Equation of Excellence

Rabah (00:01.485)
Three, two, one. All right, folks, welcome back to another episode of Equation of Excellence. I am here with one of my favorite humans, the best looking Yutong on the planet, and just a wonderful, wonderful dude, Saunders Schroeder. Welcome to the show, my friend.

Saunder Schroeder (00:19.798)
Thanks, Rava. Happy to be here with the best looking person in Austin. It's a little more competitive though. You know, Austin's more competitive than...

Rabah (00:21.789)
Of course. Let's go. How long you been in Utah?

Saunder Schroeder (00:32.171)
in pretty much my whole life.

Rabah (00:33.661)
Really? Never lived anywhere else.

Saunder Schroeder (00:35.818)
Well, I did the whole Mormon mission for two years. So Indiana, remember?

Rabah (00:39.189)
Okay, on the on the road. Yes, you were I was being the DJ and you were knocking on the doors, trying to shut the spread, share the gospel. It's so interesting.

Saunder Schroeder (00:48.942)
knocking on the doors. Yeah, so Indiana is pretty much I mean, I guess technically New Hampshire when I was three, but

Rabah (00:57.061)
Oh, that's where you get that from. Live free or die, baby. Let's go. Powerful New Hampshire. You have such an interesting career arc. So I want to get into that a little bit. And then I also want to get into what you're doing now with Buffed Energy. I'm really kicking myself for not going in on that with you. That is you are doing some really cool stuff there. But before that, let's lay the groundwork for the people.

Saunder Schroeder (01:01.314)
Hehehe

Rabah (01:22.821)
Yeah, tell me a little bit about your career art, because you went to BYU, you played football there, and then you bought a big fancy house, blah, blah. I'm telling your story for you, so give the people that, give the listeners what they want, the insight into the depths of the soul of Sonder.

Saunder Schroeder (01:39.102)
Yeah, yeah. All right. Yeah, so I actually started my first e-commerce business 12 years ago. And so that's kind of what got me Yeah, it was called no name It was a Kano in parentheses in the name on the outside it was it was a pretty sweet brand We kind of wanted to be like the I don't know like that the unbranded brand and so that was kind of like our Yeah, our goal. I mean if you think back then like we were still kind of in like that

Rabah (01:46.237)
Oh, I didn't know this. What was it? That's a good name.

Rabah (02:02.457)
So good.

Saunder Schroeder (02:08.094)
Abercrombie, Aeropasta, you know, like logos just plastered all over everything. And so we actually would like hide our logo on like our. Clothes and then like our first product was a watch with the mirror face. And so what you always saw was like a reflection of you or what you were doing. And so it was a pretty sweet little brand. Yeah. So, so that was fun. And then, yeah, at the same time I was training to play college football. So.

Rabah (02:09.623)
Yeah.

Rabah (02:12.937)
Yes, yes.

Rabah (02:21.131)
Yes.

Rabah (02:27.133)
Oh, that's a bar. Yeah.

Rabah (02:34.808)
Yep.

Saunder Schroeder (02:35.038)
I never officially was on the team. I got, I got all the swag and all of that, but I blew my knee out literally two weeks before it was going to be official. So.

Rabah (02:44.362)
And you were a unit at the time too. I mean you're still a unit, but you're a big boy. Or you're 6'3", 6'4", something like that. 2'6", 4", 2'50-ish, give or take.

Saunder Schroeder (02:50.158)
six four.

I mean, back, back then I was six for like two 35. I was, I was, I was, I was, I was pretty jacked. So, yep.

Rabah (02:57.105)
But you were bone and muscle.

Rabah (03:03.177)
How did you deal with that's pretty hard to deal with, uh, to be a high performer and then deal with such a catastrophic industry injury. Cause you just, there's nothing you can do, right? It's just rest. Like, it's just there. It's not rehab. It's nothing. It's just like, dude, it kind of fucked.

Saunder Schroeder (03:14.458)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (03:18.878)
Yeah, I mean the issue was I strained or sprained. I can't remember which one was which, but my ACL and LCL. And so when I went in, you know, to get it like scoped and looked at, they're like, what we can do is, well, they're like, we're either gonna have to cut this and then reattach it because it had been lengthened in one spot and then shortened in another.

Rabah (03:29.465)
Uh-huh.

Rabah (03:40.727)
Yeah.

Rabah (03:46.677)
Yep.

Saunder Schroeder (03:48.666)
or you just like rehab it, you know, for the rest of your life kind of thing. So I call it like the greatest thing that never happened to me. Um, because then I was able to like focus on my e-commerce brand and just like go all in on that where I was kind of splitting time because I was training like three times a day morning, afternoon at night, and then fitting in working on my brand between that. So yeah, so it was good. I mean, and then that's, yeah, we worked on that for a couple of years and then.

Rabah (03:51.777)
Yeah.

Rabah (04:05.42)
Dude.

Saunder Schroeder (04:15.966)
ended up going and working for a digital marketing agency. Funny enough, I met the two founders there at a startup weekend event, which is where you go and essentially start a business from nothing to something in 50 hours. Yeah, yeah. And so yeah, we started a little business together. And then I saw on Twitter, the CEO was looking for an executive assistant. And I'm like,

Rabah (04:27.551)
Okay.

Rabah (04:32.007)
Yep. Like a hackathon, if you will. Yep.

Saunder Schroeder (04:43.894)
Like I feel like there's something special about this company, but I feel overqualified to do this, but I don't know, I feel like I need to do it. So I started as the executive assistant and just sat with the CEO. Day in and day out and just listened to him on like all the sales calls. I was answering all of his emails, doing his laundry and, or dry cleaning and washing his car as well, you know, but, but then that only lasted for two months and then they moved me into, well, funny enough, there was one day he was late.

Rabah (04:51.222)
Yeah.

Rabah (05:03.206)
Nooo

Saunder Schroeder (05:13.77)
Robert can relate with this being late. So yeah, one there was one day he was late and he's like, look, I can't take this sales call. Can you take it? And so I jumped on, took it, you know, pitch them. It was a, it was called national parks, reservations. I don't know. More or less back then it was a directory to find all like the hotels and resorts around national parks.

Rabah (05:15.68)
Hahaha! Zing! Well played, sir.

Rabah (05:24.312)
Okay.

Rabah (05:37.653)
Yeah. Yeah, I'm tracking. I actually know what it is. Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (05:41.55)
Oh, nice. Yeah. So, so I pitched in like this crazy content idea, like this awesome interactive map where you click on like Zion National Park, and then it like populates all like the hotels and like things to do. And they're like, that's amazing. So I ended up closing them for like 10 K a month and that the CEO was just like pumped, you know? And so, so then that moved me into that sales and marketing business development function within the company. I mean, then I don't know, I was probably like employee number

Rabah (05:49.877)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (06:09.47)
you know, 17 or 18. So it was a pretty small company. Lots of people like still going to BYU and stuff. But yeah, so then I went from that to all of a sudden I was pitching companies like ESPN, Disney, Dell, Adobe, Time Warner, flying all over the country, kind of doing like a nerdier version of Don Draper. And yeah, that got me like introduced to digital marketing. I was just creating these massive marketing campaigns that we would get to go viral on Reddit, and then we'd build up their SEO and

Rabah (06:12.527)
Yeah.

Rabah (06:27.779)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (06:38.786)
You know, we got Dell ranking for like the hardest B2B search terms and stuff. So it was like a good exposure to content marketing, viral marketing, SEO, all of that. So. Yeah. Then I don't know if you want me to keep going.

Rabah (06:51.705)
That's so interesting.

A little bit because you ended up, I mean, I didn't know any of this, which is insane. And weirdly enough, I actually had a parallel experience where I used to work at a company called Onnit and I was Aubrey's right hand man. And so I was doing essentially the same thing where there was like some very high value activities and then there was also like, you know, shoveling shit kind of stuff like assistant work candidly. And so it was definitely. But I do think.

Saunder Schroeder (07:08.875)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (07:19.714)
Yeah.

Rabah (07:22.689)
that is so helpful for young folks to get around people that like just have that it like for whatever you think of Aubrey, Aubrey has the it like he was just a top floor marketer commands a room like manages people well like I learned so much from that job was really hard job to be fair like I would never because I was a 24 seven kind of thing I'll never do a 24 seven type of thing again I remember an

Saunder Schroeder (07:33.63)
Yeah, 100%.

Saunder Schroeder (07:45.742)
Yep.

Rabah (07:47.785)
I love Aubrey. He's a crazy human, but I still remember one time it was like 1130 at night. He calls me up and he's like, Hey, Rob, because he I think maybe I got it from him probably, but he would like get to the airport and just kind of try and walk on the plane like he did not like to get to the airport with time. And so he had just bought his beautiful ranch in Sedona and was driving back to Phoenix to fly back. He's like, Hey, dude,

Saunder Schroeder (08:05.518)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

Rabah (08:13.953)
I don't think I'm gonna get back in time to drop the car off. So I'm just gonna leave the car in the garage at the airport. Can you figure out how to get somebody to pick it up? I'm just like, dude, it's 1130 at night. I was always like, so I figured all this. It ended up all working out. But there is definitely, yeah, there's definitely some war stories we can talk more about on the offline. But I do think there is a certain aspect, especially when you're younger, because you just don't have the cost structure or.

Saunder Schroeder (08:27.886)
That's amazing.

Saunder Schroeder (08:32.59)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

Rabah (08:38.781)
Ideally, you don't have the cost structure that you're gonna have. You don't have the obligations that you're gonna have as you get older. You know, you might have a partner, you might have like these things. And so being able to kind of do take an economic hit at the beginning, but be paid in essentially knowledge, which, again, be very, very wary of that, where I wasn't hired that way. But I think that's a really smart move for you. And I didn't know that.

Saunder Schroeder (08:47.031)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (08:59.543)
Yeah.

Rabah (09:03.317)
And then so now you're pitching all these campaigns. When do you make the leap to the big show? Because you were running the show for a little bit.

Saunder Schroeder (09:03.851)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (09:09.115)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (09:12.714)
Yeah, I mean, that was honestly that experience was so invaluable. And I got to like a place where I had a pretty, I mean, I would say for a 24 year old, a pretty amazing comp plan, you know, so I was making really good money. But I think I always saw myself as a marketer, you know, and like really pushing growth and so I think me being in like a sales role and handling some marketing functions or the agency itself. But I don't know. I.

Rabah (09:24.002)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (09:41.438)
I would always get annoyed because all the account managers or the marketers there would always kind of just like shit on me like I'm not a marketer and I just pitch these big ideas. So I think that was a little bit of like my fuel. And so I had the opportunity to go and run a sister brand for an e-commerce company that was doing about 30 million. Long story short, they went through a very, very rough rebrand and lost 80% of traffic and just like a terrible migration.

Rabah (09:50.153)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (10:10.186)
So they fired the entire marketing team. There was probably like 12 people and they had me come in, fill in on marketing. So I replaced, it was me and another social media girl. And so all of a sudden I went from like, you know, trying to build up this sister company, you know, for a month to like running this marketing that was, um, you know, there were 5 million email subscribers, for example, like massive numbers.

Rabah (10:11.28)
Oh.

Rabah (10:21.514)
Okay.

Rabah (10:34.398)
Yeah, yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (10:36.79)
that's where I got started in Facebook ads, you know, so that was a, you know, about a decade ago. And, you know, we were seeing like a 30 X row as you know, then because it was like, oh, man, what are we doing here, you know, and then I got our affiliate campaign started. And that was driving, you know, a few hundred grand a month, like, it just it was cool because I was able to pull all of the levers, I think, to some degree, though, it kind of has handicapped me in a way where I've just gotten used to doing everything. And so it's hard for me to like,

Rabah (10:44.433)
Yeah, the golden era, baby.

Rabah (10:49.15)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (11:05.946)
scale and like higher. I mean, from our experience, you can, you know, see that as well. I just like to always have my hands and things, but yeah. So I went and did that. Then I went and started the Facebook ads, um, product or service at another agency and was able to grow that into about a 10 million a year business. Um, if not a little bit bigger than that. And yeah, I ended up exiting out of that company. Um, it was called disruptive advertising was there for seven or eight years. And that was a amazing experience as well. And then

You know, Rob, I think it was actually Kevin hit me up and was like, Hey, would you want to be on this podcast? And I'm like, sure. And that's, that's where Rob and I got connected one day. And I'll let you tell, I'll let you tell your side of the story with that.

Rabah (11:39.737)
It's.

Rabah (11:48.933)
Yeah, I mean honestly was hilarious because so at the time kevin Uh head of community at triple whale wonderful human, um We I told him hey man, just find fucking cool people. I want I just want to talk to cool people and My weeks are usually very front-loaded. So by the time I get to friday, I just i'm a vegetable And I think he had scheduled us like on a friday afternoon or whatever. I'm like, man, I want to fucking

Saunder Schroeder (11:59.234)
Great human.

Saunder Schroeder (12:12.038)
Yeah

Saunder Schroeder (12:15.218)
It's like four o'clock your time.

Rabah (12:17.373)
Yeah, I was like, man, I want to fucking take this call. Oh, my God, this is going to be so terrible. Who is this guy? This big shot, whatever. Like, OK, he seems like cool enough guy. I'll take the call. And then we absolutely just.

blasted off the mind meld was so strong and I was like, Hey, dude, are you looking for anything and you're like, actually, and that it was just this really crazy happenstance of finding one of my best hires of all time and really good friend doing something I didn't want to do. So there is a lesson in that and you know, do what you say and you'll get a lot of things out of that because

Yeah, I mean, you are a one of one fight and it was it was just so funny how that happened because Yeah, I don't know if I do that today because I get so tired all the time on Fridays. But yeah, so if you are searching for people just reach out, see if you vibe with them and or at least that's how I hire anyways our vibe check was super high and then you're obviously an intellectual monster as well. And I think you're very well suited to kind of early stage.

Saunder Schroeder (13:09.941)
I know.

Rabah (13:26.897)
growth stage and we'll get into actually buff next because that's what you're doing as well where you can sit across and do not only the leadership but also step down to the IC role but I think the real magic that you have is you don't have a problem giving up IC stuff and managing people. I found or at least myself included it was really hard when I because basically my whole life I've either been in IC or I'm running my own little boutique agency where

basically have some permalances, but you know, everything is in my head. So I don't need systems. I don't need to share information. Like I am the information kind of thing. And I think you navigate that so well and your ability to manage and motivate people is something that is truly special. And I think, you know, and this is actually a question for you. Do you think leaders can learn that or do you think it's innate?

like in terms of inspiring people, commanding a room, like when you walk into a room, people listen to you. And I know other people that are incredible intellectual powerhouses, but they don't have that, that encapsulating aura, if that makes sense.

Saunder Schroeder (14:33.582)
Um, I mean, I think it's definitely learned. I mean, I'm one that definitely feels that confidence is learned. Um, I think it's, you know, maybe, and maybe not even well sure learned. I think a lot of it comes just from experience, right? And not, not being afraid to like make that jump. I will say like I've learned a lot, like on the LDS mission that I brought up before they have different like area leaders. So I kind of went through like all of the different like leadership until I

Rabah (14:41.122)
Yeah.

Rabah (14:47.126)
It's well said.

Rabah (14:57.881)
Mm-hmm.

Saunder Schroeder (15:02.474)
got to a position where I was actually over like all of Indiana. And, and interesting enough, the further up I went, the, the more I was disliked, um, because I would never meet people where they were at. I always just like held them to the standard. I felt like everyone needed to be. And so I think, I, I think I've had some just good learnings over the years of like truly meeting people where they're at. And I think, I don't know, it was very, very dogmatic in

Rabah (15:05.847)
Yeah.

Rabah (15:20.429)
Very well said.

Saunder Schroeder (15:31.134)
every company I've been at, like with company culture and like, this is the greatest company in the world and almost it became like a religion. And I think like letting go of that and actually just focusing on the person and like, I don't know if this is the place they're going to be at for three years, but let's like just help them get where they need to be regardless. And I think that's always served me well as like, just removing the expectations from people. I mean, obviously there's performance expectations always, but I'm just saying like the standard

Rabah (15:32.706)
Yeah.

Rabah (15:37.985)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (16:00.95)
that I would have, just kind of like eliminating those to some degree and just helping them be the best version of themselves.

Rabah (16:06.709)
That's beautiful, man. Candidly, that's where I fall over a lot in terms of my leadership style, where I only like to really mess with my lieutenants. Like my generals and lieutenants, those are the people I interact with. Those are the people that I hired. And then anybody under that layer, usually I'll just check them for the vibe. But it's that person, it's that direct reports resource. I really could care less as long as they don't have any sort of existential.

you know, things to the culture that I'm trying to build or to the team chemistry or things of that nature. But yeah, you excel at that way more than I do, because that is something I have yet to shake. And it's definitely a toxic trait where and it's definitely they say great founders podcast, David Serna, where the father is imprinted on the son. My dad is like just hard charging immigrant father, like just an engineer, like just.

Saunder Schroeder (16:36.163)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (16:53.184)
Mm.

Rabah (16:59.481)
If you meet my dad, you'll understand why I'm so crazy. Crazy in a good way, but just a little anecdote. When I was younger, he was on my, he was our soccer coach. Because the US, if you're foreign, you're automatically good at soccer. And so like, you know what I mean? You get thrown as a soccer coach and my dad was foreign. And he just has no time for people that aren't elite or don't have 110% effort.

Saunder Schroeder (17:24.406)
Yep.

Rabah (17:24.513)
And that is something that I still have not shaken. He literally got kicked off as the coach, because he was telling like six, seven-year-olds, why are you suck? Well, you should be doing this. Just very, dad, they're seven years old. Like, fucking chill out. And so that's something that I'm still working on personally. And I feel like you have mastered, because I've seen you be able to manage, not only manage, but I feel like manage is almost like a pejorative. But.

lead people to the promised land in the best way possible. And that promised land might be different for everybody. And I think that's something that is a really interesting distinction that you've brought up that I sometimes can lose the forest for the trees, or I'm just like, I just want to stack paper or get performance or this or that and the other. And that was at Triple Whale, you made a huge impact on me there where team morale matters, dude. I was never a team morale guy. I was like, this is bullshit. This is just

HR nonsense or but when you start running a team, it matters, man, having people rowing in the right direction, having people excited and making sure that people's incentives are personally are still aligned with the company's incentives. And if they start to diverge, you know, have a conversation because I am also very much aligned with you where I don't want anybody to be working for me. If they don't want to be here, like I want to run a small team of killers. And like if people don't like if that

Saunder Schroeder (18:20.975)
Ha ha ha.

Saunder Schroeder (18:41.432)
Yep.

Rabah (18:45.161)
incentives diverge, I don't think people are right and wrong. I think people do what they're incentivized to do. And if people need to leave or they have a better offer or whatever, like, dude, I'm all for it, man. I think that is something that I really stole from you and your leadership style is like, how can I empower these people to get towards those goals? And the more you know, the question that person is trying to answer, this actually goes for managing up and down, the better you can communicate because you know what they're trying to get at.

And if you don't know what that question is that somebody is trying to answer, then it can be hard because you can either talk past people, you can talk around people, you can talk about things that just aren't applicable to them. So, yeah, man, I think that you've really coalesced into just one of the best leaders and managers. But OK, Sondra pump up session over. But OK, now we can nerd out on Buffed. So tell me all about Buffs, because you we the triple well team kind of spun down.

Saunder Schroeder (19:33.654)
up.

Rabah (19:42.945)
You ended up leaving, you kind of took a little hiatus, we were kind of batting back and forth what your next move was gonna be, and then you just jumped. So tell people what the jump is, because it is awesome. I'm actually drinking some right now.

Saunder Schroeder (19:53.59)
Did it? Nice. Yeah. So buffed was something that I have been working on for over three years. Like I registered the company. Honestly, it's coming up on four years. So, um, that's, that's how long it's. Yeah, it's been a, it's been a concept for a really long time. Um, I mean, I think I've, I've had.

Rabah (20:08.249)
Oh, I didn't know it was that marinating that long.

Saunder Schroeder (20:17.627)
The first run of our brand guideline was three years ago. It was like when I got it back. Yeah, so it's been.

Rabah (20:22.593)
No way. Well, you have cart before the horse right now. Tell people what it is.

Saunder Schroeder (20:27.286)
Yeah, sorry. So yeah, buffed is a premium energy drink made with through organic mushrooms for nootropics caffeine B vitamins and electrolytes. So more or less I was drinking two to three can energy drinks a day. And, you know, I don't think you ever drink a can energy drink and actually like feel good about yourself.

Rabah (20:46.383)
You cliff, or I almost always cliff, like you're like, oh my god, I feel so good, and then like an hour later, I'm like, death.

Saunder Schroeder (20:50.638)
Bam. Yeah, you're down. Yeah. So so yeah, well, and that's why I was drinking so many, right? Because I'd hit that spike and it feels good. And then all of a sudden I'm crashing. I'm like, dude, I need another one, like three, four hours later, you know, and it's like, I don't know, not obviously great. And I had what I called next to me, my shame drawer where I would drink them and then just store them, you know, and so I would just like be putting them in there. And I actually put Yeah, I actually put that in our pitch deck. So

Rabah (21:01.397)
Yeah.

Rabah (21:15.473)
Out of sight out of mind, baby That's pretty good

Saunder Schroeder (21:20.886)
Yeah, it's good. So yeah, I was, and so I just started experimenting, you know, with different mushroom supplements, nootropics, like what replacements are out there. And, and you know, you get like a little like tingle brain buzz, you know, from those, but you don't necessarily get like that caffeine spike. So I'm like, well, what, what happens if I start like marrying everything together? So I would just take all these different pills, including like a caffeine pill, you know, I was like, oh wow, this feels like.

Rabah (21:28.225)
Yeah.

Rabah (21:46.934)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (21:49.058)
this is good and I'm not having like this crazy crash afterwards, you know, and so, so I'm like, well, but I do also miss like having that like flavor and just like something to drink like that routine, you know? And so, so yeah, that's, that's kind of been all of a sudden just started formulating over two years, different iterations of buff testing out different flavor houses and you know, different flavors and all of that. And then funny enough, in November, 2022, I just completely pulled the plug on everything. You know, I was just like,

Rabah (21:52.13)
Yeah.

Rabah (21:57.493)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rabah (22:18.833)
Oh, I didn't know this.

Saunder Schroeder (22:20.222)
Yeah, I'm like, this isn't it because the brand was like super clean. Just like, I don't know, very like is like a mesh of like premium. Yeah.

Rabah (22:27.306)
Oh, I do remember this. Yeah, yeah, okay, no, yeah, yeah. Sorry, keep going.

Saunder Schroeder (22:31.294)
Yeah, so yeah, it was just like very premium and very just like clean, you know, like you see with most like I Wouldn't even say luxury just premium brands, you know And I'm just like this is so uninspiring so funny enough when we're at the Waley's in Austin You know and I think everything kind of just like lined up. I was doing 75 hard then as well So I just kind of just like dialed in mentally

Rabah (22:41.365)
Yep.

Rabah (22:52.001)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (22:55.634)
And this isn't to shit on anyone intentionally at the way least. So I'll just throw out that caveat cause I'm about to do that. Um, I just thought every, just about, yeah, sorry. I mean, it is what it is. I just saw every brand that was there for the most part was so boring. Like their marketing was working. Now there's, there's for sure exceptions. Um, I'm not going to call out the exceptions, but I think, you know, that you, we can guess who they are. Um, but I was just like, and, and you had like liquid death everywhere.

Rabah (23:04.187)
With all due respect.

Rabah (23:11.671)
Right.

Rabah (23:17.665)
Right.

Saunder Schroeder (23:25.31)
You know like at that event, so i'm just like drinking liquid desk because i'm like fully sober um, and i'm like dude What if with buff's brand we just go like crazy and just have fun and like I create everything that i've always wanted to create and so That's kind of like the I guess the antithesis of buffed is like I don't we just don't take ourselves seriously and our marketing is crazy and out there and weird our branding is but at the same time It's like still like polished and you can like still tell it's like premium

Rabah (23:26.751)
Yeah.

Rabah (23:35.542)
Yeah.

Rabah (23:39.575)
Yeah.

Rabah (23:48.973)
That's so cool.

Rabah (23:55.011)
Yes.

Saunder Schroeder (23:55.21)
So yeah, so that was buffed and kind of how it was born. So yeah, we launched three months ago. We're off to a decent start. The first few months were a little slow, but we tripled revenue last month. We'll probably double revenue from last month. So we're starting to really find a good foundation, getting on Amazon, getting our retail going. Obviously our e-commerce and subscription is growing and building. So yeah, it's been fun.

Rabah (24:07.713)
Let's go.

Rabah (24:19.329)
Yeah.

Rabah (24:22.709)
Man, that's so cool. Yeah, you guys got to go. What is it? Buff.energy? What's the? B-U-F-F-E-D dot energy. The branding is super, super cool. You also have some really crazy merch coming out. How did you land on the product mix? Because you have to end you actually have some pretty interesting anecdotes, which I don't agree with because I love both of them. But you have two kind of pillar flavors right now, right? And it's.

Saunder Schroeder (24:27.684)
Yep, buff.energys, the URL.

Saunder Schroeder (24:49.354)
Yeah. So we have the, we call it pineapple thrash. It's like a pineapple fruit punch. And then we have our venom berry. I, we originally just going to go with the pineapple, but I realized as we were testing it, I'm like, this is like super sweet. And it's like, and I was kind of just getting like sick of always having that amount of like sweetness. Everything's like sugar-free, but yeah, with the different sweeteners, we have three different like natural and artificial sweeteners in that one.

Rabah (24:56.197)
Yeah. Yep.

Rabah (25:01.183)
Okay.

Rabah (25:04.93)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (25:17.066)
And so it's really, really sweet. And I'm like, I need something that has like a little bit of like tartness. Um, and so we just kind of went on like both sides of the spectrum where we have the super sweet and then also, you know, yeah, exactly. And yep.

Rabah (25:27.113)
Oh, that makes sense now. So kind of bookmarking the taste of each end. And then how did you back into the economics? Because I love what you did, because you have the little baby sticks, and then you have the big monthly packs. Because I have the two big monthly zip packs. How did you think of, so now you have the product, and so people starting to brand, you have the product.

Saunder Schroeder (25:42.722)
Yeah.

Rabah (25:48.993)
How much did the economics dictate like your pricing and packaging and things of that nature? Because it's perfect. Like the stick is great. I can take, I travel with them now. It's awesome. But how did you, like, you don't have to go into the actual numbers, but it just give me the thought process of like, okay, somebody actually decides they want to make a brand. They found the branding, they like the branding, they like the messaging. But now I got to get into the meat and potatoes of like, how do I make money? You know what I'm saying?

Saunder Schroeder (26:15.218)
Yeah. I mean, so like, like Rob has said, um, we have, you know, we do things in stick packs. Now stick packs are a lot more expensive to do an initial run. Um, like if we like, we like way more, like, you know, probably 10 to 15 times more expensive just because the moq is so much higher. So

Rabah (26:27.428)
Oh, interesting.

Rabah (26:36.473)
tracking. That's minimum order quantity for people out there. No, no, no. Keep going though. This is great.

Saunder Schroeder (26:39.958)
Good, good clarification.

Yeah, so our MOQ with stick packs is 150,000 stick packs per flavor. And no, not nothing.

Rabah (26:49.409)
Not nothing. Oprah Fravor, so you're talking about 300K for the first run essentially. Not nothing. Ha ha.

Saunder Schroeder (26:55.506)
Exactly. Yeah. Stick packs. Yeah. So a lot like, so for context, like if we were just to put, not do stick packs and just put things in like a pouch or, you know, a twist, you know, with the scoop, like, yeah, tub, there we go. Um, you know, we, we could probably, usually like the MOQ on that is like 500 units. So we're talking 500 units first 150,000. Right. And so, so for us, how we then

Rabah (27:05.485)
the tub. Yeah.

Rabah (27:15.818)
Right, right.

Saunder Schroeder (27:26.314)
Everything we do with Buffed is approaching it to be a billion dollar brand. Like that's my goal with Buffed is to approach it from that standpoint. And so I knew in order to do that, we're going to have to be in retail. It's not just going to be like a DTC e-commerce play. It's going to be a lot bigger. And so we're like, what, what's like the smallest size we can go. Cause at the same time, I don't want to sell individual sticks either. So with Buffed, I mean, well, just with any mushroom or nootropic supplement, it takes time for your brain to start like filling that.

Rabah (27:29.845)
Ooh, that's interesting.

Rabah (27:39.321)
tracking. Yeah.

Rabah (27:47.277)
facts. Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (27:56.086)
You'll notice you don't crash when you have the energy is like the one thing you will notice. So we knew there's a compounding effect to the product. So we wanted it at least to be six. So for us, since we're at least buying in this 150,000 stick packs, it's like, all right, we can charge a little bit more on our six pack box. So we actually have better margin there. And so it doesn't hurt us as much. And then we have our 30 pack, which we can be kind of more like our value product, a lower cost per stick for the consumer.

Rabah (27:56.133)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Rabah (28:14.613)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (28:24.37)
And that's, you know, more for people who want to make like the bigger jump initially, or love the product from the six pack, you know, to go to that and save money. So even though our formula, you know, can energy drinks cost about. Five to nine cents per energy drink is like what their costs are. And they charge close to three to three 50 per can. And our formula, you know, is like 10 times more expensive than that. Not to give away like too much on the unit economics, but, you know, and so we're

Rabah (28:40.577)
Really?

Yeah.

Rabah (28:47.445)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (28:51.846)
we're not like obviously priced and we'll have economies of scale like they do, you know, at some point, which will help. But yeah, so that's kind of how our approach has been to, you know, the 30 and six pack and just overall.

Rabah (29:04.497)
I love it. I love it. Okay, before we get in the firm out five the five questions I'll ask you. What are you most excited about with buffed? What's kind of mean the new flavor? I don't know if you're allowed to talk about it looks super cool I'd love to hear about that and then the merch looks amazing if I don't get one of those hoodies you're gonna get stabbed What are you most what do you yeah? What are you most excited about where because it's it feels like you're crossing the chasm a little bit where that's always the challenge with

Saunder Schroeder (29:23.536)
You'll get all the merch.

Rabah (29:31.757)
starting something new is you can't look at lagging indicators, right? It's always leading indicators. What are the things that I can control? And then eventually, those lagging indicators started like, oh, wow, we doubled our revenue. Oh, we tripled our revenue. OK, cool, things are starting to move now. But if you put that as your number one goal, it's challenging, right? Because it's basically like, how do you be rich? Don't be poor. You're like, OK, that makes sense. But how do I action against that versus like, you're posting everywhere. Like, your ads are fantastic. Social feed on Insta is great. Like, whoo.

Saunder Schroeder (29:38.39)
Yeah.

Rabah (30:00.934)
What's the next level up? Like what are you super stoked about?

Saunder Schroeder (30:04.31)
Yeah. So you alluded to our next product that we should be launching the next month or two. Um, it's called pump powder. So one thing that we've heard from a lot of our customers is they use buffed as a pre-workout. Um, but the difference between buffed and other pre-workouts is we actually don't have any of like, you know, L citrulline, beta alanine, niacin, like none of the things that kind of give you like that pump, you know, which is like the citrulline or like, you know, beta alanine, you feel like the tingles. Um,

And so actually our next product, what we're doing is it's, you know, it's just a pump powder that you add to your buffed. And so.

Rabah (30:39.623)
Oh, that's brilliant. So it's not a standalone. It's like a power up.

Saunder Schroeder (30:44.382)
Exactly. Yep. So, so that way you can still have buffed as like an energy drink, you know, because if you're sitting and working, you don't want like all those like tingles and like all that anxiousness. Yeah. So, so, so you can still have your buffed, you know, as an energy drink. But then now with this pump powder, you can obviously use it as a pre workout. And that's, that's how I've been taking it for the last three months anyway, is I just bought in bulk, you know, L citrulline, beta alanine.

Rabah (30:52.409)
Yeah, you don't want the niacin, bro. Ain't it? Ain't it?

Saunder Schroeder (31:14.546)
Um, and beta and I mean, so, yep. So, yeah. So yeah, so that that's going to be like our next product. And obviously that helps our customers consume it more as well, which I think helps obviously increase our LTV. Um, and so, yeah, so that that's our next product that I'm like super excited about the branding is, is pretty amazing and yeah, it will be, it will be good. So I'm, I'm pretty excited about that. And then, yeah, you know, honestly, entrepreneurship is like a hard.

Rabah (31:14.589)
Oh, and you're just juicing up the bump. That's interesting.

Rabah (31:25.769)
Yes.

Rabah (31:37.176)
It's amazing.

Saunder Schroeder (31:44.214)
It's definitely a hard game, you know, it's like. It is. It was so, it was very, very lonely. Like when we did our pre-launch and our launch, because you have, I think there's like a good learning lesson is just not have any expectations of anyone, but it's like all the people you thought would support you in your pre-launch or your launch, like actually never did. It's crazy. Like the amount of people I'm not even, you know, that close with that were high school, you know, friends or acquaintances, like.

Rabah (31:45.749)
It's lonely too dude. It is so lonely.

Saunder Schroeder (32:13.27)
them supporting me and then people who like, you know, I would consider like my ride or die, you know, and Robbo was actually our first, our first customer, first order. So, but it's like, you know, I've only known Robbo for like a year, year and a half, I guess two years now coming up. Yeah, so it's like, so, you know, someone like Robba who I've only known for a couple years versus people I've known my whole life, you know, so I think like, yeah, it's just like a grind and people want to trust and then,

Rabah (32:19.113)
Yeah. First perch, baby. Let's go.

Rabah (32:29.846)
Yeah, yeah, give or take.

Saunder Schroeder (32:42.39)
You know, the day in day out revenue, definitely that, that dopamine is real and exists and it's like, it's, it's easy to be excited when you see the revenue. You know, you have those thousand dollar days or, you know, $700 days or, you know, we, we still haven't, besides our pre-launch or our launch haven't like crossed like a, a $3,000 day yet, you know? So it's like, um, I think for us though, what, what we're finding is just the more consistent we are.

Rabah (32:54.442)
Yeah.

Rabah (33:04.054)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (33:10.966)
We're starting to find like our people. So we're working with like awesome creators. We just had Jovan Holland, who's the starting safety and captain for the Miami Dolphins was at the Superbowl at Radio Row with our product. We're finding like bigger streamers on Twitch are starting to reach out to us because they love our brand and messaging. So I just think with us, with brand being our moat and that's where my founder and I bring like so much expertise.

Rabah (33:13.016)
Yeah.

Saunder Schroeder (33:38.198)
We're playing a much longer game. And so for us, it's just about being consistent, no matter what the revenue is doing day in and day out. Yeah.

Rabah (33:44.121)
It's beautiful, man. That's beautiful. Happens slower than you think, then faster than you think. OK, format five, are you ready? OK, if you could have a conversation with any historical figure that are live, who'd it be? And what would be the first question you ask them?

Saunder Schroeder (33:49.739)
Yeah.

Ready.

Saunder Schroeder (33:59.886)
It'd definitely be Steve Jobs.

Rabah (34:01.565)
Interesting. And what's the question?

Saunder Schroeder (34:04.534)
The question, usually it's just like, you know, who would you go to lunch or dinner with, you know, so.

Rabah (34:09.058)
That's what you're gonna use your one question on?

Saunder Schroeder (34:12.094)
No, no, I'm just saying that's like normally what the question itself is. I would say, uh... Oh, man.

Saunder Schroeder (34:22.494)
I would want to ask him something around like, how did he best unlock his genius day in and day out?

Rabah (34:28.253)
Ooh, that's really well said. That's a really good one. I would say if I would answer for Steve Jobs, I would say that he had, or at least obviously I didn't know him, but he had an uncanny ability to focus. Like he said no to so many things that were, he had this line where it's like saying no to the dumb shit isn't that hard. Obviously I'm paraphrasing, but what's hard is saying no to the really awesome stuff.

that's going to distract you from the main thing. And he actually railed on Johnny Ive a little bit about that, like in a playful way, but he would go and ask Johnny, or this is a parable from the book, where he would go ask Johnny Ive how many times he said no today. And if it wasn't enough, he'd be like, you're not saying no enough, you need to be staying more focused. So I love that.

Saunder Schroeder (35:18.594)
I remember that. Yeah.

Rabah (35:19.869)
Yeah, it's a strong, strong pick. What's the most unusual or interesting skill or hobby you have that most people don't know about?

Saunder Schroeder (35:29.87)
I mean, I guess something that people don't know about, like I'm a huge competitive gamer, so.

Rabah (35:36.393)
Oh, I didn't know that. What do you jump on the sticks? Are you PC, Master Race, or are you console? Okay, what do you play?

Saunder Schroeder (35:40.514)
PC yeah, well and I mean and the sticks as well I So funny enough this week I deleted all my games because I got busy with With a for my and working on buffed. I'm like it's like building season So it's like I just need to like focus and dial in you know, but Any first-person shooter so I love halo apex ballerina, you know, I think that's something people

Rabah (35:49.171)
Oh my god!

Rabah (35:57.983)
Yeah.

Rabah (36:01.685)
Okay. Counter-strike, things like that.

Saunder Schroeder (36:05.854)
I mean, I just grew up like competing my entire life, you know, whether it was football, basketball, baseball, it was like, everything was, every day was a competition. So video games became, you know, even early on when halo first dropped, you know, like system links every, every day, you know, like, because it was just so easy to pick up and just compete, you know? So it just gives me like that competitive, feels like competitive itch, I guess.

Rabah (36:08.469)
Yeah, same.

Rabah (36:17.821)
Yeah. Oh, hello. Yeah.

Rabah (36:25.442)
Yeah.

Rabah (36:29.929)
Yeah, no, I miss that competitive itch a lot. And I just don't have the monitor. Like you have a very good moderator personality. I am zero to 100. So I fall down the rabbit hole. But I used to be quite the gamer as well. If you were stranded on a deserted island and could bring three items with you, what would they be and why?

Saunder Schroeder (36:46.572)
Nice.

Saunder Schroeder (36:56.126)
My wife, number one.

Rabah (36:58.325)
Homer Pick, love it. Love her new hair, by the way. She looks fabulous.

Saunder Schroeder (37:02.894)
She's growing back out. I mean, just because I love her and it'd be nice to have a partner there. So I think that would be one. I mean, I feel like I would need like an ax or a knife or something.

Rabah (37:09.625)
Of course.

Rabah (37:17.145)
Strong, strong, some sort of survival tool.

Saunder Schroeder (37:19.41)
Well, I mean, okay, I would be in like unrealistic. It's like, Hey man, put like a, a JW, you know, like Marriott W hotel, you know, like, can I, can I, how creative can I go here? Okay. Yeah. So yeah, some, some kind of like, yeah, something to hunt with something to, you know, chop cut. Um, and then I don't know, like some kind of like, probably like a tarp or like something to help with like shelter.

Rabah (37:27.684)
Things you can carry. Things you can carry.

Rabah (37:46.241)
Gosh, my man, the survivalist in you coming out. I love it. So no entertainment. The wife's all the entertainment you need, huh?

Saunder Schroeder (37:53.762)
I think I think well, I think you're on a desert island and you're just trying to survive. So I don't think there's any There's no room for entertainment

Rabah (37:58.285)
Fair play.

Fair play, fair play. OK, two more. Imagine you have a time machine you can visit any era in history for a day. Where and when would you go, and what would you do during that time?

Saunder Schroeder (38:12.662)
Oh dude, well, this is gonna get into like my woo side, but I'm for sure going to Egypt. Yeah, but I'm thinking like 15,000 years ago, like when they built the pyramids. Not like this time period where they think like Cleopatra and stuff built, like nah. Ancient civilization shit.

Rabah (38:15.381)
Let's go. Oh, for sure. Like, peak Egypt back in the day?

Rabah (38:24.309)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rabah (38:30.389)
Yeah, yeah. Clea, yeah Clea Patrick's actually pretty quote unquote modern compared to the Egyptian stuff. But you just did your Nile cruise with the wifey, right? You said it was manageable.

Saunder Schroeder (38:43.55)
Yeah, we did. We did two weeks in Egypt. Funny enough, it was the same month I stepped away from triple well full time and went into a contractor. But yeah, so yeah, it was amazing. Amazing experience. Just two weeks going all over Egypt and Nile cruise. It was yeah, probably the best trip. Best trip I've ever been on. Yeah, it was

Rabah (38:50.07)
Oh, perfect. Yeah.

Rabah (39:03.497)
Really? That's high praise. You've traveled a lot, especially wifey goes bougie. So that's very, that's very high praise.

Saunder Schroeder (39:12.118)
Yeah, I mean, we'd wake up at like two or three in the morning every day, and we would get like early access to all of like the temples and sites.

Rabah (39:21.097)
Oh, that's actually pretty cool. So you can just putz around with nobody there. That's actually, that's pretty gas actually. That's really gas. Okay, last question and then we'll wrap it up. What is your equation of excellence? What do you think excellence is a function of?

Saunder Schroeder (39:23.538)
Yeah, exactly. Yep. It's pretty wild.

Saunder Schroeder (39:40.903)
I would say for me it's resilience, discipline, and creativity.

Rabah (39:48.461)
Ooh, that's beautiful, man. I love that. No notes, absolutely no notes. That's fantastic. Sonder, I knew this was going to be a banger, and it absolutely was. How can the people find you? How can they buy more buffed energy? How can they support you? This time is yours, my friend.

Saunder Schroeder (40:05.822)
Yeah, I just follow, follow Buffed Energy on all the socials. It's just Buffed Energy, one word. Um, yeah.

Rabah (40:11.137)
The gram is so good. I love what you guys are doing over there. It's very fun. Don't follow.

Saunder Schroeder (40:15.618)
That's my creative outlet. Like, I don't know. I struggle with like, I'm definitely most active on like Instagram because I just feel like I can most organically share my life there where I feel like Twitter, I have to like pretend to be someone I'm not and it's hard to be like authentic and show up there. So, follow Buffed. Buffed is like, I think where you really see like my creativity and where I kind of push the limits. So.

Rabah (40:22.807)
Yeah.

Rabah (40:26.679)
Yeah.

Rabah (40:29.921)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Rabah (40:39.477)
Amazing, dude. One of my favorite humans. Thank you for making the time. People go to firm.commerce.com, go book a demo and tell my boss, Rob has sent you so I can keep doing these podcasts for you. Also, we have a fantastic newsletter that goes out every Friday called The Geometry of Growth. We do a bunch of really cool roundups of stores, products, content, podcasts, all that amazing stuff. And then we also have a sister show called D to C Hunter.

where I do basically an analysis of the whole customer journey from pre-purchase to actual purchase to purchase to delivery to the unboxing. So go check that out on our YouTubes and then like Sandeep said, go follow him on the Instas and that's all we got for you folks.

Sondra, thank you so much again, dude. This is great. I'm all jacked up on my buff though now. Now I need to go do something or something. I'm excited about the pre-workout too. That's a really cool idea, the power up. I think that's a really smart way to do it. I love how you're building not only the experience but matching that with the economics. You're just a one-on-one dude. I'm so happy you're my life. Thanks for coming on.

Saunder Schroeder (41:43.246)
Thanks for watching.

Rabah (41:45.193)
Alright folks, that's all we got for you. We'll see you next week. Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe, like, do all the things to make this surface more. And then also on the Twitter's at Robert Ray Hill, let me know if there is anything that you want me to change, improve, do different. This show is for you. And I want to make sure it is generate as much value for you as possible. And that's another one of the books. Bye bye.