Hint Water Founder Kara Goldin and Her New Book, Undaunted
No one plans to be an entrepreneur. It’s too nondescript. And what, exactly, will you be doing?
One thing is for sure, you’ll be solving a problem, surmounting a challenge, or responding to a need.
This is exactly what host Josh Steimle explores with Published Author Podcast guest Kara Goldin, founder of Hint® water and author of Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters.
TOP TAKEAWAY - WE ALL HAVE DOUBTS
However, before feeling as though she’d earned a right to call herself an entrepreneur, Kara had to wrestle down her own doubts.
In the early days, her venture was so small, she actually doubted that it was a real company and that she could accomplish what she set out to do. In fact, her intense challenge with doubt resonated with many readers, including some famous ones, too.
Says Kara: “People like Jamie Dimon, John Legend, and Adam Grant have read Undaunted. They say ‘Wow, what you've put down on paper is not just about women, not just about being a founder. It’s about the journey and recognizing that everybody has doubts along the way!”
DRIVEN BY A DESIRE TO BE HEALTHY
Back in the early 2000s, Kara had a successful career in tech. But she wanted to live a more healthy lifestyle and decided to swap diet soda for water - even though she’d convinced herself that diet soda contained water and the word “diet” meant healthy.
“I was on this program of drinking water, but it was a chore. I started slicing a fruit and throwing it in water,” recalls Kara. “Having a little bit of taste actually got me to drink more water.”
Cue Kara’s lightning bolt moment. It dawned on her that multi-billion dollar companies sold unhealthy drinks under the guise of health by using words like diet in their product names.
“Why not mess with the industry?” thought Kara. She decided to help people drink more water and become healthy - Hint® water was born. Not long after, the product found a place on the shelves in Whole Foods!
QUEUE DOUBT
Sounds easy, right? It wasn’t. Kara says: “I had so many doubts that it was a company and that I could ultimately do this.”
Still, the problem around health “really kind of ate away at me,” recalls Kara, and so she continued to push forward with her new venture.
She faced monumental challenges. The drinks industry in the U.S. is massively competitive, with big players trying to block small companies from entering the market. This, in turn, stops consumers from accessing healthy foods and drinks and, ultimately, becoming more healthy.
Published by HarperCollins and endorsed by Sheryl Sandberg and Jamie Dimon, Undaunted’s core message is don’t let anyone crush your dreams! It inspires readers to move past fears and defy the doubters.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle
Welcome to the published author podcast where we help entrepreneurs learn how to write a book and leverage it to grow their business and make an impact. I'm your host, Josh Steinle. Today, our guest is Kara Goldin. She's the founder and CEO of Hint Inc., best known for its award winning Hint Water which I'm drinking right now, holding up the bottle for those of you listening. And this is the pineapple flavor, it's like drinking water that's had some slices of pineapple sitting in it, and it's delicious. And in fact, my kids are drinking all of it. So if you've never had it, it's got zero calories, it doesn't have any chemicals, it's just water with a hint of natural fruit flavor. And in addition to being the founder of Hint, Kara is also the author of the book Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters, which, as of this recording, barely came out last week and the book has been endorsed by people you may have heard of like Sheryl Sandberg and Jamie Dimon, some kind of big name people out there are loving this book. Kara is also an active speaker and writer; and since you're listening to this, that probably means you like podcasts, and if you like podcasts and entrepreneurship, Kara has her own podcast called Unstoppable with Kara Goldin, where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs and other disruptors across various industries. Kara lives in the Bay Area and you can find her everywhere on social media at Kara Goldin. Kara, welcome to the show.
Kara Goldin
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Josh Steimle
So I'm excited to talk to you because you're an entrepreneur and you love entrepreneurship, and I love entrepreneurship, and you wrote a book, and I love books, there's so much that we could talk about. But give us some background. Where did you grow up? What was your upbringing like? And how old were you when you said when I grow up I want to start a billion dollar unsweetened bottled water company.
Kara Goldin
Well, thank you. So I grew up in Arizona, I just actually got back from there, I was speaking this weekend as part of my book launch in a small group. And basically, that was super middle class, last five kids, went to school in Arizona, and I look in the rearview mirror now to see so many signs that I was ultimately going to be an entrepreneur, but truth is that I never said that as a kid or even as a young adult, I was really curious and intrigued by so many other entrepreneurs out there that I went to work for them. But unlike other entrepreneurs who maybe say one day I'm going to go do this on my own or I'm going to go run my own thing, that was never me. I really thought about it as, I thought about building this company just because I was frustrated by the choices and was really realizing the impact that it was having on my own life.
Josh Steimle
Likewise, I don't think I knew what the word entrepreneur meant when I was a teenager, I'm not sure I had ever heard it.
Kara Goldin
Right.
Josh Steimle
So what was the inspiration to start this company, and did you have prior business experience, had you started other companies prior to starting Hint Water?
Kara Goldin
Yeah, so it was really out of my own health that I was, that I came up with this idea for Hint, and I was drinking just a ton of diet soda and not really thinking it was bad for me because it was diet. Somewhere along the way, I just equated the word diet with health. Other people equate the word vitamin with health or low fat or there's other tricky words out there that I had decided along the way that I was doing right. And when I finally as a test decided to give up drinking my diet soda and swapped it out for plain water, what I realized is that I knew it was better for me to drink water, and I aspired to be a water drinker, but I had convinced myself in that little voice in your head that my diet soda was made up of water, and it was diet, so I was doing just fine. But when I gave it up, just as a test, and started just drinking plain water, even though it was boring, I lost over 20 pounds in two and a half weeks, my skin cleared up, I had terrible adult acne that had developed over many, many years, but never as a teenager, but later on in life. And then my energy levels were really low. And so finally, I was sort of on this program of drinking water, but really just like it was a chore more than anything. And so that's when I started slicing up fruit and throwing it in water, and not, again, even realizing what I was doing but people would notice like I'd have a half a pomegranate in my water and they would say oh, what kind of fruit do you have today, and what I realized is just having a little bit of taste actually got me to drink more water and got my family to drink more water and got me healthier. And so ultimately, I thought, gosh, there's these multibillion dollar companies that are out there and huge categories and huge industry that is really focused on what I thought was really the wrong thing, which was selling me stuff that was healthy perception versus healthy reality.
And that's when just to kind of, maybe mess with the industry a little bit, I thought, I'm going to go do something that really helps my health and maybe helps a few other people drink water. And even when I ultimately launched the company and got my first bottle on the shelf at Whole Foods, it's funny, I look back on it and friends would say to me, oh that's so cool that you launched a company. I'm like, a company, like, there's three flavors, is it really a company. I mean, it's not really a company. I had so many doubts about that it was a company, that I could ultimately do this, and just a little bit of background on sort of where I came from. So I came from tech. I was running, prior to launching my little beverage company, I was running ecommerce and shopping partnerships for AOL. And so, I was doing that for seven years, had built it into a billion dollar revenue stream for a AOL. And then prior to that I started my career in media, I was in both on the print circulation side and then on, I was at CNN after that where I was on the ad sales side. So I've had a vast amount of experience, and I think for me, it was when I finally saw this problem around health, that really kind of ate away at me, frankly, I thought maybe I'll just go do this for now, I'll eventually get back to tech. But little did I know that it would sort of all kind of tie up into a nice, neat bow where today we've really disrupted the industry, not only in terms of our product, but also how we go to market where 55% of our overall business is direct to consumer, and we've truly built an omnichannel brand, inside of the CPG consumer packaged goods, consumer product space.
Josh Steimle
I love that you're pushing this category. I grew up as a skateboarder, my 10-year-old son is now a skateboarder, and everything in that industry is Monster and Red Bull and all these energy drinks. I mean, forget diet, this is like over the top sugar, and who knows what else in these drinks. And I'm always telling my son, just drink water, just water, like, it's better for you.
Kara Goldin
Yeah.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, he kind of has that taste sensitivity thing where he's like, ugh, the water here doesn't taste good, type of thing.
Kara Goldin
You need to try our Hint Kick actually, which is a, it's a caffeinated version which is essentially what energy drinks are. But the problem is a lot of these energy drinks have so many other things, like you mentioned, including taurine and lots of sweeteners, which are just really not good for you.
Josh Steimle
And food colorings and all that other stuff, yeah, he's begging for more the Hint Water. I told him, you can have two and then we'll see where we're at with the bottles in the fridge, and every five minutes, he's like, can I have another one, can I have another one. So he's hooked on it. So how do you get from, I'm a tech businesswoman, I'm an executive, to, I'm now selling this bottled water, like, what was the process of working out the recipe and how to actually get this bottle, and then how do you actually pitch this to Whole Foods, like, what's the kind of brief story there? I'm sure there's some detail but...
Kara Goldin
Yeah, so I was doing it in my kitchen, and at the time I had, when I left it while I had three young children under the age of four, and again, I had seen what it had done for my health and just by putting a little bit of fruit in my water, and so I started looking at how do I ultimately make this into a bottled version. And so I started boiling down fruit and really getting this – realizing that the skins and the oils from the fruit ultimately have a lot of zest to them. So there were like two to three drops in every bottle back then, was just enough flavor to actually get me to enjoy water and we don't make it in our kitchen anymore, although when we test products or test different flavors, we do. But that's when there were so many things that I really didn't know, and ultimately, when I got it into Whole Foods, we thought we were – I say we because my husband I think really felt sorry for me, because I was kind of going it alone, and I had this big idea, frankly, to really help people get healthy. And I was using money out of our personal bank account, which is a whole other story that I get into in the book that I thought I should at least, I don't know if I'm going to ask his permission, but since I had made some money at AOL, but I definitely am going to share with them so he doesn't think I'm going on a girl's weekend to the Bahamas or something with the $50,000 that I'm taking out of the bank account. But that's when we got it on the, I got it on the shelf at Whole Foods, actually, the day that I was delivering my fourth child, and which is a crazy story I get into in the book as well, but at that point, I really had looked at the beverage industry, had seen what the problem was, but still had no idea how to kind of get over the hump of so many problems, including how do I make a product that is shelf stable without using preservatives, how can I get distribution across the US. Today, we're in 30,000 locations across the US, we manufacture everything in the US, we're in multiple plants. And, as I mentioned earlier, we have a huge direct to consumer platform as well. And so, it was, you know, there were so many doubts that I had along the way. Here I was a super successful, confident tech executive that was really trying to solve this problem, and I also ran into doubters. There's one story that I share in the book, that I was ultimately not convinced that I could really scale this company and sort of had come to this conclusion that it was a lot harder than I had ever kind of made it out to be and really had a realization at this point that there were over 2000 beverages in the space in incredibly competitive category. But in addition, the things that I ran into, like, category captains, and for those of you who aren't familiar with this, it's basically when stores are essentially selling off parts of the aisles and parts of the categories to these large companies, including Coke and Pepsi, that will literally block you as a small company into getting into many of these stores. And so, again, I had never really heard about this, I mean, maybe I'd heard that it was like a competitive industry, but I just didn't really understand, like, that there were these huge blocks that were going on. And when you think about it, there are blocks around ultimately allowing the consumer to get healthy. Right? So you've got over 2000 beverages, maybe 30 of them, ultimately make the shelf, and typically, those are heavily sweetened with some sort of sweetener. So anyway, there's a lot of games that go on in that industry, and that's when I think I just kind of gave up and thought, well, maybe I should just talk to somebody at one of the large soda companies in Atlanta, and that's when he said something to me, the gentleman I spoke to that was really life changing for me, which was not what I expected or wanted to hear, but he said, sweetie, Americans love sweet, this product isn't going anywhere. And that's when I really realized that his mission and my mission were extremely different, and that I was really focused on a mission of trying to help consumers get healthy, as I had seen, in my own experience, and he was on a mission to really encourage people and maybe trick people into drinking something that was kind of pushed and positioned as healthier than maybe it even was. And so, that's when I really, I got off the phone and said, if I don't do this, then no one's going to do it. And it was 15 years ago when I started this company, nobody was talking about mission based companies. People were talking about, and, in fact, I often shared this with entrepreneurs that when we would go out and actually look for investment, I would have investors say, by the way, we love Hint, and it's really great, but don't share your story with people because it makes you sound way too small, like, it's like a mum and pop kind of operation. I mean, today, I have huge companies come to me and ask me, how do you share your story, like, how do you come up with the story, and anyway, it's just, it's fascinating how the world has changed that more and more people are getting the fact that you really do need to share your story, and consumers want to really understand where products come from.
Josh Steimle
You can say, well, my story is just what I live, that's my story.
Kara Goldin
Well, and that's what I do say. And yeah, and I think like the number of people who actually hear my story, and then ultimately kind of convert it into their story is fascinating. And those were the emails that I was getting, frankly, week one, that we were on the shelf at Whole Foods. So we had that 800 number on the bottle and people were calling the number and wanting to know, like, how did we make this without sweeteners, and it actually tastes good. So what I didn't know, when I launched this company was we were not only developing a new product and a new company, but I didn't know that we were also developing a new category. So that is something that over the years, many people have really highlighted the company, me, as saying, like, it's just not done. I mean, people don't develop new companies and new categories, I mean, that's, and actually succeed. I mean, that's incredibly hard, what you've done, and we've been able to do it in a way that, as I mentioned, was not just about how do you ultimately get your products on the shelf, but also how do you disrupt the way that business is done, and selling the product to the consumer and having that relationship directly with the consumer. So there's a lot of aspects of the company that over the years, we've kind of done differently, primarily because we didn't have the experience, and so part of the reason why I really wanted to share this book was so often I would talk to entrepreneurs, I would be out speaking at events, and I would share different stories about not only my doubts and my doubters and my fears and some of the failures that I've had along the way, but also how the fact that we didn't have experience in the industry actually allowed us to think differently, because we didn't have the answers. In fact, many people in the industry wouldn't speak to me, because I hadn't worked at a large soda company or Procter & Gamble or someplace that really gets good training. And I thought it was like I would get bits and pieces along the way from people and then just come up with my own kind of trials where I would just move forward, and I think that that's the key thing that I want people to know that if you, in any industry, whether you're doing a beverage company or food or tech or eyeglasses, or whatever it is, I've met a number of entrepreneurs over the years who have said exactly the same thing that there was no roadmap because we were doing something super different, and so we just kept trying, and we kept moving forward every single day. And I think that there's a lot through my stories that people can learn and ultimately get energy to know that you're not alone. Right? If you can just go and do something and make a little bit of progress every single day and know that maybe you'll take a half step back at points along the way, but the most important thing is to try and make up for that by going a little bit further forward.
Josh Steimle
So starting a business is a ton of work, it's a lot of trial and error, it's a long journey, as you've shown through your story. Writing a book is a lot of work as well, and you've hinted at the motivation for writing the book, you had a message that you want to get out there. Do you remember a specific moment when you said I need to write a book, I need to put this down, I need to get this on paper?
Kara Goldin
So another thing that I didn't know, I didn't plan on writing a book, I was spending a ton of time on airplanes and in, as you can imagine, getting into 30,000 locations throughout the country with Hint, I’d stay in some strange little towns across the US for different buyer meetings and little hotels; and instead of watching the news, I read a ton or I journal; and so this was a journal for four years, and basically I just kept journaling kept journaling. And then what I would find is that I would look back to some of these stories, especially before a speaking event, and then I kept editing, kept tightening things up, and then I would bring up some of these stories when I was out speaking. And about three years ago, I finally said, gosh, there's so many things here, maybe there is a book somewhere in here. And I knew a couple of handfuls of authors out there, and so I started reaching out to them and saying, I don't know, like, what do you think. And people said, are you kidding, like, because I would say that my challenge that I've found over the years is that there's the unicorns that are highlighted out there that are obviously well known, and then there's the failures. Right? And then there's, no one talks about anything in between. Oftentimes, maybe if it is talked about, they've been kicked out of the company or there's, in some way, there's some other story. Right? And what I always found really juicy, and frankly, what I was privy to along the way is that I would talk to people about things like, okay, so I know you're a unicorn now, but tell me about, like, how did you think about distribution, and how did you think about like this. I would come up with these real businessy kind of questions along the way, and so that's really when I thought, gosh, let me try and put this together, and then Harper Leadership jumped on the book and said, let's do this.
Josh Steimle
How did that happen real quick, for our listeners, who are, especially first time authors, how did you get connected with your publisher, did they come to you, did you go to them, did you have a mutual acquaintance?
Kara Goldin
So I ended up getting an agent, and her name is Carol Franco, and she's awesome. And so she had actually been in the publishing industry for many, many years, and kind of semiretired and actually lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico now. So I flew out to Santa Fe, and spent some time with her. And then, basically, I mean, the hardest thing about kind of writing this book, I think, frankly, was actually editing down stories. And so, I had written way too much, which is not common, and again, because I've been just writing for so long. And so then it was really kind of looking at what were the stories that really kind of brought, that had some sort of synergies along the way. I mean, frankly, I have probably enough for another book based on a lot of other stories along the way. So that was our process, and, I think, again, there's different processes, I sort of did – there's probably a few authors that did it my way, but oftentimes you start with, like, okay, I want to write a book on this topic. And I didn't even know what the title would be, I didn't know so many things along the way other than the fact that I had tons of content in there. And then I ultimately, once Harper Leadership was signed on, because I am still the CEO of the company and I have a very, very full day job in a company that is growing enormously, I really needed to have an editor on. And so that's when I had an editor who I spent a great deal of time with along the way, John Butnam, who unfortunately passed away in mid-March. So I know, so it was really very, very sad, because I would say that, for people who have used editors along the way, I think you get very, very close with them, and I also had...
Josh Steimle
[inaudible 00:24:19] that person really understands you on a level that nobody else quite does, not even the people who read the book, because they're getting all the behind the scenes stuff too.
Kara Goldin
Totally. And my husband also, who has, you know, we've been married for 25 years, he has worked on Hint, and is the cofounder of Hint from day one, I mean, he knows my stories, like, inside and out, and he also knows my voice. And so he spent a lot of time, thankfully, on the book too, but I remember getting John as an editor and thinking, I'm not sure that a man can actually get my voice. Right? Like I just – there were, you know, I really questioned it whether or not he could and he definitely did, I mean, he definitely was able to really understand kind of who I was, and really what I had built, but also really pushed me a lot, which I've shared with other authors too, that it wasn't just about making simpler sentences. I mean, he would just, he really – it was almost like a therapy session at times, like, how did you feel about this stuff. And one of the things that I talked about in the book is even when I was a kid, I mean, my dad had founded a brand inside of a large company. The brand is called Healthy Choice, and he was kind of a frustrated entrepreneur. And I remember John talking to me about him, because everybody always came back to me and said, oh, that's why you ultimately founded a company, because, A, you watched your dad found kind of a brand and he was working inside of a large company, and you thought large companies don't really know what they're doing or whatever. And there's a point in the book where I talk about my brother, who, you know, we had five kids in our family, and my brother was 15 years older than me, and just out of boredom, I would go in the garage when he was basically redoing, renovating old Volkswagens, and he would sell them, these Volkswagens, and he would talk to me about different aspects of the Volkswagens, and again, because there was no one else to talk to. But things like that, the impact that that had on everything from, he would talk to me about, okay, I bought it for two grand and I'm going to sell it for three. And so he'd be like, Kara, what is the percentage of my markup on this. He would joke around about it, but that kind of stuff today really helps you to kind of think about, okay, well, I shouldn't do stupid deals along the way, I should also... And how was he going to market it, what color was he going to paint the VW. So again, things like that, that an editor really brings into the picture, like, how did you feel about it, who else was around and you start to think about those things.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, those things really form your framework for how you see the world and the perspective you have. So did HarperCollins connect you with the editor or did you do go out and hire John on your own?
Kara Goldin
He had worked with them, but my agent knew John. So it's, yeah, and typically, I think, most great agents somewhere along the way, do no editors. But I think the fit is just so key, because I'm sure John probably worked with other people or tried to work with other people, where it just wasn't a good fit. Right? And it just so happens that he really understood kind of the entrepreneurial journey, not that he had ever been an entrepreneur, but he really understood it and appreciated it. And I'm not sure that he had actually edited for any other women before, which I thought was really kind of interesting. On the other hand, there aren't very many women who are CEOs, I guess, out there or founder CEOs. So anyway, I think it was a great match, and we were very, very sad to hear that he had died unexpectedly, and not being able to actually see the book before it came out.
Josh Steimle
You mentioned there aren't that many founders CEOs who are women out there. Was that part of your motivation to write the book as well to say, hey, I'm here, and this is what I'm doing, and you can do this too?
Kara Goldin
Yeah, it's definitely great for female entrepreneurs, and definitely great for beverage entrepreneurs, but I think, as you mentioned early on in the interview that people like Jamie Dimon and John Legend and Guy Kawasaki and Adam Grant, all read it, and they just said, wow, like, what you've actually put down on paper is not just about women and not just about being a founder even, it's really about the journey and kind of recognizing that everybody has doubts along the way, everybody has challenges, and the key thing is whether you're male or you're female, is that you just try because you're not going to be able to accomplish anything if you don't ultimately try. And so those stories along the way were really the key things. I mean, I feel like obviously there are few female entrepreneurs out there that are really the founders as well as the CEOs along the way, but it's kind of all that I've ever known. Right? And I think just having the background in business and being able to see how other people have done it, that for me has really laid the groundwork for being able to do what I do every single day. And so, while I am a female founder, I also frequently tell people, yes, I am that, obviously, but I'm also the CEO that's running today the largest privately held nonalcoholic beverage in the country that doesn't have a relationship with Coke and Pepsi. And I think that, as we grow and as we mature as a company, we're able to stand on our own, whether I'm a female or not. So I think that that is really the focus that I've tried to push on people, and I talk a little bit about it in the book, that that is something that I think you're not able to kind of get that credibility, I guess, until maybe later on until you actually kind of do something where people say, whoa, like, this is to be taken pretty seriously.
Josh Steimle
It is interesting, I mean, 50, 60, 70 years ago, we had an era in the United States, where it would have been almost shocking to have a founder female CEO. Now we're in this transition stage where it's still something special, and so it gets called out, right? But really, where we're moving towards is to the point where it doesn't matter. I mean, nobody says, oh, you're a male founder, I mean, nobody says that. Right?
Kara Goldin
Mm-hmm.
Josh Steimle
And really, that's the level that – that's kind of the goal, right, is to say, respect me, because I'm a founder of a great company, not just because I'm a female plus founder of a great company.
Kara Goldin
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think where it gets hard along the way is that it's true that not as many female founded companies are funded or funded beyond kind of the angel investing. And so that's always like a big question that I get when I'm out speaking as well, like, how did you scale this company, and we've talked to lots of different VCs and private equity firms and nobody wants to sort of put the money in, or they'll put the money in but then they want to replace the female founder with typically a male. And that's the reality, and so what I've said, along the way, is, yes, we do need the later stage funding access, for sure, as females, and also, frankly, as diverse groups need that as well. I mean, any diverse group needs that, but I think that the key thing is that if you want to be successful, you also have to figure out how you're going to be able to do that, and you can't get to a point where you're going to, you know, the wall is going to be so high that you just decide, I'm going to give up. And so that is what my story shares too, I mean, we spent many days, banging on doors in Silicon Valley and Sand Hill Road where there were tons of, if we were a traditional tech company, and maybe if it was a male founder, then I would have been funded like that. These people were all drinking Hint in their offices, but they feared different things, because they, or, I should say, they feared things like the large soda companies, because they just didn't understand the category. So it's another thing I touch on in the book too, that, what I've learned is that, yes, they may not be investing initially, because, or my thinking might be because I'm a female, but the reality is that a lot of these companies or a lot of these VCs and private equity firms aren't going to invest because they don't know your category. And oftentimes, they won't admit that they don't want to admit that they're, like, they don't know something, most people don't. Right? That takes actually a giant step for them to actually say that they don't know something. But what I've learned is that people don't invest in things that they don't actually believe they know. And it ends up that that's like an incredibly big statement for people. Right? It seems obvious, but it's not what people think about. They just think, okay, I'm going to go to the top VCs; like, they're going to get a list at from TechCrunch or whatever, and they're going to go and talk to all of those VCs. But if they don't actually invest in your category, if they've never invested in your category, and you are spending cycles, like, trying to convince them to do it, then you're probably wasting your time, if they don't invest in your stage of your company either. I mean, again, this is like super basic stuff. But it’s something, oftentimes, first time entrepreneurs just don't really understand that kind of stuff, and it's stuff that I've learned along the way and learnt to really appreciate. Anyway, I think that that's something that definitely needed to be told as well.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, I found it's kind of similar in the publishing industry, a lot of first time authors, they think, well, I've got this book idea, so now I need to go pitch an agent or pitch a publisher. But just as there are VC funds that invest in certain type of companies, there are publishers that publish certain types of books, and you can't go pitch a children's book to HarperCollins Leadership, just the same way that you would pitch a leadership book to a children's book publisher, they're different animals, they're different beasts. With your book now, how are you going to measure success? Obviously, book sales is one way to measure success. But are there other measurements of success, whether it's individual experiences people have reading it or other measurements that you're going to be looking to, to say, it was worth it?
Kara Goldin
Yeah, I think it's interesting even, again, I'm learning this industry as I go as well. I feel like, a few years ago, maybe you measured success, obviously, on sales, but also on reviews. And I think what is fascinating is there's a lot of people that I don't think, unless you actually ask them to go do it, are going to review something. You probably have a lot of people who listen to your podcast that have never reviewed your podcast. It doesn't mean that they don't like it. Right? Obviously, they keep coming back and they keep listening. And so, what I've seen over the last week is that people who are reading the book are actually reaching out to me on social, and they're commenting about some pretty, how this book has really affected them or they're coming up with – they are grabbing a quote from my book. I had one person who wrote me last night and shared that she now has it sitting by her bedside, she's read it twice, and she's actually earmarked areas as she's building her company and has gone through challenges that she wants to go back to certain things. So that to me really helps me to understand that this book is helping people, and frankly, when I look at what really helped me during those challenging times of building Hint was also the same kind of customer feedback from consumers saying, you've really helped me to drink water, you've helped me to get through type 2 diabetes, you've helped me to drink really mask the metallic taste that I get when I'm going through chemo treatments. I mean, really powerful, very individual kind of stories that I think, I mean, anybody who gets the kind of emails that I get on the Hint brand, and now I'm seeing on the book, why wouldn't you want to continue to get those, right? It's exciting when you hear that something has helped somebody so much. And so, I think that for me is really where I measure the impact. And I think it also has, what I'm seeing, just in the early kind of first week is of really kind of this communication that I'm having with the consumers that I think it's kind of timeless to the message, it's not one of these books that really gets out there, and then it's like, oh, everything is really dated. I mean, the stuff that I'm talking about, I could see actually being very relevant for 20 years from now or even when we're talking about something that is new and beyond direct to consumer. I don't know what that is, maybe it's actually drones delivering product or whatever it is. But I think it's just the concept of when you don't have all the experience and you just go try things that maybe you'll really uncover some new way of doing things that is important.
Josh Steimle
If there's any one piece of advice for overcoming the doubt in yourself and the doubters externally, what's that one core message that you would want readers to take away?
Kara Goldin
I think the key thing is really looking at all of those obstacles that you've overcome, because so frequently, we wake up and maybe we have a list of things that we want to get done, and the mindset then just immediately flips into, gosh, I didn't get as much done today, or, like, okay, maybe I got a bunch of stuff done today but not yesterday. And I think instead, I frequently will go back and look at some of the challenges that I've overcome, that seemed impossible, and try and really, kind of get into that space where I was, when I thought about things like, how do I get a shelf life so that I can stay on the shelf at Whole Foods. I mean, it seemed really scary along the way, and what was the feedback that I was getting from the other side of the table that you're going to get kicked out if that doesn't happen or whatever. But we ended up figuring out how to do that. And so, reminding yourself that you've been here before and you can get through it, and then, I would say, just the second thing, don't be afraid to take your time. And as funny as maybe lots of teachers have said that over the course of many, many years to you, but what I found is that those sort of, that kind of thinking is also really imperative in business as well. But it's very, very rare, that businesses that go fast are the ones that are the most successful. Instead they run into all kinds of problems, like, they run out of money, they do stupid deals along the way. There are so many things that I think are just really, really, really important. So, again, I really think like those are, I know you asked for one, but I really think those are two things. So take your time and really give yourself a pat on the back for what you have accomplished so that you can ultimately move forward.
Josh Steimle
Thank you so much, Kara, for being here with us. Again, Kara’s book is Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters. I got my copy right here because I preordered it, so it came the day it came out, and I'm in the process of reading it right now. And go try some Hint Water because I guarantee you'll love it. Thank you so much Kara for being with us here today.
Kara Goldin
Thank you.
