0 (2s):
Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like the MarTech podcast today, we'll be breaking down how to former athletes turned into leading wellness entrepreneurs to drop these value bombs. I brought Kevin Moran and to EOFire studios, Kevin and his partner, Matt are former professional athletes, turned entrepreneurs who started a wellness company called Beam. They offer products that harness the benefits of natural non-toxic nano CBD and other high quality ingredients. And today Fire Nation, we'll talk about this journey about raising a $5 million in a series, a funding, all the lessons learned the mistakes that were made and so much more.

0 (52s):
When we get back from thanking our sponsors, looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs increase profitability by an average of 104% annually, all for less money than it would cost to hire one minimum wage employee all on a month to month basis. Schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former SBA entrepreneur of the year at ThrivetimeShow.com/fire stories are what help us connect and relate, which is why hearing someone else's story to success can help us clearly map out our own. That's why I'm excited to share the female startup club podcast tune in for stories and insights from the world's most successful female founders today, listen to the female startup club, wherever you get your podcasts.

0 (1m 36s):
Kevin say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 45s):
What is up Fire Nation? I would say gosh, on that one, there's a lot there, but I think people, people often think that balance is important in an entrepreneur's life or anyone that's been successful. Anything that I've ever done that's I, I guess, would be perceived as successful from an outsider's perspective. I'd say, has it been the opposite of balance in my life from a baseball pressure perspective in my career there, and then anything with Beam? I think anything that can potentially give you outsized results in terms of what you want in your life, you know, needs outsized effort to get there. And that often comes at the expense of a lot of pain and no balance

0 (2m 22s):
Outsized results comes from outsized efforts, Fire Nation. Remember that all day and doing my research. Kevin kind of going through your story a little bit, you know, we want to talk about the career ending injury, which you know, is devastating for any athlete. It happens to most at some point. Can you share that story as well as how you actually ended up turning that end of your sports chapter into the beginning of what now is Beam?

1 (2m 52s):
You know, when I look back at that experience in my life, I think at the time it was pretty painful for me, but when I looked back at it now, it's probably one of the most valuable things that ever happened to me. I got drafted when I was a junior in college at a Boston college, I was a pitcher in the Chicago white Sox organization. I blew out my left knee and my right knee. I had Tommy John surgery, which is a major elbow injury. And then my last injury was I told my rotator cuff in my labor room. And, you know, that was kind of the final nail in the coffin. We'll say there was other things calling me in life. I didn't want to have another surgery, another shoulder surgery and just keep rehabbing. So I decided to, to make a move from that. And I was a relatively big prospect when I got drafted. And I think it gave me at a young age, a lot of perspective.

1 (3m 35s):
And there's a lot of corollaries that I, I, I kind of drive between my experience in professional sports and in what Beam has been like the last couple of years, I think as an entrepreneur, particularly like in a, in a very competitive space, there's a lot of competition. And a lot of days it feels like you kind of get kicked in the mouth. I had that experience at, at a young age, baseball is very much of what have you done for me lately business. So for me, it was just, I realized that oftentimes, you know, people don't really care what's going on in your personal or your professional life and you have to persevere through things and get results. So I think that experience playing baseball and, and ultimately stopping playing baseball because of the injuries that I had just gave me a good perspective going into this, I would say just because there's so many ups and downs and challenges on a daily basis,

0 (4m 20s):
Even with, you know, the fact that you went through that injury after injury, after injury, and, you know, you obviously became pretty knowledgeable about what it was like to recover and to recuperate and to try to heal yourself and your body, you know, all that stuff. It was still like a major challenge to turn what has become Beam into a reality. So kind of talk to us about the origination of the idea and then, you know, talk about the hurdles that you kind of faced and had to get over and how you overcame them as you kind of turned Beam into what it is today.

1 (4m 54s):
So baseball and all the injuries that I had. I think that game 70 out for a good perspective to start being, and I think a lot of people want to start businesses or they want to do something that they think is, I guess, follow a dream or follow their passion. And they, they just can't find a way to get started. So, man, for me, there was so many reasons not to get started. I was getting married at the time. I worked for a big tech company and I made some decent money. I was going to go take a very risky career. It was a very competitive market. There were a lot of things like in my personal and professional life that were telling me not to do this, but you know, Matt and I, my co-founder, we had a vision for what the company could look like and kind of our motto that we would always say to ourselves. And just the two of us was that there was always room for the best we were in a high skepticism, low trust space.

1 (5m 40s):
So we just saw it. There was a unique opportunity to build a really beautiful consumer brand and come hell or high water. We were going to do it. I've also done a few irons. If you get to the starting line of an iron man, it's a two and a half miles swim, 112 mile bike and then a marathon. And if you think about, you know, the end results of that 10 to 15 of exercise, whatever it's going to take, you, you, you really can't complete it. You can't even get started to be able to, frankly, and I would say very much in the early days of a startup, it's like taking little pieces at a time and knocking those out and getting small results and building on them from there very similar to an Ironman. So man, there were so many things in the beginning that somebody reasons we shouldn't have done it, but ultimately we just had a lot of conviction and a lot of self-belief.

1 (6m 23s):
And I guess now we're here today.

0 (6m 25s):
So I kind of want to know why CBD, because CBD is pretty much just three mystical letters for most people. So for Fire Nation, like let's actually demystify what CBD is and kind of talk through, you know, why you're making this one of the cornerstones of Beam.

1 (6m 42s):
Yeah. It started from my personal experience, Matt and I were to for training for the Boston marathon in 2018. And we started looking at the category. I'm like a lot of people, you know, this was four or five years ago. Now we were very much in the stone age of this stuff. I'd say it's becoming more mainstream, but still in a lot of ways, it's misunderstood. We started looking at the space and trying some products and having our own experiences with the efficacy of those products and then looking at the brands. And there just wasn't anyone that we thought frankly, was doing a great job and then started talking to athletes in, in our networks from that in hockey and me and baseball and having some discussions with them and they didn't get it. They thought that they were going to fail a drug test. So we started to do some research and to understand it a little bit more into your question, CBD is a cannabinoid and I won't get super nerdy on this stuff, but it comes from the flowers and the leaves of hemp plant of the hemp plant CBD and THC are both cannabinoids.

1 (7m 34s):
THC is obviously psychoactive. CBD is not, we have receptors in our endocannabinoid system that basically bond to CBD and I won't get into all those details, but more or less what CBD does it brings your body back into balance or what's, what's known as homeostasis. So oftentimes people will say, you know, how can this help my knee feel better, helped me sleep deeper and help me, you know, solve with, you know, X amount of stress or anxiety in my life. And to an extent that it's kind of like a people kind of sell it as a, as a cure all, but really what it's doing is it's bringing your body back into balance. And our thesis on the space was how can we take an ingredient? Like CBD that to us would be a lifestyle supplement like a fish oil or vitamin C or college and protein, and then stack it with other functional ingredients.

1 (8m 22s):
So our sleep product does an example is, is nano, modified, CBD, and then melatonin, magnesium, Rishi mean all things that create a synergistic benefit to give you a better night's sleep. So for us, it was like taking CBD, you know, the stigma of it or the category of it and just putting it with other lifestyle supplements to create said benefit. If that makes sense,

0 (8m 43s):
Totally does make sense. And what I really love what Kevin's doing here. And this is one thing that I think is a huge takeaway Fire Nation is he's taking his firsthand real-world experience. He knows what works. He knows what doesn't work. He knows what helped him. And he also knows, Hey, what is something that's kind of new in the marketplace? That's a little mystifying. That's not that well known. How can I maybe be on the cutting edge of something? How can I maybe build up a high barrier? So there's a low competition of actual competitors because I already have such a headstart down the road that moat around your business. And that's what he's been able to do when he did kind of tease a little bit about some of the sleep benefits that happens here.

0 (9m 23s):
And this is something that we're going to be diving into later in this interview, as well as some are really cool things about raising money, all that, and more, when we get back from thanking our sponsors nowadays, it's a lot more common to have team members across the globe. Some of your team may be connecting in-person while others are relying on platforms to connect. That's why it's so important to make sure you have a platform in place that can help your entire team stay in the know and connected. What platform can help you do this, a HubSpot CRM platform, whether you're just getting your business up and running or scaling to the next level, a HubSpot CRM platform can help you with things like forecasting and building custom reports, both necessary for setting your business and your team up for success.

0 (10m 6s):
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0 (10m 48s):
Fire Nation meet Clay Clark. Clay has been coaching businesses since 2006. Yep. Even through the great recession and he does it for less money than it would cost to hire a minimum wage employee Inc magazine reports that by default 96% of businesses will fail within 10 years. Yet clique clients grow by an average of 104% annually. How's the SEMA possible Clay only takes on 160 clients. So he personally designed your business plan. Plus Kelly's team helps you execute that plan with access to graphic designers, Google certified search engine, optimizers, web developers, ad managers, videographers workflow, mappers and accounting coaches visit thrive time show.com/fire to watch thousands of testimonials from real entrepreneurs who Clay's helped over the years.

0 (11m 30s):
Do your research. If you thousands of documented success stories from real people, like you ThrivetimeShow.com/fire, then schedule your free consultation with Clay himself to see how he can help you with proven business coaching on a month to month commitment basis, ThrivetimeShow.com/fire. So Kevin we're back. And what I was really impressed with is how you leveraged your athlete relationships. And you did that to the tune of raising over $5 million in your series, a funding for operations, for infrastructure, for marketing efforts. And I know as we were talking, pre-interview that you've even done well. And above that into now the eight figures of raising money, and you're doing some really cool things.

0 (12m 14s):
So talk about this whole process because our listeners Fire Nation are really going to be fascinated about that initial raise that you did for your series a and then how you've leveraged that into bigger raises and so on and so forth. So talk through that process.

1 (12m 30s):
Yeah. Raising money is certainly a means to an end, and it depends on who you want to be and what you want your business to be. I mean, Matt and I had the discussion early on. I think you hit this point earlier, John, like it was a very nascent category that we were getting into. And gosh, when we started the farm bill hadn't didn't pass in 2018. So it was as nascent as nascent comes from when we started, it was borderline a little bit crazy to start and build a brand in the space, but that's been know a gift and a curse for us as we've grown. But the decision to raise money is a really, really important one because it certainly changes the game for you as the founders of the company. And oftentimes there's a boiler that's associated with raising money. And for us, like I said, Matt and I, we wanted to be a speedboat, not necessarily a sailboat because the market's growing so quickly and we want it to be a leader in the space.

1 (13m 14s):
So raising money was definitely something we had to do. I think a lot of founders, candidly, where it is like as a, as a badge of honor, I'd say, and there's important. It's great to get the company funded and you can do a lot of great things when you're capitalized, but it really is important to, to sit down with you if you're a single founder or you're a co-founder. And think about what the goals of the business are. Do you want to grow really rapidly and grow really big? Or do you want to start from the, from the jumping profitable and grow a little bit slower? There are a lot of ways to do it. Our first discussion on raising money was, gosh, we probably raised our series seed round about three years ago now. And we had some milestones that we had to hit internally.

1 (13m 57s):
We knew if we get to X amount of revenue, we'd get, you know, traditional venture capital interested in the business. So kind of like our was saying earlier, starting small and chopping things into little bites. We had one marketing channel that we knew was going to be successful for us or have proven to be successful so far. So I was just not, and I, the two of us, we figured, okay, let's sync all of our, any capital that we have and any resources and energy we have into the channel to try to get X amount of revenue from this channel. And if we do that, we're pretty confident that we'll be able to go out and raise some, some venture funding. So we were kind of just like a dog on a bone for about six months and we hit those numbers and, you know, put all the details together and went through the diligence process. We got in bounded by a bunch of UCS and started having some discussions there.

1 (14m 42s):
And I'm getting a little bit long-winded. But the other side of that story is building a beautiful brand. If you're a consumer brand or, you know, obviously your, your, your listeners are vast and diverse in terms of what they're doing. But on the consumer side, if you're in, like I said, a high skepticism, those low trust space, you have to have the revenue equation and you know, all of the metrics that show a healthy business, but also built a really beautiful brand. So I think we had those two things going early on for us and leverage those to start some discussions, I guess I'll pause there, but I can talk about some of the athlete stuff if you'd like as well,

0 (15m 14s):
The athlete's stuff, and then maybe even kind of touch upon, you know, a couple recommendations you'd have for people in our audience above what you've already shared. If they are looking to go down a similar path,

1 (15m 24s):
I guess I'll start on the last part of it. First fundraising is to me, what I've learned over the last four years is all about optionality. Like you want to create, you want to raise money and give yourselves options in the future. Like whether those options are raised, another round of funding grow profitably, hired our team to, to, to grow, bring debt into the business, whatever the options are that that makes sense for you. You just want to have a lot of them, and that's why you want to raise money to get to those points. So that's how I kind of view funding. And again, like, I'd say it's, it's when you do bring in funding, it changes the game in terms of people involved in the business. And, you know, also just from a personal perspective, there's a different level of stress that's associated with the business that has other people's money involved in it.

1 (16m 6s):
So something to be really thoughtful about, it's probably one of the most important decisions you make as, as a founder in regard to the athletes. I think that was just, that was also part, part hustle. I would say, you know, we had some folks in our network and we were able to get connected to some pretty big athletes and some pretty big, some pretty big names. They just got excited about it. Like they, they had very similar thoughts on the space that we did and, you know, Matt and I, having athletic backgrounds, I think was a benefit to us. We could go to people like Danica, Patrick, or baker Mayfield, and Billy Horschel on the PGA tour and say, Hey, like, we know that this can help you. It's helped us when we work, what would have helped us if we were still playing professionally, we know what you're afraid of as it pertains to these products, these are the reasons why you shouldn't be afraid of him.

1 (16m 50s):
And we just had some really thorough discussions with them. And we were really fortunate. You know, initially we were talking to some of those folks who just being partners with the brand, but actually I started to get to know the company and I guess Matt and I as founders, they, they wanted to, I guess, folk with their, with their checkbooks. And they all got involved as investors

0 (17m 6s):
And Fire Nation. This is a big takeaway is that you have a huge opportunity to leverage your strengths. I mean, here, Kevin was able to just start the conversation because he had the know like, and trust of these individuals. And then sometimes if you can just start the conversation with one person, like for instance, Danica, Patrick, and then you go to somebody who maybe you don't even have that good relationship with, but you're like, yeah. So, you know, we've got people like Danica, Patrick onboard, and she's invested and she's in an advisor and all this different stuff, then you're able to continue to build and to leverage upon that know like, and trust now, not just with yourself, but with other people that you've been able to bring on and continue to make that happen. So love how you do that.

0 (17m 46s):
Cabinet is definitely the right to go about getting that know like, and trust

1 (17m 54s):
Ganache has an example in baker. Like they love the products. So like it was, you know, that was kind of the table kind of leaving that part out in terms of them investing. But that was table stakes. Like totally like the products, first of all, and like, feel like it was efficacious and working for them. So that was kind of to be candid. Like that was the door opener then it was.

0 (18m 11s):
Yeah. And I love that point so important. It always starts with the product. And a lot of people say, John, how do I grow my podcast? And I'm like, well, is it a great podcast? Because unless it's great people aren't going to listen and be, they're not going to realist and see, they're not going to tell their friends about it and they're not going to support it. So whatever it is that you're doing, whatever it is, product services, you fill in the blank, it has to be great. It has to work. So recently, Kevin Beam has been really focusing on the importance of sleep when it comes to recovery, which, I mean, I personally love my first action. Every single morning is to check my sleep score with my aura ring. So I can kind of continue to refine and improve my sleep experience.

0 (18m 54s):
I'm like, okay, no deep sleep. I had coffee at 2:00 PM yesterday that was past my coffee curfew, what am I doing wrong? And so it was continuing to improve that process. So what made you add sleep as a major focus?

1 (19m 8s):
We just found how impactful it was to, to your point on you checking your, I have another sleep device that I check. And I think as a society like we're Matt and I were looking at things over the last handful of years, and we're really moving away from this. I would say kind of glorification of burning the candle at both ends. Like I said, in the beginning, like there, there are times when you have to burn the candle at both ends to, to be successful, but I think we're moving away from that and really valuing rest and recovery and, you know, particularly sleep. And I was a horrible, horrible, horrible sleeper before Matt and I created this product and I knew how bad it would feel okay to me the next day, after a bad night's sleep and how it impacted me.

1 (19m 49s):
So we always talk about a good night, a good day, starting the night before. So for me, it was trying the products. I mean, there was a lot of product development that went into these and seeing how they made me feel. And then, you know, getting also from an entrepreneurial perspective, getting a product out in market and getting feedback really quickly. So we, we launched our sleep products a few years ago now and on a very small one or production to some, some pretty high caliber fans of the brand, I would say, in, in customers and they had great results with the product. So then we kind of iterated from there and we just realized that more and more people were leaning into it. And we're struggling with this massive, massive problem. Like when you look at the Tam for sleep, it's just a huge, huge category.

1 (20m 30s):
There are so many people that are struggling with it. And what we've seen is people that are even good sleepers are using the products to try to optimize their sleep to your point. There's so much data out there. And I do it myself. I look at my deep sleep versus my single wave sleep and all of the different pieces of sleep that are out there and everybody's trying to optimize for it. And it just, it, it spiders into every other area of your life when you slept better. So it's been, it's been a really big one for us.

0 (20m 54s):
So Kevin, I kind of want to hand the mic over to you as you start to wind down here, like of everything we've talked about here today, what are some of the major takeaways that you really want to make sure that Fire Nation gets from your story from where Beam is and where Beam is going? And of course, let's talk a little bit about the partnership that we have over the next month. It's going to be really exciting for you Fire Nation, to be able to get experience with Beam and what they have going on here. And then we'll say goodbye.

1 (21m 26s):
One of my favorite books is the obstacle is the way by Ryan holiday. I'm sure you're probably familiar with it, anything in my life over the last, I don't know, 30 or so years that has been perceived as a negative that, you know, from a baseball perspective or anything in my business or professional life professional life, that initially is perceived as a problem. If you have looked at it through the right lens, am I connect the dots going backwards? I they've also been, they've actually been some of the best and rewarding experiences of my life. So I think just leaning into the hard things in life is where you see really great results. Come in on the other side. And from a startup perspective, I would say, just get started.

1 (22m 6s):
And then it's so people, there's so many different people I tell you to put together a business plan or do this, or look at the Tam or talk to this person that's done it. There's nothing better than consumer feedback and getting a product to market to an extent. No idea is a good idea. You have to test it and see what people think. So just getting started is the hardest thing to do, but the most impactful and it's way easier said than done, but perfect is the enemy of great. So get something in the market and, and circuit and data points back and then iterate from there. So from a being perspective, I would just say, you know, we've been fortunate over the years to grow really quickly and to get some great people involved in the business for us. We, I guess some earlier point there, but we're constantly just listening to customers.

1 (22m 48s):
So what are customers telling us? Where do they want us to innovate? We have some new things in the product roadmap, but continuing to lean into the products and the things that are working for us and that are serving our customers and then listening to them, Matt and I actually talked to them pretty frequently, listening to them on where they want the brand to evolve to and kind of going from there. I don't want to share too much, but we also have some pretty exciting stuff coming out around the holidays. But yeah, I, I said from its most macro perspective, just listening to our customers

0 (23m 16s):
And let's just finish off with the fact that, you know, we're going to be partnering and over the next month, and it's going to be talking about some awesome things via these sponsorships Fire Nation, that Beam is going to be able to bring to you and to offer to you and some cool little opportunities. So why don't you talk a little bit about that?

1 (23m 31s):
We're going to be talking specifically in regard to the partnership around our sleep products, which we talked about here, but there's some of our best selling products. They taste good. They're also very healthy and efficacious. That's something that, and I, from a brand perspective, refuse to, to, to compromise on a there's no artificial sweeteners, there's no added sugar. So the dream product that we're going to be talking about, like I mentioned, is melatonin, magnesium, Rishi mushrooms, LTA, Nene. You don't really need to know what's in it. Other than it's going to give you a really great night's sleep with no added sugar. It's a really nice kind of like hot cocoa, hot cocoa flavored drink mix that you can have before bed and have it be indulgent, but not a problem before you go to bed and then get a really deep night's sleep.

1 (24m 12s):
So I'm definitely excited to, for some of you guys to try that product and get some feedback back, but I'm pretty confident that you're going to like it, given that what we voted for back from customers over the last few years. So I'm pumped to get that one out in the market. John, with you

0 (24m 27s):
Sounds like the perfect dessert drink slash beverage Fire Nation. I know I'll be sipping on one or two as I'm winding my evening down for sure. So if you want to learn more about all the awesomeness that Beam has going on, Beam, organics.com/e O F you'll be at a checkout, some pretty awesome stuff there, everything that we're going to be talking about throughout the month with this sponsorship and partnership, and it's going to be a lot of fun and definitely tag myself, John Lee Dumas with you sipping on this nice hot cocoa treat from Beam, or at least, you know, it's gonna, it's gonna taste like cocoa and we'll have a lot of, some fun with some of those images and pictures and Kevin, anything else before we say goodbye,

1 (25m 11s):
It's the sanctuary having me and everybody out there just get started. It's it's I was on the other side of some of these podcasts listening and having an idea and wanting to get it started, but just go do your thing. You only live once and just get something into market and get some feedback back and get started.

0 (25m 25s):
And I love that phrase that you were on the other side of these podcasts and Fire Nation. We were all on the other side of these podcasts. Like I back in 2009, 10 and 11 pre EOFire was on the other side, listening. I can picture myself walking around the bay in San Diego, listening to other podcasts being on that side, the listener side, just being like, I just need to start. So I love that. Thanks for the story, Kevin, because you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with KM and JLD today. So keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com type Kevin in the search bar. And his name was Pedro pop up with everything that we've been talking about today.

0 (26m 5s):
Best show notes in the biz. Kevin, thank you brother, for sharing your truth, knowledge value with Fire Nation today, for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation today's value bound content was brought to you by Kevin and Fire Nation, successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That's why I created the freedom journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in a hundred days, and we're talking step-by-step so visit the freedomjournal.com. I'll catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side, looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs increase profitability by an average of 104% annually, all for less money than it would cost to hire one minimum wage employee all on a month to month basis.

0 (26m 50s):
Schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former SBA entrepreneur of the year at ThrivetimeShow.com/fire. Stories are what help us connect and relate, which is why hearing someone else's story to success can help us clearly map out our own. That's why I'm excited to share the female startup club podcast tune in for stories and insights from the world's most successful female founders today, listen to the female startup club, wherever you get your podcasts.