The LoCo Experience
The LoCo Experience is produced and sponsored by LoCo Think Tank - and sometimes others! Our mission is to uncover as much business education as possible while getting to know the founders and leaders of amazing organizations. You'll feel like you really know our guests after each episode, and if we're doing our job well, you'll learn business principles and tips from them along the journey and be both inspired and entertained. Episodes feature a range of local and regional business and community leaders as guests in a conversational interview format. The more interesting the journey, the better the experience!
The LoCo Experience
EXPERIENCE 168 | Growing a Family and a Business to be Strong Like Good Coffee - Julia and Andy Leach of Toddy, LLC - Global Leader in Cold Brew Coffee Systems
I first learned about Toddy, LLC circa 2013, during the twilight of my banking career. The story I heard was that the owners of a local marketing agency, Clay Pot Creative, had purchased a manufacturing business in Texas, and moved it up to Loveland! The company made cold brew coffee systems (whatever that was), and seemed to have a strong product in a niche market - a banker’s dream client! I failed to connect but tried again to reach them a few years later as I was growing LoCo Think Tank - but little did I know that they were in the midst of a family move to Denver, to stay close to a child fighting for his life at Children’s Hospital.
I’m an easy grace kind of guy though, so when Julia reached out this spring with a “We’ve heard from friends that we should be on your podcast” email, I was quick to book them and eager to share their story. I didn’t know the half of the trials and tribulations they’d journeyed through, and their story is an inspiring one for any entrepreneurial couple who wants to keep family values first AND build a successful business enterprise.
Today, Toddy holds a strong market share in the commercial cold brew systems marketplace, and their business has grown as more and more coffee chains and independents embrace the unique flavor profiles of cold brew. Toddy also has a sound consumer product set, including a roastery and a selection of cold-brew specialty coffees, cold-brew filters, and a tasting room in Loveland - and their home-use equipment is increasingly entering households - and they’re soon to have a system at Walmart!
Through it all, this pair now finds themselves in a great spot, with a strong business, relationship, and family dynamic, and I very much enjoyed - as you will each of our listeners - my conversation with Julia and Andy Leach of Toddy, LLC.
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Music By: A Brother's Fountain
I first learned about Tati LLC circa 2013, during the twilight of my banking career. The story I heard was that the owners of a local marketing agency, Claypot Creative, had purchased a manufacturing business in Texas and moved it up to Loveland. The company made cold brew coffee systems, whatever that was, and seemed to have a strong product in a niche market, a banker's dream client. I failed to connect at that time, but tried again to reach them a few years later as I was growing local think tank. But little did I know that they were in the midst of a family move down to Denver to stay close with a child fighting for his life at Children's Hospital. I'm an easy grace kind of guy though. So when Julia reached out this spring with a, we've heard from friends that we should be on your podcast email, I was quick to book them and eager to share their story. I didn't know that half of the trials and tribulations they traveled through together and their journey is an inspiring one for any entrepreneurial couple. Who wants to keep family values first, and build a successful business enterprise. Today, Toddy holds a strong market share in the commercial cold brew systems marketplace, and their business has grown as more and more coffee chains and independents embrace the unique flavor profiles of cold brew. Toddy also has a sound consumer product set, including a roastery and a selection of cold brew specialty coffees, cold brew filters, and a tasting room in Loveland. And their home use equipment is increasingly entering households. And they're soon to have a system at Walmart. Through it all, this pair now finds themselves in a great spot, with a strong business, relationship, and family dynamic. And I very much enjoyed, as will each of our listeners, my conversation with Julia and Andy Leach of Toddy, LLC. welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. I'm excited today to be joined by Julia and Andy Leach, the president and vice president respectively of Tadi LLC down in Loveland. And so, um, for the uninitiated, what is Tadi? Tadi. We're excited to be here too. Um, thanks so much. So Toddy is a company that we primarily manufacture cold brew coffee equipment. Yeah, so We make coffee brewers. We make coffee filters We support coffee shops around the world as well as home users. So you guys are a major supplier of kind of the Whatever stuff is making the cold brew that's kind of been Taking over a coffee shop, not taking over, but being a big part of coffee shops the last five, ten years. That's been a lot of you? Yeah, that's that's what we do. Do you have major competitors? Well, the culture space is changing and expanding. And so what, um, you know, used to be just us and a couple others has, you know, really expanded, um, you know, a lot of the big, um, soda companies are in the cold brew space. There's, you know, companies making large volume, um, cold brew, you know, big, like Beer, um, keg sites, types of equipment and, um, large scale. There's, um, if you go on Amazon, there's hundreds of cold brew makers for the home where it used to just be toddy. So, um, yes, we have competitors, um, but the OG, yeah, well, you can, you could say that, you could say that. Yeah. Toddy's been around since 1964. Okay. So, um, seeing a lot of. A lot of decades of coffee and definitely a lot of change. Andy, uh, have you been with the company the whole time? Have you guys been a two headed monster running this thing? Yeah, um, we've been Two headed monster? Working together for a long time. Including the marketing company before? Okay, so I heard a little bit of that story from Julia, and we'll flash back to that on the time capsule. Um, talk to me about who your customers are. Sure. So you have a lot of, uh, chain coffee shops, a lot of independent coffee shops, um, as well as, uh, home user, yeah. And those are, like, you almost suggested, Julia, that the, like, big brewery type cold brew systems, that's in a different place. Ball field like that's super high volume for like manufacturing or what? Right, right. So our equipment is really focused on Fresh cold brew. So and by fresh think of it as food service whereas when Companies are brewing, um, you know, for bottles and cans. It gets more into the food manufacturing segments. And, you know, we do support some clients in that space, but it's, uh, oftentimes they need much larger equipment in order to be successful. So, you know, we, um, we support, we provide some consulting and recommendations, but our sweet spot is, you know, definitely the home user, but Um, our, our equipment brews up to, um, 20 gallons at a time. Okay. Our, our largest brewer. I'm a pretty big fan of the home or the cold brew. And I've noticed a few times where if you're late in the afternoon, they're like, sorry, we're sold out of cold brew for the day because it's, it takes a fair bit of time. Is that the difference there? Yeah. So, um, cold brew is essentially, um, a brewing method, um, not a serving method. So, um, Essentially, cold brew, you replace heat with time. So instead of running steaming hot water over your coffee grounds or tea leaves, um, like you do with most traditional coffee brewing, um, methods, with cold brew, you steep or you drip cool water or ambient temperature water, um, for an extended period of time. Okay. So. Um, you know, there's, there's no, there's not a lot of rules with it, um, but essentially if you're using heat in order to brew your coffee, it's not cold brew. Right. Um, and so by, by replacing the heat with heat. time. Um, yes, it takes longer to brew, but you're extracting a different chemical composition in the cup. And so it really changes the flavors. Um, it also changes the stability. Um, so what makes a fresh hot cup of coffee taste so good when it's fresh is also what makes it, um, get stale and Um, and degrade over time. It's kind of like those volatile compounds, almost like what comes off of gasoline. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, a freshly pulled shot of espresso, for example, is a really unique experience. It has a, you know, texture, a body to it, um, uh, aromas. Um, it, and it's, when it's fresh, it's, it's amazing. Um, but if you put that in your refrigerator and drink it the next day, it's going to be really sour. It's going to be bitter. Um, it kind of punches you in the face and you know, not that nobody likes that, but it's not a fresh cup of coffee. Right. Uh, whereas with cold brew, um, if, you know, if you brew it and then put it in the refrigerator the next day, it's going to taste. It's a more stable compound. Right. So it's, the, the stability of it, um, is one of the major reasons why it's become so popular and helped the coffee industry, um, you know, launch a whole new segment that, that gives everyone from, um, roasters and coffee shops, um, and you know, all, all sorts of coffee professionals, another revenue stream that they just couldn't get, um, by, you know, trying to, to brew. Um, hot coffee and keep it stable. Well, not just, you mentioned tea too. So is your equipment used for cold brew tea? I make sun tea a lot of times and I suppose that's a, As long as it's not too hot outside, that's a cold brewing method. It's similar. If you The sunlight probably is more of an adjutant though. Right, right. So the, you know, sun tea, often you'll heat up your brewing vessel and so you, you know, you do get a little bit of that heat extraction, um, depending on how sunny it is. Right, right. But yeah, it's, it's very similar. Cold brew tea, um, Um, is, you know, nice and smooth in, in texture, you know, beautiful colors, great, um, aromas and flavors. Yeah. And yeah, it, it tastes very similar to its hot brewed counterpart, but, uh, but different. Fair, fair. Um, let's talk about the, the operation and maybe I'll shift back to Andy, uh, you mentioned if you were a C suite, you would be kind of the chief data technology kind of back of the house guy. Right. Yeah, I do. Uh, Build a lot of our systems to manage fulfillment and keep track of inventory and lock codes and build cards and That sort of stuff. Okay, and Julie, you're the president and do you guys have other leadership team members and marketing departments and finance and things like that? Yeah, absolutely um Andy, you know, made a rule that he never wants to be anyone's boss. Um, so yeah, he's, he's in the leadership, um, definitely in a leadership role. Um, but you know, more on the strategic side and, uh, implementation side. Um, and you know, in terms of the day to day operations, um, I'm there, we have our chief of staff, Rachel, um, who's been working with us for the Um, but since 2012, um, and we have an amazing director of HR, um, Heather, we have, um, our, um, director of coffee is named Matt, our director of, um, it's like the product development. Well, um, we also roast coffee and we do a lot of coffee education and we have a tasting room in, in love. I've heard your tasting room is great. I mentioned a couple people that you guys were coming on and they're like, have you been to their tasting room yet? It's kind of a hidden gem, um, in industrial land down in, in Loveland. But yeah, um, uh, we have another Matt who, um, runs our production. Um, and Yeah. So that's our, our main company leadership team in terms of the day to day. Um, but yeah, we've got, um, it, we kind of oscillate between 50 and 60 team members, you know, depending on, um, you know, the projects that we have going on and, you know, there's a little bit of seasonality to it, um, but yeah. And your, your machines are mostly like plastics, I assume. Are they. Mostly like injected by other people and then you put them together where you're at and then warehouse them and then ship them places or how's, how's that? Real close. Journey. Real close. Yeah, we have a combination of manufacturing at Tati, and assembly. So some of our products are You know, true manufacturing. So we, um, you know, we roast coffee at toddy. We, um, make coffee filters at toddy. Um, and we do plastic injunction molding, um, for more and more of our products and, um, a variety of our products. We get, um, Um, components or raw materials from, um, you know, various places and, um, assemble at, at toddy to, to make a finished product. Um, and we have, um, uh, shipping department that, um, is, is, uh, small but mighty, what, what they're able to accomplish in any given day is, you know, It's, it's impressive as what I've, as I've been told, um, that, uh, yeah, what they're able to get out, um, is not. Yeah. Um, we've had people join our team and say, wow, that there's only two people back there. Like where I came from, we had six people to do it. I'm like, shh, don't tell them that. Yeah. We have an incredibly hardworking team and, you know, we're super, super fortunate. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess that's, uh, like aside from the leadership team, you mentioned most of those jobs are kind of in, uh, Either assembly, manufacture, or the shipping component. Well, we Oh, probably also sales. Yeah. You gotta have people running around trying to sell makers. About half of our team is production. So the coffee team, or the, what we call the production team. So they, um, they float between all of the other production, um, lines. So, um, you know, assembling, uh, cold brew systems, making filters, running injection molding. Um, so there's always to do. Um, and, and then the rest of the team is fulfillment, marketing, sales office. Um, we have some incredible operations people. Um, it's, there's, there's a lot that happens every single day. We've got a lot of different things, right? We've got service of sorts. We've got a pretty big quality team. Um, we've got, we do a lot of trade shows and events Um, we're doing more and more education online and, um, in person. So yeah, we're, we, we've always got stuff going on. And also we've got the innovation team. Yeah. We call it the innovation team. Okay. Yeah. R& D I guess. Engineers and yeah, R& D. Okay. Um, I think I've made a realization that perhaps the, the coffee roasting and selling component is a, is a good thing. bigger part than I would have realized is that like some of those places where I would buy a cold brew coffee is that they not only use your machine, but they use one of your cold brew blends kind of thing. Um, yeah, that's an interesting story. So we, So Tati's been selling coffee, um, for, for quite a while and it used to be, um, you know, before we were involved that, um, you know, you would buy a coffee maker as a gift for someone and it would be nice to have a bag of coffee to go along with it. And with cold brew, we Um, you know, most of our equipment, especially our early, um, home equipment, you would brew to, you know, 12 to 16 ounces of coffee at a time. So a whole bag of coffee and, um, not a lot of people have the ability to grind that much coffee at a, at a time, especially, uh, you want that fresh bean, right, right. So, you know, Toddy will come back when we're ready. And so, um, these customers would have that fresh coffee that would be working, um, for them. And then would they just like reorder every time they wanted to make another batch? Uh, and it would always be fresh ground. That was the original coffee sales. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. And then, um, but now you roast and you've got a tasting room, um, and so was that a response to the marketplace or, or how did you make that decision? Was that your decision? Yeah, so we, we started roasting, um, we were outsourcing and, um, Um, our partner was in Houston and, um, when we moved the company to Colorado, um, which I'm sure we'll get more into, we, um, the partner was great, but we were spending a lot of money on, on shipping and, um, coffee market was fluctuating and we did some analysis and really it was our first expansion of, You know, we did the math and said, well, Hey, we may be able to actually roast ourselves and, um, and pay for this expansion. Um, even, you know, even with existing sales. And so, um, in 2011, we started roasting. Um, and is that a big part of your business? No, it's a growing part of our business. Um, uh, for, you know, for years we were very hesitant to talk about, you know, um, coffee roasting. Right. Right, exactly. And, um, and we got to the point where we realized no one was threatened by us. And in fact, they appreciated the fact that we knew their language. Right. Um, you know, we knew their, their struggles, um, as a roaster, but we could also, um, help teach them, help coach them. Um, you know, one of our, uh, team members is a certified roaster instructor. So, you know, we can teach people how to roast, um, not just for cold brew, but how to roast well. And, um, that helped us really develop, not just to be cold brew, um, Um, experts, but coffee experts and use our understanding of specialty coffee to help people grow their business in a variety of ways. And for our consumer customers, um, we want people to have a great coffee experience. And so it was actually in 2012 we started a separate brand called Conundrum, um, that was. Well, I've seen that before. Yeah! That, that was developed so that we could sell coffee, um, not just for cold brew, but for, um, you know, for home consumers and whatever else. And, you know, coffee Is that, is the conundrum, I have to interject here, is the conundrum, like, well, we make this delicious coffee, but we sell equipment to people who Coffee roasters and so we've got this conundrum. Yeah. Well, is it kind of like similar? There's you know, there's a couple of rabbit holes to go down but Coffee roasters are artists, you know, the best coffee roasters are really love getting their hands on amazing coffee. And yeah, exactly. And the, especially in the early days, the coffees that we were selling were very, um, I don't want to say boring, but you know, we had a subscription program and it was, you know, people want what they want and they get it every month. And, um, our roaster really wanted to get creative. And so Conundrum allowed us to. to have a brand that, um, we could focus on the local community, right? And we could experiment with, with coffee and brew it however we wanted and, um, you know, teach people about coffee, um, separate from, from cold brew. So, so that, that brand is, and actually our tasting room is called the Conundrum Coffee Tasting Room by Tati. And we have Conundrum front and center because. It's not just a cold brew tasting room. It's about, um, amazing coffee. So that's your kind of consumer brand there. Yeah. And, and so many of our customers are around the world and we, and especially at the time when we started Conundrum, um, We had local customers, but they were distributors. And so we didn't really have an opportunity to interact with our local community. And so Conundrum allowed us to, you know, get our product into Whole Foods and do farmer's markets. And we set up a coffee truck and just, you know, try to be engaged on a local level, in a way that was a lot harder to do with Tati. Yeah, yeah, I guess. To a way I, I didn't, like I recognize Conundrum in some ways more than I recognize Toddy. Uh, just cause it's the local brand. I wanted to ask about that a little bit, and, and maybe I'll bounce it back over to Andy. But, um, so you mentioned distributors, is that your main customers for the equipment? You don't sell direct to, you sell some products direct to the consumer, like the home products, right? Because that's like ordered on, on our website or Amazon or something like that. And then the big stuff is mostly like regional distributors that would actually be your buyer and then go help with the install and stuff? Or do you go direct to your customers? It's an interesting mix, and most of our equipment is non electric, so very easy for people to get set up. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to get a catch up. We have, yeah, an interesting mix, and this is, you know, when we took over the business it was the same way. Um, you know, a lot of direct sales to mom and pop coffee shops, chains, et cetera, but also to distributors who have their own customer base. And so, um, for some reason that, that always worked. Um, and yeah. It, it, it still does. So, you know, we have someone unusual to have that, right, right. Um, you know, we have a variety of international distributors, for example, who are focused on their part of the world. Uh, it's very hard for us to do direct sales, especially commercially, um, you know, B2B around the world. So we've got some great partners that, that help us with that. Um, and even. Um, you know, online, you know, food service distribution, coffee shop, um, specific distributors and, uh, and then, and then we also sell, um, to Amazon and to Walmart and, uh, a variety of kitchen stores, um, directly as well. Oh, sure. The cupboard would Exactly. The, the cupboard, um, yeah, well they had toddy before we did. And so when we moved to, when we moved toddy to Fort Collins, um, we were so excited to go into the cupboard and say, Hey, guess what? We own this now. And so that was, I've been a fan of the cupboard since I moved to Fort Collins in 1999. So it was, that was like the, the, a big. It's a moment for me to be able to go to the cover and say, Hey, guess what? It's us. Especially in those early days. It's always a thrill to see our products on the shelf, especially in our own community. Right. I was, uh, my dad's 70th birthday was this past weekend, uh, two weekends ago and I went home to North Dakota for that and I brought him a couple of these, uh, branded glasses and like I'm from very rural North Dakota, graduated a class of five, you know, very small community. It didn't change much. And I thought it was. It's so cool when we get a knife set or something with the Banks logo on it or whatever when I was a little kid and now I've got a company with branded gear. How cool is that? You guys get to keep one of these. It's very cool. So I want to hear about what's next. What I think we're going to do is go back to, um, the toddy journey. And then we'll jump in the full time machine. But before we do that, I want to hear like, what's your big strategic initiatives? Is there new products under development that you can share about now or anything like that? Sure. Um, do you want me to take the first test? Um, so we'll talk a lot about this when we go in the time machine. Um, but for years we were really. Drinking from the fire hose in terms of being overwhelmed with demand and trying to keep up and so and that was mainly in Commercial production so for coffee shops. Okay, and so We ended up losing traction in the consumer space you know something had to give and We focused on the the commercial business. So Um, basically over the past year, you know, almost exactly a year ago, we, we launched a new brewer in Walmart and, um, you know, really started expanding back into the consumer space. So we never left it entirely, but there are less good competitors who kind of gotten into that space. Right. Right. Over that period of time, you know, the Bodums and the. The other KitchenAid. Small manufacturer. Yeah, exactly. They introduced their own. Kitchen Ninja probably brought their own, whatever. it was a big trend, right? Right. Right. So. But they didn't really know what they were doing. Large behemoth companies, you know, Chinese knockoffs, all, all sorts. And so that's a big focus for us is, you know, really getting back into the consumer space. And we've got the track record of helping these coffee shops. Put cold brew on the map, so we know how to develop a cold brew program, um, for coffee shops and we can do it just as well for, for home consumers. And so our, uh, you know, our initiative is cafe quality, cold brew at home and helping people make better coffee. the same type of cold brew that they, that they love at the coffee shops in the, in the comfort of their own home. And so, you know, for years we didn't want to go into Walmart because we were working with Williams Sonoma and it's like, well, you know, we don't want to, Um, downgrade our brand, um, but we've been able to, um, you know, reenter the retail space by, you know, being where our consumers are and, uh, you know, we have products for the higher end kitchen shop, um, like the cupboard and, um, sort of the top was just about to launch our product. Yeah. You can have the best cheap home brew. Cold brew and the best expensive one. Yeah, eventually, right? Yeah, so we You know rumor has it that Walmart is going to be putting our coffee on their shelf here in September so it's not official news, but They they told us get ready So we're getting ready So that will be big for us just to tell you Yeah, and, and again, because there's so many coffee brewers and even, you know, more and more cold brew systems available at retail, but not a lot of solutions for the coffee side of it. And so people have to figure out, okay, if I'm going to buy this coffee, how am I going to grind it? And what's the best coffee to use for cold brew? And and so. It, it gets people stuck and we want people to have an amazing experience with, with our equipment and, um, pairing our coffee with it hopefully will help other roasters. Exactly. So, um, you know, coffee is an expansion area for us and there's not very many players in the, in the cold brew, um, fresh roasted coffee space. Is there, like, what would I look for if I was, say I just, my neighbor gifted me their old toddy system. Well, not that I wouldn't go buy one, but just for a fun example, and I, I want to go to the grocery store or the local roastery. What am I looking for in, like, what's best for cold brew? Yeah, well, thankfully you're in Fort Collins and there's some amazing roasters here. Right, yeah. Um, so, basically Well, I know what kind of coffee you like, uh, you like very weak coffee, um, but I like all kinds of coffee. But you can make, uh, well, I mean, I can talk the whole session about how to make cold brew. Um, but I think if there's a roaster that you like, um, tell him I'm, I'm going to brew in my toddy system and I need, uh, Um, coarsely ground coffee. I need 12 ounces of it and describe what, um, types of flavors you like and they'll help you select the coffee and grind it for you. So if you, if you have access to a local roaster that you love, um, by all means, um, that's what we recommend, you know, fresh local coffee is awesome, but the course grind, um, makes it easy to have great results every time. It's not required. But with the finer grind, it's, it's harder to get a good extraction. So a coarse grind, um, similar to French press is, is what we say. So a lot of, you know, if you go to the grocery store, for example, there's, there's a lot of, um, great roasters that are now on the grocery store shelves. Um, you know, usually the pre ground coffee is going to be for drip. And again, that's, um, uh, You're going to find yourself with some sludge on the bottom of your French press. It's not necessarily ideal for French press or for cold brew, but the stores that have the grinders, you just turn the dial to French press, put your coffee in, um, and then take it home and brew it. Okay. Um, so the coffee that we're selling, um, you know, through our partners like Walmart, um, will be freshly roasted, um, specialty coffee that's pre ground for cold brew. And we've got, um, this cool technology that helps us, um, seal it and, uh, nitro flush it so that you get that fresh roasted and freshly ground, uh, coffee. Quality, even though it was pre ground. So, you know, a lot of high end coffees aren't sold as pre ground because it's kind of considered to be a compromise. The shelf life goes way faster. And so we're working to elevate a, you know, cold brew specific product for, um, for our equipment but also is compatible for any other cold brewer or French press. Andy, you were going to tell me about some things that are up next as well. Well, um, yeah, just like the coffee roasting, um, I know I can, I can tell I'm going to have to try to draw you out a little bit and, uh, uh, bring you into the conversation. Sure. What, what's your passion around this? Like, uh, are you a coffee lover to your core as well? Yeah. I'm, I drink a A fair amount, especially what we roast, uh, yeah, um, I'm more of a hot coffee guy than a cold brew guy, but, uh, but it depends on, on my mood. It's funny. He's. Yeah. Often, he's like, Oh, I already had coffee today. I don't, I don't need cold brew. Um, but you know, when I make it, he's like, Oh, let me have some. He's like, wow, this is really good. Like you, you, you think, you think, but, um, yeah, I mean, we, we love coffee. And so. So, you know, the coffee that we roast and we have access to from friends around the world. Um, you know, Andy usually makes a pour over in the morning, um, as part of his ritual and we drink a lot of cold brew at work. Um, and yeah, it's, it's great. So is, is, uh, when you're like roasting coffee is Big part of it, just the quality of the bean coming in, like not just where it's from, you know, the Costa Rica, Ethiopia, whatever, but also just how good a job did that coffee farmer do on getting nice plump beans and whatever else? Yeah, absolutely. So, how do the big brands get that consistent? Like it seems like it would be really hard. There's probably different qualities coming out from different regions based on the weather all the time. A lot of the big brands own their own farms, and so they're vertically integrated all the way around. Oh, really? They don't even, um, so those local coffee producers, uh, you know, what's the, what's the guy from the, uh, Old Folgers. Juan Valdez. Juan Valdez, yes. You know, Juan Valdez had a, you know, a few, a few hundred trees or whatever and picked the beans himself and sent them up to you in America here. Those don't have as much marketplace. Not for the, the big, you know, the big roasters own their own farms or have relationships. a big deal for local coffee shops to have relationships with these specific growers. Or, or they have relationships with a farm and they buy the entire lot from that farm. Right. Um. And so, yeah, we work, and not quite that volume, but we work through, uh, brokers and intermediaries that have relations with, with the farmers. And then, you know, you can ask for what you want and get samples and sample roast and determine. We have a few direct relationships. Um, do you guys just have kind of a, uh, like a couple of basic things and you bring out new flavors and new roasts regularly as well? Is it kind of an experiment lab or like if, if Walmart starts carrying, is there going to be one flavor of toddy cold brew or is there going to be a bunch of different, well, we'll have to see what, what they, what they end up ordering. Um, but yeah, we've got. A handful of coffees that we've had the whole time we've had, um, you know, or a variation of a, of a blend and have, uh, Um, you know, a handful of things from time to time that we'll get a micro lot of, which is, you know, a very small amount of something special. And oftentimes we won't package that. We'll just share that in the tasting room. So it'll be something that we'll, we'll have, uh, available for the espresso machine or maybe we'll cold brew it. Um, a lot of times we'll take, uh, micro lots to events, um, when we're doing a tasting trade show around the world. Oftentimes we'll sample coffee. So, and we, you know, we get coffee, um, from our amazing partners around the world and Usually, we'll consume it ourselves, you know, share it in the tasting room, but, um, yeah, we've got a great friend in Australia who's a roaster and he'll send us coffee and his stuff is gone immediately, like often I don't even get to try it because it's just so good. Everybody knows that his stuff is so good. By the way, I don't know if I, I didn't really show you guys your swag kit, but a travel bag is one of your, uh, Branded items there. But, uh, thanks for being my guest. And a hot sauce, too. Are you a spice guy? Yeah, definitely. Very good. Uh, I'll let you guys fight over who gets the travel bag and who gets the hot sauce. But, you'll probably share both. We share most things. I would, I would say that's the way we do it, too. Um, well, let's, uh, I think let's just jump in the time machine now. Let's do it. It'll be more fun to hear the journey than it is to, um, Hear more about coffee, although I really could learn about just how to brew good coffee for an hour or two, but well, we can do another segment on that might be better on a coffee focused podcast or something. Well, you never know. Maybe. Um, so you guys are, um, well, let's, let's just jump in. Andy, you're in first grade. Where are you? I grew up in Littleton. Okay. Um, yeah. My parents still live in the house I grew up in. No way. That's cool. Um, and what was the, what was the scene? Uh, I'm uh, the oldest of two. Okay. My little sister's almost seven years younger than me. Okay. Um. What were your folks doing? What was your dad in? Uh, my dad was a career man at Lockheed Martin. Okay. He was an electrical engineer. And my mom taught junior high math. Okay. Okay. So yeah, it was kind of just a standard. So, uh, Apple didn't fall too far from the tree. You got engineers and math teachers creating this data tech kind of analytical guy. Yeah, yeah, actually we, uh, we met when we were in third grade. Oh, really? Yeah, so not long after that. He doesn't remember me, but I remembered him. He was a man in uniform. Who's a Cub Scout. Oh. That's always attractive to the third grade. So um, so were you also in Littleton in first grade then, Julie? Um, I was actually in Denver in first grade and my family moved to Littleton when I was in second grade. Okay. So, uh, yeah. Littleton was probably pretty little at that time still, right? Like it was actually away from Denver? Yep. Yeah. Yep. So, it wasn't a long distance phone call at that time, but just, just barely. I think Castle Rock was a long distance phone call at that time. Right, right. Um, yeah. So, we moved to the adjacent neighborhood, um, when I was in second grade. And, yeah. It was like, yeah. Um, the school was, or Jefferson County schools at the time were, um, overcrowded and so they were on tracks. And so there was tracks A, B, and C. And so track B, the kids had to go to school in the summer. Um. Oh, interesting. And so, yeah. But they ended that after our second grade year. So in third grade, the classes combined, and then in fourth grade they divided the school. So third grade we had math class together, and then Andy moved to another school. Um, but But I remembered him. Right. Well, my, my wife told her mom after like our first date, that's the man I'm going to marry, you know? So sometimes they just kind of recognize things. So, um, what was your family's situation? Are you from an entrepreneurial family? Did you? Yeah, well, uh, I'm the youngest of five. Okay. Um, and for most of my upbringing, it was with a single dad. Okay. Um, so we had a, yeah, very, very, very different upbringing than, than Andy's. How much older is your oldest sibling than you? Uh, my oldest brother is eight and a half years older. Okay. Um, so my dad Um, had a couple of professions, um, but by the time I came around, he was in sales. So he was in sales of one sort of the other my whole life and until he retired. Um, and so I, I learned a hustle from him, right? You, um, gosh, I remember one of the most annoying lessons that he taught us, um, was that you give business to those who give you business. And it was annoying because, you know, we wanted to go to a different restaurant or we wanted to, you know, buy something else. And he's like, no, no, these, these are my clients. And I, you know, I remembered, um, you know, when we had our marketing agency remember that lesson and how valuable it was. Yeah. Um, you know, these are the people that are helping me feed my family. Of course I'm gonna help them feed that their family. Yeah. So, I, I learned so much from, from my dad, um, in terms of being, being scrappy and hustling, being, well, you must have being an entrepreneur, successful at it if you lived in the same neighborhood as the Lockheed Martin guy with a working spouse and only two kids, Well. Yeah, it was on again, off again. Um, we lived in a big house for some years. We lived in an apartment for some years. Um, and yeah, he, by the time he retired, he was, um, quite successful actually in, in Aflac. Um, and, uh, yeah, loved, loved finishing his career with. helping people that way and selling them, selling employers products that help them take care of their employees. Um, so yeah, we, we still have Aflac for all of our employees, um, that my dad sold us the original plan back in, um, 2000. Seven, I think. Something like that. Andy, uh, describe yourself as a, uh, third grader that was aloof about, uh, girls at that time. Uh, I played a lot of sports. Okay. None of them very well. You're a pretty tall guy. Were you big right away? Uh, I was slight. Okay. Uh, fast, but small. Right, right. Um, yeah, the only sport that I really turned out being any good at was playing tennis and, uh, riding bikes. Um, but yeah, a lot of sports. Uh, Cub scouts. Cub scouts, Cub scouts. I was fairly nerdy, uh, math and science, even reading. Yeah. Just, yeah. And I Are you guys, can you circle me a little bit? It feels like you guys might be almost the same age as me. Very, yeah. Very similar. Yeah. We, um, graduated high school in 96. Okay. So you're a little younger. Um, so you're cruising through high school, getting good grades, focused still probably on books and a little bit of sports. Did you guys get reacquainted again? Yeah, we, we walked to school together when we came back from middle school. We both went to the same middle school. So we walked to school together in a circle of friends. Um, we weren't necessarily friends with each other, but we're, they're part of the group. Um, And then, yeah, we really didn't get close again until the end of high school, uh, when we were both in, you know, a lot of the same classes. And we were both in, uh, publications. Um, I was the editor, co editor of the yearbook. And she was the editor of the newspaper. And so we spent a lot of time, you know, after hours in the publications room. And that's where, where the spark, yeah, really. Where the romance actually started kindling. Julia, what was, uh What was the, the, the draw for Andy for you? Well, truth be told, I wasn't interested at all whatsoever. Um, and I knew that Andy was interested in me. Um, but. Um, yeah, he, like he said, he was kind of nerdy and it just, you know, he was a great friend. Um, and then the, this was an interesting experience. So one of our mutual friends said, Hey, well, if you're not, you know, if you're not going to go after Julie, then I will. And he said, okay. And something about that just, I, I, I don't know. I liked the, I wanted him to be chasing me. Like I wanted to have him kind of in my back pocket just in case. And when that happened, I was like, wait, no, that, no, that's not how this works. And so then he played hard to get. Um, and so we finally, we had an AP English trip, um, to England and our, our senior year. Yeah. And it was England and Scotland and again, we had this great big group of friends. When you're traveling with a bunch of people and everyone wants to do different things, um, you know, it's kind of hard to figure out, well, who do I hang out with? And you know, maybe this was by design, but Andy always wanted to do the same things I wanted to do. And so we ended up, um, you know, forging this, yeah, buddying up. And it was like, like the. And then when the light switch turned, I'm like, oh, well, he kind of is cute. And maybe, maybe that boyfriend I have at home isn't, isn't really the right guy for me. And, um. And this is the guy that you had given permission to? No, it was a different guy. Okay. Different guy altogether. All right. Um, but. Well, that's good. But yeah, so we kind of had like, you know, a little spark. Yeah. A little. Um, but we didn't actually start dating until after we graduated high school, about a week later. Oh, is that right? No Hanky Panky on the England Scotland trip? He may have held my hand, um, in the bus, um, a few times, but, I would imagine if he's listening now he might be annoyed, but, no, I don't think he even remembers me, but. But I had already decided I was going to, um, Vermont for college. And Andy, um, had decided to go to CSU. And so, you know, I knew nothing would ever come of it. Um, but Hey, you know, sure. Let's, let's have a summer fling. I've heard of people that do that and maybe that would be fun. And so, um, yeah, we, we went on a lot of hikes and, um, coffee shops and stuff like that. What did, uh, what did your parents think of? each of your, the other, or had your dad gotten together, uh, and married or anything? What did he, what do you think of Julia and vice versa? Yeah. So my, my dad, sorry, I switched that. Yeah. Um, yeah, my dad thought Andy was great. Cool. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I always think that's an interesting dynamic when you're in that, uh, high school years, cause dads are always very protective. And, uh, I think I was pretty non threatening. I was a pretty good kid. Good kids. Awesome. Um, so you go off to Vermont then? Yeah. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. So I remember Andy was, um, hanging out while I was packing in order to move to school and I said, well, you know, it's, it's been great and had a lot of fun. She's trying to break up with me. I'm going to date other boys when I get to Vermont. And I'm like, yeah, it's been a fun summer. Like, I hope you like CSU, you know, maybe, maybe I'll see you on a break. And Andy was not okay with that. Not having it. And, and, you know, this was before FaceTime, it was before cell phones, it was before instant messengers. Yeah. Yeah. And. And I'm like, no, but I'm moving 2, 000 miles away and I'm going to be there for four years and you're moving to CSU and this is never going to work. Um, and somehow he convinced me to just give it a try. I think that's when my dad thought maybe something was wrong with me, but I don't think I did. I told him all of the details because I didn't think it was gonna work, um, and yeah, I remember I had my dad take me to the airport. You just didn't want to break his little heart at that time or whatever. It was just very confused, like there's no, there's no logical reason why we shouldn't break up right now. Um. Well, sometimes you just have a person and you just should. Yeah. And we. We. We. You know, we had, you know, we were pen pals for a while and then we got email and that changed everything. And we had, um, phone cards that we would, you know, take turns paying for the phone bill. So we call each other and they had this thing called telnet, which is kind of like the precursor to Um, instant message, um, but you could, we would set up a date. Unix terminal. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And you could, you know, you could type and it would show up. Almost like an email, but you could chat back and forth. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that basically saved our relationship because then we could have like real time conversations. Um, yeah. It was like Friday night. That's how I spent my Friday night. You guys went four years that way. So yeah, after, so by Christmas break, our first year, um, I was just about to turn 19. Andy was 19, we were 19 years old and I came back and. I was like, Oh my goodness, this is the one. Like, what just happened here? But it was, it was undeniable. It was just like, we knew, we knew. Um, and so I looked into transferring to CSU, um, that, you know, after my first year, but, You know, I was at a liberal arts school and CSU just didn't recognize the, um, the credits. Right. And I, you know, I couldn't start all over again. Um, and so I ended up accelerating. So I ended up graduating after three years. Okay. And then I, I moved to Fort Collins in, in 99 when I, when I graduated. Okay. You did come back for summers and we managed to Visit each other, spring breaks, save up, couple times a year, super long weekends here and there and stuff. That's cool. Um, and what were you studying, Andy? I started out in civil engineering, and I quickly realized that I was too messy, and I just preferred the pure mathematics. Right. And so, yeah, I got out. There's a lot of difference between engineering and especially civil. Right. Yeah, it was, uh, the real world problems were not my favorite, but, uh, just the pure mathematics were really fun. Yeah. I ended up getting a. Double major in Applied Mathematics and Statistics. Interesting. Um, how's that, uh, translate to your, like, are you the main push a pencil to it guy as far as making purchases and different product things? I'm not really an accounting guy. Right. Um, but more of a systems organization. I, you know, taught myself. How to program, you know, websites and, and, you know, uh, website apps and things like that. So the math is useful for the logic, but not necessarily for the application. Yeah, he's a data guy. Yeah, data, just kind of problem, system solving, problem solving sort of stuff. I never thought about it that way, but you're kind of right. Like, data is kind of the system's problem solving tool. And coming out of college with a, you know, Undergraduate in mathematics, you really don't know really sophisticated mathematics. You've just learned how to think about it. And yeah, it's one of the reasons I like, well, there's no application really. Well, statistics is great. Cause yeah, that's, that's what really attracted me to statistics was, uh, how applied even, you know, your, the subjects you study in your very first statistics class or, you know, real world applied problems that, you know, some study that happened two years ago, and that was. Really caught my enthusiasm. Yeah, yeah, fair. Yeah, so after undergrad, the only jobs he could get Um, we're in defense contracting and not in Fort Collins. And so, so we ended up getting married the summer after, um, Andy graduated college. Um, and then you have a year, you were free a year before, cause you accelerated. Yeah. Yeah. So I lived in Fort Collins. I got a job. Um, but he ended up going on for his master's in statistics, um, at, at CSU. So, so we, um, stayed firmly planted in Fort Collins for a long time. It was just a good way to stay in Fort Collins. I know, uh, I know one joke about statistics. Do you know which one it is? No. You don't? It's Abe Lincoln. There's lies, there's damn lies, and there's statistics. Sorry, probably not an appropriate joke in the context here. It was perfect. Um, so, you guys finish up your school, you get married, um, and where is this? This is like 2000? Uh huh. Yeah. So probably soon is when Your marketing agency starts to come to be is that right or what? Where are we now? Yeah. Well, so I moved to Fort Collins in 99 and I my first job in Fort Collins was for this company called GI tech which isn't around anymore and I you know was 21 years old and I just thought I knew everything and Um, and so it was this company that did all sorts of, it was an interesting mix of things. So it was, um, they did marketing, they did computer repair, they did, um, large format printing like for blueprints and things like that. Such a strange name for a company that does all those things. Yeah, well. I guess it was tech, right? At that time, anything tech. Yeah, global imaging technologies. Okay. The guy that ran it, I think he's still in Fort Collins. Um, I'm not sure what he's doing now, but I, I learned, I learned a lot from him and his wife that they were, um, at the time married and, and running the company together. And they, um, one of the things that they let me do was just kind of do my thing. And so I said, you know, I, I want to, I want to sell websites and I want to, um, you know, I, so I learned how to, Design websites and program websites. And I went to school to be a high school teacher. And when I did my student teaching or I, you know, started the first phase of it, I, I realized I was in over my head. I couldn't hang, you know, I was five foot one and I just, I couldn't do it. And I, I, I, I worked in the career services office at, at my, um, at Middlebury College is where I went. I think you could have, it just would have been too stable for you. Well, I just, it was, it was overwhelming and stressful. And my, um, you know, my counselor said, Get out of there, dude. What do you want to do? And I'm like, well, I really like marketing because I was, you know, doing the They're the brochures. That was my work study job was designing brochures and She said why don't you do this for a living? And so I pivoted this is like literally your college Exit counselor. Basically. Yeah. And so I pivoted. And so when I told my dad, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm not going to do student teaching. I'm going to, um, become a, uh, you know, a graphic designer and, and be a marketing specialist. He's like, but you don't know those things. Like you just graduated from college for not those things. And I said, I got this. Um, so my first job gave me a lot of, uh, flexibility to try new things. And I did. And I, I, Um, got decent at graphic design and you know, circa 99 level of graphic design and, um, marketing and I just love consulting. I love talking to people about, you know, what they need for their business and helping them make it a reality. And I just, uh, I loved it. You're an interesting personality type in that it seems like your ability to see the big picture and then to bust tail down to the little details is similar. Like you both, you want your hands right in it and you can understand it from a, from afar. Yeah. Is that a fair statement? Yeah. I would agree. And I, you know, my first, my first entrepreneurial gig, you know, my dad set us all up with paper routes and I hated the paper route and I told him, I'm not doing the paper route. I'm going to babysit instead. And so he basically had me show him my business plan. I think I was 12 11 and a half cause that's when you could get the red cross certification. I'll make. Three quarters as much money for half as much time doing the babysitting thing, right? And I basically, I basically had to present my dad with a business plan of how I, um, could earn the money I needed and, um, cause I wasn't going to do this paper route. And I'm sure he was thrilled that, all right, well, there we go. My daughter can create a business plan and she can execute it. Um, but I just always wanted to do what I wanted to do. Yeah. Um, still do, I guess. Um, but Yeah. So I, I've always been able to think through business types of problems as, as a hobby. And um, you know, when it came to marketing, like, well, I had been the editor of the newspaper and so, and back then you did pay steps and layouts and you had to make everything fit. And so a lot of the design, um, and you know, wordsmithing and, you know, I had a lot of those skills and I used it in college. And I had more fun. designing my term papers than I did writing them, um, for, for example. So, It was an easy fix. Um, I mean, it was an easy transition, um, in part because I was, um, just convinced that I would be fine. I'm not sure how I had that level of confidence, but, um, yeah, I was, I was finally with Andy, we were, you know, living in the same town and, um, I got to have a grownup job and a lot of freedom and flexibility in this, in this company and, um, yeah, had, had a lot of fun and learned, learned a ton. Um, Andy, where, we've talked about, you had like these defense contractor jobs and different things available. Where did you land for that first real big boy job? So, yeah. Um, so I wasn't interested in the defense contractor jobs. Uh, you know, I got a couple offers in Colorado Springs at TRW. Um, but that didn't excite me. So staying in, in Fort Collins to go to grad school was a kind of a kick the can down the road kind of move. Right. Um, While I was in grad school, one of my classmates, uh, worked at the forest service and he introduced me around over there. So I think it was in my. Beginning of my second year, I got a job, uh, as a contractor with the Forest Service. Cool. Um, doing a lot of, um, the unit I was attached to was specialized in inventory and monitoring. Hm. And so they, you know, inventoried and monitored a lot of different things, you know, uh, some wildlife stuff. Right, right. Um, timber. Um. And keeping track of the actual numbers of all these. Right. You're, you're probably a blue brown. Grrr. Grrr. Uh, we've, we've been studying this thing in, at Loco, uh, called HALOS, relational intelligence. And the brown is kind of the deep thinker, sees kind of the complexity of all the things. And the blue has like an organizational kind of tendencies, very unusual, not typical pattern. And like every growing, bigger company needs that person there, just kind of keeping an eye on things. Uh, over here with Julia is probably the, uh, I don't know, Definitely orange and probably white. Uh, orange being the achiever, entrepreneur personality, and white being the idea generator. Um, or maybe the green, the relational person. And they make power couples. Anyway, I'm, I'm, I'm dallying into this, but I'm starting to understand your persona and how you see things from a, an understanding of the complexity better than a lot of people do, I suspect. Especially when it comes to inventory controls. Just moving all the things where it needs to go. He sees solutions. Um, and you create problems. He finds solutions. I mean, I think that's the big value I bring to the marketing agency we ran. And, and Tati is, is when people have challenges in the organization or clients or clients when we were at the agency that I do approach that the problem solving, um, process. In a methodical creative way. And I really enjoy creating solutions to just challenges that people have wherever they come from. And yeah, yeah. I dig it. Yeah. And at Tati, Andy's Yeah, it's better for him if he stays out of the way for all of us and in part, you know, he'll give me once a month, he'll just show up to a meeting and he's like, okay, Andy, you should walk in the room and you like you own the place. Um, but it's, it's really good for all of us because he'll say, well, how come we're doing it that way? And it's like, well, Because and you know, sometimes it's, you know, he just needs to be filled in on the context and other times like, gosh, darn it. He's right. Like, I don't know why we do it that way. And he's like, Well, what if we did this instead? And so he's got a, a Yeah, almost a coldness, uh, to the way things have always been done. And so he's, you know, he spends most of his time not at work, um, but when he is there, you know, most, most of the weekdays he's, you know, off doing other things. Fly fishing, hiking. Spends a lot of time on his bike. Bicycling. Yeah. But. When, you know, when we need him for a problem, whether or not we know it, um, he's, he often is either a collaborative, um, strategist or, you know, sometimes I'll come home and he's like, well, you know, what's going on? I could tell you're frustrated about something and it'll tell him. And sometimes he's like, well, just fire him. I'm like, well, I can't do that. But other, other times, um, he's like, well, have you, have you considered And, you know, that, that's a perspective that, uh, is, is crazy valuable and the problems that he can solve with his, uh, you know, programming skills. And, you know, he's, his main role at Tati, you know, besides being a, um. a strategist is helping develop systems. So sometimes he'll just hang out with people, um, and observe them doing their jobs and he'll say, okay, well, I see that this takes you 10 steps. What if I may do this tool? Um, could it take, could it make things easier? And they're like, oh my goodness, I love you, Andy. Um, so yeah, he's no one's boss, but he's everyone's, um, Best friend, you know, when it, when it comes to making their jobs easier and making things efficient, yeah, is what almost, uh, Mentor has been kind of working with her, uh, you know, operations manager kind of role, the unlocker of speed, efficiency, talent, knowledge, kind of just let this, how can I help this specific person do their job better? Yeah, that's Andy. That's a cool place. Um, so let's take us up to that first marketing agency. Yeah. Cause I was your first brush with real entrepreneurship. Yep. Um, so there was a lot of great things about my first job in Fort Collins. Um, It ended up not being a great fit for me. There's a variety of things going on, um, that was. It's not a good fit. So let's just say I decided I needed to get out and I wasn't successful finding a job. Um, and so I quit, um, and you quit without a plan B. Is that what I'm hearing? Right. Um, thankfully Andy had at that time, my stipend, he had a student covered, covered rent and most of the food. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, um, we've been scrappy for a long time. This is the, uh, the coyote chapter of your relationship right here. And so Um, but it was, it was just not sustainable. Um, and so I said, well, I'll do freelance until I can find a job. And at the time there was a website called Elance, um, that, and it was like this, this six month period before it became inundated with, um, Indians, overseas contractors. And so, yeah, people like me, like I, you know, I can. Right. I could do copywriting. I could do business plans. I could do graphic design. I could do, I, you know, I had a lot of skills that were, um, you know, I could do logos. And so I just put myself up on Elance and started getting some projects. Um, yeah. And it was the type of gig work that, um, if you do a good job for, for one client, then they'll tell their friends and then they'll have another, um, and so it ended up pretty within six months. I still hadn't found a job. Um, I had gotten, wasn't sure you wanted a job, right? And I got to the point where I'm like, you know, I think, um, You know, I only need to make a couple hundred dollars a month to pay for the rest of our food because thankfully the CSU stipend was, you know, covering, um, covering almost everything else. Um, you know, we had been poor college students, um, before then, so now we were less poor college students. Um, and Yeah, so it, you know, from, um, pretty, pretty quickly it, it caught on and I, Andy didn't want to have anything to do with it. He's like, yeah, this is your crazy job. I'll have a normal job. And again, his parents stayed in their same career, their whole career. And I was like, well, you know, I can, I can do this. And, and I did. Um, so that's kind of how it happened. And is that what became the agency then? Yeah. It's just your freelance career kind of just got more and more customers. Yeah. And so a couple of things happened. Um, one was. Um, as I got busier, there was a couple of times where, you know, I had subcontractors and some of them were flaky and, um, like, Hey, Andy, you know, you, you know, HTML, like you can help me with this website. And he's like, fine, I'll help you. Um, and there was, um, Um, in 2003, there was, in March, there was a blizzard, um, and we were snowed in. It was us and our dog. I was living in Windsor at that time, actually. And we were living, um, in West Fort Collins. That was when Bed Bath Beyond roof got clogged and stuff. Um, we were in West Fort Collins at the time, in a, in a new neighborhood, and I'm like, oh, you know, why don't you just help me? Like, I, I, you know, this, um. This subcontractor that I have is flaking out and it'll be fine. Back into this, we have to just be here by ourselves anyway. And so basically over that like five day period of the snow storm, we built our first e commerce website. Um, and. So then Andy caught the bug. He's like, Ooh, this is actually kind of fun. Um, so he started side hustling with me. And so then I could start selling his services, um, which were more lucrative as, you know, programming websites, um, just graphic design, right? Right. Writing stuff. And so it ended up being, got to the point where he had two full time jobs. He was working all day at the forest service. Um, and, and then he was, um, you know, it was before we had kids and so we, we would work, like come home and make dinner and sit at our desks and, and work and build websites and do cool stuff. And so, um, and what was it that you liked about that web dev, Andy? In contrast to like being out in the forest all day. Um, well, to be clear, I've, my trips out in the forest where I can count on one hand, I was sitting behind a computer pretty much the whole time, but, uh, it was just a fun, and the challenges were new and different every day, so, you know, you had a website that looked like this, and so that figure it out and put it together and make it look different. Just how, the way the client wanted it to work. Right. Um, which wasn't so easy back then, right. The, the toolkit was a lot sparser. Sure. And, uh, you know, as the projects got more sophisticated, they got more interesting and more fun and, uh, you know, the bigger the clients got, the more interesting it was, so yeah, I just, it was, in some ways it was very similar to what I was doing in the forest service that I, I was with a unit that kind of worked as a consulting. Office. And so, you know, different forest districts, different forests would come and say, Hey, we need to try to make best practices, we need to figure out how much old growth we have in our forest. Can you help us figure that out? And so, you know, it was a lot of designing. Um, sampling and analysis of the data once I collected it and it's not totally different from, you know, some, uh, business saying, Hey, I need a website to communicate this, this and this and sell this product. How do I do it? I guess for you, that's not totally different for most people. For a lot of people, though, that's like a way different thing, but the consulting part is what you're talking about is the part that's the same. Yeah. And approaching problems. And problem solving. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you know, just having new and different problems to solve was, was fun. That was feeding to you. So you guys just kind of had that kind of classic entrepreneurial experience where you were like burning the candle at both ends, getting, trying to get enough traction to get to that next step. Yeah. Yeah. And so the, you know, the forest service, by that time Andy had his master's degree, he was working full time for the forest service and it paid our insurance, it paid our mortgage. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and the, uh, as long as you could squeeze an extra 30 hours a week out of him, yeah, we would climb rocks. We would, um, work. Yeah. Um, and that, that was, that was our life and it was great. Um, so then fast forward to 2006, um, okay, so this is a pretty long time. Yeah. Five, six, seven years. Yeah. Most while you're doing this. So 2006, we were pregnant for the first time and um, baby was due in July and I was like, well, you know, I think I'll probably just keep working cause I can work from home and um, uh, so. And it's like you don't think the baby's going to need anything? Um, and I was really busy at, at that time. Right. I, you know, I didn't have, you know, I was still pretty young, um, in terms of, you know, business savvy, um, but I, I love the work that I did and I love my clients and I, um, yeah, it was working a lot of hours. Um, and so, you know, we didn't really make a plan. I just figured I'd take on less projects when the, when the baby came. Um, so our daughter was still born, um, at full term. And so, That, that was a line in the sand for us that, you know, obviously was tragic and traumatic. Um, but it changed so many things in, in our life. And one was, I didn't have anyone to, to help and I needed to stop working and grieve and take time off. And I was the only one that did the work, um, you know, Andy could do his projects, but I did all of the billing and, um, It was basically a freelancer still and that was really hard. I realized I can't do this, um, by myself anymore. I can only imagine you had to be like depressed. Yeah. Well, and Andy would go to work and I, I just, I couldn't, I couldn't deal. Like I was by myself all day, every day. And It was really hard for him to leave. Like, he had to go to work. But it was, I, Emotionally, just very challenging. Yeah, it was, it was very hard. And, you know, thankfully, he had a great support system at, you know, friends and family and church. Um, but the, the other thing was, I lost my, Ability to be a graphic designer and it never came back. Like there's something about the creative spark, energy, muse, whatever you want to call it, that never came back. And, uh, I had a good friend who worked for a different company and, um, I had done some, um, work for her company. And you'd actually met her. She worked at GI tech. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We, uh, we actually worked our first job at the same time. Yep. Um, so we had stayed in touch and her, um, boss was, Was great. And I had, you know, done some projects for her and she had done, you know, so we had collaborated. Um, but there were times where I'm and her name is Kelly and I, there was times I'm like, Kelly, I can't do this logo. I need help. Um, can I pay you to do this logo for me? And, and she gradually, um, took on more and more projects for me cause I just couldn't do it anymore. And eventually, um, We got to a point where she said, how, how about, how about I just come work for you? And Andy said, Let's do it. Um, and so it was within within a year that The freelance became an agency and there were three of us full time we Bought an office in Midtown. Were you partners? Were you the owner? It was my business and Andy and Kelly were employees. Okay, and Um, at that time, because it had already been set up as, as my business. So we, we didn't, um, you know, I already had an LLC, um, but yeah, just being, you were the first one to sacrifice your paycheck in case nobody, um, and so we, we basically, um, when, did you have the name or anything before that, when the name came up? Yeah, it was, uh, started off as Claypot Consulting in 2000 and eventually, I think it was about that time we turned it to Claypot Creative, which is what it still is. Um, but yeah, so in, in 2007, um, we bought an office, Andy quit his job, Kelly came and joined us full time and we became a real company. Right. Um, it was like, you know, Pinocchio becoming a real boy, like, wow. And, you know, we had clients, we had revenue and knew a lot of what we were doing, but there was something about Andy resigning from the forest service and giving up our insurance. Right, right. Yeah. That was our guaranteed income. Yeah. That, uh, you were all in, but it was also the worst thing has already happened to us. So why not? Yeah. Like, and so our, A risk. Tolerance shot way up right overnight. Like, well, what if it fails? Okay. Well, we can start over. Do you go get a job? And it, you know, our, we always wanted to have a backup plan and backup plan and backup plan. And finally it was like, you know what? We're there's no backup plan. Yeah, we're, we're going to do this. I don't want to be by myself. All day. I don't want to, I can't, I can't be a graphic designer anymore. And Andy, um, you know, needs to have a better work life balance. Um, what, what we thought would be a better work life balance. It took about 10 years before there actually was a work life balance, but, um, yeah. So it was, it was scary and exciting and it worked. I'm going to take a short time out because I've got to go pee. Okay. Okay. Take the break yeah. Yeah. Well, and we've learned to say, all right, God, what are you doing here? Cause don't, we don't see through it, but we know that there's a plan and we'll trust that you have our best interests at heart here. Yeah. So some of those, yeah. Yeah, there's that Andy likes to say we're battle hardened and that we've been through a lot and Have been very fortunate very blessed very successful in a lot of ways that we have no business Um, having so most people, honestly, like, um, you know, work hard, persevere and successful usually find you. Um, but it comes with a lot of pain and every journey to, um, when we left off, we were pretty exhausted. You were just becoming real business owners. Kelly was in there. That had to take a lot of faith to quit your job, which was probably close to a six figure job almost already. Yeah, it was, it was a big, uh, a big leap for sure. Yeah. And what, who were your clients? Like, uh, cause there's probably a different client mix from being claypot freelancing to claypot creative and starting to try to get some of those more consistent and durable engagements. Yeah, well, it's interesting. Um, we always had a mix and my heart, you know, the reason why I started, um, my business in the first place was I loved being able to help small businesses have high quality marketing that made them, uh, that helped them be successful. Um, you know, so many small businesses just didn't have, you know, this was before, this A lot of them still didn't have websites. Shopify. Right. At that time. You know, before. Um, you, you just, you couldn't afford things and you, you know, as a small business owner myself, like had to get a, to try to get a SBA loan in order to do my first direct mail campaign. Like, it was just like, you had, you had to like, Sign our, our car over. It was crazy. And so I wanted, my heart was to be able to provide professional solutions for, for small businesses and help them be successful. And so, you know, we didn't have a minimum for years and years that, um, yes, we, we wanted big clients and we were. Um, good at taking care of their needs, but I always had a heart for the, the small businesses. So, um, yeah, we had all sorts of, um, interesting startups that we worked with. Um, we did some, um, Um, collaborations with Sage Marketing Group and at the time, um, Doug was outsourcing all of his creative, um, you know, this before the, the recession in, in 2008, um, changed a lot of things for a lot of us. Um, but before then we did a lot of, um, work for him. Um, Toddy was starting in 2003 was, um, uh, uh, how did you come across them? So that was during your freelance time. Yeah. Yeah, so one of the First guys I met on elance was this, you know serial entrepreneur and marketing consultant And he just you know, he needed people to do the work He had got a contract with toddy to do some well So he I had oh just in general with him was for his, um, he was hired by his kids, Waldorf school in LA to do a website. And, you know, so we also, I did all sorts of projects with him. Um, but the, um, toddy family, um, was. Um, you know, the guy that was running toddy at the time was his college roommate. And so he had called, um, you know, my associate and said, hey, I need your help. You know, my dad's business is, you know, we need, we need to rejuvenate it. And so then, you Um, the guy called me and said, Hey, I've, you know, I've got this gig. It's going to be great for both of us. Let's get started. And so that was in 2003. So I've been working with toddy. Um, and, and basically Andy started, um, working on their website projects shortly after I did. So toddy's, you know, we've both been working, um, with toddy since 2003. Well, well, and I, you know, I'm, because I'm a little older than you guys, I remember when nobody even had websites, right? Like, you couldn't buy things online in Right. 1999. Right. Yeah. Um, you could get a contact page or a phone number to call them and place an order or something, but that was about the extent of it for a while. Yeah. Yeah. So, I imagine you guys had a big part in developing their evolution to being a direct consumer. Yeah, they had, they had a website, um, we rebuilt their website and, you know, a crazy thing happened that the Washington Post did a story about Tati in December of 2003. And so, it was It's, you know, it was when everyone read newspapers and it was right before Christmas and the guy literally called toddy coffee, coffee nirvana, um, and the best cup of coffee that existed and it overnight, like they, the sales just to ching, to ching, to ching, to ching, to ching. They were used to getting. You know, 50 orders a week and you know, over the weekend of reading this article, they came in on Monday and had 10, 000 orders in there. Not quite that many, but yeah, thousands and so much so that their, um, payment processor shut them down. They said, we, we don't, you know, we're, we don't believe that you can fill up. And so, Um, so it was, it was crazy. All of their order fulfillment was this person, um, received the orders in her email and she knew if the order had been fulfilled, if the email was no longer bold. Um, that was their system. Yeah. And so, um, we flew to Houston and we did an integration with UPS. So integrated the website with UPS so that they could, um, key in a number in the, you know, UPS system. Like you're flying down there like that Monday. Yeah. Yeah. Because they couldn't get paid. Right. And they needed a way to prove that these orders were getting out and they didn't have a way to prove it. And so we, we basically figured out a way to integrate with UPS so that it, the UPS would talk to the database to pull in the order information and it would post it back, um, when the order was, uh, completed. Um, you know, and the label was printed and could they ramp up fast enough to ship all this stuff out? Like they, yeah, they could, you know, thankfully they had had outsourced manufacturing opportunities. I don't know how they did it, but they were able to do it inventory. It was a matter of Yeah. And then they didn't have the people to put the stuff in the boxes and labels on, right? That part of it was challenging. Tape up the box and everything. Yeah. So we, um, figured out how to, yeah, we figured out how to do it and, but that was, um, we were very integral in, um, that. Proved your dedication to the cause. And so we were, you know, Tati became more and more of a key account for clay pot creative. Um, and yeah, some of the other, other clients, um, we had some, some great some of my favorites were, uh, we did a website for Canyon bake house. Oh sure. Josh Cowan. Um, there's a business in Loveland, uh, barista pro shop, which, you know, Sells, like, all the consumables that a coffee shop would use from cups and lids to syrups and stir sticks and whatever. And, uh, and so, before we owned Tati, we built their website and e commerce. That was kind of an e commerce thing. Yeah, their fulfillment system. Right, before there was things like Shopify Yeah, we got to work with FiberLock and, um, MouseRug and, you know, another local company. MouseRug? Yeah. Yeah. It's like a sticky mouse trap or something? It's a, it's a mouse pad, um, that has flocking on it, um, that, that's made to look like museum, museum quality rugs. You, you've probably seen them. I have seen some of those. Yeah, but it's a, Yeah, it's a, it's a Fort Collins company. Oh, I didn't know that. It's fun. At least it was at the time. Right, right. Um, we worked with, you know, a variety of nonprofits. Um, and yeah, just cruising through more and more local businesses as we grew. Um, but a lot of them was It's the size of the business, you know, a big enough, successful enough business to need marketing or website, but not big enough that they had their own in house marketing team. Right. And so that was kind of our, our sweet spot. There was kind of being their outsourced marketing team. Did you guys work with companies that? So you had marketing teams too, you just kind of came in as more of a consultant or a campaign organizer or more graphic? Yeah, we did a, we did a variety of things and as Candy Bake House grew, they, Right, they obviously have a marketing department. Yeah, yeah, they, um, they grew quite rapidly and, um, our role with them changed over the years. Uh, but that, that was success for us, is helping clients outgrow us. Right. Um, and, you know, that wasn't a, Um, a goal, but, you know, some of our, uh, yeah, some of our clients ended up growing and selling and making lots of millions of dollars. And so that, that was something that, you know, we felt like we could play a part in that. Um, so it was very, very satisfying. And probably part of what, you gave you the confidence to real beans with Tati when, when that time came? Yeah, well, and you know, Tati's Tati has always been a family run company. Um, the original founder, um, passed away before we started working with them. But, um, the, basically the, the founders, um, you know, adult children were, were running the company and, um, and as we got more involved in, um, the work we were doing, they were focused on, uh, beverage development business. So basically, um, Um, helping people design recipes, um, for beverages and, you know, brewing them and bottling them and selling them. So they had a lot of really, um, high end clients too. Oh, okay. That was a whole different division. Industrial scale. Gotcha. Gotcha. They worked for, you know, Coca Cola and large beverage companies. Interesting. Interesting. So they had, this was almost, I guess, not an afterthought necessarily, but. Yeah. Yeah. So. As not in the heart of their business, so we got more and more involved in the operation side of the equipment, and they were focused on the beverage development side, and that they ended up selling that in 2009. Um, and. But the buyer didn't want the equipment side. So the son that was running toddy Ended up going with acquisition as a consultant for a period of time. Sure. And Kind of left toddy without a proper leader. Well, and so his sister took over for a while with her husband who had been in the business for years and They decided they didn't want to do it anymore, um, essentially. And so Well, plus they sold his other thing. So they're kind of watching. And asked the brother to take over. And so it ended up kind of bouncing around and Hot potato. And in the meantime, Andy and I were like, wow, you know, if they just let, if they just took our advice and they, this would happen and this would And so we were, we were like, well, if this was our company, we would do this, this and this. And, um, yeah. And, you know, one thing led to the other, I, you know, I don't know how detailed we want to get, but there came a point in time where something was going on in the business that they couldn't manage anymore with employees. And uh, They basically had to let everyone go. Um, there may have been some, um, illegal activities, let's just say. Um, and so they had to let everyone go and no one was, you know, none of the company owners were in the, were in Houston. Right. They, you know, they were all managing from, well, it was, and so. I got a call. Andy was running an ultra marathon in Moab at the time. Um, we had two little boys at this time that, you know, that, that's a happy part of the story in 2007, 2009. We had, we had two, um, healthy baby boys who are now ginormous teenagers. Um, so, um, So yeah, I got a call and they said, you know, and we talked about acquiring and they, there was a couple times where they were close to selling it, but then they backed off and they were close and then they backed off to you or to us. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think they had some reservations about selling their fathers, you know, named after him, right. Business. And so they, you know. They hemmed and hawed a little bit, but we had, and you know, this was, this was in 2009 when all of this was happening and we could not get a loan from the bank, um, even though we had great credit, it was the recession and the bank banks were all like, I'm too scared. We should have called you. Yeah, I got, I got green ride, uh, finance back in the day when in 2009, but basically, um, We so we had done a bunch of due diligence and you know Couldn't get it sorted until you know, look well looking for where we're gonna put this business. So we had done a bunch of work and When they before they said oh just kidding, you know, how about you? You know just take on a more active role in the business and we taught he was our bailout plan So at that at the time, you know, that's That's, that's when all these car companies were getting billed. I didn't know if Claypot Creative would make it without Toddy. Um, and so, I mean, some, you know, we would have worked something out. They were our best client. It was half your revenues almost or something probably. Yeah, and a lot of our clients were cutting back on their marketing budgets. Right. And we were saying, no, no, no, this is when you need to invest in your marketing. And by this time you got like a five year old and a three year old or something like that. Yeah, we had a, These guys want to keep eating. Yeah. Not even. They were two toddlers. Um, and, and so, so yeah, they called us, um, Andy was, was in Moab running an ultra marathon. I got a call and they said, Julia, they call me Julia because they're from, from, from Texas. A Julia. We, um, we had to fire everybody. Um, we're going to sell if, if, if, if. If you take over, if you come and take over tomorrow, we'll, we'll loan you the money. We'll finance you. We'll loan you the money. Um, and, and, and it's like, but you have to let us know, you have to let us know because We can't do this and we need to sell the company now. Um, and so I waited until Andy called me and said, okay, I finished the marathon. I got, you know, whatever place. And I'm like, okay, great. So here's what's happening. And can you come home now? Cause I, I need to, I need to fly to Houston. Well, no, we couldn't cause we had babies. Yeah. We had a, like a nine month old and a two year old. Um, Wow, and how to value this business too, right? Like, it doesn't even have any employees. The books may not have been accurate, let's just say. Right. No, I'm sure. Um, and so, it was one of those things where we couldn't not do it. And we had just taken out a home equity loan to like, refinish our floors or something. Right. Uh, another crazy client story. Um, but, So we had, we had 50, 000. And that's what they said. If you can come up with 50, 000 for down payment, we'll finance the rest. And we had just taken out this home equity loan. I'm like, well, who needs new floors? We're gonna buy a business. Um, and so we did and I got on a plane and I called this guy that I knew who was an attorney and I said, Hey, do you know how to do business sales? Contracts. Uh, cause I could use some help here. This was all happening. Wow. It was crazy. Yeah. Another fun, you know, this is 2010 and the construction was dead and so I don't know how we got, but Kevin Brinkman showed us around and helped us get a, uh, warehouse space. Yeah. Thanks guys. So here we are. Yeah, Kevin Brinkman is driving us around in his car to see warehouse space. So Andy found a warehouse. We wrote a lease while I was in Houston while you're in Texas. And I'm like, well, we've got to figure out a way to to we need to move it to somewhere because they're They're, we got to move it, right? Is there like institutional knowledge, like training programs for how to do stuff and whatever, or is there, if we had any idea of how hard the first year was going to be, we wouldn't have had any business doing it. Like it was so hard the first year. We're like, Oh, how hard can manufacturing be? How hard can warehousing be? Like Andy worked today, right? Yeah. Andy. We knew how to drive a forklift from a job he had in college and it'll be fine. Like, you know, I'm sure we can hire, you know, there's great people in Fort Collins who want jobs and, um, but they can't just figure out their whole job from scratch. The hardest part was when we talked to our CPA, um, and so we, you know, the, the loan was for six years, but we had to depreciate it over 15 years. Oh, right. And so he's basically saying. You think you're going to make money, but you're not going to have money. Right. And even if you show a profit, it's going to feel empty in your bank account because you're paying off this loan so fast. We're paying off this loan and we can't, you know, we can't write it off. Right. Right. And so we go back to like, okay, well, we have all of these employees that need to feed their families at clay pot creative. And we've been saying for years, like, well, if this is our company, we would do this and we would do this. And finally we had the chance to put our money where our mouth was and we believed in it. We believed in the brand and we believed in ourselves and we knew what it was like to eat ramen. Um, and work, you know, 80, 100 hours a week, and we're like, we're doing it. Right. We're down. We're, we're doing it. Um. Put up the baby placed in the corner of mom's office. Oh yeah. Yeah. We actually turned off the air compressor during nap time, because, you know, the air compressor would run. Um, when we were making filters and, but it would wake up the boys. And so at nap time we turn off the air compressor and had people do like assembly work every day. Um, so, so yeah. And yeah, so we were, so we did it. So in, in 2010 we acquired toddy and, um, and we were running both businesses for, uh, for a while. Yeah. How was that Andy? It was not for those first few years. I was pretty much still doing my thing at claypot creative. Um, building websites. You were kind of fulfilling a lot of that stuff that needed to happen over there. Um, which was probably the, The work that Andy did was what made us money. And so the more Andy worked, the more money we made. And Andy worked a whole lot because we, we had all sorts of bills and, right. Um, it took a while to recover from the recession and for people to be willing to reinvest in marketing again. And, and so the programming projects were, you know, it's, it's by the hour. And so every hour he's working was, was right. Money the difference between a service business and a manufacturer, right? Yeah. So, weathered that period through brute force and determination? Yeah, I mean our, our, basically we turned over our whole staff at Tati in the first year. Cause we didn't, turns out, Even after we hired all these new people. It turns out we didn't know anything about, um, warehouse management or fulfillment or, um, any of those things. Right. Um, you know, we, we had some friends that, you know, we trusted that we thought could help us. And a couple of, couple of people ended up not being very helpful or, um, yeah, there's some lessons we learned the hard way. Um, but yeah, after about a year, um, It was working. Um, and again, we weren't expecting to pull money out. We just wanted to pay Claypot. Yeah. We didn't take a salary for a long time and just relied on our Claypot creative. And so all of the ideas we had that we could possibly afford to fund, we did it. And some of the things started working. Um, and which you know, and our. Biggest client when we acquired Toddy was, um, it was actually Starbucks through Seattle's Best Coffee. Starbucks had acquired Seattle's Best Coffee. Oh, I didn't even know that. Seattle's Best Coffee was in every single Borders bookstores. And so that was our bread and butter. Right, right. Um, for the first year is we, you know, we had, we had these purchase orders coming in. Um, and we're like, wow, you know, we really should diversify. So our first energy was. Diversifying and getting more revenue streams. And so by the year later when Borders Bookstores went out of business and pretty much every Seattle's best coffee went out of business and that dried up, we, we had a diversified revenue and that. Um, it definitely hurt, but we had, we taught you wouldn't have been able to survive it. Um, had it, had it not, had we not done the diversification that we had, that was a pretty like you can kind of pat yourself on the back after a decision like that, or just a grace of God thing. Right. Yeah. We could have lost everything. Um, and, and, but again, we had been saying like, Oh, well, this is our company. We do this. And this is, you know, we do this and this. And finally it was actually our money. And it's like, Oh, now we understand why they didn't want to take all of our ideas. Each of these ideas cause effort and money and time. And it's. It's not guaranteed to work. Um, so not everything that we did worked, but a lot of things, um, did. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. What were some of the big milestones, you know, from that time of getting finally sustainable, uh, headed toward present day? Yeah. So one of the things about toddy is, you know, and still to this day, we can't mention the names of a lot of our big accounts, um, because you know, toddy equipment and filters are used, um, to make cold brew and they're considered proprietary recipes. And so toddy is, is part of their secret recipes. Yeah. Part of the intellectual property. Right. And so Use the toddy system and pour this much in, whatever. So a lot of those, um, relationships, you know, we had to sign NDAs, um, before we would get the purchase orders. And we were happy to do so, um, especially for some of the bigger accounts. But the benefit of that was that. That people didn't know who was using toddy. And so every time, you know, someone from a big coffee chain discovered us, they didn't know that their competitor was using toddy. They thought you were going to be their secret weapon. Right. And we were because, you know, cold brew isn't, It's a generic term. It's a, it's a way for making amazing coffee. Um, and so we were able to help, um, several, you know, mom and pop shops, but a growing number of large global chains. Uh huh. Develop and launch and grow their cold brew programs. And it was all behind the scenes. And so we were working with some major competitors of each other and they had no idea. Right. And it wasn't a problem because we, everyone's cold brew programs were different and we were able to help them deliver a sustainable. Consistent, um, high quality product that brought people to their doors and bought, brought them loyalty and a ton of revenue. And, and it worked. If we go, go ahead. It took us a solid five, four or five years to get, to grow the idea of cold brew coffee in that. Cafe space. Um, so there's a lot of grinding to get there. Um, and we, so where was it before? It was this niche. Um, it was more for fancy people for a while, right? Or, or, or one of the properties of a boutique coffee shops or whatever is one of the properties of cold brew coffee is it's low in acid, right? And so it was almost, uh, a way that people who were sensitive to acid could enjoy coffee. So it kind of had that kind of like following of people that had that sensitivity. Um, and so it was very, niche to those people. And so to grow it beyond that was a lot of, um, trade shows, uh, thought of talking to coffee shops, uh, sponsorship, being actually worth it to invest in this, not just the equipment, but also the menu space, et cetera. Right. Right. And so we, we worked really hard to get cold brew to catch on. And so we would talk to. to, um, a beverage developer from, you know, big company A or big company B in there and give them samples. They're like, wow, this might actually be able to work in our cafe. And so we would have these one off conversations and it, you know, yeah, we, we finally reached a tipping point. Kind of cultivating demand for your own product. Yeah. Yeah. Brand development ultimately. Um, so, um, Any, uh, evolutions you guys moved on from clay pot creative in? Yeah, well, or what does that look like for you? Um, it was interesting. You could see in the financials of toddy when I was focusing on toddy versus when I was focusing on clay pot creative. So there was always an opportunity cost. That the, I felt like it got to a point where I couldn't do both well, and I had great, you know, leaders in both companies. Um, but, you know, every time I was, you know, working for a client project at Claypot Creative, that meant I wasn't, um, you know, working on the business with Toddy or, you know, Um, you know, doing a trade show or a presentation, um, and it got to a point where it was, and, and our, leverage on your time is just worth more with this bigger operation. Yeah, we had small kids and the nanny was raising them and it was, it was hard. We were, we were, we were working a lot and, um, our tipping point came in 2014, um, when I, yeah. So I really wanted one more baby. I just felt like someone was missing. And Andy's like, well, of course you're always gonna feel that way. I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not talking about her daughter, like someone's missing someone needs to be here. And so finally, I, Um, finally I convinced Andy, I said, okay, if you let me have one more baby, then you can retire. And he didn't remember that conversation, but I did. And so anyway, we ended up getting pregnant again. And um, this was in 2013, um, 2014, um, on like the day before Valentine's day, we found out, um, cause I was 35 at the time, so considered elderly. Um, and so we were offered this. So I've been doing a lot of research on gender and, and in the past few years, um, I've been doing studies on, on, on, on, um, uh, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, um, on, on, on, Um, so, you know, we had to do this consultation with the high risk pregnancy specialist in order to do this test. We're like, okay, yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll do this ultrasound and talk to the specialist. And so the specialist found some concerning things and he's like, well, I don't know. Um, you know, there might be a problem. There might not be. It could be this, it could be that, um, and it could be nothing, but it's probably not nothing. And we're thinking, oh, we're going to find out the gender of our baby. Right. And this is going to be fun. Um, and so we come out of this consultation and basically our best case scenario was Down Syndrome. Um, and so we did this test and I think we got a call two weeks later that. Your baby is a boy and he has Down syndrome and it was the craziest emotion because that was our best case scenario that You know several of these these markers could be Issues that were not compatible with life and we're like, ah, we don't want to go through that again and Um, so anyway, so they said, well, do you want to keep the baby? We eventually had to tell the clinic, please stop telling us that we don't have to keep the baby. This is our son. You're insulting us. We're keeping our baby. Um, but it's so, but through this time it, it was a high risk pregnancy because a lot of, um, kiddos with down syndrome have heart anomalies and, and other, you know, things Um, conditions. And so, um, we named him Kai, um, our, uh, it was a family decision named after, jointly after Kai Risdahl, the NPR guy and the diplomat and Kai, the, the Lego guy, um, and the name that everybody in the family agreed on, um, and you know, the ocean and, you know, lots of, lots of cool meanings of the name Kai. Um, but they, they. monitor the pregnancy very closely. And I believe that had Chi not been diagnosed with Down syndrome, he, he wouldn't have survived because at the 20 week ultrasound, everything was fine. And at 24 weeks, they basically, um, told us that he was in big trouble. And they said, if, if, if you can make it through the next two weeks, then we'll admit you into the hospital. Um, but he's too little at this point. And He, we can't save him if he, um, if he doesn't, you know, if, if, if we got to grow up a little bit more before he's going to chance. I went on bed rest and this was, I remember it was Memorial day was two weeks. And so I had to wait two weeks and a day, um, because the clinic, you know, the provider wasn't available. Right. So then I went back in and he was still alive and the, um, he had grown, um, but the condition It's continuing to deteriorate. So they, um, I basically moved to children's hospital, um, in, you know, May it was like May 24th of 2014 and, um, they were hoping to get me to 30 weeks. Um, he was born at 26 weeks and ended up spending most of a year, his first year in, in the hospital. So, um, um, And so I've set up an office at Children's Hospital in his room. You're like full time. I moved in with my sister who lived in Denver. Um, Andy batched it with the boys for three months. And then when we realized Kai wasn't going to be coming home around his due date, because that's what they were thinking, um, he had several setbacks, ended up needing to be, um, trached so that he could, we could take him home on a ventilator. Um, and that, you know, the babies have to get big enough so they can, um, they can be on a home ventilator. You know, the hospital ventilators are, um, different than what you can take home. So, um, after, um, so in August of 2014, um, that's when we decided to move to Denver, um, so that we could be closer to the hospital and I could, you know, parent the older boys Boys and sure. Um, Andy could spend some time at the hospital with Kai. Um, but yeah, we basically, I basically worked from the hospital for a year and that's when everything started igniting with toddy, like all of this work we had done and all of a sudden, like I remember clearly standing in the, in our garage in Fort Collins. I was like, well, we have to move, we have to sell this place. And so we were filling dumpsters and you know, we would take turns Uh, who was in Fort Collins packing up and it was, it was nuts. And I remember a buyer from a big chain account calling me over and over and over again. And I finally took his call when I was standing in the garage and he said, Julia, we really want to launch a cold brew program with toddy, but we need you to fill out this paperwork. And it was the sort of thing that had I not been in this crazy, no man's land, like, you know, this is the call that you pray for. And thankfully he, he was so persistent. He's like, I really think that you want to try really hard to become your customer. And, and we did, we filled out the paperwork and they needed us to get a certification and, um, and it, and it worked, but it was the sort of thing, it was kind of like the Toddy's experience with that Washington Post article that it, they started, it was, I was just going to be a couple store tests and, Oh, well, you know, they think we should do 30 stores and well, and it ended up, you know, after several conversations, they were going to launch in the whole country at every single one of these stores. And I can't say who it was, but they have lots of stores. And it was the sort of thing that we were, We were making at the time every filter by hand, every coffee filter. So every batch of cold brew needs a filter. And we were making them all by hand and, um, we've, we figured out we were not going to be able to, we couldn't hire enough people to do that. And, um, but if we were going to get this purchase order, we needed to start making the filters and the brewers now, um, because it. It was, it was crazy. And this was all happening when I was living at the hospital. And, um, so your question was, how did we decide to sell clay pot creative? All of this was happening and Cindy, um, you know, who was our lead designer at the time, she pulled me aside. One of these, I think I went to clay pot creative to shoot a marketing video. And she pulled me aside and she said, Julia, how about, you know, How about my husband and I buy clay pot creative like he's in a job transition. You clearly have a lot going on How about you let us buy this company and one thing off your plate. I I almost Jumped and said just take it But you know I wanted to give her and the clients the dignity and and I love the company and I absolutely loved it and the fact that Cindy Cared enough about us and about our clients and what we had built You Um, it was, it was such an honor to, to have that conversation and it, you know, it took a while, um, to get through the process, but yeah, so that's, that's how it ended up happening. And we, we still work with them to this day. Very cool. Are you still the biggest customer? Just. I hope not. I don't know. I don't know. I, I think that, um, customer, you're one of their bigger favorite ones for sure. I bet. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Their favorite, but they have a much better work life balance than we did. They, they're just. They like actually take vacation and don't, um, don't check emails from us when, when they're on vacation. So yeah, I think they're, they're, they figured out some things that we, um, definitely didn't have figured out when we were in their shoes. So I think they're doing an awesome job. Well, I'm excited to share this toddy journey with everybody. Um, we always talk about. Faith, family, and politics in this show. And you've brushed on faith a little bit, but not really talked too much about it. Is that something you're comfortable sharing here? Sure. What's that role in your lives? Um, Andy, you want to start? Uh, sure. Yeah. Or is it the same for both of you? I don't know. I think it's more or less the same, but, uh, yeah, we, we definitely trust God to do what he's got planned for his glory. And so we Has it been that way where you're both raised in a faith environment? I don't know, is this a Christian faith background? Yeah, my dad was a pastor before I was born. Oh, okay. Um, and, you know, there was some complexities in our family where he had to, leave the pastorship. But, um, you know, definitely we were raised as to trust Jesus. Um, and lots of times there's no other way to get through a situation, um, you know, with, with our daughter Aspen, with Kai, you know, there's every, every day he could have died like over and over. It was, so, so hard. Um, and you know, so, so many things where, um, I, you know, there was one time at clay pot creative when the, in the hardest part of the recession, we didn't. Have money to make payroll. And we put payroll on credit card and I don't recommend doing that. And we've since figured out better contingency plans to run toddy. But, um, you know, we always felt like the businesses were his gods and we were stewards of the resources and the, and the people, the employees. And it's such an honor to, to, uh, and a responsibility to be an employer and stewardship. Yeah, servant mentality. Exactly, exactly. And so, Andy, was that the same experience for you? Um, I grew up in more of a looser kind of economic, um, ecumenical, ecumenical church environment. So I, I wasn't, um, quite religious as, as Julie was being a pastor of a, I mean, a daughter of a pastor, but, uh, So I grew up agnostic, maybe you could say, but, but steeped in some of that Christian culture. And, uh, yeah, as when I, you know, was pursuing Julie, you know, she had a very strong faith and I was one of the things I really respected and admired. And so, um, you know, as our relationship, um, matured, um, my relationship with God did too. Yeah. Fair enough. Um, you want to talk about family? Next? Yeah. I love, I love talking about family. Um. We've talked a lot about it, but yeah. Yeah, we've brushed against them, but uh, you know, I'd love to hear you talk more about your children. We, we do, you probably heard on some of the episodes, you've heard the one word description. Are you up for that challenge? Sure. Yeah. And how old are your kids now? Those large boys? 16, 15, and almost 10. Okay. Um, yeah, I would, I would, my one word for our eldest. Is he's, he's really steady. Um, you know, he takes things as they come. He doesn't get too excited. He's calm under pressure. Um, and it seems like his dad a little bit in that space. Yeah, maybe in some ways. Yeah. He, uh, he's a junior ski patroller at winter park and he really enjoys, you know, stepping into emergency situations. And it's impressive for a young man, young person, the more traumatic they are, you know, the bigger impact he can make and he really, he really likes that. Dad, it was so cool. This person broke both their legs. Yeah, I took care of it. Um, the middle, the middle son, the 15 year old, he's, he's my word for him would be, he's intense, um, in a good way, both, but I mean, it depends on the situation, but yeah, I think he's, yeah. Pretty serious, pretty, um, yeah, a lot of energy, you know, mental energy into everything he does. And then our, our youngest son with down syndrome, he's just, uh, he's just joy. He's just happy all the time. He's super fun to be with. Um, he's really funny too, like he's, when, when, you know, he was traked and vented and so he couldn't, he couldn't talk for a long time, you know, he, and so he finally weaned him off of the ventilator and so we could, um, give him these tools to, to start vocalizing and he was about three years old, but. In the meantime, our family was learning sign language so he could communicate. And I remember one of the very first things he did was told a joke in sign language. Like when he was first mastering like communication, he's like, Oh, you know, you know, he has something to say. Like, what's he thinking? And you know, he's just, he wants to tell jokes. He's just, yeah, he's, he's really funny. Well, a joke is funny. Like a sign of a different kind of intelligence. Yeah as well, right? Like jokes are really hard to come up with. Yeah. Yeah, he's Thankfully, he has a bit of Andy's intelligence But yeah, Kai's definitely makes his all of us better people You want to do one word for your your boys to while you're here? Well, I'd like I like Andy's words Let's see, Jackson, our oldest, is, um, what did you say? Steady? Um, he's, uh, Um, he's an old soul. Yeah, it's it's let's hyphenate it. Let's call it one word. Um, he, he never wanted to sit at the kids table. He always wanted to be with the adults. He even when he's 7 years old, 9 years old. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He just loves um, listening and learning and um, it's, it's interesting. It's hard to parent him because he's He questions things. He kind of needs to come to his own conclusion, right thing. Because I told you so is not, uh, useful for him. But it's also, um, We've always been able to have really intellectual conversations. And he'll call me out and he's, and I'm like, well, yeah, you're right. Like, I guess, I guess I hadn't thought that through. Um, I think, um, Leighton is, um, He's like Andy said, he's intense, but he, everything comes out of a cart of caring, um, and he just really cares about justice. Um, and so when he feels like someone's doing something wrong, um, he gets really upset. Um, he is so good with Kai. Um, just so giving and caring and thoughtful. And, and yeah, I think he'd make an incredible attorney because he is, you know, very, like, he likes to argue just for the sake of arguing and just to see if he can win. Um, and, uh, Yeah, they're both just really incredible teenagers. Like I knew I wanted babies. I totally didn't think through the teenager part. Like, and then when they got older, and, but it's like, yeah, these are really great guys and they're like, how do we have to have family dinner again? I'm like, yes, I only get so many years with you and you know, we're going to sit down and you're going to just. Tell me about what's going on and I think they secretly like it too because you know for so many years We're too busy to do that And Kai, I just call it just delight. Like he's he's my delight. He's he's a gift. He's So he works so hard for everything and But he's such a good sport. Does he go to public schools? Yeah, he was able to Yeah. Relatively high functioning in that space. Yeah. He's got a lot of great friends at school that really, uh, like hanging out with him and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Um, loco experience or no, we didn't talk about politics. Politics. You want to talk about politics? I don't know if there's anything to say. It's, it's interesting. So, so Tati, there was, It's definitely some polarization and, you know, the elections and Trump and all of this stuff. And our HR manager is, is very polarized. that there's certain things you don't talk about at work. And, you know, don't want to offend people. And so, you know, we tried to honor that. And I think we could relate to some part of everybody. And so I think a lot of the people at work, I think they know we're, we're fairly conservative and they know we're pro life, you know, because they've met Kai. And, and, um, And you just said, no, after a dozen people told you, you know, you could end this pregnancy. Um, but I think, you know, we, you know, we're, I guess you would call us libertarian, um, but, you know, in a lot of ways, we're conservative, like, you know, like I said, we, we pay cash for life. Like, you know, we, um, we don't leverage, um, money anymore. After that, you'd rather we didn't have a 34 trillion, uh, deficit in our country. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the. It's only 250, 000 per person. I think a lot of the China policies hurt our, you know, it's tariffs and stuff, hurt our business and hurt our customers. And so there's not like, Oh, well, this guy makes the best choices and that guy makes the best choices. There's, there's a lot of good decisions and bad decisions and things. It's hard to say who the good guys are in the world today. And things seem to be changing so fast too, especially on the Republican party, that it's It's hard to tell where they are or where they're going to really, to pick a side or whatever. Like when you don't know the direction that they're going. Yeah. That things are headed, kind of wait and see. So, uh, what's your prediction? I don't even need to know your vote, but what's your prediction for our 2024 presidential campaign? Oh gosh. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's a dead heat right now, but if you put a gun to my head and said, put your money on it, I think Trump's going to win. I don't know. Seems likely, especially with RFK continuing to build momentum, he's going to steal a little more. Well, and Joe needs to go to a home, not to the White House. It's tough to be happy about any outcome. Right. If I had to predict, that's what I would guess. Yeah, I mean, I'm frustrated with the You know, all of all of these congressmen, you know, congressional people who are refusing to pass legislation because Trump says not to, it's like we need to fix the border. Everybody wants to do it, except Trump doesn't want to do it. Biden to claim a success on the board. So it's like there's, there's, there's problems when everybody agrees on the problems except for Trump. And so people won't, it's like, Oh my goodness, we, there's, there's things we need to fix. There's some, there's some big problems. And I think, um, you know, getting some of this aid passed and, um, like, Oh, well, the speaker's going to lose his job. Like, well, thank goodness someone finally stood up for something. So I don't know. I kind of want it to be over with, but at the same time, I think a lame duck for either of them is not going to be good, um, when they've got nothing left to run on. Right. Yeah. I don't, I don't know. Okay. Well, we'll just hope on the consumer economy to pull us through. Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's uh, let's hit the final segment, the loco experience, um, you mentioned a couple of really traumatizing situations with your children, didn't even really get into your first son was premature as well, is that right? Did Jackson, Jackson wasn't, um, Oh, so it was Kai that you were talking about? Yeah, so, yeah, Kai. Um, yeah, Jackson and Leighton, um, Those were normal. Yeah. I mean, they were heavily monitored, um, because of the, the stillbirth. It, our daughter died from, um, from a cord accident, so it was, it was a not intercord, um, that cut off her blood supply. Um, and there's some research that, that, um, there's some genetic predisposition for that. And so we didn't want that to happen. And so we monitor very, very stressful pregnancies. Um, but yeah, they, they both were, um, Um, healthy and, and we, we delivered them before 38 weeks, um, or before it. So we lost our daughter 38 and a half weeks. And so for me, it was just 38 weeks, and, um, yeah, they, Layton was in a little bit of distress. Um, but they, they both, they were both healthy, but that had to have been the craziest season though, is when. Toddy's is blowing up. Claypot's got its own challenges. You're living in the hospital in Denver. I honestly don't remember most of that year. I think that's my loco experiences. I remember various snippets and I mean, I made some major decisions and I had a lot of conference calls and I worked hard, but I was also, um, I missed, I mean, I, I made every single, you know, the doctors did rounds twice a day. And so I was in morning rounds. I was in evening rounds because I was the one consistent player. Children's hospital is a teaching hospital, right? So there's always neonatology. It's almost like a, every doctor wants to put their creative artistic plan. Exactly. So everybody wants to tweak. Something. And so you got to really keep an eye on it so they don't tweak what they shouldn't tweak. Right. Yeah. Well, and we, you know, Kai had a lot of setbacks because, you know, he didn't respond the way some other babies did. And so we got to a point where we were the expert in Kai and the doctors would say, Oh, well, do you have a medical background? I'm like, no, I've just been here. Right. I've seen you try these things, these things, and these kind of things fail. Yeah. Um, but that was, you know, some of the most intense times at both, both businesses. And, um, you know, we have, and we still have several leaders who were there with us during that time. And, you know, Toddy, Toddy went from a profitable business to, um, a very successful business. Right. Right. Right. Um, oh, you know, sustainable over that time. So, so basically, I mean, I don't have the numbers memorized, but it, we, we basically we made it. Um, so, you know, 2015, once we were able to fill on those purchase orders and it went from national to global and in every single store. Um, and then another chain took it on and then another chain took it on and, um, you know, toddy is a very different business than it, than it was, you know, we, we have almost 240, 000 square feet of, of property that, of, you know, warehouse productions, office space. Whereas when we moved toddy, um, the, the property that Kevin Brinkman got us into was, um, 5, 000 square feet. Um, so, so that's, that's where it's been. And it, so much of that happened while. I had an office in the hospital and I don't remember the vast majority of it. Wow. Yeah. Um, so that was crazy. It was just the, the definition of crazy was just what, what we did Yeah. For me, the two that's, that was, it's all a blur, right? Um, yeah. That we were going through that crazy, uh, growth phase and we'd outgrown our original space and so we were renting little warehouses all over town, Right. So at one point. I think we had five different, we had that place on, uh, Blue Spruce, place on Duff. Oh, wow. We had Bird, we had Dirty Bird, Dirty Bird, Red Cedar, Drake, and Drake, yeah. And so, yeah, just the logistics of communicating and moving stuff around and yeah, and there were days where, you know, living in Denver, I'd come up here, I'd work at Clay Pot Creative all day. So, I'd grab a couple hours of sleep, then I'd go to the On the warehouse floor. On the warehouse floor, to the factory, so that when the day shift guy got off our one automation machine, I could jump on it, and do the Wow. The ten to four a. m. shift, and then grab a couple more hours of sleep. And then a cup of coffee. And then come home to help take care of the boys. Wow. And yeah, it was It was an intense phase, but yeah, we had a lot of great employees at both Claypot Creative and Toddy who kept the wheels on. Well, it's very galvanizing when you go through a season like that or when your employees see the pair of you go through that kind of a season and support each other to that extent. And you're, you're a young child, young children. Yeah. Like that's, that's got to build a lot of like dedication and loyalty in that team. Like these are good people that we want to be with. The whole team came through a lot, year, year and a half, and yeah, many of them are still, still with us. So you're kind of young to, to retire or anything, but, like, do you have notions of when you want to, like, find an exit? And do you have any ideas of what that would look like for you? Well, I told you that I You told him he could retire, like, fuck, eight years ago. He didn't remember Well, because everything that happened with Kai, and, and, thankfully, Um, he gave me some grace on that, but you know, a couple of years later, I'm like, Hey, remember what this conversation is like, are you telling me I could have retired two years ago? Um, and, but we got to a point and you know, when we transitioned, he had some overlap time with clay pot creative as you know, their main programmer, um, he spent some time there and so it took, took some time for him to, equilibrium, you know, after clay pot creative and after the hospital and all of that stuff. So Andy's semi, he doesn't work as hard as you do. That's right. Yeah. I mean, I work when I'm. So, I it's needed to solve a problem but. Right, right. But for the day to day stuff. And you'll work overtime while the problem needs to be solved. Yeah, when, when the poop hits the fan, I'm there to do whatever it takes but. He spends most of his days on his bike or running or. Yeah. Listening to podcasts. I'm putting some seats in a Wild West Relay team if you're looking for a spot handy. It seems like you go fast. Yeah. So yeah, he's, he's high impact, um, with, you know, with fewer hours. Um, and I, I just feel like that we're not done yet. Like there's, you know, there's some big initiatives that we're doing. And if at some point I feel like I, my usefulness has ended, then, then I, you know, I think. I'm not the type of person that would bring on a CEO. Um, if I reach the point where I'm not the best leader, then, you know, we'll make some transition decisions for the company, but I love the team. I love the work and the days that I don't love it means. There's probably something we need to change. Um, you know, we're, we're on it. Your interest and your utility and usefulness are all pretty high. Well, I hope so. I hope so. But, um, yeah, I think we're. I love the work and, you know, I'd like to get to the point where I'm as effective as Andy with fewer hours. Um, but, and, and that's about empowering other people. And, you know, that's, we're working on continuous improvement throughout the organization and super proud of what the team has accomplished. And there's some things that I don't. I don't know even where the manuals are. You know, I, that's led by another team and different leaders and I, I still love, um, showing up and we commute together. Um, Andy didn't used to go to work. And then when the kids were home in the pandemic during, during remote school, he's like, get me out of this house. So he's been driving me to work, um, since the pandemic. Oh, that's fun. Then usually he just drops you off or stays for a little while and goes off mountain biking or something. That's a pretty good day for me when I can do that. I like it. Well, you two, this has been a very enjoyable conversation with, uh, you know, folks. I didn't really know before hardly, uh, except for a little quick zoom with, with Julia. So, um, I just, uh, tip my hat to you, uh, to the culture and the products you've developed. And if people want to find you, Tottie. com or something. TottieCafe. com. TottieCafe. Someone actually registered Tottie. com in 1996. Oh. So, um, and they, they won't sell it. So, TottieCafe. com, um, and yeah, the Conundrum Tasting Room by Tottie is Um, in, in Loveland, um, in the industrial complex, um, Use your Google Maps. Yeah. Yeah. Off of, off of Alden Drive or by the Amazon and Bobo's and, Oh, right over there. Okay. Um, so yeah, we'd love to see you. We've, we're open on weekdays. Um, but yeah, if you want to have some great coffee, cold brewed or however you like it, that's the conundrum. Awesome. I like it. Thanks you two for being here. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Thanks, Pete. Thanks.
