Crafting the Perfect Smoke: Inside the World of Cannabis Accessories with Brian Gerber Karson Humiston welcomes Bryan Gerber, co-founder and CEO, of Hemper and Hara Supply, also known as the "King of Cones." The nickname stems from a Forbes article that highlighted Bryan's success in building a $75 million pre-roll empire.
Crafting the Perfect Smoke: Inside the World of Cannabis Accessories with Bryan Gerber
Karson Humiston welcomes Bryan Gerber, co-founder and CEO, of Hemper and Hara Supply, also known as the "King of Cones." The nickname stems from a Forbes article that highlighted Bryan's success in building a $75 million pre-roll empire. Both Karson and Bryan reminisce about their college days and the realization that they are no longer the young entrepreneurs they once were, with Bryan approaching his 33rd birthday.
Brian recounts the early days of his business, which started when he was 23 years old, shortly after graduating from George Washington University. He shares the story of how he convinced his roommates to start a subscription box for smoking accessories, despite being called crazy at the time. The business, launched on May 1st, 2015, was inspired by the subscription economy trend, with companies like Birchbox and Dollar Shave Club making waves. Hemper's initial concept was akin to a "Birchbox for stoners."
The subscription box took off when they introduced a guest-curated concept, where celebrities would select items for the box, allowing subscribers to "smoke like Snoop Dogg" for a month. This concept rapidly increased their revenue, and within six months, they were processing six figures monthly. From just a couple of hundred subscribers in the first four months, Hemper grew to over 30,000 subscribers.
As the business evolved, Hemper faced the challenge of keeping the subscription boxes fresh and interesting. They decided to develop their own products, becoming an authority in enhancing the smoking ritual. Brian mentions the Jolly Pop, a water pipe that resembles a lollipop, as an example of their innovative products.
The conversation shifts to Hemper's expansion into retail stores. Brian explains their strategy of leveraging the brand's power to drive traffic to retailers by announcing the availability of Hemper products in specific locations. They positioned themselves as a partner to retailers, not just a supplier, and emphasized their strong online presence, including a significant Instagram following, to support retail partners.
Bryan also discusses the company's foray into manufacturing pre-roll cones. Initially, they were approached by Kush Bottles (now KushCo Holdings) to fill a market shortage. Brian's business partner, RJ, went to India to learn the cone-making process, as all cones are handmade due to the fragility of the paper. They now run 15 manufacturing sites in India with about 4,000 employees, producing around 100 million cones a month, primarily for the North American market.
Despite the challenges, such as the vape crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, Bryan notes that these events positively impacted their business by driving consumers back to pre-rolls and increasing sales.
Looking to the future, Bryan envisions moving into automation for cone production and continuing to innovate with product development. He also plans to expand into Europe, with Germany's recent legalization being a significant opportunity.
Bryan concludes by offering advice to his younger self and to aspiring entrepreneurs: avoid shiny object syndrome, stay focused, and be willing to reinvent the business model as needed. He encourages listeners to reach out via email or LinkedIn if they're interested in joining the Hemper team, emphasizing the value of taking initiative.
TIMESTAMP:
00:00:00 - Introduction to Brian Gerber
00:00:39 - Bryan's Age and Feeling Old
00:01:02 - College Graduation Years
00:01:18 - Starting Hemper at 23
00:01:34 - The Idea Behind Subscription Boxes
00:02:38 - Celebrity Curated Boxes and Growth
00:03:11 - Transition to Creating Own Products
00:03:35 - The Jolly Pop Product Discussion
00:04:22 - Moving to Retail and Distribution Strategy
00:07:03 - Funding and Financial Growth
00:08:10 - Decision to Focus on Profitability
00:08:37 - Expanding into Retail Stores
00:11:00 - The Shift to Pre-Roll Cones Production
00:13:42 - The Handmade Process of Cone Production
00:14:44 - Domestic Operations in Las Vegas
00:17:03 - Future Plans and Expanding into Europe
00:20:20 - Hiring the Right People
00:23:35 - Impact of Vape Crisis and COVID on Business
00:25:13 - Bryan's Vision for the Next Decade
00:26:14 - Advice to Younger Self
00:27:30 - The Importance of Reinventing the Business
00:28:12 - How to Get in Touch and Join the Team
Karson Humiston: Hey, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Proud to Work in Cannabis podcast. With me today, I've got the King of Cones himself, Brian Gerber, the co-founder and CEO of Hemper and Hara Supply. The reason I said King of Cones is because I read a awesome Forbes article called The King of Cones, how Brian built a $75 million pre-roll empire. Brian and I graduated college from the same year. So before we started recording, we were saying how we used to feel young and now we feel old. We'll try not to be too old on this podcast and keep everyone lively. Brian, how are you doing? Thank you for joining me.
Bryan Gerber: Thank you, Carson. Appreciate it. Super excited to be here today. Yeah, no, definitely crossing over into the middle age here. We're turning what? I'm turning 33 here soon. I don't know about you, but I'm not the young guy anymore. When I started I was 23, so it's almost a decade.
Karson Humiston: Yeah, well, did you graduate in 2015? I graduated in 2013. Okay. I graduated in 2015. For some reason, I thought I saw on your LinkedIn 2015, but it doesn't matter. You're still, we still are basically the same age.
Bryan Gerber: Yeah.
Karson Humiston: Okay. Well, Brian, let's jump into it. You started this business when you were 23. You went to George Washington. I know your business is in Las Vegas. How in the world did this, uh, happen?
Bryan Gerber: So instead of applying for internships and finding a Goldman Sachs gig or an IBM or some type of consulting job, I decided to keep convincing my roommates that we should start a subscription box for smoking accessories. And everyone kept saying I was crazy, an idiot, what are you talking about? 2015, when we started, was kind of a big subscription economy year. So it was like Birchbox had just raised their hundredth million dollar and Dollar Shave Club just got by Gillette. And so hot topic. So essentially, the idea was Birchbox for stoners, right? That's what the original concept was. And so we launched May 1st, 2015. had a couple hundred subscribers over the first four months. Then we launched this kind of guest curated concept where we would bring in a celebrity, they'd pick the items for a month, and then you'd smoke like Snoop Dogg for 30 days, right? The idea was you're watching them on TV, you're listening to their music, why not sit on the couch and, you know, partake like they do, right? So that kind of catapulted the subscription box. Month six, we started processing like six figures in revenue already. So it like exploded the whole concept. And so kind of ending the first year, we had like over 2000 subscribers. Today, we're at about 30,000 subscribers, if that gives you any color on that. And so the idea was that we were a third party curated box, then about 16 months into the business, we decided, okay, how are we going to keep this fresh, keep the customers happy, we kind of ran out of shit to put in the box, we already went through everybody's stuff, to be honest. And so we kind of landed back on, what if we came up with our own products and our own gadgets, and just kind of became the authority, right, for you know, making your ritual better, faster.
Karson Humiston: Someone in the office, I told them I was doing this and they handed me this. This is, this is one of yours? Yes, correct. That's the Jolly Pop. For those folks listening, I've got the Jolly Pop in my hand. Uh, I mean, how would you just, I don't even know how to describe it. I mean, it's someone in our office just has it sitting on their desk. I never knew it was your product.
Bryan Gerber: It's a bong, a water pipe.
Karson Humiston: It's a water pipe, but it's kind of got like a, it kind of looks like a mint, right?
Bryan Gerber: Like it's like- Yeah, like a lollipop mint. Like a lollipop. Yeah, exactly.
Karson Humiston: Yeah, so everyone was excited. I told them I was talking to you and they're like, someone ran up and was like, hey, this is the guy that you're talking to, you know? So I'm pretty sure like throughout our office, like a lot of your products just kind of linger and then they're used. Maybe in the day, I don't really know.
Bryan Gerber: Yeah, so we, So 16 months into the business, we decided, OK, we're going to start developing our own products. Right. And the way we looked at it was a bit different. I don't know if you've ever been to like a champs trade show before, but it's very much when I first started was like you walk up to a booth. you know, a kid had one product on it, it was 3D printed, he had just enough money to get 3D print made just in time for the show. And it's kind of like a please sell my stuff, right approach. We wanted to go in with like, hey, we designed this in house, we vertically integrated, we manufactured ourselves, and we released it to thousands of consumers overnight. got feedback from everyone. If they loved it, we'd go to our retail and distribution partners and say, hey, you should sell it. Look at the reviews. They love it. And it was really like a data driven approach to product development. And so the way we look at the subscription box now is it's more novelty theme based as opposed to like celebrity curated. We got rid of the celebrity curated after dealing with the manager, and the boyfriend's manager, and the boyfriend's manager's manager, and the entire entourage of craziness. With the celebs.
Karson Humiston: Yeah, the celeb stuff is hard.
Bryan Gerber: It's hard. It's exhausting. You don't actually get what you pay for, and they don't actually deliver on what they're supposed to either.
Karson Humiston: Snoop invested in Vanks via Casa Verde, and he did a tweet for us. always say that that one tweet got us more signups on any one day than all the other shit we did. Billboards, ads, all the things. But, you know, it was one tweet one day. So it's a lot of work to get that tweet.
Bryan Gerber: Yes, correct. So got away from that, went to these novelty themes. And if you don't like Snoop Dogg, you're not buying Snoop Dogg's box, right? So we kind of were aiming… Who doesn't like Snoop Dogg?
Karson Humiston: I don't know. People, apparently. Anyway, continue.
Bryan Gerber: Yeah. So I get it. Yeah. So we started developing products, releasing it through the subscription box, which ended up becoming like our paid Trojan horse marketing outlet, essentially. Then we took those products and that feedback and went to retail with it. Right. And obviously we have Hemper.com, which is one of the most visited e-com accessory sites now. But before that, it was just the box. And so now you can buy the subscription box, you can buy a la carte. And so we've now developed over 200 products in the last eight years, which are in thousands of stores across the US, Canada, internationally. We're in about, we've sold to about 100 countries. We're probably distributed in about 50 of them.
Karson Humiston: And at this point, and one of the questions that I should have probably asked earlier, but in the beginning, were you bootstrapped? Did you raise from friends and family? Did you never raise? Did you raise? I'm always curious to hear how people fund their operations.
Bryan Gerber: So bootstrapped for the first three years. Same with us, actually. We have then raised a couple million bucks in 2018. And then we did a series A in 19, which Poseidon came in, Emily and Morgan. And then that's all we've raised. So we've raised about three and a half million roughly.
Karson Humiston: So cool. You know, it's funny that so many things about, we never met, but so many things about us are similar. We were bootstrapped for three years. In 2018, we did our seed. In 2019, we did our A. We ended up doing a B, but you know, probably slightly different businesses. And I'm jealous that you never had to do a B. So after your A, were you just like, we got the capital we need, we can be a profitable growing business and we don't want to give up more of the company? Or how did you decide to go the capital positive route?
Bryan Gerber: Yes. So we we've always had revenue in the early. We had the snowball effect. So it was moving quickly. We did a bridge to a B convertible note for about like nine hundred grand. And then right after we raised that that was like I don't know two months after our Series A. I just need a little bit more juice. And then after that we went like super cash flow positive.
Karson Humiston: That's so awesome. Yeah. So When you were making the decision to move from doing the subscription boxes to actually getting into retail stores, what was the go-to-market strategy? You mentioned that you're in thousands of retailers. How do you get your products into the retailers?
Bryan Gerber: What kind of distribution channels do you do? Totally. Basically, that's interesting because I'm launching into Europe heavily right now. But in the States, we've got three customer profiles, right? We've got smoke shops, convenience stores and dispensaries. Right. So if you want to go to dispensaries, obviously you target the MSOs. Historically, they've got the largest reach. So, you know, it's kind of easier to get in there for smoke shops. There's very few chains. So you're kind of very fragmented. You've got like to smoke shop chains, you've got like smokers friendly, and then you've got wild bills, which are about four or 500 stores, roughly each. So for us, it was really just using the brand power. So what we said to a lot of these retailers said, Hey, all in our products will drive geolocation traffic to your store. So we'll say, Hey, Hemper products now available in Smoker Friendly's in Ohio and Arizona and whatever, so on and so forth. And so we would show them that we weren't here to obliterate their business model by being an e-commerce company. We were here to help support them in a different fashion, right? The way I looked at it was the retailers were Foot Locker, we're Adidas, right? Without Adidas' marketing budget and products, Foot Locker would have no reason to exist. And that's how we pitched it to them. It was like, we're here to support drive traffic and get you products in your store that actually customers want, and that are fun, functional and affordable. Right. And so that was really what we use is just the brand power. I mean, we've got 700,000 followers on Instagram. And so it was really just like, we're here to be a partner, not just take my shit and I'll see you in six months when you buy more shit. Right.
Karson Humiston: And so do you have outside sales reps going around to these? Do you have sales reps inside?
Bryan Gerber: Yeah, so we have inside sales reps. A lot of the bigger enterprise stuff I deal with on the first kind of part of it and then I hand it off to our director of sales. And so a lot of these relationships were kind of cultivated by the C-suite and then merged into more of an account manager role was the idea. So that was like the first Three years of the business was just Hemper. And then when we went to go raise our Series A round is when we started this whole power supply cone conversation with the business. And so. There was like this massive shortage in the market in like 2017, 2018. And really, we were like one of the first companies to start supplying like kush bottles and marijuana packaging with like all their glass and accessories and stuff, right? Because everything historically was like, you know, come in broken, nothing was labeled or barcoded. You know, we just brought a little bit of professionalism to the, you know, the market. And so, yeah.
Karson Humiston: No, I was going to say it's nice that, you know, you don't have to have a light. You don't, you don't have to have a license, right? Like you can, you can, you could, you could, yeah, you don't have to have an actual cannabis license. So also you just have such an advantage because you don't have all these hoops that everyone else is having to jump through.
Bryan Gerber: Yes. No, totally. So we, I got called in, I don't know if you know, Nick, uh, COVID-7. So he, they, Kush Bottle started acquiring us like 16 months into the business. And I told Nick, I was like, I, you know, actually, in the timing, we would have made out quite well. But I'm glad we did it. And so basically went into their office one day and he said, hey, we're trying to uplist on the NASDAQ. We're getting rid of the paraphernalia division. We're not going to sell bongs anymore. Uh, and which was like, I don't know, a million or two bucks a year for us. I was like, okay, that sucks. And then he goes, however, I have a new opportunity for you. And I was like, okay, what's up? And so he goes, I've got $7 million outstanding with raw and futarola. They have 30 week lead times. How do we get cones? We know you're making stuff in India. Can you guys make cones? What's the possibility here?" I said, well, for $7 million, much more than a couple million bucks in bongs, I'll figure out how to make cones. My random college roommate, who's one of the business partners, RJ, goes back over to India. Essentially, it was like you had like two major players in Indonesia, and then like a lot of sweatshop kind of models in India, right? And so we went over there, learned how to make cones, understood the paper, the gluing, the cutting, every process, right? And then we went back to Kush and said, hey, here's some samples we made. What do you guys think about the quality?
Karson Humiston: I like how you're calling RJ your random college roommate. He was like, not your business partner.
Bryan Gerber: Yes. More like brother from another mother at this point. Right.
Karson Humiston: So you figured out how to do it in India, but then you came back and did it in your warehouse in Nevada?
Bryan Gerber: No. So every cone in the world right now is made by hand. Oh, wow. It was, so the cone was invented about 40 years ago, but for some reason could never be automated. Okay. And it's due to the fact that the paper is super fragile and thin. So when you go to manipulate it, it's not like a cigarette paper where it's like a, I'm going to use terms, 18 GSM grams per square meter of cigarette paper or rolling papers like 14 or 12. So it's super thin and it's difficult to automate and move through machinery because it'll rip. Right. So Every cone is handmade. So kind of to give you a glimpse, we run 15 manufacturing sites today in India with about 4,000 employees.
Karson Humiston: Oh, my God. Yes. And making cones one by one.
Bryan Gerber: One by one. Yes. And so we started to ask you why you weren't a banks customer.
Karson Humiston: And it's because you have you don't need any U.S. workers. You have 4,000 employees in India.
Bryan Gerber: Yes. Our back office, you know, all of our support stuff. It's yeah. All in India. So. Um, yeah, it's been, uh, God bless RJ cause it's, I haven't had to figure anything really out over there. It's all been him. Uh, and so I do sales and support and customer interfacing here. Uh, and so kind of getting back to it. So we produced these cones originally, obviously we started with one facility. We start, we were never supposed to sell cones. Kush was always supposed to take the cones, sell them to all the MSOs. We were going to take, you know, we were going to take Futurola's lunch money is what we were saying in the background rooms, you know, and that didn't obviously pan out. So kind of six months into a relationship with Kush, we start making 5 million cones, 10 million cones, 15 million cones a month. Right. And it just keeps growing because they told us they needed 75 million cones a month to, you know, to fill the gap. And so I called Nick one day, I said, hey, look, you guys aren't selling. I don't know what to do here. We've got all this capacity. And I said, hey, I got to go start selling. So I went out and started trying to figure out, OK, what's the quickest way to cash flow? We've got all this capacity, right? It's not selling my own cones. It's going to support other companies. So we started targeting the tobacco rolling paper brands. OCB, ZigZag, Raw. And so we started producing for those companies first. And then we actually moved into the cannabis companies later, which, you know, now we do most of your MSOs. We do all your big vanity brands, you know, Jeters, DZ. And so now we're producing about 100 million cones a month for the market. Yes, a lot. Mostly all for North America, if you can believe that. Europe and what's the average?
Karson Humiston: What does one cone typically cost if you go into a dispenser and you buy a cone?
Bryan Gerber: What does it cost average like a three pack or a six pack of cones? You can probably buy for like $1.99 to $3. Let's say. And so a lot of the cones we make for the processors are bulk towers, so like 800, 900 plus quantity. And then for raw zigzag OCB, we make all retail packaging. So 3, 6, 10, 20, 50, so on and so forth.
Karson Humiston: It's also incredible that your business model, you know, some of the people that we've had on the podcast as of late, you know, they're in the like Delta nine space. And so they're selling into, you know, traditional retailers. And it's just such a night and day conversation when I have people like you on that, all your eggs are not in the cannabis basket. It's a, it's a big segment or maybe it's a big segment. I don't even know, but they're your customers, but you've got a lot of other people to sell your product to, which seems like, Very mission critical given the state of the industry right now.
Bryan Gerber: Every single revenue line item that we have here, whether it's glass and accessories or cones. So now we're more of like a solutions partner for the pre-roll category. So we can produce a straight tube, a glass filter tip straight tube, a blunt, ceramic tips, cones, pretty much anything in the pre-roll category. I always say this on these types of interviews. Everyone's looking for their Coca-Cola today still right on the shelf. We're helping people bring their Coca-Cola to market. Right. And we're creating and have created infrastructure for an industry that had no infrastructure and for a category that's exploding that had no infrastructure. So we really come in full customization approach, low MOQs. We don't hit people over the head because we know things are people are trying to figure stuff out. Right. Just because you bought a million units of this SKU doesn't mean that SKU is going to be on the shelf in six months. It could have been just a window of opportunity. Who knows? Right. Or a monkey see monkey do, which is most of what the industry is today. So, you know.
Karson Humiston: So since all the employees are in Since all the employees are in India for the most part, what goes on in Vegas?
Bryan Gerber: So we have about 60 to 70 people here domestically. And what kind of jobs do these folks do? So I've got product development team here. which obviously, you know, to design smoking accessories, you gotta be a user and you gotta be involved with a unit, right? So we have like multiple 3D printers here. We've got laser printers. We're rapid prototyping all day. So product development is a huge part of the business here. All content and marketing is all done out of the office here. We have our own studio where we do our own photos, videos, editing, everything ourselves. We've tried, dealing with agencies in this industry and outside this industry, and it just never translates properly. So we took everything back in-house, do it ourselves, and it's much better. Then I have my sales guys here as well, and gals. And so we have about a 10-person sales team here as well. about we're in a 40,000 square foot building. So I also have about a 20 person warehouse team, as well, or shipping. And so we do a lot of vendor managed inventory here for a lot of the MSOs. And so we store and ship out of the warehouse behind me. And so that's pretty much what we have. And then I have like my, you know, uh, corporate controller and accounting staff as well here.
Karson Humiston: So it's primarily like corporate kind of jobs plus the 20 warehouse workers. And so you've been at it for a minute now for the people that have just crushed it, right? Like the, you know, I have a person, I have an employee, you know, whenever people are like, who's the best person you ever hired, instantly the person comes to my head. I'm not going to say it because everyone else will be offended, but I know exactly who it is. I'll write it down on a piece of paper and I'm going to text it to her. Anyway, for those people in your org, what is it about them that have made them so successful in your company that you would look for when you're hiring those next people that come in?
Bryan Gerber: So I think what makes our business run and what makes these individuals successful in this ecosystem is the autonomy. Right. We bring it. So I've been doing this for almost a decade. This is my first rodeo at this magnitude. Right. I've never dealt with 70 employees domestically. Right. So I've now realized you don't cheap out and hire the B player. or the C player and cheap out even more, because you're just going to have to replace them in 3, 6, 9, 12 months, right? So in the last few years, we've really strived for A players that have been in the industry. We've tried the training and education it doesn't translate at all. You could be the best marketer in the world for the drinks, but when you come here, you have no idea what to do, right?
Karson Humiston: And those people didn't, and the other cool, the other thing is, is like, you know, five, six years ago, there wasn't that many people with that kind of profile. Every year that passes by, there's an additional, right? We're dropping our jobs report next week. There's, you know, something like 450,000 people employed full time in cannabis. And now for your for your industries, there's even more. So it's like, yeah, you don't have to. You can find people with that now.
Bryan Gerber: Right. So I'll give an example, like our VP of product development. First job out of high school was got vape.
Karson Humiston: Okay, great. Got me.
Bryan Gerber: Right. So he's done devices and smoking accessories and vape products his entire career, right? Our director of product development graduated from college, went to work for Marley Natural in Brooklyn, right? He's only known smoking accessories his entire career. Right. That's the people we're trying to find that is where their career in this industry or, you know, and so, again, it's. The ability to basically say, we can do whatever we want here, right? It's more of like the responsibility of like, I'm going to focus my time on things that I know are going to make the business money and be impactful, as opposed to like, I'm going to dilly-daddle here and take advantage of the situation, and I'm going to have to go find a new gig in six months or a year or whatever.
Karson Humiston: I hate those kind of people. I watched the Jewel documentary over the weekend. Have you watched it?
Bryan Gerber: I have not.
Karson Humiston: I'm curious how in 2019, like when the vape crisis was going on and there was all that like, you know, vitamin E getting mixed into the vape pens, like how did all of that, you know, I remember it now that I watched a documentary like in 2019, like talking about the vape crisis within the industry and like why regulated product was so important, et cetera. How did the vape crisis impact your company and like, just like the overall market dynamics there?
Bryan Gerber: Vape crisis was amazing for our business. because it basically was painting a picture of using a cartridge, more or less, was bad, right? You're getting heavy metals, all these things. So everyone started going back to pre-rolls. So it was good for our business, obviously bad for, I know, the C-cell distributors and all those guys. But no, it was good for us. We didn't have any negative stuff. And I know everyone, I guess now it's fine to say, but COVID was great for the business too. You know, we exploded during COVID, right? Every call was like, Oh, how's it going? And I had to like, pretend like it was a shit show, right? It was like, Oh, business is terrible. And it was like, no, we hit numbers we had never seen.
Karson Humiston: So that's the case for so many people. It turns out when people don't have a lot to do, they're going for this lollipop bong. Right, exactly. So this went by so fast, I just looked up and I have a couple more questions I want to ask as we wrap here in the last five minutes. But as you look forward to the next decade, what do you want for the business? What do you want for yourself? In your mind, how does the story continue unfolding?
Bryan Gerber: For sure. I think at some point here, we're going to move into automation on cones at some point. I think for the Hempur brand itself, just continued adoption in the market, just keep growing that we're actually doing. a Fred Siegel collaboration on 420 in California at the Urban Leaf dispensary and their lounge next door. So that's more things. Crossing over into the mainstream has been a really big thing for us the last year or so. And then I think just, you know, just kind of eyeing Europe, obviously, Germany just went legal today, which is massive. So just continue expansion to Europe, and just really keeping product development top of mind and creating products truly for this industry and truly for the consumers, instead of like, you know, repurpose bullshit that's from other markets that come into here. And it's really like, how do we make your ritual better? And that's what we're focusing on.
Karson Humiston: And my final question is, if you go back in time to May 2015 when you launched your business, you're sitting and you're having a conversation with yourself, you know, you don't have a lot of time, so you can just give yourself one piece of advice. What do you tell yourself?
Bryan Gerber: Don't have shiny object syndrome. That's a good one. Focus on, you know, you have a plan, It doesn't have to be the plan every day, but you kind of keep on that plan. And I think a lot of people in their early days try to execute to a T to this plan. And I think a lot of people need to realize that as a startup, you're inventing revenue streams. You're inventing a business model, right? It doesn't have to be what you start out on day one. Day 60 could look completely different, right? But you need to keep reinventing yourself. That's what we always say. It's like every two to three years, new revenue line, new thing, new something. Because if you don't, I've seen because now that I've dealt with all these massive tobacco companies, they don't make money from one thing. They make money from 20 things. Right. And it's kind of important to keep that in mind.
Karson Humiston: There's this really good documentary. What's the guy's name? Oh, David. But there's this documentary and it's like about this really famous guy and it's like all about like Reinventing yourself and like imagining and he was like basically it's like everyone's just a fake like it's just like a Every single person is a figment of their own imagination and every single business is a figment of your own imagination I think about what it was called like guys names like David something I'm totally drawing a blank, but I totally agree with what you're saying. It's like your business, when I have you back on this podcast in a few years, it's going to be totally different because of you and these eight players that you've hired. So speaking of which, if people want to get in touch with you, they want to follow you, they maybe want to join the team. Obviously you mentioned you have a huge following, but how do people follow along this journey and maybe even join this journey? Because I'm sure a lot of people listening would love the chance to throw their hat into the ring to come work for you.
Bryan Gerber: Definitely. So email is brian at harsupply.com. And you can send me a LinkedIn message, reach out. Would love to hear from people that take initiative.
Karson Humiston: Yeah, we love the people that take initiative. Gen Z, we're talking to you. So we've got the king of cones. Brian, thank you so much for being here. Excited to spend some time in person hopefully soon.
Bryan Gerber: Likewise. Thanks, Carson. Appreciate it.