Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine. Are you dreaming of starting your own business?
Speaker 2: Today?
Speaker 1: On the bright side, we've got the inspiration you need.
Speaker 1: Cat Hauntis, co founder of the infused tequila brand twenty
Speaker 1: one Seeds, is here to share how she and her
Speaker 1: business partners built a multi million dollar brand from the
Speaker 1: ground up. I'm telling you it was from her kitchen sink.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, March fourth. I'm Danielle Robe and this is
Speaker 1: the bright side from Hello Sunshine. Okay, I'm pretty in
Speaker 1: awe of today's guests, and I don't say that a lot.
Speaker 1: In fact, I really love Cat Hauntas and her partners
Speaker 1: at twenty one seeds so much that I've actually had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to partner with them and create a card
Speaker 1: game called Shot Callers fifty two questions for girls who
Speaker 1: call the shots. And it's really a celebration of women
Speaker 1: who call the shots in their own lives. And it's
Speaker 1: my first card game collaboration, so you guys know, I
Speaker 1: have my our game question everything. This is the first
Speaker 1: collab and it was a really big deal. I just
Speaker 1: want to share the seed of how it happened. I
Speaker 1: was invited to a women's dinner and I got sat
Speaker 1: across from Cat and we hit it off, and later
Speaker 1: this collaboration happened. But the lesson that I take out
Speaker 1: of it is that so many opportunities for women happened
Speaker 1: just by being in the room. And I so remember
Speaker 1: not being invited into any rooms. I felt like I
Speaker 1: had to claw and fight my way into them. And
Speaker 1: it just takes one person and one conversation to change
Speaker 1: the game. And I think a lot of times starting
Speaker 1: a business can feel really overwhelming, and so today we're
Speaker 1: stripping all of that away. We are here to empower
Speaker 1: you to go after your entrepreneurial dreams.
Speaker 3: Because it is so possible.
Speaker 1: And we also have a bit of a special treat
Speaker 1: because Simona's traveling and unable to make it. So instead
Speaker 1: of talking to Kat just by myself, I thought it
Speaker 1: would be really fun to have everybody's favorite show runner
Speaker 1: and my bright Side bestie here, Tim Palazzola, Tim, welcome
Speaker 1: back to the bright Side.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that you said that you would join
Speaker 1: us today because aside from being everybody's favorite show runner,
Speaker 1: you also do consulting on the.
Speaker 4: Side, and you work with a lot of female entrepreneur,
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 3: I do, so you kind of have.
Speaker 1: An understanding of what people's pain points are. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: do you hear from women that you work with?
Speaker 5: Yeah, first of all, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 5: I am flattered to be here with you today. This
Speaker 5: is so fucking cool.
Speaker 3: You're so fun. I'm just gonna say.
Speaker 5: That it's really fucking cool. But yeah, I actually a
Speaker 5: guest who was on our show, Susie Moore, don't talk
Speaker 5: to us about networking. I've actually worked with her in
Speaker 5: the past to help mentor and consult on a lot
Speaker 5: of the people that she works with. And I think
Speaker 5: the biggest thing that I noticed when people are starting
Speaker 5: a business is that you need to have a very
Speaker 5: clear idea of who and what you are first and foremost.
Speaker 5: I think people get lost in the clutter of it all.
Speaker 5: I think the other big thing is you need to
Speaker 5: really understand who who your business is for. What need
Speaker 5: are you filling for someone? And it doesn't have to
Speaker 5: be this like I'm reinventing the wheel. There's a great
Speaker 5: thing that I say to people where I say, steal
Speaker 5: like an artist.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I love that you don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Speaker 5: The playbook is already out there for you, So pick
Speaker 5: and choose the things you like of what people are
Speaker 5: doing out there and incorporate them into your own. But
Speaker 5: you see how people appeal to their audiences and building
Speaker 5: on that. The other important thing is, at the end
Speaker 5: of the day, you're selling a feeling.
Speaker 1: I really feel like if you have something on your
Speaker 1: heart and you've been thinking about it in the shower,
Speaker 1: you just have this kernel of an idea. Today's episode
Speaker 1: will hopefully be really inspiring because Kat Haunts just had
Speaker 1: this idea in her kitchen and created a multimillion dollar
Speaker 1: brand out of it. Yeah.
Speaker 5: If a self proclaimed stay at home mom can turn
Speaker 5: a kitchen sync idea into a million dollar idea, multimillion
Speaker 5: dollar idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah you can too.
Speaker 5: Anyone listening can.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I feel like we just need to bring her. Yeah,
Speaker 3: let's do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Kat Haunts, Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 3: It is so good to be.
Speaker 4: Here with both of you. Guys.
Speaker 5: Welcome, welcome. All right, now, before we talk all things business,
Speaker 5: I know that the two of you know each other.
Speaker 5: Will you tell us how you met?
Speaker 1: You? Go? I go? Okay, So we were at a
Speaker 1: women's dinner It was a female founder's dinner, and I
Speaker 1: was lucky enough to be sat right across from Kat,
Speaker 1: who I'd never met before, and she lives in San
Speaker 1: Francisco and is very tech savvy, and started talking about
Speaker 1: AI and I was hanging on her every word. I
Speaker 1: was asking a million questions and she was talking to
Speaker 1: me about how chat GPT could be useful for what
Speaker 1: I do. And this was before anybody was talking about
Speaker 1: This is over two years ago, two years ago, almost three, right,
Speaker 1: it still the.
Speaker 4: Idea from us. We would like to fall agreement. I
Speaker 4: love it.
Speaker 3: And Cat is the life of the party.
Speaker 1: Clearly you'll understand why she created a tequila company.
Speaker 3: She is so much fun.
Speaker 1: And so I had the best I got the best
Speaker 1: seat in the house, and I would say we really
Speaker 1: hit it off and we stayed in touch.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, and.
Speaker 1: This idea, I mean was truly born. Shortly thereafter, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we hopped on a Zoom and one of the one
Speaker 1: of Kat's pillars is travel and adventure and it's one
Speaker 1: of the pillars of the brand too, And so we
Speaker 1: were talking about how connection can cross borders and what
Speaker 1: was a product that we could create that would really
Speaker 1: facilitate that, and we thought of a card game called
Speaker 1: shot Callers fifty two questions for girls who call the shots.
Speaker 4: I love it, I love it, I love it, smarts showers.
Speaker 4: So we did it.
Speaker 1: You know that that's a really great point because so
Speaker 1: many people talk about ideas and never actually get to do.
Speaker 4: It totally, totally, and I'm always like, listen, tell everyone
Speaker 4: about idea because people are busy, people have day jobs.
Speaker 4: No one's going to steal your idea. And the more
Speaker 4: you talk about it, right, like everything's interesting.
Speaker 5: You often hear don't tell people about what you're working on.
Speaker 5: I love this. Put it out there into the universe,
Speaker 5: and the more you talk about the more accountable.
Speaker 4: That's right, Yeah, that's right, And it just sort of
Speaker 4: naturally starts to flesh itself out, and then you know
Speaker 4: you can pivot and really try to make it happen.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm all, I totally believe that the best
Speaker 4: way to make something happen is to start talking about
Speaker 4: it immediately and then start actioning it.
Speaker 1: Who's the first person you talk about things with? Is
Speaker 1: your husband sort of your creative jumping board. He's not okay,
Speaker 1: a lot of things. He's a lot of things. That's
Speaker 1: why we've been married for twenty going on twenty one years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not my husband.
Speaker 4: I would say, it's either my sister Nicole, who I
Speaker 4: started twenty one seats with, or one of my best
Speaker 4: friends Danny, who's very, very funny, and we'll call you
Speaker 4: out on stuff.
Speaker 5: I was gonna say, are these people trusted soundboards when
Speaker 5: they say, oh, Cat, that's a great idea. If they
Speaker 5: think it's a bad idea, or they go, no, Cat's
Speaker 5: a terrible idea, move one.
Speaker 4: Hundred percent, they will tell me it's a bad idea.
Speaker 4: Nicole will often be like, I'll pitch something to Nicole
Speaker 4: and she was like, we can't do that. I'm like,
Speaker 4: can we have an open mindset for five more minutes
Speaker 4: before we close, you know, close that book? Like, can
Speaker 4: we just be open mindset for a sec I love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to open the book on your origin story?
Speaker 1: How did you even get interested in tequila?
Speaker 4: So you know, I didn't grow up thinking I was
Speaker 4: going to start a tequila brand. It really started because
Speaker 4: I was drinking wine. That was what I would go
Speaker 4: to sort of at the end of my night. I'd
Speaker 4: have a couple glasses of wine and after I don't know,
Speaker 4: once I turned thirty, it kind of just stopped agreeing
Speaker 4: with me, and I started sort of doing some research
Speaker 4: on it and sort of realized, Okay, there's a lot
Speaker 4: of organic living material in fermented spirits that doesn't exist
Speaker 4: in distilled and so switched over to tequila. Didn't love
Speaker 4: the way tequila tasted on its own, and found that
Speaker 4: regular tequila to get it to taste as easy to
Speaker 4: drink as a glass of wine would was requiring a
Speaker 4: lot of work and math and you know, stuff that
Speaker 4: I didn't want to do. Was it just a lot
Speaker 4: of mixers and stuff at your Yeah, because wine is
Speaker 4: so easy to drink and tequila tends to be harsh.
Speaker 4: And so I thought, you know, I got to do
Speaker 4: something to this tequila to make it more drinkable and
Speaker 4: an easier to use. And so I love to cook.
Speaker 4: I start infusing it, and twenty month Seeds was born
Speaker 4: in my kitchen. Basically, I would literally infuse you know,
Speaker 4: regular tequila blanco tequila, and it completely changed it. It
Speaker 4: would it smells so good when it's infused, especially you
Speaker 4: know when you're really really using great ingredients, easy to mix,
Speaker 4: you can drink it as a sprits. Super simple. If
Speaker 4: that's what you want, you can mix it into any cocktail.
Speaker 4: It's going to taste better.
Speaker 1: Well. So as you're in like you become your own alchemist,
Speaker 1: and as you're infusing these tequilas in your kitchen, what's
Speaker 1: the trial and air process?
Speaker 4: Like I'd put the tequila in a Brita, put in
Speaker 4: the fruits and vegetables. I wanted to visit it, and
Speaker 4: then I would stick my finger in and taste it.
Speaker 4: And I was like, what do you.
Speaker 5: Mean you were like pouring it through a brit brit
Speaker 5: of picture.
Speaker 4: Now, No, so I just used a Brita because of
Speaker 4: the quantity. I wanted to make a big batch so
Speaker 4: that it would last for a long time.
Speaker 5: Sorry, I thought you were like filtering it through a Britta.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, that's another level.
Speaker 4: Okay, I know, not that mechanically engineered. But anyways, so
Speaker 4: it wasn't. It was, you know, very much trial and error.
Speaker 4: It's it's a lot of it is my my taste profile,
Speaker 4: you know. So but you know, if you want to
Speaker 4: make a a our tequila, is you know a big
Speaker 4: consumer of ours or women? Right? Eighty percent? I think
Speaker 4: eighty percent of our consumers are women. And you know,
Speaker 4: if you want to create a product that w are
Speaker 4: going to enjoy, it's probably a good idea to have
Speaker 4: a woman create that product, especially it's something you're eating
Speaker 4: or drinking. You know, we want something that's smooth, and
Speaker 4: that's what twenty one seeds is. It's incredibly smooth. It's
Speaker 4: a hint of flavor, that's it. And it's not sweet.
Speaker 4: So you can add sweet if you want to add
Speaker 4: to sweet, but you don't have to. And you know,
Speaker 4: just having the confidence to say this is what I like.
Speaker 4: You know, it's not like I was a bartender. It's
Speaker 4: not like I was a mixologist. I didn't come from
Speaker 4: the spirits.
Speaker 5: Industry training, nothing like that. So you're playing around with
Speaker 5: this and you're making it, I assume for yourself. Yes,
Speaker 5: at what point, like at that time, were you even
Speaker 5: thinking this was going to be a business.
Speaker 4: No, No, no, because I had, you know, my whole
Speaker 4: career had been in the movie industry, so I needed
Speaker 4: something else to drink other than wine, and I wanted
Speaker 4: it to not have a lot of stuff in it,
Speaker 4: and and sort of less is more. I once I
Speaker 4: realized that by infusing tequila. It really changed it and
Speaker 4: smoothed it out and made it more easy to drink.
Speaker 4: That's what I would make at my house. So if
Speaker 4: you came to my house and I did that for
Speaker 4: nine years.
Speaker 5: Nine years, okay, So I was gonna ask like, at
Speaker 5: what point did you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Nine years?
Speaker 5: Sorry, friend, And I assume at some point you're like
Speaker 5: giving it out as gifts or yeah, having parties and
Speaker 5: everyone like, oh my god, I need to taste Cats tequila.
Speaker 4: And that's what they would call it. They would just
Speaker 4: say Cats tequila. And my sister, you know, if anyone
Speaker 4: who sort of knew me, my immediate people, they just
Speaker 4: I'll just bring Cats tequila. You know. It really became
Speaker 4: a thing within our friend group. Yeah, and again what
Speaker 4: I would do is now we call it a seed
Speaker 4: and soda bar, right, But what I would do is
Speaker 4: I'd take a bunch of infused tequilas that I'd made,
Speaker 4: I'd put them out and then a bunch of different
Speaker 4: club sodas, some with flavor, some without flavor. And then
Speaker 4: I like to do like a charcouterie board of garnishes
Speaker 4: and just put that out and then different glassware and
Speaker 4: people could just make their own drinks, and that's what
Speaker 4: you would have at my house if you came to
Speaker 4: my house for dinner or dinner party. I love it.
Speaker 5: I've seen like make your own bloody marrion bars, but
Speaker 5: I when everything to do that with like a tequila
Speaker 5: that's really smart.
Speaker 4: Like it's a tequila soda. So we do that now
Speaker 4: it's like our seed and soda bar.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So what so nine years of doing this just sort
Speaker 5: of in your friend group, you know, what was that
Speaker 5: moment for you when you thought this is more than
Speaker 5: just my friend group, this this could be a business. Like,
Speaker 5: what was that moment?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So what I noticed, and this was sort of just
Speaker 4: a frame a time wise. It was after you know,
Speaker 4: Cosamigos had sold to Diagio, so tequila was really on
Speaker 4: the rise. And what I noticed I started just realized,
Speaker 4: like when I'd be out and this was before COVID.
Speaker 4: We this was all like twenty eighteen, early twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4: We launched the brand in twenty nineteen, So early twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: you know, I'd be out in a bar or a
Speaker 4: restaurant and I would notice that especially women were ordering, Hey,
Speaker 4: can I have a tequila soda? Three lines. Can I
Speaker 4: have a tequila soda, splash of juice of some kind,
Speaker 4: or tequila sota, slice of orange? And that was that
Speaker 4: was the order. And I thought, huh. At the time,
Speaker 4: there was either like shots or really high end, you know,
Speaker 4: sipping tequila. Those were the two ways people were sort
Speaker 4: of marketing tequila. And I thought, Wow, there's this other
Speaker 4: way that people are drinking tequila, which is in the sprits,
Speaker 4: right like our seed in soda. That's the sprits. And
Speaker 4: and I'm making this infused tequila, and man, that would
Speaker 4: taste better. Infuse tequila plus soda sounds better than you know,
Speaker 4: just tequila soda. It's much smoother, it's got a hint
Speaker 4: of flavor. And I thought, well, why isn't anyone really
Speaker 4: talking about this.
Speaker 5: Because infused vodka's was quite a thing. Totally see it
Speaker 5: in tequila. So you were saying that women women ordering
Speaker 5: I should do this?
Speaker 4: Well no, Then I thought, maybe let me go see
Speaker 4: what's going on in the tequila aisle, because you know,
Speaker 4: I hadn't I hadn't really like paid attention to it
Speaker 4: from that lens. So I went into the tequila and
Speaker 4: I thought, oh my god, there's first of all, it's
Speaker 4: all it's all all the new tequilas that had come
Speaker 4: on the market were again these sort of higher end
Speaker 4: you know, marketed like scotches and whiskeys being pushed to men,
Speaker 4: right like, like instead of drinking whiskey and sipping on ski,
Speaker 4: sip on a tequila. And I thought, there's no color
Speaker 4: in the aisle, there's no fun. There's everything so serious,
Speaker 4: you know, and where's the fun and where's the sprits?
Speaker 4: The sprits is fun, you know, and something you could
Speaker 4: enjoy in that wine occasion, easy entertaining. So it was
Speaker 4: either like shots woo woo on the table tequila, right
Speaker 4: or it was sipping tequila which was very serious. And
Speaker 4: I was like, where's the fun tequila, you know, just
Speaker 4: the drinking tequila that's just you know, an easy sprits
Speaker 4: that you can have, you know, when you're with dinner
Speaker 4: or entertaining at home or in that wine occasion. And
Speaker 4: there just was nothing in the aisle that was that
Speaker 4: was literally speaking to that occasion. And then there was
Speaker 4: certainly nothing in the aisle talking to women. And I
Speaker 4: was like, wow, the women are the ones who are
Speaker 4: driving the growth in this category and no one's talking
Speaker 4: them in tequila asle And then it was at that
Speaker 4: point that I was like, Okay, maybe there's something here.
Speaker 4: And then I went and talked to my sister.
Speaker 5: Nic You're best a call or open mind?
Speaker 3: Did you have to have that open mind?
Speaker 5: Keep it up in mind with her?
Speaker 3: Initially so she.
Speaker 4: You know, at the time, Nicole was the CFO of Angelist. Okay,
Speaker 4: so she had a big job, right, And I said
Speaker 4: to her, I was like, sister, you know that tequila
Speaker 4: that I've been making at home and everyone loves And
Speaker 4: she's like, of course, everybody loves it. You're tequila, of course,
Speaker 4: and she loved it, and she said, I said, I'm
Speaker 4: thinking that I want to turn that into a company.
Speaker 4: Do you want to do it with me? I thought
Speaker 4: for sure, because she's oftentimes closed mindset, and I thought
Speaker 4: first sure she'd be like, no, I have a day job.
Speaker 4: I'm a big, powerful CFO of a big company. I
Speaker 4: don't have time. And she goes one hundred percent les done,
Speaker 4: yeah first time, Like our mom is Greek, and she
Speaker 4: leads with no, like you ask her question, can I
Speaker 4: do No, she just does it just so that she
Speaker 4: has her footing, I think before and so I think
Speaker 4: Nicole inherited that from my mom, and in this case,
Speaker 4: she just immediately was like, yes, I think it's a
Speaker 4: great idea. People love your tequila. It's you know, I
Speaker 4: think it's a good idea. She felt it in our bone,
Speaker 4: she felt it in her bones. And then how did
Speaker 4: you cause you have there's three co found right, And
Speaker 4: then we needed a person who knew something about making
Speaker 4: a product, which we did not, so that was Sarca.
Speaker 4: And Saraca is awesome, super smart, you know, Stanford engineer
Speaker 4: and had been doing work in the food space for
Speaker 4: a while, taking ideas from kitchen shell, you know, from
Speaker 4: kitchen counter to shelf and in food, but she hadn't
Speaker 4: done it yet in spirits. But we were using real ingredients,
Speaker 4: so I thought, you know, we're using real food, so
Speaker 4: let's I'm sure she could help us figure this out.
Speaker 4: And she had had my tequila at events and parties
Speaker 4: at my house and so we then approached Saraga and
Speaker 4: we're like, hey, do you want to start tequila company?
Speaker 4: And she's like yeah, And I think in the beginning
Speaker 4: they sort of I think they thought, Okay, this is
Speaker 4: this is cool. It's like everyone kind of had a
Speaker 4: side hustle in this. You know, in the in the
Speaker 4: twenty eighteens, everyone felt like at a side hustle, and
Speaker 4: so I think in the beginning, maybe you know, they
Speaker 4: thought okay, cause Sarco was still working at a company
Speaker 4: and I was a stay at home mom at that time. Yeah,
Speaker 4: But then very quickly it started to become very real.
Speaker 1: We need to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with Cat Hauntis. And we're back
Speaker 1: with cat Hauntis.
Speaker 5: It's also interesting to me because taking a step back
Speaker 5: without all of this insight, it's like, okay, tequila the
Speaker 5: spirits is a really saturated marketplace, and you think about
Speaker 5: things like Cosamigos where you have George Clooney on a motorcycle,
Speaker 5: and you think, wow, it's such a crowded space, how
Speaker 5: do I even break into it? But to really be
Speaker 5: able to identify your niche in your target market, right,
Speaker 5: I think that's a huge lesson that anyone who's thinking
Speaker 5: about starting a business can really like.
Speaker 3: Think about, like how to differentiate yourself.
Speaker 4: No, totally, we really focused on a particular consumer. Her.
Speaker 4: We were focused on her and even more so focused
Speaker 4: initially on moms because you know mom's moms are super
Speaker 4: powerful consumers, right, because they are first of and foremost
Speaker 4: the original influencer in all our lives. Right, Like, whether
Speaker 4: we like it or not, our moms still try to
Speaker 4: influence their themselves, influence us and what we do, how
Speaker 4: we raise our kids, like our life in general. So
Speaker 4: they kind of give everyone in the household permission to
Speaker 4: consume or you know where whatever whatever they bring into
Speaker 4: the house. So she was doing a lot of heavy
Speaker 4: lifting boars, but we were very focused on the female
Speaker 4: consumer and really trying to solve all her pain points.
Speaker 4: So that's how we built the business. And that's not
Speaker 4: the typical playbooks.
Speaker 5: I think it's really I think it's really smart too,
Speaker 5: because you know, if you think about meeting your audience
Speaker 5: where they are, that's right. And I think another thing
Speaker 5: a lot of people make the mistake of when they
Speaker 5: do go into business is thinking that their product has
Speaker 5: to appeal to everyone, right, And when you do that,
Speaker 5: you appeal to no one, no one right. So for
Speaker 5: you to figure out it's such a strategic way of
Speaker 5: thinking about it that you're going to target a very
Speaker 5: specific consumer and let that smaller niche than grow right
Speaker 5: from there.
Speaker 4: Exactly, like just get that critical math and then you
Speaker 4: know they will tell their friends, you know. And so
Speaker 4: we really thought about, you know, a lot about like
Speaker 4: where does she discover brands? Where does she shop? Like,
Speaker 4: you know, how does she plan? You know, so we
Speaker 4: use Pinterest for example, and a lot of brands don't
Speaker 4: use Pinterest. But we were like, you know, women are
Speaker 4: always putting Pinterest boards together on like a birthday they're
Speaker 4: going to celebrate, or a baby shower or like you
Speaker 4: know whatever, a wedding, a bridal party, shower, like just
Speaker 4: there's they use Pinterest. And so we're like, we want
Speaker 4: to be on Pinterest. And it was funny like nobody
Speaker 4: was really advertising or just even we weren't even advertising.
Speaker 4: We were just putting recipes up on Pinterest because we
Speaker 4: thought that's where she goes to find that stuff. And
Speaker 4: we were like, women don't really discover you know, brands
Speaker 4: and bars and restaurants. If they're at a bar and restaurant,
Speaker 4: they're not talking to the bartender about like the history
Speaker 4: of agave.
Speaker 3: You know, probably you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like I want to hang out with my girlfriends
Speaker 4: or on my date or with my husband or you know,
Speaker 4: with my coworkers, Like I just I just want to
Speaker 4: get my cocktail and get to the talking parts.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and those brands have a certain legacy. You were
Speaker 5: never going to compete with that.
Speaker 4: Now, No, we weren't trying to. Yeah. And I think
Speaker 4: the thing that I give my sister a lot of
Speaker 4: credit for Nicole right as our CFO, is that she
Speaker 4: really did keep us on track. It's the one thing
Speaker 4: I think as a startup is you can like burn
Speaker 4: through money, you know, quickly, and just she was very
Speaker 4: disciplined with us about making sure that we focused on
Speaker 4: that core consumer because as you might imagine, it's like
Speaker 4: a really good tasting tequila. Everybody wants a really good
Speaker 4: tasting tequila at their parties, you know. So we were
Speaker 4: just as diligent about saying no to stuff, which I
Speaker 4: think is really important when you're getting going as saying
Speaker 4: yes to stuff and again until you sort of reach
Speaker 4: like mainstream, staying very focused on that consumer, like our
Speaker 4: core consumer, because we just didn't have the marketing dollars
Speaker 4: to market beyond our core consumer. Raising money takes a
Speaker 4: lot of time, energy, effort, it's a big distraction, and
Speaker 4: so we didn't have to do it very often, so
Speaker 4: that was good. It wasn't just like some magic bullets
Speaker 4: like oh my god, easy like started to kill a company,
Speaker 4: sell it and the three of us had very different lanes, right,
Speaker 4: and we didn't get in each other's way. Like what's
Speaker 4: huge something really crazy is I was the CEO of
Speaker 4: the company. I didn't want to be the CEO of
Speaker 4: the company. I'm like, I'll should be the CEO. I'm
Speaker 4: not that responsible, but like but I never even had
Speaker 4: access to the bank account like Nicole fully had. Like
Speaker 4: I trusted her. I'm like, you do that. I'm going
Speaker 4: to focus on sales and marketing and you know, product
Speaker 4: recipes that kind of stuff, and Sarga is product product product, right,
Speaker 4: just making sure that the you know, it got made,
Speaker 4: it got to where it need to go and all.
Speaker 4: And that's like a hole. That's so much work.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about that aspect, though, Kat, because, like you
Speaker 1: mentioned at the beginning that you were a stay at
Speaker 1: home mom before this, and this was such.
Speaker 3: A quick rise.
Speaker 1: Were you prepared because a stay at home parenthood is
Speaker 1: so much work, but being a founder is a different
Speaker 1: type of chaos. Were you prepared for this and were
Speaker 1: you even interested? Like, were you like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm the CEO of this big, huge company.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was crazy. So yeah, so I would say
Speaker 4: that a couple of things. One are just to set
Speaker 4: it in time. Again, right, A lot of our the
Speaker 4: majority of the time while we were in business, a
Speaker 4: lot of that was during COVID H So in some
Speaker 4: ways that made things a little less complicated in terms
Speaker 4: of like the logistics, right, both from a parenting perspective
Speaker 4: and a work perspective. Like again, you know, when you're
Speaker 4: starting a spirits brand, you have to do a lot
Speaker 4: of travel going to meet with distributors all over the country,
Speaker 4: and we could do all that now over zoom, So
Speaker 4: that was really convenient. So there were certainly some advantages
Speaker 4: of building a business during COVID. And then also on
Speaker 4: the parenting side, right, the kids weren't like going to
Speaker 4: soccer practice and you know all of that stuff, so
Speaker 4: that that was also pared down. So that helped. But
Speaker 4: even even then when I started the company, like my
Speaker 4: kids were older, they weren't littles anymore, you know, and
Speaker 4: my husband and I we always we we had this
Speaker 4: sort of understanding when we had kids that I would
Speaker 4: take defense and he would take offense.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, I love that.
Speaker 1: What was the best money you spent and the worst
Speaker 1: money you spent? Okay, so the worst money we spent
Speaker 1: was with our first branding agency. We thought, okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna we wanted this is sort of a category, new
Speaker 1: new category really in many ways flavored tequila, so we
Speaker 1: want to go, you know, and we did not come
Speaker 1: from spirits, so we thought, okay, we're going to spend
Speaker 1: a big portion of this little money we had on
Speaker 1: making sure. We wanted to hire a branding agency that
Speaker 1: was like an industry veteran that you know, had really
Speaker 1: like done some successful brands before. And we hired them,
Speaker 1: and we spent all this time working with them, and
Speaker 1: in the end, they just they weren't listening to us,
Speaker 1: I think because we were three women honestly, I do
Speaker 1: that were outside the industry, had no spirits industry experience,
Speaker 1: had no beverage experience, and really one of us was
Speaker 1: a stay at home mom, right, and the other financed
Speaker 1: the other one in food. So and they had this
Speaker 1: in particular, this one guy like had this image of
Speaker 1: what this brand should be. And we kept giving him notes,
Speaker 1: his team notes, and they were just ignoring our notes.
Speaker 1: And at one point he finally said, I am ignoring
Speaker 1: your notes. Yeah, he actually said it to me, and
Speaker 1: I thought, what the heck? Yeah exactly. So I called
Speaker 1: my sister. It's like, you have to fire him.
Speaker 3: You're an offense exactly.
Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, I like people too much. I
Speaker 4: can't fire him, so you have to. So she did
Speaker 4: and that was like, Fortunately, the best money we ever
Speaker 4: spent was on the agency we hired afterwards, which was
Speaker 4: a female founded agency with full of women and delivered
Speaker 4: this product that you see here in front of you,
Speaker 4: and they just nailed it for us, and they really
Speaker 4: like they listened to what we had to say, you know.
Speaker 4: And then that's the thing is that you can keep
Speaker 4: going and keep sinking more money or you just cut
Speaker 4: and pivot, and that's what you have to be able
Speaker 4: to do.
Speaker 1: It's time for another short break, but we'll be right
Speaker 1: back with Cat Hauntess. And we're back with Cat Hauntess.
Speaker 5: There's a game.
Speaker 3: There's a game. Should we play? Shot Collars? Shot Collar?
Speaker 5: Well, you tell us a little bit of how this
Speaker 5: came together and what it is.
Speaker 1: So when Cat and I hopped on that zoom, we
Speaker 1: were talking about a game that women could play on
Speaker 1: vacation at dinner parties with their families, Like we wanted
Speaker 1: something that everybody could play while drinking twenty one seeds.
Speaker 1: And I loved their tagline, the hashtag girls who call
Speaker 1: the shots, and so we were like, it has to
Speaker 1: be called shot callers, and we just imagined women who
Speaker 1: call the shots in their lives drinking twenty one seeds
Speaker 1: tequila and playing this game with their friends.
Speaker 3: So can we play today?
Speaker 4: Let's do it. Let's do it. Okay, I want it,
Speaker 4: you go first, tim.
Speaker 5: Okay, the question is what characteristic do you have that
Speaker 5: has made people want to invest in you?
Speaker 4: Okay, good questions, great question, A good question. And actually
Speaker 4: a friend of mine just recently said this to me.
Speaker 4: And so it's funny that you asked this question because
Speaker 4: maybe three months ago a friend said to me, you
Speaker 4: know what you are? A cat. He's like, you're a maximalist,
Speaker 4: and I was like.
Speaker 3: Him and I both had it right now.
Speaker 5: We both died the seat.
Speaker 4: I know a lean back. You guys did a lean back,
Speaker 4: and I was like, go on, Like, what do you
Speaker 4: mean by that?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: Yeah, And he said, you you take whatever opportunity you have,
Speaker 4: you take it. You connect all the dots and you
Speaker 4: squeeze every last drop out of it. You don't waste
Speaker 4: a moment, not one stone unturned. And that is exactly
Speaker 4: what I do. That is exactly I think. That is
Speaker 4: the one that is a characteristic that I have that
Speaker 4: has made me very successful.
Speaker 1: You know what's funny is I just pulled this question
Speaker 1: and I'm going to say the exact opposite of Kat
Speaker 1: for this. So the question is a wellness or beauty
Speaker 1: tip you've picked up along the way that's worth sharing.
Speaker 3: I'm a minimalist when I comes to beauty. I feel
Speaker 3: like less is more.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, less products, less stuff, less procede, Like
Speaker 1: I'll I'll just do less and you'll be way happier,
Speaker 1: Like get a massage, drink some water.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. I totally agree. I'm a minimalist too
Speaker 4: when it comes to that stuff. One hundred percent. Like
Speaker 4: I don't remember like the last makeup product I bought.
Speaker 4: You know, I probably still have stuff for my wedding makeup,
Speaker 4: you know, like twenty one years ago.
Speaker 3: I love like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, probably packing style now probably is It's true.
Speaker 3: Blue eyeshadow is back.
Speaker 4: Okay for one more.
Speaker 3: This one's funny.
Speaker 1: Have you ever jumped to conclusions about someone based on
Speaker 1: their zodiac sign? O?
Speaker 4: There's zodiac sign I have? Really really I don't do
Speaker 4: zodiac at all. Like, I don't know anything about the
Speaker 4: zodiac signs. I have this one friend who like lives
Speaker 4: and dies by the zodiac signs. She's always using it
Speaker 4: in conversation. Almost every time I talked to her on
Speaker 4: the phone, I'm like, how do you bring that up?
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 3: You start to say something?
Speaker 5: Hold on, what's your sign?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Exactly?
Speaker 4: Like really what was a zodiac sign?
Speaker 5: And what did you think about that person?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I'm so embarrassed because Kat, You're right.
Speaker 1: I used to not know anything about this stuff when
Speaker 1: I lived in Cargo and then I moved to LA
Speaker 1: and everybody the first question you get on a date
Speaker 1: is what's your zodiac sign? Like?
Speaker 3: What are you?
Speaker 1: And so I met a guy who was a Gemini,
Speaker 1: and Geminis are known to have two personalities two faces.
Speaker 3: You hate that. I hate two faces. I don't like
Speaker 3: a two face person.
Speaker 4: Nope, So I did.
Speaker 2: I jumped.
Speaker 4: Wait and did you guys date it all? Or no?
Speaker 1: We went on two dates and then I was like,
Speaker 1: I think he's too much of a Gemini.
Speaker 4: That's so funny. That's so funny. I will see like
Speaker 4: a parlor trick of trying to like pick up now
Speaker 4: is tarot card reading? I do think it's cool to
Speaker 4: know how to do that. Like, I think that's a
Speaker 4: fun fun like a parlor house, yeah, kind of everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, what's the most recent book, podcast, or TV show
Speaker 1: that you've been obsessively into lately?
Speaker 4: Okay, so I I read this book called Ultra process People.
Speaker 4: Have you heard of it?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 4: It's so interesting. It's all about like the the the
Speaker 4: how ultra processed food got introduced into our food system.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: It was written by two doctors. It's fascinating. It's really
Speaker 4: really interesting. It's really you know, originally it was because
Speaker 4: they were just trying to feed soldiers in like the
Speaker 4: most compact you know form. So basically the way that
Speaker 4: they would do that is by like putting more fat
Speaker 4: into the food and more carbs into the food. So
Speaker 4: how could you do that as fast as possible and
Speaker 4: like what you know, if you take food and you
Speaker 4: break it down to just the molecules that's made of,
Speaker 4: Like do you even need to be using food to
Speaker 4: do that? Or can use byproducts of like petroleum or
Speaker 4: other things like that? Fascinating, fascinating reading. And I like
Speaker 4: to listen well. And my other thing is I like
Speaker 4: to listen to books like on two x like super fast,
Speaker 4: because I just because I want to, because you're a
Speaker 4: maximum maximus, I want to. And my other favorite thing
Speaker 4: is like the fireflies on Zoom. Now that record zoom calls,
Speaker 4: you can like using AI now you can record zooms,
Speaker 4: which I love because you can be you know, in
Speaker 4: ten places at once. You don't have to be in
Speaker 4: all the meetings anymore because then you can just listen
Speaker 4: to them back and it's almost like listening to a podcast.
Speaker 4: You're just listening to a zoom meeting. I love that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So I like, yeah, I'm like, just record it. If
Speaker 4: I can't be on it, just record it. Send me
Speaker 4: the fireflies. And then when I'm taking a walk, getting
Speaker 4: my ten thousand steps, and then I just listen to
Speaker 4: zooms and you can get so much more done. She's
Speaker 4: the Queen of AI.
Speaker 3: The first time I met her, she told me about chat.
Speaker 5: To talk about AI.
Speaker 3: Do you use AI in your business at all?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I am trying to become even more
Speaker 4: proficient at it. I feel like I actually am having
Speaker 4: a bit of a panic around it because I feel
Speaker 4: like it's evolving so quickly that like once I get
Speaker 4: up to speed on something, I think something else new
Speaker 4: comes out. But yes, I mean, it's amazing how much
Speaker 4: you can get done with AI. Now. You know, it
Speaker 4: will take the meeting, it will list out the notes,
Speaker 4: it will tell you the talking points like takeaways, all
Speaker 4: of that kind of I'm actually sort of actually think
Speaker 4: about these generations after It's like what are they going
Speaker 4: to do with so much free time?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Like, with like AI and robots doing so much for us,
Speaker 4: It's like, think about it. In the old days, we
Speaker 4: would spend a whole day just provisioning a meal. You know.
Speaker 4: It's like, now you're gonna have so much free time,
Speaker 4: Like what are you going to do to fill your days?
Speaker 1: So I listened to a futurist that said that if
Speaker 1: we are able to take care of people financially, so like,
Speaker 1: you know, even though they have all this free time.
Speaker 3: Do they have jobs? Do they have income?
Speaker 1: If we can take care of them financially, he thinks
Speaker 1: it could create a renaissance of art.
Speaker 4: Oh so yeah, with all this free time, with yeah,
Speaker 4: you can really like settle into your creativity. People can
Speaker 4: create more infused tequila brands.
Speaker 3: Learn how to play guitar.
Speaker 4: Learn how to play guitar. Yes, I want to learn
Speaker 4: how to play a piano. That's the thing I want
Speaker 4: to do. I need to do that. Do you think
Speaker 4: you'll do it? I think I will. Yeah. Cool.
Speaker 5: Yeah, next time we see you, you'll be playing Mozart.
Speaker 3: She's a maximalist piano. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Kat, thanks for celebrating bold, curious women. And I really
Speaker 1: feel like every time somebody has the courage to go
Speaker 1: after something big, it gives us all a little bit
Speaker 1: more courage.
Speaker 4: So thank you. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Yes, everyone, do it,
Speaker 4: do it, do it. We love new products, innovation. I
Speaker 4: love innovation. We're here for it.
Speaker 1: Kat Hauntis is one of the co founders of the
Speaker 1: infused tequila company twenty one Seeds.
Speaker 3: That's it for today's show.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow, we have economist and author Emily oster Back here
Speaker 1: to give us the latest research on fertility.
Speaker 2: Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side, and connect
Speaker 2: with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram
Speaker 2: and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok oh, and
Speaker 2: feel free to tag us at Simone Voice and at
Speaker 2: Danielle Robe.
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Speaker 2: See you tomorrow, folks, Keep looking on the bright side.