literally last year it took me like it took me a year to finally come to terms and just go like, chase, you have a portion of business that is really working. This other portion, you can still do it, but you're, you're sacrificing unnecessarily. So when I kind of let go of, like, oh, but it's my baby, it's my favorite thing.

48:37 It's hard to let go of that and kind of just renegotiated my relationship with it.

48:42 - Andy (Host) I was still able to keep that portion, but allow the business to thrive in other ways, yeah, and that's hard to do because you do love it, right, and I think in any sort of journey, there are going to be other opportunities that pop up to either pivot or expand or do something different. Right, and I believe that it's a balance between you need to make the right decision in terms of the direction that you're going to go, because diluted focus gives diluted results. You can't do everything, and I've been guilty of that before, so you do need to, in a way, block out the noise. You know, like there are opportunities everywhere, and I've been guilty of where it's like all right, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, and then you know you're splitting your day into six different portions and nothing's getting done.

49:23 - Chase (Host) It's not sustainable.

49:24 - Andy (Host) It's not sustainable. So you do need to pigeonhole yourself in a way, but then maybe along that journey, right along that sort of specific direction that you're taking, be willing to recognize what's working and what's not, or maybe a certain different direction where you can go down and leverage off that. Or maybe it's not the right direction, but you've just got to be able to identify that, and that's hard, that is really hard, and I suppose the metric of it right, which can make it easy if you've got that data, is like where am I making the most money? Where am I putting?

50:04 20% of my effort to get 80% of the profit and then you put it's that 80-20 rule, and then you put no, you flip it right, and that I suppose in case by case. It's like if you're earning more money in that avenue, it's easy to tell, but if you're not but there's a potential for it it's harder.

50:14 - Chase (Host) Yeah, you know, yeah, I was talking to you about my brother earlier and like business stuff and uh, I had conversation with him. I guess it was like two christmases ago but when I was kind of coming to terms with this yeah, unwanted pivot in my business yeah, it's hot yeah and he was like chase, you know what? Like um, I think he said it, or I said it out loud. One of the two um, he'll probably try to take credit for it.

50:35 - Andy (Host) But but just like, basically Like a brother. Yeah, that was me. I'm definitely smarter.

50:39 - Chase (Host) You know, sometimes passion doesn't pay the bills. Yeah, and that was like a bitter pill to swallow, I think, especially in this day and age, so many entrepreneurs are in the creative space. Yeah, in some way, shape or form, this is a part of your business plan. Yeah, your phone, social media, in some capacity, it has to be so. Therefore, I think you were very closely on your team. Yeah, you've got some kind of creative outlet and a passion project. So, yeah, once I kind of realized, you know, passion doesn't always pay the bills. But then to your point which I think is so beautifully said leaning in to what is working in the business can leverage you future opportunities. To come back to that passion, absolutely.

51:18 - Andy (Host) And you've got the cashflow to support it.

51:19 - Chase (Host) Yeah 100% or even just time not even money, and maybe within the business.

51:23 - Andy (Host) Again, it's case by case, but it's like, say, you've got a portion of your business which you do and it's like it's the editing stuff right and it's the production right. It's like, maybe, for your role as a founder is to grow the business and if you grow up to a point where it's sustainable and you don't need to be, I suppose, more hands-on with with that aspect of it, then you can come back to what you do love doing right you know potentially, I guess it's it's.

51:43 I suppose it's different on anyone's situations, but the opportunity is there because it's still so ingrained in the core direction of what you're trying to do, like it's not, like they're two completely separate businesses, that you need that you need to devote two sections of your brain to.

51:59 It's like when you're thinking about your business, it's all the one. It's like a different segment. It's like graphic design in my business. It's like product design versus ads Still the same business, different aspects. Yeah, so you can still. That's not diluting your focus. You can still go in the right direction and still do those two things. But maybe one needs more attention at the time.

52:22 Divide and conquer, yeah, kind of thing Exactly right, and you and you prioritize what you need to at the time in terms of what's best for the business. Maybe not what's best for you, because you might love this, but it's it's what's best for the the time.

52:34 - Chase (Host) I got one more question to kind of wrap up this entrepreneur masterclass section here. Man, before we get into kind of what your baby is these days, um, if you had to start from scratch, like today, burn the boats all over, done tomorrow, you wake up and you're like starting a new business, um, with no connections, no resources, no nothing. It's just you and your past experiences in entrepreneurship. What would be your first three moves?

53:01 - Andy (Host) Would I be starting the same business again?

53:04 - Chase (Host) Let's say no. No, or it's introducing too many different variables. Let's say yes. So let's say you want to start your business over again but only using your past experiences. No new connections, no nothing. What are your first three moves?

53:17 - Andy (Host) What I would do perfect, perfect, the product, number one. So in my situation, you know, we've we've put a lot of time and money into making sure this product is perfect, right, but that's taken a long time. So I think number one and and we've also been trying to do too much at the same time, so we're trying to. You know, at the start we were, you know, doing the product, sorting out logistics, you know 3PLs warehousing, distribution and manufacturing. It's like you're doing it all at once and that's fine, like you need to do that at the start. But figure out the product first. Figure out your service, number one, keep that the core of your business. Then, number two, I would probably start to delegate a little bit more.

54:05 - Chase (Host) I was wondering if that was going to come up.

54:07 - Andy (Host) Because I know now sort of, I suppose in a way, how to do it, but at the start I didn't. You didn't know how to ask for help. I didn't know how to ask for help or what to get help for. Maybe exactly right, and you can spend so much. That's the lesson that I've learned. I, it's like, not, it's not that I've figured out how to do everything right, so the lesson that I've learned is that you can spend so much time trying to figure something out and not do it the best way possible, or you can save time, get somebody who does. Yeah, and it's a cost. It is a cost, but I think it's worthwhile.

54:43 - Chase (Host) it's like but it costs in a few different ways. Right, it could be literally a cost of maybe you're hiring, paying for a consultant, someone who knows these things, or, uh, finding somebody that you know. I'm a big fan of the barter system, like hey, again to earlier, make sure you get in writing Equal terms. I'm coming to the table with this. I recognize you have that value If we put our powers together and turn this into what I think it could be like here's the future payoff for both of us, kind of thing.

55:10 - Andy (Host) Yeah, that's what I do. So, to recap, perfect your product, find a good team quick. Find a good team quick. Find a good team to scale with quickly and then put your time and resources into being a front-facing founder what I'm doing now. That's, I think, the different. There's nuances in that in terms of like you get better at dealing with manufacturers and negotiating prices. It's like you go to them with a formulation and then you get a price on that and then maybe it needs to change later and you lose a bit of leverage with them. There are little nuances, but you know, as I suppose a summary perfect your product, get a good team behind you and build and put more time into being like the face and scaling the business is what I would do.

56:00 - Chase (Host) Words of wisdom there, man. Words of wisdom, I mean it's always hindsight's, 2020, right.

56:06 - Andy (Host) You don't know what you don't know, and that's the thing it's like. It's not to say that it's not going to work because you don't know what you're doing. It just might take a little bit longer. You know you have to fail and you have to sort of trip and stumble, but you learn as you go and you just keep pushing forward. Yeah, you don't need to know everything at the start, like there's no way you can you know, there's no way you can.

56:25 It's like that's why a lot of people, I think, don't start because they don't know what they're doing. But it's like you kind of don't need to know, right like there's resources and there's uh blueprints out there, right, that in most situations or in most business models that you can, you know, start with to get some sort of idea and then you just start yeah, and you'll figure it out.

56:45 And I tell you what you're going to mess up. You're going to make a lot of mistakes, a lot, but you're moving forward and at least you're doing something. Otherwise you're just going to happen and here's the truth.

56:56 - Chase (Host) I'm looking right in the camera to say this very bluntly no one knows what they're doing. We, we don't know what we're doing. We're figuring out every damn day. We just get better daily and making it look like we know what we're doing, at least in my experience.

57:09 - Andy (Host) I agree, I'm an actual idiot. I'm an actual I know nothing. I know nothing I'm just a guy who figured out how to record himself it's a series of like. It makes constant failures, that's what it is, and then you just don't make that mistake again. But it's not like the failures stop.

57:25 - Chase (Host) They just probably get less frequent and you develop a better relationship with failure. Yeah, uh, and you begin to completely change your association yeah, to failure yeah, I no longer have.

57:36 I don't know if you can relate Like I have. Well, now it's I'm in a little bit of a different bracket because I just had a kid, yeah, and so now it's like this uh, you know, wanting to provide a little bit more, and I've got that aspect. But, like, I truly have zero fear of failure because I know if, like God forbid, this whole thing burns down tomorrow, like again. Like I said earlier, I have proven to myself that when I make a choice to put me first and to build my life and my dreams and to provide for my family and to put one foot in front of the other towards my area of expertise and to create and have something of value, like I can do it.

58:14 - Andy (Host) You can do it and it's. It's a belief in yourself which is so important, and just because something is scary or nerve wracking or is no excuse not to do it, I think it's more of a reason to do it. Otherwise you're going to stay in the same place. You know, for the rest of your life you need to push yourself in those uncomfortable situations and, I suppose, learn from them. But there's always going to be those situations, right? So you need to develop that habit of just doing it and not, you know, not not sort of I mean, be calculated and you know, think about what decisions you're making, but like go into these things and and and do it.

58:52 - Chase (Host) you know the moment you can relinquish the hilarious concept that once we learn from our mistakes it means we don't ever fail again. But it's rather just that failure is inevitable. And once you can just relinquish the fear of that, of like trying to, who can go through life just navigating? Like, oh, dodge that failure, oh, dodge that failure, oh, I can get ahead of it. Like no, that's, I think, where, where we stay stuck, why we stay stuck and how, especially as entrepreneurs, we never pivot, we make the wrong choices, we stay stuck. Yeah, we uh don't bring on the right people or we just keep our blinders on. I mean all the things we just talked about 100 and it's.

59:34 - Andy (Host) It's hard in those situations because there's so much going on, you feel like you need to make all these decisions right. But you just have to simplify it and make one decision at a time. Like you need to make informed decisions. So use the information that you have. You can only make a decision based on what you know at the time. Use the information that you have to make the best decision that you think you can make. It might work, it might not, and then you're going to learn from it if it doesn't. But simplify the process. You know, like, especially at the start, where you've got a lot of different roles right, like you're essentially everything as a founder or the owner of the business. You're it right. So, like there are so many different decisions to make across so many different sort of avenues, just simplify it. Make one decision at a time. Make the best decision you can with the information that you have and move on to the next one and just repeat.

01:00:20 You know, like it's the only way to do it.

01:00:23 - Chase (Host) So, in your entrepreneurial journey now, the choice you made, the decision you made was to get into this like human optimization, health, performance, space, particularly through sleep, with your brand here, cs2. Yeah, why sleep? And how did you go from this motorbike accident on your deathbed you know major, you know coming to terms with your life to like, okay, this is not only what I want to do for my career, or I need to make a career move, yeah, but it needs to be around sleep yeah, look, it was like I said earlier, it was a collection of events in the sense that, like, so I had the accident, I knew I didn't want to be in property anymore.

01:01:00 - Andy (Host) I previously to this, while I was sort of in in my um, you know real estate career, I I was a horrible sleeper, like I couldn't sleep. I'd probably sleep three or four hours a night, like it was. It was ridiculous and I would be waking up in the middle of the night.

01:01:12 - Chase (Host) So so I didn't have to, but just for like the listener. Was that just kind of your inability to sleep well? Or was your career driving you to like I'll sleep when I'm dead? You know, sleep just for the weekend.

01:01:22 - Andy (Host) It was me probably a combination of both. Like it was a stressful job, but it was me too, right. So I tried a lot of different things and it's a really inhabilitating thing when you can't sleep, you know, because you get in your own head about it. It's like it affects sort of everything you know, and I'm quite into my fitness and work, right. So like everything was kind of suffering.

01:01:42 So I tried a number of different things, a number of, I suppose, different traditional what you'd call, you know, sleep aids, melatonin being one, and I always found they made me groggy, like they wouldn't always get me to sleep. Sometimes they would, yeah, and then I'd wake up feeling pretty average. So I was a bit over that and I went and actually saw I think he was a neurosurgeon at the time in Australia and I was like, well, look, what do you think I can't sleep? Like where, what can I take? Fix my brain, yeah, and it's going to get me to sleep. And so he recommended um the I think it was this.

01:02:19 I was the magnesium which we have now, um l-theanine and apigenin, right. So they were the. They were the three starting ingredients and I started taking them even before I started the business and it was a miracle cure, like fix my sleep, um, get to sleep faster. I would stay asleep and I would wake up feeling good, like that was such a big thing thing for me, like I was waking up feeling really average when I was, when I was taking these other things, and like waking up, you know, with a, with a kick, knowing that I've slept well and feeling well rested, was a bit of a game changer for me, you know, especially at work and with my training. So I had already been taking, I suppose, a variation of this prior to starting the business.

01:02:54 - Chase (Host) And you're just sourcing these ingredients individually prior to starting the business. And you just sourcing these ingredients individually? Yeah, so you and that, and it was a nightmare, right, so you'd have to source them from three different places.

01:03:01 - Andy (Host) They'd all arrive differently. They'd be pills. You know, like I'm, I don't love taking pills right Like just an uncomfortable way to take it.

01:03:09 - Chase (Host) But you know you do it to get to get better sleep six months, I reckon um, and it had like sort of transformed my sleep. And by transform I just want to paint the picture here for the sleep revolution. By transform, do you mean, were you getting more sleep? Yeah, you getting better quality sleep.

01:03:26 - Andy (Host) Were you tracking it like, yeah, so the benefit like, the issue that I had before was was was falling asleep for me personally, so this solved that. So, like, when I'm not falling asleep, it obviously reduces the time that you're asleep. So you know, instead of falling asleep at nine o'clock, which I do now because I'm a grandpa- no, you're in good company, man.

01:03:44 - Chase (Host) I got a newborn at home. I'm in bed like 8, 8.30.

01:03:46 - Andy (Host) Oh mate, I'm like yeah, I'm in bed early and then you know I'd be falling asleep at 12 or one, Like I, and I wouldn't be waking up either. So essentially got me to sleep fast and kept me asleep and then you wake up feeling good. So that was like a really big, I suppose, problem.

01:04:05 - Chase (Host) Huge, huge yeah.

01:04:05 - Andy (Host) Yeah, problem solved for me. And then, I suppose in the sequence of events, of changing jobs, the accident giving me perspective, I literally sat down Once I'd sort of come back, come out of hospital and sort of had to have surgery on my shoulder Post. All that. I sat down and I was like what am I doing? Where do I want to go with my life? I've got no idea what to do.

01:04:26 So I literally sat down for probably about two hours every morning and wrote a list of ideas of sort of businesses to start, and this was always the recurring one. Really, yeah, because it was had such an impact on my quality of life and I knew that it worked for me, right. And I was like it's not accessible. People don't know about these minerals that you can take to naturally improve your sleep without the diets, the downsides, um, so that's where I lent into. I was like people need to have this because it works right. Like it's not accessible, it's hard to obtain.

01:04:58 I was like people need to have this because it works right. Like it's not accessible, it's hard to obtain. I was like there's a solution, there's a gap here that I can fill. Um, so that's how it started. And then from then, you know, we obviously perfected the product, so we had some sort of medical minds come and sort of consult with us to to get the right dosages, and we sort of added a couple of ingredients. So there's magnesium, glycinate, ashwagandha, l-theanine, inositol, apigenin and vitamin B6, right. So you know, what we've tried to create is this holistic combination of natural vitamins that help you fall asleep, improve the quality of your sleep and help you wake up.

01:05:38 - Chase (Host) Can you shine a light on why vitamin B6 and a sleep aid?

01:05:41 - Andy (Host) supplement. It's interesting. So vitamin B6 is a precursor to serotonin and at nighttime serotonin converts to melatonin. So what you want to do ideally right and this is my perspective on it is instead of taking melatonin, which is the external hormone, because it can lead to dependency and, I suppose, a drop-off of your natural production when you stop taking it Absolutely yeah.

01:06:02 What you want to do is your body will downregulate its own production. It will downregulate it right. So what you want to do is try and boost the natural production of it, right. And it ties in more with your natural sleep cycles as well. So the combination of what we've got will help you get to sleep in terms of relaxing your muscles, you know, boosting your GABA and your alpha brainwaves as well through a couple of those minerals, but boost your natural production of melatonin at the right time and sinking into your natural sleep cycle, which is ideal, right.

01:06:29 - Chase (Host) Yeah.

01:06:29 - Andy (Host) And it's because you're not taking it artificially to spike it here and then sort of wake up feeling average it's. You take these and this is designed as a daily sleep supplement, so you take it every day. It's safe to take daily, you get into a better sleep cycle and it regulates your natural production of melatonin rather than sort of you know, taking it externally which I feel like is not the best way to do it yeah, melatonin is tricky.

01:06:53 - Chase (Host) It uh, it definitely has its place. I I said really I think it has its place. Yeah, health Coach Chase coming out here. Really the only time I'll ever really advise or recommend people to take melatonin is if you're in a short-term sleep deprivation experience and like jet lag, if you need that short fix and it's not like, oh my God, I haven't been able to get to sleep for weeks that's like a deeper rooted issue.

01:07:18 - Andy (Host) Yeah, exactly right, and the more you take this, the better it gets. So, you know, melatonin, like you said, it's got its place.

01:07:27 You know, like if you're coming off a long haul flight and you need to get back into your normal rhythm to kickstart it, without a doubt like it works you know, like I don't have any issues with melatonin in those situations, but for me personally it's like I wouldn't take melatonin daily, so I'm certainly not going to tell other people to. But what we, you know, want to do through the, through the vitamins we have, is do it naturally, you know, and sort of get yourself into a better sleep cycle, um, without having to, sort of, I suppose, take it externally, on a daily basis, at least you know like.

01:07:55 - Chase (Host) It certainly has its place, melatonin, in those situations that you mentioned and what uh thus far and your new business venture here with cs2, what has been like the biggest similarity in you know business that you've brought over from you know, like your expertise or problem solving from past professional experiences, and what has just been like, wow, that that was something.

01:08:19 - Andy (Host) I was not prepared for. Look, I think people has been the transferable aspect of it. So, because I was in property and I was an agent, I was always speaking to people and dealing with them. So like, as you know, a DTC brand, it's like you're dealing with manufacturers. You know whether it's an actual mixer, so of your ingredients, or if it's a packager or so like your third-party logistics. So there's a lot of negotiations that you have to do to set up a structure of your system. So that was really beneficial in terms of just my experience with dealing with people. I think the real eye-opener is like the intricacies of and again this is things like you don't know until you know, like the intricacies of, I suppose, creating a product right. So like there's legislations, there's regulations, there's certain certificates that you need to have and cannot say well, you can't say, especially in the nutrition space, 100 you know like you need, you, want you.

01:09:18 You should be authentic and honest, because that's the right thing to do, but you also have to be you know, like you can't just go and throw claims on your, on your product that aren't substantiated or untrue right, and then there's certain certifications that so, like you know, um gmp and fda approval it's like. So you need certain certificates from different suppliers. So that's been a challenge in terms of making sure that that's all lined up.

01:09:39 So at the start, you don't know that it's like you're sending information to your manufacturer to start a production run and you don't have the right certificates and that delays it three days, and three days can turn into a week.

01:09:50 - Chase (Host) And then, if you're dealing with Chinese and that delays somebody else, and that delays something else.

01:09:54 - Andy (Host) Yeah, and if you're dealing with different countries so, for example, china, which we don't anymore, but we were at the start it's like they have Chinese New Year. So if you have a delay there right before Chinese New Year, that pushes out a month a month.

01:10:08 - Chase (Host) I remember when my brother started uh everford apparel years ago when his youtube channel first started, and he was like uh, he had to be like a couple months ahead in order to get prepared for chad's new year, because if you didn't, then like it, like the whole next season was delayed like six months, so it's like and and yeah, it and it's you don't know until you know, right.

01:10:26 - Andy (Host) So, like that, we had a massive delay at the start when we were launching. Because you try and aim for this day, it's like I said you write a plan and it never pans out that way. So you have a date, some things. A delay for three days can turn into a month, and it's just I think it's navigating that the transferable stuff was, I think, dealing with people and maybe the commercial aspect in terms of contracts as well. I think dealing with people and maybe the commercial aspect in terms of contracts as well.

01:10:51 I think, maybe a lot of the branding, potentially in terms of positioning to a certain market, right. So you know, our mission is to optimize performance through sleep, right. So, like, if that's what we're trying to do, you need to have a pretty clear message in terms of who you're getting associated with the brand and who you're trying to target, right. So that came through, maybe, potentially real estate in terms of who you're getting associated with the brand and who you're trying to target, right. So that came through. Maybe, potentially real estate in terms of messaging um, so, like, you'll have athletes come on board, you know, as ambassadors, because that's a certain demographic that we, you know, one of the demographics that we want to hit is, like, the fitness enthusiast, and they're the people that they engage with. So that's quite helpful in terms of just a common sense way to approach that. Sure, yeah.

01:11:33 - Chase (Host) Do you find it challenging at all? Because in my mind, like who doesn't want a better night's sleep? Yeah, you know, and that could be a firefighter. That could be a stay at home dad, it could be a C-suite executive, a professional athlete. You know anyone and everyone has everything to gain from a better night's sleep and more consistent night's sleep. Yeah, so does it get confusing at all to like.

01:11:56 - Andy (Host) Hit those. It's an incredibly broad issue, yeah, but when you're, you know if you're marketing to everybody, you're marketing to no one, in a way, you know. It's not to say that we're limiting ourselves to those particular demographics, it's just the marketing those make more sense.

01:12:11 now they make more sense now and and that's the messaging that we want to, I suppose, deploy and I've found that that is pretty, um, pretty widespread, like those demographics that we have, which is essentially sitting split into three. You've got like the fitness enthusiast, the professional, so like your entrepreneur, and the wellness enthusiast, because it's a natural alternative. Right, so there are three main demographics and you can target certain people in those groups that capture all of it. Right, so there is a benefit in targeting, in being broad, but you do need to have a specific message because, like I said, if you're marketing to everybody, you're marketing to no one, in a way, and and you want to build a brand image around probably a more specific market, right, right, so that's, you know, that's what you lean into and it's a challenge, without a doubt, because at the start you're like everybody's gonna. This is a solution I can solve for everybody. I want, I want everybody to know about it. But how do you create something? Because certain people won't like certain styles and it's like our branding, for example, is very performance-based, science-based, and it's like that's where we're skewing down, because that's the demographic that we want to hit, you know, but some people might not like that. So you just need to, I suppose, identify markets that are suitable to your product.

01:13:26 So, for us, because it helps you get to sleep, it boosts recovery and you wake up. Well, you know performance and athletes was pretty natural trajectory. You know like there's a market that will resonate with that product. So you start there and not to say that's going to be, uh, limiting ourselves to those particular, I suppose, um, markets, but it's you need a streamlined approach, right, and that's that's what we're trying to hear, because it's like that's our, that's our mission, that's that's what we're trying to hear, cause it's like that's our, that's our mission. In a way, it's like we're trying to optimize performance through sleep. So those people who want to perform better, you know, physically, even, even at work, like mentally, through your focus, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to put the emphasis on how important sleep is in your daily performance and give people a solution to improve their sleep and give them that next day performance.

01:14:10 - Chase (Host) Truly, man, it's amazing to hear and I'll share um. I guess it was 2019, uh, 2020, late 19, early 20s. So I was a year and a half yeah ish into my entrepreneurial journey at the time and I was very much up to that point of the philosophy and of the culture at that time. Just grind, grind, grind. Stay up late, get up early, sleep when you're dead, sacrifice, sleep now so you can profit you know it's like it's a big culture, yeah and thankfully it's kind of gone by the wayside.

01:14:42 Yeah, and to like the credit of what you're doing now and the credit of sleep in general, I made this shift. I made this choice of like I was so tired throughout the day and I was making mistakes and I was groggy. I was like I'm not raking in the dough right now. I'm not super happy. So I shifted and I prioritized sleep yeah, first, when I made sleep my priority and, honestly, then my business secondary. Yeah, everything else got better. Yeah, contrary to popular belief, like don't sleep when you're dead, sleep now. Like go to sleep and wake up and be better at what you do.

01:15:16 - Andy (Host) You know, I suppose it depends on the person, but like your productivity when you're tired is going to be horrible. Do you know what I mean? Like you are performing better and you're prioritizing your performance and wherever you want to get to by sleeping better. It's not like you're lazy and you're on a bed, like it's. You're doing this to recover, to perform better tomorrow, and it's really important that you do that, because you're not going to be at your full capacity if you don't. You know that's really it's. It's really our messaging and it's very important and I'm glad because people are becoming more aware of it now. Yeah, you know, like people are straying away from stay up all night, working, working, working, working, cause you burn out. You know, like, whether you're David Goggins or me, it's like mate, you burn out eventually.

01:15:52 - Chase (Host) I don't know, I don't think he's burned out yet. It might just be later than everybody else.

01:15:58 - Andy (Host) Yeah, but it's like you need to, you need to prioritize that Cause it's like, yeah, you can't operate on bad sleep.

01:16:05 - Chase (Host) No, no, man. Well before, you can't operate on bad sleep, no, no, man. Uh, well, before I get to my last question here, is there anything now that you're looking down the line of 2025 in your business and just like you're so excited for and you feel very prepared for?

01:16:18 - Andy (Host) yeah, I mean yes. So, like preparation is is funny, you feel prepared at different stages. So you set it. You set a goal to get to the US right. So, like, for me, this year is all US expansion and that's what I'm really really excited about and we feel prepared for it now. But then the next stage, maybe next year, there's going to be a new goal. So I think for me, I'm really excited about America. I think you know the product is going to do really well here. There's a big, I think, demand for it and what we're trying to do. There's a big market segment in terms of who we're trying to target. So that's what I'm really excited about. We feel prepared absolutely, and you know, if there's days where we're not, then you pivot and you get prepared.

01:17:02 - Chase (Host) That's the spirit, man, that's the spirit. So the show here is meant to help, honestly, me and my audience learn a variety of ways that we can bring attention and awareness to our well-being and the multifacetedness that is our well-being personally, professionally, spiritually, financially so that we can keep moving forward in those areas and live ever forward. Those two words, what do they mean to you? How do you live a life ever forward?

01:17:28 - Andy (Host) Ever forward, those two words, what do they mean to you? How do you live a life ever forward, ever forward, when, when I think of ever forward, there's a, there's a quote that pops into my head, which is what I like to live for, and I think it. I think it resonates with ever forward and it ties in really well, which is I'd rather try and fail than not try at all oh, yes, sir and and once you once you sort of wrap your head around that it's like's like.

01:17:47 I would rather be in a position where I've had a crack and it hasn't worked than not try it at all. I'd rather try and fail than not try at all. So that's what I live by and I think that's what pops into my head when I think of Ever Forward.

01:18:00 - Chase (Host) So true man, there's never a right or a wrong answer. I always appreciate my guest's interpretation. Andy, where can my audience go to connect with you, learn more about what you got going on in the world and connect with CS2?

01:18:10 - Andy (Host) Yep. So our social media is drinkcs2. My personal social media, our Instagram, is andy__comedy. Our website is wwwdrinkcs2. So everything's posted to the website, the socials. Look, we love to build a community, especially, you know, being a new entrant to the US.

01:18:31 - Chase (Host) So, yeah, welcome, I want as many people.

01:18:32 - Andy (Host) Yeah, I want as many people to reach out. If you got any questions, if you want some, if it comes through you guys, if there's any inquiry that comes through you, we'll send them some free product.

01:18:41 - Chase (Host) Oh great, so look, hey, not before me, though. We're waiting on the state's order order to drop in here anything with sleep I'm in, and especially this ingredient profile. Uh, very intrigued by very familiar with everything. Yeah, use a variety of everything, if not daily, or assuming not daily, but pretty often, but I've never had anything in a daily sleep aid like yeah and this ingredient profile dosage so I'm excited.

01:19:07 - Andy (Host) I'm really excited about it and we want to build a good network and community around this in the US. So reach out. You know I'm always available. Message me, talk to me.

01:19:16 - Chase (Host) Well, now we know that he's got a system in place for his personal email for new in-balance man, so blow him up.

01:19:21 - Andy (Host) Everybody, exactly right, reach out. I want to talk to as many of you as I can.

01:19:25 - Chase (Host) Oh, this is great man. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your, your wisdom and your experience and your perspective, it's been really good. Yeah, really good conversation. For more information on everything you just heard, make sure to check this episode, show notes or head to everforwardradio.com